Profit and environment go hand in hand for winners
Northland farmers Geoff and Jo Crawford have a simple mantra: put as much milk in the vat in the best environmental way possible.
Tauranga dairy farmers Dennis, Judith and Gordon McFetridge were Supreme Winners of the 2013 Bay of Plenty Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA), the first of this year’s round of regional awards announced. A field day will be held on their farm March 26.
Canterbury’s awards night is next on the BFEA agenda, March 21, followed by Northland March 27, Waikato April 3, Southland April 10, Otago April 12, and Greater Wellington April 18. The National Sustainability Showcase involving all nine regions’ Supreme winners is in Hamilton, June 22.
New Zealand dairy farmers are set to be the first in the world to receive access to a new digital physical milk pricing tool that enables them to fix the price for their physical milk.
State farmer Pāmu is opening its farm gates this summer in an effort to give the rural sector the opportunity to see how large-scale, multi-system farming is delivering productivity and profitability across New Zealand.
A five-year study has found that the cost of reducing emissions without technology may be significant and unsustainable for Northland dairy farmers.
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
While the Government has moved quickly to make commercial hauliers' lot easier during the current fuel crisis, they appear to be stuck in the creep box when it comes to the agricultural industry.
Waikato farmers have been told that the Government’s new planning system legislation and the region’s Plan Change 1 (PC1) “won’t mesh together very well”.