Massey University to upskill teachers amid rising ag subject demand
There's been unprecedented demand from secondary school students across the country to study agricultural related subjects.
Massey University sheep milking expert Craig Prichard’s fun exhibit at Fieldays -- allowing site visitors to milk a sheep -- had seriously optimistic intent.
Behind the fun was positive news about the rapidly growing sheep milk industry in NZ.
He noted that people have a sort of anxiety about food, prompting them to query its health properties and ponder whether it will make them feel better. People want to learn more about products made from sheep milk, Prichard says.
The sheep milk cheese industry is growing; people like the elite products. At the same, he says, they are looking at the dairy cow industry -- labelled by some a polluter -- and comparing that to the sheep milk industry which they perceive is less harmful to the environment.
Prichard says the sheep milking industry has strong relationships with farmers, the general public and customers.
“We are connecting with people. What’s more the sheep milk industry has always been about food, not about animals. NZ farmers are in the habit of continuously thinking about production rather than the food they are producing; we are trying to make a transition [from production to food thinking] via sheep milking.”
Prichard says farmers need to talk more about food and less about animals, and ditch the ‘dollars/kilo thing’.
“That sends exactly the wrong message,” he explains. “You have to think about who you are trying to communicate with and the word ‘food’ is the one to use.”
He says the food sector has to start thinking about how people will integrate its food products into their lives. Some may choose to be connoisseurs of cheese and that is great.
“Others may respond to the industrialisation of their palette by some of the big companies in the food sector.”
Prichard says the sheep milk industry is trying to show change can happen as it uses a different animal and produces different food.
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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