DairyNZ unhappy with climate change teaching resource

DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle. Photo / Supplied

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A recently released resource from the Ministry of Education has caused a stir with farming groups.

Climate Change: Prepare Today, Live Well Tomorrow is aimed at Level 4 teachers teaching children aged 7-10 and suggests reducing meat and dairy intake to help mitigate climate change.

DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle was concerned with "biased" or "misleading" content about farming being spun as educational.

"In reality it isn't necessarily based on facts, well it certainly doesn't necessarily have a New Zealand context and that's the problem we've probably got with this particular resource".

Mackle was concerned the resource was part of a "growing trend" of misinformation, such as the recent exhibition in Te Papa where fake dirty water was used as a sample from a farm stream.

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There were some good aspects to Climate Change: Prepare Today, Live Well Tomorrow, such as making users think about how a warmer climate would affect New Zealand's biosecurity, but other parts of the resource were "extremely disappointing" said Mackle.

"Like the section that encourages kids to eat less dairy, which I guess we would challenge and there's a lack of context around it".

Much of the resource used information from North America where meat and dairy production was far less efficient said Mackle.

"New Zealand dairy farmers are the most emissions efficient producers of milk in the world".

"I think it really does fall short and I wish all Kiwis knew how good we were at this as context for when they make decisions".