This week on The Best of The Country, Jamie Mackay caught up with Rabobank Animal Protein Analyst Blake Holgate for an update on a very positive sheep meat industry.
This week's top interviews are:
Mark Townshend:
Is one of New Zealand's leading dairy farmers and a former Fonterra director who reckons we should be saluting Kiwi farmers as heroes - the world's most efficient producers - and not kicking them in the guts as environmental villains.
Judith Collins:
The daughter of a Waikato dairy farmer goes in to bat for New Zealand farmers saying agriculture should not be included in the ETS. Plus she says her old sparring partner Winston Peters is "all piss and wind".
Blake Holgate:
Rabobank's Animal Protein Analyst, in the first of a two-part series looking at NZ's red meat outlook, casts an eye over the very positive sheep meat industry which is being driven by strong demand from China and the US.
Winston Peters:
The Deputy PM comments on his good friend and new British PM Boris Johnson, saying he is friend of New Zealand. We also talk about his recent FTA mission to the US where he met VP Mike Pence but not Trump. And he fires back at Judith Collins for saying he was all "piss and wind" when it came to going in to bat for farmers.
Jim Hopkins:
Is a rural raconteur who's deadly serious when he says agriculture is under attack and farmers need to fight back!
Sam Strahan:
Manawatu farmer and former All Black sings the praises of a great winter and a great leader.
Listen below:
Motorists are being warned to drive 'carefully' as heavy falls start in Rotorua, Taupō.