With the Minister of Agriculture off overseas to talk emissions I’m reminded to ask if there’s been any published discussion in New Zealand of Mootral?

A company with an inadequate website claims to be able to cut cow methane emissions by as much as 90% using a garlic extract or derivative.  It sounds wacky, but no more so than extending the ETS to cover agriculture in a country dependant on agriculture.

Mootral is sufficiently credible to come runner-up in a Financial Times competition, and to get recognition by the BBC.

Anything that works as Mootral is claimed to do might become hot property here. If it works Nick Smith might point to the incentive to adopt things like Mootral to justify the Green hair shirt he is obliging us all to wear, even those who are already wearing Swannees.

The Aussies have made the sensible decision to force Green hair shirt wearing only on those who can change what they do to reduce the sweating and itching. They’re leaving agriculture out of their emissions scheme. So their dairying will get an advantage over ours. Presumably that will mean losing to Australia some of the production and profit NZ would otherwise get, notwithstanding the world’s net environmental loss from moving dairying to a country with less water.

Is ETS debate really over? If the Maori Party listen to their agricultural constituency they might vote with ACT against the inclusion of agriculture. It is hard to see what is gained by including price taking industries that can not change their behaviour in response to the "tax", other than by letting production go to countries where the same production does more environmental damage.

So back to Mootral.  Have I missed the NZ references to this product?

Does it make the milk and cheese taste like garlic? So what , now our restaurants and cafes are mostly better than those of  the  French. We can all tolerate garlic breath now.