Word of the day

Terpsichorean – a dancer;  pertaining or related to dancing.

2020 Zanda McDonald Award entries open

Applications for the 2020 Zanda McDonald Award have opened:

Flying around Australia and New Zealand in a private jet, and being mentored by some of the greatest leaders in the agriculture industry might sound like a bit of a pipe dream, but it will be a dream come true for one young Kiwi or Aussie again next year.

Applications for the prestigious 2020 Zanda McDonald Award open today, and the search is on to find talented and passionate young individuals working in the ag sector to apply.

Now in its sixth year, the award provides the winner with an impressive personal development package that includes an all-expenses paid trans-Tasman mentoring trip, $2000 cash, and the ability to get up close and personal with leaders in the Australasian ag sector through the Platinum Primary Producers (PPP) Group. Some travel takes place in a privately chartered Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, enabling the winner to reach diverse and remote farming operations.

Richard Rains, Chairman of the Zanda McDonald Award, says the award is widely seen as a career and life-changing experience, that can really help take them to the next level.

“We’ve been lucky to discover some inspiring young people since the award began, with quite diverse backgrounds. But the one thing they all have in common is a real passion for the industry, and a hunger to make a difference. I’m really excited to see who will be uncovered this year. The prize is quite something, but even if you don’t win, there are still some wonderful opportunities if you make it into the top three, so I’d encourage anyone considering it to throw their hat in the ring.”

Previous winners have included a dairy farmer, a sheep and beef farmer, a business manager of a sheep milk company, and a beef extension officer. Earlier this year, for the first time, two people were crowned with the title – Queenslander Shannon Landmark, 28, and Luke Evans, also 28, from the Northern Territory.

Landmark is a trained vet and the coordinator of the Northern Genomics Project at the University of Queensland, where she focusses on improving genetic selection and reproductive technology. Evans, 28, is the Station Manager at Rockhampton Downs Station, a 450,000-hectare beef property in Tennant Creek. For Evans, it came as a huge surprise.

“I’m just a bush kid, and I wasn’t that comfortable putting myself out there, but my boss encouraged me to put an application in. And I can honestly say it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’ve already met some really great people, everyone has been so welcoming. I can’t wait to spend some time with them on my mentoring trip later this year, to find out how they’ve succeeded in business, and how I can further develop my skills.”

Applications are open to individuals aged 18 – 35 years, who live and work in the agriculture sector in Australia or New Zealand. Entries close on Friday 30th August 2019.

Further details and an online application form can be found on the PPP Group website – www.pppgroup.org

Sowell says

"If you want to spend your life nursing grievances, you will never run out of grievances to nurse, regardless of what color your skin is. If some people cannot be rotten to you because of your race, they will find some other reason to be rotten to you."

— Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) March 11, 2019

Rural round-up

NZ Centre for Political Research: A sacrificial lamb – Dr Muriel Newman:

The PM’s plan is to put so much pressure on farmers that she will drive them out of business, just as occurred in the coal industry, and oil and gas.

In a speech to state sector workers and children in Melbourne, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described a period of economic turmoil in New Zealand: “Starting in 1984, through to the 1990s, we removed regulations that were said to hamper business, slashed subsidies, transformed the tax system, dramatically cut public spending … “

She questioned whether the reforms were really necessary, then added, “I was a child back then, but I remember clearly how society changed. I remember nothing of Rogernomics of course — I was five. But I do remember the human face.”. . .

Allan Barber challenges Shane Jones to consider the unintended consequences of his headlong rush into forestry, as well as to disclose where all these logs or added value timber will be sold – Allan Barber:

There’s an irony about the combination of the Provincial Growth Fund funded one billion trees programme, sheep and beef land being sold without needing Overseas Investment Office (OIO) approval for conversion to forestry, the sharp fall in Chinese log prices, and Shane Jones ranting about log traders being intoxicated by high prices.

According to Jones, these log traders should have supported the domestic timber processing industry, although it’s not immediately obvious how domestic sales would have compensated for log exports to China which exceeded $3 billion over 12 months.

The history of tree planting, well before it was seen as essential for meeting greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) targets, is no different from any other commodity. After an exciting start too much of anything inevitably provokes indigestion; think oil, dairy, sheep meat, wool, angora, alpacas, logs – you name it, there is always a cycle; the world may even turn away from New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc one day. China features strongly as a market which has a habit of dominating purchasing patterns, driving prices up before turning the tap off, although this was more of an issue when the state rigidly controlled all purchasing. . . 

Dawn at Timahanga, 12000 ZQ Corrie ewes waiting to find out if their fleece will make the Godfrey Hirst contract!

Who else is shearing? pic.twitter.com/zHeShafjOJ

— New Zealand Merino (@NZMerinoCo) July 31, 2019

Growers slam ‘very clunky’ process for claiming fuel tax rebates – Maja Burry:

Some growers say they are being left out of pocket by Auckland’s regional fuel tax because there is no simple way to claim back for on-farm vehicles and machinery.

The 11.5 cents-a-litre regional fuel tax was introduced last July to fund transport projects around the region. It is expected to raise $1.5 billion over the next 10 years.

A rebate system, overseen by the Transport Agency, is meant to help growers and farmers claim back for on-farm vehicles and machinery.

Brendan Balle of Pukekohe-based Balle Brothers helps run a family-owned market garden business which employs about 300 staff. . . 

Northland dairy farmers win top milk award for fifth year running –  Susan Botting:

Producing top-of-the-line milk from 6000-plus dairy herd milkings over five years has earned Far North dairy farmers Terrence and Suzanne Brocx a dairy industry acknowledgement.

The Puketi couple have this year won a Fonterra award acknowledging their top-of-the-line milk production — for a fifth consecutive year.

Milk from the 2018-19 dairy season on their Puketi and Ohaeawai farms has this winter been awarded a Fonterra gold standard “grade-free” quality award, adding to four previous annual awards of the same type. This means all of the milk produced on their two farms since 2014 has reached the dairy co-operative’s highest gold standard quality standards. . . 

Stink bug warning to importers:

Biosecurity New Zealand has sent a stark message to shippers, agents, and importers that imported cargo must meet new rules intended to keep brown marmorated stink bugs out of New Zealand.

“The importing industry needs to be aware that high-risk cargo that hasn’t been treated before arrival will not be allowed to come ashore in most instances,” says Biosecurity New Zealand spokesperson Paul Hallett.

“The aim is to keep out a highly invasive pest that could devastate New Zealand’s horticulture industry if it established here.” 

Biosecurity New Zealand formally issued new import rules on 22 July. They require off-shore treatment of imported vehicles, machinery, and parts from 33 identified risk countries, and all sea containers from Italy during the stink bug season.

In the past, only uncontainerised vehicle cargo from risk countries required treatment before arriving in New Zealand. . . 

A cute pen full of Speckles Park Calves.
Adding value to Dairy income😉 @ktmilne6 @MooreBnmoore @rmcintyre007 @goaheadfarms @Jacquel14087021 @FedFarmers @bushypark8 pic.twitter.com/saNsRbbIx5

— Chris🥛Proud Food Producer🐄🐂 (@Lewisridge_Farm) July 31, 2019

Hunters have their sites on a shareholding in a stunning high country shooting and fishing station:

Avid big-game hunters and trout anglers are being lined up as potential shareholders in a remote South Island high country partnership on the market for sale.

Shares are being sold in the land and buildings at the Miners Creek high-country station some 13 kilometres west of the Central Otago township of Ettrick.

The 513-hectare freehold property is located on the Mount Benger Range adjacent to the Department of Conservation’s Mount Benger Reserve. Combined, the two landholdings are home to red stags on its stark hills and brown trout in its pristine rivers. . . 

Function keys

It’s more than 30 years since I got my first computer and I’ve only just learned this:

Hat tip: Brightside

Saturday soapbox

Saturday’s soapbox is yours to use as you will – within the bounds of decency and absence of defamation. You’re welcome to look back or forward, discuss issues of the moment, to pontificate, ponder or point us to something of interest, to educate, elucidate or entertain, amuse, bemuse or simply muse, but not abuse.

 

A book may be compared to your neighbour: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early. – Rupert Brooke who was born on this day in 1887.

August 3 in history

8  Roman Empire general Tiberius defeated Dalmatians on the river Bathinus.

881  Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu: Louis III of France defeated the Vikings, an event celebrated in the poem Ludwigslied.

1492  Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos de la Frontera, Spain.

1527  First known letter was sent from North America by John Rut.

1645  Thirty Years’ War: Second Battle of Nördlingen (Battle of Allerheim).

1678  Robert LaSalle built the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.

1783  Mount Asama erupted in Japan, killing 35,000 people.

1801 Joseph Paxton, English gardener, was born (d. 1865).

1811 Elisha Graves Otis, American inventor, was born (d. 1861).

1811  First ascent of Jungfrau, third highest summit in the Bernese Alps.

1852 First Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, the first American intercollegiate athletic event. Harvard won.

1860 The Second Land War began in New Zealand.

1860 W. K. Dickson, Scottish inventor, was born (d. 1935).

1867 Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born (d. 1947).

1872 – Anthony Trollope, one of the Victorian era’s most famous novelists, landed at Bluff at the start of a two-month tour of New Zealand.

1887 Rupert Brooke, English poet, was born (d. 1915).

1900 The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company was founded.

1913  Wheatland Hop Riot.

1914  – World War I: Germany declared war against France.

1916   Battle of Romani – Allied forces, under the command of Archibald Murray, defeated an attacking Ottoman army, under the command ofFriedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein, securing the Suez Canal, and beginning the Ottoman retreat from t.e Sinai.

1920   P. D. James, English novelist, was born (d.2014).

1923 Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th President of the United States following the death of Warren G. Harding the previous day.

1924 Leon Uris, American novelist, was born (d. 2003).

1926 Tony Bennett, American singer, was born.

1934  Adolf Hitler became the supreme leader of Germany by joining the offices of President and Chancellor into Führer.

1936  Jesse Owens won the 100 meter dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.

1938 Terry Wogan, Irish television presenter, was born.

1940  Italy began the invasion of British Somaliland.

1941 Five days after its arrival in Wellington, the four-masted barquePamir was seized in prize by the New Zealand government, which then regarded Finland as ‘territory in enemy occupation’.

1941 Martha Stewart, American media personality, was born.

1949  The National Basketball Association was founded in the United States.

1958 The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travelled beneath the Arctic ice cap.

1960  Niger gained independence from France.

1972  The United States Senate ratifies the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

1975 A privately chartered Boeing 707 crashed into the mountainside near Agadir, Morocco killing 188.

1981  Senegalese opposition parties, under the leadership of Mamadou Dia, launched the Antiimperialist Action Front-Suxxali Reew Mi.

1985 Sonny Bill Williams, New Zealand rugby and league footballer, was born.

1997  Oued El-Had and Mezouara massacre in Algeria; 40-76 villagers killed.

2001  The Real IRA detonated a car bomb in Ealing injuring seven people.

2005  President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya of Mauritania was overthrown in a military coup while attending the funeral of King Fahd in Saudi Arabia.

2007 Keeping Stock was launched.

2010 – Widespread rioting erupted in Karachi, Pakistan, after the assassination of a local politician, leaving at least 85 dead and at least 17 billion Pakistani rupees (US$200 million) in damage.

2014 – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed at least 617 people and injured more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia