Crazy
OPINION: Your canine crusader was truly impressed by the almost unanimous support given by politicians of all stripes in Parliament to the recent passing of legislation for the NZ/EU free trade deal.
The meat industry has some great exemplars but still too many laggards, says the Minister for Primary Industry, Damien O’Connor.
He told the Red Meat Sector conference that the laggards are farmers who ignore NAIT and animal traceability and who breach animal welfare codes and other regulations.
He says New Zealand’s reputation is determined by the lowest common-denominator farmer for whom there is no place anywhere in the primary sector.
“This is because an iPhone can send a negative message around the world and undermine all the good stories we will tell under the Taste Pure Nature brand.”
O’Connor says Taste Pure Nature is a good start but he believes NZ must promote regional differences as the wine industry does.
“Then we will have people coming to NZ to find the subtle differences in the flavour of meat between, say, Hawkes Bay and Canterbury.”
O’Connor referred to two serious concerns he hads about the meat industry: one was the lack of women at the conference -- not peculiar to the meat industry; the other was the low involvement of Maori. “They have values, kaitiakitanga (guardianship) and manaakitanga (hospitality) that embody everything we are trying to do in producing food and protecting our environment,” he says.
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.
Two major red meat sector projects are getting up to a combined $1.7 million in funding from the New Zealand Meat Board (NZMB).
Angus Barr and Tara Dwyer of The Wandle, Lone Star Farms in Strath Taieri have been named the Regional Supreme Winners at the Otago Ballance Farm Environment Awards in Dunedin.
OPINION: The distress that the politicians and bureaucrats are causing to the people of Wairoa and the wider Tairāwhiti is unforgivable.
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.