Dairy Action Plan a small step forward

The Government's dairy climate announcement is a small step in the right direction but lacks a serious commitment to actually reducing climate damaging pollution from the dairy industry, the Green Party said today.

“Paula Bennett should have used today to set a firm date for when the dairy industry will need to start paying for the pollution it emits, just like other businesses have to in New Zealand,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw.

“Instead, she announced a framework without real targets and called it a "Dairy Action Plan".

“There are some good initiatives in this package, like the trial of on-farm recording, but National still hasn’t given farmers any certainty about when they will have to start paying for and reducing climate pollution on the farm.

“No farmer wants their child to inherit a world with longer droughts, and chronic water shortages. Farmers want leadership from government and a real commitment to pollution cuts.

“More and more farmers know that it's possible to both reduce climate pollution and boost profits on the farm, but they’re being let down by a government that's more interested in pushing pollution-intensive dairying.

"The dairy sector accounts for over half of agricultural climate pollution, and that pollution has increased by a whopping 68 percent since National came into government," said Mr Shaw.

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