Government Launches New Rural Leadership Scholarship
The Government has announced a new rural scholarship designed to back emerging primary sector leaders.
The future will see a continuation of the trend to fewer and larger farms, most of which will be ‘family corporates’, says AgFirst chief executive James Allen.
He says larger farms place more emphasis on reporting and information requirements than smaller ones.
Allen says he’s been talking to universities around the country about the implications stemming from his report and he says “they get it” and are starting to think about how they can best meet the needs of industry in the future.
He says while there may need to be changes to degree courses, it is essential for farm consultants of the future to have to have a core understanding of the basic principles of farming.
“The likes of an AgScience or BAgCom that gives an understanding of soils, pasture and livestock and how to integrate these is critical. What we need overlayed with that is a new set of skills around such things as data base management, GIS software skills and getting the best out of AI technology,” he says.
For Jane Smith, becoming a Ravensdown director has been a way she can actively contribute to something quite personal to her - protecting and strengthening a co-operative she deeply believes in.
Lactalis New Zealand has opened a new distribution centre in Christchurch, marking a significant investment in the company's South Island supply chain capability.
Women up and down the country are the glue that hold rural communities together, giving so much to so many, says the inaugural Rural Woman of the year award winner Kate Acland.
Waikato dairy farmer Danielle Hovmand has been named the primary sector's top emerging leader.
Don’t worry about it but just be aware - that’s the message from Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director-general Ray Smith as the H5N1 strain of bird flu is found in Australia.
OPINION: The dairy sector has been told that it cannot afford to rest on its laurels.

OPINION: Central Hawke's Bay farmer Mark Warren recently told the Hawke's Bay Times it's time for a conversation about allowing…
OPINION: A nation that relies as heavily as NZ does on functional global shipping lanes will have to do its…