Misguided campaign
OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is polluting the environment.
OPINION: Another school farm facing the chopping block is that of Te Awamutu College in Waikato.
For almost three decades, the Cambridge Rd farm has been owned by Te Awamutu College, thanks to a bequeathment by Dr Lindsay Rogers – a Te Awamutu Walk of Fame inductee for his international recognition as the “Guerrilla Surgeon” during World War II. Now the college is selling the farm as due to “changing legislation with regard to farming, it was becoming too hard” and running the farm was becoming complicated vs. the returns available.
The Rogers Charitable Trust (RCT), formed in 1995 and made up of four Te Awamutu College Board of Trustees representatives and two community representatives, has moved to put the Cambridge Rd farm the doctor bequeathed to Te Awamutu College on the market and use the proceeds to continue to honour Rogers’ intentions, but in a different way.
The board says the decision to sell the farm has been four years in the making and was not made lightly.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).