PLANT PESTS had better look out in Manawatu region. Horizons Regional Council’s ‘Woody Weedbuster’ will be drumming up interest at Central Districts Field Days, encouraging young and old to wage war on weeds that do no good to farms and the environment.

Northland's dairy farmers have received qualified praise for their increased compliance with farm dairy effluent resource standards but there's still plenty of room for improvement, those doing the monitoring say.

Speak to any New Zealand winemaker of Pinot Noir – past, present or up-and-coming – and they’ve undoubtedly spent time or worked a vintage in Oregon.

Tim van de Molen is the second Grand Finalist in 2013 after he won the Waikato/Bay of Plenty Regional Final for the ANZ Young Farmer Contest on Saturday, February 16 in Hamilton at St Paul's Collegiate School.

Three-time Ballance Farm Environment Award winner Dan Steele is on a mission to make New Zealand a better place for the future.

Fonterra is joining forces with another home-grown New Zealand business to ensure the milk kids are drinking through the Fonterra Milk for Schools programme is perfectly chilled.

Education support manager at Taratahi, Steve Hannam, was invited to speak at the International Conference on Community Colleges in India at the beginning of February.

Dairy farmer cooperative, LIC, has recorded strong performance in the first six months of the financial year, with growth in farmer demand for products and services which have a direct impact on income generating production.

From Bruce Wills, president of Federated Farmers "The New Zealand wool industry is currently weak and fragmented to the point of being dysfunctional," writes Sandra Faulkner in her Nuffield Farming Scholarship report.

Farmgate prices for beef are heading south at present in both the North and the South Islands.