Category: Rural

Source: Radio New Zealand

Tracy Marshall makes the same 150-kilometre round trip up the Whanganui River and back five times a week.

“I’ve got one of the longest mail runs in our region in terms of distances, but I’ve probably got less letter boxes,” she told Country Life.

One might imagine she’d be sick of travelling the same road day after day, but she loves it and jumped at the chance to take over the rural delivery, or RD6, route five years ago.

As one of the more scenic routes travelling up towards National Park, it’s one she also often shares with travellers who join her as part of the Original Mail Tour.

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Her day starts at 6:30am when she picks up the mail from the depot. There are 65 letter boxes on her route, each unique.

“They’re a creative bunch.”

Her favourite is an old microwave, also the “driest” letterbox on the route.

There are others too – one in the shape of a wharenui, another that looks like a hanging lantern and one an old fuel tank.

There’s also a lawn-mower catcher and a canoe said to have once been used to help rescue someone from the river.

Marshall delivers a mix of mail and parcels. She also collects letters and parcels to take back to the depot from the mailboxes – the signal for her to do so is the flag being raised.

“I don’t do a lot of parcels up here – although today looks like I do but I’m doing some Chrisco’s because you know it’s Christmas time.

“They tend not to buy a lot of junk up here. I think the biggest thing I do is dog biscuits.”

She said the weeks before Christmas are usually some of the busiest, although this year has been quieter than expected.

More recently she has noticed an increase in mail, which seems to be coming back into fashion after a period of decline.

The route is also popular with walkers and cyclists making their way along Te Araroa Trail.

Born and bred in Koroniti – a marae settlement with its own Anglican church – Marshall ( Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Pamoana) knew the riverside road well before taking on the mail run.

She understands how much has changed, and yet how many things stay the same.

“[The river] was used for their main form of transport, their wellbeing. They used to travel up and down.

“I don’t know anyone that has paddled up the awa in my lifetime. I think everything changed once the road was put in – which was a good thing, you know, access.”

Before Marshall and her van, the mail used to be delivered by canoe – a trip taking about two weeks.

The development of the road and new transport made it easier for people to travel down the river to Whanganui with increased job opportunities there luring many from the rural community.

Along the tour she points out where the river trade markets were once held and historic sites like the Kāwana flour mill and the convent in Jerusalem – Hiruharama.

“The riverboats changed all of that for them.”

Her favourite part of the tour is near the heart of the National Park where kiwi can be heard at night in the surrounding bush.

Learn more:

You can learn more about the tour, here.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

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There’s a job for even the youngest of the Roy family when the Christmas berry crush is on at their orchard in Piopio.

With queues out the door of their farm shop over the festive season it’s all hands to the pump, according to orchardist and grandmother, Angela Roy.

“Sam’s our little six-year-old. He does the stickers on the punnets, not always as straight as one might expect, but hey…”

Angela and her husband Mike have been growing berries at their 13.5ha King Country orchard for more than three decades and have enjoyed involving the whole family in the operation over the years, along with a team of Piopio locals, up to 100 at the height of the season.

The Roys’ four children were brought up around the customers who pour in by the carload over the summer for the freshly picked strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.

Of their produce, 95 percent is sold at the farmgate, about half-way between Hamilton and New Plymouth on State Highway 3.

Not having to worry about exporting or supermarket sales, they can pick the berries at the last possible moment for transport from the polytunnels to the shop, a journey of only 150 metres.

“Then they’re full size and full-flavored. Quality fruit is our main selling point, ” Mike said.

“Unlike some growers, we are a little bit different. We do see everyone that has our fruit. We see them face to face, obviously, in the shop. So, everything about our berries has to be top,” Angela said.

The Roys took on four hectares of blueberries in 1993 and have expanded the orchard, now growing 66,000 strawberry plants under cover, and several varieties of blueberries under nets.

The original blueberry bushes are still producing at 40 years old.

“We had a dream of what we could do with the shop, and that required more production to fulfil those dreams.”

Six years ago they made a million dollar investment, installing several large polytunnels and a tiered vertigation system, drip-feeding nutrients and water into the strawberry plants.

A computer balances the water and feed from sensor readings in the tunnels while Mike keeps an eye on pests, especially two-spotted mites.

Predatory insects are brought in to keep them at bay.

“They come in a little plastic bottle, and we just spread them around inside the tunnel houses, and they crawl around, and they will eat the eggs and the immature stages of two-spotted mite.”

Neither birds nor fungi seem to like the environment but the pickers do, the Roys told Country Life on a tour of the tunnel houses.

“It’s a lovely, warm, dry environment in here, and so the pickers love it, because they don’t have to wear raincoats, like they would if they were outside,” Mike said.

“We’ve eliminated a lot of the risk because we’ve eliminated a lot of the weather issues, which, of course, as in all farming, that’s the biggest issue.”

The tunnels also mean they can provide strawberries continuously over six months.

The Christmas-New Year period is the busiest time of year and the Roys’ daughter Jessie Loomans describes it as “controlled chaos”.

You’ll find her behind the berry ice-cream machine in the shop’s Berry Cool department.

“These days, the ice creams are just as busy Christmas week, and so it’s such a neat time.

“We probably should be on the ground in a corner, rocking backwards and forwards, but we love it.

“So much laughter.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

From growing a few Christmas trees “for fun”, to a diverse range of towering exotics and natives – there’s a bit of everything at Tāmata Hauhā’s demonstration farm outside Palmerston North.

“One of the reasons we created this farm is because farmers actually want to come have a look,” founder and chief executive Blair Jamieson told Country Life.

Launched in 2021, Tāmata Hauhā works primarily with Māori land owners to provide strategies and funding to develop their land holdings and make the land more productive, mainly through forestry.

It provides the finance for purchasing trees, preparing the land, planting the trees and managing the forest created, as well as carrying out all the administration.

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They grow about 46 exotic and 30 native species of trees across three farm sites.

“You can come here and see nearly every type of forestry system that can be applied.

“We’ve even got silvopasture agroforestry systems behind us, which show you how you can actually continue to graze and actually run a farm and stock underneath those trees.”

With adequate spacing between the trees, Jamieson said the systems also enable farmers to generate carbon credits which offer extra profit through the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

They also offer added benefits like shade and shelter for the stock.

Many of the trees on the farm were planted in 2022 and 2023 – already many stand several metres tall.

There are various types of eucalyptus, elm, paulownia, cypress and poplar, along with different types of pine.

Jamieson said seeing the trees next to each other and understanding their growth helps land-owners in decision-making.

“We support them by saying ‘here is how much you get protected for this type of structuring. Here’s the the native integration you can have for this type of species’.

“I mean, ‘here’s the other options if you wanted to go down the alternative timber production route’.”

While there’s a push to move away from pinus radiata, Jamieson is not totally opposed to it.

“There are a number of people out there in this space who are, you know, just carbon-focused – all about the yield, don’t care what they plant.

“They just want the carbon for the coin and that has led to a number of, you know, outcomes which in the long term are not going to be very good. There’s going to be a lot of pine forests.”

His primary concern is how well these pine forests will be managed, particularly when it comes to large monoculture conversions.

While the Government has introduced tweaks to try and address some of these issues, Jamieson said this had also created uncertainty in the sector.

His view was that pine should be removed from the permanent category in the ETS.

“Encouraging the right type of forestry regimes is all that is needed to actually fix the underlying problem to stop mass farm conversions into pine.

“But that being said […] you can see some of the trees over across the river here are three to four times taller than pine planted at the same age and when you equate that I can actually go into those areas and plant 75 percent native trees, that will stratify and become the dominant canopy over time, I’ll get you there and you’ll make more money than pine and you won’t have the problems and you got more jobs.”

Jamieson said some of their systems, on a per-hectare basis, could create more jobs than farming.

He said it was about using “the right exotic to perform a job for a period of time to enable native growth”.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A proposal to partially privatise meat inspections will actually increase costs, reduce flexibility and create capability and equity challenges within the sector, according to a leaked report funded by the government’s meat inspection service.

The Ministry for Primary Industries is currently seeking feedback on letting processing companies do more meat inspection work themselves, with reduced oversight from AsureQuality.

Completed by BDO for AsureQuality, the report said annual costs for a single chain would increase by more than 20 percent – $861,000 to $1.07 million per plant, with an extra $343,000 in set-up costs.

Public Service Association national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons said the report was “explosive”, with meat inspectors gathering at Parliament on Monday to express their concerns about the proposed changes.

“This analysis by the government’s own meat inspection service is a damning indictment of a proposal that puts at risk our $10 billion a year red meat export industry,” she said.

“When even AsureQuality – the state-owned company providing the service – says this will ‘increase costs, reduce flexibility, and create capability challenges,’ you know the government’s proposal is fundamentally flawed.”

Fitzsimons said it would increase costs through new roles and training being required, adding to concerns about independence of inspectors and the expertise developed by AsureQuality over years.

She said the current model was not broken it was “safe, compliant and accepted by trading partners”, adding there was “no evidence the changes are required to meet market access requirements”.

AsureQuality’s chief executive Kim Ballinger said with consultation underway she would not comment or leaked or partial documents or speculate on potential outcomes.

She said she was “incredibly proud” though of its employees, who had provided meat inspection services for 125 years.

“We’re continuing to prioritise collaboration with our people and unions, customers, MPI, industry bodies and our other partners, to support New Zealand’s red meat sector in providing the high quality, safe meat products that it’s renowned for globally.”

New Zealand Food Safety deputy director-general Vincent Arbuckle also would not comment as consultation is ongoing but would review AsureQuality’s submission.

He said the changes would align New Zealand’s requirements for inspecting and verifying exported meat more closely with international guidelines and domestic regulatory rules.

“The consultation tests possible changes to align New Zealand’s requirements for inspecting and verifying exported meat more closely with international guidelines and our own domestic regulatory rules. The programme of work to investigate these changes was developed wit the support of industry and input from AsureQuality.”

Meat Industry Association science and innovation manager Richard McColl said it had yet to see the AsureQuality report and modelling that underpinned it.

“However, it’s disappointing to see the amount of misinformation and scare-mongering circulating about the proposal. It’s important that any discussion is grounded in facts and evidence.”

He said New Zealand’s reputation as a producer of high quality and safe food was paramount and “no processor would risk compromising the safety or reputation of New Zealand red meat, or jeopardising market access by failing to manage these risks”.

McColl said the current meat inspection model was “resource intensive” and had “not evolved along with other parts of the sector”.

“This programme is about giving meat processors and exporters responsibility and ownership of their own risks. Most importantly, final inspections will continue to be undertaken by a government employee to meet market access requirements.”

He said it was an opportunity to explore and consider other meat inspection options to achieve the crucial food safety and market access requirements, as well as build a “more resilient and higher-skilled workforce”.

“Meat processors and exporters are among the largest employers in communities up and down the country and take great pride in the culture and the people who make the industry what it is today.”

Consultation is open until 23 January.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Rural services company PGG Wrightson (PGW) has upgraded its earnings guidance amid continued strength in the agricultural sector.

The company expected operating earnings of about $64 million for the year ending 30 June 2026, compared to its previous forecast of above $60m, and $56.1m the previous year.

PGW said despite softening dairy prices in recent weeks, most farmers would head into the Christmas period with confidence, supported by strong returns in beef and sheep meat.

“Beef schedules are at record highs, lamb prices remain elevated, and wool pricing has also shown positive signs with improved export values,” PGW told the share market.

“This positivity is flowing through into on farm and orchard investment decisions.”

PGW said key horticulture crops were also in demand, and early signs suggested a “promising harvest in the new year”.

“The rural real estate market is buoyant, driven by strong commodity returns, record dairy land values, and robust farmer confidence,” PGW said.

The company said there were some challenges due to dry conditions in eastern regions, but there was hope that the current La Niña pattern could deliver summer rainfall.

PGW said trading for the first half of the financial year was positive and slightly above expectations.

“We are encouraged by the momentum across the sector and the confidence this brings for our customers,” it said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Longstanding Otago business Harraways and Sons is investing millions of dollars into its oat mill, the only operational one in Aotearoa, to meet growing demand for the healthy and humble locally-grown oat.

The company, known as Harraways, opened at Dunedin’s Green Island suburb in 1867 and its breakfast range among other products are found in most New Zealand supermarkets.

It also supplies oats to local oat milk producers, and for biscuits and muesli bars producers.

Chief executive Henry Hawkins said it was investing $11 million of capital expenditure into the factory to grow capacity.

“People eating healthier and returning to New Zealand made for some good growth for Harraways,” he said.

“We’ve reached a good point in our business where we are at capacity in terms of volume through our mill particularly, and we just need to plan for the future.

“Therefore, we need to upgrade some of our equipment to cope with that, and that includes new boilers, new grain intakes for all of our oat that we bring in, and also our milling equipment.”

He said each month, the factory employing 60 full-time staff and casual staff (like students from the nearby University of Otago) produced around 1500 metric tonnes of products, like rolled oats.

“We just really need to automate some of our production to be able to keep up with demand and try and reduce some overhead costs that come with manual labour.”

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Ninety-five percent of the company’s oats and grains were sourced in New Zealand, with the remainder being imported for its organic range.

The business contracted around 50 growers across Central Otago, Queenstown and Southland to process around 16,000 metric tonnes of oats and grains each year.

Growers were subject to the company’s zero-tolerance stance on the use of chemical defoliants and glyphosate on the crops.

New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) recently reviewed and ultimately maintained the ingredient’s maximum residue limits (MRL) on food at 0.1 milligrams per kilogram for wheat, barlet and oat crops, but increasing it to 6-milligrams per kilo for field peas.

Hawkins said he was “very pleased” to see that NZFS “have seen and made sense” not to increase the MRL for glyphosate on oat crops, following public consultation.

“That has been a particular hot topic and something that we understand and know consumers are very concerned about,” he said.

“The medical information speaks for itself. It’s not the best thing for your health.

“And so we’re very watchful and want to make sure that we are able to keep our position which is no glyphosate in our product.”

It came as the Environmental Protection Authority was facing further court action by the Environmental Law Initiative around the regulator’s decision not to reassess the active ingredient in herbicide Roundup.

Hawkins said the company was well-supported by New Zealand retailers and shoppers, despite continued competition from imports on the shelf.

Harraways exported for several decades to Singapore, and was capitalising on adding oats to the region’s popular rice porridge congee, he said.

He said it “fully intended” to obtain a GrainMark certification by the Foundation for Arable Research to showcase its use of New Zealand oats only in the majority of its range, following the renovations.

Harraways Rolled Oats received the Product Lifetime Achievement Award at the NZ Food Awards in October.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Cornwall Park farm is something of a hidden gem in the heart of Auckland city.

Taking up 73 of the 172 hectares of the total park, the farm’s Simmental cattle and Perendale sheep are a much-loved feature for the millions of people that visit Cornwall Park every year.

But being a farm in the city comes with specific challenges.

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The first challenge relates to the history of the park and Auckland’s unique growing conditions.

“Auckland’s the weediest city in the world. Everything grows, so there’s every sort of weed you can think of,” Peter Maxwell, farm manager, told Country Life.

“We spray out an area and crop it and spray it out again.

“We get one crack every few years of trying to drop down the rats tail and the Kikuyu and anything else, Onehunga weed.”

But the historic nature of the park means there are archaeological areas that are not grazed.

“And so that’s a bit of an issue with some of the weeds and the worms,” Maxwell said.

Maxwell has been managing Cornwall Park farm since 2007 and had a long history of farming before that. He said managing a small city farm is different, but it’s interesting and busy in other ways.

“There’s no neighbours to send stuff off to graze, so it’s all in-house. We buy silage in, but [the stock] have to stay here,” he said.

“So we do a bit of a lamb crop every year – 12 hectares of that – and that goes into new grass in the autumn.”

The lack of farming neighbours is another challenge particular to Cornwall Park farm, which Peter has gotten around by joining the Kaipara Farms Discussion Group and going to industry events.

And then there is the huge number of non-farming neighbours.

“You can tell people have just bought a new house.

“They chuck rubbish over the fence or they have a loose dog, so that takes a bit of training.

“They all like the farm outlook, but we tell them not to stick their rhododendrons and other crap over the fence.”

Cornwall Park is self-funded, leasing out land in the surrounding area, and is overseen by a trust board.

While the farm doesn’t have to make a profit to survive, there are other expectations, such as every ewe needing to have a lamb and every cow a calf.

“Other people may laugh about that, but that’s why we’re working on these ewes to have more twins,” he said.

“They don’t want it to be a petting zoo. They really do want it to be a little bit, a commercial look, commercial feel.”

Maxwell talks in terms of restraining the loss.

“We get as much money for the lambs as we can and as much money for the bulls as we can.

“We spend a little bit more than some other people, perhaps on animal health,” he said.

“We’ve just got to the stage where we’re self-sufficient with our cropping.

“We’ve got old gear, but it’s gear that we’ve been able to put together so we can do all our spraying, cultivating, rolling and seeding. So we have a little pride in that.”

Cornwall Park farm’s biggest difference from other farms is the huge number of people that come through.

The park is open every day and millions of people visit every year, so there’s a lot of focus on keeping everything looking “reasonable” Maxwell said. “Not perfect, reasonable.”

“We worry a lot about animal welfare. We explain to people that there will be a few lame sheep with a bit of foot rot on this property.

“You might have seen those sheep running out through the trough. Every time they come past these yards, they go through the trough.”

The cattle here are bred with the particular needs of the park in mind too.

“They’re all polled, no horns. They’re very quiet because where we are, they have to be quiet.”

“Simmental’s have trouble calving, but we’ve done a bit of work on that and so this is our first year that we haven’t pulled a calf out of a heifer or a cow, and no dead calves, so we’re actually a little bit thrilled about that.”

The farm has volunteers and cadets coming through too, some of whom have gone on to bigger farming jobs.

“Taking people from the city and going out to other farms, that’s probably one of our KPIs.”

Maxwell sees his role as a “three-pronged attack”; apart from restraining the loss, the farm’s role is also about education and interpretation of the realities of farm life and helping keep the huge swathes of grass in the park under control.

“People come and expect to see sheep and the cattle and the cherry blossoms and the pheasants now.

“You’ll see older people that say they were here when they were kids and now they’ve brought their grandchildren along.”

Learn more:

• Find out more about Cornwall Park here

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A low-emissions future for farming will likely mean fewer cows – but farmers will struggle to diversify without financial and infrastructure support, government-funded research has found.

The research, done for the government-funded Agricultural Emissions Centre, said a lack of confidence in mitigation technology, threats to profitability, and mixed messages on science and policy were all hindering farmers’ willingness to cut emissions.

Some farmers concluded they would have to lower stock numbers to make big dents in their emissions, but the research found that diversifying to other food crops could be difficult and costly without significant support.

“This research suggests that the primary sector’s transition to lower emissions will involve fewer ruminants, new or expanded supply chains, and a need for significant capital investment,” the paper said.

The research, done by agricultural consultancies AgFirst and Perrin Ag, included funding and supporting five groups of farmers around the country to act as collectives to reduce emissions.

They had access to scientists and officials, but were left to decide for themselves how, and by how much, they would reduce on-farm emissions.

Over three to five years, the groups managed to reduce their methane emissions by two to 16 percent.

Many of them are carrying on with the work.

Methane – which is a short-lived gas but has a huge warming effect while it exists in the atmosphere – makes up roughly half of New Zealand’s emissions. Most of it comes from farms, especially the burps and breaths of ruminant animals like cows and sheep.

Earlier this year, the government ruled out an earlier policy to price agricultural emissions by 2030.

It is also set to pass legislation this week to weaken the country’s 2050 methane target, from a 24 to 47 percent reduction from 2017 levels, to a 14 to 24 percent reduction. The lower end of the range is not in line with limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5C.

Changes without tech likely not enough

The government has pointed to a ‘pipeline’ of agricultural methane-inhibiting technology as crucial to achieving both the methane target and New Zealand’s international pledge to halve the country’s net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Some, like a small metal ‘bolus’ that is administered directly to cows and sheep, or a vaccine, could reduce the amount of methane an animal produces by as much as 30 percent.

Perrin Ag consultant Lee Matheson said the research considered what the alternatives would be in the absence of that technology.

“If we get a bolus or a [vaccine], that’s all great – but what if we don’t?

“What if we actually have to grunt through and… do that through land-use change and other stuff? That was the genesis for the work.”

The research focused on what farmers could do through farm management changes, land-use diversification, and collaboration.

Matheson said they were able to make some change within the existing system, “but there’s a point where it starts to get really crunchy”.

“It reinforced that there is likely to be a limit to which we can achieve significant emission reduction without technology helping us.”

The research investigated hemp, tōtara, blueberries and milling wheat as alternatives that were already being cultivated in New Zealand.

There was potential to scale that up, but financial and infrastructure constraints were holding farmers back at the moment, Matheson said.

“New Zealand has proven itself to be good at land-use change from time to time but it’s not as simple as saying we’re going to stop milking cows and start growing wheat,” he said.

“If it was that simple, we’d probably already be doing that.”

Many farmers viewed the switch as too risky to do alone at the moment, the research concluded.

Access to labour, improved transport and supply chains, and research and development would all be needed to support any large-scale diversification.

Matheson said he was not advocating subsidies, “but the government has a big role to play in de-risking change”.

“If significant land-use was required, which might well mean significant changes to our supply chains and value chains, then I think there is a role for government.”

Climate confusion still rife

The research also identified what it called “anti-mitigation” messages in rural media and other information farmers were accessing.

Farming lobby group Groundswell, which has been consulted by the government on changes to climate policies, is currently hosting a tour of climate change sceptic Will Happer.

Through the research programme, the farming groups were able to talk directly to climate scientists and officials to get a better understanding of the problem and the potential solutions.

They found that far more valuable than “being directed to a website or reading some collateral that appears in your letterbox”, Matheson said.

The question now was how to scale that, he said.

“It’s probably going to be pretty hard to wheel out a leading scientist to every farmer’s lounge across New Zealand.”

AgFirst consultant and co-author Erica van Reenan, who lives on a sheep and beef station in Rangitīkei and used to work as a climate policy analyst, said she and others were still “respectfully” answering the same questions they had been asked for 20 or 30 years.

“We just have to keep responding, because it’s much easier for the climate change denialists to fill the space.”

Voluntary action ‘isn’t going to cut it’

Over the course of the programme, farmers’ commitment to reducing emissions waned without external pressure to change from a pricing scheme or similar.

The paper found there was agreement across all the groups “that farmers need to do ‘something’ to respond to climate change”.

But it was clear that “voluntary action on its own probably isn’t going to cut it”, van Reenan said.

“There has to be a stick or a carrot in some shape or form.”

There were some “soft” signals from the market and banks, but they were often “quite opaque”, she said.

Even if methane-inhibiting technology proved successful, there was one big question looming.

“Who’s going to pay for this? How am I going to afford to take up this technology and implement it on my farm and do that in a cost-effective way that’s worth my while, for not necessarily any productivity gain, but purely from an emissions reduction gain?”

She stopped short of advocating for a pricing system, but said limits on emissions, similar to nitrogen leaching limits, could help to drive change.

The first sector-wide opposition to a ‘fart tax’ was in 2002, she said.

“That’s over 20 years of dedicated commitment to not having to be regulated in any way, shape or form, when the rest of society is.

“Producing food alone doesn’t give us the right to not contribute in a meaningful way. How we go about that is when it gets really complicated.”

She pressed the need for coordinated, large-scale and government-supported change.

“It can be very easy from an outside perspective to blame farmers for not doing enough but they’re trying to run businesses, look after the land, look after the water, be good to their staff, look after their animals.”

She and her husband had run the numbers for their own farm and concluded that while they had the capability to diversify into horticulture, there were “significant challenges” with access to labour and markets.

“All of the things that are beyond the farm gate that impact our decision are what make us not even go there.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government is looking to cut red tape for small meat processors and is also exploring how homekill meat could be made suitable for sale.

From next year, small-scale meat processors will be subject to reduced meat sampling and testing requirements – compared to their larger, export-focused counterparts.

Around six to 12 of New Zealand’s small operators who process between 200-2000 farmed animals each year will be affected by the new rules announced this week.

They currently have to test 60 carcasses for things like salmonella or E. coli. That will be reduced to 30 in the first season and 12 in subsequent seasons, from April next year.

Food Safety Minister Andrew Hoggard said micro-abattoirs told officials the testing rules were unnecessarily restrictive and costly.

“Not reducing the safety at all, but certainly reducing the costs quite massively for [operators], which has been a barrier for a number of them either getting started or trying new operations,” he said.

“By reducing it down to a much more proportionate number reduces a lot of costs, enables them to do a bit more and hopefully we can see a few more micro-abattoirs emerging around the country and a few more better deals for consumers.”

Hoggard said the government was also looking into how they could enable commercial homekill in the future, which was made difficult by poison-free declarations.

It is illegal to sell homekill meat in New Zealand, despite the trade growing in popularity amid cost of living pressures.

“We’ve got challenges with poison declarations, etcetera, for being able to turn more hunting meat, hunted deer, especially venison, into sellable products. And we are working on that one as well,” he said.

There were some challenges regarding the science around withholding dates and poison residues.

“So hopefully we’ll be having solutions on the administrative side of that within the next few months, which should enable less time in front of the computer for those people engaged in that business.

“It’ll be a bit of a slower burn on how we deal with those restrictions around withhold times and withhold areas because we do need to do a bit of science around that one to prove safety before we allow that.”

The new meat testing rules for micro-abattoirs will come into force in April.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Hobbyist beekeepers are being asked to stay alert for invasive yellow-legged hornets loitering around their hives.

Biosecurity New Zealand has more than doubled its Auckland surveillance zone from 5 to 11 kilometres.

Auckland Beekeepers Club president Ken Brown said that decision was made because worker hornets were beginning to travel further to hunt.

“Because of the upcoming change in activity, they will be attracted to beehives, so that is part of why it’s so important the hobbyists are involved at this stage to observe the hives to see the worker hornets,” he said.

“Workers will start to then be foraging and predating on other insects and also beehives, the hornets will be what we call ‘hawking’ so instead of going into the hive and getting the bees they will be outside and capturing them.”

He said hobbyist beekeepers would act as the eyes and ears for Biosecurity, alerting authorities when they saw a hornet.

“It is critically important that we eradicate in this year or the next. If they become established it will be devastating. All the beekeepers in Auckland will be sent a trap to put out and they will be asked to monitor the traps and regularly monitor their hives,” Brown said.

“It is a notifiable pest now, so you can’t move them yourself. Ideally get a photo of them and report them to MPI [Ministry of Primary Industries] so the professionals can go out there and find the nest and destroy them. They are quite dangerous, they have a much longer sting than bees and also they can spray venom into your eyes.”

Brown said it seemed there was only one queen in Auckland, but that number could balloon if the threat wasn’t dealt with quickly.

“The genetics seem to be likely that it could be just one queen, and she can lay a couple of hundred queens so that would be developing now so they are finding these before they develop,” he said.

He said there was only one region in the world, Majorca, which had eradicated them.

“… they’re an island as well, and it’s ongoing surveillance so it’s likely we will get rid of all of them or almost all of them… And then monitor and keep monitoring to make sure they’re eradicated.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand