Tuesday, 6 April 2010

CARBON FOOT IN MOUTH

This has to be the oddest piece of research we have seen commissioned for some time. AgResearch has decided what the carbon cost is of the production of  NZ Lamb eaten in Britan.
Its come out of the blue and appears to be some sort of weird attempt to " benchmark " the carbon cost of producing NZ lamb. Sort of a marketing  "we will show you ours  now you show us yours" challenge.
You have  to first believe in the whole carbon malarky to buy into this sort of spurious crap in the first place.
Secondly its not a very " NZ Inc approach." If the same cockeyed logic is applied to fish - for instance - we expect that the equation will be even more odourous.

It is not obvious what the end game for the NZ meat industry is on this issue. The PR outcome of this is not clear apart from sparking an international debate on the issue.
It appears that the research indicates that the main bulk of  " carbon costs" come from down on the farm. Transport and retailing are minor bits. We will watch and wait with interest but we reckon it will undoubtedly create an international  scientific tit for tat.

2 comments:

Andrew D said...

What you call "international scientific tit for tat" I was trained to call "the scientific method".

This process will ultimately result in a consensus about what the actual right answer is. If it turns out to be the case that, yes, the most important thing is what happens on the farm, then I can't see how this can be anything other than very beneficial for the branding of New Zealand agricultural products. If not, then someone else would get around to doing the studies very soon anyway.

sailboi said...

chmetNZ needs a fleet of carbon free nuke powered cargo ships, US Navy ships need no refueling over their 30 year lifespan !