Pribble – a trivial dispute; petty disputation, paltry discussion, vain chatter.
Word of the day
July 31, 2015
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Rural round-up
July 31, 2015Westland Milk cuts payout further as dairy prices fall – Suze Metherell:
(BusinessDesk) – Westland Milk Products, New Zealand’s second-largest dairy cooperative, cut its forecast milk payout to farmers by 10 cents for the current season and for next season’s by $1, in the face of sustained weakness in global dairy prices.
The Hokitika-based company will pay $4.80 to $4.90 per kilogram of milk solids for the 2014/15 season, with the final payout to be determined at the September board meeting, it said in a statement. The forecast payout for the 2015/16 season was slashed to between $4.60 and $5/kgMS, from a previously band of $5.60 to $6/kgMS.
The advance rate for this season remains at $4.80/kgMS, although the 2015/16 season rate was revised to $3.80/kgMS from $4.40/kgMS. . .
Light at the end of the paddock for dairy farmers – Jason Walls:
The New Zealand dollar is poised to shed more value against the US by the start of next year and dairy prices may only be at the current level temporarily.
This is good news for farmers, says ASB Bank rural economist Nathan Penny, who forecasts the New Zealand dollar will be at 61c against the US by the beginning of 2016.
He says the one of the biggest factors to this will be the US interest rate hike later this year. . .
Speech to Horticulture New Zealand Conference Award Dinner:
Good evening. Thank you Julian Raine, Horticulture New Zealand President, for that introduction. It is a pleasure to join you this evening in recognising excellence and future leaders of the horticulture industry.
I would particularly like to acknowledge outgoing Chief Executive Peter Silcock for all his contribution to the industry over the past 30 years.
Tonight I want to talk to you briefly about the long-term value that can be created by recognising talent and growing leaders.
A growing industry
Horticulture is a top performing primary industry. In the year to June 2015, export revenue reached $3.897 billion. This is up $602 million from 2012, a total of over 18 percent growth over four years. . .
Dairy modules hitting the spot for DWN members:
Dairy Women’s Network has received feedback on how its latest professional development offering is being perceived by its members – with impressive results.
The network launched its new Dairy Modules programme for the first time in November 2014 and has since had the programme evaluated by the renowned Net Promoter Score system, confirming world class standard. . .
Bayer Wairarapa Young Viticulturist of the Year 2015 announced:
A great win for Mark Langlands from Te Kairanga as he becomes the Bayer Wairarapa Young Viticulturist of the Year 2015. Contestants battled it out at Te Kairanga Vineyard with their final challenge being to deliver a speech to a key audience in the evening at the Martinborough Village Cafe.
Contestants completed a wide range of activities including questions on trellising, vine management, pests & diseases, budgeting, tractor maintenance and irrigation as well as having an interview and a quick fire buzzer round. . .
New Zealand Wool Services International Limited’s General Manager, Mr John Dawson reports that despite a slightly stronger New Zealand dollar wool prices were firm to slightly dearer. With less wool available due to weather affecting shearing and vacation related shipping requirements this has helped underpin prices.
The weighted indicator for the main trading currencies increased 0.99 percent week on week.
Of the 7,905 bales on offer 96.2 percent sold. . .
PERRIAM on national stage at New Zealand Fashion Week 2015:
Luxury merino fashion brand PERRIAM has been selected for a special showcase on wool in fashion at the prestigious New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) in August.
PERRIAM is among some of the country’s iconic labels chosen for the Choose Wool show, taking to the runway with Sabatini, twenty-seven names, Tanya Carlson, Hailwood, Liz Mitchell and Wynn Hamlyn on Tuesday, August 25.
Curated by leading Kiwi stylist Anna Caselberg, who is known for her work with NZ wools, Choose Wool represents an important aspect of the NZ fashion industry. . .
Leave a Comment » | business, Farming, fashion, food, horticulture, rural | Tagged: Anna Caselberg, Choose Wool, Dairy Women’s Network (DWN), Hailwood, Horticulture NZ, Jason Walls, John Dawson, Julian Raine, Liz Mitchell, Mark Langlands, Nathan Guy, Nathan Penny, Net Promoter Score, NZ Wool Services International, PERRIAM, Peter Silcock, Sabatini, Suze Metherell, Tanya Carlson, Te Kairanga, twenty-seven names, Westland Milk Products, Wynn Hamlyn, Young Viticulturist of the Year | Permalink
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Friday’s answers
July 31, 2015Thursday’s questions were:
1. Who wrote:
Rain
I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain . . ?
2. What does: He kai kei aku ringa mean?
3. What does Kāore te kumara e kōrero mō tōna ake reka mean?
4. By what names are: hoiho, kārearea and korimako known in English?
5. Should Maori be a compulsory subject in schools?
Points for answers:
Will got two.
Tracey got two and a third, and the right idea for #s 2 and 3.
J Bloggs got three with a bonus for reasoning for #5.
Grant got two and a third (and a smile for the other 2/3) and a bonus for Spike’s poem.
Andrei got two and a third and a bonus for reasoning for #5.
The poem Rain is here.
Answers follow the break.
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NZ 3rd for material living standard
July 31, 2015Trans Tasman points out that child poverty lobbies are wrong on living standards:
Lobby groups which bleat about child poverty in NZ took a knock this week when independent research showed NZ households have the third highest material living standard in the world for households with a teenager. The research also dealt a blow to those who contend there is growing inequality in NZ society. Using a new measure for wellbeing, Researchers at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research found NZ ranks just behind the US and Canada, and ahead of Aust and all the Scandinavian countries.
Motu is a not-for-profit, non-partisan research institute and received funding for this work from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of NZ. Dr Arthur Grimes, one of NZ’s most respected economists, says “our new measure focuses on actual consumption of households, which is a better measure of living standards than income. What we found is that we have very high material wellbeing levels. I think this should call into question the widespread negative impression of living standards in NZ compared with other developed countries.” Grimes and Motu researcher Sean Hyland worked from a dataset of household possessions for almost 800,000 households over 40 countries, including all OECD countries.
“Our results show NZ is still a great place to bring up children, at least in material terms. Not only do we have wonderful natural amenities, but contrary to what GDP statistics tell us, most kiwi families have a high standard of material wellbeing relative to our international peers” The study also looked at the degree of inequality in household material wellbeing, which fell in most countries, including NZ, over the period 2000-2012. In 2012, NZ ranked twentieth of 40 countries in terms of inequality, with levels similar to those in the US, Canada and the UK.
Grimes points out most public policy concern is with the living standards of ordinary people, especially those closer to the bottom of the wealth distribution curve, whose living standards are well captured in the data. “If we look across the Tasman, Australia’s households are not quite as wealthy as their NZ counterparts but inequality in Aust. is lower than that in NZ. Overall, these figures suggest we may need to reassess how we look at this country’s economic performance.”
This doesn’t mean everyone has enough nor that we can ignore the needs of those who don’t.
But it does contradict the people who keep trying to tell us that inequality is growing and that up to one in four children are living in poverty.
1 Comment | Family, politics | Tagged: Dr Arthur Grimes, Marsden Fund, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, Royal Society of NZ, Sean Hyland, Trans-Tasman | Permalink
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Very unlike Lotto
July 31, 2015The NBR’s annual celebration of achievement will no doubt attract derision from the usual suspects who don’t understand wealth creation, what it takes and what it provides for others:
. . . New riches have been amassed, much of it self-made from creating businesses that employ thousands of people here and overseas. . .
The list attempts to quantify the value of people’s assets. It doesn’t measure the value their success provides for those they employ, for those who service and supply them and for the economic, environmental and social fabric of the country.
There might be an element of luck in any endeavour but the success this list celebrates owes far more to hard work, skill and the willingness to take risks.
Vicki Jayne, who led the team who put the list together, says:
“But in many ways the actual money is not that important. It’s the stories behind it and the fact that these people have achieved a high level of success. You don’t get the money unless you achieve at a high level in the area you are functioning. It’s very unlike winning Lotto.”
While we celebrate success in sport and the arts, the tall poppy choppers too often deride business success.
That’s a pity, not for the money made but for what it takes to make it and what the people who’ve got it do with it.
This year’s list includes farmers among the newcomers:
When it comes to promoting farming investment in New Zealand, Craigmore Sustainables chief executive Forbes Elworthy could hardly have a better pedigree.
Not only has his family farmed in the South Canterbury foothills for five generations but he can also boast a stellar career trajectory that suggests he knows a thing or two about business. . .
Craigmore Sustainables is now responsible for 40 New Zealand farms which, as the company name suggests, are being run according to a series of community, environmental and business principles that have sustainability at their core. . .
A regular speaker at global investment conferences, he champions New Zealand as a safe haven for farming investment and explains why his company emulates “family farmer behaviours” rather than being “too corporate” in its approach.
Three of Craigmore Sustainable’s farms are in our neighbourhood. They’ve made a big investment in improvements to the properties some of which have enhanced the part of the Alps to Ocean cycle way which goes through their land.
A little further north are the van Leeuwens:
Robots, rubber-floored stalls, cows that live indoors and choose when to be milked – South Canterbury farming couple Adriaan and Wilma van Leeuwen are busy pioneering new frontiers in New Zealand’s dairy industry.
Last year, they opened the world’s biggest ever robotic milking operation under one roof in the small settlement of Makikihi. They even have a plaque from global dairy solutions supplier DeLaval to commemorate the event – and it marks a step change in how farms in this country are managed.
A massive barn houses 1500 cows who decide for themselves when they will head off to one of the 24 robotic stalls for a quiet feed while their udders are automatically prepped and milked. No longer having to deal with inclement weather, the cows are more contented, production goes up and employment costs go down. It’s also easier on the environment – the effluent is collected and reapplied to the farm as fertiliser, thus helping to grow the crops needed to feed the herds and make the whole system self-sufficient. . .
Wilma was a finalist in this year’s Dairy Woman of the Year award.
2 Comments | business, economy, environment, Farming | Tagged: Ad van Leeuwen, Craigmore Sustainables, Dairy Woman of the Year, Forbes Elworthy, NBR Rich List, Vicki Jayne, Wilma van Leeuwen | Permalink
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Quote of the day
July 31, 2015New Zealand isn’t very good at political sex scandals.
This week from the United Kingdom we had a peer of the realm, a man in charge of enforcing conduct standards in the House of Lords, filmed wearing a red bra and sniffing cocaine off the breasts of prostitutes.
Now, that is a sex scandal.
In New Zealand, we have some sex that didn’t happen, and some bad poetry. – Rob Hosking
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July 31 in history
July 31, 201530 BC Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieved a minor victory over Octavian’s forces, but most of his army subsequently deserted, leading to his suicide.
781 The oldest recorded eruption of Mt. Fuji.
904 Thessalonica fell to the Arabs, who destroyed the city.
1009 Pope Sergius IV became the 142nd pope, succeeding Pope John XVIII.
1200 Attempted usurpation of John Komnenos the Fat.
1423 Hundred Years’ War: Battle of Cravant – the French army was defeated at Cravant.
1451 Jacques Cœur was arrested by order of Charles VII of France.
1492 Jews were expelled from Spain when the Alhambra Decree took effect.
1498 On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus became the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
1658 Aurangzeb was proclaimed Moghul emperor of India.
1667 Treaty of Breda ended the second Anglo-Dutch War.
1703 Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but was pelted with flowers.
1741 Charles Albert of Bavaria invaded Upper Austria and Bohemia.
1777 Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros, Argentine statesman and priest, was born (d. 1849).
1777 The U.S. Second Continental Congress passed a resolution that the services of Marquis de Lafayette “be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States.”
1790 First U.S. patent was issued to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
1800 Friedrich Wöhler, German chemist and founder of organic chemistry, was born (d. 1882).
1803 John Ericsson, Swedish inventor and engineer, was born (d. 1889).
1856 Christchurch, New Zealand, was chartered as a city.
1860 Mary Vaux Walcott, American artist and naturalist, was born (d. 1940).
1865 The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opened at Grandchester, Australia.
1895 The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) was founded by Basque nationalist leader Sabino Arana.
1909 Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Austrian writer and polyglot, was born (d. 1999).
1912 Milton Friedman, American economist, Nobel laureate (d. 2006).
1913 The Balkan States signed an armistice at Bucharest.
1919 German national assembly adopted the Weimar constitution.
1921 Peter Benenson, British founder of Amnesty International, was born (d. 2005).
1930 The radio mystery programme The Shadow aired for the first time.
1932 The NSDAP won more than 38% of the vote in German elections.
1936 The International Olympic Committee announced that the 1940 Summer Olympics would be held in Tokyo. However, the games were given back to the IOC after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, and are eventually cancelled altogether because of World War II.
1938 – Bulgaria signed a non-aggression pact with Greece and other states of Balkan Antanti (Turkey, Romania, Yugoslavia).
1938 Archaeologists discovered engraved gold and silver plates from King Darius in Persepolis.
1940 A doodlebug train in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio collided with a multi-car freight train heading in the opposite direction, killing 43 people.
1941 Holocaust: under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, ordered SS General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”
1943 Lobo, American singer and songwriter, was born.
1944 Geraldine Chaplin, American actress, was born.
1944 – Jonathan Dimbleby, British journalist and television presenter.
1945 Pierre Laval, the fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrendered to Allied soldiers in Austria.
1945 John K. Giles attempted to escape from Alcatraz prison.
1948 New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) was dedicated.
1951 Japan Airlines was established.
1954 First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.
1959 The Basque separatist organisation ETA was founded.
1964 Jim Corr, Irish singer and musician (The Corrs), was born.
1964 Ranger 7 sent back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes.
1970 Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.
1972 – Operation Motorman: British troops moved into the no-go areas of Belfast and Derry. End of Free Derry.
1972 – Three car bombs detonated in Claudy, Northern Ireland, killing nine.
1973 A Delta Air Lines jetliner crashed while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89.
1976 John Walker won gold in the 1500 metres at the Montreal Olympics.
1976 NASA released the Face on Mars photo.
1978 Will Champion, English musician (Coldplay), was born.
1980 Mils Muliaina, New Zealand rugby union player, was born.
1980 Mikko Hirvonen, Finnish rally driver, was born.
1981 – General Omar Torrijos of Panama died in a plane crash.
1981 A total solar eclipse occured.
1987 A rare, class F4 tornado ripped through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
1988 32 people died and 1,674 injured when a bridge at the Sultan Abdul Halim ferry terminal collapsed in Butterworth, Malaysia.
1991 The Medininkai Massacre in Lithuania. Soviet OMON attacked Lithuanian customs post in Medininkai, killing 7 officers and severely wounding one other.
1992 A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashed into a mountain north of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.
1999 Lunar Prospector – NASA intentionally crashed the spacecraft into the Moon, ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon’s surface.
2002 Hebrew University of Jerusalem was attacked when a bomb exploded in a cafeteria, killing 9.
2006 Fidel Castro handed over power temporarily to brother Raúl Castro.
2007 Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, ended.
2012 – Michael Phelps broke the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the greatest number of medals won at the Olympics.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia
Leave a Comment » | history | Tagged: Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Friedrich Wöhler, Geraldine Chaplin, Jim Corr, John Ericsson, Jonathan Dimbleby, July 31, Lobo, Mary Vaux Walcott, Mikko Hirvonen, Mils Muliaina, Milton Friedman, Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros | Permalink
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