11+ hour, 20+ min ago   (301+ words) Emily Ireland for LDR It was a scene from Bidding Wars as Masterton councillors allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to local grant applicants this week. Masterton’s wool industry was given a boost with big grants awarded to the Shear…...

2+ day, 10+ hour ago   (340+ words) Tararua landowner Trevor Beale has been ordered to pay more than $250,000 in reparation to the family of a man who died when felling trees on a rural property. Beale was prosecuted by WorkSafe New Zealand following the death of his…...

3+ day, 6+ hour ago   (735+ words) By Aimee Pitcher. Pitcher is the volunteer coordinator at Central Otago Wilding Conifer Control Group. Every good morning starts with a coffee. Aromatic steam swirls from my favourite mug, she holds a full-bodied dark roast with subtle notes of caramel,…...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago   (227+ words) An unwelcome stink is brewing in rural Otago, where residents of a small community are asking why Wānaka’s wastewater has become their problem. “If the effects of spreading thousands of cubic metres of wastewater sludge on land are ‘no more…...

5+ day, 4+ hour ago   (384+ words) Apple waste could soon have a new life beyond stock feed or the compost bin, with research at Massey University exploring how the scraps could be turned into a food packaging innovation. Fourth-year food technology student Ed Ron Ng is…...

5+ day, 9+ hour ago   (787+ words) By Russell Palmer of RNZ Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins is lumping National in with ACT and New Zealand First’s promises to exit the Paris Agreement, after weeks of National doing the same with Labour and tax. Hipkins on Tuesday morning…...

6+ day, 7+ hour ago   (401+ words) A research project exploring how agricultural stakeholders respond to and make decisions about emerging technologies aims to better understand how farm data is governed, shared and used in New Zealand’s rapidly evolving agricultural landscape. As a global leader in agricultural…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (497+ words) El Niño is continuing to intensify and global modelling suggests it will peak sometime in late spring, or the start of summer. But what goes up must come back down, and the latest update also shows El Niño starting to…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (466+ words) Almost 4000 hectares of New Zealand farmland have been leased or sold to foreign-owned solar companies over the past four years without first being offered to New Zealand interests, under exemptions granted by the Overseas Investment Office. OIO records reveal multiple…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (1735+ words) By Farah Hancock of RNZ The SPCA has issued a new voluntary standard for chicken welfare after questions from RNZ about fast-growing “frankenchickens”. Currently, the SPCA’s welfare standards for chicken farms have no rules on fast-growing breeds. This has sparked…...