Misguided campaign
OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is polluting the environment.
OPINION: Known for serious trade negotiations with global politicians, top NZ trade official Vangelis Vitalis also knows how to crack jokes.
He told this one at the recent DairyNZ Farmers Forum in Hamilton: A farmer found a bottle and he polished it and out pops a genie and says, "You've got two wishes". The farmer asks, "don't you normally give three". Yeah, but budget cuts, genie replies. So, the farmer answers, "Um, what I'd really like is, I don't like flying, and I'd like to have a motorway built all the way from New Zealand, all the way to Hawaii." The genie looks at him and says, "Look, that's just impossible - so ridiculously impossible. What's the second wish?"
The farmer says, "oh, okay. I'd like someone to explain to me international trade policy." And the genie looks at him and says, "Um, about that motorway, two lanes or four?"
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).