Crazy
OPINION: Your canine crusader was truly impressed by the almost unanimous support given by politicians of all stripes in Parliament to the recent passing of legislation for the NZ/EU free trade deal.
The double-D’S were front and centre at Karapiro, Waikato, recently to promote a voluntary water quality initiative.
David Parker and Damien O’Connor, ministers for the environment and agriculture, respectively, joined industry leaders to endorse the Good Farming Practice-Action Plan for Water Quality 2018.
The plan was developed largely from principles set out in the 2015 Industry-Agreed Management Practices first applied by Environment Canterbury.
The voluntary initiative is led by Federated Farmers, Beef + Lamb NZ, Dairy NZ, Horticulture NZ, Irrigation NZ and people from regional councils and regulatory authorities.
The chief aim is to help make rivers swimmable and to improve the ecology of waterways, so the plan advocates good farming practices -- assessing individual and regional catchments, measuring and showing improvements and telling the public about progress.
At grassroots level this will see workable plans being drawn up to identify physical and topographical constraints, and identify land where cropping should cease because of erosion risks. The plan includes keeping accurate records of inputs and outputs, and managing run-off, sediments and nutrients entering waterways.
Environment Minister David Parker applauded the voluntary nature of the plan and conceded that regulation “might not be the b-all and end-all”. But he said rules and regulations would be part of the solution, as would better education and perhaps “pricing” to influence behaviour.
Parker’s former flatmate Minister Damien O’Connor noted “the need for guidelines in tune with the environment, and for a part of the social licence that allows landowners to operate”.
NZ agriculture and horticulture needs to be the best producer in the world, he said, with their output “food for people who care, produced by farmers and growers who care”.
The plan now is to spend the next two years enlisting farms and local and regional authorities in a campaign going through to 2030.
Rural trader PGG Wrightson has revised its operating earnings guidance, saying trading conditions have deteriorated since the last market update in February.
It's been a bumper season for maize and other supplements in the eastern Bay of Plenty.
Leading farmers from around New Zealand connected to share environmental stories and inspiration and build relationships at the Dairy Environment Leaders (DEL) national forum in Wellington last month.
AgriZeroNZ, a joint venture fast-tracking emissions reduction tools for farmers, is pouring $5 million in a biotech company to develop a low emissions farm pasture with increased productivity gains.
Fonterra is teaming up with wealth app provider Sharesies to make it easier for its farmer shareholders to trade co-op shares among themselves.
Te Awamutu dairy farmers Doug, Penny, Josh and Bayley Storey have planted more than 25,000 native trees on the family farm, adding to a generations-old native forest.