Earning respect, trust and support
OPINION: A big ‘shout-out’ from me to Wairarapa sheep farmer Hamish De Lautour for his excellent article Just answer the damn question! published in the last edition of Rural News.
OPINION: Like many others in our rural communities, I grew up in a farmhouse with our telephone proudly sporting something like a crank handle on it.
And we had a party line with four other households on that same line. To connect with any of those neighbours on our line, we had to crank that handle. It was ‘cutting- edge’ technology, I’d like to remind you!
I remember one family had two long rings, another, three shorts. We were one short and one long. Oh, the good fortune to have honest people as your neighbours, who didn’t quietly pick up their phone for a sneak listen-in on others’ calls!
Ringing someone in another region was quite a task, not to mention connecting with friends in another country.
Trying to explain this to the grandkids today is like trying to describe life from another planet. Explaining stuff in a foreign language may be easier.
My goodness, how communication has changed. It’s now a whole different world. We carry our phones in our pockets today and can connect to anyone almost anywhere in mere seconds.
With the help of social media platforms, we can connect with people on a whim and surround ourselves quick-smart with more ‘friends’ than previous generations could ever accrue in a lifetime! Quite amazing, really.
Yet for all that, loneliness has not receded for many. If anything, it’s gotten worse. I have read and been told many times that lots of people struggle with the face-toface stuff today. Talking through a keypad is more than just okay, it’s the preferred means of communication. How shallow!
A few years ago, I read about a new (at the time) business venture – ‘Rent a Friend’ as somebody labelled it. They offered friendship, or family, for hire. And no, it was not sexual in nature.
Or, if you wanted a crowd for your wedding, to make it look like you were popular, with many friends, yes, they could sort that for you. Even for your funeral too, if you really wanted to impress the ‘whoevers’ that might happen to glance your way.
A little more recently I read something that to me is sadder still. Older women in Japan were deliberately committing crimes. Yep, they were that desperate. They wanted to get imprisoned because they would get well looked after, find some companionship and new friends. Some even offered to pay good money, if they could extend their stay beyond their release date.
It’s that desperate aching loneliness thing again!
Former chief executive of Beef+Lamb New Zealand Scott Champion will head the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) from July.
Avian flu getting into New Zealand's poultry industry is the biosecurity threat that is most worrying for Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard.
The annual domestic utilisation of wool will double to 30,000 tonnes because of the edict that government agencies should use woollen fibre products in the construction of new and refurbished buildings.
Among the regular exhibitors at last month’s South Island Agricultural Field Days, the one that arguably takes the most intensive preparation every time is the PGG Wrightson Seeds site.
Two high producing Canterbury dairy farmers are moving to blended stockfeed supplements fed in-shed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to boost protein levels, which they can’t achieve through pasture under the region’s nitrogen limit of 190kg/ha.
Buoyed by strong forecasts for milk prices and a renewed demand for dairy assets, the South Island rural real estate market has begun the year with positive momentum, according to Colliers.
OPINION: In the same way that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, economists sometimes get it right.
OPINION: The proposed RMA reforms took a while to drop but were well signaled after the election.