Rocky Road milk is here
Speciality milk producer Lewis Road Creamery is celebrating its 10th anniversary of iconic chocolate milk with a new flavour.
Corporate dairy farmer Southern Pastures has been judged to be a responsible investment leader for the seventh year running.
The company, which owns 19 dairy farms in Waikato and Canterbury and is the owner of premium dairy brand Lewis Road Creamery and wholesale business NZ Grass Fed Products LP, says it remains the only organisation from New Zealand's agriculture and food sectors to ever be included in the annual benchmark report released by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA).
"So often the pastoral industry is judged by outputs such as emissions, but we're not nearly as rigorously measured or assessed for the positive services that some of us provide," says Prem Maan, Southern Pastures' executive chairman.
"On our farms, we have a massive programme of work underway to sequester carbon and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and foster biodiversity through, for example, good soil management, native plantings, and animal feed.
"We also act at executive level as strong stewards for more sustainable and resilient assets and markets. The RIAA benchmark is one way these positive efforts are independently recognised," says Maan.
RIAA represents investors with assets under management of over US$29 trillion, including NZ Managers who represent $328 billion.
Southern Pastures produces milk under its independently-audited 10 Star Certified Values standard, which covers stringent grass-fed, free-range, climate-change mitigation, human welfare, animal welfare, and sustainability requirements.
It doesn't feed cows imported palm kernel expeller (PKE), claiming its production contributes to loss of rainforest and biodiversity.
It also refuses to trade in carbon credits or offsets to achieve its zero carbon ambitions, but is committed to long-term farming techniques such as low tillage and deep-rooted plants that capture and store carbon from the atmosphere. It's also trialling and measuring numerous other initiatives such as biochar, dung beetles and prebiotics, as well as retiring land to native plantings.
"Soil can hold up to three times the amount of carbon than the atmosphere and all plant combined," says Maan.
"We think a positive approach to preserving carbon in our soil is potentially part of the answer to mitigating climate change.
"It's a shame that carbon sequestraction through on-farm soil management, native plantings and biodiversity is not prioritised in New Zealand over monoculture exotic trees."
Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.
Within the next 10 years, New Zealand agriculture will need to manage its largest-ever intergenerational transfer of wealth, conservatively valued at $150 billion in farming assets.
Boutique Waikato cheese producer Meyer Cheese is investing in a new $3.5 million facility, designed to boost capacity and enhance the company's sustainability credentials.
OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.
Compensation assistance for farmers impacted by Mycoplama bovis is being wound up.
Selecting the reverse gear quicker than a lovestruck boyfriend who has met the in-laws for the first time, the Coalition Government has confirmed that the proposal to amend Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) charged against farm utes has been canned.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…