Husband and wife team’s special love of Ag Aviation
John and Janet Spence are unique in the agricultural aviation scene in New Zealand.
Alan Beck a pilot and chairman of the NZ Agricultural Aviation Association, says it’s now socially unacceptable for farmers not to remove electric fence or television wires strung across gullies.
Beck is frustrated that some farmers don’t make a priority of removing wires. And while Federated Farmers – as an organisation -- supports him, some of its members don’t, so he’s now getting the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to take action against farmers who won’t remove dangerous wires.
“CAA is looking at a procedure where pilots have to report an incident involving a dangerous wire and CAA will get WorkSafe NZ to make the farmer deal with it,” Beck told Rural News.
“It’s not acceptable that 27 pilots have been killed including Peter Robb in Whanganui. There have been 14 wire strikes in the last year including one where our vice-chairman hit a wire in Hawkes Bay and was really lucky not to be killed,” he adds.
“A lot of farmers don’t think there is too much risk. It’s only when one of our pilots hits one and gets killed or badly injured that they are very, very, sorry.”
Many farmers around the country are taking advantage of the high dairy payout to get maximum production out of their cows.
In 2015, the signing of a joint venture between St Peter's School, Cambridge, and Lincoln University saw the start of an exciting new chapter for Owl Farm as the first demonstration dairy farm in the North Island. Ten years on, the joint venture is still going strong.
Sheep milk processor Maui Milk is on track to record average ewe production of 500 litres by 2030, says outgoing chief executive Greg Hamill.
Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton is calling for cross-party consensus on the country's overarching environmental goals.
Changes to New Zealand’s postal service has left rural communities disappointed.
Alliance is urging its farmer-shareholders to have their say on the proposed $250 million strategic investment partnership with Dawn Meats Group.
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