Government Backs Rural Wellbeing Champions Programme
The Government has announced it is backing a new initiative designed to grow grassroots rural wellbeing leaders.
OPINION: Your canine crusader reckons no single lobby group has had a bigger turnaround in fortunes than Federated Farmers since the election of the new coalition Government.
Under the old regime, Feds were so badly treated they were even left out of a number of consultations affecting the farming sector by the Labour government.
Now it seems everywhere you look in Parliament there is a Feds' influence.
This includes the two new associate ag ministers, Andrew Hoggard and Mark Patterson, as well as MPs primary production select committee deputy chair Miles Anderson, and new MPs Mike Butterick from Wairarapa and Grant McCallum from Northland - all former Fed Farmers office holders.
There are also quite a few parliamentary staffers who were former Feds staff.
Talk about going from the outhouse to the big house.
The 2026 National Fieldays has seen Westpac NZ launch its fourth community banking van.
Morrinsville-based agribusiness leader Geoff Maber has been appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in the King’s Birthday Honours, recognising a lifetime of service to agribusiness, the rural sector and the wider community.
Retired agribusiness professor and commentator Keith Woodford says it's a great honour to receive the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit title in the King's Birthday Honours List.
The Environment Court has directed Waikato Regional Council to make 20 specific changes to finalise a landmark plan to improve water quality in the Waikato and Waipā rivers.
The Government has announced it is backing a new initiative designed to grow grassroots rural wellbeing leaders.
Waikato vet Katrina Roberts came from Australia in 2002 as a veterinary student and never left.

OPINION: While we're on the topic of lumberjacks, Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard has no doubt used a chainsaw hundreds of…
OPINION: To a chorus of crying greenies, and not a minute too soon, the Government has moved to put the…