Irrigation NZ believes that imposing a nationwide water tax would be unworkable.
It is now legal to sell raw (unpasteurised) drinking milk to consumers.
Stimulated by Fonterra posting a loss of $196 million, business analysts, academics and journalists have put forward their views on what is wrong with the cooperative and what is needed to sort it out.
OPINION: Fonterra's upcoming director elections will be an interesting contest with a potential shake-up on the cards, which its board surely needs.
Your canine crusader cannot believe how bad a job Fonterra’s public relations team does for the dairy co-op.
Your old mate realises he risks an outpouring of hatred and bile from the tin foil hat-wearing types who support the anti-1080 movement, but he reckons they have proven beyond a doubt that they are total nutjobs.
The Hound had to laugh on hearing that the sanctimonious, whining vegan cafe owner who refused to serve cow milk to customers has now closed his shop and will walk the length of New Zealand barefoot in protest.
A mate of the Hound who recently travelled to Ireland found that country’s airport biosecurity rather lax.
The previous government issued a call-to-action to New Zealand: double primary production export earnings while maintaining or improving water quality.
OPINION: Beware the snag in the incentivised pushing by central and local government to get hill country into trees.
OPINION: Two important pieces of work released in the last couple of weeks bring into clear focus the challenge New Zealand faces in its greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.
Speaking of M. bovis, the Hound understands the latest outburst by a farmer hit early on by the cattle disease has upset several people.
A mate of the Hound – a former technician and founder of an electronics business – reckons the NAIT system has many big flaws.
The Hound reckons the new Fonterra chair ‘Grumpy’ John Monaghan is proving more elusive than the Loch Ness Monster.
Your old mate notes his good friends at Bitch & Complain (Fish & Game) have had yet another crack at the farming sector, this time over winter grazing.
We've had lately an abundance of reports on how New Zealand should tackle its carbon emissions profile – especially regarding agriculture’s contribution.
OPINION: Clearly the Minister of Agriculture believes the honey industry is in a bad state when he refers to it at the Agcarm conference (Rural News, August 21) as being the “wild west of the primary sector”.
OPINION: Getting used to the increased costs in producing the food society needs, wants and desires is simply part of farming; absent are the increased returns to cover the costs.
The Hound is shocked and dismayed at the support by certain political figures for the draconian and totally unnecessary NAIT ‘search and surveillance’ regulations rushed into law by the Coalition Government.
OPINION: Something important has been missing from the discussion of the role and responsibilities of the trustees of New Zealand’s 450,000 or so family trusts.
Your old mate was disappointed, but not surprised, recently when the chardonnay socialists at RNZ teamed up with the wacky animal activist group SAFE to try to do a hit-job on the Five Star Beef Ltd feedlot near Ashburton.
A mate of your canine crusader, who keeps bees and was around when the varroa mite invaded Kiwi beehives nearly 20 years ago, reckons the parallels with the M. bovis incursion are hard to ignore.
This old mutt reckons the old saying ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’ should be amended to ‘lies, damn lies and Greenpeace claims’ because the multinational, tax-dodging political activists been caught telling porkies again.
Farmer groups, DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb NZ are in damage control.
