Posts by Bart Janssen
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to BenWilson,
Clearly a freehold farm producing twice the milk of another freehold farm the same size is going to be making more money.
Ok I am not a dairy farmer but my understanding was that some dairy farms do make a net loss and the loss is bigger with more cows because the cost to feed and water those cows is greater than the return from the milk. But the value of the farm is based on the amount of milk produced not the profit, so they make more milk and lose more money in order to be able to sell their farm for a higher profit.
None of this makes sense to me but I am not an accountant.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
But flour and water is the basis of breadmaking!!
:- )There you go wallpapering over my mistakes again.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to BenWilson,
That’s GE crops you’re talking about?
Not necessarily. But certainly if we used gene transfer it would be much quicker and easier.
Worth noting that if we plan to sell the tech overseas then the fact that it is GMO is not relevant for China, USA, most of South America - those markets will do fine and have significant impact of methane emissions worldwide until we change our regulations.
Also I suspect that a GMO grass that reduced methane emissions would prove to be a difficult problem for the anti GMO folks.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Dave Hansford,
Regarding the costs of de-stocking: there are plenty of examples and studies around showing that diary, at least, doesn’t necessarily have to be intensive to be profitable.
I've read a number of pieces that suggest that most dairy farms do not produce milk at a profit, the business only makes a profit because of the capital gains on the farmland. So yeah current stock levels may not actually be the best for anyone really except the banks which are the big winners from the "buy land on debt and sell for gain" model.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Peter Shaw,
There is in fact no empirical evidence for CO2 being the problem it is touted to be
And GMO foods have been proven to be dangerous
Vaccination causes autism
Flouridation of drinking water is bad for your health
Trickle down economics works
Traveling at speeds over 15 mph is unnatural and bad for you
Paleolithic humans were healthier than modern humansAny others.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
how many other ‘deals’ has he got the math wrong on?
I do despair at times…Well there were those assets he sold that were going to make simply squillions for us all ...
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The way ‘we’ borrow I have no idea what the plan is for paying it all back (or if there even is one, or what we used as collateral in lieu)
Paying it back is what the other government does when National isn't in power - really I thought that was obvious.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Amanda Wreckonwith,
What do you propose we do about these huge stock numbers?
I've said it here a number of times (yeah sorry), the best thing NZ could do about methane emissions from ruminants is leverage our existing scientific expertise to develop low methane producing grasses and low methane producing rumin bacteria.
That would reduce our emissions but much more importantly it is a technology that could be applied (ie sold) worldwide which might actually make a real difference to the planet as opposed to any symbolic (also important) changes we can make to our own emissions.
You could almost describe it as a national science challenge.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Euan Mason,
Surely that is something that is determined with science, not by the UN?
Science, schmience. The interests of National voters are at stake here. Why should we let physics stand in our way?
There is a shred of logic in their argument. Reducing CO2 emissions is mostly about not burning fossil fuels and there are a lot of solutions for that. Hence it makes sense for countries to reduce CO2 emissions.
Methane (from agriculture in particular) is mostly produced from ruminant burps. About the only way to reduce that emission is to have fewer ruminants.
One is relatively easy the other is relatively hard, so National is arguing we should not be made to do the hard thing.
Of course since National have shown no inclination to even try to do the easy thing (reduce CO2) nobody is taking their arguments seriously.
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Envirologue: The Agony of Vanuatu and…, in reply to Samuel Buckman,
we’re the largest global trader in dairy, but not the biggest producer by some margin
I’m afraid I’m ignorent of why there is a big difference. Would someone mind explaining?
Most countries who produce dairy products sell them within the country of origin. So several countries produce and sell huge amounts of dairy products, much more than NZ.
But NZ is one of the few countries that actually EXPORTS dairy products. So we are the biggest global trader because nobody else really trades globally.
However, after demonstrating that China will buy lots of dairy products, lots of other countries are gearing up to export as well and it won't be long before we are a small part of global dairy trade.