increase font size
Jacinda Ardern turns the sod at Silver Fern Farms' Belfast (Christchurch) meat works.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently turned the first sod at Silver Fern Farms' Beflast (Christchurch) meat works for a project slated as a major step in the company's ambition to become coal-free by 2030.
The Belfast Hot Temperature Pump will be a heat pump harnessing waste heat from the refrigeration process to heat hot water for other parts of the plant's operation.
It is expected to slash about 8% off the company's total coal consumption by replacing 1,500 tonnes of coal a year and abate 59,000 tonnes of carbon across its lifetime.
About half of the $1.6 million cost is coming from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) fund.
Funding has also been secured for similar pumps at SFF's Finegand and Pareora plants.
Jacinda Ardern told VIPs and Belfast plant workers at the launch that some have called the GIDI scheme "corporate welfare" but she considers it a direct partnership that has had "huge" potential.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dan Boulton says the meat processor wants to find ways of getting product destined for Middle East markets into those markets as opposed to try and place them elsewhere.
OPINION: Your old mate hears an international incident is threatening to blow up the long-standing Anzac alliance as Kiwis and Aussies argue over who wants new Australian resident and former NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Additional tariffs introduced by the Chinese Government last month on beef imports should favour New Zealand farmers and exporters.
The second event in the Silver Fern Farms ‘Pasture to Plate Roadshow’ landed in Feilding last week, headed by chair and King Country farmer, Anna Nelson, and chief executive Dan Boulton.
Keep up with innovation and e-commerce in China or risk losing market share. That was the message delivered at the China Business Summit in Auckland this month.
For the first time in more than 30 years the Government has set a new set of radical priorities for the science it funds - including agriculture.
The Labour Party has announced it will support New Zealand's free trade agreement (FTA) with India.
OPINION: Political parties in New Zealand have a long history of supporting free trade agreements together.
New Zealand's high country farmers could soon gain greater flexibility to diversify their land use as the new Crown Land Legislation Amendment Bill is introduced to Parliament.
New Zealand farming history needs to be celebrated, says the New Zealand Century Farm and Station Awards (NZCFSA) national coordinator, Anne Barnett.
Great weather, a large turnout and positive feedback.
OPINION: Media trust has tanked because of what media's more woke members do and say.
OPINION: Bouquets this week from the old mutt for Fed Farmers and Groundswell for continuing to resist the proposed Gore…
