Farm scientists at a new multi-million-dollar research facility believe they can cut the carbon footprint of milk by 20 per cent – even without using the latest emerging technologies.
The World Bank has agreed to suspend International Finance Corporation IFC funding of the oil palm sector pending the development of safeguards to ensure that lending doesn’t cause social or environmental harm, according to a letter by World Bank President Robert Zoellick to NGOs. A recent internal audit found that IFC funding of the Wilmar Group, a plantation developer, violated the IFC’s own procedures, allowing commercial concerns to trump environmental and social standards.
FUNGI that produce deadly toxins that could pass into the human food chain through cow’s milk were found in imported palm kernel animal feed, according to a confidential AgResearch report that came to public attention only last week.
There’s hardly a living Pom who doesn’t remember Anchor Butter’s “singing cows” TV commercials. They featured pure-bred, full-tailed Jerseys prancing around lush green fields, sometimes even playing football (but not Rugby) and trilling on about their “free-range” life, feeding on grass all year long – unlike their poor UK and Irish cousins, forced to live in sheds and eat man-made supplements in Winter.
How New Zealand palmed off butter consumers with 100% pure bullshit | Gog.org.nz.
A dairy farming leader has challenged Greenpeace’s accusation that the New Zealand industry’s high use of palm kernel feed is contributing to the destruction of rain forests in south-east Asia.
Dunedin sisters Clare and Judith Curran are setting up a presentation for Parliament on New Zealand’s use of palm products.
Case against palm products goes to parliament | Otago Daily Times Online.
Dairy farmers are being blamed for the destruction of tropical rain forests. New Zealand cows ate more than 1 million tonnes of palm kernels last year – a quarter of the world’s total consumption of the palm oil by-product.
Federated Farmers is rejecting claims that the importation of palm kernel extract for dairy feed is contributing to the destruction of rainforests.
DAIRY farmers have been implicated in a new palm oil scandal after revelations that last year the national herd ate one-quarter of the world’s palm kernel stock food supply.
Felled trees, burnt stumps. Once tropical rainforest, now palm plantations spread across this Indonesian island like a plague.
We drive and drive and drive. Past broken-down machinery. Past empty fertiliser sacks, rigged for shade outside workers’ huts. The heat is intense, but you can’t see the sun because here in Riau province 2400 fires are burning out of control. The smoke is so thick the local airport has closed and 31,000 school children have been sent home.
It looks like Armageddon. It’s just a palm plantation.
Stuff.co.nz | Sunday Star Times
A Greenpeace investigation has revealed that the iconic New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra is implicated in Indonesian and Malaysian rainforest destruction, dead orangutans and driving global greenhouse gas emissions.
Federated Farmers has told a parliamentary committee the emissions trading scheme (ETS) should be scrapped because it would create economic disaster.
But dairy giant Fonterra says it should be kept, but only if changed significantly.
Climate Watch