Country Life

700 hectares of hill country on Nigel and Cathy Graham's Kaikoura farm is being retired. Income from honey and carbon credits are repacing livestock on the regenerating land. The couple have also protected a wetland that has one of the best examples of a raupo reedland in the district.

Once on the outside of Hamilton sits an urban farm keen to deliver vegetables that don't cost the planet. Run by five women, Earth Stewards practices poly-cropping on their organic vegetable beds.

This new segment looks at some of the major agricultural news of the week with RNZ's rural news team. Reporter Maja Burry chats about dragonfruit, deer milk, rural support for flood-stricken farmers and the departing of Dairy NZ boss Tim Mackle.

Country Life vists a suburban market garden delivering vegetables that don't cost the earth and a beef farm where hills are being returned to native bush. Also in the show, a trip to Fossil Creek Farm in Nelson where people are at the centre ... its animals and beautiful setting help nurture and heal troubled minds.

A new mountain bike park has the run of the hills at Rick and Julia King's farm at Clarence near Kaikōura. It's the brainchild of their daughter Genevieve and has replaced the Merino sheep and cattle at Middle Hill Station.

With no flora experience but the need for a new direction, Colin and Mary Birch have become the owners of a lily nursery in Cambridge.

Farmers in Tairāwhiti are looking forward to having more boots on the ground this month to help clean up their farms still littered with forestry debris from recent floods. Regional Federated Farmers president Toby Williams who farms sheep and beef talks about the pain his fellow farmers are going through after another major storm last month.

Assessment of damage is underway in Pukekohe after a deluge of rain saw onions floating down the street and farms turned into lakes. Kiwifruit vines and structures have also been wiped out - while parts of the South Island start preparing for a drought.

This week Country life is at a new mountain bike park that has the run of the hills at Rick and Julia King's farm at Clarence near Kaikōura. The team also visits flood-stricken growers south of Auckland, a farmer cleaning up after another Gisborne storm, and a lily nursery in Cambridge.

A monthly account of life on the land with Oxford farmer and YouTube vlogger Alistair Bird. In this episode, he explains what happened on-farm in December and gets some calves ready for living on the hills.