The Country 13/07/26: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth talks to Jamie Mackay

We catch up with a leading farming academic to discuss the Greens’ proposal to phase out nitrogen fertiliser.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
First day back on the job, back on the tools,
and I've got to deal with the floods. Gee, it's
been a tough time, hasn't it around New Zealand in
my absence. Also at the fall and the forecast milk price.
And if that's not bad enough, the Greens new policy
on water and fertilizer. My blood is boiling on day one,
Doctor jackullin Roweth, did I just say to any sorry

(00:22):
to get onto the front foot. I say to any
farmer out there, if you're thinking of voting and this
will get me in trouble, anything other than National Act
or New Zealand First, you are mad because if we
have a change of government, it's game over? Am I
being too dramatic?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I think you will give people a wake up call
about what's going on. And it is deeply distressing that
there are some policies coming out now in an attempt
to do better for the future without realizing that it
won't be better. That there are unintended consequences with every action,
and the latest Screen Party policy is very, very worried

(01:00):
in terms of what they think will happen to food
and by the way, it won't clean up water because
they do not understand the basis of what they're saying,
which is that water is a function of everything that
happens around it, not just the dairy cow that they
don't like.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
I'm so relieved to see the World Health Organization coming
out last month with its guidelines for drinking water quality,
the updated fourth edition.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
They're still saying fifty milligrams per liter of AS nitrate.
It's the one we use already, and they can't find
any health implications with any quality water quality as long
as it's the fifty of NS nitrate, which is eleven

(01:51):
as nitrogen nitrate. And the point is there are huge
safety barriers in that. So I'd love us to stop
frightening people with the suggestion that water quality in New
Zealand is no good.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Haven't we got a really good case study and what happened,
and you'll know more about this than I do. With
what happened in Sri Lanka when they tried to get
rid of synthetic or nitrogen synthetic fertilizers.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Oh, it was a crash. It was an economic crash.
People started starving, the animals were in dire straits. It
was just awful. I was there eighteen months after that
looking at the farming systems for MPI here and giving
the report that that country had not recovered from the

(02:38):
well intentioned but completely idiotic sudden removal. Now people will
then say, oh, well, if they'd phased it out, it
would have been different, but there is no evidence to
suggest that that is the case. So what happens when
you pull out nitrogen is that you get a winding
down of the production system and eventually you're either accept

(03:00):
a very much lower productivity base or you say this
can't go on because actually people need feeding. And it's
the people need feeding which drives my agricultural science background,
which is how do we feed the most number of people.
They're nutritional requirements for the least impact on the environment,
whether we're talking soil and water or greenhouse gases least impact.

(03:25):
And New Zealand's got a very good record.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
In that notdrogen fertilizer feeds half the world.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeap, that is the calculation.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Surely labor won't be dumb enough to go along with
us to be a change of government.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Well, the thing that happens then is, well, we don't
need to feed the world, but of course we do
need to export in order to have our economic development.
But economy depends upon the export economy and most of
that is the primary sector. So if we don't have
enough to sell, Andy West, he was a vice chancellor

(04:02):
of Lincoln University, said if we don't look after our
water resources, somebody else will come and do it for us.
And I'd say the same about food. We've got terrific wills,
much better than most of the world has. We've got
fantastic water resources, and I think it behooves us to
actually be doing what the world needs, which is producing

(04:23):
high quality protein and that means animal protein and exporting it.
And we have least environmental impact, so when people buy
stuff from us, it has like a mouthful of cheese
or milk or meat, it has less environmental impact than
most other countries can manage. That's terrific and New Zealand

(04:45):
is still a fabulous place. We rate really highly on
all the indicators that come out of the OECD or
work life balance. We've discussed that in the past, or
is the Wharton the best country to live in the
season which we.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Are the best at converting grass into protein in the world.
That's our great natural advantage. All right, Jacqueline, got to go.
You are a director of Ravensdown, and I'm hoping to
catch up with Mike Whitty tomorrow to talk about what
the latest who are If you can call it that,
I don't think it's a strong enough word in the
Middle East might mean for fertilizer prices in the coming season,

(05:26):
but we'll leave that till tomorrow's show. Thanks for your
time today. Always good to catch up.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Lovely to have you back. Thanks Tomy.