Aotearoa / New Zealand

I’m not a farmer either but it has changed a lot in my lifetime.

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.

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

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.

and it’s a strange thing to rely on for export given our location…

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.