Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Five further thoughts

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  • krothville, in reply to Farmer Green,

    Lol, I'm not sure how expecting good working conditions (such as a 10-15 min tea break, and a paid lunch break) connects to gen-y-ers expecting everything to be handed to them on a platter.

    In fact, I'd say (with the exception of those born into riches and privilege through family connections), gen-y is the most realistic of all. My grandparents' generation fought hard to get basic rights and minimum working conditions, and my parents' generation pissed them all away through complacency. My generation have seen everything slowly eroded, and we feel helpless to stop it. We expect to have to work shitty jobs, 3 on the go at once, for the rest of our lives. But that doesn't mean we can't point out how horrible lack of job security and paid breaks and decent wages is. These commentators who keep spouting the nonsense that gen-y has ridiculous expectations are often the 50+ers, completely detached and so out of it.

    Since Sep 2014 • 73 posts Report

  • Greg Dawson, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    and among some older names is 阳桃/yángtáo – “sun peach”. Thanks, Ian!

    Please tell me that is because a regular peach looks like a 'moon'.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 294 posts Report

  • Farmer Green, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    Chris if you ever hear of some Polled Holsteins in China , or see them , I'd love to know.
    They are almost certain to have come from my place, and I've always wanted to know how they were doing.

    Lower North Island • Since Nov 2012 • 778 posts Report

  • Steve Barnes,

    MIGRANT DAIRY WORKER SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS PROCEDURE HOLE
    Wasn't me shouting, it was the headline format, terrible but then I guess that's " farmer-speak "

    “Late last year, to help farmers do better with migrant workers, Federated Farmers released a migrant pack. Costing members just $200 (plus GST), it is written in farmer-speak and includes everything an employer needs to follow.

    And then there is the old "Probitas" story... and how they got "Busted" for misleading claims

    Commerce Commission Chair Paula Rebstock said the fertiliser industry is a very important part of the New Zealand economy, with farmers spending a billion dollars annually on fertiliser. Fertiliser is generally the most expensive single item in a farmer's budget, costing most farmers between $20,000 and $40,000 a year.

    wouldn't want "The Industry" to miss out on a slice of that pie eh?.
    Does it work?

    Probitas is a lime
    based soil conditioner developed by Ewan Campbell, a
    Waihi sheep and beef farmer. It has amounts of silica, sea
    based minerals and paramagnetic rock. We have
    measured up to 82 worms per spade full since we started
    using this product, higher Omega 3 levels in our lamb
    and beef and a longer shelf life for our organic lamb and
    beef sold under Avalon Organic

    Richard Baxter seems to think so...

    Also included was Probitas' silica-based brew which has since been discredited in a court case taken against the manufacturer by the Commerce Commission.

    Baxter has used it just once but has an open mind about its value. He continues to follow Clark's advice.

    The next year, another 2.5 tonnes of lime to the hectare were applied, plus trace elements, and the whole farm was sprayed with fish oil. In the following years, the lime was reduced to 1.5 tonnes a hectare while the trace elements continued.

    No nitrogen or phosphate were applied. The farm soon greened up, clover began to reappear and the high-protein herbs chicory and plantain were added to the pastures. They are allowed to flower and are still reseeding five years later.

    Soil and herbage tests now show the pH levels of the soil, a measure of acidity, to have lifted from 5.8 to the ideal range for soil health of 6.4-6.8 and that the plants have the optimum level of trace elements.

    As does Allan Richardson

    Probitas, developed by Ewan Campbell of Waihi, is a lime base soil conditioner that has been used on the Richardson’s farm for the past three years. The results of the soil and herbage tests that have been conducted before and since the introduction of Probitas have shown impressive results. Initially introduced to only 125 hectares, Probitas is now being used across the entire farm. Allan says that Probitas unlocks the nutrients from the soil and lets nature do the work, and he believes that it has the potential to “revolutionise the fertilizer industry”.

    But hey, let's just fuck up our rivers and streams so the Fertiliser Industry can remain profitable, you know it makes cents.

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Russell Brown,

    Split milk...

    What you you think about summing all this up into a guest post for us, FG?

    Hell, I'd like to see him co-opted to run Fonterra, or at least advise them, it sounds like they need to hear, and do, stuff they have been avoiding for whatever reason...

    Anything that based and dependant on the land and environment
    has to be run better than Fonterra is being run now...

    Their just announced Farm Source initiative sounds like something they should have been doing from day one - but I can't find any more detail as it behind a membership wall at Fonterra's site...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Rob Stowell, in reply to krothville,

    We expect to have to work shitty jobs, 3 on the go at once, for the rest of our lives.

    Unions. Join 'em. Just sayin :)

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to krothville,

    The Stand Alone Ranger...

    These commentators who keep spouting the nonsense that gen-y has ridiculous expectations are often the 50+ers, completely detached and so out of it.

    On the Internet,
    no -one knows how old you are...
    ...or even how out of it you are!

    My experience (as a flight-veteran of some 57 solar orbits) is that each generation has good and bad elements and attitudes...

    and there's always bad apples...

    :- )

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to Greg Dawson,

    Please tell me that is because a regular peach looks like a ‘moon’.

    Yeah, no, sorry. I even had a flick through zdic, but couldn't find anything.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to Farmer Green,

    Polled Holsteins

    I did read something about Holsteins imported from NZ once a couple of years back - maybe in one of the links I posted earlier. But there's not much dairy farming out my in laws' way. Grapes and apples are big out there. There's a dairy "operation" of some kind a few km up the road, but it looks pretty miserable, courtyards of a size typical for a traditional northern Chinese farmhouse, but the house along the north side of the yard replaced with a brick shed. There's no space up there for NZ-style fields, and growing conflict with the need to protect Beijing's water resources, it being the northeast bank of what once was Beijing's second biggest reservoir, and what is now one of the few bodies of water upstream from Beijing with substandard water quality.

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report

  • Greg Dawson, in reply to Chris Waugh,

    Yeah, no, sorry. I even had a flick through zdic, but couldn’t find anything.

    Ha! Thanks for looking :)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 294 posts Report

  • Farmer Green, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Lower North Island • Since Nov 2012 • 778 posts Report

  • krothville, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Oh sure, lol. But I think there's an awful lot of ridiculous commentary on gen-y-ers that has no basis in reality ;)

    Since Sep 2014 • 73 posts Report

  • Greg Dawson, in reply to Farmer Green,

    Private Equity has only ever improved industries it gets involved in, as we all know.

    Fonterra Co-operative Group [NZX: FCG] may establish an Equity Partners' Fund that would source capital from investors for farmers in New Zealand and Australia.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 294 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Maori, I believe, are far better represented with an independent voice/party in Parliament.

    I'm convinced at some stage that Labour is going to wake up to the great opportunity in NZ left parliamentary politics - forming a coalition with the Maori Party and leaving the Maori seats to them, and the Maori party campaigning for the electorate vote but leaving the Maori party vote to Labour.

    The right simply can't win those seats, they're just a battle between left-wing parties. Once they line up correctly it's potentially a six or seven seat overhang.

    Not only does it make sense in terms of forming governments, it can make sense in terms of the treaty as well.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Sun Peach
    this site has other names as well - I liked Wonderfruit, so called because 奇异 sounds like Kiwi, apparently!
    This site has some quite interesting info on Chinese language
    - palindromes even, and puns!
    Oh to be a cunning linguist of many tongues...

    Oh...

    </coat>

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Joe Wylie, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    Souris végétale - vegetable mice.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel,

    Pun Search
    No, not really – I meant
    Go the Canes!
    …but I did find some pictures of divers KiwiFruit cutivars.
    Perhaps the original ‘Sun Peach’ stock that grew from the seeds of Actinidia deliciosa Isabel Fraser* brought back to Wanganui (sic) in 1904 is, still among them.

    I suspect the name comes from the ‘stellate’ presentation of the bisected fruit.

    There’s a potted local history here – and a bit more detail on the Zespri site

    * see also

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Joe Wylie,

    Whippet good!

    vegetable mice

    diced én mousse...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Chris Waugh, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    奇异 sounds like Kiwi, apparently!

    Not so much in Mandarin - qíyì, which for those not acquainted with pinyin sounds more like chee - ee than kiwi. It looks like it likely does sound like kiwi in Cantonese, though, and many a foreign loanword entered "Chinese"* through Hong Kong and therefore is written in a way that resembles the original when pronounced in Cantonese, but is completely opaque to uninformed Mandarin speakers.

    *meaning the collective of Sinitic languages commonly thought of as a single language even though they're not mutually intelligible.

    ETA: Interesting Tumblr find, one to be bookmarked. Thanks!

    Wellington • Since Jan 2007 • 2401 posts Report

  • Sam F, in reply to Farmer Green,

    Quickly piping in: I am working in China right now in a related area, and can try to ask colleagues after National Holiday when back in the office.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report

  • Farmer Green, in reply to Sam F,

    Thanks Sam . It's no biggy though, so don't bust a gut.
    Polled Holsteins are a rarity anywhere in the world but doubly so in China. The cows that I sent would by now have produced a % of polled offspring , even when mated to horned bulls.
    I wonder if anyone even noticed that some of the calves would not require dehorning.

    Lower North Island • Since Nov 2012 • 778 posts Report

  • Farmer Green,

    You saw it first at Hard News.
    All the News that is News :-)

    http://www.rabobank.co.nz/Research/Documents/Reports/Rabobank_Global-Dairy-Qly_Sep-2014.pdf

    Lower North Island • Since Nov 2012 • 778 posts Report

  • Ian Dalziel, in reply to Greg Dawson,

    Cash Cows or Friesian Market Economy...

    Private Equity has only ever improved industries it gets involved in, as we all know.

    Thanks for the link Farmer Green, too
    Yeah. No. - it's not quite what I thought it was, sounds more like they are diversifying into finance and debt farming and using the co-operative as sucker-bait - two bubbles to burst?
    Plus the revamped RD1 Sheds - retail another changing bubble to blow...
    Their push to wring another 4 billion litres a year out the market seems to be based on constant growth and indebtedness...
    Surely there comes a point of balance on production and profit, that can be maintained?
    Corporate mindsets can't stay in accord with natural cycles for long...
    they always wanna hurry things up, or somehow get an edge.

    But what do city folk like me know about it all
    - perhaps it is a good thing?

    and just so long as they aren't doing all this to avoid paying more tax or something 'tricky'...
    :- )

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report

  • Farmer Green, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    there comes a point of balance on production and profit,

    Just my opinion , but from a certain perspective , we are way past that point.
    Perversely , if we were thinking about added-value dairy , as Australia is currently, we would conclude that we don't produce enough milk in Godzone to even make a small splash.

    Of course that could be a tremendous plus. So exclusive, that you can't afford it. :-)

    Vraiment, la crème de la crème.

    Lower North Island • Since Nov 2012 • 778 posts Report

  • Farmer Green, in reply to Ian Dalziel,

    debt farming

    That part is very interesting.
    Does one anticipate a bail-out of the most over-geared dairy conversions by large chunks of urban equity capital, seemingly intent on enjoying the pitiful returns on capital that characterise our agricultural sector?

    Or , the perfect hedge against a prolonged period of financial instability, . . . and then some?
    Gotta better than gold ; they're not making any more land.

    Lower North Island • Since Nov 2012 • 778 posts Report

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