What if? Asks a new short film from Greenpeace.<\/p>\n
What if the solution for overcoming our freshwater crisis and reducing climate change emissions came from farmers?<\/p>\n The very group bearing the brunt of the blame for the contamination of our waterways.<\/p>\n Greenpeace has been travelling New Zealand talking to farmers who\u2019ve discovered better ways to farm. New techniques that are regenerating the environment and saving our rivers.<\/p>\n The environmental organisation has created a short doco about these farmers entitled \u201cThe Regenerators.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFarming holds the key to saving our environment, cleaning up our rivers, locking away climate emissions and rebuilding biodiversity,\u201d says Greenpeace agriculture campaigner Genevieve Toop.<\/p>\n \u201cAll that is missing to make it happen is the support from farming leadership and the Government to help farmers make the transition.\u201d<\/p>\n Agriculture is New Zealand\u2019s largest land-user. It is the country\u2019s single biggest climate polluter and a major source of water contamination. It has also been a big player in the decline of our native species.<\/p>\n But farmers are proving that regenerative methods can turn this dire situation around.<\/p>\n \u201cThese farmers have gone so much further than just fencing off their streams, they\u2019re looking at farming in a whole new way and we believe their models are the future of agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy diversifying pastures and farm systems, building healthy soil, reducing costly and environmentally damaging inputs like chemical fertiliser and lowering stocking rates, farms can make profit and regenerate the environment\u201d says Toop.<\/p>\n \u201cDespite Fonterra\u2019s flashy ad\u2019s, intensive dairying is losing its social licence because of the state of our rivers. Those problems are not going to go away so the farming leadership and the government need to pull finger and start taking regenerative farming seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n Greenpeace is calling on the Government to redirect 480 million dollars currently being used to finance big irrigation and more intensive dairying into a fund designed to support NZ farms to transition to regenerative agriculture.<\/p>\n This demand is part of a the Freshwater Rescue Plan, a challenge laid down before political parties by coalition of other organisation and experts in launched in June of this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThe farmers that are in our video have the strength to face up to the problems, and the bravery, creativity and determination to turn those problems into solutions. It\u2019s time the Government and the farming leadership got in behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n ENDS<\/p>\n What if?<\/p>\n Asks a new short film from Greenpeace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":2304,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"Farmers star in Greenpeace regenerative farming film","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[19],"p4-page-type":[7],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-greenpeace","tag-food-and-farming","p4-page-type-press-release"],"yoast_head":"\n