Editorial: Punching Above Our Weight
OPINION: With 10,500 dairy farms, New Zealand continues to punch above its weight around the world.
Your old mate was flabbergasted at the sheer political gall of Labour and the Greens in their latter-day ‘concern for farmers’ in the wake of the recent drop in dairy payout.
MPs from both parties, saying they were worried about farmers, tried to blame the Government for the drop in global dairy prices or sought to make Fonterra pay farmers more or to force banks to carry bad loans. Your canine crusader reckons farmers might take these ‘concerns’ a little more seriously when Green MPs stop labelling farmers polluters and water thieves and their Labour mates stop wanting to hit the farming sector with new greenhouse gas taxes, stop making claims about farmers deliberately avoiding paying tax and cease calls to whack the sector with even more costs.
Signing up to a benchmarking tool is not about competition, but about improving collectively, says Ximena Puig and Alvaro Luzardo who are 50-50 sharemilkers at a 164-hectare (effective) dairy farm in Eketāhuna in the Lower North Island.
A leading British farming politician says he's impressed with the positive attitude of New Zealand farmers that he met during his recent trip here.
OPINION: With 10,500 dairy farms, New Zealand continues to punch above its weight around the world.
The Southern Dairy Hub (SDH), which runs a demonstration farm for South Island farmers, has a new general manager.
Esther Guy-Meakin has been announced as the new chief executive of the New Zealand Meat Board (NZMB).
According to a progress report on the Aotearoa Horticulture Action Plan (AHAP), New Zealand's horticulture sector is making real progress on the big issues facing growers.

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