Carol Stiles pops in to a pilot farm in Waikato where cows are wearing high tech collars which keep them behind virtual fences and Cosmo KentishBarnes is in Otago with a second generation pig farmer and his 3000 pigs.

Johan Buys spends his days tending cows' feet. It can be a mucky job but he says it's enormously satisfying watching a cow that was lame stroll painlessly back to the paddock.

When Paul Awaikera graduated from Lincoln University he decided not to go back to the Solomon Islands as his degree focused on temperate agriculture. Back home because it's tropical, he says it requires a different approach to farming. Twenty years on Paul and his family are still here and after being a farm manager for several years, he switched to variable order sharemilking and hasn't looked back since.

Dr John Hellstrom is at the helm of a group leading the way in New Zealand in the battle against wilding pines which are being blamed for creating tinder box conditions in parts of the country. The Marlborough Sounds Restoration Trust has made a lot of headway in its efforts to get rid of the trees.

Hungry lambs in Rangitikei are starting to put pressure on the amount of grass left for their mums and Nelson and Marlborough are already getting desperately dry. There's been historic low rainfall in Marlborough for the first eight months this year.

Traditional dairy farmers have the opportunity this month to learn from others who've taken the plunge into milking sheep. Sheep milk producer Maui Milk is running information sessions in the hope of getting more Waikato farmers to convert their farms. Maui Milk's Peter Gatley is Country Life's guest this week.

Country Life this week follows a cow podiatrist tending his patients' feet. It can be a mucky job but enormously satisfying! And Dr John Hellstrom talks about how the Marlborough Sounds is fighting the battle against wilding pines and getting some good results.

The global pandemic has touched even the lives of people in remote Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds.

Maria Lupton has New Zealand's only leech farm, with tens of thousands of the parasites in tanks on her Waikato property. She even takes them on holiday so she can respond quickly if a hospital needs them for helping repair skin after surgery.

Summerfruit NZ is launching a campaign to attract tertiary students to Central Otago over summer to pick fruit.