365 days of gratitude

Some days cooking dinner is a pleasure, some days it’s mere duty.

Today was one of the latter but a few days ago I’d made bolognese with some wild venison mince and there was enough left over in a still palatable state to make the duty easy.

Today I’m grateful for leftovers.

Word of the day

Lairage – a place where cattle or sheep may be rested on the way to market or slaughter; accommodation for farm animals, especially at docks or markets.

Rural round-up

Diverse entries recognised in Irrigation Innovation Awards :

A water race safety video for children, a GIS Database system helping farmers to meet environmental requirements and a new effluent screen which allows effluent to be more easily applied via centre pivot irrigators have been named as finalists in IrrigationNZ’s Irrigation Innovation Awards for 2018.

Be Water-Race Safe is a video for school age children developed by the Waitaki Irrigators Collective. Some of the Collective’s member schemes operate open water races in parts of Waitaki and Waimate, which supply water for irrigation, stock, town supply, and industry. . . 

Will Taylor wins Taranaki/Manawatu regional final of FMG Young Farmer of the Year:

A technical field representative for PGG Wrightson has been named the Taranaki/Manawatu FMG Young Farmer of the Year.

Will Taylor, 26, took out the title after winning the hotly-contested Taranaki/Manawatu Regional Final in Wellington tonight.

The event saw eight finalists from across the sprawling region tackle a series of gruelling modules, including a fast-paced agri-knowledge quiz. . . 

Fonterra finally makes a move on a2 milk – Pam Tipa:

a2 Milk Co has struck a deal with Fonterra that will enable it, over time, to diversify its milk sourcing, processing and manufacturing to meet growing demand for its products, the company says.
It will not affect its current relationship with Synlait, a spokesman told Dairy News.

Fonterra and a2 Milk Company (a2MC) have signed a deal that links the co-op’s global milk pool and supply chain, manufacturing, and sales and distribution with a2MC’s brand strength and capabilities.

Fonterra will now begin talking to its farmers to source an A2 milk pool for a2MC products in New Zealand. A similar milk pool in Australia will also be developed. . . 

A guide to the dairy cow
Not to be taken seriously! Via @HopelessSurfer pic.twitter.com/Rx9VMH5JVl

— Food & Farming Futures (@FarmingFutures) February 25, 2018

Synlait Milk buys Pokeno site for new factory, flags $260M investment – Paul McBeth:

(BusinessDesk) – Synlait Milk has conditionally bought a site in Pokeno in Waikato where it plans to spend $260 million developing its second nutritional powder manufacturing factory.

The Rakaia-based milk processor’s acquisition is subject to Overseas Investment Office approval, and the company said it will know the commissioning date for the factory once it’s got consents and approvals. The first dryer at the Pokeno site is expected to have annual capacity of 40,000 metric tonnes, matching dryer three at its Dunsandel site. . . .

More NZ organic winegrowers are needed to meet growing international demand:

Organic Winegrowers New Zealand is calling for more grape growers to convert to organic production to meet growing international demand.

There is currently a shortage of organic winegrapes in New Zealand.

“I’m constantly fielding phone calls from established wine companies and new wine companies looking to purchase organic fruit, because they’re seeing and –

being asked for it in markets around the world, and the supply’s not there,” says Bart Arnst.  . .

TOMRA Continues Expansion in Global Food Sorting Solutions Sector with acquisition of BBC Technologies:

TOMRA today signed an agreement to acquire 100 percent of the shares in BBC Technologies*. The deal sees BBC Technologies’ precision grading systems and innovative punnet and clamshell filling solutions for blueberries and other small fruits join TOMRA Food’s own fruit inspection and grading technology portfolio.

TOMRA will also acquirewww.freshtracker.com, innovative software which TOMRA foresees complementing its other developments in data and analytics solutions. Freshtracker™ enables traceability of the origins and characteristics of individual products from harvesting, processing and packaging, through to point-of-sale. . .

BIG AIR yeah yeah meh meh#WinterOlympics2018 pic.twitter.com/2rMwwhm864

— Caroline Mitchell (@farmpiano) February 24, 2018

What happened when New Zealand got rid of government subsidies for farmers? – Josh Siegel:

In 2006, Chris Hausman, a fourth-generation Midwestern farmer long accustomed to depending on government support for survival, traveled across the world to witness a revolution in agriculture.

It had been more than 20 years since a left-leaning government in New Zealand chose to eliminate government subsidies for farmers, and Hausman was surprised at what had transpired since.

“I will tell you it was a shock to their agricultural system,” says Hausman, 58, who farms corn and soybeans on a 1,500-acre plot 150 miles south of Chicago. . . 

 

Census coverage more important than cost

The Waitaki District was used as a trial for the online collection of data for the census in 2013.

Everyone got a visit from someone who delivered the papers and explained there was choice of filling in the paper form or doing it online.

The trial was declared a success and this year the on-line census is being done nation-wide.

But unlike the trial in Waitaki, people will have to opt-out of the online  option if they can’t or don’t want to do it that way.

Instead of someone calling with forms, everyone will get a letter explaining how to fill the census in online and what to do if they’d rather have a paper form to fill in.

That sounds easy enough but the ODT reported on concerns for elderly, those with poor sight and others who don’t have computers.

These concerns have been echoed on Facebook where people are complaining about the difficulties faced by elderly relatives who rang the 0800 number to request forms.

There’s also concerns about people who can’t read and write.

The slowness of the postal system is another problem.

Mail is delivered only three days a week, if people didn’t get a form by yesterday, it will be tomorrow before one arrives. Even if they phone for a paper form straight away it could well be next Tuesday, census day, or later before the form arrives.

Completing the census is a legal requirement. It’s important that everyone is counted or districts will get less funding for health, education and other services and infrastructure which are allocated on a population basis.

The 2013 census showed only a tiny increase in the Waitaki District’s population.

That is difficult to understand when irrigation has created so many jobs on farms and in businesses which supply and service them.

There were 4 houses on our farm and our two immediate neighbours’ before irrigation, now there are 15. We’re the oldest in any of those houses by more than 15 years.

Most of the occupants are in their 20s and 30s and many have young families. This pattern has been repeated all around the district.

Irrigation hasn’t just created jobs on farms there are more in businesses which service and supply them and most of the people in those jobs live in the district.

Intensification hasn’t just happened on farms, there’s been a growth in lifestyle blocks too. There’s also a lot of new building in town and there     aren’t a large number of unoccupied houses.

Why weren’t these signs of population growth reflected in the census?

Could it be that a lot of people didn’t bother to fill in their forms, whether on paper or online five years ago?

With no one visiting each house as they used to do, it will be far easier for those who don’t want to fill in a form to ignore it, and far more difficult for those who would but can’t without help, to do so.

It will be much cheaper if more people do their census on-line but coverage is much more important than cost.

The on-line option should be the opt-in one rather than the paper one.

Quote of the day

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like. – Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) who celebrates his 48th birthday today.

February 28 in history

20 BC coronation ceremony of Liu Bang as Emperor Gaozu of Han takes place, initiating four centuries of the Han Dynasty‘s rule over China.

870 The Fourth Council of Constantinople closed.

1261 Margaret of Scotland, queen of Norway, was born  (d. 1283).

1638 The Scottish National Covenant was signed in Edinburgh.

1710  In the Battle of Helsingborg, 14,000 Danish invaders under Jørgen Rantzau were decisively defeated by an equally sized Swedish force under Magnus Stenbock.

1784 John Wesley chartered the Methodist Church.

1787 The charter establishing the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh was granted.

1824 Blondin, French tightrope walker, was born  (d. 1897).

1827  The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.

1838 Robert Nelson, leader of the Patriotes, proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada (today Québec).

1844 A gun on USS Princeton exploded while the boat was on a Potomac River cruise, killing eight people, including two United States Cabinet members.

1849 Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States began with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 21 days after leaving New York Harbour.

1865 Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary, was born  (d. 1940).

1870 The Bulgarian Exarchate was established by decree of Sultan Abd-ul-Aziz of the Ottoman Empire.

1883 The first vaudeville theatre opened in Boston, Massachusetts.

1897 Queen Ranavalona III, the last monarch of Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force.

1900 The Second Boer War: The 118-day “Siege of Ladysmith” was lifted.

1912 Clara Petacci, Italian mistress of Benito Mussolini, was born  (d. 1945).

1914 The Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus was proclaimed inGjirokastër, by the Greeks living in southern Albania.

1922 The United Kingdom accepted the independence of Egypt.

1925 Harry H Corbett, English actor, was born  (d. 1982).

1928  C.V. Raman discovered Raman effect.

1933 Gleichschaltung: The Reichstag Fire Decree was passed in Germany a day after the Reichstag fire.

1935 DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invented Nylon.

1939 The first issue of Serbian weekly magazine Politikin zabavnik was published.

1939 – The erroneous word “Dord” was discovered in the Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, prompting an investigation.

1942 Brian Jones, English musician (The Rolling Stones), was born  (d. 1969).

1942 The heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30) was sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait with 693 crew members killed.

1943 Charles Bernstein, American composer, was born.

1945 New Zealand soldier David Russell was executed by a Nazi firing squad in Italy.

1946 Robin Cook, British politician, was born.

1947 228 Incident: In Taiwan, civil disorder is put down with the loss of 30,000 civilian lives.

1953 Paul Krugman, American economist, Nobel laureate, was born.

1957 Cindy Wilson, American singer (The B-52′s), was born.

1958 A school bus in Floyd County, Kentucky hits a wrecker truck and plunged down an embankment into the rain-swollen Levisa Fork River. The driver and 26 children died in what remains the worst school bus accidentin U.S. history.

1970 Daniel Handler, American writer, better known as Lemony Snicket, was born.

1972 The Asama-Sanso incident ended in Japan.

1972 The United States and People’s Republic of China signed theShanghai Communiqué.

1974 Moana Mackey, New Zealand politician, was born.

1975 A major tube train crash at Moorgate station, London killed 43 people.

1985 The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a mortar attackon the Royal Ulster Constabulary police station at Newry, killing nine officers in the highest loss of life for the RUC on a single day.

1986 Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden  was assassinated in Stockholm.

1991 The first Gulf War ended.

1993 Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leaderDavid Koresh. Four BATF agents and five Davidians die in the initial raid, starting a 51-day standoff.

1995 Denver International Airport officially opened in Denver, Colorado to replace Stapleton International Airport

1997 – The North Hollywood shootout took place.

1998 – First flight of RQ-4 Global Hawk, the first unmanned aerial vehiclecertified to file its own flight plans and fly regularly in U.S. civilian airspace.

1998 – Kosovo War: Serbian police begin the offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army in Kosovo.

2001 – The Nisqually Earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale hits the Nisqually Valley and the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia area of the U.S. state of Washington.

2001 – Six passengers and four railway staff are killed and a further 82 people suffer serious injuries in the Selby rail crash.

200 More than 1 million Taiwanese participating in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally formed a 500-kilometre (300-mile) long human chain to commemorate the 228 Incident in 1947.

2005 Lebanon‘s pro-Syrian prime minister, Omar Karami, resigned amid large anti-Syria street demonstrations in Beirut.

2005 A suicide bombing at a police recruiting centre in Al Hillah, Iraqkilled 127.

2007  Jupiter flyby of the New Horizons Pluto-observer spacecraft.

2013 – Pope Benedict XVI resigned as the pope of the Catholic Church becoming the first pope to do so since 1415.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia