Fieldays back as you know it!
It's that time again to break out the gumboots and a warm coat for the National Fieldays, which for 2023, returns to its normal mid-winter timeslot.
The Health and Wellbeing Hub is back at Fieldays this year, focusing on the importance of rural health and providing free health check-ups and advice to visitors.
The Hub is run in collaboration with Mobile Health, which provides elective day surgery for patients in rural New Zealand and supports the rural health workforce. Mobile Health chief executive Mark Eager said the initial idea behind the hub was to build a “health centre of the future” and provide an interactive platform for farmers and growers.
“With the Health and Wellbeing Hub, we get engagement from people that don’t usually receive health care,” he claims.
“In 2019, we’d see women walking into the hub with purpose, spending awhile inside looking around. Later, you’d see them return with their husbands pulled along by the ear to get a check-up.”
More than 25,000 people came through the Health and Wellbeing Hub at Fieldays 2019. Eleven malignant melanomas were detected in the Hub in 2019, and one woman discovered she had type 1 diabetes – both serious conditions that were caught at the right time.
In the Hub this year there will be organisations covering all facets of health and wellbeing. Rural mental health is also at the forefront of support again this year. Fieldays visitors can make their health a priority and catch up with a friend over a check-up at the Health and Wellbeing Hub.
The country’s 4200 commercial fruit and vegetable growers will vote from May 14 on a new HortNZ levy.
Meat processor Alliance Group is asking farmer shareholders to inject more capital in order to remain a 100% co-operative.
A vet is calling for all animals to be vaccinated against a new strain of leptospirosis (lepto) discovered on New Zealand dairy farms in recent years.
Dairy
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.
Telco infrastructure provider Chorus says that it believes all Kiwis – particularly those in the rural areas – need access to high-speed, reliable broadband.