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Daily Digest: June 3,2020

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Kiwi farmers and the All Blacks have this in common: they both operate on a global stage against far larger and better resourced countries in a highly competitive environment where the pressure is to perform to the max.
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Nuffield Scholar Corrigan Sowman has taken lessons learned by the ABs following their 24-year World Cup winning drought to see how they can be applied to the pressures facing farmers.

The stresses include long-established economic uncertainties, today joined by a speedier rate of change and the increasing scrutiny of social media. 

Sowman believes one of the ways to cope is to create a new mindset. In the past farmers might have seen the answer to performing better as getting bigger or intensifying their operations but he proposes advanced thinking to help them thrive in the new environment.

 

Farmers on board with levy 

Of the 57% of dairy farmers who voted in the DairyNZ milksolids levy referendum, 69% plumped to continue with the impost. DairyNZ chairman Jim van der Poel described the result as a clear mandate for the industry-good body.

 

Breeding passion rewarded  

Wairarapa cattle breeder Bruce McKenzie has been awarded a Queen’s Birthday honour in recognition of a lifetime in the business, which he describes as a passion. In recent years he has introduced the well-received Canadian Speckle Park breed to New Zealand.

  

Funding to protect crops 

A joint Government-industry $27m fund will help develop new, homegrown biological controls and biopesticides for the horticulture, arable and wine sectors over the next seven years. 

  

Bull sales hold up 

While bull prices aren’t reaching record levels at the latest sales, both sellers and buyers are expressing satisfaction with interest and clearance rates. This is the second full week of sales post the covid-19 lockdown.

 

Farming hit by triple whammy 

Farmers have traditionally had to deal with uncertain economics but now they are faced with new pressures: fast rates of change and harsh social media judgments. A Nuffield scholar looks at ways of coping. 

  

Tonight on Sarah’s Country 

7.10pm – A pan-sector collaboration has set up The Food and Fibre Skills Establishment Group, which will see the sector as a major beneficiary of the $320m free trades training funding. Chairman Jeremy Baker will discuss the establishment of a Food and Fibre Workforce Development Council. 

7.20pm – The forestry sector is feeling the crunch of falling international demand and many forestry companies lack the economies of scale to survive. Red Stag Group chief executive  Marty Verry will share his frustrations with Government policy and his ideas for the sector. 

7.30pm – Susan Goodfellow from Leftfield Innovation will outline the Specialty Grains and Pulses Report produced by the Our Land and Water National Science Challenge. 

7.40pm – Farming leaders believe they have found a solution to avoid a repeat of last year’s winter grazing controversy in Southland. Federated Farmers Southland vice-president Bernadette Hunt joins us to share how farmers can comply with regulations despite the unpredictable situation they face this season.

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