NZ agribusinesses urged to embrace China’s e-commerce and innovation boom
Keep up with innovation and e-commerce in China or risk losing market share. That was the message delivered at the China Business Summit in Auckland this month.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently turned the first sod at Silver Fern Farms' Beflast (Christchurch) meat works for a project slated as a major step in the company's ambition to become coal-free by 2030.
The Belfast Hot Temperature Pump will be a heat pump harnessing waste heat from the refrigeration process to heat hot water for other parts of the plant's operation.
It is expected to slash about 8% off the company's total coal consumption by replacing 1,500 tonnes of coal a year and abate 59,000 tonnes of carbon across its lifetime.
About half of the $1.6 million cost is coming from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) fund.
Funding has also been secured for similar pumps at SFF's Finegand and Pareora plants.
Jacinda Ardern told VIPs and Belfast plant workers at the launch that some have called the GIDI scheme "corporate welfare" but she considers it a direct partnership that has had "huge" potential.
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.
A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.
OPINION: The phasing out of copper network from communications is understandable.
Driven by a lifelong passion for animals, Amy Toughey's journey from juggling three jobs with full-time study to working on cutting-edge dairy research trials shows what happens when hard work meets opportunity - and she's only just getting started.
The New Zealand Fish & Game Council has announced a leadership change in an effort to provide strategic direction for the sector and support the implementation of proposed legislative changes.