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OPINION: An email from Fed Farmers' president Andrew Hoggard to Ag Minister Damien O'Connor saying some unkind things about the Groundswell movement - before its big countrywide protest in July - was recently released to a media outfit under an Official Information Act (OIA) request.
This has put Feds in a bad light and helped drive a wedge between it and Groundswell.
The Hound suggests this was a deliberate, Machiavellian move by O'Connor to foster ag sector infighting and take the heat off his government's imposition of numerous anti-farming regulations.
It turns out that O'Connor (and PM Ardern) refused to release other communications about Groundswell in the same OIA request, "to maintain the effective conduct of public affairs through the free and frank expression of opinions by or between or to Ministers of the Crown or members of an organisation..."
The Government has struck a deal with New Zealand's poultry industry, agreeing how they will jointly prepare for and respond to exotic poultry diseases, including any possible outbreak of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI).
OPINION: Newsroom is running a series of articles looking into the influence of lobbying and has kicked it off with agriculture.
OPINION: Your old mate reckons townie Brooke van Velden, the Minister of Workplace (or is it Woke Place) Relations is now showing how underemployed she is as a minister by initiating an investigation into whether young children should be banned from collecting eggs on farms and feeding animals.
OPINION: There's an infamous term coined by a US general during the Vietnam war, specifically in reference to the battle of Ben Tre: "We had to burn the village to save it."
OPINION: The sudden departure of Jim Ward, manager of Molesworth Station for 24 years, highlighted some major dysfunction in the way conservation estate is managed in this country - the biggest problem, as the Hound sees it, being idealogues who harp on about "taonga" and use all means possible to block sensible commercial operations on conservation land.
Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.
A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.
OPINION: The phasing out of copper network from communications is understandable.
Driven by a lifelong passion for animals, Amy Toughey's journey from juggling three jobs with full-time study to working on cutting-edge dairy research trials shows what happens when hard work meets opportunity - and she's only just getting started.
