Cow basher takes hit from MPI
MPI has filed charges against an individual after receiving a video in June this year of a Northland sharemilker hitting cows with a pipe and other objects.
Northland Regional Council (NRC) has inspected an illegal offal pit at a farm in Northland that is also the subject of a separate complaint about animal abuse.
Animal rights group Farmwatch sent media photographs of dead, rotting cows lying in an open paddock near a stream behind the farm. The cow carcases photographed by Farmwatch appear to have been tipped over a bank into a gully — not an offal pit, said spokesman John Darroch..
Darroch claims that when the activists arrived at the scene, rats were running over the carcases. He says the gully was about 10m from a stream and 20m from a swamp.
NRC’s group manager regulatory services, Colin Dall, told Rural News the so-called offal pit did not comply with its regulations requiring pits to meet certain standards, one of which is that animals must be covered.
He also says the pit on the Mangapai dairy farm did not have a consent and so is illegal.
Dall says the council told the farm owners last week that dumping dead stock in the open near a stream is illegal. The owners then removed the stock and buried them at a site which met council rules.
The council has not yet decided whether the farm owners will be prosecuted.
Federated Farmers supports a review of the current genetic technology legislation but insists that a farmer’s right to either choose or reject it must be protected.
New Zealand’s top business leaders are urging the US Administration to review “unjustified and discriminatory tariffs” imposed on Kiwi exporters.
New tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump signal an uncertain future, but New Zealand farmers know how to adapt to changing conditions, says Auriga Martin, chief executive of Farm Focus.
A global trade war beckons, which is bad news for a small open economy like New Zealand, warns Mark Smith ASB senior economist.
Carterton's Awakare Farm has long stood as a place where family, tradition and innovation intersect.
Fonterra says the US continues to be an important market for New Zealand dairy and the co-op.
OPINION: At last, a serious effort to better connect farmers and scientists.
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