Greenpeace a charity?
OPINION: Should Greenpeace be stripped of their charitable status? Farmers say yes.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes a recent court decision which granted a stay on rules in the Southland Water and Land Plan until legislative changes can be made by government.
Following earlier court decisions, the plan would have required more than 3,000 Southland farmers to apply for an expensive resource consent to continue farming.
“Delaying legal processes until the Government’s proposed amendments to the RMA can be made is a pragmatic decision,” says Federated Farmers Southland president Jason Herrick.
“Requiring 3,000 local farmers to get a resource consent would have been nothing short of an impractical and expensive box-ticking exercise for absolutely no environmental gain,” Herrick says.
He says this would have been a significant cost for most farmers, ranging between $10,000 and $30,000 each, to continue day-to-day farming activities.
"We’re really pleased common sense has prevailed this week and farmers won’t need to waste their time or money jumping through bureaucratic hoops for no reason."
"The activist groups who initially brought this case, like Fish & Game and Forest & Bird, should be hanging their heads in shame," Herrick says.
"All they’ve done is stir up a whole lot of angst and uncertainty in our rural communities and I don’t think they’ve taken any accountability for that.
"Thankfully the politicians have listened and delivered a solution, and the court have put this stay in place so no more time or money is wasted while the law is being changed."
Among the regular exhibitors at last month’s South Island Agricultural Field Days, the one that arguably takes the most intensive preparation every time is the PGG Wrightson Seeds site.
Two high producing Canterbury dairy farmers are moving to blended stockfeed supplements fed in-shed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to boost protein levels, which they can’t achieve through pasture under the region’s nitrogen limit of 190kg/ha.
Buoyed by strong forecasts for milk prices and a renewed demand for dairy assets, the South Island rural real estate market has begun the year with positive momentum, according to Colliers.
The six young cattle breeders participating in the inaugural Holstein Friesian NZ young breeder development programme have completed their first event of the year.
New Zealand feed producers are being encouraged to boost staff training to maintain efficiency and product quality.
OPINION: The world is bracing for a trade war between the two biggest economies.
OPINION: In the same way that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, economists sometimes get it right.
OPINION: The proposed RMA reforms took a while to drop but were well signaled after the election.