OPINION: Could beef cows play an increasingly important role in improving profitability and resilience on hill country farms?

New research suggests the ag sector can unlock a $2.9 billion increase in profitability, not by farmers and growing more, but by making their farming systems simpler.

OPINION: The culture of helping someone in need is alive and well in the ag sector.

OPINION: It's a tough pill to swallow that bird flu (avian influenza) has finally arrived in New Zealand. This is a moment many of us have hoped would never come.

OPINION: At Fieldays this year, one theme kept surfacing across the sector: global shocks are no longer something that happens “over there”. They are now translating quickly into local, farm-level impacts through increasingly complex and connected channels.

OPINION: Yep, the stories just keep on coming. I haven’t noted any sign of them drying up yet, no let-up seems to be in sight! And with the rapid advances in AI, maybe the worst is still to come.

A fair question has been raised about how member-funded organisations should conduct themselves when taking a public position on any given issue.

OPINION: It really is getting harder to lampoon government bureaucrats when they do such a good job of it themselves.

Anyone in the primary sector will know about the clowns covering the countryside in the red tape we all have to wade through.

Spare a thought then for media outfit Stuff who were threatened with fines up to $200,000 by a snivelling civil servant from the MoH for illustrating a quiz question with a photo of part of the cover of a 45-year-old copy Playboy.

As Stuff notes, “It wasn’t the Playboy cover which caused offence. No, it was the back page which… featured an advert for a cigarette brand”.

As Regulations Minister David Seymour notes, “The real scandal here is, well, no wonder we’ve got problems in healthcare when they’re doing the Stuff quiz during work time.”