Dry weather classification expands to North Island
The dry weather in some parts of the North Island has received medium-scale adverse event classification from the Government.
OPINION: Farmers are change adaptive, we can make change for the better.
When we see a problem we fix it, when something is broken we rebuild it. Heritage farmers have focused not just on change but improvements for the better, of knowing the challenges and taking them on.
When we see neighbours and locals in need, we wrap around them, when we need labour we provide them with on farm housing because that is what farmers do, and that is what we will keep doing.
As a conscience farmer I am incredibly proud how far this community has come and I am proud to be part of this Aorere Valley, to be a dairy farmer on his heritage farm and to be accepted as a neighbour and friend.
But now we need the wider national farming heart, we need your values, your compassion, your motivation, we need your grit, your determination, because as farmers we need to make the difference.
We need to believe in climate differences, we need to believe in the ‘diff-ability’ of our natural surroundings and we need to believe in becoming openly adaptive to change. We can keep building knowledge, we can keep challenging the elite, we can keep demanding for the truth, we can keep digging for the natural answers, so we can keep doing this.
We can keep farming to our intuition, we can be conscience farmers, making the best decisions at the time, and we can make change for a better future.
So, I ask you all to lift your voice to collaboration, learn for yourself what the gaps in the science really are and be collectively clear that as the change makers we are also the fixers.
Without us, without our knowledge and without our cooperation, human fair trading with the planet will end.
• Deborah Rhodes is a dairy farmer from Collingwood, Golden Bay.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford is claiming “some real success” on the 12 policy priorities it placed before the Coalition Government.
Federated Farmers is throwing its support behind the Fast-track Approvals Bill introduced by the Coalition Government to enable a fast-track decision-making process for infrastructure and development projects.
The latest report from ANZ isn’t good news for sheep farmers: lamb returns are forecast to remain low.
Divine table grapes that herald the start of a brand-new industry in Hawke’s Bay have been coming off vines in Maraekakaho.
In what appears to be a casualty of the downturn in the agricultural sector, a well-known machinery brand is now in the hands of liquidators and owing creditors $6.6 million.
One of New Zealand’s deepest breeder Jersey herds – known for its enduring connection through cattle with the UK’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II – will host its 75th anniversary celebration sale on-farm on April 22.