Cuddling cows
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its cows and instead charge visitors to cuddle them.
The payout news has been pretty average recently, so no surprises that confidence in the industry isn’t at an all-time high.
However, if Rural News Group’s Fieldays Previews are any indication, the mood is not overwhelmingly negative; extensive previews in Dairy News and its stablemate Rural News are well supported by advertisers.
Dairy News ran a 20-page preview highlighting the Fieldays themes, activities and exhibitors; Rural News did a 27-page preview along the same lines, complete with a glossy lift-out map.
These sorts of features and their level of advertising well indicate how bullish or bearish the service and supply side of the industry is about the outlook for agriculture. While no one is pretending the short term outlook is a bit flat, these Fieldays previews suggest agribusiness is confident in the medium-long term story for farming.
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…