Robert Hickson • Mar 17, 2021 •
Regenerative agriculture, where the health and wellbeing of the environment, animals and farmers is prioritised, is gaining cachet. I see that as a necessary but insufficient change to how we manage land and watery environments. In some respects discussions about regenerative agriculture are more backward- than forward-looking. Take, for example, the UK’s Food, Farming and … Read More
Guest Author • Sep 09, 2020 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Methane is a shorter-lived greenhouse gas – why do we average it out over 100 years? By … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 04, 2019 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz According to the United Nations, food shortages are a threat due to climate change. Are food shortages a … Read More
Guest Author • Sep 11, 2019 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz I would like to know to what extent regenerative agriculture practices could play a role in reducing carbon … Read More
Robert Hickson • Apr 03, 2019 •
It’s easy to get momentarily excited about robots on the farm, particularly if they are close to home, picking apples or herding stock. Robots have been rolling out onto farms elsewhere for several years and the pace is picking up, so NZ is in … Read More
Guest Author • Sep 18, 2012 •
By Prof. Jack Heinemann, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury. My report on assessing the risks of a form of GM wheat has sparked heated comment here and on other blog sites. The Sciblog-associated Science Media Centre (NZ) included comments from Peter Dearden and a link to the “Genetics Otago” blog along with comments made by … Read More
Aimee Whitcroft • May 13, 2010 •
Statistics New Zealand’s just released its figures for New Zealand’s agricultural production to June 2009. The overall message? Dairy cows are up 5% to almost 6 million, with a particularly big increase in the South Island. On the other hand, sheep are down 5% to a little over 32 million: half their … Read More
Aimee Whitcroft • Apr 07, 2010 •
This week marks the inaugural meeting of the Global Research Alliance (GRA). For those of you not familiar with it, it’s probably one of the best things to come out of last year’s largely-failed Copenhagen talks. The idea had first budded in late 2008, but was officially launched … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 15, 2010 •
By Prof. Jack Heinemann* Dr. Nina Federoff, the science advisor to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, voiced more blatantly in New Zealand what many other advocates of large-scale plantings of genetically engineered (GE/GM) plants sought to imply for years: ’There’s almost no food that isn’t genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all evolution.’ This stance … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 02, 2010 •
The final in a Statistics New Zealand series about the numbers in our world Let the sheep jokes end! The people are catching up. There are now fewer than eight sheep to every New Zealander. This is a far cry from the good old days when one of the few things foreigners knew about New Zealand was … Read More