Farm Safety Improves Through 'Incremental Gain', Says Birkett
Improving health and safety is about incremental gain rather than a sudden decision, says Leeston farmer and Federated Farmers health and safety spokesman David Birkett.
OPINION: This old mutt hears that Fed Farmers has instructed all its national executive to severe any personal ties they may have with any political parties.
This follows in the wake of former Feds boss Andrew Hoggard's move to stand for ACT this year and revelartions that he had been a member of the party for 3 years.
This led to criticism in some quarters about Feds' political neutrality and, by all accounts, fed into the current government's vindictive treatment of the organisation as its political enemy.
So, long story short, this has meant that a number of members of Feds executive have been resigning their memberships to political parties.
Funny how Feds members can't be members of a political party, but the current Government is happy to deal with various unions who are affiliated to the Labour party and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in membership fees every year!
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has admitted that a scheme bringing workers from Pacific nations to work on orchards has become too hard to navigate but says changes are coming.
A new app designed in New Zealand aims to help sheep, beef and deer farmers capture, analyse and use body condition score data more effectively.
Canterbury farmer Andy Macfarlane has been appointed to the board of AgriZeroNZ, the public-private partnership designed to accelerate the development and deployment of emissions reduction tools for New Zealand farmers.
For over 50 years Mel Ewers has been supporting the apple sector navigate through compliance and quality assurance issues.
The apple sector is enjoying a bumper harvest season.
Growers and farmers are being encouraged to have an important conversation before the coming season starts: how to prolong the effectiveness of the crop protection tools they rely on.

A fair question has been raised about how member-funded organisations should conduct themselves when taking a public position on any…
OPINION: It really is getting harder to lampoon government bureaucrats when they do such a good job of it themselves.…