Obama teaching us all something in his restraint

Time correspondent Joe Klein is right on the mark when he says Obama's first 100 days have been the most impressive of any president since the mighty F.D.R.

Too often politicians world-wide have been guilty of vote hunting and over-reacting in order to keep the masses happy. How wonderful is it then to see a President prepared to talk about patience and common sense.

"There's an impatience," Obama says, "that characterises Washington, that insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers. When a crisis hits there is all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died down...instead of confronting major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way."

Klein says Obama's combination of candour and vision and his patient explanation of complex issues shows Obama at his best and signals a change from his predecessors and from the way society is at the moment - away from the kind of quick fix, sugar rush , attention deficit society that marks the postmodern age.

New rules for Wall Street so that in any one year of the economy 40% of US corporate profits don't come from lending as has previously happened and initiatives in education, energy and health care mean Obama is making his mark in a resilient manner.

There won't be a fix for today's problems by tomorrow morning. Everything has to be worked for, to be gained and then rewards will come, he seems to be telling us over and over again.

If only John Key's first hundred days were just as impressive....

Swines I have met...

The theme of the week is undoubtedly swines...Farmgirl has met a few on her travels of late, most notably ones with the big green R emblazoned on their jackets who send junk mail through the letterbox full of self praise for their services, but short on realities, lulling the arable farmer into thinking that some great bright shining new wheat market is going to open up all because they click their fingers and wish it so...

A bright side to the hype surrounding swine fever?

You would have thought that this morning's news regarding swine fever and its possible importation into New Zealand via Rangitoto College students was enough to put a damper on anybodies week.

Not so for all farmers, with one beaming cocky telling Farmgirl this morning that there could be an immeasurable bright side to the flu hysteria - increased lamb sales around the world as people baulk at buying pork meat.

He has a point. The poor old pig farmer is on a hiding to nothing when the media get involved and hysteria reaches historic proportions.

Yes swine fever is generally contracted from direct contact with pigs but in these circumstances the UN have been careful to publicise the fact that none of those infected have had direct contact. Alas this gets lost in the publicity siege.

The strain, H1N1, is the same strain that causes seasonal flu outbreaks in humans, but the detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

Regardless of the facts Farmers Weekly UK report that Governments across the world are considering tightening rules on pork imports while Russia and Serbia have already banned any pork products from entering their country.

You have to feel sorry for pig farmers who will once again be the focus of a panic backlash but as the farmer told Farmgirl this morning, 'always look on the bright side of life'.

Can't you just see wonderful advertisements on television and in the newspapers around the world now: "Eat Kiwi lamb and stay indoors this year if you want to avoid the flu." Mmmm....the bank account is increasing already...

Norgate hospitable in defeat

Praise is due for PGG Wrightson head Craig Norgate over his handling of the Silver Fern Farm fiasco and their particularly prickly CEO Keith Cooper.

Not only has he survived the failed merger attempt with a relatively small settlement payment of $40 million, he's also managed to retain a working relationship with Cooper and his company.

This is no mean feat when you consider the tough talking Cooper was engaging in, even up until last week on Farmgate on the Country Channel.

Norgate said charitably that there was no question that PGG Wrightson had breached the terms of the contract and all that was to be settled was the amount to be forked over.

However he is still holding hope of integrating the supply chain with SFF and this is interesting because on many levels farmers don't appear to see any advantage in this happening.

Sure if the deal had been settled Cooper could have had a better balance sheet and PGG Wrightson would have captured some extra revenue - but it is still a relative mystery as to what benefits there would have been on farm.

Kiwifruit dumping sad but a bold necessity

The so called 'dumping' of 60 000 trays of top quality Kiwifruit by Zespri shows they don't let emotion get in the way of business and good on them.

By keeping back the Kiwifruit Zespri is protecting its reputation as the finest Kiwifruit producer in the world and growers' export margins.

While it seems a travesty, unduly heralded by the likes of the Nelson Mail, that the fruit is not sold or distributed freely on the domestic market, it shows good business nous and you have to say that some of our meat companies could learn from this stance, particularly from when Farmgirl was last in the UK and saw NZ lamb sliding off the shelf for a pittance because the meat companies (one in particular) flooded the market.

The result of that debacle was that NZ lamb slid from being a high quality meat product British housewives were prepared to pay good money for, to a budget tray that seemed to signal the meat was just as poor in quality as the rubbish coming in from the EU.

When in the UK in 2001 Farmgirl spent several days talking to supermarket customers as to what they preferred in their sheep meat options. Back then almost every single person you came across said if they had the money they would almost always buy Kiwi lamb even though it was more expensive because they perceived it was the best in the world. Two years ago Farmgirl asked the same questions in Irish and English supermarkets and was greeted by completely different answers and some angry butchers. Kiwi lamb was perceived as cheap and therefore not as good as the British counterpart because it had flooded the market.

The end result was some poor returns, a driving down in the lamb market and some angry New Zealand farmers to boot.

How then is Zespri the villain for doing the right thing and protecting its growers? As Farmgirl hinted above, the reporting on the 'dumping' has been sensationalised. By dumping Zespri doesn't mean destroying altogether. Surely most of it will be used in animal food etc.

And for those humanitarians among us, forget Bob Geldof and his Band Aid cause, the slagging off of the EU for dumping tonnes of butter and other products that he felt could have gone to Africa in the 80s - Kiwifruit is not a suitable option and would cost a lot of money to transport and would be difficult to maintain fresh to reach those parts of the world.

Good on Zespri - it takes guts to maintain a business in this PC world.

SFF backtracking on idiotic ban of dogs in sheep yards

Since a belated maelstrom has buffeted its way through the nation's media regarding the Silver Fern Farm decision to ban sheepdogs from its sheepyards, SFF have been in damage control.

No, they say loudly. At no time did UK supermarket giant TESCO demand the removal of dogs because of the stress it may cause the sheep before it ends up in a British housewife's roasting dish.

But since SFF had removed dogs from all but three plants this season, management decided to "minimise the use of dogs from all sites".

What balderdash as the shepherds at the Fairton works in Mid Canterbury would tell you. Farmgirl has been told on more than one occasion that it was a word in the ear by the TESCO machine that led to the demise of the poor old dog.

But TESCO's big brother bark has made news worldwide as many overseas identify with the plight of the endangered Kiwi shepherd and the demise of his dog, and is apparently rather sensitive to any criticism.

It was no surprise then that SFF should jump quickly to dispel the story but in their haste they forgot to remember one thing - shepherds talk, they see, they hear what is being said when the big wigs come to visit their yards. They are not blind, deaf and dumb mutes who issue the odd whistle and yell 'Get up there Bob!'. So SFF's claim that they just idly decided to rid their yards of years of Kiwi iconic history, at a time when consumers are becoming so divorced from the reality of food production, just doesn't ring true.

And to add further salt into the wound the Otago Daily Times reported this week that surprise, surprise, Lincoln University bio-chemist Prof Roy Bickerstaffe found the dogs created no adverse affect on PH tender rating levels in sheep.

Farmgirl understands that yard requirements often dictate whether dogs are needed or not and has not problem with that but when it is so clearly being done because of supermarket pressure it is a worrying sign as to what we will have to kowtow to next in order to get out product into the market.

Federated Farmers Meat and Fibre Chairman Bruce Wills is naive to think this is just a 'storm in a teacup'. What it signifies is important.

This could be the beginning of a game of dominoes.

Study shows why ignorant greenies were loonies to destroy valuable GE crop research in NZ

The latest scientific results coming out of America and England that show that GE crops promote the proliferation of herbicide-resistant weeds which in turn curbs crop production is yet another kick in the backside for the morons who go about destroying GE experiments in our own backyard.

If these greenies had their way world-wide this kind of research would not have been possible. Farmers never asked to plant the crops - they asked to find out about the long term affects of growing them.

The Union of Concerned Scientists have presented a report in which they found that corn and soybean crops that were modified to resist insects and the herbicide glyphosphate did not necessarily produce higher yields.

Hooray for these brave men. In New Zealand those same scientists would have flogged, hung, drawn and quartered because they dared to even analyse the long term affects genetic modification might have on crops.

This is excellent work and gives farmers world-wide a handle on the impact of GE on some crops. Further research is needed of course and here in New Zealand we have plenty of scientists itching to do it.

Let's hope the aggressive antics of these ignorant GE ranters come to a halt when they realise that by allowing research to continue they may very well end up achieving their end goal, as no farmer is going to grow a GE crop if it doesn't give them as much cash in the back pocket as the previously unmodified versions.

Coming down south like heading into a different land

I am fortunate enough to be in Southland for two days and can't help being fascinated by the woolly little furry white animals I see on the roadsides looking nourished, healthy and anything but under threat.
Sheep were part of my upbringing but living in Canterbury and growing crops and being surrounded by dairy farmers makes you forget about that Southern part of your life but it was reassuring to see the quality and quantity of stock coming down yesterday.
A friend asked me last night if I thought that sheep would ever return to some of these dairy farms in the province and honestly I think this is an improbability.
However, on many South Otago farms there lies a history that may prove otherwise. Dairying and sheep farming have always been cyclical in the area with many farms still housing derelict milk factories to prove that.
So never say never. It has been dairying land before and it has been sheep farming land before. Undoubtedly though moving back to the strong sheep farming history would be highly unlikely when you take into account the on farm investment on dairy farms these days and the high capital costs.
But if sheep farming does become a marginal commodity it could lead to an increase in demand particularly if wool was to come in fashion again. One can only wonder at those heyday years of the 50s my father in law talks about when the wool cheque more than balanced the books.
In any case it was somehow reassuring to see that not all sheep farmers are bowing out. It just wouldn't seem right if we didn't have that scenery anymore.

Woman eats 51 of world's hottest chillies in one sitting!

As a chilli farmer I couldn't help but include this story in my blog. I grow around 17 different varieties including the hottest habaneros - and can vouch that even though I like chillies I would struggle through one mouthful of a little chocolate habanero - so this story from the Daily Mail is truly incredible:

They're likely to leave you gasping for water - and have even been known to kill people who eat too many.
For this woman, however, the world's hottest chilli pepper proved nothing more than a simple snack as she chomped her way through 51 of them to claim a place in the Guinness Book of Records yesterday.
Anandita Dutta Tamuly completed her eye-watering feat in two minutes, to the astonishment of Gordon Ramsay, who was monitoring her record attempt.

And for some inexplicable reason, 26-year-old Mrs Tamuly then went on to smear handfuls of seeds from the fiery bhut jolokia chillies into her eyes as the crowds gasped in horror.
In 2007 Guinness acknowledged the bhut jolokia as the hottest chilli in the world, measuring more than 1million units on the Scoville Heat Rating chart, the method of classifying heat in peppers. A standard New Mexican green chilli has just 1,500 units.
A single seed from a bhut jolokia will cause watering eyes and a runny nose as well as a burning sensation in the mouth that can last up to five hours.

But Mrs Tamuly said coolly: 'I have been eating bhut jolokia since my childhood and never felt the hotness in my mouth.
'When I was five I had a sore tongue and my mother applied a chilli paste to cure the infection. Since then I developed a penchant for chillies.
After that I found eating chillies was a great way to stay healthy. Every time I have a cold or flu I just munch on some chillies and I feel better. To be honest, I barely notice them now.'
She said she was disappointed not to have managed even more, having swallowed 60 chillies in practice runs. Mrs Tamuly's record-breaking munch took place in the Assam region of India where she lives and where the chilli grows in hilly areas.
Ramsay, who was in India filming for a Channel 4 programme, could manage only one before screaming for water, yelling: 'It's too much!'
The previous record was held by a South African woman who ate eight jalapenos in one minute in 2002.
In September last year an aspiring chef died after eating a chilli sauce as part of an endurance competition with a friend.
Andrew Lee, 33, from Edlington, West Yorkshire, challenged his girlfriend's brother to a contest to see who could eat the spiciest sauce that he could create.
Mr Lee prepared a tomato sauce made with red chillies grown on his father's allotment. But after eating it he suffered intense discomfort and itching. The following morning he was found dead, possibly after having a heart attack.

Sad decline in Kiwi Country Women's Institute

The closing of the Methven branch of CWI after a long proud history is disturbing, even to a younger generation of women.

Laugh or mock as you may when you think of the CWI you can't help feeling that somehow the dissipation of the group signals a far more significant change in the rural landscape.

I've seen first hand from my mother in law how important 'institute' can be. It really does provide solid friendships and support in rural areas and a camaraderie that doesn't really exist between women past Young Farmers.

But why is it failing?

Yes there is certainly an older generation holding the fort at present and that may be enough for some young women to stay away, thinking, misguidedly, that it isn't for them and that their generation of farming women is not really understood. But that's too generalised and simplistic in my view. Generally the CWI branches try very hard to recruit new members.

Locally I know that many branch meetings are held during the day and that doesn't suit many. However with such busy lifestyles these days night-time meetings often don't suit either.

But I believe something else is going on here entirely. Growing up, our generation of gals were taught the feminist ideologies. The idea of being a good wife, a good business partner and supporting one another in isolated areas just didn't cut the mustard - we were the future leaders!

This is truly sad. If we could only get over ourselves and come together we could perhaps offer something to CWI and adapt its functions to our needs. In rural areas we need each other to survive. Our experience is unique to us.

Young Farmers had to change radically in the past five years to survive and it has done so successfully. Let's hope CWI can do the same.

Catch up with Farmgirl on Farming Show

You can catch up with Farmgirl on the Farming Show this week by clicking on this link: http://www.farmingshow.com

If the interview marked Nadine Porter doesn't show up, go to Wednesday April 8 in the archives and it should pop up!

Tah tah tah tah...and the Smooth Operator of the Week Award must go to....Ravensdown CEO Rodney Green

Hark the herald angels sing...no it's not a Christmas angel...it's Rodders in all his preened public relations finery in Ashburton this morning keen to unsoap his mouth from the recent gaffes he made in the media when he ignored the existence of the New Zealand arable industry and it's importance to the Ravensdown coffers. (see post further down)

Alas Farmgirl hears there was no mention of that...he'd cleaned up his act and polished his lingo to perfection particularly when it came to the point of the meeting - why Ravensdown continues to be in the PKE market when it disadvantages the arable shareholders he hadn't realised existed until lately.

Ravensdown imported 90 000 tonnes of PKE this year and have sold around 50 000 and apparently on this basis cropping clients should be relishing the opportunity to add a meagre 5500 tonnes to the mix.

5500 tonnes? In arable lingo that's about five small farms that might benefit from the market but hey Mr Green and his cohorts reckon this could be a fantastic opportunity for us poor dumb cereal farmers. Apparently in this recession Ravensdown alone will convince the cash strapped North Island dairy farmers of the poor nutritional content of PKE when they sell it to them and then these same dairy farmers will come back, singing hallelujah you were right Rodney, and purchase bucket loads of the PKE barley mix while we celebrate by emptying our silos down here.

Yeah right!

And then of course Farmgirl understands there were the veiled threats that the Australian Barley Board (ABB) who has recently purchased plant in Hornby would get in on the act and might not put New Zealand barley in their mix. We should fear the Australians and trust Ravensdown was the message. But hold on...up until last week Rodney said it was the Australians that were adding a third commodity group to the Ravensdown market in arable farming, so who should we fear here?

In reality Ravensdown is all PR fluff. Nothing has changed. If the PKE barley market is a goer what's to stop RD1 getting on board anyway? The fact that they're not doing the same thing proves that there is room for doubt as to whether dairy farmers will really buy the more expensive supplement.

Yet again Ravensdown have misjudged the feeling in the arable sector. They should not be in the PKE market at all and no amount of wing preening by Rodney Green will change that.

And the tension grows between English and Key...

You could just about taste the tension emanating from Bill English's mouth on Q and A yesterday and it wasn't sweet.

The two have disagreed publicly on when New Zealand will emerge from the recession and on the face of it that's not a big deal...except when you hear Bill English's very courteous and contained comments when asked why they aren't towing the same line on the economy.

Asked about the difference, Mr English said Mr Key "has always had a very positive view about New Zealand. I certainly wouldn't want to say he is wrong but he is setting a high hurdle here and it's our job as a Government to meet those expectations - that's a feature of John Key's leadership."

The body language says it all and so it should. Bill English is probably a very frustrated man right now. He's the one who has to deal with the sops while Key gets to meet, greet and shear the sheep.

Key is politically naive whereas English has suffered from his previous leadership of the party. How disappointing it must be then for him to have run the country behind the scenes, sort the rubbish and wonder what could have been had he only waited his turn for the leadership.

Me thinks the National party decry to much that there is not a rift growing between these two. Whenever a party feels forced to defend a situation you can bet that there's something that's caught fire in the background.

Although these two do not represent in any way the philosophy of the Lange/Douglas era, they do share something else in common...a cooling off of their friendship that could be disastrous for the party as a whole.

Good to see the dairy industry tackling P problem

Bravo to leaders in the dairy industry for choosing to talk about a very real problem among transient dairy workers through-out the country.

At last week's Large Herds New Zealand conference anti P campaigner Mike Sabin hit home the hard facts of the damage P causes to users.

Mike would know - as a former Police Detective he has seen the ravages of the drug as it continues to weave its destructive way through society.

His hard hitting presentation left many speechless and his warnings to be wary of the potential use of farm cottages as P labs was timely. With the rapid expansion of the dairying workforce over the past decade some problems have arisen in many rural communities with some police forces reporting a far higher rate of crime in those areas.

Mr Sabin showed dairy farmers how to spot signs of P use in their workers and while many may think the drug problem belongs somewhere in Auckland, the reality is that it is everywhere - even farmers have been addicted to the drug.

As long as we accept that our community is as vulnerable to this drug we may have a chance of pegging back its use. To bury our heads and think that the problem lies somewhere else will only result in an escalation of the problem.

Like the dairy farmers attending the conference I support Mr Sabin's campaign to introduce stronger Government initiatives to combat the drug and applaud the dairy industry for recognising it may be among them already.

The blokes at NZ Farmers Weekly need to stop salivating and get back to writing serious news

The boys at NZ Farmers Weekly have proven once again that the female sex is never very far from some male minds and editor Tim Fulton has made a right plonker of himself and degraded a publication held in the highest esteem with his suggestion, front page, that the boys should head to Middlemarch to catch a Swedish blonde woman.

You can see it now can't you...men acting like this girl is a piece of meat and Tim heading the charge!

It's not every day a Swiss Milk Princess gets in touch to say she's heading your way, he proclaims. You can see the chops salivating now...but wait there's more...blonde Swiss flight attendant Andrea Berger (yes really!) emailed the publication to say she was coming to New Zealand to 'find a lovely farmer.'

You know I can't ever recall conversations about putting a Swiss female on the front page of this publication when I worked there...but perhaps that was because there were more stroppy females working there then!

Now I'm sure they have plenty of emails from nice European blokes (like the one above) asking for work, but do we see them on the front page....tsk tsk boys...equality for one and all.

But seriously, come on Tim, you're a great editor...but I guess even the smart heads get turned when a Swiss lovely wanders into cyberspace.

But one has to wonder whether you would have made the same 'objective' editorial decision if she were more shall we say, rotund, toothless with mousy short hair.

There is something icky and rural stereotypical about this story at a time when women have demonstrated their infinite capabilities on farm without resorting to playing up to their...ahem..feminine wiles.

Come on boys...get back to the news!

For more on this story go to: http://www.cplfirst.co.nz/article/209.html

Key challenged to shear sheep

And he's coming over the top of the back now, gently does it. Oh dear, he's left a layer of wool on, a softer coat, but now he's back, he's plunging that handpiece over the sheep's belly, mind the nipples John!

But wait he's showing marvelous adaptation to the skill of shearing, he's getting into his stride now, he's tucked that sheep tight between his legs and he's showing it who's boss.

Down he goes, the last blows, then flick on to it's feet, a kick on the backside and a note pushed between the sheep's teeth.

"There," he says. "He's all ready. Finely shorn, and now with super speed...please applaud your Government's state of the art new investment in rural communication...the messenger sheep."

Broadband of lies around National election promises to rural sector

I'm not sure why Federated Farmers are surprised by the Government's lack of broadband spending in rural areas - it was always unlikely to happen.

Despite our 64% export sales injection into the economy the votes are in the city centres and call me a cynic but no Government is going to divvy up money in areas that are sparsely populated.

Imagine though what could be achieved if the electoral voting system was changed and you were given a number of votes depending on the amount of land you owned. Wouldn't they sit up and take notice then? Bugger the broadband - we'd all have digital satellites!

Strange though isn't it, that a Government that is always harping on about growing the economy, in fact using it as their mantra, can't see it's way to providing better communication for our rural businesses.

And as for the West Coast receiving no upgrade - yet still growing economically - they should separate themselves off, put a border up and provide their own governance. After all they are one of the only areas in the country still going ahead - so they must be doing something right!

Gas emissions waver was never a subsidy to agriculture

It's laughable how seriously this Government is taking New Zealand's so called 'gas emission' problems, even allowing Simon Terry to tell them this week that agriculture is the sector they must target to reduce the problem.

At a time when even the world's scientists can't agree on climate change how can we even persist in this ridiculous farce - especially when Joe Bloggs looks set to get away free while the poor old farmer that props up the NZ economy is facing more interference and control on his or her operation.

And just remember folks, agriculture does well under a National Government!

Terry's select committee report to MPs yesterday was not good. He targeted agriculture (with an estimated 73% of our total emissions) as the sector more easily manipulated to reduce emissions.

And without much detail to go on we were told that farmers could cut their emissions by up to 13% without losing profitability on farm.

But worse was yet to come with Terry trotting out the subsidy word - it was enough to make the cows choke on their own gas.

Previously under the Labour government's ETS, farming would be exempted until 2013, which the Sustainability Council says amounts to a net subsidy to pastoral farmers of over $1.3 billion up to that time (assuming a price of $30/tonne), according to the NZ Herald.

"Half New Zealand's emissions come from agriculture and it is time the sector's leaders acknowledged there is a big potential for savings now instead of constantly claiming more time is needed for research."

To borrow a John Key phrase - this is all just bollocks. If you're going to exert conditions on farmers in order of some trendy environmental philosophy that isn't going to make the slightest impact on the world's so called climate change problems, and not slap the same conditions on every household in the country then you are subsidising everyone else who is not in the agriculture industry.

When are these morons going to realise the value of agriculture in our economy...when, oh when, oh when.

John Key developing a spine?

Could it be that John Key is actually muscling up...losing that schoolboy impish grin and becoming the Master of his party?

Certainly the rhetoric has changed somewhat in past weeks. Now we see him holding Nick Smith's hair by the ahem...short and curlies and notice how Johnnie's lingo has lengthened into a more stylish adaptation of the English language -especially when he used the word "bollocking" to describe his conversation with Internal Affairs minister Richard Worth.

Suddenly the PR machine has taken hold and it now appears that it's vital for the PM to appear accountable, strong, resolute, in complete and utter bollocking control of his ministers, and hold on....just like Helen Clark it seems.

The man you'd most feel comfortable having a beer with is shifting away from his 'nice guy' image and has issued threats to his ministers, stating he wants accountability, outcomes and results and if anyone needs to be strung up, a la Mussolini style, he alone will be the one to do it.

And what over? Nick Smith, a senior minister is not even allowed to make suggestions on cutting down plastic waste, while Worth made an idiot error of judgement in allowing himself to engage in private business while on a Government sanctioned trip to India.

But do we like the new John Key? Time will tell but for now punters it's fair to say as in the great words of that Seekers song "The Carnival is Over".