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OPINION: Your old mate is cynical about the real motives of many who push the latest fad in farming, regenerative agriculture.
Several groups - as well as a fair few government-funded bodies - seem to be cashing in on the regen bandwagon.
One is a group called 'Calm the Farm' - a self-described investment service that aims to "help" conventional farmers to convert to regenerative agriculture.
Its founders are Nathalie Whitaker of Give A Little, data analytics expert Mike Taitoko and physicist Shaun Hendy.
If that last name rings a bell, that's because it is the the same Shaun Hendy from the University of Auckland's Te Punaha Matatini (TPM), the Government's favoured 'Covid modelling' outfit.
It seems Hendy is not content with just clipping the ticket on Covid, to the tune of more than $6 million for Covid-19 modelling from TPM, but is now also keen to cash in on the regen ag fad as well!
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.
OPINION: Your old mate's ear has been chewed off recently by farmers voicing their displeasure with the National Party, particularly relating to how they're treating their farmer base.
Trade Minister Todd McClay says his officials plan to meet their US counterparts every month from now on to better understand how the 15% tariff issue there will play out, and try and get some certainty there for our exporters about the future.
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.
