Greenpeace ads 'hugely unfair'

Dairy cows aren't the villains Greenpeace makes them out to be, according to DairyNZ.

New Zealanders are being blatantly misled by Greenpeace on dairying and its environmental footprint, according to DairyNZ chief executive Dr Tim Mackle.

He said the attacks on dairy farmers by Greenpeace amounted to scare-mongering, and unfairly blamed dairying as the single polluter of rivers and drinking water in New Zealand.

He challenged Greenpeace to work with the industry, other rural sectors and urban communities, to take practical steps to improve the state of the country's rivers.

"While we're extremely proud of the game-changing past 10 years on dairy farms, we do know there is more to do. No one is denying that," he said.

"Dairy farmers are on a journey to turn around what has been 150 years in the making as a result of activity that includes deforestation and urbanisation, as well as farming.

"The vast majority of farmers want to leave their rivers and land in a better state than they found them, but only by working together with other agricultural sectors, and our urban cousins, can we achieve the changes that we all desire."

Meanwhile DairyNZ had an obligation, on behalf of its 12,000 dairy farmers, to "call out" Greenpeace.

"We're disappointed that the Advertising Standards Authority did not uphold our complaint about the advert that effectively accuses dairying of being the cause of waterway pollution, without any reference to other sources, many of which have been recently highlighted, but, ironically, not by Greenpeace," he said.

DairyNZ has decided not to appeal, even though we know that the advert is misleading and hugely unfair to the dairy sector.

"The ASA has accorded Greenpeace a greater level of freedom of expression in their advertising than that afforded standard advertising. They do this under their positioning that Greenpeace is an advocacy organisation. We also note that there have been very few successful appeals to the ASA against this form of 'advocacy advertising', where opinion-based messages are presented as fact."

In using dairy as a whipping boy, he added, Greenpeace and like-minded critics showed their lack of knowledge of the current, and publicly available, facts about the various sources of water pollutants and the mitigations dairy farmers had put in place.

"They also undermine the work regional and rural councils have done recently to ensure ongoing dialogue, improvements and enforcement. Greenpeace understands the efforts being made to address these issues ... However, acknowledgement of this doesn't support their narrative when they are out fundraising."