NZ's handbrake
OPINION: Your old mate gets the sinking feeling that no matter who we vote into power in the hope they will reverse the terminal slide the country is in, there will always be a cohort of naysayers determined to hold us back.
OPINION: The Hound reckons that meat company Silver Fern Farms is now drinking from the same Kool Aid trough as the anti-farming types at Greenpeace.
The company claims it wants to be the "world's most sustainable grass-fed meat company" and this new strategy includes "committing to a 'Regenerative' future"!
As the Hound's mate says, this is interesting, when no one can actually define what 'Regenerative Ag' (RA) actually is.
How will the 50% Chinese-owned company defined what qualifies as RA and what does not?
Will it be employing its fellow RA advocates from Greenpeace to audit its suppliers to ensure they are meeting RA measures?
Does this mean that SFF will no longer take part in the Sunday night auctions and will only take livestock that is produced on farms by approved regenerative methods?
Or is this just greenwash marketing, as many suspect?
Brett Wotton, an Eastern Bay of Plenty kiwifruit grower and harvest contractor, has won the 2025 Kiwifruit Innovation Award for his work to support lifting fruit quality across the industry.
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.