Southland landowners offered catchment funding boost
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
Government investment in on-the-ground efforts by farmers to improve land management practices has passed a milestone, with more than 170 catchment groups nationwide now receiving support, says Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor.
“When it comes to freshwater, we have a job to do as an industry and that’s to restore our rivers within a generation,” O’Connor says.
On 14 September at a meeting with catchment group leaders and farmers, O’Connor announced $2.1 million in funding for 31 farmer-led catchment groups across the Manawatū, Rangitīkei, and Wairarapa which are helping farmers and growers transition to more sustainable land use.
“Nationally, these groups that we are backing provide on-the-ground support to more than 5,000 farmers, helping them access expertise and tools to improve their environmental and economic sustainability, not to mention wellbeing.”
O’Connor says that, over the past 18 months, the Government has invested close to $29 million in catchment groups through the Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) extension services and Jobs for Nature programmes.
O’Connor says catchment groups support farmers to develop detailed Farm Environment Plans and provide an opportunity to learn good practice from one another.
“Catchment groups working together and farming integrating practical and meaningful insights from them into their farm plans is how we’re going to shift the dial,” O’Connor says.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.
OPINION: For years, the ironically named Dr Mike Joy has used his position at Victoria University to wage an activist-style…
OPINION: A mate of yours truly has had an absolute gutsful of the activist group SAFE.