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Country Life headlines with summaries.
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Country Life for Friday 5 July 2024
Country Life looks at a farming system known as agrivoltaics where traditional agriculture runs alongside solar farming and Cosmo's at a sheep breeders field day on Banks Peninsula, to find out how…
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Kohirā Solar Farm: Northland sheep benefiting from the power of the sun
Kohirā is a solar farm near Kaitaia that is experimenting with agrivoltaics - combining agriculture with harvesting the energy of the sun. They run sheep under the solar panels and are looking at…
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What's the model sheep of the future?
Sheep breeders will increasingly have to address issues like animal welfare and the right to farm when they consider improving their sheep's genetics, experts say. But the biggest issue facing…
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East Coast farmers 'feel forgotten'
Farmers in Te Tai Rāwhiti have made huge progress since Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked havoc on the region last year. However, successive severe weather events mean the work is far from over.
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Kaputī and kaitiakitanga in Taemaro Bay
Sandra Heihei is the 17th generation of her family living in remote Taemaro Bay. She and her husband Alfonso live off grid and are among kaitiaki of this ancestral coastal land. Passing on knowledge…
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Compost replaces chemical fertilisers on South Otago dairy farm
Regenerative farming suits Mark Anderson down to the ground. He's focused on putting as much life and diversity back into the land and says the benefits to the entire farm, and his own well-being, are…
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Country Life for Friday 28 June 2024
This week the Country Life team spends a night out tracking kiwi in the capital, meets a family living off-grid on their ancestral land in the Far North and visits a South Otago dairy farm where…
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Bringing kiwi back to the capital: A national taonga returns to Wellington
27 Jun 2024A night out tracking the new kiwi which call Wellington, and Terawhiti Station, home with the Capital Kiwi Project team.
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Get your skates on
21 Jun 2024People in the small farming community of Staveley in Canterbury are hoping their newly upgraded ice rink can stand up to global warming after locals pitched in to pay for a new refrigeration system.
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Swapping swipe cards for spuds
Sarah Mosley is a chip off the old block. The former Wellington hotel manager is following in her father's footsteps after she headed home to join the family potato-growing business in South Otago.
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Country Life for Friday 21 June 2024
Country Life meets a former hotel manager who's swapped swipe cards for growing spuds, goes for a skate at a country ice rink and visits the farm at the centre of Wellington's kiwi project.
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Where Wellington's wild things live
21 Jun 2024Terawhiti Station, a 4800-ha farm off Wellington's west coast, is the cornerstone of a project that has seen kiwi return to the capital.
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From farm to fabric to fashion
Georgina Lawson and her husband Willie farm 3000 sheep at Merton in North Otago. Last year, Georgina launched a line of 100 percent woollen coats made from the clip of their farm's Romdale hoggets.
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Country Life for Friday 14 June 2024
This week on Country Life, we take you inside a beehive and the mind of a man who's been tending to them for half a century, we head to an on-farm Charolais bull auction near Motukarara and we meet a…
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Prices not that bullish at Charolais sale
A herd of young bulls went under the hammer at the annual Silverstream Charolais and Hereford Stud sale in Motukarara, but with farmers tightening their belts, prices were back a bit compared to last…
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The secret life of bees
14 Jun 2024With more than 50 years' experience in the apiary industry, Frank Lindsay is a hive of information when it comes to all things bee.
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Country Life for Friday 7 June 2024
This week Country Life catches up with a collector of rare and exotic sheep breeds who has just sold his farm, we learn about how a Taranaki dairy farmer's collection of antique farming books and…
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From the Archives - The Country Vet
This 1975 Spectrum documentary follows a day in the life of rural Gisborne veterinarian, Mac Wallace. His day begins with a cow having trouble calving and ends at Turehau station, where a group of…
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Of all sheep and sizes
A large part of Brian Hales' farm recently sold and will soon go into pines. We caught up with the sheep and beef farmer, to find out what was happening to his flock of rare and exotic sheep breeds.
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NZ's top milking herd is small, but mighty
Taranaki dairy farmer Cliff Shearer's practices may seem old-fashioned, but they've helped him make his way into the history books.
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Dam project aims to stop flooding in Christchurch's Early Valley
A series of dams to capture stormwater as it runs off the Port Hills are being constructed on farmland near Christchurch. It's the brainchild of Brent and Shirley Rawstron from Rossendale Wines, who…
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Reaping pink gold from South Island hydro canals - caviar harvest
Mt Cook Alpine Salmon in the Mackenzie District began experimenting with caviar three years ago and is in the midst of its short harvest period. Sally Murphy caught up with the company's chief…
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Country Life for May 31 2024
This week on Country Life, caviar being farmed in Mackenzie Country, a flood-prone vineyard in Canterbury which has created flood prevention basins to keep dry and a woollen sock company which is at…
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Norsewood factory Norsewear a sign of close-knit community
The Norsewear factory in Norsewood is a community affair, with families, an entire volunteer fire brigade and neighbours working alongside each other over the decades. They have been celebrating 60…
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