Dairy conversions surge but no return to the heady days
Environment Canterbury has confirmed a surge in interest in new dairy conversions, with four effluent discharge permits for conversions granted since the start of the year.
A conservation and hunting lobby has criticised a call by Environment Canterbury for more funding to prevent a national plague of wallabies.
Laurie Collins, of Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust, a conservation and hunting advocacy, has accused bureaucracies and some extreme environmentalists – such as Forest and Bird – of suffering from ‘pest panic phobia’.
His criticism follows recent calls by Forest and Bird for the Government to urgently fund wallaby extermination before they reach “plague proportions”.
Forest and Bird central North Island regional manager Rebecca Stirnemann claims wallabies could spread over a third of New Zealand within the next 50 years unless they are killed in large numbers.
However, Collins, who was for many years involved in wild animal work with the NZ Forest Service, rabbit boards and regional bodies, says Forest and Bird’s culture is wrong, wasteful and impractical.
“Too often Forest and Bird sees the solution as drenching the countryside with poison and thereby ignoring prudent, practical management.”
Collins said wallabies were introduced to NZ in the 1870s – almost 200 years ago.
He claims their spread from the South Island liberation point at Waimate had been “very gradual and slow”.
Collins said he doubts the accuracy of Forest and Bird’s claim that “wallabies have already been sighted in fresh territories in Auckland, Northland, Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Wellington, Marlborough, Southland and the West Coast”.
He believes any wild animal should be treated as a resource.
“If numbers are considered too high there should be a harvest and where possible utilisation of the carcases.”
Collins says kangaroo meat is considered a dining delicacy and so should wallaby.
“It is wasteful and immoral in a world crying out for food in the face of steadily climbing human numbers, to leave carcases to rot,” he said.
He says another use could be pet food manufacture.
“Pet food manufacture using possums was done successfully some years ago by a Bay of Plenty factory, but export markets collapsed when Japanese authorities learned of NZ’s 1080 poison spreading,” Collins said.
“It is simply a matter of having a constructive attitude instead of a mindless, unscientific dogma of hate and cruelty.”
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
Within the next 10 years, New Zealand agriculture will need to manage its largest-ever intergenerational transfer of wealth, conservatively valued at $150 billion in farming assets.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Selecting the reverse gear quicker than a lovestruck boyfriend who has met the in-laws for the first time, the Coalition Government has confirmed that the proposal to amend Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) charged against farm utes has been canned.
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