No.8 Wire: Forum on hill country potential

What lies ahead for Central, East and Lower North Island's hill country?

A conference focusing on the potential for the hill country from Cape Palliser to East Cape will be held in Hastings next month.

The October 29-30 conference is being organised by Hawke's Bay Regional Council in association the Horizons and Greater Wellington regional councils, Massey University and the Ministry for Primary Industries.

Hawke's Bay Council acting manager land management Nathan Heath said: "There is potential for growth in the east coast hill country, and although there has been considerable focus over decades on improving farm performance, this will be an opportunity to take a broader look at all aspects of our communities' needs across regional and political boundaries."

The conference aims to involve a wide range of different perspectives on hill country issues from government, iwi, primary sector and community along the east coast of the North Island in considering the potential for increasing wealth in its broadest sense - social, economic, organisational and natural.

Mr Heath said primary production is a huge part of the economy for the region, which needs to look at the "downstream effects" of economic and climatic shocks, such as last week's rain.

The conference will involve 30 speakers on a range of topics from governance and planning through to Mori agribusiness.

Plantain plan

The progress of an experimental planting project in Central Hawke's Bay will be outlined in an afternoon discussion group at Te Mahanga Station, Poukawa, south of Hastings. In 2013, Brownrigg Agriculture established 36ha of plantain and clovers on winter wet flat land on Te Mahanga Station. The aim was to evaluate the role of perennial and annual clovers and plantain for finishing.

Plant and animal growth rates have been monitored. Since 2014, Brownrigg Agriculture has established more than 100ha of plantain and clover on its managed properties. This discussion group is a partnership between B+LNZ and On-Farm Research, supported by the Ministry for Primary Industries, via the Sustainable Farming Fund.

Teatotallers

One of the biggest annual events in Ireland, particularly for the rural sector, is the National Ploughing Championships, which was held last week at Ratheniska, Co Laois. Among the side events was an attempt on a World Record for pouring the most cups of tea in an hour.

The target was 1608 and a team of 12 tea pourers from budget supermarket Lidl bagged it easily with a new mark of 1848. It leaves everyone asking who'll be next, so it's time to put the billy on.

Wool sale

About 6000 bales will be offered at the wool sale in Napier today, with considerable interest again following the success of the last North Island sale a fortnight ago, when good styled finer hogget wool departed at 6-10 per cent dearer than the previous sale.

Stronger second shear wool was slightly cheaper and although oddments remained steady in price buyers were becoming more selective.