Farming is such a diverse field in New Zealand. Since 2009, the world’s population needs hitting 7 billion has meant that New Zealand’s ability to farm in various ways and produce high protein foods is the no.1 gift New Zealand can give the world in the years ahead. Farmers of all kinds, therefore in New Zealand, are stars of global populations of people. Kiwi farmers have what the world needs.

In NZ, we’re obsessed with black and white cows here as they pay the country’s bills, while everyone else sorta pretends to – pretty much – with the best they can strum up with business endeavors in this very stringent and tad boring economy – of them blasted GFC years.

Anyway, worries about the waterways farmers are damaging running extra cows (to bolster against the $3billion dip this year of dairy prices) while chasing the buck are causing concern. More farmers are converting their sheep farms to dairy farms and The Greens have their hemp knickers in a bunch as to how this is affecting streams, lakes and rivers etc and adding to green house gases on the planet too.

Cows (and farmers) can be very harsh on the waterways of New Zealand. Often they don’t fix up the mess – it’s a longstanding issue with a rather entitled land ownership position that many landowners have taken in New Zealand for quite some time. Everyone is farmer proud here, yet there’s a balancing act farners have still yet to find, while producing sloshes of liquid cash, the country needs.

Perhaps it’s time to develop aquaculture farming a bit more.

If that interests you, here’s a useful link: Sustainable Farming Fund – New round includes aquaculture – to find out more.

And what will Kaipara dairy farmers do, when their clown mayor (I’m sorry but Kaipara does have a clown mayor who wants to clear his entire county of existing residence who voted him in) has proposed a 33% rates hike up to pay for council debt? Some farmers even claim their rates could go up 55%. Does that mean that’s a recipe for being forced to even run more cows on the same whenua (land) just to give more to the council? Or does Kaipapara’s mayor need his pharmaceutical prescription record disclosed to the public, instead?

So how can aquaculture help farmer types be more aware of the earth’s gift of water and to be kinder to the landscape to make New Zealand more sustainable?  Are New Zealanders happy how the landscape is being re-engineered under current economic engineering as to ‘the best way forward’ that farmers are being encouraged to pursue, at this time?  Is the GFC (and effects too of it on dairy product prices globally) being used as an act of ‘economic bullying’ on farmers or New Zealand landscapes and waterways too? And what do the local Maori Iwi think of all this occurring within their tribal rohe (areas) as well?

In trivia news, Northland farmers are being encouraged to sell yearlings for shipment to China at $1,750 a head in the local paper.

[Photos via Earth First and Yachting New Zealand].

~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 15.5.12~