New Zealand is recognised as the world’s leading pastoral agricultural producer. Pasture-based exports account for almost half of our total exports and given the state of the rest of the world, we are quickly becoming globally recognised as gold standard food producers. Unfortunately, all that productivity puts us in the shit…. tonnes of it. It’s […]
Farm Stories
No ordinary day for this shearer
It was an ordinary Thursday for most of us this week, but not for Southland shearer Megan Whitehead. Yesterday Megan spent nine hours tackling the women’s world lamb shearing record near Gore. Former women’s world record holder Jills Angus Burney (and the only woman to have beaten David Fagan) was supporting Megan as her mentor. “Megan achieved the […]
Scholarship allows dream career in beekeeping to take flight
A Bay of Plenty teen has been given a boost to his dream career in beekeeping after receiving the 2020 Apiculture New Zealand Ron Mossop Youth Scholarship. Ohope-based Angus Brenton-Rule was thrilled to win the scholarship, which provides $2000 to support training and set up costs for new beekeepers, a one-year membership to industry body […]
Remarkable lambing performance in challenging year
Despite COVID-19 related processing restrictions and a widespread drought in the first half of 2020, sheep and beef farmers achieved a near record 130.3% lambing percentage. This is the finding of the Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) Lamb Crop Outlook report for 2020 that measures the lambing performance and forecasts lamb and sheep exports […]
Stalled boarding allowance a barrier to equitable education access
Federated Farmers intends ramping up political pressure for a long overdue increase to the school access barrier boarding allowance. This follows a Feds’ survey of farming families which revealed substantial costs and family disruption from the access barrier board allowance being totally outstripped by the fees that boarding schools charge. Average state boarding school fees […]
Bare-all calendar raises spirits – and funds
In a time when Hawke’s Bay farmers were experiencing a drought like no other since the 1980s as well as dealing with the consequences of COVID19, Poppy Renton wanted to reach out and foster a dose of community spirit. The daughter of a fifth generation Hawke’s Bay farmer working the land at Maraekakaho, west of […]
Feds members show excellence in sustainable irrigation
Federated Farmers members Ted and Sue Rollinson are the New Zealand region winners of the inaugural Zimmatic™ Sustainable Irrigation Awards. The Rollinson’s own a 380-hectare dairy farm in mid-Canterbury. Sharemilkers Tom and Leanne Heneghan, who are also Feds members, have been on farm for 11 years and milk 1,500 cows on the property. The Awards […]
Survey shows farm plans are driving change
A new survey of farmers in Aparima, Southland, shows farms achieve better environmental results when they have Farm Environment Plans. Six hundred dairy, sheep and beef farmers work together in the Aparima Community Environment Project, which aims to improve the health of freshwater and reduce environmental footprint. A recent survey of 151 Aparima farmers showed […]
Tales of WWII land girls shared
Among the crowd of more than 120 who travelled to Maungati, near Timaru, on October 18 to remember the World War II ‘land girls’ were two particularly special guests – Sadie Lietze (nee Stuart) and Daphne Attfield (nee Williams). Now in their late 90s, the pair represented the last of the ranks of the New […]
Carbon footprint cut, one step at a time
Wairarapa sheep farmer Rob Dick (a Federated Farmers member) is on a mission to reduce his property’s environmental footprint as quickly as possible. The actions he’s taking to manage his carbon footprint earned him Greater Wellington’s Synlait Climate Stewardship Award in the 2020 Ballance Farm Environment Awards, run by the NZ Farm Environment Trust. Rob’s understanding of how […]