Editorial: Mud-slinging countered with icecreams

Mark Dawson, editor of Wanganui Chronicle

You can hardly have failed to have missed the huge Fonterra public relations campaign on our TV screens and online.

A whole bunch of farming folk have a "we're-salt-of-the-earth-Kiwis" chat; kids whose parents either make cheese or drive milk tankers enjoy an icecream; and even celebrated rugby player Richie McCaw gets in there.

Fonterra has spent a heap of money — on top of chief executive Theo Spierings $8 million pay cheque — letting us know that farmers, particularly dairy, have had a bad rap.
Environmentalists and others have pointed a big finger at the industry that largely sustains the New Zealand economy and given it a good wag.

Polluted waterways is just one of the crimes on the charge sheet for cows and their owners, and it's a hard one to duck.

Clean rivers is clearly a touchstone issue, one which might just have swung the general election the way of a Labour-led coalition, especially as National had presided over nine years of declining freshwater and not been helped by bumbling Nick Smith wading in on its behalf.

But the general opprobrium lumped on farmers is a little unfair. They want — and need — a healthy environment and, alongside earning those export dollars, have done a lot of work to alleviate that "dirty dairying" image.

Dairy NZ has this week also jumped on the PR bandwagon, announcing plans to help clean up rivers.

The crunch is likely to come, though, with the choice of strategy to achieve this desired result.

The environmental lobby cuts to the chase, saying we have to have fewer cows, the national dairy herd having rocketed over the past 20 years. That could be a tough pill for farmes to swallow and may have Fonterra's number-crunchers in a tizzy.

And deciding on the optimum number of cows is a bit like deciding the optimum number of immigrants — it's a moveable feast contingent on guesswork and prejudice.

Expect more cream pies being thrown as the PR battle intensifies.