Tim Beveridge speaks with dairy farmer Mike on Newstalk ZB at 4:30am on Saturday 7th September
Tim:
What… what’s Fonterra’s deal with all this then? Because they seem to be… cosying up to the government…
Mike:
(Sighs)
Tim:
…but is this a political exercise in virtue signalling because they’re bloody useless?
Mike:
Aaah… now I’m getting into a sensitive area. Um… there were people… if you’ve ever read some of the farming magazines there’s quite a bit of angst about certain middle managers who thought they knew… who came into this with no skin in the game, somewhere down the line in Dairying NZ was someone who thought they could show all the industry how to negotiate with the government and then made a total cockup of the whole affair.
They cosied up to the government, they broke industry ranks and… and it made a mess and now they’re trying to recuperate the mess they’ve made because they’ve agreed to targets which are scientifically impossible to get.
They’ve talked about this methane reduction and methane… unless they allow genetic engineering methane is a by-product of cows eating grass. End of story.
Tim:
I think they’ve got to get with the engineering… I absolutely think they’ve got to go with the science and get it into the education but we’ve got these luddites called the greens who choose… who will ram this down your throat when it comes to climate change and then run screaming into the hills when you talk about what science can do for um… our impact on the environment.
Mike:
They won’t allow science. A lot of it’s written into… into regional plans. Um… I was involved with quite a lot of the (indistinct) plans stuff in the horizons area and they wrote into the plans that only their science was allowed to be used. And basically, everything on that bloody Overseer Programme, sorry to call it bloody but that’s what I mean about it…
Tim:
It doesn’t bother me.
Mike:
That Overseer Programme, it was just a simple computer tool – it got a plus or minus 30% variation rate… and they’re using it as a programme with greenhouse gas. Did you… if you go into the greenhouse gas of what the farmer is producing it simply churns out this figure but there’s no science, well there maybe science in certain areas, but there’s no way of proving it. And they won’t allow you to use your own systems.
So, getting back to dear old Mr Parker and he’s got a ready reputation of hating farmers, um… he’s got a reputation for having a really sour mouth too, he… he, when he talks to people in a room he has a lot of “F”s into it, he hates it – and you want to know why he hates it? He was a lawyer…
Tim:
Someone should turn on a recording device in these meetings and catch these guys for the way they conduct themselves in private. It’s disgusting.
Mike:
Well, apparently, they um… they went to Helen Clark about him, he was using this language, and she cut him down but Jacinda hasn’t got the ability to cut him down.
Tim:
No.
Mike:
But he actually was involved as a lawyer in the setting up of Fonterra and he was got rid of – that’s why he hates… that’s his sole…
Tim:
So, what’s…. I guess the question is – we’ve actually got this article by… is it Tim Mackle?
Mike:
Yeah.
Tim:
Which has actually been reproduced on the NZ Herald website. He’s Chief Executive Dairying NZ and a PhD in animal food and nutritional sciences – it’s worth a read people. I’d… it basically talks about it being um… us as global leaders in the sustainability… I mean, why are we…
Mike:
Because, okay, they want to virtue signal… James Shaw wants to virtue signal we are doing the best. He wants to… he doesn’t want to sit on the laurels of NZ is the best he wants to go further and further and further and be the…
Tim:
It’s just needless virtue signalling and who’s paying for is? You, me and everyone else.
Mike:
And if we lower production in NZ, if we lower production because all of the – use of the right word, the luddites and so forth – they are embarrassed about the fact that NZ is an agricultural country – they really feel that NZ should do something else…
Tim:
Okay, so here’s a question for you: is it going to be a vote for the government or is it going to be something else that might backfire on them?
Mike:
I’m… I’m picking up a lot of vibes that from people such as yourself, and other people who are promoting that they’re getting pretty angry about it and we’re picking up vibes within the cities and towns that people are not comfortable with this stuff coming out. You are getting all these other things coming out um… Julie Anne Genter and her green stuff and… and David Parker has just alienated the west coast by refusing to allow the (indistinct)
Tim:
That was inexplicable – what the hell was that about, everyone wanted it?
Mike:
Yeah, well you’ve got a man that owes… (indistinct) utu, I don’t know, that is getting revenge on everybody…
Tim:
That’s peculiar, it really is quite peculiar.
Mike:
Yeah.
Tim:
Hey, I better move on Mike, but anyone that wants to have a look at the Tim Mackle article on our NZ Herald website, just about some of the good things about farming. Thanks Mike.