AGRICULTURAL NEWS - New Zealand’s city-centric Labour government is to set a limit on how many dairy cows a farmer can run.
Environment Minister David Parker says that government will implement regulations to reduce the number of cattle farmers are allowed per hectare.
“That won’t be done through a raw cap on cow numbers; it will be done on nutrient limits, the amount of nutrient that can be lost from a farm to a waterway, because it’s not just a dairy cow issue,” he said on Television New Zealand.
Dairy New Zealand figures show that 4,8 million cows, averaging three cows a hectare, produce 20,7 billion litres of milk a year, 3% of the world total.
Dairy is New Zealand’s largest export, at about NZ$14 billion (R122,9 billion).
But Parker says there are too many cows. “Cow numbers have already peaked and are going down but, in some areas, the number of cows per hectare is higher than the environment can sustain.”
