IRISH BEEF could be on Chinese plates for the first time in more than a decade after a top official promised to send scientific experts to check Ireland's safeguards against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Fonterra needs to sit closer to its customers and listen to their needs, because products are being invented that don't necessarily align with what customers want.

WHILE THE Food Bill's progress through Parliament has been postponed, and some of the summer's furore was based on misinformation, concerns with the proposed legislation remain, says Green Party MP Steffan Browning.

LOBBYING IS underway to gain Australian Government funding for a national programme to conduct energy assessments in dairies.

FEWER, BETTER fed cow looks set to deliver much more milk for little extra cost on Lincoln University's Dairy Farm this season, judging by a field day late last month on the showcase irrigated Canterbury unit.

There's a real revival of interest in "growing your own", knowing where your food comes from and what it contains. For those picking up on this trend, late summer is the season for squirreling away goodies grown in the garden or picked up at farmers' markets, so they can be enjoyed long after the harvest is over.

The once proud and powerful Wool Board, now little more than a shameful memory, has been well picked over.

SIMPLE RULES and precision pasture management make David Lister's 147ha dairy farm near Temuka one of the most profitable in the country, and he's got the award to prove it.

SHED SAFETY improvements to artificial breeding (AB) facilities on farm have a direct effect on farm productivity and profitability. By reducing injuries productivity is up, idle time reduced, the cost of replacement labour eliminated, and medical treatment and rehabilitation expenses avoided.

IT IS a high, dry climate to be dairying in at 400m above sea level north of Omarama, one that may appear to present some climatic challenges, but also some animal health bonuses.