All Articles

There’s an old saying that 80% of people think they’re in the top 20% of performers. It’s human nature. But are farmers any different? Fonterra tells us we’re the most efficient producers of dairy protein in the world. Yet recent water quality results suggest there’s still room to improve. So how efficient are we, really? The tricky thing about “data” is you can make it say what you want. Take the often-quoted link between nitrates in drinking water and bowel cancer. It’s fre

When we launched our South Island Country Pub of the Year competition last month in association with Service Foods, it was about far more than just finding the best place for a cold one or a good feed. Country pubs are an integral part of rural communities. They are unassuming, unsung, and quintessentially Kiwi. We wanted to highlight that. While only one pub could take out the top spot in our South Island Country Pub of the Year Competition, every single one nominated is a w

When I think of the women who shaped New Zealand’s rural story, I often come back to Jane Deans.  In the 1850s she found herself widowed,...