While bad news for dairy, the study found employment and economic output would be boosted in a scenario where farmers switched to growing crops, which would also result in significant reductions in emissions and nutrient loss.

So I see this as a win-win-win.

Another interesting point

"I can't see parents ever being happy putting lab-grown meat and milk in their kids' lunchboxes... it's just not gonna happen," Federated Farmers dairy chair Richard McIntyre said.

Mr McIntyre is engaging in wishful thinking here, if the lab-grown alternative is half the cost, I'm sure parents will be only too happy to put it in the lunch boxes of the kids....some of the crap that gets put in now is amazing....

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

People are already putting in soy milk, almond milk, oat milk etc why wouldn't they put lab milk?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

What a dork, of course they will come around. It may take some time and some convincing, but people will definitely accept this.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

If only there wasn't a reason farmers are not doing more agriculture in the mountainous land of New Zealand.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Most of our mountainous land is protected. Even if it’s not, dairy farms aren’t being run on rugged terrain. Cows aren’t exactly known for their adventurism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

I talked to a farmer on hill land about this, and he said they have to buy cows that have grown up on hill land otherwise they can’t handle it and invariably end up a bloated carcass in the local stream. That still does happen sometimes, in which case they just leave it there to decompose and pollute the stream because it’s too much work to remove it. Farmers, eh?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

What, you haven't seen all of those videos of cows scaling cliffs like a goat?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting. I imagined it'd be similar to how things are run in Switzerland. Cows there are pretty adventurous I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Isn't Switzerland the place they keep the cows in a barn and grow the grass separate, then cut and feed the grass to the cows?

I think they also have much smaller herd sizes than NZ.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

When I visited, I run into cows plenty of times while hiking the mountain trails. I can't speak with authority, but from what I was told is that there aren't many big dairy farms, most dairy farmers run small scale farms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Well certainly not dairy farming.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

You think they'd learn after doubling down in the wool market and having the bottom fall out of it, they're doing it all over again

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Lab grown dairy protein will be sold wholesale long before it's available as milk. We'll be eating it as protein bars and chocolate, then processed cheese. Who's going to know the difference? Who's going to care?

That guy's talking shit and he knows it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Exactly