By Lachlan Forsyth
The Greens are horrified at the prospect of giant European-style indoor dairy farms being established in the South Island High Country.
Corporate dairy companies plan to house nearly 20,000 dairy cows under cover in the MacKenzie Country, in a radical move away from New Zealand's traditional, outdoor pasture-fed farming.
The Benmore Valley in the MacKenzie Basin supports about 6000-7000 cows, but a new proposal could see three times as many cows packed into a third of the space.
That has farmers like Tony Gloag, whose family has worked this land for generations, worried.
“I'm sure if they were over a much wider area a lot of our fears would prove to be groundless. It's the concentration on such a small area that has given us some concerns,” he says.
Irrigation has transformed the lands from an arid brown expanse into lush green pastures.
Now a corporate dairy consortium wants to bring in another 18,000 cows, sheltering them from the extreme winters and scorching summers by housing them inside for eight months a year.
Critics say it is a bovine battery farm.
“When you look at the welfare implication on the animals in the United States, it's terrible,” says Hans Kriek of Save Animals From Exploitation (SAFE).
“These animals really have a rough time, and is this what New Zealand wants to move to? I don't think so.”
“It's a kind of industrial factory farming and it's completely at odds with what New Zealand pastoral farming is all about,” says Green Party co-leader Russel Norman.
But supporters say that is not the case.
“The cubicles are not tiny; there is enough room for the cows to move around, lie down, go outside and they have access to water. They are very well looked after,” says Don Nicholson, president of Federated Farmers.
Southland farmer Abe de Wolde uses this method of farming with no issues.
But what is proposed in the Benmore Valley is on a much larger scale.
The proposal would produce the same amount of effluent as all the people in Otago and Southland combined.
Up to 1.7 million litres of diluted effluent, gathered from beneath the sheds, would be spread onto to the land every day.
“It would be good to see, perhaps, a small prototype used to assess the effects before a project on such a vast scale is anticipated,” says Mr Gloag.
A strange turnaround for land that, just a few decades ago, was only good for horacium, rocks and rabbits.
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