Springtime in Aotearoa

Springtime here in Aotearoa, N.Z., is a beautiful time of the year with all the newborn animals and blossoming trees. But is it all it’s cracked up to be?

The new life blossoming around us reminds us that life ebbs and flows and seasons change regardless of what’s happening.

As a kid, I lived in a small town surrounded by farms. When the lambs and calves were out in the paddocks, we knew that summer wasn’t far away because it meant Springtime was here.

I would see lambs in paddocks and calves in crates at the farm gate. I never did know why the calves were there, but now these poor babies are kept away from the public eye while they wait for the truck to collect them for slaughtering. This year in Aotearoa, N.Z., two million calves will be slaughtered to keep the dairy industry alive.

The trouble is that the weather can still be quite wintery at the onset of Spring when these babies are born into the world. And it’s so miserable that mothers and babies are seen hunkering down against the wind, rain and cold.

Sadly, over the years since I was a child, farming meat and dairy has intensified. This has meant that farmers must keep to a program that ties in with the processing companies’ need for export…