Red line on dairy
OPINION: As India negotiates to open its borders to more global products, dairy is proving a sticky issue.
OPINION: How do you get people to stop drinking milk and switch to foods like fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains?
The simple answer is that you can't. But try telling that to animal welfare group Taranaki Animal Save.
Last month, their activists have covered the iconic cow statue at Fonterra's Whareroa plant in Taranaki with red paint and hung a "dairy kills" sign from its neck to commemorate Bobby Calf Awareness Day.
It was to highlight the plight of bobby calves, they say.
But the industry is already working to improve its treatment of bobby calves: Fonterra farmers must ensure all non-replacement calves enter a value stream - either beef, calf-veal (bobby) or pet food; and calves are only euthanised on-farm when there are humane reasons for doing so.
An insecticide widely used to control pests in pasture and grain crops will be banned by the end of next year, but farmers warn of a looming gap in treatments to fight native grass grub, which costs the agricultural sector hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Farming is changing fast, and future-focused leaders are needed in New Zealand’s boardrooms.
"The worst of the worst" is how Richard Kempthorne, the chair of the Nelson Tasman Rural Support Trust, describes the cumulative effects of the two storms that have wreaked havoc across the top of the South Island.
The basis for making great cheese is good milk, says the owner of Banks Peninsula's Barry's Bay Cheese, which was named Champion of Champons Mid-Size, for its traditional Aged Gouda, at this year's NZ Champions of Cheese Awards.
The 2024 Ahuwhenua Young Māori Farmer of the Year, Ben Purua has been named farmer-backed charity Meet the Need's first official ambassador.
Global dairy prices have ended a two-month run of losses.
OPINION: As India negotiates to open its borders to more global products, dairy is proving a sticky issue.
OPINION: Paranoia about foreigners is at an all-time high in the US and attention is now turning to foreign-owned farmland.