Apple, pear sector stakeholders meet for annual conference
New Zealand apple and pear industry stakeholders are out in force for the annual conference in Queenstown.
OPINION: Your canine crusader understands that MPI were recently in front of the Parliamentary Primary Sector Select Committee for an 8-hour marathon hearing.
Let’s hope members of the select committee were going through MPI’s budget with a fine tooth comb.
There seems to plenty of fat in MPI’s budget to cut that would help with the Government’s goal to trim back excessive public sector body spending.
A couple of suggestions for the chop would be everything to do with the totally useless and expensive Fit for a Better World programme, which seems to deliver a fancy report each year but has achieved SFA.
Another area your old mate would aim to drop is the pointless money waster that is MPI’s investment in promoting regen ag and its huge handouts to Māori farming organisations.
Surely if regen ag and the Māori farming sector are viable options they don’t need MPI (i.e. taxpayers) subsidising them.
Oamaru-based livestock handling specialist Te Pari has bought Combi Clamp, the New Zealand manufacturer of Combi Clamp manual sheep handlers.
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.

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