Milked 2021

LegalDramaDaily

Milked 2021

Transcript

00:00:26We have said that sustainability is a key part of it.

00:00:29It's our new strategy, right? It's the heart of what we're going to be doing.

00:00:33What's the news angle you're looking at?

00:00:35Is it sustainability on farms? Is it sustainability on packaging? Is it sustainability in our factories?

00:00:42We're talking about climate change, water quality, potential longevity for our farmers.

00:00:47Are those topics that you believe Fonterra would like to comment on?

00:00:52We get these requests all the time, Chris. We've got people here who've got a business to run.

00:00:58What angle are you taking? How's it going to work?

00:01:00We want to hear every side of the story, basically.

00:01:04There are sides of the story. There's only one story.

00:01:07I'm assuming that's the angle you're taking because that's the only angle.

00:01:10That is the truth of the situation.

00:01:37Hiya! I'm Chris.

00:01:40This is where I'm from, the rural north of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

00:01:46Surrounded by nature and fortunate to have the family home next to our local river, Mangatawa.

00:01:54Growing up, we tried our best to protect and live with the land.

00:01:59We grew a lot of our own food and raised all the animals you'd expect to see on a farm.

00:02:04Chickens, goats, pigs, sheep and cows.

00:02:08Like most Kiwi kids, I started the day with milk on my Weet-Bix and never thought twice about it.

00:02:14I was already worried about the state of our planet when I came across this film.

00:02:21Cowspiracy showed how animal agriculture is the driving force behind the environmental breakdown that's happening

00:02:27and how people were too afraid to talk about it.

00:02:31I was shocked, but I thought, that's America, not our dead old.

00:02:35We have grass-fed cows and look after our land.

00:02:39And then I saw the Environment Aotearoa report, showing the massive impact dairy is having on our country.

00:02:45I made a video about the dairy industry that got a big response on social media.

00:02:50Let's hear what Fonterra has to say now.

00:02:52And I was surprised when Fonterra commented, inviting me for a coffee and a chat.

00:02:56But when I tried taking them up on the offer...

00:03:00Welcome to Fonterra.

00:03:02After the tone, please record your message.

00:03:04After the tone, please record your message.

00:03:07After the tone, please record your message.

00:03:12Why the change of heart?

00:03:13What did our country's biggest company have to hide?

00:03:19I wanted to meet with some people who were speaking out about the environmental impacts of the dairy industry

00:03:23and see what they could tell me.

00:03:27Industrial dairying is this country's biggest polluter.

00:03:31It's our biggest climate emitter, emitting more greenhouse gases than our entire transport sector.

00:03:36It's our biggest water polluter, and it's also a major stressor for biodiversity and for soil health.

00:03:43Around the world, we've seen a massive increase in a thing called oceanic dead zones.

00:03:48They're basically areas of the ocean where there's been so much algal growth, there's no oxygen, there's no life in

00:03:53there anymore.

00:03:56That is what we're risking on New Zealand's coastlines.

00:04:01We're seeing a collapse of our natural ecosystems.

00:04:04Most of that collapse is coming about because of the pressure that we're putting on those systems

00:04:10from commercial activities like dairy farming.

00:04:14The consequence for nature has been devastating.

00:04:18New Zealand used to be a land covered in forest.

00:04:22We've bowled down the forest.

00:04:24We've lost the biggest chunk of wetlands in modern history in the last hundred years

00:04:29to put more cows on paddocks.

00:04:33I discovered that in Aotearoa, our dairy industry creates more greenhouse gas emissions

00:04:38than all cars, trucks, boats, planes and trains combined.

00:04:42And although we brag about producing the most sustainable milk in the world,

00:04:46the total emissions from our booming dairy industry has increased 132% in the last 30 years.

00:04:54A hundred and thirty-two percent.

00:04:59It's a global problem too.

00:05:01The top five meat and dairy companies, which includes Fonterra,

00:05:04produce more emissions than the whole of the United Kingdom and its 66 million people.

00:05:10That's also more than the oil and gas companies ExxonMobil, Shell and BP.

00:05:16One study even showed that in the next decade, Fonterra will make up more than 100% of New Zealand's

00:05:22total emissions target.

00:05:24And yet, no one seemed to be talking about this.

00:05:29Dr. Jane Goodall is one of many well-known scientists who have been warning about the impacts of climate change

00:05:35long before it was all over the media.

00:05:37If you consider, we're on this little ball, this little beautiful planet of ours.

00:05:43And we're now surrounding it with these so-called greenhouse gases, which is trapping the heat of the sun,

00:05:51which is leading to the changing weather patterns that are being so destructive to the environment, to people and to

00:05:58many, many animals.

00:06:00And while the worst is yet to come, the balance of life on the planet is already way out,

00:06:06with farmed animals and humans making up 96% of the biomass of mammals and only 4% is wild

00:06:13mammals.

00:06:14I also found out Aotearoa has the highest proportion of threatened native species on Earth.

00:06:22No wonder we have a biodiversity crisis.

00:06:25I'm not angry at the farmers. I'm not blaming the farmers. They do what they have to do.

00:06:30And most of them do really care about the environment.

00:06:33But the system that they're caught up in is totally flawed.

00:06:38Just sticking to what we're doing now has no future.

00:06:45The dairy industry is having a similar impact around the world.

00:06:50And with the global demand for food doubling by 2050, how could all this be produced sustainably?

00:06:58Scientists warned that we'd need at least five Earths by then if everyone on the planet eats as much dairy

00:07:04and meat as countries like the United States.

00:07:08It was Mahatma Gandhi who said the planet can produce enough for human need, but not human greed.

00:07:17Do we have to keep doing things the same way?

00:07:21What if we could produce that food without all the resources and waste?

00:07:27From what I was discovering, it looked like there are other ways, including something the dairy industry doesn't want us

00:07:33to know about because it threatens their very existence.

00:07:40But first, I had to understand how this mess all started and why we're still in it.

00:07:47Just over 200 years ago, British settlers introduced the first dairy cows to Aotearoa, a land mostly covered in ancient

00:07:54forests and inhabited by the indigenous population of Maori.

00:07:59Most of our native forests were cut or burnt down and almost all our wetlands were destroyed to make way

00:08:04for farms.

00:08:05Today, we have over six million dairy cows and we're not doing this to feed ourselves.

00:08:1195% of our dairy products are exported.

00:08:16Kiwi farmers used to be known for farming sheep.

00:08:19But when white gold fever hit, they switched to cows, increasing the average dairy herd size from 100 to over

00:08:27400.

00:08:29Over the last 30 years, we didn't increase the amount of land.

00:08:32We just got rid of sheep and replaced them with cows and they have so much bigger output.

00:08:39The dairy herd of Aotearoa produces over 150 million litres of nitrogen rich urine every day.

00:08:47And each cow has the equivalent effluent footprint of 14 people.

00:08:53That means the cows in this country create the same amount of waste as nearly 90 million people.

00:09:01And with almost no wetlands left to filter that waste, it's no surprise that our waterways are in trouble.

00:09:08New Zealand's like your beautiful friend that's just gone and got cancer.

00:09:12And so what's the source of the cancer? Well, it's primarily the dairy industry.

00:09:19There's a particular New Zealand mode of economic development where we have these bonanzas and the bonanzas are based on

00:09:26cashing in our natural resources.

00:09:29The dairy industry for the last 20 years has been a throwback to that 19th century style of development where

00:09:37we cash something in.

00:09:38And what we've cashed in is our fresh water.

00:09:42It's simply been impossible for Kiwis to ignore.

00:09:45You used to be able to swim in our rivers and lakes in New Zealand without risk of getting sick.

00:09:49That just isn't possible in bulk because of the impact of industrial dairy.

00:09:58Every year we're losing 192 million tons of soil.

00:10:02You know, this is actually our most precious resource as a country.

00:10:05Our top soil is simply washing out to sea every single year because of our land use practices.

00:10:11It's all about destroying our natural capital, which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.

00:10:20In te ao Māori, the Māori world, water is sacred.

00:10:25We pushed for our country to be the first in the world to give a river the same legal status

00:10:30as a person.

00:10:33It worried me to know how much of an impact dairy farming was having on our fresh water.

00:10:38By using it and by polluting it.

00:10:43Just down the road from my family home was an alarming example of what could go wrong.

00:10:51I met with some community leaders who were trying to protect their lake.

00:10:56What did it used to be like back in the day when the lake was healthy?

00:11:00Being by the lake, we were able to catch fish.

00:11:04We just did everything in there.

00:11:06And now you can't do anything?

00:11:08We can't do any of that. Not even our children.

00:11:11The kids used to come down here and they just lived down here, swimming in the water.

00:11:17But the children had this sickness.

00:11:21It wasn't until all that algae started over here that we realised that there was more to it than that.

00:11:31I've seen farmers spreading their manure and it's all blowing into the lake.

00:11:38Further up the catchment we found that there was a dairy farm and they had a consent to dump air

00:11:43fluent.

00:11:44And if any nutrients get into the water, especially around January, it's perfect for an incubator to actually just create

00:11:51an algae bloom.

00:11:52So, you can't have the water for the children to play in.

00:11:57There's no one coming to the lake.

00:12:01We're talking about other things like water storage for when there's a drought.

00:12:07And the drought is heading our way right now as I speak.

00:12:12And people are going to want water.

00:12:15But what they want is better water than this.

00:12:19Water is going to be the next gold.

00:12:21The water is the life force.

00:12:22And if we don't look after the water, then all of us will perish.

00:12:28How could Fonterra be claiming to care about communities and environmental sustainability?

00:12:34I had to call them again to see if they'd meet with me.

00:12:37We got your email about you guys declining to be part of the documentary.

00:12:42I just thought if environmental sustainability is at the heart of what you're doing,

00:12:45I just think this is a massively missed opportunity for you guys to share your initiatives with the New Zealand

00:12:50public.

00:12:50Are those topics that you believe Fonterra would like to comment on?

00:12:55We can comment on any of them, but then you'd end up with a three-hour video just on us.

00:13:01There's already a lot out there.

00:13:03Yeah, but you'd probably admit that it is a bit confusing for consumers,

00:13:07the messages that they're getting these days.

00:13:11Well, we're a big player.

00:13:13It's a dairy industry thing.

00:13:14If that's what you're looking at, you're better off dealing with Dairy NZ.

00:13:18Yeah, but I mean, Fonterra is New Zealand's largest company.

00:13:24Yes.

00:13:25So, you know, we thought it'd be best if the story's coming directly from you guys rather than anyone else.

00:13:30Yeah, but I mean, while we're big, we're also part of a big industry.

00:13:38What angle are you taking? How's it going to work?

00:13:40Because New Zealand is pretty simple in terms of farming practices,

00:13:44which makes the most carbon-efficient, the most nutritious milk in the world.

00:13:48So is that the angle you're taking?

00:13:50We definitely want to get you on camera talking about that,

00:13:53talking about your side of the story in terms of what milk means to New Zealand.

00:13:58Uh, well, we don't even need to say it on camera. It's so well documented.

00:14:04What was going on? Why were they avoiding an interview?

00:14:07I was told to go on the Dairy NZ website to see their facts.

00:14:12NZ Dairy is 64% more emissions efficient than the global average.

00:14:18But I had to wonder where this information came from,

00:14:21and wasn't reassured when I saw it was from industry-funded research.

00:14:26It also doesn't include the huge amount of coal used to make milk powder,

00:14:31Fonterra's main export product.

00:14:36I did find someone from the industry who was willing to talk with me, though.

00:14:40A rep for the South Island Dairying Development Centre.

00:14:45So our vision is to be a great place for animals to live,

00:14:49producing high-quality food to feed the world,

00:14:52and having, you know, just not an impact,

00:14:57negative impact on the environment around us.

00:14:59So we're all about transparency, and at CITIC,

00:15:02we try to share all of our data publicly,

00:15:05and that's why I'm here speaking to you today.

00:15:09Canterbury seems to be, like, quite a very dry region.

00:15:12Why have we seen such an increase in dairy farming in Canterbury,

00:15:16and do you think it's a suitable place for dairy farming?

00:15:21Um...

00:15:22Can I pass on that question?

00:15:25How is synthetic fertiliser made, and what is it made out of?

00:15:29Yeah, I'll pass on that one.

00:15:31Do you think we're putting our future food security at risk?

00:15:38I don't want to answer that. I don't know.

00:15:40Yeah.

00:15:44Well, that was confusing.

00:15:46And what was even more confusing was all the media

00:15:48about the good things the industry was doing.

00:15:52Maybe they actually were heading in the right direction,

00:15:55and things were improving.

00:15:57You see, our waterways are a huge part of who we are.

00:16:01That's why thousands of Kiwis, including dairy farmers,

00:16:04have been working hard to make a difference.

00:16:06The Environment Aotearoa report in 2019 said that

00:16:0982% of waterways are unswimmable in farming catchments.

00:16:13I think if we look at water,

00:16:15and we're doing a lot of investigation at the moment,

00:16:17the water is not as bad as perhaps those stats might indicate.

00:16:22But why was government and industry saying one thing,

00:16:25and the science saying something else?

00:16:27What I get really annoyed with is what I just call

00:16:30the bull that the dairy industry seems to enjoy.

00:16:35It's dishonest.

00:16:37It's greenwashing.

00:16:39The issue I've got is not with farmers.

00:16:42The issue I've long had has been with farming leadership

00:16:45and the lack thereof.

00:16:48There's a complete level of just non-reality

00:16:51that pervades the dairy industry.

00:16:53We have environmental awards

00:16:56that are sponsored by fertiliser companies.

00:16:59The reality is that we're not clean.

00:17:02We might be green, but it's just because

00:17:04there's lots of fertiliser going on the grass

00:17:06making it look green.

00:17:09New Zealanders really care about the environment.

00:17:12Even as one of the lowest emission dairy producers in the world,

00:17:16we're continuing to work on new ways to reduce our carbon footprint.

00:17:20Industry greenwashing was everywhere I looked.

00:17:23This carbon zero milk is less than 1% of their total milk production.

00:17:28And it's achieved by buying carbon offsets

00:17:30instead of actual emission reduction.

00:17:34Likewise with their plant-based milk bottles.

00:17:37A container made from plants, not plastic, but otherwise the same old milk.

00:17:42What the farming groups tend to hear is so much propaganda from their own industry

00:17:48and so little honest reality that they tend to be shocked when they first hear it

00:17:55and they run back to the industry to get the story that suits.

00:17:59So it doesn't create the burning platform for change that actually the real facts would demand.

00:18:08I searched online and saw that New Zealand's biggest greenhouse gas emitter is Fonterra

00:18:13with a huge 22 million tonnes every year.

00:18:17But if that seems bad, it gets worse.

00:18:19I found a report that shows Fonterra are massively under-reporting their emissions.

00:18:24Instead of the 22 million tonnes that Fonterra claims,

00:18:28the researchers discovered it was over 44 million tonnes.

00:18:32That would mean Fonterra alone produces more than the whole of Sweden,

00:18:37a country with twice the population of Aotearoa.

00:18:41I was surprised to find out that almost all dairy emissions are from the cows themselves.

00:18:47Methane comes from their digestive system

00:18:49and nitrous oxide comes from the soil when effluent and fertilisers are broken down.

00:18:56These animals produce gas.

00:18:59That's methane.

00:19:00And that's a very virulent greenhouse gas.

00:19:03So CO2 everybody knows about.

00:19:05Everybody knows about the burning of fossil fuel.

00:19:08But people are not talking about the methane.

00:19:13Other countries, you can see the smokestacks and the pollution pouring out.

00:19:17We've got to remember in New Zealand, our farms are our factories.

00:19:20It turns out that grass-fed cows produce more methane than grain-fed cows.

00:19:26Methane has a global warming potential that's 84 times stronger than CO2.

00:19:31And one dairy cow produces about 500 kilograms of methane.

00:19:37I wanted to know what Fonterra's plan was to reduce these emissions on farms.

00:19:41I was astounded to find out that the zero carbon bill created an exemption for methane from farm animals.

00:19:47With only a 10% reduction required by 2030.

00:19:52Despite this super low threshold, Fonterra were forecasting no reduction at all in emissions from cows.

00:19:59So much for a climate emergency.

00:20:01First everyone!

00:20:03First everyone!

00:20:04First everyone!

00:20:06Along with the methane produced on farms, the dairy industry also creates emissions in other ways.

00:20:11Like using fertiliser made with fossil fuels and coal to dehydrate milk.

00:20:17There's just so little understanding of just how much we are dependent on fossil fuels.

00:20:24Not just for everything we do and how we transport ourselves, but in our food as well.

00:20:31And the fact that Fonterra alone is burning 410,000 tonnes of coal every year to dehydrate milk gives you

00:20:38a sense of the industrial scale.

00:20:40We've gone down industrial agriculture big time and we've got industrial sized emissions.

00:20:44Climate change is affecting the world everywhere.

00:20:48It's happening now, the ice is melting, sea levels are rising, floods and droughts and hurricanes are getting worse and

00:20:56more frequent.

00:20:58What are the measures that will be taken to address that emergency?

00:21:03Practical measures, things that will actually happen, not things that we just talk about.

00:21:09We know we have to control emissions, we know we shouldn't have billions of animals.

00:21:21Emissions aren't the only major concern.

00:21:24If water is the new gold, we're not investing it very wisely.

00:21:29Every year in Aotearoa, we're using 4.8 billion cubic metres of water for the dairy industry.

00:21:37That's 11 times the water use of the country's human population.

00:21:43Lots of water is used to change vegetable to animal protein.

00:21:49Dwindling supplies of fresh water are important in New Zealand.

00:21:55Entire rivers are drying up in summer now because big irrigating dairy farms are taking too much water from them.

00:22:02An example of this crazy high use is one dairy company taking more water from the Waikato River than the

00:22:09whole city of Auckland with over 1.6 million people.

00:22:14Regional councils around Aotearoa are responsible for enforcing regulations, but it seems they aren't quite doing their job properly.

00:22:27I heard about someone who was taking on the fight for better water monitoring.

00:22:31A former boxer who gave up his job to become a river ranger after discovering the river had swum in

00:22:37as a boy had been ruined by dairy effluent.

00:22:41My uncle and I, we went out to our homestead.

00:22:45We just couldn't believe how bad the river was.

00:22:47Full of urine, excrement from cattle.

00:22:51I had a stench, the cattle everywhere.

00:22:54You know, I started to cry, you know, at the enormity of it.

00:22:58I understood that day, it's totally unmonitored.

00:23:03So at that point in time in my life, I just decided to get myself a boat suitable just for

00:23:08rivers.

00:23:09Just try and do some reporting.

00:23:13Dairy NZ and Fonterra say, oh, we're 97.5% fenced off now.

00:23:19Oh, but is your fence fit for purpose?

00:23:22Many farmers grazing both sides of their fence, so they open their gate and put the cattle on the riverbank.

00:23:30One of the river water quality tests I done up at the Whangarei Falls up here,

00:23:34it was 10 times over the safe limit for swimming.

00:23:40So this water looks nice, but is that not the case?

00:23:44You can't drink it.

00:23:45You'd have to think twice about letting your kids swim in.

00:23:49Nitrate is huge, you know, huge problem.

00:23:51We can't see it.

00:23:52It's penetrating through the ground to the rivers.

00:23:56Aotearoa has got a problem with water quality, for sure.

00:24:02After talking with Mil and I wanted to find out why nitrate seem to be one of the biggest issues

00:24:07for water quality.

00:24:08In nature, all plants need nitrogen to grow, but nature will provide it for us if we let it.

00:24:16Instead, big agribusinesses like Ravensdown and Agribalance here in New Zealand,

00:24:22sell synthetic nitrogen fertiliser.

00:24:25New Zealand holds the dishonourable title of having increased synthetic fertiliser use more than any other OECD nation since 1990.

00:24:36All through nature, for the 10,000 years that humans have been doing agriculture, it's about natural balances.

00:24:42What we've done now is a one-way system, where the way we have so many cows is we put

00:24:48heaps of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser on, made from fossil fuels.

00:24:52We're the biggest importer of palm kernel in the world, so we put all of the stuff on the farm

00:24:58to have this really high stocking rate.

00:25:00We could never have that stocking rate without all these inputs.

00:25:03And so, the more you pour into a farming system from the outside, the more leaks out the bottom.

00:25:09And the leaking out the bottom we're seeing is the impacts on our waterways.

00:25:13If nitrate turned our rivers red, you know, we wouldn't have the problem.

00:25:17It's only because people can't see it, they don't know it's there.

00:25:22As you get more nitrate in drinking water, the chances of getting colorectal cancer and a bunch of other things,

00:25:28but we'll just talk about colorectal cancer for a start, really increase.

00:25:33We've got nitrate levels just ramping up in drinking water in Canterbury.

00:25:39So in Canterbury, where I'm from, we have the highest stocking rates in the country and the highest rates of

00:25:46the use of synthetic fertiliser.

00:25:47We are already seeing drinking wells showing up levels that are associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer.

00:25:56In rural Canterbury, pregnant mothers are being advised by health officials that they need to get their private drinking water

00:26:03tested for fear that it will cause fatal blue baby syndrome from increased nitrate contamination.

00:26:09It's not just dirty rivers that we're talking about here, we're talking about people's health and wellbeing.

00:26:18I needed to talk with someone at Fonterra about everything I'd learned so far.

00:26:22I decided the only option was to just turn up and see who I could find.

00:26:30We're working on a documentary.

00:26:32We're wondering if we could speak to someone from Fonterra who can represent the New Zealand dairy industry to have

00:26:37a chat with us.

00:26:39Probably us and then about them.

00:26:41Okay.

00:26:44I wanted someone to front up and answer the questions I had for them that no one else could answer.

00:26:51But instead I was asked to leave another message.

00:26:53Website or Facebook.

00:26:55Can't say I didn't see that coming.

00:26:58I'd already called the number they gave me a few times and hadn't heard back from anyone.

00:27:02But I left one last message anyway.

00:27:06Sustainability and social responsibility are a fundamental part of the way Fonterra operates.

00:27:12Dairy is important for good nutrition, especially in young growing bodies.

00:27:18Fonterra milk for schools helps make sure primary school kids in New Zealand not only get to enjoy our milk,

00:27:24but also learn about the nutritional power it has.

00:27:30With all the claims to be producing healthy food, I wanted to know if this was the reality or just

00:27:35another illusion.

00:27:36So I contacted some health professionals to find out.

00:27:40It's not beneficial, not required, associated with lots of diseases.

00:27:44The science is there, it's just we need people to catch up with the science.

00:27:49So industry often talk a lot about calcium.

00:27:52You've got to drink milk because it's a good source of calcium, but I think they are kind of moving

00:27:56away from that.

00:27:57A lot of those old ideas, they've cunningly backed off.

00:28:01Unfortunately, of course, the damage has been done because that's what a lot of people, I guess even my age,

00:28:07learned when we were kids.

00:28:08In fact, what we see is that the countries that eat the highest amounts of calcium have the highest rates

00:28:13of hip fractures and osteoporosis.

00:28:17A New Zealand based study clearly shows there's no evidence that increasing calcium from dietary sources prevents fractures.

00:28:24Yet, that's what most health professionals are still telling us.

00:28:28I think it would be very, very beneficial for society as a whole if doctors were trained in nutrition, but

00:28:34they're not.

00:28:35They get very limited amounts of nutrition training.

00:28:38So basically what they teach is what's popular opinion.

00:28:42The main issue is that the majority of the world's population cannot digest the lactose in milk.

00:28:48Particularly in Southeast Asia, and there's good evidence that in the Pacific and Maori there's higher rates of lactose intolerance.

00:28:55But also it increases the amount of mucus and sinus inflammation that people get.

00:29:00Kids are very vulnerable to it.

00:29:01If they can cut out the dairy, they can really respond very quickly.

00:29:05We know that there's numerous issues with dairy.

00:29:08That is one of the things that really annoys me about the milk in schools.

00:29:11The implication by having the milk in there is that this is something that's healthy that they should be eating.

00:29:16There's a very good chance that it's actually hurting them.

00:29:20Fonterra Milk for Schools is one of the best ways we can look out for our communities.

00:29:25Nurturing the next generation by sharing the natural goodness of dairy.

00:29:30We are Fonterra, and this is Dairy for Life.

00:29:34They want you to start off young, and they want to get into the minds of our youth population

00:29:39so that once you've got that person hooked on your product, they're going to be a customer for life.

00:29:46In the 300,000 year history of modern humans, the earliest people drank milk from other animals was only 10

00:29:52,000 years ago.

00:29:54Humans are the only species that drinks milk after infancy, and the only ones that take milk from other animals.

00:30:01Cows were the obvious choice in most places.

00:30:04But if our aim was to get a milk supply with similar nutrition to our own,

00:30:08we could have gone with zebra milk, or maybe even chimpanzee milk.

00:30:12But I guess that's not so easy.

00:30:14What about dog milk for convenience and an extra boost of protein?

00:30:19Not sure if Fonterra could sell that idea, though.

00:30:23And we aren't even meant to consume high amounts of protein.

00:30:27Human milk is perfectly designed for us and has the lowest protein amount of any mammal's milk.

00:30:34Everything that's contained in any of these dairy products or in any animal product, with the exception of vitamin B12,

00:30:40of course, comes from the plants, essentially.

00:30:43And so by having the animals eat them first and then us eating the animals, it's a very inefficient way

00:30:48of us getting to that nutrition, which we could have just got from the plants in the first place.

00:30:52We don't need to filter our nutrition through animals. We would do a lot better going straight to the source

00:31:00of nutrition in the first instance.

00:31:04It makes sense that we can skip the middle cow, like our early ancestors did.

00:31:09And it turns out we also filter other things through cows, like antibiotics and hormones.

00:31:16They're routinely fed antibiotics.

00:31:19The bacteria build up resistance and people have already died from a small cut which becomes infected and there just

00:31:27isn't an antibiotic strong enough to cure it.

00:31:30It's one of the big fears in medicine that we're gradually reducing the number of antibiotics that can be effective.

00:31:40Antibiotics are often used for mastitis, a common and painful inflammation of the udder that causes white blood cells to

00:31:47leach into milk.

00:31:48A litre of milk can have up to 400 million of these cells before it's considered unfit for people to

00:31:53drink.

00:31:55Given that it's got these kinds of things in there, is that really something you want to be consuming from

00:31:59another animal?

00:32:01The processing that they have is because it's a dirty product, you know, it's got a lot of stuff in

00:32:06there that can make you sick.

00:32:08Everyone knows what it smells like after it's been, you know, left out for a day or two.

00:32:13It's nasty.

00:32:15This is not a food that was ever designed to be inside a human being.

00:32:19Because you've got these cows, they're pregnant, they're lactating at the same time, so the female hormones in a dairy

00:32:26cow are really, really high.

00:32:27And so you've got things like estrogen, which is in the milk.

00:32:31What this also does is it will grow cells that are abnormal really quickly.

00:32:37That's probably one of the reasons why it is associated with hormone sensitive cancers.

00:32:42So that's your prostate cancer, breast cancer.

00:32:45Definitely a very strong link with prostate cancer, possibly even stronger than there is with smoking and lung cancer.

00:32:51It's full of stuff that blows up a small calf into a huge cow within, you know, a year or

00:32:57so.

00:32:58One study found that even moderate amounts of dairy milk consumption can increase women's risk of breast cancer up to

00:33:0480%.

00:33:05And yet this isn't even mentioned on our National Breast Cancer Foundation website, who are still promoting dairy products, saying

00:33:13they're important for bone health.

00:33:14That same old idea.

00:33:17People need to be informed of what they're buying and the risks of it.

00:33:21So why would you promote anything that's been associated with any kind of cancer?

00:33:31These conversations made me think of my own family and the loved ones I've lost.

00:33:37Māori men are 70% more likely to die from prostate cancer than non-Māori.

00:33:41And if the link between dairy consumption and prostate cancer was common knowledge, maybe I could have met my grandfather.

00:33:51The more I thought about it, the stranger it seemed that we even consume dairy at all.

00:33:58Māori have historically been some of the tallest, strongest, fittest people on the planet.

00:34:03And we didn't have dairy until Europeans showed up.

00:34:05So we obviously don't need it to be healthy.

00:34:11Dairy being marketed to us as a health food ignores our history.

00:34:18Chronic disease was almost unheard of before colonisation.

00:34:22But now, with one of the highest dairy consumption rates in the world,

00:34:26Māori suffer from higher rates of diabetes, heart disease and cancers.

00:34:39Hello, Chris speaking.

00:34:41Chris, hi. This is Philippa from Fonterra. How are you?

00:34:44Philippa, hi. Yeah, I'm good. Thanks.

00:34:46We're really hoping to get someone from Fonterra to talk to us.

00:34:49Does that sound like something you'd be able to help us with?

00:34:53New Zealand's dairy industry is the most sustainable in the world.

00:34:57And actually the farming practices here are the least emissions efficient,

00:35:02sorry, the most emissions efficient out of any in the world.

00:35:06But what we're noticing as well is what's happening to our waterways,

00:35:10what's happening to that footprint of greenhouse gas emissions coming out of the sector.

00:35:16I was asked to email them again with the same information

00:35:20and realised that to get some honesty I had to find farmers to talk with instead.

00:35:25I was surprised with what I found out about life on the farm.

00:35:31The family's been farming here for 95 odd years

00:35:34and we've always dairy farmed here.

00:35:37I was born here and I'll probably die here.

00:35:41Hopefully. Not too soon.

00:35:44We work seven days a week.

00:35:46We're up at 3.34 in the morning,

00:35:49home by six o'clock maybe at night, worse in the spring.

00:35:52Lucky if you get a bit of breakfast in the morning some days, you know, it's full on.

00:35:57And with all the other, you know, everything coming at you from all sides,

00:36:06the motivation to be continuing to dairy farm is gone.

00:36:12If people aren't appreciative of what you're doing,

00:36:16then that motivation disappears pretty quick.

00:36:18And then you don't see a vat full of milk to feed people.

00:36:22You see a vat full of money.

00:36:26Now talk about sustainability.

00:36:29No one considers the sustainability to the farmers.

00:36:35The sustainability of human life.

00:36:43Because the farmer, it's not sustainable if farmers are all hanging themselves,

00:36:47if they're on the centre.

00:36:48Or sort of letting their farm go to rack and ruin because they just have lost the plot and don't

00:36:56care anymore.

00:36:56And that's happening. It's a reality. I know it's happening.

00:37:00And that's got to be a crucial part of sustainability.

00:37:04And that's why I feel if dairy is getting too much for people,

00:37:09then perhaps dairy is not the game you should be in.

00:37:22Another farmer was willing to talk about his experience with the bacterial disease Mycoplasma bovis.

00:37:28The Ministry for Primary Industries is attempting to eradicate it at any cost.

00:37:34If MPI finds one of your animals with the disease of Mycoplasma bovis,

00:37:40they kill everything. Everything.

00:37:42I've had 34 years in this industry and I go during the middle of the night to check on my

00:37:48cows

00:37:48to make sure the birth process is going right.

00:37:51And if the calf is not well, you get it inside and nurture it.

00:37:55And then all of a sudden, he's being told you have to kill these calves.

00:38:00And that, I think, was particularly afterwards.

00:38:06It was very traumatising.

00:38:10I'm still not over it, actually.

00:38:13So how many days did this take, you killing the calves?

00:38:16Probably 80, 90 days.

00:38:19How many calves do you think you're killing per day?

00:38:22Some days it might be one, some days it might be six, seven.

00:38:26We had another farm as well affected by Mycoplasma bovis.

00:38:30And the farm manager there, he had to kill the calves on the farm there.

00:38:33And he was calving more cows than I was.

00:38:37Couldn't hack it anymore in the end.

00:38:39And he tried to commit suicide.

00:38:42And my son, my son found him and got him out.

00:38:49And now he's left New Zealand, he's gone.

00:38:52A 23-year-old fucked his life with this.

00:39:08Email from Fonterra.

00:39:11Morning, Chris.

00:39:12Thanks for the opportunity again to be part of your video.

00:39:15We currently have other opportunities for our sustainability program

00:39:18and have decided that we won't be participating in your documentary.

00:39:24Surely, if sustainability is important for Fonterra,

00:39:27then they can make time for a short interview with us about sustainability.

00:39:34I decided to give up trying to get answers from them.

00:39:37Since they'd refused to talk, I'd have to keep finding people who would.

00:39:41There seemed to be a lot in the media about regenerative agriculture

00:39:45being the climate change solution everyone's hoping for,

00:39:48and how healthy soil can actually store carbon.

00:39:52Carbon sequestration in the soil is a really valuable, easy, cheap, you know,

00:39:59immediate tool that we can start employing in greenhouse gas emissions.

00:40:04Farmers are not only on the front lines of change,

00:40:07but they also represent our best opportunity to combat things like climate change.

00:40:12They're the heroes of the story.

00:40:13That sounded impressive,

00:40:15but then I found a major international report that disagrees.

00:40:18It shows that any carbon sequestration from grazing cows

00:40:22is substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions they generate.

00:40:28It turns out that selling that idea as a climate change solution

00:40:31is just serving up false hope.

00:40:36There are too many cows on this planet,

00:40:38and we can't keep farming them,

00:40:41even if every single one of them is farmed regeneratively.

00:40:44We cannot be having these land uses which are all about producing milk

00:40:47or all about producing meat.

00:40:49We have to diversify into plant-based production.

00:40:52That's what the science is telling us.

00:40:55Even plant-based foods transported from the other side of the world

00:40:58are more carbon efficient than animal products.

00:41:01And I was surprised to see that one kilogram of cheese

00:41:04creates a staggering 21 kilos of emissions,

00:41:08compared with about one kilo of emissions

00:41:10from most vegetables and other plant foods.

00:41:14I also discovered there's a secret ingredient the industry uses

00:41:18that boosts milk production, causing even more devastation.

00:41:24Fonterra is selling New Zealand's milk as grass-fed,

00:41:29seeming to forget that we're actually importing

00:41:322.5 million tonnes of palm kernel to feed those cows.

00:41:37Fonterra's key supplier of PKE is linked to ongoing deforestation

00:41:42of tropical rainforest and human rights abuses.

00:41:45It's massively destroying habitat for endangered species like the orangutan.

00:41:51We are farming so many cows in New Zealand

00:41:54that we've completely surpassed any kind of environmental limits here.

00:41:58We're actually cutting down forests in Indonesia

00:41:59to feed a bloated dairy herd that is trashing our environment here,

00:42:04but also indebting dairy farmers,

00:42:07who are holding around collectively $38 billion worth of debt.

00:42:12This industry is not working for anyone.

00:42:16It didn't make sense how farmers could be in so much debt.

00:42:20Why had this happened?

00:42:22And was Fonterra also in financial trouble?

00:42:25In the last 20 years, farmers have borrowed over $30 billion extra.

00:42:31Dairy debt has gone up from, in 2000, it was about $10 billion,

00:42:37it's now $40 billion.

00:42:40That's a 400% increase in debt.

00:42:45We now have so many people in New Zealand struggling under so much debt,

00:42:50irresponsible debt that was given out just because the dairy industry has so much clout,

00:42:55and they're now in a financial position that they don't know where to go.

00:42:58Because how do you get out from millions of dollars of debt?

00:43:03Definitely that was a direction Fonterra went in a few years ago,

00:43:07when they were pushing for volume.

00:43:09That wasn't to everyone's agreement, definitely.

00:43:15And looking back, it's like,

00:43:17wow, we were derped?

00:43:19How did they pull that one over our money-wise?

00:43:23We know that it's not economically problematic for dairy farmers to reduce stocking rates.

00:43:30But for Fonterra, the opposite is true.

00:43:34They have built a lot of milk dehydrators around the country

00:43:38that require a large volume of milk.

00:43:43So what works financially for the fancy Fonterra HQ in Banshaw Street Auckland

00:43:49does not necessarily work for New Zealand's dairy farmers.

00:43:53When I was working for government, I got an incredibly detailed insight into Fonterra,

00:43:59deep down into the bowels of the company.

00:44:01The Fonterra dream is over.

00:44:03It's long since gone.

00:44:05The conversation for today is, will Fonterra even survive?

00:44:09Because its numbers are that bad.

00:44:10If some really smart person in a white coat comes up with a dairy alternative,

00:44:17but is a quarter the cost and doesn't have the environmental impact,

00:44:21then I'm sorry dairy, you're toast.

00:44:26I couldn't believe that our dairy industry could be that fragile.

00:44:30Isn't it meant to be the backbone of our economy?

00:44:33Could a cheaper and more sustainable dairy alternative really wipe it out completely?

00:44:40And I had to wonder why we're still using so much land for dairy when we could get more profit

00:44:45from growing plants instead.

00:44:48A government funded report shows that Aotearoa has a huge amount of land suitable for growing crops,

00:44:53and potential for $80 billion from plant-based crops compared with only $28 billion from animal agriculture.

00:45:04I met with the dairy spokesman for Federated Farmers to find out what he thought about transitioning.

00:45:10Do you think there are some dairy farmers that will stick with dairy no matter what?

00:45:13We all just want to make a dollar, and if it's better returns, bring some alternative foods, show us some

00:45:19money.

00:45:20I think some farmers would be quite happy to hang up their apron and grow crops if that was a

00:45:24better return on investment.

00:45:26I don't mind changing.

00:45:28If I can provide a better future for my family, I'll change.

00:45:32I'll stop walking those cows, and I'll jump ship.

00:45:34It's quite simple really, isn't it?

00:45:38But it might already be too late for some farmers to take up new opportunities.

00:45:44One research project looked into using dairy land to make oat milk,

00:45:48which uses 13 times less water, 11 times less land, and creates 3.5 times less carbon emissions than cow's

00:45:57milk.

00:45:58It was way more protein per hectare, way more energy efficient.

00:46:03Everything that you could measure was so much more efficient without the cows.

00:46:08It was a fantastic example of where you would be much better off not having the animals there,

00:46:14and you could make this really good product.

00:46:17The thing that you need to make plant-based milk, of course, is nice clean water.

00:46:21And when they started looking at the groundwater in the vicinity,

00:46:24in some of those bores, there was five or six times the World Health Organization limit for nitrate in that

00:46:30water.

00:46:31So you just wouldn't be able to make the milk out of it.

00:46:33It's just a classic example of, here's a good option of how we could do it better,

00:46:37but we've already shut the gate on that option because we've already polluted the water past the limits where you

00:46:42could use it.

00:46:44So we have current farming models that are potentially harming our future.

00:46:49Yep.

00:46:50When you pollute the water and you pollute the soil, it really limits your options for the future.

00:46:56If the true costs were being paid, then we wouldn't be doing dairy in this country.

00:47:02An example of this cost is Aotearoa taxpayers giving dairy farmers $130 million not to farm in the Taupo and

00:47:11Rotorua Lake areas to reduce the water contamination from nitrates.

00:47:15If we paid all our dairy farmers to stop polluting water, that would cost over $20 billion.

00:47:22As a business person, and you had to pay that, you would go, right, we stopped doing it, you know,

00:47:27because there's no money in this.

00:47:28It's going to cost us to do it.

00:47:29It's only because the cost is being passed on to the rest of us.

00:47:34This is an industry making profits off of the destruction of our environment and it is us, everyday New Zealanders,

00:47:40who are going to and are already paying the price for that.

00:47:43And there are very powerful companies that want to keep it that way despite the costs to New Zealand.

00:47:52I did some more investigating and found out even the country's nutrition guidelines are influenced by the dairy industry.

00:47:59Consultation with key stakeholders meant that Fonterra had a say.

00:48:03And three out of the four issues they raised were changed, including the removal of milk alternatives.

00:48:11I'd heard some strong reactions to dairy alternatives from industry representatives and politicians also, trying to stop any possible threat.

00:48:20This notion that veganism and almond powder or something akin to that is going to replace genuine red meat, genuine

00:48:30dairy milk, it needs to be stopped in its tracks.

00:48:32We should not tolerate, we should not acquiesce for one inch of the political journey with these people who are

00:48:39continuing to stigmatise and demonise our legacy industry.

00:48:42If it's not a milk, if it's a nut juice or something else, just call it for what it is

00:48:46and create your own brand and create your own marketing strategy and leverage off that. Don't leverage off the dairy

00:48:51industry.

00:48:53Then a well-respected magazine came out with this on the cover.

00:48:59After reading about all the so-called benefits of meat and dairy, I looked online and found that the featured

00:49:04scientists were from the Ridditt Institute, which has close ties with meat and dairy companies, including Fonterra.

00:49:13What's it going to take to change these organisations?

00:49:16Probably one thing is not to be funded by dairy.

00:49:19A lot of people who put out studies, and it's been shown very well, get funded by dairy sources, whether

00:49:27it's overtly or whether you have to dig around.

00:49:29So a huge amount of money that comes into universities is from the industry.

00:49:34And so you start speaking up against the industry and your options start to close down really, really quickly.

00:49:42Who do you believe in an argument?

00:49:44As you follow the money.

00:49:48Especially in New Zealand, the farming industry, you know, you seem to be almost unpatriotic if you're not supporting it

00:49:53by having lots of dairy and lots of meat.

00:49:55You've got an industry that has been incredibly powerful for an incredibly long time.

00:50:03And it's deeply entrenched.

00:50:06Now, once you realise in New Zealand that five million cows are a lot more important than five million people,

00:50:13then everything else in New Zealand politics suddenly makes a lot of sense.

00:50:18Because the cows are more important than we are.

00:50:22Some people who are really heavily invested in status quo, you're threatening their income, and so they will be very

00:50:29angry.

00:50:31If somebody's speaking up and pointing out the harm that you're doing, you try to shoot them down.

00:50:38An animal rights group found this out firsthand when they took out an ad in an international newspaper highlighting cruelty

00:50:44on New Zealand dairy farms.

00:50:46When we placed an ad in The Guardian, we got a lot of abuse, we got a lot of threats,

00:50:51a lot of death threats.

00:50:52I've had death threats right throughout my 30 years working for animals.

00:50:56But this was bad. This was seriously bad.

00:51:01This industry's power scared me.

00:51:04And I wasn't alone.

00:51:06Many people I'd talked with had been too frightened to even speak on camera.

00:51:11I'd already been warned about the backlash against me after making a film that exposes these issues.

00:51:16Death threats happen.

00:51:18People will make serious threats and allegations against you because they're seeing their livelihood being threatened and so they see

00:51:26you as a threat.

00:51:27I want you all to be aware, like, this is the reality of this. Like, you guys are going up

00:51:32against the biggest company and then the biggest industry in the entire country.

00:51:37That being said, it absolutely needs to be done.

00:51:41The fear of reprisal can't outweigh the fear of not acting, right? Like, not speaking up, not showing this truth

00:51:48is the real danger.

00:51:51They're destroying the planet. They're killing these animals. And people, people are dying. People are literally dying because of this.

00:51:58And it's all for the sake of making money.

00:52:03I never considered that my life could be threatened by exposing this industry.

00:52:07But I realized that revealing the truth could also have a powerful impact and help create the change I want

00:52:13so badly to see.

00:52:15I decided that I had to continue with the film, no matter what the outcome.

00:52:27The industry claim that dairy is essential for us was starting to sound a bit desperate to me.

00:52:32Along with their recent strategy of targeting the Asian market.

00:52:36With population growth and rising incomes in these countries, it's an obvious business choice.

00:52:42People all around the world are actively seeking products that they know they can trust to feed their families.

00:52:49And today, our world-class dairy products are available in over 140 countries around the world.

00:52:56We're dedicated to sharing this goodness with the world.

00:53:02People are being told that they need lots and lots of dairy.

00:53:06There are a lot of populations around the world where dairy wasn't a part of their cultural diet.

00:53:12If you look at Asia, which is actually where we're trying to market this stuff,

00:53:15which is just bizarre because lactose intolerance rates are almost 100% in many parts of Asia,

00:53:21so we're not doing them any favours.

00:53:24So, exporting dairy to Southeast Asia, it's a business decision.

00:53:28But at the same time, you're exporting your diseases offshore in return for money.

00:53:33You can already see this happening, like diabetes rates in India and China have just gone through the roof

00:53:38as they start adopting a more Western type of diet, and dairy is a big part of that.

00:53:41Everywhere in the world that this European diet is forced on people,

00:53:45people go from the healthiest to then the sickest.

00:53:47It's easy to push these white lies, and that's all this industry is doing.

00:53:50It's like they're pushing just outright racist lies.

00:53:54We're excited and we're proud to be able to make this connection between the way we at Fonterra create world

00:54:01-class milk

00:54:01and the products our dairy shows up in to nourish people around the world.

00:54:07It's quite a difficult situation for New Zealand to turn that sort of spotlight on itself or whatever

00:54:13and say, actually, maybe what we're producing here isn't actually very healthy for people,

00:54:18and maybe we're not doing the right thing by producing this and marketing it to the rest of the world.

00:54:23How far do you go with justifying what you do because there's a profit in it?

00:54:27I hear the classic, we're feeding the world story.

00:54:31I think the reality is much more that people would be better off if we didn't provide it.

00:54:36Just because there's a market for something doesn't make it right.

00:54:40To go towards meeting this increased global demand for dairy, Fonterra have predicted a 40% increase in milk production

00:54:47in the 10 years from 2015 to 2025.

00:54:51With the environment already struggling, how could this increase possibly be sustainable?

00:54:56And what about the cows?

00:54:58From what I'd seen, they were already being pushed to their limits,

00:55:01having been selectively bred to produce more than double the amount of milk they would naturally produce.

00:55:07Dairy cows are usually worn out after about five years, then sent to the slaughterhouse to be killed and turned

00:55:13into hamburger mints.

00:55:15I was curious to see what the people who produce ethical dairy products think of this not-so-happy ending.

00:55:23Your brand is kind of centered around this compassion for these animals, happy cows.

00:55:29There seems to be a bit of an obstacle for you. These cows are going to be eventually sent to

00:55:34slaughter.

00:55:35How do you deal with that? How do you communicate that with the consumer?

00:55:38Yeah, well, I mean, that's true. And it's animal agriculture. We should try and extend their life as much as

00:55:44possible,

00:55:45without profit always being the core driver, I suppose. But then again, she will, she will die.

00:55:52Hmm. That's what we say.

00:56:18That's what we say.

00:56:22You've just got to do the time on the road.

00:56:26Most people drive past paddocks just like this, and they just see cows eating grass, and they think that that's

00:56:32all there is to it.

00:56:33But when you think about the fact that they're artificially inseminated, the fact that they are then pregnant and being

00:56:39milked for nine months,

00:56:40and then they have a baby that's taken away from them every year, I think a lot of people don't

00:56:45know that that happens.

00:56:50Do you get any negative backlash from the public or from the farmers?

00:56:54We're pretty careful. Like, if we get down a road and we feel unsafe, and we see kind of any

00:56:59movement, we'll just leave.

00:57:00We've had too many close calls to take risks like that. We don't like feeling trapped down dead-end roads.

00:57:07Are you able to just pull over for a minute?

00:57:14Any cows that are going to go to slaughter will be placed in that crate, picked up by a truck,

00:57:19and then taken to the slaughterhouse.

00:57:22Carrow, huh? Someone behind us too.

00:57:28Just on the road.

00:57:34Since you started in 2014, have things become harder to document?

00:57:39You drive through today and you see almost nothing. It's all hidden now. It's all off the road.

00:57:43So it's definitely harder. Once you've exposed an industry, they definitely will try and hide it.

00:57:47without you.

00:58:14Yeah, we're all good.

00:58:15Thanks, honey.

00:58:16Okay.

00:58:32Oh, there's a big cow straight ahead of us.

00:58:34Big cow?

00:58:35Oh, fuck me.

00:58:36Oh, fuck.

00:59:01This particular cow has a calf half out of her, so she's clearly died giving birth.

00:59:07And then just been thrown on this pile of dead bodies.

00:59:24So I'm pretty sure on the left it's calf skins.

00:59:27And those are skinned calves.

00:59:36There's a person there.

00:59:38Okay.

00:59:39We're going to have to, I guess, cut them towards us.

00:59:49When we do investigations that require hidden camera placements and going out at night,

00:59:55I mean, it's utterly terrifying.

00:59:57It's work that nobody should have to do.

01:00:02And the more you look, the more awful shit you see.

01:00:06And you can't really ever unsee a lot of that stuff.

01:00:13We've seen just so much death and suffering out in dairy country.

01:00:17It always makes me laugh when I see Fonterra for life or dairy for life because this industry

01:00:23to me is just full of death and suffering.

01:00:25It's an industry based on death.

01:00:36I was sickened by what I had seen.

01:00:39My experience with FarmWatch made me realise how most people have no chance to see what really happens

01:00:45behind the industry's marketing machine.

01:00:48Well, initially you believe that you're going to have all the fields around you, the animals,

01:00:55you've got all these sort of visions in your head of what you see on the ads.

01:01:00But the difference between actually seeing it and doing it is night and day.

01:01:05Night and day, that's when it really, truly hits you what's going on.

01:01:10That it's not just lush fields and happy cows.

01:01:14We just have to make sure that what we do is the right thing and not be trying to hide

01:01:19anything.

01:01:20The industry is there to make money as much as possible.

01:01:24And basically hide the truth from people.

01:01:27They do not want you to know the full picture.

01:01:29And their job really is to sweep the dark side under the rug.

01:01:34It is very, very secretive.

01:01:36If the animal experimentation industry wasn't so well hidden and people could actually see the research and tests that cows

01:01:43are used in,

01:01:44they'd know that it's not natural.

01:01:46If people who go and buy their natural milk from the supermarket saw a fistulated cow that looks more like

01:01:52a Frankenstein animal

01:01:54than a natural cow running about in a field like they probably imagine,

01:01:57it would be pretty clear to them that there's not a lot natural about the dairy industry.

01:02:02And it's ridiculous really that we have to rely on volunteers to basically show what's going on on the farms.

01:02:10And what they show that goes on the farm is just not like, you know, the Fonterra open days on

01:02:14the farm, of course,

01:02:15where you can have a look and pet a little calf.

01:02:18Now, that actually shows what's going on on the farm.

01:02:26Farmers are just trying to get through their day the best way that they can, and they're exhausted.

01:02:33And you're also in a place where no one's watching.

01:02:35So it's rife for abuse.

01:02:40Whenever activists put cameras out there, they record deliberate inflection of suffering on animals.

01:02:49It's much more convenient for them if they believe that the animals just because they're bred for food,

01:02:55they're just things and they don't have these emotions.

01:02:58And of course, it's completely untrue.

01:03:10My first morning in the calf pens, I stood there and there were all these tiny babies,

01:03:17lots of them still with bloody navels, some of them still had afterbirth on them,

01:03:21that were calling out for their mums, basically.

01:03:26And it hit me like a force field that this is what it took to get that milk.

01:03:44They bellow and they cry. They cry for their mums, mums cry for their babies.

01:03:49It became quite clear that you were listening to pain.

01:03:53And so you can't really forget that once you know that.

01:04:01And it then forces you as a farmer, I think, to say,

01:04:07right, well, what is the greater good that that pain's delivering to?

01:04:14I don't really want to get into the bobby calf thing if that's all right.

01:04:20Back in the day, they used to pay one bob for them because they were considered so worthless.

01:04:25Now we have around two million a year that are considered bobbies.

01:04:30We're slaughtering two million newborns over eight weeks.

01:04:35If you talk to many dairy farmers, they will say they will struggle with this whole bobby calf issue,

01:04:41taking these calves away from their mothers, they struggle with that themselves.

01:04:47So we're really kind to our bobby calves.

01:04:50Bullshit.

01:04:52You know where those calves are going?

01:04:55There are a lot of things that I questioned when I was farming

01:04:58and I was just sort of told that's the way it has to be.

01:05:02It has to be this way because of production, because, you know, the industry needs milk,

01:05:06the people need this. This is our job.

01:05:08What we are doing is necessary.

01:05:10It's just generations and generations and generations of conditioning.

01:05:15You have to desensitise yourself to it.

01:05:18If you don't, you may end up a shivering wreck and unable to continue.

01:05:25Just because there's pain and suffering built into a system doesn't mean that the system's bad or wrong or evil.

01:05:33So I am not afraid as an agricultural storyteller of talking about things like institutionalised animal cruelty

01:05:43because it makes it real and, you know, I don't know where I'm going with this.

01:05:53No, I think I won't leave it there.

01:05:58I just couldn't understand how all this could be happening for a product that we don't even need.

01:06:03And why we're still putting so much into propping up the industry instead of transitioning out of it.

01:06:10Could the power of the dairy industry be the only thing that's stopping any positive change?

01:06:16We know what the problems are and we're just dancing around the solution.

01:06:21So rather than cutting it off at the source and moving away from animal agriculture,

01:06:25what we're doing is we're trying to reduce the negative impact on the environment.

01:06:30It's just a desperate attempt at trying to keep that industry alive.

01:06:34If you are doing something that's stupid and you then actually apply a silver bullet,

01:06:41you know, you're trying to continue the stupid.

01:06:45All we're going to do by these techno fixes to dairy,

01:06:50so, oh, put them in a barn or give them methane vaccine or change their feed,

01:06:54that's just shifting environmental problems around.

01:06:58The best way to reduce the number of animals is for more people to go to a plant-based diet.

01:07:05What New Zealand and other countries can do is to reduce our demand on milk and dairy products.

01:07:14And the farmers, of course, will rise up in arms because it's their livelihood.

01:07:20And so if you're going to say, okay, no more, you can't keep cows anymore,

01:07:25there must be an alternative for those farmers because you've taken away their livelihood.

01:07:33One of those alternatives could be growing hemp.

01:07:36Larry's Gold Hemp products are made by a family who are trying to find their way out of the dairy

01:07:41industry.

01:07:43So you're a fourth generation dairy farmer and you're considering getting out of the business. Why is that?

01:07:48It just seems a bit crazy growing plant protein to feed animals to produce protein.

01:07:54So much less protein is produced per hectare of animal protein, so, you know, we've got a world to feed.

01:08:00There's so many starving people. It's just a step in the right direction.

01:08:04We have to farm at the moment, you know, just for income and it's hard just to switch over with

01:08:09a lot of debt and stuff.

01:08:11We need some change. It has to be done the right way and phase it out, I guess.

01:08:18Potential to grow really good hemp around this area. I think most in New Zealand, to be honest.

01:08:23Pretty hardy plant.

01:08:25And how likely is it for you guys that that's going to become something financially viable?

01:08:29I think we can do it. We need to have a better industry set up in New Zealand.

01:08:35It's pretty hard for guys like us because there's nothing around here either.

01:08:39You know, pretty much everything's dairy farming. That's all people know, you know.

01:08:43The governing body that is responsible for enabling the hemp industry are somewhat disabling it.

01:08:49I guess the plant needs to be unlocked.

01:08:52There seem to be other options out there for farmers, so why wasn't that change happening more?

01:08:57And why doesn't the hemp industry have more government support?

01:09:02We're really just scratching the surface of what hemp can do.

01:09:06Future food uses, future plastic uses, construction uses and hemp itself sucks up a hell of a lot of nitrogen.

01:09:13It grows extremely fast and consumes four times more CO2 than pine does.

01:09:17If the government enabled us to use the carbon credits from hemp on the emissions trading scheme,

01:09:23the economics of hemp would be unbelievably good.

01:09:27But central government haven't been supportive enough, I don't feel,

01:09:32for an industry that can solve so many of the systemic problems that they're trying to undertake.

01:09:37I think hemp provides a wonderful solution to many of those.

01:09:42Farmers want to make a change and that's what we're trying to do hugely,

01:09:47is enable this industry and get it moving off the ground and make it economically viable.

01:09:52Once that happens, then farmers will have a very easy decision to make.

01:09:59But the global demand for dairy is still rising.

01:10:02Even with all the plant-based alternatives available,

01:10:05it's clear that most people around the world are still buying into dairy industry marketing.

01:10:11Then I discovered that change might happen in a totally unexpected way.

01:10:15A major international report from RethinkX predicts that making real dairy without cows

01:10:22will wipe out the global dairy industry by 2030.

01:10:26Once it's cheaper than dairy from cows,

01:10:29big companies like Nestle could switch their milk powder supply to the animal-free version.

01:10:34And our milk powder exports could be doomed.

01:10:40RethinkX are saying in the US dairy industry something like a 90% reduction in their cow numbers within a

01:10:47decade.

01:10:49How realistic do you think that report is and how worried should New Zealand farmers be

01:10:53in terms of them having a sustainable career?

01:10:56I think they should be really worried.

01:10:58I think the last thing the dairy industry should be worried about

01:11:00is a 10% greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

01:11:04I think they've got to worry about will they even be around in 2030.

01:11:09We're going to see the most consequential shift in food production systems

01:11:14that we've ever seen in the past 10,000 years.

01:11:17Cow as a technology will become redundant.

01:11:21This new technology is exponentially more efficient

01:11:25and that means that we're seeing a huge, incredible shift.

01:11:30The biggest one in humankind in the way food will be produced.

01:11:34I went on the RethinkX website and saw that this animal-free dairy is made by microbes instead of mammary

01:11:41glands.

01:11:41These microbes are instructed to produce dairy proteins.

01:11:45They go into a fermentation tank along with feedstock

01:11:48and when it's finished fermenting, the microbes are filtered out,

01:11:52leaving real dairy protein that's identical to what's found in cow's milk.

01:11:59It's also made with 5% of the resources, 1% of the waste and 0% of the cows.

01:12:08And because it's real dairy, it tastes exactly like what we're used to.

01:12:12But it does come with some of the health risks that animal proteins are linked with.

01:12:19As I was looking into this coming agricultural disruption, COVID took over the world.

01:12:26In lockdown, I read about the spread of zoonotic diseases,

01:12:29those that jump from animals to humans, like COVID-19.

01:12:34It turns out that many devastating diseases have come from animals, including Ebola, SARS, HIV and measles,

01:12:43which originally spread from cattle to humans.

01:12:48I was alarmed to see that the increased demand for animal protein is the number one risk factor for the

01:12:54emergence of zoonotic diseases.

01:12:56Now seemed like a good time to talk with people who could tell me more about dairy 2.0.

01:13:02Milk made without cows.

01:13:05As soon as you remove cows from the equation, the business of dairy becomes much, much easier and much, much

01:13:13more profitable.

01:13:14The milk created without cows would completely blow the traditional industry out of the water.

01:13:21Fermentation, the way that you produce beer, is going to be the way that you produce proteins.

01:13:28Essentially, it's going to be 10 times cheaper than animal protein.

01:13:34Cows cannot possibly compete with this.

01:13:37And the same fate is going to happen with all livestock.

01:13:43Pigs, chicken, sheep.

01:13:46First, cows, because they are the most inefficient food production system on the planet.

01:13:53The cow produces 96% waste.

01:13:58Of everything that it consumes, 96% is waste.

01:14:02So essentially, you're building up this cow for two or three years and you need all this land and all

01:14:08this energy and all this water.

01:14:10And 88% of that milk is water with no economic value.

01:14:16There are companies already making casein and whey here in Silicon Valley and around the world,

01:14:23directly with precision fermentation and selling it to cheesemakers.

01:14:28I have eaten cheese from a Kiwi company that is making precision fermentation cheese here in San Francisco.

01:14:37When did you start New Culture and what's it all about?

01:14:41So I started New Culture in early 2018.

01:14:45What New Culture does is we make cow cheese without the cow.

01:14:49That's animal free, that's sustainable, and that's indistinguishable from the dairy cheese everyone loves.

01:14:56And what's actually very interesting is that this process of making an animal protein without the animal is already used

01:15:05in the dairy cheese industry.

01:15:07And now over 90% of dairy cheeses today are made using this animal enzyme that's made without the animal.

01:15:15It is tough to be a Kiwi looking to disrupt the New Zealand economy in this way.

01:15:20But with the way the world is going, we need to change and we need to be proactive about that.

01:15:27New Zealand's dairy exports could be wiped out without a single consumer changing their behavior from animal proteins to precision

01:15:38fermentation proteins.

01:15:40This is all a business-to-business disruption.

01:15:43When is that going to happen?

01:15:46The technology cost curve will determine that.

01:15:49The market will determine that.

01:15:50But there's no doubt that it's going to happen.

01:15:55I realised that this disruption is already happening, with investment and fermentation companies at the highest level ever.

01:16:02Over $435 million invested in just the first half of 2020.

01:16:08Why wasn't everyone talking about the end of the cash cow instead of saying there's no threat?

01:16:15Disruptions usually happen quickly and wipe out the existing system.

01:16:21Think of a forest fire.

01:16:23When the forest is tender ready, just a little spark and the whole forest goes.

01:16:30It's what I call market trauma.

01:16:32If you think your cash flows are going to drop by 90% over the next 10 years,

01:16:39then that is going to be reflected in your stock today.

01:16:43Not in 10 years, but today.

01:16:47Do you think New Zealand should be worried about these disruptive industries?

01:16:52We're looking for a premium and we have to produce better products, better quality products,

01:16:57convince consumers that they want the best nutrition,

01:17:00and then we can remain viable as a farming country.

01:17:04The old chestnut of where there will always be a market for premium products is just so cemented into the

01:17:11psyche of our leaders.

01:17:13The dairy industry, no matter how quickly they pivot, it's more like they're just shuffling the chairs on the Titanic.

01:17:21We need a new boat, animal free.

01:17:24When you have old, largely pale male style leaders, then to get that new dialogue coming through,

01:17:32it's almost like pushing shit uphill.

01:17:34They're trying to slow down change.

01:17:37And because of that, they're constantly staying on the wrong side of history.

01:17:43What does that mean for dairy companies?

01:17:46What does that mean for the dairy community?

01:17:47What does that mean for New Zealand's communities at large?

01:17:49This is beyond Fonterra. This is our livelihood.

01:17:54And those are the sort of questions that the government really needs to be thinking about.

01:17:59And I think that's just too scary for them. It's just way too scary.

01:18:03I'm trying to wake New Zealand up to the fact that there is an urgency.

01:18:08The scientists get there long before other people get there.

01:18:12Lots of people have talked about pandemics, including myself, for years.

01:18:15And everybody ignored us there too.

01:18:18It's happened with the pandemic. It's happened with climate change.

01:18:24This is not about only destruction.

01:18:27This is also a massive opportunity.

01:18:30I mean, I see the precision fermentation industry as an emerging trillion dollar industry.

01:18:38I don't think we're at all prepared for a massive change of this type.

01:18:43And I don't say that to be alarmist, more to be realistic.

01:18:48I would like to see more of our smarts being packaged up into intellectual property,

01:18:53rather than selling carcasses or bags of dehydrated powders.

01:18:59New Zealand better prepare for this disruption, as in now, as in the COVID disruption.

01:19:06Those who were prepared, and those who acted decisively,

01:19:12are the ones who are going to come out on top more quickly.

01:19:18I was blown away by everything I'd learnt, and the fact that the government still seems to be in denial

01:19:23about it.

01:19:24That means we're not preparing, and neither are other countries.

01:19:29It was clear to me that we're in big trouble if we don't take this seriously and make urgent changes.

01:19:35It turns out that Aotearoa New Zealand, the US and the EU account for nearly half of all global dairy

01:19:42production.

01:19:43And these governments are also in the best position to help farmers transition out of dairy,

01:19:48saving our economy and our environment.

01:19:51We need to support our farming communities to transition.

01:19:55I think it is unfair for decades to have encouraged them to go into intensive dairy,

01:20:00and then expect them to somehow tomorrow switch.

01:20:04Support people to actually, you know, change.

01:20:09We are all products of where we've come from, and the life we're born into.

01:20:15But we don't have to continue this way, you know.

01:20:19You know, and we want to live here, so clearly living means not dairy farming,

01:20:23because dairy farming is not really living.

01:20:26I think we've just stumbled onto this fantastic crop for our region.

01:20:30Pumpkins just seem to be a boomer out here, absolutely boomer.

01:20:36We're hoping that pumpkin seeds will wipe the floor with dairy.

01:20:40Well, if it bet dairy farming out return-wise, why would a farmer not do it?

01:20:44I can't imagine why they would be so bloody-minded about milking cows forever.

01:20:52I think I'm coming into a good space now.

01:20:55And it's been the move away from dairy farming, definitely.

01:21:02With the future generations, I think the farm will be in good hands.

01:21:07The land will be in good hands, you know?

01:21:17I'd heard of a dairy farm near Wellington that's making a transition to growing organic vegetables.

01:21:25Cameron Family Farms is owned by filmmaker James Cameron and his wife Susie.

01:21:32We bought our farm in the Huararapa in 2011.

01:21:36We had two dairies within the farm, and one of them being a very successful dairy.

01:21:43Even though I had been in the environmental sector for decades,

01:21:48no one had ever mentioned anything about animal agriculture.

01:21:51They had talked about dead zones, ocean acidification, deforestation, biodiversity loss, et cetera, et cetera.

01:21:59If you put animal agriculture in the middle, you can put all of those things around the outside and they

01:22:04all connect.

01:22:05I didn't know any of this.

01:22:08And in May of 2012, we went plant-based and realized that our dream to have this beautiful organic dairy

01:22:18organization

01:22:19didn't seem like the right way to go.

01:22:21So we closed the dairies down.

01:22:24So now we grow organic veggies.

01:22:28You need less land.

01:22:30You need less water.

01:22:31You need less inputs.

01:22:33It's a much more efficient way of growing food.

01:22:38And most recently, the thing that has come up that should probably be the number one thing on our radar

01:22:45right now is pandemics.

01:22:47So 75 to 80% of all diseases that have been created have been created because of the exploitation of

01:22:55animals.

01:22:56Is this a change that you think other dairy farmers in the area could also take on?

01:23:00One of the things that we noticed very early on was just how quickly New Zealanders can pivot.

01:23:09Plant-based food products are the largest growing sector within the food sector around the world.

01:23:18People have to be able to do it in a way that it's lucrative.

01:23:23It also has to do with being able to look at themselves in the mirror at the end of the

01:23:27day, knowing what it's doing to the land, knowing what it's doing to people's health, knowing what it's doing to

01:23:35the animals.

01:23:36Even if it was healthy to eat animals, there is no way that we can feed humankind by eating animals.

01:23:57No wonder we already have a world hunger issue. It's partly to do with how we're using the land.

01:24:04One acre of land can produce 15 times more protein from plants than the same area of land used for

01:24:11farming animals.

01:24:13We're also using over three quarters of the world's agricultural land for farmed animals and to grow food to feed

01:24:20them.

01:24:21Just imagine more grain today is grown to feed our farm animals than starving people.

01:24:29You know, what we're doing now doesn't make sense.

01:24:33We need a whole new way of thinking.

01:24:39In 2019, world leading scientists from across the globe came together to answer this question.

01:24:46Can we feed a future population of 10 billion people a healthy diet within planetary boundaries?

01:24:53They discovered that without a global shift to a plant-based diet, today's children will inherit a planet that's been

01:25:00severely degraded,

01:25:02and where much of the population will increasingly suffer from malnutrition and preventable disease.

01:25:09From everything I'd learnt, it wasn't just dairy that we needed to move away from consuming.

01:25:14It was all animal products.

01:25:18If everyone ate a plant-based diet, it would free up land area greater than the size of Africa.

01:25:25A lot of the world's farmland could be returned to native species,

01:25:29an effective way of storing carbon and increasing biodiversity at the same time.

01:25:35In New Zealand, going plant-based would reduce our dietary emissions by over 40%,

01:25:41along with saving the healthcare system up to $20 billion over our lifetime.

01:25:47Every time you put plant-based food on your plate,

01:25:51you're doing something good for your health and for the environment and for the animals.

01:25:57It will not matter if we have electric cars,

01:26:00or if we have sustainable clothing to wear,

01:26:03if we don't do something about our environment.

01:26:07And that is a huge piece of it, to be able to shift away from animal agriculture.

01:26:16For me, dairy was a normal part of life growing up in New Zealand.

01:26:20So it's been a disturbing journey coming to understand that milk isn't the wholesome product we're led to believe it

01:26:25is.

01:26:26And that animal agriculture is damaging our future in so many ways.

01:26:33But I have hope for a different future.

01:26:36Instead of continuing down this doomed path,

01:26:38we could grow healthier and more sustainable plant-based food from less land.

01:26:45Rewild the land we gain back.

01:26:47And live ethically with all life on this planet.

01:26:53Companies like Fonterra will have to decide which side of history they want to be on,

01:26:58to keep hiding from the truth, or to work together on solutions.

01:27:06We all each have a responsibility,

01:27:08because every day we live we make some impact on the planet.

01:27:12We have a choice as to what sort of impact we're going to make.

01:27:17And if billions of people make ethical choices every day, even small ones,

01:27:23that's going to lead to change.

01:27:26And eventually the impossible will have become possible, and we'll change the world.

01:27:32To be continued...

01:27:59To be continued...

01:28:01To be continued...

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