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Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor.
Farmers’ stance on biosecurity is going to have to change, said Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor in a recent television interview.
He told Q&A that the previous government had gone softly softly on prosecutions of breaches of NAIT instead of sending a clear, strong message -- for the right reasons.
Now he insists his and MPI’s stance will be enforcement when the law is blatantly ignored.
O’Connor ssays farmers now appreciate that we are all in the same boat, needing good traceability systems and biosecurity.
“If we do this together we will have a more robust system. Clearly there have been failures but it’s no good pointing fingers now; we have to focus on the future.”
He doesn’t blame dairy farmers for the way the industry has expanded; the law and the circumstances were lax and farmers grew the industry as they saw fit.
“The signals to farmers were a bit mixed and muddled; we have tried to make clear to them that we want to get more from what they do now, which means more value from the raw products they produce.
“The previous government said ‘double exports’ so everyone just rushed out to double their efforts; but in fact what we really needed to do was focus on more value from what we were doing. That is the focus of our government.” – Peter Burke
OPINION: The news could not have been more concerning – an industry member deliberately and illegally imported grapevines into New Zealand, and then grew those vines in one of our major winegrowing regions, thereby threatening the livelihoods of friends, neighbours, and colleagues in the industry, and potentially the wider primary sector.
The Director General of MPI, Ray Smith says it's important for his department to celebrate the success of a whole range of groups and people around the country.
In this biosecurity article, I touch on four subjects of recent interest: the new New Zealand Winegrowers (NZW) Biosecurity Contractor Resources, a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug update, a Xylella Action Group update, and the Forest Biosecurity Conference.
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Farmers are cautiously welcoming the Government’s decision to hold an inquiry into rural banking.
The deer industry will be appointing a new chair for their industry-good organisation within two weeks following the shock removal of incumbent Mandy Bell.
Gallagher and Barenbrug have jointly bought the assets of Farmote Systems, an automated pasture monitoring company based out of Christchurch which went into receivership in January 2024.
A record 13 dairy farms supplying milk to low-carbon dairy processor, Miraka qualified for an extra premium of 20c/kgMS this season.
A sustainable merino wool replacement for rockwool and peat used in greenhouse growing won the Prototype Award at the National Fieldays innovation awards last night.
A major focus for Fieldays in recent years has involved responding to the agricultural sector’s pressing challenges of environmental sustainability, climate mitigation and food production.
