Government Launches New Rural Leadership Scholarship
The Government has announced a new rural scholarship designed to back emerging primary sector leaders.
The course can be used as either a stepping-stone to a career in the horticulture industry or as a way of enhancing horticulture knowledge.
The Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology has launched its new Level 2 Sustainable Horticulture programme.
The course can be used as either a stepping-stone to a career in the horticulture industry or as a way of enhancing horticulture knowledge.
The programme is designed to teach practical skills and allows learners to ask questions and be guided by one another’s experiences.
Jenny North, horticulture academic coordinator, says classes look at how to plan and execute a successful garden by learning several practical skills such as building your own compost and pruning and shaping trees.
“It’s a hands-on course,” North says.
“We focus a lot on organic practices, teaching how to make your own fertilizer and compost, and learn useful techniques for pruning and shaping trees, feeding the soil and encouraging biodiversity,” she says.
The New Zealand Certificate in Primary Industry Skills – Sustainable Horticulture is accepting direct applications.
Classes include one evening per week and every second Saturday and are based in Richmond, Nelson and Blenheim. The practical Saturday classes in Nelson and Richmond will be joined.
State farmer Pāmu is opening its farm gates this summer in an effort to give the rural sector the opportunity to see how large-scale, multi-system farming is delivering productivity and profitability across New Zealand.
A five-year study has found that the cost of reducing emissions without technology may be significant and unsustainable for Northland dairy farmers.
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
While the Government has moved quickly to make commercial hauliers' lot easier during the current fuel crisis, they appear to be stuck in the creep box when it comes to the agricultural industry.
Waikato farmers have been told that the Government’s new planning system legislation and the region’s Plan Change 1 (PC1) “won’t mesh together very well”.
More than 300 growers, exporters, researchers, service providers and industry leaders will descend on Queenstown later this month for EXPO 2026, the annual conference for New Zealand’s apple and pear sector.

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