Ploughing Champs success
Sean Leslie and Casey Tilson from Middlemarch, with horses Beau and Dough, took out the Rural News Horse Plough award at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships at Horotiu, near Hamilton, on April 13-14.
The World Ploughing Championships have just concluded in Denmark and New Zealand entrants acquitted themselves well.
Blenheim’s Ian Woolley in the conventional plough division finished eleventh overall, after finishing fifth in the stubble ploughing on the first day and 16th in the grassland ploughing on the second day. He also gained a special prize for the ploughman who finishes highest in his first World Ploughing Championships.
In the reversible ploughing division, Malcolm Taylor of Putaruru finished eighteenth overall, after finishing twentieth in the stubble and sixteenth in the grassland section.
Both the New Zealanders were competing against ploughmen and women from 30 countries.
They will both again represent NZ in the 2016 World Championships at Coventry in the UK.
Meanwhile, Rotorua’s Colin Millar was appointed president of the World Ploughing Organisation. He has been vice president for three years.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford is claiming “some real success” on the 12 policy priorities it placed before the Coalition Government.
Federated Farmers is throwing its support behind the Fast-track Approvals Bill introduced by the Coalition Government to enable a fast-track decision-making process for infrastructure and development projects.
The latest report from ANZ isn’t good news for sheep farmers: lamb returns are forecast to remain low.
Divine table grapes that herald the start of a brand-new industry in Hawke’s Bay have been coming off vines in Maraekakaho.
In what appears to be a casualty of the downturn in the agricultural sector, a well-known machinery brand is now in the hands of liquidators and owing creditors $6.6 million.
One of New Zealand’s deepest breeder Jersey herds – known for its enduring connection through cattle with the UK’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II – will host its 75th anniversary celebration sale on-farm on April 22.