Until a week or so ago induction was little more than that painful half day spent signing health and safety forms each time you started a new job.
Now it is also the practice of inducing dairy cows to give birth before they are ready, which in almost all cases results in the death of the calf.
It's an industrial farming method if ever there was one and reportedly only used by a small percentage of farmers here in New Zealand, most notably Fonterra's top man Sir Henry van der Heyden.
And it has to stop. Now. Today. As soon as we can, for the simple reason that New Zealand survives on its exports and anything that could taint the image of our export products has to stop.
This is hardly an outlandish or even new argument and nor will it be the last time it is used to change all manner of farming practices that may some day be unacceptable.
Forget right or wrong, animal welfare, animal rights or poor farming practices because that is all by the by, all of relatively little importance in this argument. What counts is perception.
If you need proof just go back a few years to when half of the world's most educated country was convinced Saddam Hussein personally planned the September 11 attacks when even a chimp could tell he didn't.
They were fed a lie and gobbled it up with little question because it was something they probably wanted to believe or did not care to question.
So, in a similar but unrelated vein, if consumers in Britain decide they can't stomach milk products from a country where induction is practiced, even if they don't understand what induction is or think to question whether they have their facts right, it is our economic responsibility not to practice it.
Sure, if we were a country with a domestic market slightly bigger than a mid-sized American city we could insulate ourselves against the whims of the outside world and do a little bit more of what we damn well pleased.
But we aren't so like a jellyfish in the grip of the moon we must go where the current, or the mood of a consumer, takes us.
And right now the people of the developed world, and therefore our markets, are more than a little sensitive about the environment and animal welfare.
So doing things that are beneficial to the environment, such as riparian planting, and being mindful of animal welfare, such as stopping induction, is the response of a cool-minded capitalist. It just might be right now that this is the same as the response desired by those thought of as bleeding-heart hanky wringers.
McDonald's did it with its Fairtrade coffee, chook farmers have done it with their free-range eggs and free-range pork producers are all reaping the bottom-line benefits. And, of course, the moral high ground, which is itself a comfortable hill on which to sit.
Any person and farmer can understand this which is probably why, according to DairyNZ, induction has fallen from nine per cent of the national herd in 1998 to 4.6 per cent now.
Though that is a small number, it hides a large one. New Zealand's dairy herd is nearly five million strong, so 4.6 per cent is close to 250,000 cow abortions a year.
That's a big enough number to get upset about and it only takes a small crack for everything to come undone.
Remember what happened when the Poms got all uppity about food miles and it became morally reprehensible to eat our food, despite the fact our kiwifruit had a lower carbon footprint than even their locally grown produce.
When information comes in 10- to 20-second soundbites facts don't always bubble to the surface before the damage is done.
So stop the induction, promote that the practice has been stopped and use it as a marketing tool for the "superiority" of New Zealand's dairy products.
Everyone believes they are the best anyway but that actually makes it more important that our farm practices are perceived to be superior, both in animal and environmental welfare, than any other producer.
And the best way to guarantee the world perceives us to be the best is that we are the best at what is perceived to be right at the time.
If that means induction has to go, kick it for touch now before we find ourselves crying over spilt milk.
- Taranaki Daily News
Now it is also the practice of inducing dairy cows to give birth before they are ready, which in almost all cases results in the death of the calf.
It's an industrial farming method if ever there was one and reportedly only used by a small percentage of farmers here in New Zealand, most notably Fonterra's top man Sir Henry van der Heyden.
And it has to stop. Now. Today. As soon as we can, for the simple reason that New Zealand survives on its exports and anything that could taint the image of our export products has to stop.
This is hardly an outlandish or even new argument and nor will it be the last time it is used to change all manner of farming practices that may some day be unacceptable.
Forget right or wrong, animal welfare, animal rights or poor farming practices because that is all by the by, all of relatively little importance in this argument. What counts is perception.
If you need proof just go back a few years to when half of the world's most educated country was convinced Saddam Hussein personally planned the September 11 attacks when even a chimp could tell he didn't.
They were fed a lie and gobbled it up with little question because it was something they probably wanted to believe or did not care to question.
So, in a similar but unrelated vein, if consumers in Britain decide they can't stomach milk products from a country where induction is practiced, even if they don't understand what induction is or think to question whether they have their facts right, it is our economic responsibility not to practice it.
Sure, if we were a country with a domestic market slightly bigger than a mid-sized American city we could insulate ourselves against the whims of the outside world and do a little bit more of what we damn well pleased.
But we aren't so like a jellyfish in the grip of the moon we must go where the current, or the mood of a consumer, takes us.
And right now the people of the developed world, and therefore our markets, are more than a little sensitive about the environment and animal welfare.
So doing things that are beneficial to the environment, such as riparian planting, and being mindful of animal welfare, such as stopping induction, is the response of a cool-minded capitalist. It just might be right now that this is the same as the response desired by those thought of as bleeding-heart hanky wringers.
McDonald's did it with its Fairtrade coffee, chook farmers have done it with their free-range eggs and free-range pork producers are all reaping the bottom-line benefits. And, of course, the moral high ground, which is itself a comfortable hill on which to sit.
Any person and farmer can understand this which is probably why, according to DairyNZ, induction has fallen from nine per cent of the national herd in 1998 to 4.6 per cent now.
Though that is a small number, it hides a large one. New Zealand's dairy herd is nearly five million strong, so 4.6 per cent is close to 250,000 cow abortions a year.
That's a big enough number to get upset about and it only takes a small crack for everything to come undone.
Remember what happened when the Poms got all uppity about food miles and it became morally reprehensible to eat our food, despite the fact our kiwifruit had a lower carbon footprint than even their locally grown produce.
When information comes in 10- to 20-second soundbites facts don't always bubble to the surface before the damage is done.
So stop the induction, promote that the practice has been stopped and use it as a marketing tool for the "superiority" of New Zealand's dairy products.
Everyone believes they are the best anyway but that actually makes it more important that our farm practices are perceived to be superior, both in animal and environmental welfare, than any other producer.
And the best way to guarantee the world perceives us to be the best is that we are the best at what is perceived to be right at the time.
If that means induction has to go, kick it for touch now before we find ourselves crying over spilt milk.
- Taranaki Daily News
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