North Otago Irrigation Company has been granted up to $241,500 over four years from MAF’s Community Irrigation Fund.
It will be used to help the development of the second stage in its scheme which pumps water from the Waitaki River.
The first stage brought water to about 8,000 hectares in the Waiareka Valley. The second stage will provide water for another 12,000 hectares and extend the scheme to the Kakanui Valley and Tokarahi district.
MAF has provided $562,000 over four years for five irrigation projects as part of the Community Irrigation Fund (CIF), Deputy – Director-General Paul Stocks announced today.
“The CIF helps rural communities make use of their water resources and adapt to climate change by helping community water irrigation schemes get off the ground.”
“When people think of irrigation and water infrastructure, they usually think of building dams, aquaducts and pipelines. What is often not considered is the enormously important work in planning and community and stakeholder consultation that has to happen before the earthmovers arrive.”
The taxpayer should not be expected to help with on-farm work for irrigation but the wider economic, environmental and social benefits from irrigation justify assistance in the planning stage.
The other four projects to receive funding are inTasman, North Canterbury, South Canterbury and Central Otago.
The ODT reports these are the Lees Valley storege dam, the Hurunui Water Project, and the Waihao Downs and Lindis irrigation schemes.
The ODT reports that when heavy rain resulted in flooding which cut off the bridge approach over the Omarama Stream on State Highway 8 a farmer agreed to let traffic use a detour across a single lane bridge on his property.
But there was a catch – Richard Subtil of Omaramara Station is also treasurer of the local school board and he grabbed the opportunity this presented to raise funds by charging vehicles a $5 donation for using the 1 kilometre detour.
The road was closed for nearly five hours and Subtil raised $930 in that time.
Traffic backed up on both sides of the bridge, on the town’s southern boundary and Mr Subtil was approached about letting light traffic use Omarama Station’s track and bridge.
The farmer spotted the opportunity to boost the school’s funds and agreed.
“We are only a small country school and we want to offer a quality education.
We have to raise about $26,000 a year to provide that by paying teacher aides to assist [Government] funded staff. . .
“Most [drivers] were enthusiastic and happy to pay.”
Some people donated more than $5, with one businessman heading to a meeting in Queenstown so pleased he gave the school $100.
If people are willing to pay $5 for a 1 km detour across a farm track and single lane bridge here, is the charge for the new multi-laned tar selaed toll road north of Auckland too low?
Or is it easier to get people to pay a specific recipient than cough up what’s regarded as a tax?
Day 20 in the tune a day challenge for NZ Music Month takes us to Dunedin.
Otago University can claim many achievements, one of which is that it has the longest running Capping Show in the country.
It’s on at the moment and one of the most popular acts will be the Sextet. They’re famed for singing the best versions of the worst songs because while their voices are sublime the lyrics are usually not.
I didn’t hear anything too risque in this but rural broadband makes listening to videos a stop-start process and the words aren’t always clear so be warned I might have missed something.
The extra $103.5 million over four years is to fund:
* Longer stays for new mothers in birthing facilities
* An optional meeting each trimester for at risk mothers, attended by the pregnant woman, their GP, and their lead maternity carer (usually a midwife)
*Obstetric training or refreshers for GPs wishing to return to maternity care
* Meeting the costs from the increase in the number of births each year, and
* Fully funding the Plunketline 24 hour telephone advice service – as previously announced.
I’m especially pleased about the longer stays in birthing centres because I put this forward when members were invited to Pitch a Policy at National Party regional conferences. I was then asked to put it to the national conference where it was greeted with enthusiasm and passed on to the health policy advisory group.
I explained my reasoning in a post last year . My major concern was to stop new mothers being sent home before they had established breast feeding.
When I had my children it was normal for mothers who chose to do so to stay in maternity for about five days after an uncomplicated delivery and up to 10 days after a caesarean. The major benefit of this was that there was on the spot assistance if they had difficulty getting their babies to feed.
Stays have got shorter and in recent years. Some mothers have been discharged within a few hours of delivery and most within a day or two, before their milk comes in.
The extra funding should enable many more mothers to stay long enough to establish feeding.
P.S. Good to see the media release making it quite clear the Plunketline funding had already been announced and not pretending this was a new initiative as the previous administration used to.
Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart says Craig Jessop has been asked to extend an apology to 14-year-old student Gavin McFarland of Hooper after the school official’s comments Wednesday.
Gavin says he wore the kilt twice in the past two weeks to Rocky Mountain Junior High as a prop for an art project. Jessop told the boy that the outfit could be misconstrued as cross-dressing.
Taggart says the district recognises the kilt as an expression of the boy’s Scottish heritage and that the kilt was not inappropriate.
Och aye, gie’ me strength an’ pass stir that mon up with a spirtle spurtle.
Calls him self a principal when he does nae ken aboot the kilt?
One of the silliest statements in the story about the alleged ill treatment of pigs came from Mike King on Breakfst yesterday .
He said he didn’t think people would mind paying more for free range pork (it’s towards the end of the clip at about 5:40).
You’ve got that wrong Mike. Those who can afford to, may choose to pay more for their food, but some who can won’t and many people can’t.
Expense is no excuse for not treating animals humanely. If current practices are cruel they must be changed but no-one should fool themselves that this won’t add costs to production which will increase the price and put pork products out of the range of many budgets.
The pig farm which was filmed has been identified and will be inspected. If it complies with the law, we need to ask is the law adequate, does it need changing and should animal welfare requriements be improved?
The decision on whether changes ought to be made must be based on fact because so far we’ve had a pretty one-sided and emotional view of the issue. There is another and a Kiwiblog reader explains the difference between dry sow stalls and farrowing crates. S/he also says:
The other thing I would note is the TVNZ piece. Two points about Mike King’s “disgust”. Firstly – yes the pigs were screaming. Why? It was the middle of the night or early morning. The pigs had been left alone and were suddenly woken by human activity. What does this usually mean for them? Quite simply – feeding time. Free range pigs have EXACTLY the same reaction. If King and his companions ahd fed the pigs the screaming would have stopped. Guarantee it. Secondly – the chewing of bars and frothing of the mouth? Again, it is completely standard across all pigs. They chew things. Free range pigs it’ll be tree branches etc, for pigs in stalls or crates it’ll be bars. And yes, they froth. Christ, you should see them when they mate!
If pig farming in New Zealand breaches animal welfare standards it will have to change. But if higher – and more expensive – standards are imposed on the industry here nothing will be achieved if imported products from countries with lower, and cheaper, standards are permitted to compete with local produce.
Stopping imports or imposing higher standards on them is fraught with politics. Anything we require of imports must be based on facts or we’ll open ourselves up to charges of imposing non tariff barriers.
That won’t help the New Zealand pork industry and it will harm our efforts to free up world trade.
UPDATE: A media release from David Carter says MAF is inspecting the farm at the centre of the dispute.
Federated Farmers reckon New Zealand farmers are economic rock stars and want to invite Johnny Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) to visit so they can show him just how good dairy produce is when it comes from free range cows.
This invitation has been mooted because the former member of the Sex Pistols has been fronting advertisements In Britain urging people to buy British butter because – he says – it’s better.
“Never mind the butter, it’s the quality of the milk what counts,” says Willy Leferink, Federated Farmers Dairy vice-chairperson.
“While all milk may contain the same basic properties, kiwi cows are in a league of their own.
“Grazing outdoors on GM free grass and natural winter feed makes for happy cows and fantastic quality milk. This milk is crafted into quality butter and other dairy products and the only thing holding us back in the UK, is the European Union’s ridiculous tariff barriers.
“One of our senior staff members, David Broome, lived in the UK for seven years. He tried Country Life Butter, once, and described it to me in colourful terms that Johnny Rotten would understand.
“David said only hand crafted but expensive British butter matched New Zealand butter for quality. The difference being that New Zealand butter can readily be found by British consumers in their local supermarket and convenience stores.
“New Zealand butter and dairy products, like our wine, is a taste revelation.
“New Zealand’s climate and quality pasture means we are in an agricultural sweet spot. British consumers literally taste freedom when they eat New Zealand butter.
“While I’d like to think of dairy farmers as being the rock stars of the New Zealand economy, I’d be pleased to host that old punk rocker, John Lyndon, on my farm.
While he’s not casting aspersions on our butter, jokes aside, all primary producers need to be very careful about what we say about produce from other countries.
We may compete in the market but we should be allies in the battle against unscientific claims on production methods and quality. There’s more than enough unfounded claims based on emotion making life difficult for farmers and manufacturers of primary produce without people in the industry adding to it.
Attempts to woo consumers by putting them off competitors’ products might backfire and put them off those products regardless of where they come from.
There is one good thing about the ad, though. It might show anyone who still thinks a Buy Kiwi-Made campaign is a good the idea that it’s not, because we can’t say it’s better for us to buy local while exhorting people elsewhere to buy our exports.
I don’t make the rules, I just play the game is often used as an excuse for questionable behaviour.
But politicians do make the rules about their own spending and reports from Britain continue to show gross abuses of them.
The Daily Mail and the Taxpayers Alliance have launched a campaign to ensure any MPs who have broken the law in rorting the system are brought to justice.
If there are no Crown Prosecutions the Bring Them To Justice campaign will launch private prosecutions.
No-one is suggesting anyone is breaking the rules. But it does raise the question of whether the rules should be changed to make quite sure that the tax payer isn’t being taken for an expensive ride when covering MPs’ expenses.
New Zealand’s first television test programmes were broadcast 50 years ago today.
Broadcasting Minister Jonathon Coleman said it started very simply with just two hours broadcast a week and only in Auckland.
“There was no money for new programmes, so in addition to test patterns, Auckland viewers enjoyed clips from old National Film Unit newsreels and whatever free content the then New Zealand Broadcasting Service could beg, borrow or steal.”
These early experiments continued successfully, and on 28 January 1960 the government announced that it had decided to introduce television as an entertainment medium to New Zealand.
I remember stopping outside shops to watch the televisions which were set up in the windows a few years later.
Our neighbours had a TV and they invited my brothers and me to watch it on weekend evenings. Favourite programmes were Walt Disney, Lassie, Mr Ed, Flipper, Bonanza and Perry Mason. Those were all from the USA, I must have been a bit older before I was allowed to watch British programmes like The Avengers.
Local shows included Its in the Bag with Selwyn Toogood, Happen Inn and C’mon with Pete Sinclair.
I’m not sure if The South Tonight was broadcasting then or if that came later.
Our family got a TV set when I was about 14. It broadcast in black and white and introduced us to All Gas and Gaiters, A Family at War, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Monty Pythons Flying Circus.
Coleman points out there have been major changes in televison in the last 50 years.
“I think it would be fair to say that the average television viewer in 1959 would be utterly amazed by the quantity, quality, range and accessibility of the content New Zealanders of the 21st century take for granted. Today we can watch high definition, colour programmes across multiple channels, both free-to-air and pay, 24 hours a day. We can ‘time-shift’ to watch content when it suits us, skip advertisements, pause to let the cat out, mute the boring bits, add captions, and pre-record all our favourite programmes at the push of a button.”
Quantity, range, and accessibility have definitely improved but I’m not sure about the quality, especially of local programmes.
Is that because current affairs programmes like Gallery and satire like McPhail and Gadsby were really better than anything we get today – or has hindsight improved my memory of the viewing?
UPDATE: Rob has a video of McPahil & Gadsby in the comments so we can judge for ourselves if distance has led enchantment to viewing memories.
We heard the news of the attempted hijack of the small plane flying into Christchurch last February as we were driving up to meet friends from Argentina.
They had to spend most of the day waiting in Auckland which isn’t a lot of fun after a long flight. But they found someone willing to let them use a mobile phone and gave us their new estimated time of arrival and we found enough to occupy us in Christchurch until they got there.
It was obviously upsetting for the people on the plane and I can understand flight crews being a bit nervous. But the plan to introduce screening at smaller airports was an overreaction which the government has very sensibly canned.
A 19 seater plane flies in and out of Oamaru airport.
The atmosphere is pretty relaxed, I’ve yet to use the service without meeting someone I know and not once has it concerned me that the passengers and baggage haven’t gone through security screening.
Life is full of dangers, some ought to be guarded against but sometimes the difficulty and expense of protecting us outweighs the risks.
Security screening for small planes is such a case.
While we’re on the subject of airline security, why are pocket knives and knitting needles considered dangerous when glass bottles aren’t? If anyone wanted to hurt someone they could do it just as easily with a broken bottle as they could with many of the other things now banned from carry-on baggage.
And if we’re not trusted with sharp things, why do they trust us to turn off our mobile phones?
The business is run by Jenny Bargh and Kiri and Kath Elworthy.
RWNZ president and one of the judges, Margaret Chapman, said passion for their business, economic success and community contribution were factors which determined the winner. Judges were also looking for businesses which couldn’t operate anywhere other than in rural areas rather than those which happened to operate there.
The award attracted 46 entries and Tora Coastal Walk was one of three finalists.
“The business has been running for 14 years, but the women’s enthusiasm is still strong. They live in a very special part of the country and love to share it with others. They make a special effort to bridge the urban-rural divide, talking to their guests about what’s happening on the farm and making it a total rural experience,” says Ms Chapman. “Attention to detail and personal touches are an important part of the Tora Coastal Walk and its success.”
Rural Women New Zealand set up the Enterprising Rural Woman Award to highlight the innovative ways women are contributing to the rural economy, and their determination to succeed in the face of the extra challenges presented by the difficulties in accessing technology and geographical location.
The winning partnership won $1500 in prize money and the opportunity to attend a BNZ Women in Agribusiness course.
The runners up were Jan Bolton of Kaingaroa Roading Contractors Ltd, from Murupara and Beverley Forrester of ‘Blackhills’, a paddock to catwalk sheep farming and designer wool operation based in Hurunui, North Canterbury.
The other two judges were Theresa Gattung of Wool Partners International and Amber Quinell from the BNZ, which was the main sponsor for the award.
Rural Women has achieved a lot through this award. It has brought positive publicity for the organisation and the finalists; it’s shown the variety of enterprises rural women are involved in and that business opportunities for women don’t stop at the town boundary.
Rain and melting snow have over-filled hydro lakes so Meridian Energy has opened the spillway on Benmore Dam.
Low lake levels get blamed for rises in power prices, can we expect high levels to lead to a price fall?
I didn’t have a camera with me so took these photos on my phone. Better quality shots from when the spillway was opened in Janaury are here.
There were signs warning of surface flooding at the start of the Lindis Pass when we drove home from Wanaka yesterday and there were several places where the river had crossed the road.
We passed a sign saying road closed ahead just east of Omarama. It was open when we got there but workers were looking at washouts around the bridge over the Otamatapaio with concern.
Further down the Waitaki Valley the river flats were flooded. We’re about 20 kms from there as the crow flies, had 100 mls of rain over the weekend and it’s pouring again now.
A tractor that old – I think it must be 30ish, would normally sell for about $5,000.
The farm which is being thrown in to the deal for free has a QV of $250,000.
The auction has attracted world-wide interest and the vendors have opted to reply to every question and comment. As I write, there have been 132,168 page views, which I think is a TradeMe record.
When a television show gives only one side of a story, I wonder what the other side would say.
I don’t know enough to comment on the issues of pig farming which were raised in last night’s Sunday programme but Farmgirl is better informed and brings some balance to the story.
Good journalism requires balance. Sunday should have given the farmers an opportunity to give their side of the story and it would have helped to have a vet’s point of view too.
There are no excuses for mistreating animals and saying it happens elsewhere is no excuse for cruelty. But nothing is gained for animal welfare if the pork industry here is killed and replaced by meat from overseas where pig farming practices are no better and possibly even worse.
“If SAFE has the welfare of these animals at heart, it needs to provide details of the property today so the authorities can the take appropriate action. I have asked MAF to undertake an inspection as soon as we know the farm’s location,” Mr Carter said.
That is a very sensible response because MAF can’t do anything until they know where the property is.
It raises the question of why SAFE hasn’t already gone to the authorities and any further delay in doing so would suggest they care more about publicity for their campaign than the welfare of the pigs.
Posted by homepaddock 
