MANAGEMENT
MACHINERY & PRODUCTS
Veteran cleans up prime beef contest. PAGE 29
Case has big bales all squared up. PAGE 36
NEWS Farmers in the gun from new laws PAGE 14
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS DECEMBER 3, 2019: ISSUE 690
www.ruralnews.co.nz
NZ lamb chopped DAVID ANDERSON
THE NZ meat industry’s challenges in the UK – already facing a number of issues due to the impending Brexit – have increased with UK retailer Waitrose planning to source all lamb from only British producers. The company has previously sourced some of its own-label fresh and frozen lamb from New Zealand during the UK winter months. However, Waitrose says this move will extend its commitment to UK lamb producers as it “focuses its investment
on the future of British agriculture”. The UK supermarket chain says it aims to complete the move to 100% British fresh and frozen own-label lamb by the summer of 2021. Currently all of Waitrose’s fresh chicken, pork, beef, eggs and liquid milk are sourced exclusively from the UK. “We are constantly looking at ways to innovate our product and are
actively looking to partner with new lamb producers around Britain to ensure we continue to offer great-tasting, high-quality lamb all year round,” said Tor Harris, head of corporate social responsibility, health and agriculture at Waitrose & Partners. Waitrose is a smaller UK supermarket compared with Sainsbury, Tesco and Asda.
Meat Industry Association chief executive Tim Ritchie told Rural News the Waitrose decision is disappointing. “I would describe it as a blip, not a disaster,” he said. “Of course, individual companies can make their own decisions. However, it is unfortunate considering the long relationship Waitrose has had
Hail Mary Dromore, Canterbury, farmer Brian Leadley in a wheat crop which he estimates has suffered 10-15% loss from last month’s big hailstorm that cut a swath through much of region’s cropping land. Leadley’s sweetcorn was at an early seedling stage with many plants flattened and his pea crop also took a hammering. Assessing the damage a few days after the storm, Leadley said some of his sweetcorn plants were “certainly” lost, but many were recovering quite well. However, some of those plants will have lost the central stem, in which case no cobs will form. Meanwhile, his peas also looked a lot healthier after some warm weather and a spray of liquid fertiliser and fungicide. – More on the crop damage page 4
TO PAGE 3
DANES MAY HAVE ANSWER DANISH RESEARCHERS have developed an ingredient that substantially cuts cows’ methane emissions, according to a newspaper report from that country. Like NZ, Denmark has ambitious climate targets, but it also relies heavily on agriculture. Methane emissions from the farming sector are often described as a key issue in curbing climate change. Working with dairy giants Arla, Danish researchers have advanced a substance (referred to as ‘X’) that can effectively stop methane emissions from cows – a potentially massive result in the battle against climate change. “In a lab at the University of Copenhagen, we have managed to document that when this substance is added to feed, there is simply no -- as in zero -- methane emissions,” Mette Olafsen Nielsen, a professor at Aarhus University, told JyllandsPosten newspaper. Australian researchers had already discovered that it is possible to reduce methane emissions from cows by 92-97% by adding a special substance to their feed. However, this substance is virtually unusable because it’s not something acceptable in the food chain. According to this latest report, the Danish material has already been approved by EU’s food safety authority EFSA, and can be added to the vitamin and mineral mixtures that go into cow feed.
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