Dairy farming is a major business here in New Zealand. 95% of product is exported as milk powder, butter, cheese or uht etc. Most of the farms are grass based with the cows living out on paddocks and coming into the milking shed once or twice a day. We live on a small block of land with large scale dairy farms as neighbours- they carry 1000 plus milking cows. There is major controversy in this region because a previous government lead by an 'ex' banker cancelled the regional democracy governance and its environmental protections around land use to enable massive dairy farming expansion based on irrigation of light free draining soils. The resulting conversions from sheep farming to dairy farming enabled billions of dollars of lucrative fiat debt mortgages issued to irrigators and farmers doing the dairy conversions. I call call it dirty dairy debt farming. Fertilisers and water are applied enabling grass growth but a lot of nutrients and cow manure/urine leaches through the soils into the aquifer which ultimately supplies the regions drinking water. Nitrate levels in water bores is increasing making the water unsafe to drink and causing serious pollution throughout the waterways and ecosystems of the region.. It is extremely difficult to remove nitrates from water. It will take decades for the full effects of the dairy conversions to literally trickle down into the aquifer and into our drinking water supplies as the aquifer is a 70 plus year cycle. The politician who enabled it ultimately resigned as Prime Minister and immediately went to work as chairman of one of the major banks which funded most of the dairy conversions. 'Free markets' and corrupt politicians can do immense damage to natural systems and environments- there are often resulting impacts/externalities that profit motivated businesses create which impose costs upon others. Most modern farming is driven by fiat debt bankers who ultimately extract profit and exert influence upon politics to get their way over environmental concerns. Farming and our globalised food supply chains are majorly influenced by fiat debt finance and its imperatives.