“Greenpeace is only green in the first five letters of its name and is really an anti-business, anti-trade and anti-farming front,” says David Rose, Federated Farmers Southland-based spokesperson for law and order.

“Its public relations stunts only cause inconvenience and loss of revenue to people going about their lawful business.

“If you strip their argument back to the essentials, they’re protesting against a lawful business that uses lawfully farmed milk to produce lawful revenues that benefit all New Zealanders.

“If it wasn’t for Fonterra and a quarter of the exports its farmers generate, we couldn’t afford the medicines, education and services we all take for granted. There are thousands of unemployed that depend on the exporters to spark the economy back into life.

“I honestly cannot figure out what Greenpeace actually stands for. I know what they're against and that’s progress, but what does it stand for?

“I’m certain the environment and a few whales would benefit if it spent more time on human pollution and waste that impacts both the land and sea.

“At least farmers are aware of their impact on the environment and are working hard to develop management and mitigation measures. That’s why water quality today is far better than when I was a lad, except that is, in our towns and cities.

“Picking on farming is also darn odd. Among the major productive sectors in the economy, we’re actually doing the second best job at reducing emissions.

“Between 1990 and 2007 agriculture emissions grew by 12 per cent yet electricity emissions grew by 120 per cent despite wind farms, transport by 74 per cent despite hybrid cars and industrial processes by 35 per cent.

“Farmers are actively cutting emissions growth per unit of output because we farmers are doers while Greenpeace are just talkers. I’d like to see its ideas for real economic growth that doesn’t mean regressing to the dark ages.

“A number of its recent illegal stunts have tied up the police needlessly. We’d like to explore the possibility of a law change giving businesses and the Crown the right to seek compensation from legal entities that sponsor illegal protest.

“We feel that idea is worth the debate in order to recompense law abiding organisations from the time and expense illegal protest causes,” Mr Rose concluded.