Bruce Cotterill: Butter backlash overlooks farming’s crucial economic role

It seems that we’re going batty over butter.

In case you’ve missed it, it’s the price of the stuff that has everyone’s attention. That price has rocketed upwards over the past 12 months as global demand for our product influences the price point at home.

Owen Jennings: Stop, Look, Listen

There seems to exist in our society a phenomena that might be deemed “collective madness”. It occurs when an apparent majority embrace a particular viewpoint without rationale, rhyme or reason. It is usually associated with a core of zealots fostering the fires of insanity and a media who seize on the madness as a means of propping up their failing wares.

John MacDonald: Who says farmers can't be trusted?

Welcome to another war of words between the greenies and the government over changes to the Resource Management Act.

With the poor old farmers stuck in the middle, just wanting the chance to be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to protecting the environment. And that’s what I think we should be doing.

Mike's Minute: The Significant Natural Areas decision is a relief

Of all the things that the new Government has done in their first 100 days, the Significant Natural Areas decision might just have brought the most relief.

It's not a major issue in the cities, but in rural New Zealand it has been a nightmare.

Owen Jennings: Critical questions

A number of critically important questions have been raised in recent discussions I have had with farmers about their greenhouse gas emissions. They deserve answers. The mainstream media ignore them preferring to bag the farming community saying they are getting off lightly and are not meeting their responsibilities.

Brendan O'Neill: The year we finally rose up against the pyjama classes

From Canadian truckers to Dutch farmers, working people have had enough of the laptop elites.

The laptop elites. The pyjama classes. It’s hard to know what to call the new establishment. Those upper-middle-class graduates who make up the knowledge economy. Who think tweeting is a job. Who have faithfully imbibed every woke mantra, from ‘Trans women are women’ to ‘Wear your mask!’. Who are waited on hand and foot by the precariat of Deliveroo and Amazon. Who loathe the old economy – the one that actually makes things – for its unsightly footprint on the planet. And who loved lockdown. Six months making sourdough bread for your Instagram Stories while still getting paid for whatever it is you do for a job? What’s not to like?

Point of Order: Impeding food production with taxes on emissions is a bad idea when the world is tipping towards mass hunger

As the war in the Ukraine drags on, the international food crisis is deepening. The Economist put it simply but grimly:

“The war is tipping a fragile world towards mass hunger. Fixing that is everyone’s business”.

So shouldn’t the New Zealand Government be exhorting farmers to go all out to produce as much as they can for this country to be lifting its food exports? Is this the time for the government to be erecting new hurdles to impede the production of food? Shouldn’t it delay the plan to tax methane emissions for at least 12 months?

Let’s look at what The Economist further said:

Owen Jennings: Critical questions

A number of critically important questions have been raised in recent discussions I have had with farmers about their greenhouse gas emissions. They deserve answers. The mainstream media ignore them preferring to bag the farming community saying they are getting off lightly and are not meeting their responsibilities.

Question 1. Why is Article 2 (b) of the Paris Agreement ignored when it states clearly that countries should not reduce food production in their pursuit of emission goals? Proposals that will reduce production by 15% or more violate the Agreement.

Henry Armstrong: So Farmers and Businesses “Have Nothing To Fear” According to Ardern?

When the debate on a Capital Gains Tax was in full swing, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was widely quoted as assuring farmers and small business owners that if a CGT were to be introduced, they had nothing to fear.

The productive sector and indeed most New Zealanders, quickly saw through this disingenuous claim and made their views known. The Ardern-led government quickly dropped that proposal-at least for now.

It seems the Ardern-led government learned nothing in the process.