While bad news for dairy, the study found employment and economic output would be boosted in a scenario where farmers switched to growing crops, which would also result in significant reductions in emissions and nutrient loss.

So I see this as a win-win-win.

Another interesting point

"I can't see parents ever being happy putting lab-grown meat and milk in their kids' lunchboxes... it's just not gonna happen," Federated Farmers dairy chair Richard McIntyre said.

Mr McIntyre is engaging in wishful thinking here, if the lab-grown alternative is half the cost, I'm sure parents will be only too happy to put it in the lunch boxes of the kids....some of the crap that gets put in now is amazing....

[–] Hedup@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

If only there wasn't a reason farmers are not doing more agriculture in the mountainous land of New Zealand.

[–] terraborra@lemmy.nz 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Most of our mountainous land is protected. Even if it’s not, dairy farms aren’t being run on rugged terrain. Cows aren’t exactly known for their adventurism.

[–] Hedup@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting. I imagined it'd be similar to how things are run in Switzerland. Cows there are pretty adventurous I suppose.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Isn't Switzerland the place they keep the cows in a barn and grow the grass separate, then cut and feed the grass to the cows?

I think they also have much smaller herd sizes than NZ.

[–] Hedup@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago

When I visited, I run into cows plenty of times while hiking the mountain trails. I can't speak with authority, but from what I was told is that there aren't many big dairy farms, most dairy farmers run small scale farms.

[–] purrtastic@lemmy.nz 2 points 4 months ago

I talked to a farmer on hill land about this, and he said they have to buy cows that have grown up on hill land otherwise they can’t handle it and invariably end up a bloated carcass in the local stream. That still does happen sometimes, in which case they just leave it there to decompose and pollute the stream because it’s too much work to remove it. Farmers, eh?

[–] Drusas@kbin.run 2 points 4 months ago

What, you haven't seen all of those videos of cows scaling cliffs like a goat?

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 4 months ago

Well certainly not dairy farming.

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