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.
The Government's so called 'consolidation of Rapid Antigen Tests (RAT) from meat companies has the potential to force the closure of some meat processing plants if staff contract the Omicron version of Covid.
Many meat processing companies took the precaution of purchasing their own RATs as a means of protecting their staff and keeping their works going in a Covid outbreak. However, because, on the Government's behalf, the Ministry of Health failed to get sufficient supplies in on time, it effectively pilfered what it could from the private sector.
Meat Industry Association (MIA) policy manager Paul Goldstone told Rural News that meat companies had purchased the now Government-appropriated RATs as a means of screening workers and preventing the virus getting into plants. He says an Omicron outbreak would be disastrous for the sector and could lead to whole plants being closed down.
Goldstone says the RAT issue is also linked to the rules around home isolation. He points out some workers live in households where there are large numbers of people of varying age groups, who all work in the meat sector.
Goldstone says the current government rules on isolation pose a serious risk to the meat industry.
"We have been pushing hard for some realism with the current criteria," he told Rural News. "A single positive case of Covid in a worker or a household member could result in that entire household being isolated for 10 days."
Goldstone says this could see large parts of a plant being put into isolation and likely shut down.
"We were going to be using RATs to act as a form of screening to prevent infected workers getting on site," he explains. "The meat companies purchased RATs to minimise this risk, but without them, plants are now at risk and so are valuable meat exports."
Phoebe Scherer, a technical manager from the Bay of Plenty, has won the 2025 Young Grower of the Year national title.
The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand (FCANZ) celebrated the best of the best at the 2025 Fencing Industry Awards, providing the opportunity to honour both rising talent and industry stalwarts.
Award-winning boutique cheese company, Cranky Goat Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation.
As an independent review of the National Pest Management Plan for TB finds the goal of complete eradication by 2055 is still valide, feedback is being sought on how to finish the job.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand has launched an AI-powered digital assistant to help farmers using the B+LNZ Knowledge Hub to create tailored answers and resources for their farming businesses.
A tiny organism from the arid mountains of mainland Greece is facilitating a new way of growing healthier animals on farms across New Zealand.
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