UK Politician Alistair Carmichael Praises "Positive Spirit" of NZ Farmers
A leading British farming politician says he's impressed with the positive attitude of New Zealand farmers that he met during his recent trip here.
The Health and Wellbeing Hub is back at Fieldays this year, focusing on the importance of rural health and providing free health check-ups and advice to visitors.
The Hub is run in collaboration with Mobile Health, which provides elective day surgery for patients in rural New Zealand and supports the rural health workforce. Mobile Health chief executive Mark Eager said the initial idea behind the hub was to build a “health centre of the future” and provide an interactive platform for farmers and growers.
“With the Health and Wellbeing Hub, we get engagement from people that don’t usually receive health care,” he claims.
“In 2019, we’d see women walking into the hub with purpose, spending awhile inside looking around. Later, you’d see them return with their husbands pulled along by the ear to get a check-up.”
More than 25,000 people came through the Health and Wellbeing Hub at Fieldays 2019. Eleven malignant melanomas were detected in the Hub in 2019, and one woman discovered she had type 1 diabetes – both serious conditions that were caught at the right time.
In the Hub this year there will be organisations covering all facets of health and wellbeing. Rural mental health is also at the forefront of support again this year. Fieldays visitors can make their health a priority and catch up with a friend over a check-up at the Health and Wellbeing Hub.
Minister of Conservation Hon Tama Potaka has appointed Susan O'Regan as Chair of the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust (QEII) for a three-year term.
Red meat farmers are welcoming Labour’s plan to review the Emissions Trading Scheme and not to campaign on pricing agricultural emissions.
Where any worker in the kiwifruit industry is mistreated, we expect the authorities to take action.
Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers arable chair, Bevan Lill, said Beef + Lamb NZ data indicated that for the last six years, the average arable return on investment was about 0.8% while inflation ran about 4% - so the average arable farm was going backwards at about 3% a year.
Seed and grain companies share the concerns of arable farmers about the viability of their sector, says Seed and Grain New Zealand chief executive Dr Sarah Clark.
The New Zealand Institute of Forestry (NZIF) says unnecessary changes to New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) will seriously erode investor confidence and result in significant reductions in forest planting rates.

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