Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Simon Cameron: Federated Farmers West Coast President on the Green Party's policy around rivers and oceans

Transcript

Simon Cameron: Federated Farmers West Coast President on the Green Party's policy around rivers and oceans · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So another policy drop from the Greens will be ecstatic
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to know. They want to ban on synthetic fertilizers on
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: farms to help clean up waterways. They want to reduce
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the number of cows. They're also pushing to end bottom trawling.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Here is Madam and Davidson.
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  Speaker 2: We just need to stop buying into this whole concept
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: of ruining our rivers is the only way to make
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: a buck. We can totally reject that and that is
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: what the Greens are doing today.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Simon Cameron, fed Farmer's West Coast President, Simon, good morning,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: how are you very well? Thank you? Just to do
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the Greens have a point that it is intensive farming
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that has caused a lot of our rivers to be unswimmable,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: like as a basic fact. Is that wrong?
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: I mean yeah, you'd certainly challenge it is looking around
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: Wellington and Auckland. Where's that issue're coming from?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Well, that's outfit, that's out literally our own waste. But
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in rural New Zealand, you know they reckon half the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: rivers are because of nitrates and stuff that runoff that's
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: come from farms. Are they wrong in saying that?
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean there's i would challenge it. There's and
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: there's Yeah, there's been issues in the past, but you
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: look at where where we've come from. We're certainly making
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: bigger roads and proving things a heck of a lot.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: We've got one hundred and ninety kilogram per year per
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: year careful on these things now, So we're catchment groups
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: are done a phenomenal job right period plantings, Yeah, I
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: think we're heading in the right direction. We've done a
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: lot in the last dec order two decade of two.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And if you read their policy document, they say simon
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: that it's basically unchecked in environmental vandalism that's going on.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: You're saying that it's not unchecked. We have limits, we
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: have rules, there are standards.
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, that's ridiculous. That is absolutely checked. And we've
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: come a very very long way. Look, technology has come
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: a long way. Everyone's sort of picked that up and
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: it implemented it from Wearable's precision. They are a lot
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: more careful in how we use it. We're using a
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: lot less of it, to be honest, from what we
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: were a few years ago. And I mean, what do
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  Speaker 3: they want us to do, because by phasing it out,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: you're going to reduce what this country can produce by
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  Speaker 3: at least twenty five percent. We're an export nation down
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: to the bottom of South Pacific. What are you going
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: to do for anything to the country. I mean, that is.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: The fundamental question. So twenty five percent you reckon. So
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is that the nitrate at least that the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: If you get rid of that, if you ban that,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that's twenty five percent at least of industry that's gone.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, at least right, So everything, it all starts with
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: the seed, but it needs the nutrients to grow. And
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: every time you grow something, you know, if you're an
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: arable farmer, for example, what doesn't mean if you're growing grass, wheat, corn,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: mung beans. It doesn't matter. If you grow something, you
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: take it away, whether you've grazed it or you've harvest it.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: You're taking nutrients from the sore. You've got to replenish
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: it up.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: So Simon Good TV on the program, Simon Cameron fed
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Armer's West Coast President with us This Morning Time. For
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to
• 3:05
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• 3:09
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