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.
OPINION: Scientists in Ireland are going underwater to solve their dairy sector’s methane conundrum.
They are combing the west coast for seaweed to feed to cattle and sheep after research showed it could stop them breathing out so much climate-warming methane.
The project, coordinated by a state agriculture body, is banking on the country’s growing seaweed industry to help the dairy sector avoid reversing a surge in Irish cattle numbers to reduce Europe’s largest per capita methane output by 2030.
About 20 species of seaweed, most from Ireland’s windswept Atlantic coast, have been tested by researchers. Scientists in the US and Australia have already demonstrated dramatic methanereducing qualities from one seaweed type – Asparagopsis – when small quantities are added to the feedstock.
But they have not yet managed to scale up production of the seaweed, which is not easy to grow in northwest Europe. The Irish hope they are luckier!
The challenges of high-performance sport and farming are not as dissimilar as they may first appear.
HortNZ's CEO, Kate Scott says they are starting to see the substantial cumulative effects on their members of the two disastrous flood events in the Nelson Tasman region.
In an ever-changing world, things never stay completely the same. Tropical jungles can turn into concrete ones criss-crossed by motorways, or shining cities collapse into ghost towns.
Labour's agriculture spokesperson Jo Luxton says while New Zealand needs more housing, sacrificing our best farmland to get there is not the answer.
Profitability issues facing arable farmers are the same across the world, says New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy Hamish Marr.
Over 85% of Fonterra farmer suppliers will be eligible for customer funding up to $1,500 for solutions designed to drive on-farm efficiency gains and reduce emissions intensity.
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…