Industrialised dairying is a hideous practice in animal welfare terms, as well as about as insane as it's possible to imagine on thin alluvial soils like those that overlie the Canterbury plains and the Amuri Basin.
The early settlers learned the consequences of removing the remaining native bush on the plains as when the vegetation dried / was burned off, the hot, dry foehn wind blew top soil away. To stop that, they planted extensive exotic shelter belts (many of which are now an ecological problem and fire hazard) but they protected the soil and gave animals shade and shelter.
To enable the central pivots, on which industrialised dairying on these soils relies, a new generation of myopic, mendacious business people calling themselves "farmers" cut down the shelter belts with no thought for what happens when (not if) the artificial irrigation and applications of imported nitrate fertilisers stop.
Even less thought was given to the end result of masses of nitrates and faecal coliforms entering aquifers and surface water ways. And as for shade and shelter for animals, the cows are viewed as short-lived, economic units, so who cares?
It's as if, as a nation, New Zealanders are incapable of learning from earlier generations' mistakes and are locked into a cycle of not just repeating earlier mistakes but amplifying them massively.
And...do not get me started on the insanity of industrialised dairying aimed at the export of milk powder as yet another form of unsustainable extractive industry.
It depletes our soils, pollutes our waterways, relies on an unsustainable road network and expensive imported products (fuel, fertiliser, machinery), and it builds up massive long-term social costs from which the people who profit in the sort term will walk away.
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