The Country 15/12/25: Dr Jacqueline Rowarth talks to Jamie Mackay

One of New Zealand’s leading primary sector academics talks rubbish, nitrates in drinking water, getting dry in Waikato, and her Ag Person of the Year.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
She is one of our leading primary sector academics and
I wonder who her egg Person of the Year is
as she has her final shot at the title today
on the Country Doctor Jacqueline Roweth is with us. Will
come back to your egg Person of the Year. As always,
you write a thought provoking column and this one is
about rubbish.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yes, very sad as I drive around the countryside and
see their contrast between the lovely smiling faces on the
silage bags, you know, the silage rat that's decorated for Christmas,
with all the people that are descending on the countryside,
and I also see there are recks, the after math
of people's parties on the roadside, a getting rid of

(00:43):
the rubbish from their gowers because they don't want it,
and just leaving it in ditches.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Your theory is, your theory is sorry, Jacqueline, I've coming
over the top of your theory is perhaps if we
make it free, people might encourage better behavior, because there's
nothing worse than seeing human waste quite literally dumped on
a roadside.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's awful. And the flight of thing has increased or
appears to have increased since the dump fees went up
under the previous government, and I think there is a link,
and we've seen this, it's being seen in the UK
and Europe as well. So what would happen if we
actually got rid of the fees and said here are
the dumps, please bring it instead of taking your ute

(01:25):
piled high with sofa tires mattress appeared in the ditch
near me recently, they take them to the dump instead.
It's the same loading and unloading, but it's in a
tidier place and we can deal with it there. It's
just sad what's happening with our environment.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Be a tidy key with this Christmas now, just a
couple of other things because we're short on time. In
our final week. Denmark has chosen to lower limits on
nitrate and drinking water. Do you think New Zealand will
come under similar pressure to do likewise?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, I'm sure it will come under press but we
really need to consider whether it's sensible or not, because
the work that's been done in Denmark keeps saying, oh,
it's not clear whether there is a health link or
not a health link, And the current basis for lowering
it is done on some economic analysis that fundamentally says, well,

(02:19):
if there is a link, this is how much we
could save. But if there isn't a link, which is
what they've said two or three times, then they're not
going to be saving anything. I think that health is
a very much more complex system than just saying we
get rid of nitrate in drinking water and then it'll

(02:40):
all be all right. I doubt whether it would well.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Greenpeace would have nothing else to do.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Chequillan so they could talk about fossil fuel. And there's
the excite thing about Denmark, or the thing that makes
me excited, which is that they've got a huge amount
of historic money from oh gosh, nor Sea oil and gas,
and so they are in the position of having done
a certain amount of burning and making money and now

(03:06):
they're able to do other things for their society. And
what we're trying to do with as farmers is create
good food for people, and we sold quite a lot
of it, so there is some money coming into the
economy which Gosh might be able to give us free
rubbish dumps.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Indeed, let's just finish. We've got two things to finish
on your egg person at the air. We're building it
to a crescendo here. Jacqueline but what about the season
thus far in the Waikato region, which is of course
the dairy farming capital of the country.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Is it is and of interest? It might be that
it doesn't have high tolerectal cancer in this area, so
we might like to look at why. And I would
say that it's drying out from the amount of brain
that we have had to now the drying has been
really rapid and for instance, the maze, some of it

(03:56):
around this district went in only last week. Up in Northland,
it's practically tasseling, and we would be expecting the males
in this area to be approaching fence height between Christmas
and New Year, and some of it is only just
getting out of the ground.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Okay, drum roll, If I have one, I'd play it, Jackquillum.
Who is your twenty twenty five egg person of the Year.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
It is doctor John Carradice, who is part of Well.
He's a scientist. He was a plant breeder. He is
now the chief technical officer for Grasslands Technology, and he's
had a fine history in plant breeding and then commercialization
of particularly pastoral plants and end of fights. And he

(04:42):
is one of the scientists that I hear saying because
he's old school like me, like some others, but were
increasingly retiring or dying, saying, I don't know the answer
to that question yet, I haven't read all the literature.
And he said that in particular to me when he
was looking at the gene edited plants could survive with

(05:03):
organic plants, you know, can the two systems cohabitate in
the same area. And he does the evaluation from scratch,
which is what all scientists should do, but in this
chasing the money environment, they don't always do it. Let
us look to doctor John Cowardice as a model for
the future. Keep your mind open and ask the searching

(05:24):
questions that get back to basics, and then take it
forward to practical reality.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
Doctor Jack weil n Rath, Merry Christmas and a prosperous
New farming year. Thanks for your time.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
We'll get you.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Again next year.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Super Thanks by