When a huge industry basically disappears overnight, the flow on impacts will be much wider than just to dairy farmers. Every motorbike and tractor salesman and mechanic, every agriculture specialist from banking to insurance to pasture to large animal vets and livestock agents. Virtually every small town held together by the business of the local farmers will turn into a block of the unemployed, eventually the towns will start to disappear.

Maybe these businesses will survive for a while as dairy blocks convert to sheep and beef, as many of the specialised industries that go along with dairy farms are similar. But this will cause an influx of meat in an industry that already has enough. And people are eating less meat.

If the government wants to cut the number of cattle we have, maybe the answer is to contribute to the lab-milk research to allow it to come about sooner.