| Fish &
Game New Zealand cannot understand how Federated Farmers can anticipate
endless growth in production from a finite natural resource base
of land and water.
“Comments such as, ‘the federation
cannot accept capping agriculture’, and ‘farmers cannot
continue farming unless productivity gains are available’
made by Federate Farmers President Charlie Pedersen yesterday demonstrate
a complete lack of reality,” said Bryce Johnson, Chief Executive
of Fish & Game New Zealand.
“Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton is
right on the button when he noted that Mr. Pedersen clearly fails
to understand is that the land and water farmers use has a carrying
capacity and there is a limit to what any system can cope with.
This is a simple and fundamental ecological reality.”
“Fish & Game New Zealand supports Jim
Anderton’s statements that, ‘we have to accept there
are limits to production output and it is not acceptable to keep
intensifying production regardless of the [environmental] impacts’.
He also notes, perhaps belatedly, that in some cases farming systems
are at the limit now and that we must accept ‘screwing more
out of the system’ is no longer an option.”
“Mr Pedersen suggests unfettered agricultural
development will deliver a better standard on living for all New
Zealanders – an outcome hard to visualise where the country’s
lowland waterways become a vast bovine sewerage system.“
“We’ve had enough talk and urgently
need action. Federated Farmers needs to join the real world and
embrace environmentally sustainable farming as the only secure future
for New Zealand, both internationally and domestically. The Government’s
Primary Industries Summit to be held in Christchurch next week [28/29
November] is an opportunity to deliver results and put an end to
fanciful thinking around unlimited agricultural production and environmental
degradation.”
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