Leah Prankerd: A passion for dairying and farmer support
It was love that first led Leah Prankerd to dairying.
DairyNZ biosecurity manager Chris Morley, a vet with long experience with Mycoplasma bovis in Canada and his native UK, says NZ is unusual in its “open” farming systems.
Morely told a public meeting in Ashburton earlier this month that common practices here are off-grazing, lease bulls and the sharemilking system. Farmers form herds at the changeover time of year, perhaps leasing 100 cows and buying another 50 to get the numbers up, he said.
“We move animals around very freely and that’s been convenient and it’s a profitable model. Unfortunately that model is not a good model if [it contributes to M. bovis staying here],” said Morley.
“And that’s why MPI is up at the plate at the moment with industry trying to stop it.
“Because we don’t want it to mess with our model, but that’s the reality: if you’re moving animals around that’s how it spreads.”
Mackle said he had cleared his desk to make it to the Methven and Ashburton meetings, which followed the first confirmed M. bovis infection in the Ashburton district.
Although DairyNZ is closely involved in the disease response, the Ashburton meeting was the first he had been able to attend in districts known to have the disease.
He applauded farmers’ turnout and willingness to move against the disease, finding out what they could do together and individually.
“A good response effort is going on right now but fundamentally – and this is why bulk milk testing is so critical – we still don’t know with absolute confidence where this disease is and where it’s not,” he said.
The Government has announced it has invested $8 million in lower methane dairy genetics research.
A group of Kiwi farmers are urging Alliance farmer-shareholders to vote against a deal that would see the red meat co-operative sell approximately $270 million in shares to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
In a few hundred words it's impossible to adequately describe the outstanding contribution that James Brendan Bolger made to New Zealand since he first entered politics in 1972.
Dawn Meats is set to increase its proposed investment in Alliance Group by up to $25 million following stronger than forecast year-end results by Alliance.
A day after the ouster of PGG Wrightson’s chair and his deputy, the listed rural trader’s board has appointed John Nichol as the new independent chair.
The iconic services building at National Fieldays' Mystery Creek site will be demolished to make way for a "contemporary replacement that better serves the needs of both the community and event organisers," says board chair Jenni Vernon.
OPINION: Voting is underway for Fonterra’s divestment proposal, with shareholders deciding whether or not sell its consumer brands business.
OPINION: Politicians and Wellington bureaucrats should take a leaf out of the book of Canterbury District Police Commander Superintendent Tony Hill.