Debate is not part of book
Ihad pre-ordered Professor Stafford’s book ‘Livestock Production in New Zealand’ as I was looking forward to reading it based on the blurb promising that it had been written to inform the debate on land, water and animals and how we manage resources in this country.
These are issues of great importance to me in my work and I was keen to get the latest information.
However, I was really disappointed to find that the biggest environmental issue facing this country and in fact facing humanity - climate change, barely rated a mention.
The environmental impacts related to livestock especially those around freshwater were only mentioned for four of the eight livestock types covered in the book, and then they only a couple of very non-specific sentences.
There was just no information of what the impacts on the environment are except one sentence in the poultry section where they pointed out that poultry greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are much less than those of ruminants.
The book just seemed to ignore the fact that livestock are responsible for about 15 per cent of all human GHG emissions and 37 per cent of all human induced methane emissions, nitrous oxide emissions and account for 45 per cent of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions and that they are responsible for the vast majority of freshwater impacts in New Zealand from pathogens and nutrients.
The United Nations recently published a report called ‘livestock’s long shadow’ highlighting the many impacts of livestock on the environment and human health.
I totally agree with Professor Stafford that debate on land, water and animals on farms is valuable and uniformed debate is pointless, but having read the book I can’t see how the debate would now be any more informed when it ignores all the downsides.
Mike Joy is a freshwater ecologist at Massey University.