tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42721532246451291372024-02-07T17:15:53.541-08:00Farmingshow BlogRandom musings from Farmingshow host Jamie Mackay and FriendsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-23296151615675528922012-05-15T21:30:00.003-07:002012-05-15T21:40:37.696-07:00I know it sounds a bit like the old one about the actress and the bishop<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQeXc-ZRmzh9pbagggKFBOcHWiHTX9nWqtwufhS-N1Rhs9MOSl82O85N6d1Oy5mtXKh3bkwSEJiAnj50lriKha0f0WDyIT8XKp0ULL24JcqtkwZAyAeBQs4NzioiiFS8RtXM_6GBxRFfCq/s1600/1+latest+studio+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" kba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQeXc-ZRmzh9pbagggKFBOcHWiHTX9nWqtwufhS-N1Rhs9MOSl82O85N6d1Oy5mtXKh3bkwSEJiAnj50lriKha0f0WDyIT8XKp0ULL24JcqtkwZAyAeBQs4NzioiiFS8RtXM_6GBxRFfCq/s320/1+latest+studio+shot.jpg" width="212" /></a>I know it sounds a bit like the old one about the actress and the bishop, but have you heard the one about the professor, the lawyer, the two farmers, the stock agent, the driller and the Farming Show host?<br />
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And it’s no joke! Rather it’s the eclectic collection of blokes I go duck shooting with on opening morning. With the exception of the stock agent, who was a recent addition because he did all the work and had a good gun dog, the rest of us are a ragtag collection of school mates who all attended Riversdale primary school in the 1960s. <br />
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Like many like-minded souls around the country, we gather annually for our ritualistic session of male-bonding, camaraderie and bravado, interspersed with yarn telling, meat eating and beer drinking, interspersed with a very occasional pursuit of the feathered foe.<br />
The normal conversational fare doesn’t vary too much from year to year. Farming, rugby, politics, money, wives, beer bellies, man boobs and the latest local scandal of the day.<br />
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This year, however, a new element was added to the maimai musings. Heated debate over the sale of the Crafar farms to the Chinese and whether or not Trading Among Farmers was a good idea. Voices were raised and fingers were pointed, especially in my direction from my sheep farming mates as I’m the only one in the maimai with a financial interest in a dairy farming operation.<br />
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I was accused of selling my soul to the Chinese, even though the land-rich accuser had far more to gain from the Asian invasion than the accused. Some timely intellectual intervention from the professor coupled with some judicious adjudication from the lawyer, both sitting firmly in the cross-benches in the maimai, resulted in all parties agreeing to disagree as we adjourned for lunch.<br />
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As always, there’s a lull in proceedings after the protein-laden red meat lunch, when the ducks are few and the after-effects of the night before in the Riversdale pub kick in. This year’s gap in the traffic was amply filled by a visit from two neighbouring shooters, both of whom had conceded defeat on the day to the ducks. <br />
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To protect his identity and privacy, I’ll simply refer to one of the said visitors as ‘Taranaki’, only because he hails from that region. A larger-than-life and seemingly bullet-proof character, Taranaki had been involved in a debate about the water quality of a creek running through his dairy farm. Challenged the night before in the pub to drink some of the said water to prove its dubious purity, he duly turned up with a jug of the stuff and a bottle of whisky. Both of which he made a fine fist of downing. In the end, the jury remained out on the water quality but either the e-coli or the malt was making him rather unsteady on his feet!<br />
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On a lighter note, when all political and environmental differences were finally put to bed, the day concluded with the awarding of the inaugural Mackay-Shallard Trophy for Kaweku’s Next Top Pond (Kaweku being the small district the two respective fourth-generation sheep farming families hail from). While we had doubled our tally from the previous year, we still found ourselves 30 shy of the Shallard pond’s record haul. <br />
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Surprisingly, few ducks escaped unscathed from the Mackay pond this year, albeit I’m sure some met their maker through cardiac arrest rather than good marksmanship. So we had to eat humble pie and accept we were beaten by a better pond on the day. A case of a Fitzy full credit, take it on the chin, move forward together and whatever other rugby cliché readily springs to mind.<br />
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To that end, plans are already afoot to extend the pond and purchase more electronic gadgetry to lure ducks in 2013. Only 355 sleeps to go!<br />
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<strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong> <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-11934207196230552242012-05-07T09:00:00.001-07:002012-05-07T19:12:22.100-07:00A payout beginning with a five? Ouch!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong># Big Farming Story of the Week: A payout beginning with a five? Ouch!</strong><br />
It only seems like yesterday, dairy farmers were bathing in the milk (and honey) of an eight dollar payout. A payout beginning with seven was still pretty good, a six meant a bit of belt tightening but, heaven help us, few will make meaningful money if it begins with a five! We are not being helped by a dollar that begins with an eight, as the cross rate against the Greenback stays firmly rooted in the low US80 cent range. Sheep, beef, grain and horticultural farmers, too, are feeling the chill winds of the exchange rate coupled with an increase in supply, and a lack of demand for, agricultural commodities. <br />
The world has enjoyed a bumper past 12 months of agricultural production. While one should never willfully benefit from another man’s misfortune, where’s a good Russian drought or an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in a competing exporting nation when you really need one?<br />
<strong># Big Political Story of the Week: The Teflon Kid.</strong><br />
By rights John Key should be the most unpopular man in the land, yet half the voting population still love him as he continues to defy gravity in the political polls. His party is overseeing some of the toughest austerity measures this country has seen since Rogernomics lowered the boom on the rural community in the 1980s. <br />
Government bureaucrats, the unions, police, teachers, students, the jobless, beneficiaries, you name it, are all feeling the brunt of reduced government spending with the promise of more to come. For many, things have never been tougher out there. Black Bill English has promised Zero Budgets until we reach surplus or he stops drawing breath, whichever comes first. Let’s be realistic, the Auckland Blues have a better chance of coming right before the New Zealand economy does. <br />
<strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week: Wayne Smith stays put!</strong><br />
Smith debuted as a talented running first five-eighth for the All Blacks in 1980 and held a virtual mortgage on the position for the ensuing five years. He took over coaching the Crusaders in 1997, marshalling the red and blacks to titles in 1998 and 1999. After John Hart’s World Cup demise later that same year against the French, Smith took over the All Blacks’ top job, only to lose it to John Mitchell in 2001 after publicly questioning his own credentials to carry on in the hot seat. Smith was called back to the coaching fold when Graham Henry took the reins in 2004, where he remained until the World Cup glory of 2011. <br />
So effectively he has given the last 32 years of his life to rugby, most of it to the All Blacks. His intellectual property is second to none and he could’ve caused all sorts of grief had to chosen to lend his talents to the sleeping giant of world rugby, England. The NZRU has done well to retain his services. It is criminal NZ Cricket wasn’t able to do likewise with John Wright.<br />
<strong># Brickbat: John Banks:</strong><br />
Banks has always been a polarizing political figure but, to his credit, he’s always appeared to be a pretty straight-up, look-you-in-the-eye sort of bloke. Last week on television, we witnessed a new side to Banks, one we didn’t like, as he squirmed uncomfortably and wriggled out of questions about this relationship with the German tank, Kim Dotcom. What started out as a right wing party that stood for something under the stewardship of Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble, has now crumbled to a laughing stock as Rodney Hide, Don Brash and now Banks have progressively eroded what little credibility was left (for the right).<br />
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<strong># Bouquet: Russel Norman:</strong><br />
As the likable but accident-prone David Shearer battles to gain traction as Labour leader, let alone leader of the Opposition, the latter job is very much up for titular grabs in the House. While Wily Winston Peters might lay historical claim to the title, redhead under-the-bed Russ is making all the running. There’s an old saying that a farmer with a dollar in his pocket and some grass in his paddock is a dangerous beast. What does that make a moderate Green with some palatable policy?<br />
<strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong> <br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-68316371504798359372012-04-30T09:00:00.000-07:002012-05-07T18:49:22.892-07:00The Last of Summer Wine<strong style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" mea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1mJUxzas28vvw8mSZ7vSJkIODKoqLqeKdMEoY4JpnJs222UlXLkgjLEITRkn4t_eSlXqyQuE5Tak9Xtp3ztE0bYsrj68zBdYfWRjLKsF82deiwxMRb6z61QK-vEkfywxjrGO7fPjk2uBF/s320/1+latest+studio+shot.jpg" width="212" /></strong><br />
<strong># Big Farming Story of the Week: The last of the summer wine?</strong>The latest Fonterra Global Dairy Trade Event dropped 10%. Lamb is taking a caning off the back of the exchange rate and wool is on the slide, heading back in the direction of the dark old days when it was little more than a by-product of meat production.<br />
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Similarly, other agricultural commodities are feeling the heat from the exchange rate and a recession that appears to be in no hurry to recede, especially in Europe.<br />
It would be easy to take a ‘glass half empty’ approach to the future but there’s no need to panic because the numbers stack up so well for a food exporting nation like us. Global food demand will double by 2060 as the world population approaches 10 billion. And ponder this! The average daily consumption of milk per capita for the more than quarter-billion Indonesians is, wait for it, two drops! Imagine if they lifted that to 100mls, a 1000-fold increase?<br />
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<strong># Big Political Story of the Week: Take your pick.</strong><br />
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There’s the sale of the Crafar farms or Fonterra’s decision to have a second vote on Trading Among Farmers. <br />
Let’s start with the Crafar Farms. I can sympathize with those who don’t want New Zealand farm land to go to foreign ownership but, equally, let’s make sure we treat all foreign investment equally. Where was the hue and cry when the Harvard Superannuation Fund purchased New Zealand’s biggest dairy farm in the Maniototo? Similarly where was the outrage when Shania Twain got her manicured nails into Motatapu Station? Or what about the Germans buying a dozen dairy farms in Southland? The Chinese have had to jump through considerably more hoops than any of the aforementioned to buy Kiwi land.<br />
Very shortly China will be our biggest trading partner so why get offside with the world’s emerging super power? It’s called biting the hand that feeds you. The Chinese are not buying New Zealand farms to land bank them. They want to bank on the security and tenure of safe food supply. To understand China you need to understand the one child rule. Six people (two parents and four grandparents) are focusing all their efforts on one child. And if that means paying a huge premium for 100% safe infant formula, then so be it!<br />
As for Trading Among Farmers? I think the second vote is PR exercise by the canny Dutch duo of Sir Henry van der Claus (aka Heyden) and Theo Spierings. Sure there might be some minor tweaking of TAF but the fact remains Fonterra needs more capital and can’t afford a redemption run on shares in tougher times. That’s why TAF will be endorsed on June 25.<br />
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<strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week: The Breakers and the Crusaders.</strong><br />
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The Breakers have now done (twice) what no other New Zealand sporting franchise has managed - to win an Australian-based competition. Basketball never really cashed in on the magnificent effort of the Tall Blacks in reaching semi-finals of the World Champs in 2002. It will be interesting to see if Breakers fever can do the trick. And as much as I’d love my beloved Highlanders to win the Super 15, I can see the Red ‘n Blacks rolling relentlessly on to Super rugby title number eight.<br />
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<strong># Bouquet: China.</strong><br />
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I’ve just returned from a fleeting visit. Wow! What a country! Everything about China is big, especially the numbers. It’s the world’s most populous nation (more than 1.3 billion people), with Shanghai alone having more than five times New Zealand’s population. Only the USA has more billionaires. The world’s second largest country by land area, China is now the world’s biggest energy user and dubiously lays claim to 20 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities. Most importantly its middle-class with real disposable income now numbers in excess of 100 million. They all crave New Zealand protein. Bring it on. And send it over!<br />
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<strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1mJUxzas28vvw8mSZ7vSJkIODKoqLqeKdMEoY4JpnJs222UlXLkgjLEITRkn4t_eSlXqyQuE5Tak9Xtp3ztE0bYsrj68zBdYfWRjLKsF82deiwxMRb6z61QK-vEkfywxjrGO7fPjk2uBF/s1600/1+latest+studio+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-79688570047050717722012-04-16T09:00:00.000-07:002012-04-15T14:49:43.963-07:00Last week the Farming Show celebrated its 18th birthday<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikF73UJElk_aoUOoEciU5J2Z7uIUsh-yee_ng1iZktzcBoh5BDUFCskSPW-6kRNiLTt4dsqqtKKoODNsE7ul9E28nSSFoPFPBVTYlAlTgrb2uVJ1hkJw4-7GNmg5dwjIvnH5KF7biX64kb/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5731747814720944898" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikF73UJElk_aoUOoEciU5J2Z7uIUsh-yee_ng1iZktzcBoh5BDUFCskSPW-6kRNiLTt4dsqqtKKoODNsE7ul9E28nSSFoPFPBVTYlAlTgrb2uVJ1hkJw4-7GNmg5dwjIvnH5KF7biX64kb/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a>Last week the Farming Show celebrated its 18th birthday.<br /><br />It seems only like yesterday two young blokes from Gore took a huge punt by purchasing 4ZG, the first, and only Radio New Zealand station sold to private enterprise. Even our landlord to be, a delightful old farmer by the name of Bert Horrell, thought we were mad. But once we’d convinced him of our conviction to see this through, he gave us his blessing and some advice I’ve never forgotten. You don’t regret the things you do, you regret the things you don’t do.<br /><br />What started as a five minute rural segment on a fledgling private radio station way back in 1994, has today grown to a one hour programme broadcast nationwide on a national network. Of that I’m very proud. From the early days of the rebranded Hokonui Gold, we could see the potential in rural broadcasting. Farmers are very savvy radio listeners. They are often all-day listeners in their farm utes, tractors, four-wheelers, milking sheds, woolsheds or workshops.<br /><br />Most importantly, farmers are big-ticket purchasers, often making spending decisions that involve tens (or sometimes hundreds) of thousands of dollars. We quickly figured if you could communicate effectively with farmers you had a good business model. Smart operators such as Ballance Agri-Nutrients and Rabobank were quick to figure it out too.<br /><br />Often in business you don’t have to be the best but it’s best to be the first cab off the rank. I could’ve named a dozen radio broadcasters who were more talented and better qualified to host a nationwide farming programme than yours truly but it was a case of the early bird getting the worm. We were first-in and subsequently best-dressed.<br /><br />I’m also proud that the Farming Show has spawned the advent of a similar format on a competing network. Imitation is the best form of flattery (though I’d be too scared to mention that in the presence of Richard Loe!) Others such as Steve Wyn-Harris and 1996 Young Farmer of the Year Phil Reid are also doing a sterling job on their respective radio stations, Central FM and Hokonui Gold. But what I’m most proud of is the fact the penny has dropped and commercial radio has finally seen the true value of rural broadcasting. And that in turn gets the good news story, farming, to urban New Zealand.<br /><br /># Writing a weekly column in a national farming publication is a privilege that gives you access to every farmer’s mailbox. Two weeks ago in this fine publication I wrote about my cousin Kev and his battle with cancer. I was subsequently inundated with kind words about his story. Sadly Kev lost his fight on Easter Monday. 2012 has been a bugger of a year for those near and dear to me. I lost my mother and my best mate from university on the same day early in the year. Now Kev’s gone.<br /><br />As a result, my new year’s resolution is to take advantage of every opportunity afforded me. I’ve put my money where my mouth is. As you read this I’ll be making my way from Beijing to the see the Great Wall of China. That’s one more ticked off the bucket list.<br /><br />It was also the catalyst for organizing a Farming Show 14 day tour to South America to see the All Blacks play the Pumas in La Plata on September 29 while taking in some of Argentina and Chile’s best dairy, beef, sheep, salmon and vineyard operations. To that end, we enlisted the services of one of New Zealand’s leading dairy farmers and former Fonterra director, Mark Townshend, to arrange the farm visits. He and his wife Diane have considerable farming interests in Chile so were a natural fit to handle that side of things on tour.<br /><br />What Bert Horrell said prophetically 18 years ago, still rings true today. You don’t regret the things you do, you regret the things you don’t do. It’s not a bad motto by which to live your life. See you in South America!<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. </strong><a href="mailto:jamie@farmingshow.com"><strong>jamie@farmingshow.com</strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-4930772194724845762012-04-09T09:00:00.001-07:002012-04-11T19:29:40.142-07:00Platinum Primary Producers Conference<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QdalGeYdzE6zaD5uIjrELYXSy27QGkuOE7XhvbAFsRYy_TEENcuQrJRQg_Sv95DddVBLPVxiSRm2IB7Y8i1PW47b0PiG4UJtVwvob3COfnQed506hs-SwdMfj2c6CmJ81IqjKw7gaxTz/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730335564995291906" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3QdalGeYdzE6zaD5uIjrELYXSy27QGkuOE7XhvbAFsRYy_TEENcuQrJRQg_Sv95DddVBLPVxiSRm2IB7Y8i1PW47b0PiG4UJtVwvob3COfnQed506hs-SwdMfj2c6CmJ81IqjKw7gaxTz/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a> <strong># Big Farming Story of the Week: Platinum Primary Producers Conference.</strong><br /><br />Imagine two million stock units sitting in one room in Masterton (metaphorically not literally). Imagine 12 million hectares in the Wairarapa for three days. That is the scale and sheer farming grunt of the PPP Club, an annual gathering of 40 or so of Australasia’s biggest famers. If you’re a mover and shaker in agriculture, you’re in that room. I’m glad I’m in the media these days because it would be easy to get farming penis-envy. My former 160 hectare sheep farm somehow just doesn’t stack up against Zanda McDonald’s multi-million hectare Queensland operation (he owns 1% of the state)!<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week: DIRA. Oh Dear!</strong><br /><br />The Dairy Industry Restructuring Act passed its first reading in Parliament last week. This piece of proposed legislation is second only to the Emissions Trading Scheme for its ability to confuse. In the course of my job as a rural radio broadcaster, I get all the press releases and talk to the industry leaders about such matters. As a small Fonterra shareholder, I also have a vested interest in getting my head around what’s happening with the cooperative’s capital structure and the regulations surrounding milk pricing. Admittedly, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’m confused. How a head-down, bum-up cow cocky working 12 hour days gets his head around it is beyond me.<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week: Ted lets his hair down in Wedderburn.</strong><br /><br />I had the good fortune to MC a rugby club function in Ranfurly where Graham Henry, at the behest of the Hore clan, fronted at a fundraiser for the mighty Maniototo Maggots. I was a bit hesitant to take on the gig, having been a critic of Henry’s reappointment after the World Cup debacle in Cardiff in 2007. Initially I felt like a scolded schoolboy fronting up to a grumpy headmaster. But as the day wore on into the night, and Ted showed an increasing appreciation for some of Central Otago’s finest pinot noir at the wonderfully welcoming Wedderburn Tavern, I discovered his bark was much worse than his bite. Just goes to prove, you should never judge folk until you meet them.<br /><br />P.S. I managed to coerce him into naming the top fifteen of his eight year tenure: Mils Muliaina, Doug Howlett, Conrad Smith, Tana Umaga, Cory Jane/Richard Kahui (bracketed), Dan Carter, Piri Weepu, Kieran Reid, Richie McCaw, Jerome Kaino, Ali Williams, Brad Thorn, Owen Franks, Andrew Hore and Tony Woodcock.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet: Farm Utes.</strong><br /><br />I learned to drive in an old Series 1 1950s Landrover. Like most kids growing up on a farm (OSH didn’t exist in those days), that involved chugging along behind the sheep whilst droving on the road or going round and round in the paddock while dad fed out hay. Flat-tack on the open road it would go 40 miles per hour (65 km/h). We eventually traded that up to brand new 1977 Landrover. Flat out screaming, downhill, downwind, it went 100 km/h. Then we had a dinky Suzuki ute, followed by an early diesel Holden Rodeo and then I made the epic leap forward to an iconic Toyota Hi Lux. None of which had air conditioning, power steering or central locking. Then I became a townie.<br /><br />I’ve just taken a brand new Mazda BT50 4WD Double Cab for a jaunt through Central Otago. It’s an automatic 3.2 litre, 5 cylinder, turbo-charged diesel beast with all the bells and whistles. At 100 km/h it was barely turning over at 1800 rpm. Farm utes have come a long way since I was a boy!<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. </strong><a href="mailto:jamie@farmingshow.com"><strong>jamie@farmingshow.com</strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-22224806204158357962012-04-02T09:00:00.001-07:002012-04-03T21:06:32.601-07:00This column is dedicated to my cousin Kev<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqagjoBEK-lU87NhEkVO_KW9Lqi7QY-CzAp7fJX7HTYA47ue8pqNd9erUz3C2S6g0zsuRjh3X9YUlstibFudGGCtmM074kECIomGDHlUuskRnHUGrL5MaDxvoi7AkXp5lDAScEFkuYJA9/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5727391950989243570" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqagjoBEK-lU87NhEkVO_KW9Lqi7QY-CzAp7fJX7HTYA47ue8pqNd9erUz3C2S6g0zsuRjh3X9YUlstibFudGGCtmM074kECIomGDHlUuskRnHUGrL5MaDxvoi7AkXp5lDAScEFkuYJA9/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a>This column is dedicated to my cousin Kev.<br /><br />As I write, he’s battling the Big C. I hope he gets the opportunity to read this but cancer is such an insidious condition, there can be no guarantees.<br /><br />Kev is my first cousin but in reality he is much more like my older brother. We grew up on neighbouring properties that our respective fathers farmed in partnership. Although the partnership was eventually dissolved, all major farming operations – shearing, crutching, dipping, cultivation, hay and harvesting – were done in unison. A case of all hands to the pump from both families.<br /><br />Kev is eight years older than me. When I was growing up Kev was super cool. He had an Austin 1100 with a really trendy speedometer – a sideways bar graph rather than the traditional clock style. The car was adorned with wicked 60s-style accessories such as troll dolls hanging from the rear vision mirror. And there was always the added decadence of a bottle of beer or two rolling around in the back seat.<br /><br />The pinnacle of his coolness was the portable record player he had in his single-man’s hut. It was one of those battery operated devices with the lift-off cover that acted as the speaker. On it he played the “devil’s own music” - my uncle Danny’s reference to Jumping Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones.<br /><br />Kev was also the first five-eighth and goalkicker for the Riversdale rugby team. No Barry John-like round-the-corner stuff for Kev. He was a toe-stabber in the best traditions of Fergie McCormick. You couldn’t get any cooler than that!<br /><br />As I grew up and grew stronger, Kev and I became more like equals. He could always crutch more lambs than me, spend longer behind the baler on the bale sledge stacking hay and he always got to drive the tractor when we were ridging swedes – but I think in his mind I had transformed from a pesky kid to fellow farm worker who could hold his own.<br /><br />My fondest memory of those early days farming was the “barn sessions” that followed hay and shearing – just as night followed day – and believe me, many of those sessions went well into the night! It was not unusual in the Southland twilight to work until 10pm on hay and many a raucous evening was spent listening to tales of yonder farming and sporting years over a crate of cold Speights. It mattered not that the same yarns were told year after year by my uncle and father, because a tale well told always stands the test of time.<br /><br />I then took off to university to become an accountant. But, I had a lucky escape when I had the misfortune to lose my father when I was just 19 years of age. So it was back to the farm to run the place with my then 18 year old brother. We were greener than the Southland grass and only survived the ordeal because of the thousands of man hours Danny and Kev spent teaching us to farm. For that, they asked nothing. For that, we are forever in their debt.<br /><br />When times got tough in the 1980s Danny decreed that we needed to shear all our own sheep to keep the bankers at bay. Not surprisingly Kev was the quickest of the boys, once shearing nearly 100 lambs in a two hour run, but gee he was rough! That didn’t worry Kev though, as he reckoned the wool around the head and legs wasn’t worth much so he didn’t cut if off. David Fagan he wasn’t, but a great camaraderie was forged on the end of the handpiece. Many a smoko was spent righting the wrongs of the government of the day, picking the All Blacks side and arguing over who should take the kicks for the Riversdale footy team. Kev once again prevailed with the latter, the young pretender would have to wait until the old master retired.<br /><br />Like many in the late 1980s Kev left farming. He leased his farm to seek his fortune elsewhere. Like many he never returned. He had a very successful stint in a rubbish skip industry in Sydney and then returned home to run businesses in the hospitality industry. For all that, he remained a farmer at heart. And for all his mateship, he holds a special place in my heart.<br /><br />Kia kaha Kev.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. </strong><a href="mailto:jamie@farmingshow.com"><strong>jamie@farmingshow.com</strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-79595889377408457182012-03-19T09:00:00.001-07:002012-03-22T13:31:26.262-07:00Big Farming Story of the Week<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-g8spj0Nq6d6QWw0RitLaLdLC0UrovOdM_87LojdNQVy0YnLduhCjRQpNUTGuasMivB8GIlWV0xxHKoOyVDaIW_PbO9aKJwAuMbX7LJkwCRXnHKHvHSfszsduPEG-1YuraGv3Gd8XuAa/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722821015928279986" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS-g8spj0Nq6d6QWw0RitLaLdLC0UrovOdM_87LojdNQVy0YnLduhCjRQpNUTGuasMivB8GIlWV0xxHKoOyVDaIW_PbO9aKJwAuMbX7LJkwCRXnHKHvHSfszsduPEG-1YuraGv3Gd8XuAa/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> The Payout.<br /><br />The 15 cent drop in the Fonterra forecast payout was no surprise, the inevitable result of falling commodity prices and a high dollar. What was more surprising was it was only 15 cents. I thought the dairy giant only made announcements when the payout moved by 30 cents or more? Maybe Sir Henry wants us to be like his Anchor easy-spread butter and he’s just trying to soften us up?<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> David Shearer – decisive, deliberate or ditherer?<br /><br />That was the question I posed to the personable Labour leader on the Farming Show last week following accusations from some quarters that he’s been less than decisive, thus far, in his new role. It solicited the following angry response from a listener who thundered: <em>What a surprise you don't support ordinary working people [in this case the striking watersiders] trying to preserve an eight hour working day so they can be with their families and you're asking the Labour leader an extremely insulting question. No wonder you’re sponsored by a fertilizer company. How appropriate!<br /></em><br />My response: <em>What I don’t support is workers being paid for a 40 hour week and only working 26 hours. That's unproductive. My understanding is that the port workers have been asked to work (and sign contracts) for 160 hours per month - hardly unreasonable I would have thought? Most workers I know work longer hours and often the hours are irregular depending on work availability. We live in a 24/7 world. The days of the inflexible 8 to 5 work day are gone. As for asking the Labour leader an "extremely insulting question", I am merely asking what many in the media have already asked and what many in the public are wondering. Plus I gave him the courtesy of pre-warning him about the question. For what it's worth, I like the guy and think he’s a man of substance and honour. To be the next PM though, he will need to be more decisive and quicker on his feet than he has been thus far. </em><br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> Match-fixing.<br /><br />Chris Cairns used to hit a big ball. Now he’s proving he’s got a pair of them by taking an Indian billionaire to court. Win, lose or draw the case, I suspect he’ll end up the legal equivalent of running himself out going for a cheeky single.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> Food Nazis.<br />A recent long-running US study of more than 120,000 people suggested eating a daily portion of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, can increase a person's risk of dying by up to 20 per cent. What’s more, those who ate a card deck-sized serving of unprocessed red meat each day on average saw a 13 per cent higher risk of dying than those who did not eat red meat as frequently.<br />A separate study, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, found that men who drank sugar-sweetened beverages daily, faced a 20 per cent higher risk of heart disease than men who did not.<br />So that’s beer, wine, coffee and steak off the menu. A life of lettuce-munching might prolong your life. Or more likely, it would feel that way!<br /><br /><div><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> M J B (Jock) Hobbs.<br /><br />I don’t know that they award knighthoods posthumously, but if they do there can be no more deserving recipient then Jock Hobbs. Very few, if any, All Blacks captains are more famous for their work off the paddock than on it, but Hobbs was the exception to the rule. Not once, but twice, he rescued rugby from the abyss.<br /><br />Cancer, and in Jock’s case leukemia, are indiscriminate killers and 52 years is too short a time on Earth for a good man. I once played age-group rugby against Hobbs, which makes me his age, but I’m not ready to go yet. Trouble is, I can’t decide whether to go home and have a salad for longevity’s sake or enjoy a beer while I still can?<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. </strong><a href="mailto:jamie@farmingshow.com"><strong>jamie@farmingshow.com</strong></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-28255293368548154192012-03-12T09:00:00.000-07:002012-03-12T16:11:23.866-07:00Big Farming Story of the Week<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTuCMIkNvwynKgDPgdCrc1JATkN1Jxsto83EaseovjtiOVZHaRYruOnZGAcxRt7wNvny0oE39RrV5CXdUTx2Hf8T8u5s-cxwTMfgaT9BT24f1Bl3yElICqZ1ILFq3TDt-padPbMLFWafEo/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5719152053795522850" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTuCMIkNvwynKgDPgdCrc1JATkN1Jxsto83EaseovjtiOVZHaRYruOnZGAcxRt7wNvny0oE39RrV5CXdUTx2Hf8T8u5s-cxwTMfgaT9BT24f1Bl3yElICqZ1ILFq3TDt-padPbMLFWafEo/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a> <strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> The Summer of 2012.<br /><br />What summer? Rain is good in the summer months because it grows grass. Livestock convert grass to protein to cash for a cash-strapped country. That’s fine and dandy but livestock make protein better and more quickly with a bit of sun on their back. Crops cannot ripen or be harvested without a bit of sun on their back. I heard an anecdotal tale of one farmer heading grain at 30% moisture. That’s unheard of! Seeing a Kiwi summer’s now officially of the radar, here’s hoping for an Indian one.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> The Auckland Wharfies get the sack.<br /><br />It’s not quite the Waterfront Dispute of 1951 when 1,157,390 working days were lost in an ultimately senseless strike, but could this be the catalyst for another period of industrial unrest, the likes of which we have not seen since the dark old days of the ‘seventies and ‘eighties?<br /><br />I do get concerned when I hear striking watersiders referring to each other as comrades. That vernacular belongs back in 1951 with communism and the Cold War. My view is the world has moved on in the past 61 years. Workers are now protected by legislation – minimum wage, four weeks annual leave, ACC, you name it.<br /><br />Are unions an outmoded anachronism? A hark back to the days of Victorian sweat shops when workers really did need protection from abusive employers? I think there’s a still place for collective bargaining, especially in lower paid jobs. However the reality is good workers are valuable assets and the market ultimately decides their value, not some tub-thumping unionist with a British accent shouting “come on brothers, we’re out!”<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> The Highlanders.<br /><br />Superbly led by a couple of front row farmers in the form of Jamie Mackintosh and Andrew Hore, the Highlanders (at the time of writing) have been the darlings of the Super 15. There’s an earthy honesty about the Highlanders that the nation is definitely warming to. They are a team in the truest sense - some great players - but no prima donna superstars. There’s no sideshow circus boxing distractions, when a player hops off a plane from Japan he jumps straight on to the paddock and heaven help any player who turned up to a Jamie Joseph training after too much Christmas pudding.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The National Government.<br /><br />Everyone agrees we live in tough times. There can be no arguing the government needs to tighten the purse strings when it comes to its own spending. Goodness knows there’s been enough fat in the system in the past. But Brutal Bill English is doing a sterling hatchet job. Providing, of course, you’re not a faceless Wellington bureaucrat in a meaningless policy analyst job.<br /><br />Social welfare, quite rightly, will feel the brunt of the government’s spending reforms. That is where we waste the most money in this country. The cost of pandering to political correctness is a close second, followed closely by the political system itself where politicians enjoy nothing more than racking up air points at our expense. Education has been gutted but I’d still question some of the inane and worthless course qualifications young people are undertaking.<br /><br />I once met Anne Tolley at the Gisborne A&P Show and she seemed charming and personable. If you didn’t know her though, you’d think she was the Devil reincarnate! She’s arguably been the most unpopular Minister of Education ever and now she’s been given the poison chalice of Minister of Police, having to oversee what are effectively spending cuts for the Boys in Blue. All she needs is the Minister of Health’s job and she would have the trifecta of hospital passes.<br /><br />By all means John and Bill, cut the fat and the freeloaders from the system. But cut the health and police budgets at your peril.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Black humour.<br /><br />Goes to the wag who declared the Crusaders v Highlanders game to be Liquefaction v Liquidation. Sometimes laughing at oneself truly is the best medicine.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. </strong><a href="mailto:jamie@farmingshow.com"><strong>jamie@farmingshow.com</strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-32880085357997988742012-03-05T09:00:00.000-08:002012-03-04T17:09:49.003-08:00It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0r6MWBrzJANbqI3YSyZwFX1nLWp7msIy8rUCnjiQ4r3Sqy-f8Va7ReIwcYo_9WIyGgTOoprxZfBNze7-Awe6PUCPBvg-OotuKsywdI99DqvPZnB0SqOdu9EbF9M-LcKxZUk0l6kzDK0x/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716213324934154450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0r6MWBrzJANbqI3YSyZwFX1nLWp7msIy8rUCnjiQ4r3Sqy-f8Va7ReIwcYo_9WIyGgTOoprxZfBNze7-Awe6PUCPBvg-OotuKsywdI99DqvPZnB0SqOdu9EbF9M-LcKxZUk0l6kzDK0x/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a>It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.<br /><br />All the best lines are borrowed from someone else. Charles Dickens may have written those immortal words in 1859 but more than a century and half later they still ring true. So I’ve flogged them for this column to describe the plight of Otago rugby.<br /><br />Fans barely had time to catch their breath after a gutsy Highlanders victory over the Chiefs when the news broke that Otago rugby was broke! The news sent the alarm bells ringing around the rest of provincial New Zealand as everyone asked who’s next?<br /><br />Due to uncharitable selectors, genetic shortcomings and a healthy helping of cowardice under fire, I never got to play provincial rugby for Southland. I got to provincial B level and some of my former team mates cruelly suggest I did so with the aid of a tail wind and a wet sail.<br /><br />That I never got to play provincial rugby was never due to a lack of desire or effort. I just wasn’t good enough! Truth be known, if I could have, I would have paid for the pleasure of playing provincial rugby. So would many from my generation. We were raised to aspire to represent our province for the love of it. The glory was payment enough.<br /><br />Several mates, who did go on to play provincial rugby, tell the same story. They counted themselves lucky to get a few free beers, a petrol voucher at the end of the season, a trip to the North Island and, if they were really lucky, a crack at a touring team such as the Springboks, the Lions or Australia.<br /><br />They lived in simpler times back then. Most were farmers’ sons or worked for rugby-friendly businesses. Time off work was not such a big deal. Weekend work was the exception, not the rule. Employers were proud to hire a rugby player. They were good for business.<br /><br />The advent of professionalism in the mid 1990s changed all that. Almost overnight, players were being paid, even at club level. Loyalty went out the door and in came the nomadic rugby mercenaries. Having a day job and playing for the love of the game became as unfashionable as a Bee Gees CD, MC Hammer pants or a Billy Ray Cyrus mullet.<br /><br />And therein lies the problem for New Zealand rugby, especially for the bigger provinces in the supposedly “semi-professional” ITM Cup. There are just too many players being paid too much money to play too much rugby in front of too few fans. It’s Economics 101. Supply has outstripped demand. Not just for rugby but also for rugby players.<br /><br />The global financial crisis has blunted a previously insatiable offshore appetite for any half-decent kiwi footy player. Now you’ve got to be worth your salt to get a meaningful overseas contract. Being an average provincial player no longer cuts the mustard.<br /><br />So what’s the solution? Is it too simplistic to say all rugby below Super 15 level should be strictly amateur? Should we go back to the future and play God’s game at provincial level simply because we love it? Greater rugby minds than mine, such as Mike Brewer, think so and I think he’s right. I don’t buy into the argument there will be a mass exodus of young players to Europe, Japan and rugby league. Where will they all go?<br /><br />Forget the Black Caps, the Silvers Ferns, the Warriors, the Breakers, the Phoenix or the Black Sticks. Rugby owns the heart and soul of provincial New Zealand. We love the All Blacks and, sure, Super 15 provides razzle-dazzle, week in, week out, with the world’s best players on display. But when push comes to shove, provincial rugby is tribalism at its very best. Readers of this publication know that because they reside in heartland New Zealand.<br /><br />Forewarned is forearmed. We can’t let the demise of Otago be the forerunner of the systemic failure of provincial rugby. It’s our heritage. It must not be history.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. </strong><a href="mailto:jamie@farmingshow.com"><strong>jamie@farmingshow.com</strong></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-40104602815676816012012-02-27T09:00:00.001-08:002012-02-29T12:58:10.108-08:00Fighting Among Farmers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOglwmhocywgivkkHfrOv3BGmqP94ypioB5VP-Po7f2PattsqzDRZl-R4vOXMSfVbsaiHiNESXXFxqBnrh4lBVZp1PfI5onZdzzFzQsFnbpRl9oUMkUBM7Bn-vGu9CHvd0LfJP0Bg9kmVL/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5714663996975569250" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 133px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOglwmhocywgivkkHfrOv3BGmqP94ypioB5VP-Po7f2PattsqzDRZl-R4vOXMSfVbsaiHiNESXXFxqBnrh4lBVZp1PfI5onZdzzFzQsFnbpRl9oUMkUBM7Bn-vGu9CHvd0LfJP0Bg9kmVL/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" /></a> <strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> Fighting Among Farmers (FAF).<br /><br />Leaked e-mails! Claim and counter-claim! Genuine vitriol! General confusion from the rank and file! No it’s not Julia Gillard v Kevin Rudd. Welcome to the world of TAF (Trading Among Farmers).<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> Is it still “Dear John”?<br /><br />Is the country falling out of love with John Key?<br /><br />If you’re to believe the polls more than half of us don’t want the sale of state-owned assets and three-quarters of us don’t want farms sold to foreigners. Throw in more cuts to government spending (including the sacrosanct health sector) and you have a PM who will need all of his political charm to placate the masses.<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> It’s Fab to be Fat(ish):<br /><br />Ok, fat might be stretching it a bit, but big seems to be big in cricket right now. Richard Levi, who looks like a Springbok prop than a Protea, is leading the charge for stocky sportsmen. Jesse Ryder is no shrinking violet and Aussie David Warner is a pocket battleship.<br /><br />Another sportsman facing weighty issues is Piri Weepu. Not only the PC nonsense around the bottle feeding of his baby but also the controversy surrounding the feeding of pies to himself over the summer. But I say all power to Piri. He’s a role model to all men battling man boobs and a beer belly. If Piri can lose them, so can we!<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Farming Show listeners.<br /><br />After being accused of having a “nasal bogan delivery” earlier in the week, it was nice to get some great feedback on my editorial piece last Wednesday around the February 22 anniversary of the Canterbury earthquake. So due to popular demand (OK so it was only a couple of texts) here it is:<br /><br />One year ago today, my producer Dom Boy George and I sat in the Farming Show studio in Dunedin and the earth moved. Not a nasty jolt to knock you off your feet, more a hauntingly menacing rolling motion, like being on a dodgy crossing of Foveaux Strait, with the same end result – a sick feeling to the core. In another time and place, we would have thought “Wow – that was an earthquake” but because of September 4 and Boxing Day 2010, we knew in our hearts something terrible had happened up the road in Christchurch.<br /><br />And so it came to pass. One hundred and eighty five brave souls paid the ultimate price and the lives of nearly half a million Cantabrians were changed forever. The other four million of us watched in horror as the biggest natural disaster since the Hawkes Bay earthquake of 1931 rocked our nation to its very core.<br /><br />In the ensuing days, from the safety of our living rooms, we could barely comprehend the scale of the devastation. I can only imagine what it must have been like at ground zero. As days turned into weeks and then months, the Canterbury earthquake, though never far from our news headlines, faded from the absolute forefront of our minds and we hoped and prayed there would be an end to it all.<br /><br />But Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress, a real bitch in Christchurch’s case, and just when you thought it was safe to get on with life and the rebuild, along comes June 13. At the time, we were lucky enough to be on a guided tour, some 25 metres above ground level, of the magnificent yet-to-be opened Forsyth Barr Stadium. The ripple-effect of the rumble, while mild in Dunedin, was sickening. What should have been a wonderful experience was soured on the spot with the realization of another ‘big one’ up the road.<br /><br />Then on December 23, as I celebrated finishing work for the year and drove to the supermarket to stock up with festive cheer, I heard on the radio Christchurch had been hit again. And I thought you poor buggers. But for the grace of God, that could have happened to any of us. Canterbury we share your grief, one year on, and marvel at your spirit.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-31286968862672574352012-02-20T09:00:00.000-08:002012-02-20T15:55:35.108-08:00After having to endure some pious bleating<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVriKoy5XraWNS76ao_paXeDj2gIUh1KF5cJGfPVD1CcgoPjVUpoctyLp1-JkwooAqrC50iZ6F5r7D8yIjTeO6wPylLemOHqC0vXq0t1k5ec9YX5ZmJT72_DhdacTJWkwN63DiMlSMGbgH/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVriKoy5XraWNS76ao_paXeDj2gIUh1KF5cJGfPVD1CcgoPjVUpoctyLp1-JkwooAqrC50iZ6F5r7D8yIjTeO6wPylLemOHqC0vXq0t1k5ec9YX5ZmJT72_DhdacTJWkwN63DiMlSMGbgH/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711370442549670914" /></a>After having to endure some pious bleating from my counterpart Steve Wyn-Harris about how he’s never missed filing a column in 17 years, I think it’s only right and proper to explain my absence from last week’s edition of this august chronicle. <br /><br />Indulge me, if you wil,l as I step back in time. My dear old mum once warned me the drink would eventually get me in trouble and so it came to pass when I had one or two too many at the Otago Sports Awards last winter. There was an auction for a trip for two to Auckland, including accommodation at Sky City, to attend the 2012 Halberg Awards. In the interests of raising money for disabled athletes, I raised my hand to kick the bidding along. No one followed suit and I was left wondering whether my tux still fitted!<br /><br />But I justified the unintended expense with the promise of a glitzy night on the town for my lovely and long-suffering wife Penny. Fate again conspired when she had to pull out because she was taking our eldest daughter to Melbourne to attend the prestigious (with a price tag to match) Monash University. <br /><br />So there you have it. The pressure of squeezing five days into a three day working week (don’t start me on the shambles that is Waitangi Day) and the prospect of having to raise a King’s ransom for Monash, meant I was time poor and financially impoverished for the week. Something had to give.<br /><br />So it was off to the Halbergs without filing a column, albeit with my broadcasting colleague Lee Piper filling in for Penny. Because we’d paid handsomely to be there, the organizers were kind enough to sit us at a table with some sporting legends – namely the swashbuckling cricketer John R Reid and athletics legends Beatrice Faumuina and Alison Roe plus their respective partners. Thrown in for good measure was Andy Hay, these days sports editor at TVNZ, who’s coxed New Zealand rowing eights to two world championship gold medals and a Commonwealth Games bronze.<br /><br />Unfortunately for Piper, who had his heart set on sitting beside Alison Roe, the great marathoner did not make the start line for the evening. However, her eleventh hour ring-in, David Kirk, there to present the Halberg to the All Blacks, was not a bad replacement. While Captain Kirk was quick to ditch Piper in search of greener conversational pastures with Beatrice’s blond partner, poor old J R Reid was sandwiched between his wife and me for the evening. <br /><br />The unintentional highlight of the evening was the performance (or lack of) of celebrity co-host Rachel Hunter. The ill-conceived organizers foolishly chose to pair her with Sky’s Stephen McIvor to front the awards, a man at least six inches (15cm) her inferior. Unfortunately Rachel’s pair were also about six sizes too big for her dress which led to Jim Hopkins’ humorous quip that the former super model looked like “two-air bags looking for a car accident”. <br /><br />Sadly, her wardrobe was not her only malfunction. She battled with the auto-cue as I would a 2 iron at St Andrews in a gale force wind. Her butchering of VC hero Willie Apiata’s name was so bad it was funny. Thankfully for our Rach, Vainga Tuigamala or Malili Muliaina were not on the list of celebrity presenters!<br /><br />However, despite Rachel “train-wreck-waiting-to-happen” Hunter, the evening went off from a judging point of view without a hitch and without any controversy. Paralympian Sophie Pascoe is a stunning young athlete, Jacko Gill is on the verge of international greatness and Valerie Adams has already been there, done that. The dry-witted Graham Henry (a man the nation has really warmed to post-World Cup), the understated All Blacks and the humble Richie McCaw really deserved their day in the sun on a wonderful night. <br /><br />And for a train-spotter, the opportunity to spend the evening listening to the 84 year old Reid regale tales of yonder sporting years was worth every cent I had unintentionally paid to attend the Oscars of New Zealand sport.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-85584073047002416842012-02-06T09:00:00.000-08:002012-02-13T18:27:09.160-08:00The Crafar Farms<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTyu2C1OkaDsrvfLDf3FZm_l9wDMKOK3kRm1yRMpqiHoDOlGGpuJu65CBQ7GC0p_UIac5-Afibs8uK4NpG0Pw80HKiNNHfS-Vw8qkjLQjKmOZvUYl9M9eKNTOOPZYlix84W2mS4-Phrlms/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTyu2C1OkaDsrvfLDf3FZm_l9wDMKOK3kRm1yRMpqiHoDOlGGpuJu65CBQ7GC0p_UIac5-Afibs8uK4NpG0Pw80HKiNNHfS-Vw8qkjLQjKmOZvUYl9M9eKNTOOPZYlix84W2mS4-Phrlms/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5708810689061566626" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> The Crafar Farms.<br /><br />I wonder whether Alan Crafar, when he set out on his farming career many moons ago, would ever have believed he’d become a household name and his surname synonymous with the debate over foreign farm ownership in New Zealand.<br /><br />I’ve interviewed Crafar once before and my impression of the man was that of a simple, hard-working, entrepreneurial cow cocky who got too big too quickly with the aid of some injudicious lending from some financial institutions. If we’re to believe the rumour mill, Shanghai Penzing paid just over $200 million for the Crafar Farms. Crafar’s debts were said to be in the vicinity of $200 million. So Crafar wasn’t the only one to cock up!<br /><br />Having recently jumped through some hoops to borrow some money for an equity share in a dairy farm, I want to reiterate a point I made on radio last week. I liken the amiable Crafar’s influence on borrowing to that of the evil Osama bin Laden’s on air travel. Both activities have been made incredibly more difficult as a result of Alan and Osama’s being!<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> Foreign Ownership of New Zealand Farms.<br /><br />Every man and his dog wants to be a Kiwi cocky. Now we can add Titanic and Avatar producer James Cameron to the list. The Hollywood A-Lister wants to milk cows in the Wairarapa, going from 3D blockbusters to 4DD cow teats. <br /><br />P.S. Talking of Titanic, go see Leonardo DiCaprio’s excellent portrayal of infamous FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover in J. Edgar. Likewise, avoid Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy like the plague.<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> Zzzzz Zimbabwe Zzzzz Cricket Tour.<br /><br />Yeah Right! What a snore-fest! Contrast that to the Australian Tennis Open where Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal played arguably the greatest tennis match ever. However, the duration of the men’s (353 minutes) and women’s (90 minutes) finals once again reiterates the folly of equality in tennis pay cheques. <br /><br />Anyone who has run a marathon and been convincingly beaten by a woman, will tell you women are physiologically better designed for endurance events than men. I’m all for equal pay for doing an equal job. So how about it girls? Front up and play best-of-five sets like the blokes.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> Having to buy a calendar!<br /><br />It’s one thing being red-carded from someone’s Christmas card list, but not receiving any calendars in the mail is surely the height of unpopularity. I normally rely on my old mate, Met Service Weather Ambassador Bob McDavitt, to ‘front’ up (no pun intended) but even the Santa Claus look-alike has forsaken me with his festive season snub. The nearest thing I got to a usable calendar was the Ken Ring’s 2012 Weather Almanac. But how reliable is the Moon Man’s book?<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Buying a calendar!<br /><br />So for the first time in my media career, or hitherto farming life, I’ve had to resort to buying a calendar for 2012. Now before you jump to the natural assumption that I must be tarred with the Steve Wyn-Harris frugality brush, I mention this only by way of passing commentary that the once-plentiful farming calendar is now a relatively scarce commodity. In by-gone years, certainly when I was farming, the RD mailbox was cluttered with calendars at Christmas time as stock firms, fertilizer cooperatives, meat companies, transport operators and the local garage offered thanks for your patronage with a daily reminder of their presence for the next twelve months. It might be a sign of tougher times and tighter margins but I suspect the once bountiful calendar is a victim of the digital age. <br /><br />So with the sort of parsimony Wyn-Harris prides himself on, I purchased a 2012 Muhammad Ali calendar on sale with a 70% discount. It features an Ali quote each month. I thought I would leave you with January’s:<br /><br />“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them. A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. Inside of a ring or out, ain’t nothing wrong with going down. It’s staying down that’s wrong”.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-50215043331765463462012-01-30T09:00:00.000-08:002012-01-29T19:59:22.312-08:00A nightmare for a knight!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYdmqO3sA9Unez7Nz9UQ9wRCNiHJ1vhlJxSigf3BjDoTU6MrAlY-RCOsxnTRiS_0k3Z1DXLpqAVTeO-W1hZnDFjDvDWVqLoDam6BCPCreA67ISQP2ns_nmE0CELb452RDXgHQKIw0Az882/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYdmqO3sA9Unez7Nz9UQ9wRCNiHJ1vhlJxSigf3BjDoTU6MrAlY-RCOsxnTRiS_0k3Z1DXLpqAVTeO-W1hZnDFjDvDWVqLoDam6BCPCreA67ISQP2ns_nmE0CELb452RDXgHQKIw0Az882/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5703269245037841314" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> A nightmare for a knight!<br /><br />Sir Henry van der Heyden is none too pleased with the government’s proposed changes to raw milk regulations. The canny Dutchman reckons if the mega-cooperative has to supply more milk to its competitors at a subsidized price then the resultant profits will head off shore and hinder, rather than help, access to affordable milk on the domestic market.<br /><br />Minister of Agriculture David Carter, on the other hand, reckons Sir Henry is bleating and hasn’t done his homework on the numbers. It’s a complex argument, with merit on both sides, but I can’t help but feel Fonterra has been left holding the baby while its competitors get to sell the baby formula.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> A nightmare of a knight!<br /><br />Another knight, in the form of 80s asset-stripper Sir Michael Fay, is leading a consortium that somehow thinks it has a God-given right to acquire the Crafar Farms at a bargain basement price. While they’re penny-pinching on the price they’re prepared to pay for New Zealand’s largest individual grouping of dairy farms, this well-heeled group of gents is certainly not skimping on legal fees and public relations costs as they challenge a likely Overseas Investment Office decision to sell to the Chinese consortium.<br /><br />Fay knows a bargain when he sees one and his track record would certainly suggest he knows how to extract his proverbial pound of flesh from any business transaction he’s involved in. However, a word of advice in your ear Sir Michael! Sack your PR company! Whoever advised you to front the consortium, and bleat on about keeping New Zealand assets in New Zealand hands, offered you poor advice. You reek of double standards.<br /><br />By all means Sir Michael, use your bloated bank balance to keep Kiwi farms in Kiwi hands. But pay the going rate and get one of your farmer mates to front the campaign. Fair dinkum Kiwis don’t like seeing fat cats getting fatter wallets at their expense.<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> Oh to be in Oz!<br /><br />They might have snakes, poisonous spiders, locusts, flies in biblical proportions and Julia Gillard but there can be no denying Australia is the home of sport at the moment. Admittedly the much-anticipated Indian cricket test series has been more one-sided than a Canterbury crowd but, oh, the tennis in Melbourne has been to die for.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> Shoot the Mongrels!<br /><br />I love dogs. I spent the first 32 years of my life living, breathing and working with them. When I became a townie I decided, quite rightly, big dogs belong on farms or in the country where they can roam freely and be sworn at (in the case of farm dogs) in relative isolation. I’ve never really understood why you’d want a large dog in a large town or city, let alone a large vicious dog.<br /><br />I have real sympathy for the families of the six children who have been savaged in the past month by vicious dogs. No parent, no matter how incompetent, would ever knowingly inflict that upon their child. Yet it happens because parents make dumb decisions. They knowingly allow (in most of the above cases) their children into an environment where the likes of Staffordshire and Pit Bull terriers, Rottweilers and Dobermans roam. <br /><br />Last year ACC received almost 10,000 claims for dog attacks, costing about $4 million. That money would be better spent in our hospitals rather than on an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. Labour’s agriculture spokesman Damien O’Connor, a man prone to making common sense, was bang-on (no pun intended) when he said all vicious breeds of dogs should be shot. Problem solved. <br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> China.<br /><br />David Shearer says we shouldn’t be putting too many eggs in a Chinese basket but BNZ chief economist Tony Alexander has a completely contrary view and he has the numbers to prove it. Within the next decade China will overtake Australia as our largest export market and, more interestingly, he says China is returning to its natural order in the world economy. Two centuries ago China was responsible for 25-33% of the world’s GDP. That fell to 2% under the insular communist reign of Mao Tse-tung. Today it is 13% and climbing. It’s a bandwagon we need to be on.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-49074600546920196442012-01-23T09:00:00.000-08:002012-01-23T09:00:07.325-08:00Something to Occupy your mind …<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhPfe62B4NZzfihXbFFIvtF3KPbNDtZZ8h-tOcYqz2XHd0CYSsO70z4aB4JD0wKrhNdL4z7CNQiAFW15NYsKwD5bvTqV9gMduoOhdFMDCYpI9Lu3QvVb8eF8cdrw5lskB7DmTv1KzHdAHw/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhPfe62B4NZzfihXbFFIvtF3KPbNDtZZ8h-tOcYqz2XHd0CYSsO70z4aB4JD0wKrhNdL4z7CNQiAFW15NYsKwD5bvTqV9gMduoOhdFMDCYpI9Lu3QvVb8eF8cdrw5lskB7DmTv1KzHdAHw/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5700663240492005426" /></a>A couple of weeks ago I went to see the new Steven Spielberg movie, War Horse. I thoroughly recommend this epic tale of a thoroughbred horse named Joey. Reared on a Devon farm, it follows the horse’s journey through the horrors of World War One and the people he touched along the way. It culminates when he eventually reunites with Albert, the young farm boy who trained him (and who ultimately followed him to war in search of his beloved horse). <br /><br />As I was walking through Dunedin’s picturesque Octagon to the movie theatre, I couldn’t help but notice the dead grass courtesy of our friends from the Occupy movement who had spent the best part of the previous three months camped there, smoking dubious substances, peeing on the grass and protesting about our capitalist system.<br /><br />Because I was on my way to see a movie about, amongst other things, the rat-infested trenches and the atrocities of the Great War, I got to thinking about my grandfather Hugh.<br />He served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front and returned a bitter, not better, man for the experience. But he served his country because he was fighting, like all those brave souls, for democracy. As I wandered, I couldn’t help wondering what Hughie would have made of the Occupy movement?<br /><br />Don’t get me wrong. I’m not such a red-neck, right winger that I can’t see protesting has its place. It was indeed right to protest against the Vietnam War. In hindsight it was totally right to protest against the 1981 Springbok tour and it’s right to protest against such wrongs as starvation, sweated-labour and the lack of democracy in the likes of North Korea, Zimbabwe and Libya. Where I struggle with the Occupy movement is what they’re actually protesting about.<br /><br />They claim to be protesting for a resource-based and sharing economy where capitalism is abolished. Yet, if Dunedin is anything to go by, they’re happy to take their tax-payer funded three statutory breaks for Xmas and accept the dole or sickness benefit funded by a capitalist system. My grandfather spent months marooned on the beaches at Anzac Cove. I doubt those blokes took three weeks off at the height of summer to go the beach! They were stuck on theirs.<br /><br />On the Tuesday morning of last week I went for a coffee, funded I might add by selfish capitalist ways, and the Occupy protestors, who had reappeared the day before following their Christmas sabbatical, were gone from the Octagon. In a city where some short-sighted souls moan about the cost of the magnificent Forsythe Barr Stadium, there seems to have been barely a whimper about the $4000 the ratepayers have had to fork out to re-grass the Octagon. Don’t even start me on the fact that this most public of public spaces, was unavailable to the public for nigh on three months.<br /><br />Maybe I’m missing the point and maybe the Occupiers have a point. But we live in a tough world. A world, whether you like it or not, where you have to pay your way, as Greece and much of the debt-ridden Euro zone is finding out. <br /><br />Capitalism is far from perfect and a lot of greedy people are ripping off the system. But I’m damn sure it’s a better bet than the communal, hippy, happy-clapping, group-hugging, resource-sharing model proposed by the Occupiers. <br /><br />Finally, while I’m reminiscing about family, I can’t help but think of my late father Alec. He was old school, hard-arse even. He didn’t like Vietnam war protestors in the 1960s - called them “hairy mongrels”. He couldn’t even abide All Blacks, the likes of Bob Burgess, with long hair. What would he have made of Occupiers? <br /><br />“Get a haircut and get a real job” springs to mind. ENDS><br /><br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-78745726387277461222012-01-16T09:00:00.000-08:002012-01-16T14:44:47.638-08:00A long time between drinks!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOAnLk9Cd1cb5ha-R6KTHuHUq4Z51KYUMgofEhoNJi19WDez72RzH38WTTvXT55pKtgM66snSDDIArhZ1xB7CxUuA-SjWceh6txv2fuTfMZ3LmkukVffPToA282rARjDNAFwhM70PHPNb/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOAnLk9Cd1cb5ha-R6KTHuHUq4Z51KYUMgofEhoNJi19WDez72RzH38WTTvXT55pKtgM66snSDDIArhZ1xB7CxUuA-SjWceh6txv2fuTfMZ3LmkukVffPToA282rARjDNAFwhM70PHPNb/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5698363872165260770" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> A long time between drinks!<br /><br />They say a week is a long time in politics. Well a month is certainly a long time in farming, especially when it hasn’t rained for over a month. Last month (Dec 5) in this very column I wrote “The top of the country has been on the lookout for rain. The bottom end has had it in bucketfuls. And the bits in the middle are looking an absolute picture!” <br /><br />Six weeks later and the weather gods have done a complete about face. The bits in the middle are still looking a picture, the top has been inundated with rain while Southland and Otago have gone from a wet November to a screaming January drought. Rain is forecast for the region as I write. I hope when you read this the drought is past tense.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> The US Presidential Primaries.<br /><br />While John Key holidays in Hawaii, the man with the name to warm the heart of Kiwi sheep farmers, Mitt Romney, has done the business in Iowa and New Hampshire. But is America ready to elect a Mormon money man accused of being a former corporate raider? They elected a black man but he had substance and charisma. The jury is out as to whether Romney has either of those qualities. <br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> SBW refuses to go away.<br /><br />When our attention should be focused on the Australia/India test in Perth, two wonderful Manchester soccer sides, the tennis in Auckland and the domestic twenty/20 competition, we’re being sidetracked yet again by the Sonny Bill sideshow. The NZRU is acting like a lovesick puppy and SBW is wagging the dog. With the likes of McCaw, Carter, Smith and cockies Hore and Woodcock, the All Blacks have some wonderful role models and ambassadors. The Sydney Roosters are welcome to SBW. <br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The Auckland Wharfies.<br /><br />Good on Fonterra for taking its business elsewhere. The rhetoric coming from the union leaders reeks of that dreadful period in industrial relations, the 1970s and 80s, when New Zealand ground to a halt on occasions because of the bloody-minded attitude of unions. Farming was especially hard hit with the meat industry bordering on the farcical at times. <br />Been there, done that. No thanks this time round. <br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> My Mum.<br /><br />Santa brought me some brand-spanking new Taylor Made golf clubs. This should have made for a merry Christmas with plenty of golf and the prospect of a happy new year (inflicting yet more defeat and embarrassment upon Steve Wyn-Harris on some golf course somewhere around the country). But it wasn’t a happy new year because my mum passed away on January 2.<br /><br />I lost my father 33 years ago and that was tough because I was just a pup. But nothing prepares you for losing your mother. I guess it’s the maternal bond. She brought you into the world and you have to sit around helplessly watching while she departs it. Mum was born at the height of the Great Depression and spent her formative years in the dark shadow of World War II. Mum was tough. She had to be. Her father deserted the family and her mother tragically died when she was young. She made it her life’s work to make sure we never endured the same fate.<br /><br />Her last days were spent in an under resourced health system that seems to think sickness takes a break on statutory holidays. Thankfully she was surrounded by her four children because doctors were few and far between. This is not an indictment of the wonderful health professionals who staff our hospitals, rather it’s a sad commentary on their lack of numbers.<br /><br />My resolution for 2012, other than beating Wyn-Harris, is to use every publicity resource at my disposal to hold the government to account for a health system that needs more money, not less. Austerity is the buzz word for 2012 and we can all expect belt-tightening to be the order of the day, with government leading the way. But health spending is like eyeballs and the other balls on the rugby paddock. Sacrosanct! Not to be touched. Watch out John and Bill. Me and mum are on your case. <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-23743088305773118782011-12-19T09:00:00.000-08:002012-01-10T20:01:21.847-08:00Sheep farmers fight back!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIre0j5NK2pcbMcv8qsI_wJKYWe7RHHyDxGXd__SGZSZLX-8ZKp5iiCxzTqqUkRy0niallr9AEj88Mm3dMpf-WOI3D_e258iBBBNp3qIecQrsibJowrNdPp1oWf7L-rNJigaxZcQc1gtWg/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIre0j5NK2pcbMcv8qsI_wJKYWe7RHHyDxGXd__SGZSZLX-8ZKp5iiCxzTqqUkRy0niallr9AEj88Mm3dMpf-WOI3D_e258iBBBNp3qIecQrsibJowrNdPp1oWf7L-rNJigaxZcQc1gtWg/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696210807901917570" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Year:</strong> Sheep farmers fight back!<br /><br />Dairy farmers had a great year with a record payout. Kiwifruit growers had a shocker thanks to Psa. Grain farmers enjoyed good returns and horticulturalists, as always, worked hard for every cent Mother Nature allowed them to earn. The wine industry battled. And for most farmers, 2011 was climatically much kinder than 2010. <br /><br />2011 belonged, though, to a species that has been threatened by extinction in recent times - the sheep farmer. To paraphrase David Attenborough, this hardy sub-species of farmers had been driven to the hills and rocky outcrops by the more dominant of the genus, the dairy farmer. But no more. Sheep farmers enjoyed record lamb and mutton prices, with wool nearly doubling in value. Dairy farming will remain our biggest earner but sheep, beef and venison farmers are fighting back and some form of equilibrium is returning. The meat industry, though far from perfect in structure, is doing some really good things. Now if only the wool industry could get its act together ….<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Year:</strong> The Christchurch Earthquake.<br /><br />February 22, 2011 was our 9/11. It’s forever etched in our minds, where we were and what we were doing, when the fatal quake struck just before 1pm. More than 180 brave souls were lost. A city fell to its knees. A government had to figure out how to pay for a $20-30 billion dollar rebuild. That a left-leaning city party-voted National is a testament to the handling of the crisis by John Key and Gerry Brownlee. Let’s also not forget local government. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Bob Parker, you are the man!<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Year:</strong> The Rugby World Cup.<br /><br />Behind the Christchurch Earthquake, this was the biggest story of the year. The RWC even superseded the GFC (Global Financial Crisis - don’t you just love acronyms) because its feel-good factor overcame a lot of the negativity and gloom created by the latter. We love you Richie!<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat of the Year:</strong> Political correctness prevails. <br /><br />This is a social blight I’d hoped would dissipate with the disbandment of the Helen Clark nanny state. Unfortunately it still rears its ugly head. The Labour party remained guilty of it when it came to selecting potential deputy leaders. Sure New Zealand politics is still dominated by white middle-aged males but two wrongs don’t make a right. Candidates for any office should be selected on merit, not race and gender in a PC sop to equality.<br /><br />The Occupy movement that has polluted our main city centres for the past three months deserves special mention for the PC way the authorities have handled the situation with kid gloves. And let’s not forget the West Coast snails that were relocated and refrigerated at a cost of $600,000 by Solid Energy. All the while, the debate continued over the cost of retrieving the Pike River 29. Where’s the logic in that?<br /><br />An honorary brickbat mention must go to Sean (show me the money) Fitzpatrick and some plonker in the Telecom marketing department for the disastrous abstinence campaign around the RWC, which lasted about four days before it was pulled! No pun intended.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet of the Year:</strong> Humble Pie never tasted so good!<br /><br />While the efforts of the Farmy Army in Christchurch were nothing short of sensational the plaudits in 2011 belong to Graham Henry. Half the country, and I’m guessing 75% of the rural population, did not want him to coach the All Blacks after the Cardiff capitulation in 2007. Henry showed considerable nerve and steely resolve to put his name forward again when most of us thought there was a ready-made replacement in Robbie Deans. In the end Henry’s tenacity was matched by that of his team and the All Blacks prevailed on pure heart. <br /><br />Post RWC we saw a side of Henry most of us had not witnessed during his eight year reign. We liked it and it dawned upon us why the players liked him. Apparently the players also like new coach Steve Hansen. We need to try to do likewise. Sure, it will never be the man-love many of us have for Richie but I hope he gives us reason not to dislike him in 2012. <br /><br />If February 22 was our nadir, October 23 was our zenith. And for that we can thank Henry. <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-57386413890344165192011-12-12T09:00:00.000-08:002012-01-10T20:00:21.337-08:00A good week for farming<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_v3H6uQ68DdluBKIBiFMAkCjj9z1FdVKx-Pd1pw-vPoQSCojMct1UEo5sdQ3kPgSLbFJpk6NVyO1VDy0e9NesrTdLU1xZMPWUx4JRmSHYwy9HcYcd4LhZ_8QFsHxh03VaYat0jUF9sIX/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd_v3H6uQ68DdluBKIBiFMAkCjj9z1FdVKx-Pd1pw-vPoQSCojMct1UEo5sdQ3kPgSLbFJpk6NVyO1VDy0e9NesrTdLU1xZMPWUx4JRmSHYwy9HcYcd4LhZ_8QFsHxh03VaYat0jUF9sIX/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696209878075951938" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> A good week for farming.<br /><br />The Fonterra Global Dairy Trade Event up 2.6%! Kiwifruit Green showing some much-needed resistance to Psa! Good rains where it was dry! Grass for Africa! A good week for farming!<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> The Labour leadership wrangle.<br /><br />No one quite does in-fighting and back-stabbing like the Labour Party. Just think back to the Lange-Douglas rift or the attempted Cullen coup to unseat Clark. So it’s nice to see the tradition continuing in the current leadership scrap between the two Davids, Cunliffe and Shearer. I’ve no doubt Cunliffe’s a very smart man. But he’s also a very smarmy man. Most of us never get to meet our leading politicians face-to-face. If we did, most of us would probably adjudge them to be personable and, in some cases, charming. However, perception is reality and what we see on television is how we judge them. Cunliffe is not a man you readily warm to. If you believe rumours then that lack of affection for him is an emotion also experienced by many of his caucus colleagues. For that reason alone, David Shearer will be the Labour leader announced this week.<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> The Black Caps.<br /><br />No other New Zealand sporting team, not even the Warriors at their woeful worst, suffers anything near the derision and scorn that is heaped upon the Black Caps. Their self-destructive capitulation in the face of a reasonably average Australian side in the Brisbane test saw the rabid and feral, whom constitute a good portion of the talkback population, go into overdrive. The Black Caps’ cause was not helped by the pre-match expectation they would match the Baggy Greens or maybe even beat them at the Gabba for the first time since Richard Hadlee’s virtuoso performance in 1985. <br /><br />The other problem they face is, for some illogical reason, cricket seems to be our second national sport behind rugby. This despite the fact we’re patently not much good at test cricket, if you excuse brief periods under Geoff Howarth and Stephen Fleming’s stewardship when we were genuinely competitive on the world stage. Add to that the envy factor of the bizarre money some of them get in the Indian IPL and you have a recipe for talkback “open season” on the Black Caps.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The SBW Tail wagging the NZRU Dog.<br /><br />I know I sound like a broken record but I wish Sonny Bill Williams would make up his mind whether he’s an All Black or a boxer? He’s a brilliant athlete, not a bad All Black but an average boxer fighting pretty average punch bags. And that’s a very generous description of the underwhelming, overweight, sickness beneficiary who was his last victim. SBW will never be taken seriously until he climbs through the ropes and goes toe-to-toe with someone who can hit back. Shane Cameron was once a heavyweight contender. These days he’s dropped a weight division or two and some would say he’s dropped his punching power as a result. There’s nothing to stop him moving back up even if his weight doesn’t. The Mountain Warrior versus SBW? Now there’s a fight I would pay to watch.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Girl Power.<br /><br />I had the very good fortune to be invited to Fight for Life in Auckland. Although the food and the booze could have been of a better quality considering the price of the tickets (in excess of $10,000 for some tables of 10) the boxing entertainment could not be faulted. Unlike previous years where some media hacks and wannabe celebrities were woefully underprepared to enter the ring, the combatants this time round were all athletes in their own right who had prepared superbly. Fight of the night though, was Hayley Holt up against Paige Hareb. I’ve always been skeptical of female boxing, a bit like blokes playing netball, not really the “done” thing. However, Holt and Hareb had me eating humble pie, which could well have been a tastier option than the overpriced lamb shank I chewed on! I doubt there’s a gutsier athlete in the country than the diminutive surfer Hareb. I wonder if she can bat, bowl or catch? Perhaps she should catch a wave to Hobart!<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-5682975288153735792011-12-05T09:00:00.000-08:002012-01-10T19:59:17.223-08:00A country of two halves<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3iznTDtWGZHlgEfrKN_pNxyJBatgegW_E_Bc4-xyu29jjYSh-mLdsp_IAlZCytrO07wvKnX4ACo5S0J36WPMPKpIBLI__7fhyphenhyphenoLRA1aWSMp5Lgkc9Yqv3_JShwAXScDGD9OwYtsITuUOo/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3iznTDtWGZHlgEfrKN_pNxyJBatgegW_E_Bc4-xyu29jjYSh-mLdsp_IAlZCytrO07wvKnX4ACo5S0J36WPMPKpIBLI__7fhyphenhyphenoLRA1aWSMp5Lgkc9Yqv3_JShwAXScDGD9OwYtsITuUOo/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5696218863866619634" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> A country of two halves.<br /><br />The top of the country has been on the lookout for rain. The bottom end has had it in bucketfuls. And the bits in the middle are looking an absolute picture! Having recently journeyed through North Otago, South Canterbury, Mid Canterbury and Canterbury I can report that Mother Nature is doing a splendid job of keeping the irrigators redundant.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> The Election.<br /><br />The result was no surprise. What was more surprising was the difficulty John Key faced in getting a stable majority and a clear mandate to govern. Despite the National Party producing its best performance at the polls since 1951 (when it received a ringing endorsement of its handling of the waterfront strike) it effectively only has a clear majority of one. Sure, the Nats can probably rely on the support of Maori Party but the latter’s natural home is the left not the right.<br /><br />The early indication is we’ve decided, in our collective wisdom, to stick with MMP as our preferred electoral system. While I agree returning to FPP (First Past the Post) would be a step backward, I can’t agree with a political system that allows a one-trick pony to potentially hold a government to ransom. A degree of proportional representation is desirable but not when it is out of all proportion.<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week: </strong> The All Blacks coach.<br /><br />At the time of writing, two key sporting events - namely the first cricket test against Australia and the New Zealand Golf Open - were just getting underway. So this week I’m plumping for the All Blacks coaching job. Much like the election, Steve Hansen finds himself in a similar situation to John Key – almost certain to win but unsure of his coalition partners. The interest around the inevitable Hansen appointment will focus on whether he’s allowed to surround himself with his mates or whether the NZRU puts the likes a Vern Cotter in there to keep him honest.<br /><br />The other great sporting spectacle should be the battle for the Labour leadership. This brutal confrontation has the potential to make Roman gladiators look like shrinking gladioli. The only difference is the gladiators prefer to eyeball their opponents when they’re knifing them. I will be intrigued to see whether Smarmy David, Charmless David or David Who prevails.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The million Kiwis who never bothered to vote.<br /><br />People are fighting and dying in the streets of Egypt and Libya for the right to vote. Meanwhile one million of us could not be bothered to exercise our democratic right. Only 68.8% of those eligible cast their vote, the lowest in percentage terms since 1887. Back then, obviously, getting to the polling booth would have been a much more arduous task, whether by horse or on foot. It was a task only endured by men as women had to wait until 1893 to get their say. And a cynic, not me, would say they haven’t stopped since! <br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> John Key.<br /><br />Anyone who doubted he is the most popular politician in the country, need look no further than his electorate of Helensville for resounding proof. No man or woman received more votes (23,473). No one had a bigger majority (19,116). The election campaign was based almost solely on Key’s presidential appeal. Other “key” ministers such as Bill English, Gerry Brownlee and Tony Ryall were barely sighted.<br /><br />As an interesting aside, National’s Amy Adams (Selwyn) and Ryall (Bay of Plenty) were the next highest pollers at 22,669 and 22,055, respectively, and their mammoth majorities give them the second and third safest seats in the country. By comparison in the arch-conservative Clutha Southland, English could only muster 19,726 votes! Which was 18,978 more votes than former Federated Farmers president, and Act candidate, Don Nicolson got in the bluest of all National safe seats! <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-85072479551385436732011-11-28T09:00:00.000-08:002011-12-04T17:48:52.578-08:00Election<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZE9700CpNOxU_MH_qrPNHLXqcey54bnuidu2m4ScZ2t53vSnkH8EUtLy5NoX6o-PbGVXBr49hia0JeY8C_utjlFALbHTuK0kfgtTrAMGaD9RSXBD0A2op5bxHbEE-gOl_NH5NtW9GA31/s1600/election.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 159px; height: 119px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZE9700CpNOxU_MH_qrPNHLXqcey54bnuidu2m4ScZ2t53vSnkH8EUtLy5NoX6o-PbGVXBr49hia0JeY8C_utjlFALbHTuK0kfgtTrAMGaD9RSXBD0A2op5bxHbEE-gOl_NH5NtW9GA31/s200/election.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682454893526218178" /></a>There’s only been one story in the past week and that has been the election. By the time you read this, hopefully a new government will have been formed with a clear mandate to govern. So without further ado, here are the Farming Show Gongs as we pay tribute to the best and worst of Election 2011:<br /><br /><strong># The IRB Award for truncating the election campaign: </strong><br /><br />Goes to Richie McCaw. For seven glorious World Cup-filled weeks rugby took centre stage, leaving the politicians just five weeks to strut their stuff with their artillery of clichés, slogans and political-speak. If I hear “moving forward together for a better New Zealand for all New Zealanders” again, I think I’ll do something fatalistic such as jump from a high building or listen to a Peter Dunne party political broadcast. Come to think of it, I could really punish myself and get a Peter Dunne haircut.<br /><br /><strong># The Jerry Maguire Award for best line of the election campaign: </strong><br /><br />It was probably pre-rehearsed and a bit corny (like Tom Cruise himself) but John Key’s “show me the money” takes the money as the most memorable quip of the campaign. All of which confirms just how dull the rest of the politicians are! <br /><br /><strong># The Basil Fawlty “I mentioned the war but I think I got away with it” Award:</strong> <br /><br />Goes to Key and John Banks for the woefully weak cup of tea in Epsom. This highly-staged, unmitigated PR disaster may well prove terminal for the Act Party and it opened the door for you know who.<br /><br /><strong># The Grumpy Grizzly Bear Award for a triennial awakening from a hibernating slumber: </strong><br /><br />Goes to Winston for doing it - yet again. Three weeks out from polling, Winnie the Poo was in the crap. Then the great defender of the elderly and those with dementia was gifted Cuppa-gate. Winston is nothing if not an opportunist. <br /><br /><strong># The “unadulterated flop of the campaign” Award:</strong><br /><br />Goes to the dithering Doctor Don Brash who, on occasion, appeared to be taking his liberal stance on cannabis a step further. Well he had to be smoking something? <br /><br /><strong># The “I couldn’t bring myself to vote for him, but gee I’m beginning to respect him” Award:</strong><br /><br />Goes to Dr Russel Norman. I could never take the Greens seriously when Sue Bradford and Nandor Tanczos were flying the flag but Norman is a breath of fresh air (and fresh air was a precious commodity if you stood too close to Nandor). Not since the passing of Rod Donald have the Greens had a (co) leader mainstream Kiwis could relate to. Politically New Zealand needs a green conscience and there’s an ever-increasing itch to be scratched there. I wonder if Norman is smart enough to get into the tent and pee out (in an environmentally-friendly way of course).<br /><br /><strong># The NZTA Award for failure to stop:</strong><br /><br />Goes to Phil Goff. Nice bloke. Shame he doesn’t use a full stop occasionally. <br /><br /><strong># The Steve Hansen Charm Award:</strong><br /><br />Goes to Hone Harawira by a nose from his Mana Party deputy dogs, Sue Bradford and John Minto. <br /><br /><strong># The “Labour politician I could vote for” Award:</strong><br /><br />Goes to the likeable West Coaster Damien O’Connor. I don’t think he should be holding his breath waiting to be the Minister of Agriculture this time round but he does have some redeeming features. He’s from a heartland rural background, he’s run his own business and he’s resolutely refused to join the “self-serving unionists and gaggle of gays” that he famously claimed dominate the Labour party list.<br /><br /><strong># The “We’ve come a long way since Marilyn Waring, Ruth Richardson and Helen Clark” Award:</strong><br /><br />Although the aforementioned three were hardly catwalk models, they were all possessed of powerful intellects. The above award therefore goes to the Auckland Central babes, Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Adern. I’ve got no idea how smart they are but they certainly add some much-needed billboard appeal to an election dominated (still) by bland middle-aged white males. <br /><br /><strong># The “Glass is half-full to overflowing” Optimists Award:</strong><br /><br />Goes to the Alliance, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis, Conservative, Democrats for Social Credit and Libertarianz parties for going to the trouble of submitting a party list when Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Michael Jackson have more chance of forming a party and getting someone into the New Zealand parliament. <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-37566999886633170162011-11-21T09:00:00.000-08:002011-12-04T17:45:18.069-08:00Food production is good business<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhah8-ugWBx-yePhAe5hvW5bMDNBUoW-5GzfttFrfchPdiQ3hBroxP97hf7rCyAVNQ2E2nA0tK7vfIPcDlfqsKtEdeGiDDSyY0IbqR8A2M0zP-a5MGJ-XUekHGOTUbMPSy5JiowjdwarmJ7/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhah8-ugWBx-yePhAe5hvW5bMDNBUoW-5GzfttFrfchPdiQ3hBroxP97hf7rCyAVNQ2E2nA0tK7vfIPcDlfqsKtEdeGiDDSyY0IbqR8A2M0zP-a5MGJ-XUekHGOTUbMPSy5JiowjdwarmJ7/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682454216756514146" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> Food production is good business.<br /><br />Last week’s 2.6% lift in Fonterra’s Global Dairy Trade Event was a pretty good outcome considering Europe is on the verge of economic meltdown. The world’s a messy place but people still have to eat. A recent Rabobank report on food supply suggested, in the next 40-50 years, the world needed to double agri-commodity supply with access to only about half of the current land, water and mineral resources. Delivering what is effectively a four-fold improvement is the great challenge facing farmers. All of which suggests food production is a great business to be in. <br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> A Storm in an Epsom Tea Cup!<br /><br />There’s no doubt the normally unflappable John Key has been rattled somewhat by “cuppa-gate”. Could this be the game-changer Phil, Russel, Winston and Hone are looking for? If that is the case, my problem with MMP is that conceivably we could end up with a Prime Minister who is the preferred PM of just 10% of the country. His party has maybe 30% popular support, yet he could stitch together an unholy alliance where Winston Peters, Hone Harawira and Sue Bradford hold the balance of power. I rest my case. <br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> Tiger’s back and Zac’s been a dumb back.<br /><br />Tiger Woods is no angel but his return to golf is heaven-sent for TV ratings. When Tiger’s on the charge, as he was in the Australian Open, there are few more exhilarating sights in sport. Whether Zac Guildford will be sighted again in his sport at the top level is now in his own hands. <br /><br />Most of us have been guilty of doing stupid things under the influence of alcohol. But most of us don’t have a lucrative All Blacks career hanging in the balance as a result. Guildford lost his father in tragic circumstances. But I know from experience he’s not the first 19 year old to have suffered that fate. He needs to put that behind him and gainfully use his God-given gifts or risk spending the rest of his life staring at the bottom of a bottle, wondering what if?<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> Endangered Snails.<br /><br />I really worry about society’s priorities! Recently 800 rare giant snails got a frosty reception when they met their maker after a fridge malfunctioned, making them frozen escargot. Solid Energy had spent $600,000 removing 6000 snails from harm’s way at its opencast mine at Stockton on the West Coast. 4000 of those snails had since been re-released. <br /><br />So what was the big deal when 800 got the cold shoulder? As Jim Hopkins so eloquently put it on the Farming Show last week, there are separate breeds of rare snails up every valley on the Coast because they’re too slow to climb the hills and breed with those in the next gulley! <br /><br />Is the world a worse place for the loss of the 800 snails? No! Would that $600,000 be better spent on kids who go to school without breakfast and with little hope of lunch? Yes! I rest my case.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Nadia Lim. <br /><br />Seemingly every time you turn on the telly these days you’re confronted with a reality cooking show. So it was with some scepticism I fronted up, as the parent of a diabetic, to MC a promotional event for World Diabetes Day where the celebrity guest was Master Chef winner Nadia Lim. Having never watched the show, I half-expected some sort of reality show bimbo who could barely boil a saveloy. <br /><br />What I encountered could not have been more contrary. Nadia Lim is an intelligent, articulate and vivacious young woman. Obviously, the dietician with the A-plus grades is a great cook but more importantly she is doing pioneering work for the Diabetes Foundation. Some of us despair on occasion about the younger generation. The Nadia Lims of this world fill me with great hope.<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-50568952245148341682011-11-14T09:00:00.000-08:002011-12-04T17:43:56.524-08:00Aussie ETS<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPCaRhGuGpknuKP9Oqy5RWyQHUnMNsbPfb6bC6QMXSYrzytZTnEUkWDNKjLnCQGSRkvuEDoEIonL4Hct_zk5EWW0KbVEWnXWGyHryQsQ5C-AL3r8VLR6-aBU3QfAhcI3MVpzyRO2SeDPZ-/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPCaRhGuGpknuKP9Oqy5RWyQHUnMNsbPfb6bC6QMXSYrzytZTnEUkWDNKjLnCQGSRkvuEDoEIonL4Hct_zk5EWW0KbVEWnXWGyHryQsQ5C-AL3r8VLR6-aBU3QfAhcI3MVpzyRO2SeDPZ-/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682453819490805410" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> Aussie ETS.<br /><br />Julia Gillard has bravely tread where John Keys fears to go, with the implementation of, effectively, a full-blown Emissions Trading Scheme across the ditch. This will undoubtedly make the most unpopular Prime Minister in Australian history even more unpopular and ultimately cost her the top job for going back on her word. <br /><br />I dislike the imprecise science behind the ETS and the all-encumbering cost it will potentially impose on agriculture. It hasn’t been a huge election issue this year but, as sure as God made little green environmentalists, you can wager it will be a major issue in the 2014 campaign.<br /><br />National clearly has no intention of including agriculture in its ETS. Labour and the Greens have unequivocally laid their cards on the other side of the table. This country needs to make a philosophical decision on the importance of agriculture to our economy and vote accordingly.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week: </strong> Epsom.<br /><br />The polls are suggesting National could govern alone. But bet your best farm boots the poll will narrow on Election day and John Key will need the safety net that is the Act Party. Sure Act is polling abysmally, and John Banks might only bring Don Brash into parliament with him if he wins Epsom, but if the only real right wing party is obliterated off the political landscape in 2011, then National could be in real trouble in 2014. <br /><br />Two weeks out from the election, one of the most intriguing questions will be whether John Key gives the good folk of Epsom the official nod and wink. If the accident-prone Act party is to survive, Key needs to put the kettle on and have that cup of tea with Banks. I wonder if Brash will be invited to smoko? <br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week: </strong> Smokin’ Joe Frazier dies.<br /><br />Those of us on the wrong side of 50 will fondly remember the golden era of heavyweight boxing when Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Smokin’ Joe ruled, literally, with iron fists. <br /><br />If you think there’s a bit of antagonism and angst between ‘Stevie’ Williams and Tiger Woods over race comments, it’s nothing compared to bitterness that existed between Frazier and Ali in the 1970s. Smokin’ Joe supported Ali financially when he was exiled from boxing for refusing the draft to fight in Vietnam. Ali repaid him with cruel taunts about being an “Uncle Tom” - a sellout to the white man. Has history repeated with Williams also biting the hand that fed him?<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The Welfare System.<br /><br />Campbell Live did a piece the other night on the welfare system and how a solo mother of eight children was faring. The poor, disheveled, uneducated woman was hardly living on the pig’s back but nor should she be as a state-dependent. The welfare system should be a safety net not a chosen profession.<br /><br />To make matters worse, this obvious drain on society had a Sky satellite dish on her roof. Oblivious to how this might offend many hard-working Kiwi families who can’t afford pay TV, she claimed Sky was for educational purposes for her children. Once again, any parent will tell you young kids, left to their own devices, will always choose Cartoon TV over the National Geographic channel any day. I agree the state has an obligation to see her children don’t starve but the brutal reality is baby-farming should not be a bona-fide paid profession.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Philanthropists. <br /><br />There’s an old saying – it’s better to give than receive. Anyone who has ever given freely of their time or dipped into their pockets for a good cause can attest to that. <br /><br />Bill Gates is the world’s foremost philanthropist. Closer to home we’ve got the likes of Sir Stephen Tindall and in the south we’ve got Sir Eion Edgar, the man whose sharebroking company is the name behind the new Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin. <br /><br />While most of us can only aspire to such benevolence, it’s a worthy aspiration. The older I get, the more I want to give. A sure sign of self-awareness of one’s mortality ahead of judgement day at the drafting gates at the Pearly Gates!<br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-13191280970290264362011-11-07T09:00:00.000-08:002011-12-04T17:49:45.333-08:00Grass and Moustaches<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgduggD0HduKB4Oj4jPzcko6LSeJrDANL3A8Np0L1s421bWqQ42EWhD75AycdudST-dy9VjyUzoq3rbwyk6pysbpwwoUcmqP5j-AXycDe63wfSTZhAkaxopIV_I1E2Apm_mbsRgEZF8Uk3T/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgduggD0HduKB4Oj4jPzcko6LSeJrDANL3A8Np0L1s421bWqQ42EWhD75AycdudST-dy9VjyUzoq3rbwyk6pysbpwwoUcmqP5j-AXycDe63wfSTZhAkaxopIV_I1E2Apm_mbsRgEZF8Uk3T/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682453487635342786" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> Grass and Moustaches.<br /><br />They’re both growing like crazy. Long live the long grass! Farmers make money when it grows. And long live those who grow a mo to change the face of men’s health. It’s not too late to go to http://nz.movember.com and do your bit and it’s not too late to go to your doctor and get your bits checked out.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> The gloves come off!<br /><br />After nearly three years of (metaphorically) being kicked all round the playground by the bigger and smarter kid Key, fearless Phil finally lived up to his moniker and fought back in the first of the leaders debates. While a majority of pundits awarded the bout to John Key in a points decision, it was refreshing to see Phil Goff show some of the fight and oratory he is renowned for in the House. Both leaders were guilty of being slightly clichéd sloganeers. Both are much better when they speak off the cuff and from the heart. <br /><br />Goff finds himself in a situation not too dissimilar to that of Paul Newman and Robert Redford in that famous final scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. There won’t be a happy ending but he can go out all guns blazing!<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> Ted retires!<br /><br />I have to put my hand up and freely admit I was one of the 50% of the New Zealand rugby public who wanted Graham Henry gone after the Cardiff collapse in the quarter-finals of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. While Sir Brian Lochore and Laurie Mains decided their own fate, we showed Grizz Wyllie and John Hart no mercy in 1991 and 1999, respectively. Both were very good coaches and both made it one round deeper into the tournament than Henry, but that counted for nought when it came to the cull. Heck, even jovial John Mitchell did better in 2003.<br /><br />The NZRU had the peoples’ favourite and a ready-made replacement waiting in the wings in the form of Robbie Deans but his obvious credentials were ignored as Steve Tew and Co made the unprecedented step of reappointing a losing coach. History, albeit by a coat of paint on the goalposts, proved them right. Henry now retires as arguably the greatest coach in rugby union history. No man has coached more games of test rugby and his 85.4% success rate with the All Blacks over such a long period, in an era that included a very strong Springboks side, will possibly never be bettered.<br /><br />Yes, he was damned lucky to get a second chance. But his tenacity should be a lesson to us all, as should his example of grabbing that second chance with both hands.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The Octagon Occupiers. <br /><br />I can’t speak for the other main centres but Dunedin, where I’m based, has had a gutsful of a pack of largely unemployed dropkicks protesting about the rest of us who get out of bed in the morning and make a living from a capitalist system that pays them to do nothing. The grassed area of the Octagon is a communal gathering point enjoyed by office workers for lunch and by families in the weekend. Now it smells of dubious cigarette smoke and stale urine. While it’s nothing a daily 6am high-powered hosing down from the Dunedin Fire Brigade couldn’t fix, I wish the authorities would handle this blatant trespassing with something other than kid gloves.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> The Happy Hooker.<br /><br />Grant Nisbett tells a great story about the immediate aftermath of the All Blacks World Cup victory at Eden Park. While the French were being awarded their runners-up medals and the All Blacks were milling about in celebration waiting for their turn, Andrew Hore wandered 30 metres over to a solitary Ian Smith (sideline) and said, “Hey Smithy, how the f@*# did we win that?” Before Smith could utter a reply, Hore cantered back to his team mates.<br /><br />The townies can keep the pretty Williams boys, Sonny Bill and Ali. I’m sure the farming community will more than happily lay claim to the happy hooker Hore and his fellow front row farmer, Tony Woodcock. <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-70453243320718239042011-10-31T09:00:00.000-07:002011-11-02T17:42:29.353-07:00Dumping milk and dropping milk prices<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQ1n2N9NJ5L-cUr2l3IK5dSxFkAge2AnSls-r62NTNH1ZyPIRAZuonx69ff7MMS1wjT6CT3P40Q4_j5a7fVwIm2bzDb7mtC2-9d7XFLSLdalrXZ57HCe0STQhhAEIdVi-xpvuGn0m6bsv/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTQ1n2N9NJ5L-cUr2l3IK5dSxFkAge2AnSls-r62NTNH1ZyPIRAZuonx69ff7MMS1wjT6CT3P40Q4_j5a7fVwIm2bzDb7mtC2-9d7XFLSLdalrXZ57HCe0STQhhAEIdVi-xpvuGn0m6bsv/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670563222929963858" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> Dumping milk and dropping milk prices.<br /><br />Last week started well enough for Fonterra with a very a generous 10th birthday shout around the country. The following day, however, the milk turned to custard when dairy farmers were hit with the double-whammy of a reduced forecast payout and having to dump milk back on to their pastures. The 45 cent reduction in the forecast payout, while disappointing, was not a real surprise. What surprised me was learning only one gas pipeline effectively supplies the northern half of the North Island. What surprised even more was the lack of a Plan B from many leading industries, Fonterra included, when it comes to powering their plants.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> Labour’s Agriculture Policy.<br /><br />Other than an admirable desire to lower the exchange rate and to see New Zealand farm land retained in New Zealand ownership, I can see little in Labour’s agriculture policy that would solicit the farming vote. A capital gains tax, bringing agriculture into the ETS, a tough water policy and draconian labour laws to give trade unions more power, will not win any votes from farmers. Let’s be realistic here, farmers are not Labour’s natural constituents. You’ve got to go back to the Norman Kirk years (1972-75) to find a Labour government, with Colin Moyle as Minister of Agriculture, which went in to bat for farmers. Phil Goff has a small lifestyle farm in Clevedon and a natural empathy for rural life, but the reality is Labour doesn’t court the farming vote. Maybe Phil should just openly admit it and cash in on the anti-farming sentiment and resentment that genuinely does exist in some quarters. <br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> Make that month, year, nay decade!<br /><br />This wasn’t a monkey. Or a gorilla! Or Godzilla even! This was the rugby equivalent of lifting King Kong off our collective backs. Richie, I love you. Graham, all is forgiven. William (Webb Ellis), welcome home! <br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The eye-opening French.<br /><br />Yes the Frogs were quite magnifique at Eden Park. Warriors in white! But just when you’re ready to forgive them for that other warrior, the Rainbow one, they sour a marvellous occasion and sporting spectacle with senseless eye-gouging. Their performance quite literally brought a tear to the eye - Richie McCaw’s in this case. <br /><br />There’s something smugly superior about the French. Anyone who has been to Paris and battled the French language will know how dismissive the French are of the English language and its practitioners. I once spent five painstaking minutes at a Louvre café trying to explain to a French waiter that I wanted a pasta for lunch, going as far as pointing directly at it. He was plainly having me on, so it was only when I spoke to him in a universal language as I was walking out the door that he bothered to respond in kind in English!<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Nostradamus Mackay!<br /><br />Although I finished next to last in the office RWC sweepstake, I am proudly trumpeting the fact I was the first man in the country to predict the redemption, resurrection and renaissance of Stephen Donald! This is what I wrote (word for word) in my sports column in the Southland Times on December 10, 2010:<br /><br />With no Carter, McCaw effectively all but invalided out of the tournament and Sonny Bill Williams defecting to the Dallas Cowboys, it was left to some of the lesser lights to lead the way at Eden Park. Without doubt though, the All Blacks owed their epic 13-12 World Cup victory to the most maligned man of 2010, Waikato’s Stephen Donald. Initially unwanted by Hansen, Donald was only thrown a lifeline with the injuries to Carter and Auckland’s Gareth Anscombe.<br /><br />With fulltime showing following Matt Todd’s injury-time try, Donald, who’d only been on the park for three minutes as a result of Slade’s chronic cramping, was asked to kick the winning sideline conversion. A nation held its anguished, collective breath, remembering the horrors of 2010. Atonement awaited. Donald duly obliged. Rugby immortality and a Jockey contract were now surely his.<br /><br /><strong># Movember:</strong> Go to your doctor and to http://nz.movember.com <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-48285738631839897642011-10-24T09:00:00.000-07:002011-11-02T17:43:37.408-07:00A good week for Fonterra<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4ZOo5okHBuqdNE1ViAmroKZ-pXE6Pcc7SLiU-TO067TrBFREMn0ReD9Jql8L41fKuz4dlKzvFLCU8SU7NP-upcuzv6Tn4ORatVQg1mTwcV2p-AUrT9pT9V20RawpdzFEv9CG_WrGzEfw/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4ZOo5okHBuqdNE1ViAmroKZ-pXE6Pcc7SLiU-TO067TrBFREMn0ReD9Jql8L41fKuz4dlKzvFLCU8SU7NP-upcuzv6Tn4ORatVQg1mTwcV2p-AUrT9pT9V20RawpdzFEv9CG_WrGzEfw/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670561890402117298" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> A good week for Fonterra.<br /><br />Putting aside the continued rumblings over Trading Among Farmers, it’s been a good week for the country’s biggest company. Last Wednesday’s Global Dairy Trade Event saw the arrest of a four month slide in dairy commodity prices with the TWI up 1.7%. Last week Fonterra also collected a record daily total of 81.2 million litres with the promise of more to come. And fittingly, on Labour Day, the mega cooperative shouted the nation for its 10th birthday with celebrations in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Hawera, Palmerston North, Ashburton and Invercargill. Hard-working cow cockies put on a 60,000-strong sausage sizzle, ice-cream treats and some of the biggest names in New Zealand music, including Dave Dobbyn, Hello Sailor, Tiki Taane and Stan Walker. All free of charge. Smart move Fonterra! <br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week:</strong> Let the election campaign proper begin!<br /><br />Hands up if you’d like us to host a Rugby World Cup in New Zealand every three years if it meant the election campaign could be mercifully compressed to just five weeks? And to paraphrase an Aussie advertising campaign, “Winston, where the bloody hell are ya?”<br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> 24 Long Years Ago!<br /><br />In 1987 the world’s population reached five billion, double the 1950 figure. Global share markets collapsed. David Lange’s Labour government was re-elected for a second term in office and New Zealand went nuclear free. GST went from 10% to 12.5%. Lotto was introduced. Posting a letter cost 40 cents (up from 30c). Crowded House went to number two on the American Top 40 with Don’t Dream It’s Over and the All Blacks won the inaugural Rugby World Cup, defeating France 29-9 at Eden Park.<br /><br />Twenty four years is a long time between drinks and many drinks have been downed in the interim to drown our four-yearly cycle of sorrow. While I write without knowledge of the final score, I know our time has come. Cheers Richie!<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> Red Cards at the RWC.<br /><br />What should have been a wonderful night for Wales, with a resultant dream final between the world’s two most passionate rugby nations, was ruined by a red card. That card might have been better served on Ali Williams. I admire him as a rugby player but sometimes he can be a bit of a dick. Case in point, his behavior at the press conference when he childishly answered his namesake, Sonny Bill’s, questions. The All Blacks, led admirably by the incredibly humble Richie McCaw, have been a public relations dream even though one or two of their coaches have, on occasion, fallen prey to smug, smart-arse-answers. Sure, Cory and Izzy might have had a lapse in judgement but to err is human for young men. Besides, whatever rocket fuel they were drinking, it worked a treat! <br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> RWC Humour.<br /><br />In 1991 three young kids were playing on the streets of Sydney when they were run over by a bus and killed. They all go to heaven and St Peter, waiting at the Pearly Gates, says to them, "You weren't supposed to die. You were all supposed to live out your lives. This was not your time. To make it up to you, I'll let you choose what you want to do with your life. Take a running jump off of that cloud over there and, as you're flying back down to Earth, shout out what you want to do. And so it shall be."<br /><br />The first kid takes a running leap and shouts "lawyer" and so, 20 years later, he is a very successful lawyer, making lots of money, with an upcoming appointment to the Bench.<br />The second kid takes his turn and shouts "brain surgeon" and so, 20 years later, he is the most admired man in his field of medicine and making a ton of money saving lives.<br />The third kid goes to take his turn, and as he runs he trips over his own feet and stumbles of the cloud muttering to himself "stupid, clumsy, uncoordinated idiot". Twenty years later, he's playing first-five for the Wallabies.<br /><br /><strong>P.S. </strong><br /><br />Remember to go to your doctor and to http://nz.movember.com <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4272153224645129137.post-196201970290374212011-10-10T09:00:00.001-07:002011-10-19T19:35:45.572-07:00RWC and FAF<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0zctRwGD5T9oz0NeEd0jgt3aIotkbfOLQFlFWPW69wHJLxRxRhST4cCSDjgY22JHpQWMotp_HiQfZUoUh1mLlBiedGj8myKOItWk6I_zSUAYbBl2jhJFApUurOii7MgVNMzFRhEdqqZgi/s1600/jamiefarmingshow.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0zctRwGD5T9oz0NeEd0jgt3aIotkbfOLQFlFWPW69wHJLxRxRhST4cCSDjgY22JHpQWMotp_HiQfZUoUh1mLlBiedGj8myKOItWk6I_zSUAYbBl2jhJFApUurOii7MgVNMzFRhEdqqZgi/s200/jamiefarmingshow.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5665397281219844434" /></a><strong># Big Farming Story of the Week:</strong> RWC and FAF.<br /><br />Most farmers I know are engrossed in the RWC (Rugby World Cup). It’s a wonderful diversion at the end of a long day calving, lambing, planting, pruning or whatever. However, more than just a few are embattled in FAF (Fighting Among Farmers). You may also recognize the latter by its other moniker TAF (Trading Among Farmers). Fonterra has just concluded a record-breaking payout season but there’s still trouble at mill when it comes to capital structure. In principle, TAF seems a damn fine idea but some farmers see fish hooks. I must admit I haven’t examined the proposal with a microscope but I hope it’s sorted soon as it presents a real opportunity for farmers to further invest in the country’s leading company. It’s all been a bit of distraction from the real job at hand (or foot in Richie’s case) of how to win the RWC.<br /><br /><strong># Big Political Story of the Week: </strong> The response to the Bay of Plenty marine disaster.<br /><br />As if the Psa disease outbreak was not causing enough grief in the beautiful BOP, along comes the greatest environmental disaster in our maritime history. The Bay certainly has plenty on its plate. The kiwifruit crisis is proving a real downer for the local economy. Throw in the nation’s blue-rinse retirement haven being badly hit by the collapse of the finance companies, and you don’t have to be Warren Buffet to figure out the Bay can’t afford to see the collapse of its summer tourist industry. The region is famous for its sun and beaches. Right now there are very few rays of hope for the hitherto pristine coastline. <br /><br /><strong># Big Sporting Story of the Week:</strong> First-five number five?<br /><br />My last year of senior club rugby was in 1991. By that stage I was 31 and getting a bit slow so my coach, former All Black Ash McGregor, moved me from fullback to first five-eighths to mitigate some of my shortcomings. Twenty years on, I wished I’d kept on playing because, who knows, I could’ve been on the receiving end of a phone call from Graham Henry - such is the state of the country’s stocks at first-five. Nick Evans, Luke McAllister and Mike Delaney are out of the country and out of the question. Another untimely groin injury to either Aaron Cruden or Stephen Donald could give renewed hope to all us old-timers with the recall of Tony Brown - making him first-five number five.<br /><br /><strong># Brickbat:</strong> The Plastic Waka:<br /><br />I was in Auckland for the RWC quarter-finals weekend and did the obligatory touristy things. Visited the Cloud, had a compulsory cappuccino at the Viaduct Basin and gazed nostalgically at the mounted America’s Cup yacht. The only damp squib, other than the English backline, was wandering past the plastic waka. The government, local body authorities and ethic funding authorities have been guilty over the years of some woeful and wicked wasting of money but this national embarrassment takes the cake. The RWC is a seven week tournament - the white (elephant) waka will be open for the last 10 days of it.<br /><br /><strong># Bouquet:</strong> Movember.<br /><br />Last week on the Farming Show, along with the crew at Allflex, we launched our Movember campaign to support men’s health. We’re encouraging farmers, young and old, to join the fold and grow a moustache to raise funds and awareness for serious issues such as depression and prostate cancer. Since then we’ve been inundated with positive feedback, interestingly, mainly from women wanting to encourage their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. <br /><br />Men, especially hardened rural types, are notoriously negligent when it comes to going to the doctor. The stoic “she’ll be right” attitude might be admirable if you suffer an injury on the rugby paddock but when your health is threatened, it’s a head-in-the-sand approach. No one likes intrusive probing, whether it’s of a body cavity or your state of mind. But no one ever died of embarrassment. Plenty of rural blokes have, however, succumbed to the likes of prostate cancer and depression, a lot of which would’ve been preventable with early detection and intervention. So harden up. Be a real man. Go to your doctor and go to http://nz.movember.com <br /><br /><strong>Jamie Mackay is the host of the Ballance Agri-Nutrients Farming Show which airs on Radio Sport and Newstalk ZB. jamie@farmingshow.com </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0