MANAGEMENT
MACHINERY
Massey students run trials to see if bulls can be grown faster. PAGE 28
New Magnum lineup celebrates 28 years. PAGE 35
ANIMAL HEALTH Next year’s lamb crops starts now!
RURALNEWS
PAGE 31
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS
FEBRUARY 3, 2015: ISSUE 577
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Upsurge in student no’s PETER BURKE peterb@ruralnews.co.nz
THERE’S BEEN a 20% increase in student enrolments in agricultural degree courses at Massey University for 2015, the first such surge in many years. Dr James Millner, programme director for the ag science degrees, says this year about 140 students will take their degree courses, including bachelor of agri science, emphasising production, and bachelor of agri commerce, with more of an off-farm focus. Interest is also rising in BSc with an agricultural component. Millner can’t precisely explain these increases, but says Massey intends to survey the students when they arrive on campus. “Students are more focused on where careers and the highlighted
opportunities in the primary industries are starting to have an effect,” he told Rural News. “Most students seem to be from rural backgrounds, but also from cities – including the metropolitan cities.” Massey has had its recruiters out in key markets to sell the message about the value of agricultural degrees. They are trying to attract students from the big cities. Millner a lot of effort is going into pointing out to young people, parents and teachers that agriculture is more than just farm work. These jobs are in
the service industries including law, accounting, finance and consulting. “But I am still getting feedback from students in prestigious high schools who should know better about the opportunities in agriculture. “Young people have said that when it’s suggested they pursue a career in agriculture they get laughed at and told to get serious and asked ‘why aren’t you more ambitious’ and all that sort of stuff.” Millner says, sadly, agriculture is still regarded by many influential teachers as ‘second rate’.
Meanwhile, Lincoln University is also seeing a rise in students wanting agriculture courses. Head of Lincoln’s faculty of agriculture, Professor Tony Bywater, says agricultural student numbers have steadily grown over the past few years. “While this is good for the industry, I am not so sure if it is a good thing for me!” Bywater joked to Rural News. “I am looking at 300 agriculture students in my first year class this semester.” @rural_news facebook.com/ruralnews
RAIN PLEASE Sheep and beef farmer Jamie Powdrell surveys the parched pasture on his property at Wairoa, on the North Island’s east coast. He is not panicking just yet about the dry because of good rainfall in December. However, he believes if there is not substantial rain in the next few weeks then things will get much tougher. More from the eastern North Island and the rest of the country enduring the big dry on pages 6-7. PHOTO SARAH CHARTERIS
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LITTLE RELIEF ON HORIZON LONG TERM relief from the dry spell may be weeks away: that’s the prediction of Weatherwatch.co.nz’s Phil Duncan. Any rain in the next few days may be short-lived and he predicts a return to hot, dry conditions for much of February. The high pressure systems which influence the chance of rain vary each year and ‘park’ themselves in different places, he says. “It’s like going to the beach: you don’t always park in the same place and the highs do the same,” he told Rural News. “This year they’ve been consistently centred over the middle of the country or the South Island; so we have seen a lot of light winds, blue skies and calm days – with the rainmakers coming close to us but running into that high.” Duncan sees a temporary change in that pattern at the end of January and into the first week of February. This could open a window of opportunity for rain in some, but not all, regions. “Unfortunately, by the end of the first week of February we are back into those westerlies and they could be hot and dry.” Though there are tropical storms in the Pacific, the high pressure systems are forming an invisible wall that prevents them coming down to New Zealand. – Peter Burke
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