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.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor told the NZ Institute of Primary Industry Management conference that more R&D spending is needed in the whole economy and that not all agricultural investment will be behind the farmgate.
He says MPI’s economic intelligence unit is getting the world’s best information on trends and information on protein, fibre, etc.
“We are looking out for that information to try to bring it back and share it, but the question is should we force-feed money to try to make progress? If industries don’t see the need to do this they are going to fail anyway. We are not going to subsidise…. we went beyond that in the 1980s.
“We have to lift our game across the board because we are being challenged by all these alternatives.”
He cites margarine as an example. “As an industry we fought it and they ran over us”. It was easier to spread and after about 15 years of resistance we finally looked at spreadable butter. (Spreadable butter was made by Kaipara Co-op Dairy Co in the early 1970s. Ed.)
“For about 30 years we were beaten up by margarine until finally we got to the point where we said ‘this highly processed stuff is probably worse for you than butter’.”
“We have to wake up and be more mature about the challenges coming at us.”
“It won’t be just a picture of the Southern Alps,” he said, referring to a comment from a conference attendee that was our only response so far to the threat from alternative proteins.
“It will be a whole lot around the nutritional value of meat and ensuring there is not unwanted residues in there.
“The ability to test around residues is going up and up.”
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.
World Veterinary Day falls on Saturday 27 April.