NZ's handbrake
OPINION: Your old mate gets the sinking feeling that no matter who we vote into power in the hope they will reverse the terminal slide the country is in, there will always be a cohort of naysayers determined to hold us back.
OPINION: Last week's announcement by the Government that it would replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) with new legislation has raised the hopes of anti-dairying lobbyists like Greenpeace.
It wants any new law that replaces the dysfunctional RMA to protect environmental bottom lines “in a way that the RMA failed to”, and it wants any new regulation to effectively strangle dairying.
“That means stopping nitrate pollution entering freshwater from milk processing and too many cows,” says the activist group.
Conveniently, Greenpeace again turns a blind eye to the pollution caused by urban dwellers – like sewage water seeping onto beaches around Auckland, and burst pipes spewing raw sewage into Wellington harbour.
Their agenda seems less about a cleaner environment and more about being anti-farmer.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.
DairyNZ says its plantain programme continues to deliver promising results, with new data confirming that modest levels of plantain in pastures reduce nitrogen leaching, offering farmers a practical, science-backed tool to meet environmental goals.
According to the most recent Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey, farmer confidence has inched higher, reaching its second highest reading in the last decade.
OPINION: Should cows in NZ be microchipped?
OPINION: Legislation being drafted to bring back the controversial trade of live animal exports by sea is getting stuck in the…