Cuddling cows
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its cows and instead charge visitors to cuddle them.
OPINION: Known for serious trade negotiations with global politicians, top NZ trade official Vangelis Vitalis also knows how to crack jokes.
He told this one at the recent DairyNZ Farmers Forum in Hamilton: A farmer found a bottle and he polished it and out pops a genie and says, "You've got two wishes". The farmer asks, "don't you normally give three". Yeah, but budget cuts, genie replies. So, the farmer answers, "Um, what I'd really like is, I don't like flying, and I'd like to have a motorway built all the way from New Zealand, all the way to Hawaii." The genie looks at him and says, "Look, that's just impossible - so ridiculously impossible. What's the second wish?"
The farmer says, "oh, okay. I'd like someone to explain to me international trade policy." And the genie looks at him and says, "Um, about that motorway, two lanes or four?"
Profitability issues facing arable farmers are the same across the world, says New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy Hamish Marr.
Over 85% of Fonterra farmer suppliers will be eligible for customer funding up to $1,500 for solutions designed to drive on-farm efficiency gains and reduce emissions intensity.
Tighter beef and lamb production globally have worked to the advantage of NZ, according to the Meat Industry Association (MIA).
Groundswell is ramping up its 'Quit Paris' campaign with signs going up all over the country.
Some farmers in the Nelson region are facing up to five years of hard work to repair their damaged properties caused by the recent devastating floods.
Federated Farmers is joining major industry-good bodies in not advocating for the Government to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…