The Country 04/03/25: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth talks to Jamie Mackay

One of NZ’s leading primary sector academics offers some history around Pancake Day and offers some opinions on Greenpeace’s latest rhetoric in her latest column.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fortnightly on our website The Country dot co dot in Z.
Doctor Jacqueline Rowath writes an excellent column, today's putting the
boot into green Peace. Love it when that happens, Jacqueline,
my word's not yours. My word's not yours, but I
always learn something when I check to you. Today is
Pancake Day, also known as Shrove.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Tuesday exactly, so let us celebrate the farmers of the world,
because this is the ceremony around the world that allows
the pancakes to be made. And I've done a calculation
of it. It's about four dollars to make ten to
fourteen pancakes. And so we're going to celebrate the egg producers,

(00:42):
thank you for not getting any more avian flu. We
celebrate the bread, the wheat producers, and we certainly celebrate
the dairy cow for the milk and butter. And let's
say we add mints, because we could have a savory pancake.
Then we can add thank yous to the beef and
sheep farmers, or indeed the bacon farmers, the producers of
pork products, because we are grateful for all that they

(01:05):
do for us, aren't we, Jamie.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
So This relates back to feasting the day before Lent
starts and Catholics, and I was raised to Catholic, and
I remember with great shock and are having to go
without lollies. I mean, what a small price to pay
during Lent for six weeks. I think it was up
until Easter. So tomorrow's ash Wednesday Lent begins for the Catholics.

(01:28):
And this traditionally was a feast day.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes, the celebration because remember that in the Olden goes
before refrigeration. We are talking about using up all the
reserves of food, but the eggs are being laid again.
Traditionally Easter is when we start having plenty of eggs
and dairy. But this is the first celebration of that,
and it follows the second of debris, which is the
first sign of green. And people think they've nearly got

(01:53):
through the food deprivation of winter because storage was always
a problem then in the Olden pate well, the big
Peace days are about using up supplies before they go rotten.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Do you go? You learn something new every day on
the country. Now, Iron just of course said you were
putting the boat in the green peace. But they are
changing their rhetoric yes.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
And I note that we have dropped of green Peace
has dropped the term regenerative from their press releases. They're
now talking about ecological and this actually aligns with what
green Peace International is doing. And green Peace International have
just complained about the new EU the European Commission Agri

(02:35):
Food Plan, their new strategy, their vision which has replaced
the Green Deal, the farm to fork because so many
people around the world did the economics on the farm
fork strategy for them, and the USDA was a big one.
UK had a big report saying you're going to drop
the amount of food available and you're going to increase

(02:55):
the prices and can your local people actually forward this?
And that's always seeing the same thing in New Zealand.
If you don't increase your productivity or at least maintain it,
and that is what some of these new strategies called
ecological or regenerative do, they actually drop it. When you're
at a highly productive system such as New Zealand and

(03:18):
most of the developed world, then you're going to have
implications for food security and that is not good for
the world.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Hey, is this a case of never the twin shall
make Because the latest screenpiece statements say ultimately the future
of farming lies an ecological, organic, plant based agricultural practices.
We know under that regime we can't feed nine or
ten billion people, no.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Lesson enough of that. We know that. So they're pushing
out on a limb to try and get them change.
But I think they missed the fact that there's a
lot of change already. And once we're in a state
of development, which New Zealand is mostly reached, then we
can start being very precise about where we put nutrients
and water for instance, or any of the agrichemicals, and

(04:04):
we can enhance productivity from the land we have already
under in New Zealand's case, mostly the pasture. And what
we don't want is a lot of plowing going on
or cultivation of soil, because then we start losing organic
matter and of course the cropping sort of planes you
know it gots seeds now, they need present they need cooking,

(04:27):
and they're less easy to preserve than some other things
that are on the hoof and waiting to be well
maintaining pasture or to be milked, for instance, jack Well.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
And Ralli's got to go. Thanks for your time. As always,
on the country, enjoy the rest of Shrove Tuesday. Have
a pancake on meat.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Thank you very much. Dobi