North Otago farmer Jane Smith standing for Ravensdown board seat
North Otago farmer Jane Smith is standing for the Ravensdown South Island director seat.
Ravensdown has named Tom Wilson as this year’s recipient of the Hugh Williams Memorial Scholarship.
The Hugh Williams Memorial Scholarship was founded to commemorate the late Hugh Williams, a Ravensdown director from 1987 to 2000. The scholarship provides $5000 per year for the duration of a student’s agricultural or horticultural studies at Lincoln, Waikato or Massey University.
Currently in his third year at Massey University, Wilson is studying his Bachelor of Agricultural Science. He is actively involved in the agricultural sector and presented his research on the feasibility of an updated Spreadmark test at the annual Fertiliser and Lime Research Centre conference in 2019.
Wilson has a keen interest in precision and digital agriculture which works well with his passion for food production and the environment. He believes that the solutions to feeding the world’s growing population without risking the environment will come from variable rate application and site-specific management.
“Geographic Information Systems, or GIS, has become my favourite subject,” says Wilson. “GIS software lets you spatially map data, such as soil texture or organic matter content of topsoil and then from this data you can form site-specific management zones for variable rate application. I’m very much a visual learner and being able to visualise spatial data in map form gives me a greater appreciation for the possibilities of precision agriculture.
“In the future, I want to be a leading figure in the mass adoption of precision agriculture,” says Tom. “I think it’s an exciting time to be in the agricultural sector, and I aim to do my part to bridge the gap for precision agriculture between research and on-farm practice.”
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.