Election Year Curse?
OPINION: The coalition Government seems to have chickened out when it comes to live animal exports by sea.
OPINION: Your canine crusader notes that the new parliament will have a fresh array of new MPs from farming backgrounds taking up seats in the nation's capital.
The Nats have the likes of Miles Anderson, Mike Butterick, Suze Redmayne and Grant McCullum joining their ranks.
Meanwhile, ACT sees the addition of former Feds president Andrew Hoggard to their caucus and NZ First sees the return of Mark Patterson.
Many of these MPs have close ties to Federated Farmers, including the aforementioned Hoggard, Anderson and Butterick from National and NZ First's Patterson.
That should make a nice change for the farmer lobby in having a few friends and ex-colleagues in the halls of power.
New Zealand's diverse cheesemaking talent shone brightly last night as the New Zealand Specialist Cheesemakers Association (NZSCA) crowned the champions of the 2026 New Zealand Cheese Awards.
Tracing has indicated that the source of the first velvetleaf find of the 2025-26 crop season, in Auckland, was likely maize purchased in the Waikato region.
Fish & Game New Zealand has announced its election priorities in its Manifesto 2026.
With the forage maize harvest started in Northland and the Waikato, the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) is telling growers of later crops, or those further south, to start checking their maize crop maturity about three weeks prior to when they think they will start silage harvesting.
Irrigation NZ is warning that the government's Resource Management Act (RMA) reform risks falling short of its objectives unless water use for food production and water storage infrastructure are clearly recognised in the goals at the top of the new system.
More than five million trays, or 18,000 tonnes, of Zespri’s RubyRed Kiwifruit will soon be available for consumers across 16 markets this season.

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OPINION: If farmers poured just a few litres of some pollutant into a stream, the Green Party and the wider…