increase font size
OPINION: Your old mate has long argued Landcorp’s farming business – Pamu – is a bigger dog than he is.
The state farmer’s latest result of $8 million for the half-year ended 31 December, 2020, shows its return on assets – managing 117 farms, 84 of which they own – makes it a terrible business for both the country and taxpayers.
However, a recent brilliant suggestion from North Otago farmer Grant Ludeman would kill two birds with the one stone.
He suggests that the Government order Pamu to completely destock all its farms and plant them in natives – making a huge contribution to decarbonising the country and meeting the CCC’s aim for a 15% reduction in NZ’s livestock numbers – as well as ridding the taxpayer of a poorly performing state business. Win, win!
OPINION: Your old mate reckons townie Brooke van Velden, the Minister of Workplace (or is it Woke Place) Relations is now showing how underemployed she is as a minister by initiating an investigation into whether young children should be banned from collecting eggs on farms and feeding animals.
OPINION: There's an infamous term coined by a US general during the Vietnam war, specifically in reference to the battle of Ben Tre: "We had to burn the village to save it."
OPINION: The sudden departure of Jim Ward, manager of Molesworth Station for 24 years, highlighted some major dysfunction in the way conservation estate is managed in this country - the biggest problem, as the Hound sees it, being idealogues who harp on about "taonga" and use all means possible to block sensible commercial operations on conservation land.
OPINION: While the destruction of NZ's oil and gas industry by Jacinda Ardern's band of merry vandals was virtue signalling on a heroic scale - producing no environmental benefit whatsoever - the politician vowing to make that industry whole again, Shane Jones, is not above a bit of virtue signalling of his own.
The Government has appointed three new members to the board of state farmer Landcorp Farming Ltd, trading as Pāmu.
A landmark New Zealand trial has confirmed what many farmers have long suspected - that strategic spring nitrogen use not only boosts pasture growth but delivers measurable gains in lamb growth and ewe condition.
It was recently announced that former MP and Southland farmer Eric Roy has stepped down of New Zealand Pork after seven years. Leo Argent talks with Eric about his time at the organisation and what the future may hold.
It's critical that the horticulture sector works together as part of a goal to double the sector’s exports by 2035.
RaboResearch, the research arm of specialist agriculture industry banker Rabobank, sees positives for the Alliance Group in its proposed majority-stake sale to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
The ACT Party's call for a better deal on the Paris Agreement on climate change is being backed by farmer organisations.
A 50% tariff slapped by the US on goods from India last month has opened an opportunity for New Zealand wool carpets exports to North America.
