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OPINION: Your old mate wonders how both Beef+Lamb NZ and DairyNZ are feeling about their 'wonderful relationship' with the Government following the announcement of a FTA deal with the EU.
The trade deal saw our major primary sectors - red meat and dairy - get bugger-all nothing.
However, according to both Beef+Lamb and DairyNZ, one of the key reasons they sold out (sorry) 'negotiated' with the Government to put farmers, via He Waka Eke Noa, into an emissions scheme and having to pay carbon taxes, was because our trade partners - especially in Europe - are demanding it.
So not NZ dairy and red meat farmers are stuck with carbon taxes but still have no real access to EU markets.
Just imagine if the geniuses at Beef+Lamb and DairyNZ were hostage negotiators?
They'd end up paying the ransom and letting the terrorists shoot the hostages and still call it a win!
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
OPINION: The dairy sector has been told that it cannot afford to rest on its laurels.
The dairy industry cannot rest on its laurels despite providing one in every four export dollars earned by the country, says DairyNZ chief executive Campbell Parker.
Politicians calling for New Zealand to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate risk damaging two of our gold-plated free trade deals.
Increased competition for water means the whole community is looking at how irrigators use water.
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson says his party – NZ First - isn’t opposed to the “trade element” of a free trade deal with India.
The managing director of a company seeking to build a solar farm in Canterbury says receiving fast-track approval is a “really positive outcome”.
Retiring MP and dairy farmer Mark Cameron is blasting the Green Party for proposing to ban the use of synthetic fertiliser and cutting cow numbers.
A huge reduction in ACC claims from on-farm accidents over the last five years is due to thousands of small, practical decisions being made in sheds, yards, paddocks and around kitchen tables across the country, says Safer Farms ambassador Lindy Nelson.
Wayne and Ange Moxham of Horowhenua have just been named as Fonterra's top organic performer for milksolids. As well as providing organic milk to Fonterra, the couple also sell Udderly Organic milk to more than 100 outlets in the region and are embarking on another exciting venture producing organic gelato. Reporter Peter Burke went along to see their farming operation.
Certainty and a clear understanding of the needs of rural communities is a critical outcome in the series of government reforms that are taking place at present.
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