Country Life

Best of 2022 - This April, volunteers from all over Aotearoa headed to South Westland to clear gorse from the shores of the stunning Ōkārito Lagoon.

Ross Ainsworth is a consultant vet living in Bali which has just confirmed foot and mouth disease among livestock on the island. He says wandering animals near tourist areas heighten the risk of the disease entering New Zealand.

Foot and Mouth, Okarito GorseBusters, Grass burger, Wool meets hemp on high country station and the Regional Wrap.

Farmers in Wairarapa have been crutching and watching ewes. Conditions underfoot have dried out in Canterbury so stock are utilising fodder crops well.

Waikato farmer Chris Falconer is the first farmer in New Zealand to trial the Happy Cow milk processing and distribution system. He farms the Happy Cow way, with a strong focus on being green and kind to the animals. The milk is pasteurised on farm and sold direct to customers.

While many teenage boys get stuck into gaming after school, you'll find Fletcher Keen in a paddock. Last year a pig named 'Ashley Bloomfield' won the 14-year-old Cantabrian 'Best Boar Over 5 months And Under 8 Months' at NZ's national agriculture show.

Two retired Auckland University lecturers put the case for correctly acknowledging the role native trees can play in carbon sequestration.

Happy Cow Happy Customers, Indigenous Forest and Carbon, Growing and showing pigs for fun and On the Farm - a wrap of farming conditions around NZ.

Northland soils are extremely wet so dairy farmers are continuing to stand cows off pastures where possible. Central Otago farmers are shifting breaks and feeding out stock and shearing is underway on half-bred sheep.

Isaac Beach felt like Neil Armstrong on the moon when he first stepped foot on a block of land he's now planting up with hemp. The crop is part of efforts to heal the land and involve its Māori landowners. Matauranga Māori - traditional knowledge - is being fused with contemporary technology to produce nutritious food products including hemp milk.