M.I.A.
OPINION: The previous government spent too much during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite warnings from officials, according to a briefing released by the Treasury.
Dealing with the outfall from Covid-19 is one of the top priorities in the coming year for Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) boss Ray Smith.
He told Rural News that getting his front line staff vaccinated is essential so that they and other staff can support farmers and industry through the “inevitable” future outbreaks of the virus.
“I don’t underestimate the Covid issue and we can’t afford to have our industries closed down or not meet trading expectations,” he told Rural News.
Smith says he’s full of praise for the way the agricultural sector has coped with Covid during the past year.
“They have been awesome. We have taken our ag sector community through three lockdowns of different forms and our export revenues will be similar to last year,” he says. “Volume is good, but the exchange rate may peel a bit off the final result.”
Smith says MPI staff have performed exceptionally well and stuck to the rules and not one of them has become infected with the virus. For his part, Smith is a member of a small group of chief executives from key government agencies responsible for matters pertaining to the border.
The group called the ‘border executive’ includes the CEO’s of Customs, MFAT, MBIE, NZTE and Transport. Smith says the role of this group is to ensure that there is good coordination around border-related issues.
Smith says another interesting aside to the Covid crisis is that a number of MPI’s leading epidemiologists who were working on the M. bovis outbreak have been working with colleagues from the Ministry of Health on Covid. He says this highlights the transferable nature of their skills.
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.
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