July 17, 2024 • 10 mins
Farm Consultant Graham Butcher looks at an article that was written recently by Jane Smith regarding Farm Emissions, and tells us why he thinks Jane nails it with her thoughts.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Charles.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
We get around bad before I get off.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is the Muster on a Thursday afternoon. The music
is the hoop classics from days gone past. He was
a classic, still as a classic and very much in
the no His name is Graham Butcher Farm consultant based
based here and goods. He gives me a bit of
an evil look, the Graham good afternoon flattery that didn't
(00:34):
really go away intended even nonetheless, some how thing's been
mate a pretty good.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's good to not have rain for the last ten
days and you're just telling me the forecast is pretty
clear for the next ten days.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, Phil Duncan been being pretty positive around rainfall over
the next ten days, perhaps five mills or so, so
you'll take that.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
But that fogs are pain in the butt.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It makes things pretty chilly when I put an Easterly
with it as well.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Eastly hate them.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Anyway, You've got a bit of a lead of the
from Jane Smith that you'd like to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, well, I was going to talk about increasing feed
level to multiple years. It was a little bit early,
but they're starting to diverge at the moment. But I
came across an opinion piece written by Jane Smith on
methane in New Zealand, and it struck me as one
of the better opinion pieces I've ever come across. So
I spoke to Jane this morning and she said I
(01:22):
she'd be quite happy if I read it over on
your show. It was published in the Rural Guardian, which
is a n Ashburton paper that goes out to some farmers.
But I think this needs war farmers to listen to it,
so I'll just read it out if that's okay with you. Absolutely,
it makes my job nice and easy anyway you go.
So here we go. So it takes about six minutes
(01:43):
to go through, so it's not that long. But this
is an opinion piece by Jane Smith recently published in
the Rural Guardian. Convinced me that it's worth spending one
hundred and eighty three million via an agra zero Ponzi
scheme to find a way to reduce four millions of
a degree warming per year attributed to New Zealand livestock.
Find a calculator willing and able to work out the
(02:05):
cost of that per degree of warming. The collective spend
by agricultural organizations and taxpayers over the past two decades
on the Great methane gravy chain to design the Emperor's
new clothes has now surpassed nine hundred and thirty million dollars.
Rural retrics suggests that we have recently saved have recently
(02:28):
been saved by the demise of Hewoker E and OA
and an exit from the default obligation in the ETS.
This is not correct. While both of the previous pathways
were indeed unpalatable, our supposed savior is now vast swaths
of mitigation expenditure until we create a livestock sector that
we no longer recognize, one that forces farmers off the
(02:50):
hills and into intensive feed lock production, and one that
corners us to select livestock genetics on political trays rather
than productive trays. The irony is that they are chasing
a problem, a solution to a problem that has never
been tangibly identified, let alone accurately quantified or qualified. The
clown show continues while the band plays on thinly glossed
(03:13):
over what our global consumers expect of us. Rehtric, which
is simply an empty sentence that rolls off the tongues
of politicians and agricultural boardroom clones with ease and vigor.
The self perpetuating parody continues to bloom when fed, watered,
and wheeled out by the exected leaders, cooperatives and levy organizations,
(03:34):
all the while being underpinned by taxpayers money in a
country that can't afford something that vaguely resembles a first
world health care system or functioning roads. A key point
that continues to be missed in this debarcle is that
if you were called every single rum and an animal
in New Zealand tomorrow, or every single molecule of natural
biogenic methane produced by them, this would make no quantifiable
(03:58):
difference to global climate change, be it warming or calling.
Why have we jumped straight on the methane mitigation bus
before asking what we're actually mitigating. Why do we continue
to throw hundreds of millions of dollars that we do
not have into self sabotaging strategy that will risk the
future of New Zealand sheep, beef and deer sector and
(04:19):
its contribution to the diverse rural communities and what used
to be known as a rock star economy. Many scientists
have jumped on the gravy chain, quick to announce the what, when,
who and how without asking the quick key question why.
If an award was given to the most misguided use
of funds, it would go to Aguazero, with runners up
(04:42):
being the unwinding decades of genetic progression of selecting sheep
and cattle on suppose low methane genetics, closely followed by
the twenty nine million taxpayer funded methane satellite. An onlooker
may suggest that the agricultural companies funding Aguazero have surplus
money to launder through the greenwash, which is effectively.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
All they have done.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
An alarming low level of understanding by companies involved in
Agua zero of what they're actually signed up for or
what they will actually achieve, is worthy of a full
taxpayer inquiry given the fifty percent of Crown farms that
have been invested. If only the companies or the Crown
put the same time and effort and resources into promoting
the efficiency of New Zealand pastoral farming, or even being
(05:27):
charitable enough to share our carbon efficient pastoral ip with
the rest of the world, this would have been the
greatest contribution to calling the current climate change hysteria. Instead,
they decided to double down and apologize for a crime
we didn't do, even stating when questioned that this simply
was the easiest path to take. One bank involved in
(05:48):
Agua zero mentioned that they didn't want to overstate New
Zealand's farmers pastoral efficiency when it came to to turn
the page carbon metrics, as they had far in clients
on the other side of the world they didn't want
to make look bad. The premium New Zealand beef and
lamb market has built its reputation on being natural, pure
grass fed, free range, hormone and ge free. The quality
(06:13):
assurance programs that are world leading and strict on intoference
with the animal. Even the feeding of grain is banned
in most programs. The irony is that the risk to
our country's reputation from the use of novel biotechnology tools,
including methane vaccines, feed additives that interfere with a natural
rumination cycle, seem to have been ignored. What does the
(06:33):
end consumer rarely think? Clear signals from overseas markets at
the end are that end consumers actually care very little
about Scope three emissions, including methane emissions, but care greatly
about animal welfare, pure in natural products, and they wanted
it the cheapest possible net price, not a SVIT or
(06:55):
sound of an actual tangible premium being willingly paid. The
reality is that consumers want want the earth until they
are asked to pay for it, at which time the
priority simply laps backs to price, quality and food safety.
Do what you like while chasing a premium in your
market for us for subsequent price stag attached to your
(07:16):
products silver Fern Farms, fon Terra and Sco and Sinlay,
but do not come in with sweeping jeunette sweeping generic
statements about global consumers being willing to pay a premium
for our commodity products that we are seen if we
are seen to be doing the right thing, we all
ready are doing the right thing. And for those who
want to take it a step further and a bid
(07:38):
for your ambiguous premium, go ahead. Premiums need to be
market lead, not market bread. As a farmer, I do
not accept you making a false guilty plea on our
behalf in an attempt to get a shortened sentence for
a crime that we didn't do. At the very least,
we deserve a trial by science, not a sentencing by politics.
(08:00):
Smith Martha Tago Farmer. Brilliant bit of work. I agree
with every sentiment expressed in that.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
A few interesting takes, and they're just reading at the
very start calling it the Egger zero Ponzi scheme as well.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Interesting wording it is.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I mean it's it's the last two decades one hundred
and nine hundred and thirty million spent, nine hundred and
thirty million spent on this issue.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
It's not good.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
That's staggering. I mean that's that's a very large, brand
new base hospital in some city.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I think what all the farming groups or the companies
that are trying to sell our product to the world,
their case will be just purely off the bat. They
want us to be seen to be doing something because
that's what the consumer's demanding.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Well, well that's what the James will say that that's
fine until they ask to pay for it. And the
other thing is we need to be seen to be
doing something as opposed to let's tell them what we're
actually doing. We are actually very good at.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
The moment and step that.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, it's it's an important issue.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And I'll go back to Steve Henderson's chat we had
on Tuesday, and it just hit the nail on the
head talking to Las Vegas consumers who he met while
he is over there last week, and they are all
about New Zealand food. They just said, we've tried before,
it's the best thing. And he said, our real issue
is trying to sell our story better to the consumer.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yes, and our story is not the fact that we're
breaking the country by spending money or methane reduction. We
should be telling them what our production systems are and
how good they are in terms of issues like climate change,
which is a miss as well. I mean, this is
just a part of the whole climate change myth.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But they're not going to go for that though, are they.
These groups are trying to sell our produce to the world,
they're arguably well know you've got it wrong. And everybody
leading these trade invoys, for example, they're going to say, no,
we've got to be seen to be doing something in
the public space.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Who's saying that? Is it as consumers or is it
the supermarkets.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Supply chain listens for example, at the field days and
the stand they had, they're all about being you know,
zero emissions and everything else, which is pretty virtue signaling
to be perfectly honest, but they were there and they
want the best stand there at field Days this year.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
For whatever reason, I suspect companies like Nestle Aftery're demanding
us to be carbon zero. They're doing it from the
point of view that it's probably affecting their carbon liability
if they're buying low carbon or zero carbon products, and
that's a good impact on their carbon balance sheet. So
you know, it's.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
It's really it's a really great piece there.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
We better leave it there, but it leaves a lot
of questions as well rather than answers, and James Smith
once again, she says what she thinks, doesn't she.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
She sure does.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Good on you, Graham.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Always great to check you go outside and scrap up
for the afternoon.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Thank you Graham.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Butcher Farm consultant based here in Gore with food for thought.
James Smith always calling it as she sees it. Guy
Michael from darien Z. He's up next.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
This is the muster Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
The cars we get around
Charles.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
We get around bad before I get off.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
This is the Muster on a Thursday afternoon. The music
is the hoop classics from days gone past. He was
a classic, still as a classic and very much in
the no His name is Graham Butcher Farm consultant based
based here and goods. He gives me a bit of
an evil look, the Graham good afternoon flattery that didn't
(00:34):
really go away intended even nonetheless, some how thing's been
mate a pretty good.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's good to not have rain for the last ten
days and you're just telling me the forecast is pretty
clear for the next ten days.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah, Phil Duncan been being pretty positive around rainfall over
the next ten days, perhaps five mills or so, so
you'll take that.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
But that fogs are pain in the butt.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It makes things pretty chilly when I put an Easterly
with it as well.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Eastly hate them.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Anyway, You've got a bit of a lead of the
from Jane Smith that you'd like to talk about today.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, well, I was going to talk about increasing feed
level to multiple years. It was a little bit early,
but they're starting to diverge at the moment. But I
came across an opinion piece written by Jane Smith on
methane in New Zealand, and it struck me as one
of the better opinion pieces I've ever come across. So
I spoke to Jane this morning and she said I
(01:22):
she'd be quite happy if I read it over on
your show. It was published in the Rural Guardian, which
is a n Ashburton paper that goes out to some farmers.
But I think this needs war farmers to listen to it,
so I'll just read it out if that's okay with you. Absolutely,
it makes my job nice and easy anyway you go.
So here we go. So it takes about six minutes
(01:43):
to go through, so it's not that long. But this
is an opinion piece by Jane Smith recently published in
the Rural Guardian. Convinced me that it's worth spending one
hundred and eighty three million via an agra zero Ponzi
scheme to find a way to reduce four millions of
a degree warming per year attributed to New Zealand livestock.
Find a calculator willing and able to work out the
(02:05):
cost of that per degree of warming. The collective spend
by agricultural organizations and taxpayers over the past two decades
on the Great methane gravy chain to design the Emperor's
new clothes has now surpassed nine hundred and thirty million dollars.
Rural retrics suggests that we have recently saved have recently
(02:28):
been saved by the demise of Hewoker E and OA
and an exit from the default obligation in the ETS.
This is not correct. While both of the previous pathways
were indeed unpalatable, our supposed savior is now vast swaths
of mitigation expenditure until we create a livestock sector that
we no longer recognize, one that forces farmers off the
(02:50):
hills and into intensive feed lock production, and one that
corners us to select livestock genetics on political trays rather
than productive trays. The irony is that they are chasing
a problem, a solution to a problem that has never
been tangibly identified, let alone accurately quantified or qualified. The
clown show continues while the band plays on thinly glossed
(03:13):
over what our global consumers expect of us. Rehtric, which
is simply an empty sentence that rolls off the tongues
of politicians and agricultural boardroom clones with ease and vigor.
The self perpetuating parody continues to bloom when fed, watered,
and wheeled out by the exected leaders, cooperatives and levy organizations,
(03:34):
all the while being underpinned by taxpayers money in a
country that can't afford something that vaguely resembles a first
world health care system or functioning roads. A key point
that continues to be missed in this debarcle is that
if you were called every single rum and an animal
in New Zealand tomorrow, or every single molecule of natural
biogenic methane produced by them, this would make no quantifiable
(03:58):
difference to global climate change, be it warming or calling.
Why have we jumped straight on the methane mitigation bus
before asking what we're actually mitigating. Why do we continue
to throw hundreds of millions of dollars that we do
not have into self sabotaging strategy that will risk the
future of New Zealand sheep, beef and deer sector and
(04:19):
its contribution to the diverse rural communities and what used
to be known as a rock star economy. Many scientists
have jumped on the gravy chain, quick to announce the what, when,
who and how without asking the quick key question why.
If an award was given to the most misguided use
of funds, it would go to Aguazero, with runners up
(04:42):
being the unwinding decades of genetic progression of selecting sheep
and cattle on suppose low methane genetics, closely followed by
the twenty nine million taxpayer funded methane satellite. An onlooker
may suggest that the agricultural companies funding Aguazero have surplus
money to launder through the greenwash, which is effectively.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
All they have done.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
An alarming low level of understanding by companies involved in
Agua zero of what they're actually signed up for or
what they will actually achieve, is worthy of a full
taxpayer inquiry given the fifty percent of Crown farms that
have been invested. If only the companies or the Crown
put the same time and effort and resources into promoting
the efficiency of New Zealand pastoral farming, or even being
(05:27):
charitable enough to share our carbon efficient pastoral ip with
the rest of the world, this would have been the
greatest contribution to calling the current climate change hysteria. Instead,
they decided to double down and apologize for a crime
we didn't do, even stating when questioned that this simply
was the easiest path to take. One bank involved in
(05:48):
Agua zero mentioned that they didn't want to overstate New
Zealand's farmers pastoral efficiency when it came to to turn
the page carbon metrics, as they had far in clients
on the other side of the world they didn't want
to make look bad. The premium New Zealand beef and
lamb market has built its reputation on being natural, pure
grass fed, free range, hormone and ge free. The quality
(06:13):
assurance programs that are world leading and strict on intoference
with the animal. Even the feeding of grain is banned
in most programs. The irony is that the risk to
our country's reputation from the use of novel biotechnology tools,
including methane vaccines, feed additives that interfere with a natural
rumination cycle, seem to have been ignored. What does the
(06:33):
end consumer rarely think? Clear signals from overseas markets at
the end are that end consumers actually care very little
about Scope three emissions, including methane emissions, but care greatly
about animal welfare, pure in natural products, and they wanted
it the cheapest possible net price, not a SVIT or
(06:55):
sound of an actual tangible premium being willingly paid. The
reality is that consumers want want the earth until they
are asked to pay for it, at which time the
priority simply laps backs to price, quality and food safety.
Do what you like while chasing a premium in your
market for us for subsequent price stag attached to your
(07:16):
products silver Fern Farms, fon Terra and Sco and Sinlay,
but do not come in with sweeping jeunette sweeping generic
statements about global consumers being willing to pay a premium
for our commodity products that we are seen if we
are seen to be doing the right thing, we all
ready are doing the right thing. And for those who
want to take it a step further and a bid
(07:38):
for your ambiguous premium, go ahead. Premiums need to be
market lead, not market bread. As a farmer, I do
not accept you making a false guilty plea on our
behalf in an attempt to get a shortened sentence for
a crime that we didn't do. At the very least,
we deserve a trial by science, not a sentencing by politics.
(08:00):
Smith Martha Tago Farmer. Brilliant bit of work. I agree
with every sentiment expressed in that.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
A few interesting takes, and they're just reading at the
very start calling it the Egger zero Ponzi scheme as well.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Interesting wording it is.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I mean it's it's the last two decades one hundred
and nine hundred and thirty million spent, nine hundred and
thirty million spent on this issue.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
It's not good.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
That's staggering. I mean that's that's a very large, brand
new base hospital in some city.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I think what all the farming groups or the companies
that are trying to sell our product to the world,
their case will be just purely off the bat. They
want us to be seen to be doing something because
that's what the consumer's demanding.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Well, well that's what the James will say that that's
fine until they ask to pay for it. And the
other thing is we need to be seen to be
doing something as opposed to let's tell them what we're
actually doing. We are actually very good at.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
The moment and step that.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
You know, it's it's an important issue.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And I'll go back to Steve Henderson's chat we had
on Tuesday, and it just hit the nail on the
head talking to Las Vegas consumers who he met while
he is over there last week, and they are all
about New Zealand food. They just said, we've tried before,
it's the best thing. And he said, our real issue
is trying to sell our story better to the consumer.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yes, and our story is not the fact that we're
breaking the country by spending money or methane reduction. We
should be telling them what our production systems are and
how good they are in terms of issues like climate change,
which is a miss as well. I mean, this is
just a part of the whole climate change myth.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
But they're not going to go for that though, are they.
These groups are trying to sell our produce to the world,
they're arguably well know you've got it wrong. And everybody
leading these trade invoys, for example, they're going to say, no,
we've got to be seen to be doing something in
the public space.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
Who's saying that? Is it as consumers or is it
the supermarkets.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Supply chain listens for example, at the field days and
the stand they had, they're all about being you know,
zero emissions and everything else, which is pretty virtue signaling
to be perfectly honest, but they were there and they
want the best stand there at field Days this year.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
For whatever reason, I suspect companies like Nestle Aftery're demanding
us to be carbon zero. They're doing it from the
point of view that it's probably affecting their carbon liability
if they're buying low carbon or zero carbon products, and
that's a good impact on their carbon balance sheet. So
you know, it's.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
It's really it's a really great piece there.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
We better leave it there, but it leaves a lot
of questions as well rather than answers, and James Smith
once again, she says what she thinks, doesn't she.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
She sure does.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Good on you, Graham.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Always great to check you go outside and scrap up
for the afternoon.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Thank you Graham.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Butcher Farm consultant based here in Gore with food for thought.
James Smith always calling it as she sees it. Guy
Michael from darien Z. He's up next.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
This is the muster Thursday afternoon.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
The cars we get around
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