DairyNZ supports vocational education reforms
DairyNZ is supporting a proposed new learning model for apprenticeships and traineeships that would see training, education, and pastoral care delivered together to provide the best chance of success.
Rural primary schools have received more than $109,000 from ANZCO Foods as part of the company’s Sponsor a School Programme, with several recipients located in the South Island.
ANZCO Foods works with local dairy farming families who nominate a rural primary school to receive a donation from the company, that is linked to supply.
The donations mean ANZCO Foods has donated more than $1.4 million to rural schools since the programme began in 2011, and these donations have been used for a range of resources including playground bark, fruit and vegetable gardens, and extra literacy lessons.
Shannon Parnham, head of livestock at ANZCO Foods, says the Sponsor a School programme is a rewarding way to directly impact future generations and allow farmers to have a positive input into their local communities.
“It’s fulfilling to know that these donations are providing Kiwi children with tools for essential life skills,” says Parnham. “This is a company donation from ANZCO – there is no cost to participating dairy farmers.”
The five South Island schools that received the largest donations were Hinds School, Carew Peel Forest School, Dorie School, Mayfield School, and Dunsandel School.
“Our school community is very grateful for the funds donated to us through the ANZCO Foods scheme,” says Aroha Stewart, Mayfield School Principal.
Mayfield School in Canterbury will put the funds towards teacher aides that will give their students additional literacy lessons.
“Without this money, it wouldn’t have been possible to give these students the boost they needed,” she says.
St Joseph’s Opunake School in Taranaki received $3,084. Brook Murfitt, acting principal, says they are hoping to put the donation towards improving and expanding the vegetable and fruit gardens at their school.
“We are hugely appreciative of ANZCO’s generosity,” says Murfitt.
“Our school has a Student Environmental Team and part of their role is to plant and take care of five fruit and vegetable gardens. We’re looking at using the funds to purchase more plants, improve the wooden garden frames, and potentially updating our garden tools, so we can continue to look after our gardens throughout the year.”
A large Māori farm on the Mahia Peninsula in northern Hawke's Bay has rocket science to thank for improving its viability.
Wools of New Zealand will soon launch the international version of an online global wool marketplace designed to bring farmers and manufacturers closer together.
New Zealand is so far escaping the unpredictable vagaries of President Donald Trump's trade policies by the skin of its teeth.
The Ministry for Primary Industries' (MP) head of their On-Farm Support Team, Dr John Roche, says the declaration of a drought or adverse event is a recognition that things are tough in a region such as Taranaki.
Rural Communities Minister Mark Patterson says the present weather conditions remain challenging for farmers.
The quick response to the discovery of another fruit fly in Auckland is being praised by fruit and vegetable growers.
OPINION: Your old mate reckons a wake-up call is overdue for the platoons of non-productive (and now unemployed) bureaucrats, researchers…
OPINION: If you're one of the few still reading the NZ Herald, you'd have seen Chicken Little academics screaming that…