As Fonterra’s external investors meet at the corporation’s Auckland HQ, Greenpeace supporters have pieced together a giant puzzle revealing the cost of Fonterra’s use of palm kernel as cow feed – rainforest destruction and loss of rare wildlife in Southeast Asia.

Greenpeace is calling on investors to divest from Fonterra’s Shareholders Fund to push the dairy giant into ending palm kernel use on all of its farms. This follows protests outside Fonterra’s AGM last Thursday, and a lawsuit from Greenpeace under the Fair Trading Act suing Fonterra for misleading customers about the use of palm kernel as animal feed.

Greenpeace spokesperson Sinéad Deighton-O’Flynn says, “Fonterra’s use of palm kernel underpins its dirty dairy practices, contributing to rainforest destruction and making it New Zealand’s worst climate polluter.

“Greenpeace is calling on Fonterra’s external investors to divest from the Fund until Fonterra ends the use of palm kernel, which is connected to rainforest destruction in Southeast Asia.

“By investing in Fonterra’s Shareholders’ Fund, these investors are implicated in the destruction of one of the last remaining paradise rainforests and contribute to the deaths of rare wildlife like the orangutan and the pygmy elephant,” says Deighton O’Flynn.

“We call on Fonterra investors to stop for a minute and consider the big picture. Palm kernel is a product of the palm oil industry, which is a key driver of rainforest deforestation in Southeast Asia, and responsible for human rights abuses and destruction of rare wildlife habitats. When all of the pieces come together, the picture isn’t a pretty one.”

New Zealand is the biggest importer of palm kernel in the world – importing more than 1.7 million tonnes in 2023. The product is used by the intensive dairy industry as a supplementary feed for cattle.

“Fonterra’s intensive dairy model requires imported feed because there are so many cows that there isn’t enough grass to feed them. But more and more people globally are expecting higher sustainability standards for the products they buy – investors should be wary of the massive reputational and financial risk for Fonterra in continuing to use this destructive product,” says Deighton-O’Flynn.

“Other ways of farming are possible – and as New Zealand’s biggest dairy company, Fonterra has a key role to play. Fonterra must end the use of palm kernel, reduce its herd sizes, and support farmers to transition to ecological plant-based agriculture.”

At the end of September, Greenpeace launched a petition calling for Fonterra to ban the use of palm kernel on all of their farms across Aotearoa. In less than two months, more than eleven thousand people have signed on in support.