Not bad
OPINION: New Zealand may be a minnow on the global stage but here’s another example how our ag sector punches above its weight.
Tom Vilsack has been confirmed to take up his old role as the head of the US Department of Agriculture.
Former US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack has been confirmed to take up to his old role as the head of the US Department of Agriculture.
Following a Senate vote last month, Vilsack returns to the job he held under the Obama administration in new President Joe Biden’s cabinet. His nomination met little resistance in the Senate, which only set aside 20 minutes for debate over his nomination.
While farm groups welcomed the nomination of Vilsack, Biden faces some political headwinds in the US farm sector.
In the first Farm Journal Pulse to gauge support for the Biden Administration, only 14% of the 1,459 farmers surveyed said they approve of the job done by the new administration.
Of those surveyed, 75% said they strongly disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as President.
At his confirmation hearing, Vilsack noted that while he is returning to his former job, the circumstances are very different.
Vilsack served as USDA Secretary for nearly the entirety of the Obama administration, from 2009 until 2017.
After leaving USDA, he was chief executive of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.
Prior to his first stint as agriculture secretary, Vilsack was Governor of Iowa from 1999-2007.
New Zealand needs a new healthcare model to address rising rates of obesity in rural communities, with the current system leaving many patients unable to access effective treatment or long-term support, warn GPs.
Southland farmers are being urged to put safety first, following a spike in tip offs about risky handling of wind-damaged trees
Third-generation Ashburton dairy farmers TJ and Mark Stewart are no strangers to adapting and evolving.
When American retail giant Cosco came to audit Open Country Dairy’s new butter plant at the Waharoa site and give the green light to supply their American stores, they allowed themselves a week for the exercise.
Fonterra chair Peter McBride says the divestment of Mainland Group is their last significant asset sale and signals the end of structural changes.
Thirty years ago, as a young sharemilker, former Waikato farmer Snow Chubb realised he was bucking a trend when he started planting trees to provide shade for his cows, but he knew the animals would appreciate what he was doing.

OPINION: Your old mate welcomes the proposed changes to local government but notes it drew responses that ranged from the reasonable…
OPINION: A press release from the oxygen thieves running the hot air symposium on climate change, known as COP30, grabbed your…