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.
MEAT INDUSTRY Excellence (MIE) chairman John McCarthy is urging farmers to vote for Fiona Hancox in their upcoming election.
Hancox, a long time Silver Fern Farms shareholder and supplier has recently resigned from MIE's executive committee and is planning to put her name forward for nomination in this year's SFF elections.
McCarthy says as a founding member of MIE, Hancox has worked tirelessly to improve outcomes for farmers and co-op shareholders and would serve SFF well.
"SFF shareholders can be in no doubt that they will have, on their ballot paper, a true champion for industry reform and improved farmer returns, as well as a very successful sheep and beef farmer, well qualified to be an excellent director," says McCarthy.
According to McCarthy, despite delays to the SFF elections and AGM, MIE invited Hancox to take part in its upcoming farmer meetings. McCarthy says that farmer engagement and participation in their co-ops and the industry remained the decisive factor and it is important that interested parties had a chance to meet candidates that shared a vision for industry reform.
"We're at a tipping point. Farmers' high level of engagement last year in Co-op elections sent a message to our boards. As a result, we've seen some improvement, but we need to continue to refresh these boards to go on with the job," says McCarthy.
"Without a continued signal for change from farmers on their ballot forms, there's no guarantee this momentum will continue."
McCarthy says that Hancox's resignation from MIE came as a loss to the group, but he recognised her enormous contribution, and extensive work on building grassroots knowledge about industry issues.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
OPINION: Sir Lockwood Smith has clearly and succinctly defined what academic freedom is all about, the boundaries around it and the responsibility that goes with this privilege.
OPINION: For years, the ironically named Dr Mike Joy has used his position at Victoria University to wage an activist-style…
OPINION: A mate of yours truly has had an absolute gutsful of the activist group SAFE.