Creating a buzz on World Bee Day
The message for the 2025 World Bee Day is a call to action for sustainable practices that support bees, improve food security, and protect biosecurity in the face of mounting climate pressures.
Apiculture NZ is seeking assurances from authorities that the country’s beekeepers won’t be faced with the same problems that their Auckland colleagues did when that region went into lockdown.
Karin Kos, Apiculture NZ chief executive, says beekeepers in the Auckland region thought because they were classed as an essential industry during the first lockdown that they would have no trouble moving through the police checkpoints. However, this wasn’t the case.
Kos says it turned out that they had to apply for special exemptions from the Ministry of Health to get in or out of Auckland and it took about a week for these permits to materialise. She says the Ministry for Primary Industries was very helpful and managed to facilitate the permits.
“But it did take a week and fair amount of work to get the exemption in place,” Kos told Rural News.
“We had beekeepers who had hives over the border and coming out of winter they needed to check that the bees were okay, well fed and ready for the honey season. They weren’t able to get to them.”
Kos says now that they have worked through the process in Auckland, Apiculture NZ hopes that this will mean that in any future lockdowns there won’t be the same hassles.
Newly elected Federated Farmers meat and wool group chair Richard Dawkins says he will continue the great work done his predecessor Toby Williams.
Hosted by ginger dynamo Te Radar, the Fieldays Innovation Award Winners Event put the spotlight on the agricultural industry's most promising ideas.
According to DairyNZ's latest Econ Tracker update, there has been a rise in the forecast breakeven milk price for the 2025/26 season.
Despite the rain and a liberal coating of mud, engines roared, and the 50th Fieldays Tractor Pull Competition drew crowds of spectators across the four days of the annual event.
Nationwide rural wellbeing programme, Farmstrong recently celebrated its tenth birthday at Fieldays with an event attended by ambassador Sam Whitelock, Farmers Mutual Group (FMG), Farmstrong partners, and government Ministers.
Six industry organisations, including DairyNZ and the Dairy Companies Association (DCANZ) have signed an agreement with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to prepare the country for a potential foot and mouth outbreak.
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