We’ve been hearing the words regenerative farming more and more recently, both in the popular media as well as in the farming press, so what exactly does it mean? It has actually become a bit of a catch-all term for a whole suite of farming approaches...... Read More

Officially speaking, the ocean isn’t within the Tāwharanui Open Sanctuary Society’s remit, but we do pay attention to the Tāwharanui coastline because you just can’t separate one ecosystem from another. Hence, Seaweek, organised by...... Read More

We sometimes hear confident statements made about our pets, but can they all be trusted? Certainly not. Here are some to be aware of … Female dogs should have a litter before they are fixed There is zero health benefit to a bitch having a litter....... Read More

I devoured my Kiwi summer in the same fashion that I devoured my watermelon – until my belly burst. Closed borders have seen us renew our vows of patriotism and fall back in love with our great lands. Tiki tours are now the hip Kiwi equivalent of...... Read More

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at the wonderful Big Buzz Festival at Matakana School. The topic was plants for honeybees and the myriad other pollinators that are so important. In my opinion, this is one of the most vital areas that farmers and...... Read More

Most of us would have been unnerved at how close the US, our supposed bastion of democracy, came recently to anarchy, as well as perturbed by rising trends in extremist views worldwide. While we don’t have the space here to debate the multiple reasons...... Read More

If the weather gets hot and wet, some animal diseases I am on the lookout for are facial eczema, enzootic pneumonia and flystrike. Facial eczema is a disease of ruminants and alpacas that eat enough of a specific fungal toxin found in the plant litter...... Read More

Late summer to early autumn is probably my favourite season; the nights are a little cooler and more comfortable, the days are typically warm and sunny with only sporadic rainfall, the townies have headed back to work in the city leaving the beaches and...... Read More

I am partially passionate for a good ole cowboy movie, so I took myself off to the Warkworth Rodeo last month where I had a fabulous day and learnt many new things. Of course, all the usual suspects were there, including those from the farming fraternity...... Read More

As we lurch into the third decade of the third millennium, we could be forgiven for wanting to stay in holiday mode. We face the triple threats of a raging pandemic, a rapidly heating planet and a global biodiversity crash that’s being billed as...... Read More