Outrage won't pay the bills
OPINION: Across rural conversations, we're heading the same tune: crisis.
OPINION: The Hound reckons the argument run by the ‘agribusiness elite’ that the market will punish our exports if we don’t fall into line with spurious targets like the Paris Accord doesn’t pass the sniff test.
Our biggest red meat market recently did a backflip on tariffs, chiefly because America needs cheaper food, and New Zealand has it.
The tariffs, part of Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda, were introduced in April at 10%, then raised to 15% in August.
Then in November, Trump announced that the tariffs on products representing around 25% of our exports to the US and worth about NZ$2.2 billion annually, would be removed, effective immediately.
Other nations are no different: the UK, for instance, can’t feed itself and imports nearly 40% of its food.
China imports 35%, Japan 60% and Saudi Arabia 80%. The world is too hungry to care about our methane targets!
The National Wild Goat Hunting Competition has removed 33,418 wild goats over the past three years.
New Zealand needs a new healthcare model to address rising rates of obesity in rural communities, with the current system leaving many patients unable to access effective treatment or long-term support, warn GPs.
Southland farmers are being urged to put safety first, following a spike in tip offs about risky handling of wind-damaged trees
Third-generation Ashburton dairy farmers TJ and Mark Stewart are no strangers to adapting and evolving.
When American retail giant Cosco came to audit Open Country Dairy’s new butter plant at the Waharoa site and give the green light to supply their American stores, they allowed themselves a week for the exercise.
Fonterra chair Peter McBride says the divestment of Mainland Group is their last significant asset sale and signals the end of structural changes.

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