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New Zealand falls out of love with sheep farming as lucrative pine forests spread
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Yes pretty much. I'm going to caveat that I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that steeper land has nutrient runoff, making the grass poorer quality. Cows making milk need a higher quality of grass than cattle grown for beef, because they are feeding themselves as well as making milk.
Beef cattle are often (if not mostly) run alongside sheep, as the sheep help tidy up the paddocks of the grass and other plants that the cattle won't eat or can't eat down low enough. I believe this is important because it helps break the lifecycle of some parasites that can make the cattle sick but don't hurt the sheep, though again I stress I'm not the expert I just know some people with knowledge or both dairy and sheep/beef.
There's also the whole energy use of cows going up & down hills and hills make it hard for supplemental feed during winter, and more difficult and damaging bringing the cows in & out of the paddocks every day.
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
I'm not a farmer either but it has changed a lot in my lifetime.
Tbh I think we've gone kind of crazy with the amount of nutrients we're putting in and the yields we expect from dairy. The environment can't sustain it forever and it's a strange thing to rely on for export given our location...
When I was a kid dairy farmers would often have about 100 cows. These days I'm not sure you'd find any with less than 1000.
I think it's becoming accepted now that food is becoming less nutritious because of intense farming of single crops. There are starting to be more sustainable farms around the place but they are small scale and often you have to actually go to the farm to buy produce.
I actually think dairy is one that makes sense from an economic point of view. We have a lot of land, so as intense as it feels we're getting it's still nothing compare to other parts of the world.
And one big benefit of dairy over other farming is that you can significantly reduce the weight and volume of milk by turning it into milk powder, which makes it easier to ship around the world.