Waikato Times letter of the month

The skinny: we’ve had a drought over the whole country because farmers use PKE as a stock-feed supplement, which causes climate change. And something about chocolate. I have passed this on to a friend’s colleagues at AgResearch in Ruakura as the connection probably hadn’t occurred to them. 

PKE part of drought loop

Last month New Zealand imported thousands of tons of palm kernel expeller (PKE) as a supplementary feed for dairy cows. PKE comes from the African Oil Palm tree and is a byproduct of the oil extraction from the palm kernels; while the higher-quality palm oil is extracted from the fruit. Oil palms are replacing rainforests at an alarming rate thus exacerbating the effects of climate change which led to the drought. In 2009 Cadbury bowed to consumer pressure and stopped using palm oil. Perhaps it would be in the interests of our dairy industry to be proactive on this matter?

SABINE PAHL

Hamilton