Farmer investment pays off
Investment by landowners to keep stock and sediment out of the Rangitikei River and its tributaries has been given the big tick from a population of Dwarf Galaxiids, which require healthy streams to survive.
A new study is showing dairy and conservation sites can co-exist, and its findings are contributing to an ongoing project restoring natural biodiversity into a dairy farming environment.
'Persistence of biodiversity in a dryland remnant within an intensified dairy farm landscape', looks at Bankside Scientific Reserve, a small (2.6 ha) remnant in Canterbury surrounded by dairy paddocks.
It still has valuable communities of native species, despite being impacted by nitrate and phosphate encroachment, and habitat fragmentation.
It concludes "it does not appear to be an intractable management issue for the interface between agricultural systems and conservation sites within a dairy landscape mosaic".
One of the study's authors, Professor of Ecology, Nick Dickinson, and other Lincoln scientists have been tasked by Ngāi Tahu Farming and Manawhenua from Tuahuriri Marae, to turn the little triangles of land which irrigators in paddocks cannot reach into an oasis for native plants and animals on Ngāi Tahu's Eyrewell dairy farm.
Professor Dickinson says the study shows there are "means and ways" to restore natural biodiversity into a dairy farming environment, and the Ngai Tāhu Farming project was an example, covering 150ha on 17 reserves, with a similar additional amount of native species being planted on paddock borders and under irrigators.
These create conditions for more than 65 species of plants to regenerate, and also provide corridors for insects and birds between the reserves.
The research hinges on finding the benefits to the farmer of doing this, to encourage more native planting, he says.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford is claiming “some real success” on the 12 policy priorities it placed before the Coalition Government.
Federated Farmers is throwing its support behind the Fast-track Approvals Bill introduced by the Coalition Government to enable a fast-track decision-making process for infrastructure and development projects.
The latest report from ANZ isn’t good news for sheep farmers: lamb returns are forecast to remain low.
Divine table grapes that herald the start of a brand-new industry in Hawke’s Bay have been coming off vines in Maraekakaho.
In what appears to be a casualty of the downturn in the agricultural sector, a well-known machinery brand is now in the hands of liquidators and owing creditors $6.6 million.
One of New Zealand’s deepest breeder Jersey herds – known for its enduring connection through cattle with the UK’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II – will host its 75th anniversary celebration sale on-farm on April 22.