Junket?
OPINION: The Hound notes that the Taxpayers’ Union recently revealed that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) spent more than $125,000 for its presence at this year’s Mystery Creek Fieldays.
The Fieldays 2015 Economic Impact report reveals the events contributes $166m to the GDP of New Zealand and $53m to Waikato.
Dr Warren Hughes of the University of Waikato Management School's Institute of Business Research and Hughes Economics independently prepared the report.
"When preparing the impact study, we look at three sources — visitor spending, equipment spending and organisation spending," says Hughes.
The decrease in both Waikato and New Zealand's revenue and GDP of 13-14% has been attributed to the dairy forecast.
"Unfortunately, as we came into Fieldays, we knew there was bad news ahead in the dairy sector and equipment purchase fell directly, and the overall total price fell accordingly," say Hughes.
However, he says all other sectors, including sheep, beef, horticulture and wine, are on the up.
"We're thrilled with the economic impacts of Fieldays 2015," says NZ National Fieldays Society CEO Jon Calder.
Calder says the event is "more than just four days in June".
"We're incredibly proud to have such relationships with our stakeholders and customers to be able to contribute so significantly to New Zealand's primary sector."
A vet is calling for all animals to be vaccinated against a new strain of leptospirosis (lepto) discovered on New Zealand dairy farms in recent years.
Two major red meat sector projects are getting up to a combined $1.7 million in funding from the New Zealand Meat Board (NZMB).
Angus Barr and Tara Dwyer of The Wandle, Lone Star Farms in Strath Taieri have been named the Regional Supreme Winners at the Otago Ballance Farm Environment Awards in Dunedin.
OPINION: The distress that the politicians and bureaucrats are causing to the people of Wairoa and the wider Tairāwhiti is unforgivable.
Dairy
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.
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