Clive Bibby: Country Calendar – a jewel in the crown

As a semi retired farmer used to long days and sleepless nights looking after the livestock and crops grown on the property, recent episodes of the Country Calendar TV programme show just why we keep coming back for more hardship and heartache when the easy thing to do would be to take time out and enjoy watching the All Blacks on the other channel.

Of course I am speaking metaphorically but most of us are committed to doing both. However, it takes more than a rugby match to convince people like me that time is up.

Dr David Lillis: Farming by the Stars?

Lunar Calendars for Farming?

The New Zealand Herald has just published another piece on farming according to astronomical phenomena (NZ Herald, 2025). We are told that as “Aotearoa” celebrates Matariki weekend, it is a good time to look at how Māori farmers used the Maramataka, the lunar year, to guide farming practices and that the Matariki hākari (feast) is the time to celebrate the kai that comes from the land of Kiwi farms.

Bob Edlin: Govt favours farming over forestry....

Govt favours farming over forestry – but is it giving a greater priority to growing cities than growing crops?

Just a few days ago, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay was braying about the introduction “of long awaited legislation that will put a stop to large-scale farm-to-forestry conversions”.

This would deliver on a key election promise to protect the future of New Zealand food production.

Clive Bibby: Change needs to be based on a sustainable strategy - not driven by ideology

For those who have spent a lifetime working in the livestock industry, listening to farming leaders bemoan the current state of the sheep industry is not something we want to hear.

It isn’t that their claims of treachery by various governments aren’t justified - just that it appears to be too little too late and nobody in a position of authority in government circles appears willing to do anything about it. We have been down this road many times before and it is becoming tiresome waiting for a response from those who have the ability to make things happen that will avoid a repeat of disasters waiting to happen.

Barry Soper: Farmers have been feeling the pinch for too long

The Agricultural Fieldays in Hamilton was expected to be a pretty low key affair when it came to selling stuff to farmers.

Like the rest of the business sector, farmers are feeling the pinch. They are feeling punch drunk after three years of an unbridled Labour/Greens Government.

But over the past two days the music has come back into their ears, even if it's still pretty low volume. The news yesterday from the Beehive that they won't be paying the ETS tax from next year will come as a great relief, although a number of cockies admit they haven't got their heads around it yet.

Clive Bibby: Rib tickling yarns

Perhaps it is no surprise that, having been a farmer for most of my life, I would appreciate the earthy comments made by rural folk on matters such as what goes on in the corridors where the highest level decisions are made that affect us all. 

I have always had the greatest admiration for those who battle the elements and the bank manager at the same time yet never expect a simple " thank you" from those who benefit from their labours - which is just about the whole population of this blessed country.

Clive Bibby: Farming in the New Era

I can’t remember a time when farming in NewZealand provided so many opportunities but at the same time was threatened by so many events and interferences beyond our control. 

It is clear that, in order to survive as profitable entities in the modern world, we are going to have to be innovative like never before and change the ways we do things.

Clive Bibby: Remembering those who also served

As a farmer trying to stay afloat financially during a time when our ability to earn an income is limited because of government relief funding holdups, one can’t help thinking about those generations of leaders who might have done things differently in times of crisis.

There is no question in my mind that modern society is being subjected to political management that, although claiming not to be, is in fact out of touch with those kiwis struggling at the coalface.

Clive Bibby: Solutions for dummies

Another update from the coalface. Farming in a hostile environment is difficult when your support is deliberately withheld or drip fed to those who can make the best use of it.

Strange tactics from those who could make a huge difference.

Why is it that politicians don’t get it.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: Farmers called Labour's bluff ahead of the election

New Zealand farmers have called Labour’s bluff on the climate tax Labour was planning, and they’ve won this thing. 

After yesterday’s announcement from the Nats, there is now very little chance- actually probably no chance at all- that Labour will put any kind of tax on farmers before the election.

Because what happened yesterday is that farmers got hope. All they have to do is hold on for the next four months.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The cyclone will be weighing on farmers’ minds

It is a hard time to be a farmer in the North Island, this week especially. 

Yes, the cyclone has affected a lot of people, not just farmers, in some cases devastatingly. But the farming community have got to be among the worst affected.

I really don’t mean to minimise this cyclone for anyone else, but farmers are isolated. 

They will probably be the last to have their power reconnected, the last to have their bridges fixed to get the milk tankers in; they’ll be the last ones in to the supermarket in town. And they’ll be the last ones to have someone turn up at the door and ask if they’re ok.

Clive Bibby: We appear to be on our own but we have been here before.

While I am becoming increasingly cynical about New Zealand Farmers’ ability to influence their own destiny given the government’s dishonest representation of this country’s responsibilities to the rest of the world populations, there is good reason to believe things are about to change.

But it will be a while before kiwis finally realise our mistake of placing the country’s future in the hands of this bunch of destructive vandals.

The country is being deceived by its own leaders - and they’re not all politicians with a secret agenda. Newspaper editors are responsible for much of the misinformation that appears on the front page of the daily rag.

Oh really!  Well let’s take a look at the evidence.

Leighton Smith chats to Dr Muriel Newman

Leighton speaks to Muriel Newman, from the NZ Centre for Political Research, on why New Zealanders need to make their voices heard.

They talk separatist government, the water debate (that shouldn’t even be happening), He Puapua (whatever that means), farming, and other damage the Arden government is inflicting on New Zealand.

Click image to listen - At approx 15.00 minutes in

Clive Bibby: So there you have it

Nobody, least of all the farmers of this country, should be surprised by the government announcement this week of their immoral plan to drastically reduce the nation’s green house gas emissions for no other reason than the pursuit of a debatable objective that has been abandoned in almost all of the original IPCC supporting countries throughout the western world. Note we don’t include the major polluters of the world who also signed the Paris and Glasgow agreements while having no real intention of participating in this flawed response to the latest round of global warming.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: The plan the Government has for farmers is an expensive exercise in stupidity

 

This can’t happen: The plan the Government has to force farmers to pay for their emissions.

They cannot persist with this plan as it is.

In its current form it is going to be a devastating for farming communities…and given how important farming is to our national income… it’s going to be terrible for our economy.

Clive Bibby: The Huiarua / Matanui betrayal

 

Recently I enjoyed the experience of helping two young local men shear some of my sheep.

The exercise was a mixture of one that helped to restore my faith in our local farm based economy but also another that reinforced my concerns about the contemptuous manner in which the farming industry is being treated by the current government. 

Who would have thought that it would be possible to have two views of the same cornerstone industry that are so diametrically opposed. 

Clive Bibby: Let's get real

 

Why is that our leaders appear incapable of understanding the contributing factors involved in running a successful family business.

At a time when speculative decisions can have tragic consequences for the shareholders, one would hope that those who have responsibility for our survival maintain a tight control over the things that have been proven over time to matter. 

Yet the opposite appears to be true. 

Owen Jennings: Cars versus Cows

What is the difference between a car and a cow?  Both can get you from A to B but the car adds Greenhouse Gas (GHG) to the atmosphere doing so while the cow doesn’t. The GHG produced by the car hangs around in the atmosphere for centuries, apparently, whereas the GHG from the cow is largely gone in 10 years.

The car’s contribution accumulates.  The cow’s contribution revolves – she simply replenishes what is lost.  The car’s contribution keeps building up, adding to the quantum of GHG as the car goes further.  The cow’s contribution stays static with no additional GHG produced.

Mike Hosking: Labour needs to get real on farming

You've got to hand it to Jacinda Ardern. Having been spanked in the debate, such is the life of a politician in a campaign, you got to get out of bed the next morning and carry on like it never happened.

The irony being this day saw her down on the farm. If there was a single comment on the debate that sunk her, it was the condescending nonsense she dribbled out over farming and how what Judith Collins has said about being proud as a farmer's daughter and how the farmer felt beaten and embattled sounded like farming from another age.

Robin Grieve: ETS to Slash Farm Incomes by Eleven Percent

According to figures produced by the ETS Review Panel the Emission Trading Scheme will slash NZ farm incomes by between nine and eleven percent in 2015. New Zealand farmers will be the only farmers in the world kneecapped by their own Government in this way. The Review Panel attempted to justify this by saying that Australian farmers, while not included in the Australian carbon tax scheme, would be subject to the Australian Carbon Farming Initiative.

The ETS Review Panel shows either bias or ignorance here because the New Zealand ETS and the Australian Carbon Farming Initiative are not comparable, they are chalk and cheese. Under the ETS New Zealand farmers will pay for livestock emissions of nitrous oxide and methane. Under the CFI Australian farmers do not pay for any of their livestock emissions but they can be paid for reducing them.