Super Farmer-Man ........

It's funny how you make a committment to yourself about something (bit like New year's resolutions I suppose) and life just keeps going on.  You wake up sometime down the track and darn it, you haven't kept up your promise....well I've been back in NZ for over two weeks and my blogg entries have slowed somewhat, until now!

I have continued reflecting on what I have seen and heard on my Nuffield studies overseas.  This has heightened my awarness of what is going on in NZ.   I feel a bit like a movie super hero with super attuned sense of awarness of farmers and their place in NZ society...not the stuff of movies I do admit...imagine it Super Farmer-Man with a cape made from homespun wool that turned even the heaviest rain shower, and my mortal weakness would probably be fresh baked scones with cream and strawberry jam.  Enough rambling!!

It is interesting (disturbing) to see various debates playing out which place farming and the  environment at opposite ends of the spectrum.  It is like the two are polar opposites and that we have to chose between one or the other.  It seems like progress of one can only be made at the expense of the other.  This is not helpful and will limit our ability to move forward as a country.  NZ Farmers should be proud of the quality food we produce from our beautiful environment, however  societies' expectations of farms and food production systems have changed .  The goal posts have shifted and interestingly farm systems have shifted rapidy response also.  What seems to be taking longer to re-adjust is getting our heads in the new space, so we can engage in this new position.  What would Super Farmer-Man do in this situation.


Below a photo of an effluent storage bunker on a UK livestock farm kindly funded 50% by the EU.