Celebrating success
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.
The Government has allocated “an extraordinarily small sum” to strengthen Biosecurity, National’s spokesperson for Agriculture Nathan Guy says.
Guy says this is despite the Government insisting that Biosecurity is underfunded prior to the budget announcement.
“Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced a paltry increase of just $9.3 million for Biosecurity which is half of what National invested in Budget17 at $18.4 million.
“This is a 50% reduction and makes a mockery of the Government’s recent rhetoric.
“If they truly believed in what they’ve been saying lately, they could have injected hundreds of millions of dollars into further strengthening the Biosecurity system - but in yesterday’s Budget they showed this isn’t really a priority.”
Guy points out that farmers and growers haven’t forgotten Labour and NZ First’s track record on Biosecurity – “they voted against National’s border clearance levy a few years ago – which has proved a great success in generating more funding for Biosecurity”.
“Ironically, it seems the Primary sector – which is New Zealand’s biggest export earner – turns out to be the Budget’s biggest loser,” Guy says.
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
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