Fonterra protest highlights destructive dairy industry ahead of World Dairy Summit

The Coalition Against The World Dairy Summit (CAWDS) believe that yesterday’s Greenpeace protest at the Fonterra head office in Auckland demonstrates the growing awareness of the dairy giant’s devastating practices, and are calling for more protests to come.

Claire Dann, spokesperson for the Coalition says, “Fonterra are coming under fire for their part in the palm kernel industry and rainforest deforestation, and rightfully so. However the whole dairy industry is also responsible for animal rights abuses, increasing climate change, jeopardising human health and putting profit first before human and animal livelihoods. This is why when the industry leaders come together for the World Dairy Summit in November we need to continue protesting and let them know that this intensive dairy model has no place in our futures.”

The coalition has formed to actively oppose the World Dairy Summit being hosted in Auckland from November 8 – 11 at Skycity. It also aims to raise public awareness regarding what is wrong with the dairy industry and counter the claims from those within it that it can be done sustainably.

“It is totally ridiculous that the World Dairy Summit will be holding talks on how to make the industry ‘clean and green’ when in reality it is all about getting more cows on more land, in order to produce more milk to export. The focus is on maximizing profit regardless of the impacts on the animals, the land and the consumers” says Ms Dann.

"Over quarter of NZ's extremely high greenhouse gas emissions comes from intensive fertilizer on dairy farms, and more than a quarter of our emissions are methane from the high dairy herd numbers.”

“The corporate style dairying that is represented at the summit is doing a great job of painting a nice happy picture of milk production, but the public need to know that behind this, there is immense animal suffering, contaminated waterways, increasing levels of climate changing gases and whole new markets being sold milk for its so called ‘health benefits’. We encourage people to find out more about where their milk comes from and join us at the protests against the summit” commented Ms Dann.

ENDS

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