New Zealand food standards and farming practices

[Farmer T]

I’ll just leave this here. Interesting reading.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution_in_New_Zealand

 

[FonterraFarmer]

I bet you have apparently that's where humanity started

DNA results came back as Western European, basically didn't tell us anything that we didn't already know.

 

[FonterraFarmer]

The calves I quoted about in NZ actually happened/ it was common practice and was all over the media.

Are you claiming its fake news??

Also some of the pictures of calving paddocks were shocking.

End of the day all country's have good/ bad farmers but its quite clear that the standards in NZ are lower than the UK and some of what you are allowed to do wouldn't be tolerated/ allowed in the UK, thou im not saying all these things are wrong just that we cannot and will never be allowed to do most of them.

Take Kiwi pete, he runs beef bulls outdoors on grass to 24 months old ( I think the age is ) and then sends them on, would be all but impossible to do a grass based system like that in the UK for bulls as 1 : because of so many footpaths 2 : boundary's of farms/ neighbouring cattle are very close in the UK unlike NZ as generally your farms are much bigger/ spread out and 3 because the abattoirs/supermarkets in the UK don't want bulls over 16 months and they get heavily cut price wise once they are 16 months and 1 day old.

And for what its worth I think kiwi pete's system is a very good low input way to rear bulls.

Actually no it wasn't common practice, I'm not saying that it doesn't happen but certainly not representative of the country , and not the first time that the media cherry pick for use, not fake news but definitely manipulated .

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Why did not NZ moved to intensive indoor diets. Parts of West Wales cant be that different weather wise

 

[Gulli]

The calves I quoted about in NZ actually happened/ it was common practice and was all over the media.

Are you claiming its fake news??

Also some of the pictures of calving paddocks were shocking.

End of the day all country's have good/ bad farmers but its quite clear that the standards in NZ are lower than the UK and some of what you are allowed to do wouldn't be tolerated/ allowed in the UK, thou im not saying all these things are wrong just that we cannot and will never be allowed to do most of them.

Take Kiwi pete, he runs beef bulls outdoors on grass to 24 months old ( I think the age is ) and then sends them on, would be all but impossible to do a grass based system like that in the UK for bulls as 1 : because of so many footpaths 2 : boundary's of farms/ neighbouring cattle are very close in the UK unlike NZ as generally your farms are much bigger/ spread out and 3 because the abattoirs/supermarkets in the UK don't want bulls over 16 months and they get heavily cut price wise once they are 16 months and 1 day old.

And for what its worth I think kiwi pete's system is a very good low input way to rear bulls.

Not common practice and the welfare regs state that to leave them that long with no food is illegal, so no different to here

 

[Cowabunga]

Yes we did well at the expense of others . I take no pride in that .

Maybe not, but you did it nevertheless. You made your fortune from the EU yet you bitch about it constantly. Everyone must see the hypocrisy in that. If it worries you though [which I know it doesn't], send all the money you made back to them. You could keep the eight to tenfold appreciation in asset value since then as a management fee.

 

[multi power]

Here's some random photos taken in the last four years. Heifers taken this February after insemination and due to PD this coming Monday. Around 30% have repeated from synchronised service to sexed semen.

View attachment 774430 View attachment 774432 View attachment 774434 View attachment 774436 View attachment 774438 View attachment 774440 View attachment 774442 View attachment 774444 View attachment 774446

Some nice HOLSTEINS there

 

[kiwi pom]

I’ll just leave this here. Interesting reading.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution_in_New_Zealand

I notice most of that is aimed at farming then all the other forms of pollution (which are the main forms) get a sentence each.
No mention of Fish and Game or Greenpeace going after Town councils and other industries for their pollution.
If you want to see pollution of the rivers test downstream of towns and actually investigate where the pollutions coming from. Farmers have a part to play but so do councils for their totally knackered infrastructure. Then there's the issue of 'Freedom campers' all camping and sh**ing near rivers because there's no toilets, its becoming a big problem.
Then there's forestry run off/slash that blocks up rivers in heavy rain. A recent example.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/104486938/tolaga-bay-to-be-hit-by-more-rain-after-severe-flooding

Lots of problems and getting worse as population climbs, My opinion, its still better than the UK but if there was 70 million people here, it would be a different story. Although more people should bring more tax dollars to spend on infrastructure, which I think is a bit problem at the moment.

 

[kiwi pom]

Right then, lets stir things up a bit
A big difference between the two countries, straw/stubble burning is still allowed here, an article from the stuff website this morning, putting the farmers side across. Interesting points about much reduced chemical inputs after burning.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/111097306/the-science-behind-crop-stubble-burning

Thoughts?

 

[multi power]

The calves I quoted about in NZ actually happened/ it was common practice and was all over the media.

Are you claiming its fake news??

Also some of the pictures of calving paddocks were shocking.

End of the day all country's have good/ bad farmers but its quite clear that the standards in NZ are lower than the UK and some of what you are allowed to do wouldn't be tolerated/ allowed in the UK, thou im not saying all these things are wrong just that we cannot and will never be allowed to do most of them.

Take Kiwi pete, he runs beef bulls outdoors on grass to 24 months old ( I think the age is ) and then sends them on, would be all but impossible to do a grass based system like that in the UK for bulls as 1 : because of so many footpaths 2 : boundary's of farms/ neighbouring cattle are very close in the UK unlike NZ as generally your farms are much bigger/ spread out and 3 because the abattoirs/supermarkets in the UK don't want bulls over 16 months and they get heavily cut price wise once they are 16 months and 1 day old.

And for what its worth I think kiwi pete's system is a very good low input way to rear bulls.

Nonsense, except for the bit about bulls over 16 months

 

[FonterraFarmer]

Why did not NZ moved to intensive indoor diets. Parts of West Wales cant be that different weather wise

Ffs, what do you think we were trying to get away from. ..

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Maybe not, but you did it nevertheless. You made your fortune from the EU yet you bitch about it constantly. Everyone must see the hypocrisy in that. If it worries you though [which I know it doesn't], send all the money you made back to them. You could keep the eight to tenfold appreciation in asset value since then as a management fee.

You constantly ask me why I voted leave then call me a hypocrite when I explain why . We all do what we have to do to survive .

 

[multi power]

Why did not NZ moved to intensive indoor diets. Parts of West Wales cant be that different weather wise

They nearly did when the milk price got too high

 

[Derrick Hughes]

They nearly did when the milk price got too high

We used some NZ bulls for a while .in the 80ts .they were more like a small Holstein. Not as beefy as a Friesian

 

[Cowabunga]

You constantly ask me why I voted leave then call me a hypocrite when I explain why . We all do what we have to do to survive .

What I object to is that you did very very well out of the EU, more so than out of physically farming, yet pretend constantly that you were really hard done by. The same as you denigrate [and have done in the past as well, fairly harshly and consistently] dairy farmers who have done well by milking milky cows [holsteins] when in fact both you and I know that virtually all your land [courtesy of the EU] was tenanted out to said dairy farmers who provided a very large proportion of your annual income. What the hell is that if not hypocrisy?

 

[Cowabunga]

We used some NZ bulls for a while .in the 80ts .they were more like a small Holstein. Not as beefy as a Friesian

I used some NZ bulls in the late 70's or early 80's and they were a disaster. Heifers grew far too fat on our grass before calving to the point they had troughs along their backs and horrible calving issues. I'm sure that it was the particular bull semen that they imported back then that was of a poor type, because they can't all be like that. It was around then I started using American Holstein or their bloodlines instead. My one regret perhaps is that I never went pedigree with them.

 

[kiwi pom]

The calves I quoted about in NZ actually happened/ it was common practice and was all over the media.

Are you claiming its fake news??

Also some of the pictures of calving paddocks were shocking.

End of the day all country's have good/ bad farmers but its quite clear that the standards in NZ are lower than the UK and some of what you are allowed to do wouldn't be tolerated/ allowed in the UK, thou im not saying all these things are wrong just that we cannot and will never be allowed to do most of them.

Take Kiwi pete, he runs beef bulls outdoors on grass to 24 months old ( I think the age is ) and then sends them on, would be all but impossible to do a grass based system like that in the UK for bulls as 1 : because of so many footpaths 2 : boundary's of farms/ neighbouring cattle are very close in the UK unlike NZ as generally your farms are much bigger/ spread out and 3 because the abattoirs/supermarkets in the UK don't want bulls over 16 months and they get heavily cut price wise once they are 16 months and 1 day old.

And for what its worth I think kiwi pete's system is a very good low input way to rear bulls.

Did you see the Country Calendar calve rearing farm I posted @gone up the hill ?
Why is it supermarkets and abattoirs in the UK don't want anything over 16 months?

 

[Derrick Hughes]

What I object to is that you did very very well out of the EU, more so than out of physically farming, yet pretend constantly that you were really hard done by. The same as you denigrate [and have done in the past as well, fairly harshly and consistently] dairy farmers who have done well by milking milky cows [holsteins] when in fact both you and I know that virtually all your land [courtesy of the EU] was tenanted out to said dairy farmers who provided a very large proportion of your annual income. What the hell is that if not hypocrisy?

If you call farming 3000 sheep not physical I suggest you give it a try . Or 800 beef cattle for that matter . I had one full time lad to help
I dislike Holstiens if that offends you I am sorry
As for most of the other get your facts right before you speak please

 

[Cowabunga]

If you call farming 3000 sheep not physical I suggest you give it a try . Or 800 beef cattle for that matter . I had one full time lad to help
I dislike Holstiens if that offends you I am sorry
As for most of the other get your facts right before you speak please

The facts are correct and you cannot dispute them. The main paying feature of your sheep was probably the EU subsidy, not the physical work.

 

[Agrispeed]

Complaining cows do too well off grass