Thanks for that Morrissey. Don't know much about NZ farming beyond a Countryfile special a while back where they showed a sheep farmer spraying fertiliser on his hilly pastures using a crop duster (or was it a cannon?) Unsurprisingly this has had several negative environmental impacts over time, from loss of biodiversity in the grassland, eutrophication in the water, damage to the soil structure & indebtedness & dependency of the farmers on the chemical manufacturers and sprayers, who seem to all have been WW2 pilots back at the start of the industry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_topdressing

Also there's what happened to Nauru, the island blessed/cursed with an abundance of phosphate-rich guano deposits: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/06/nauru-island-country-destroyed-by.html Of course Countryfile didn't mention any of that. It's all : "wow, look at this amazing tech solution!!" Funny how all that innovation comes straight out of the military industrial complex... Swords into ploughshares, eh?

cheers,
I