Letter to the Editor - Feds push engineered grasses

It seemed a harmless enough thing to do, sowing beet seeds across the region's farms – what could go wrong?  Velvet leaf, that's what. 

  The pest plant, one of the most damaging known to farming, arrived in Southland mixed with the beet seeds and set off the emergency bells as soon as it was discovered. The cost of weeding it out was enormous and hasn't ended yet. 

  Two years earlier, it was the turn of swedes, mutagenically altered swede seeds immune to herbicide, sown across Southland farms causing more anxiety, expense and the deaths of hundreds of dairy cows. 

  These agricultural disasters are coming faster and faster, as farming intensifies. 

  Now, it's the turn of genetically-modified pasture grasses. They're not in Southland yet, but they'll be here soon, if Federated Farmers' president Dr William Rolleston gets his way. He has been pushing for the introduction of genetically-engineered grasses into our farmland for some time and now he's increasing the pressure on the New Zealand public to accept these unnatural seeds. 

  Did he miss the news reports about the velvetleaf crisis? Was he not listening when talk down here was all about cows dying after eating mutagenic swedes? 

  Could someone please bring Dr Rolleston up to speed?

Beyondsemble in Riverton

I'm organizing a performance by these exuberant people for this coming Friday evening, here in Riverton. More to come on that soon...

Beyondsemble

"A pyrotechnic display of dazzling virtuosity by four highly imaginative and gifted musician."
"These four talented musicians have the skills to make music of the highest quality look easy.
They play together with complete trust...This concert was exhilarating and seemingly faultless"
With responses like this, it is no surprise the band has shot into the limelight on the local festival scene and is getting a lot of attention offshore.
An eclectic and diverse mix of tunes and songs both original and sourced from around the globe are executed with virtuosic skill, infectious energy, a sense of adventure and an exuberance of spirit.

Good idea for Southland

(After the original by Steffan Browning)
Southland should follow the Tasmanian Government's lead and have a moratorium on genetically engineered (GE/GMO) crops and animals to give food and agricultural industries the best market advantage, ES councillor Robert Guyton said today.

Tasmania announced yesterday that it would extend its moratorium on GE indefinitely to give its agricultural industry an advantage in marketing to increasingly food-safety conscious consumers.



There is a huge, premium market for GE-free products that Southland should be targeting
"Tasmania's smart approach has given it access to a high-value market whereas other Australian states have accepted some GE crops such as canola, which has caused contamination, market rejection issues, community discord, and loss of opportunity for non-GE producers.

"A permanent ban on GE would enhance Southland's image. Southland has no GE commercial crops or animal production at present with just two GE field trials and one legal GE equine influenza vaccine. We could go further than Tasmania and ban the GE field trials and release of GE vaccines.

"Tasmanian beef producers exporting to the USA celebrated yesterday's announcement and Southland producers should also be able to profit from the GE-free advantage.

"Resistance to GE food is building in the USA and the market for GE-free food is already well established in Europe. Asian markets are also becoming more and more sensitive to food safety issues. The best value for Southland exporters can be gained by reinstating a GE moratorium," said Mr Guyton.

Fruit trees everywhere

Nick Kiddey is a man on a mission to get more fruit and nut trees planted in parks and streets in the Nelson region, to help people eat good food for free.
Each week Nick tries to take time out to bicycle around Nelson city, foraging from the many fruit and nut trees that already exist in its suburbs, and he's hoping it's an activity that will catch on.
He is helping to lead the charge in the Nelson region for more food-producing trees and bushes to be planted in public spaces, through a concept called "open orchards".

This article (read the rest here) features our good friend Nick and the spread of the Open Orchard project throughout the country. Today's Southland Times (article not online...yet) describes how far it has got in Southland - a long way, that is, and the involvement of the District Council. They've bought and planted a number of the trees we from the old 'parent' trees from around the area and have taken our original project to the next level - local government involvement.
It's very gratifying.

Nick's a great guy, btw and gave my career a nudge in the right direction by doing what he does best - recognising opportunity.

Northern Southland

Mataura hill

Self portrait with bird crap

Tree for Shunda

Pipe

Woolshed tally board

Farming destroys wetlands

If you live in Southland you'll probably know that much of the network of wetlands that once graced the plains, are gone. Most of the wetlands that served for millenia to protect the environment from scouring and flooding were drained by farmers as they sought to convert a vibrant mahi nga kai resource into production pasture. The consequences of that clearing has been devastating to many  components of the broader environment; fish, birds and people, not to mention plants and untold trillions of smaller players. I've been involved for many years in the protection of a wetland that was snatched from the jaws of the dairy giant; bought, fenced and managed to keep it functioning as it should and so the article in today's Southland Times caught my eye immediately and held my attention throughout. It's the story of a wetland and its saviour, Tony Reiger who similarly turned the dairy 'machine' from its path of wetland destruction and saved his wetland, Big Lagoon from ruination. Sadly, Tony's moving on and the future of the wetland is uncertain. It's protected by a QEII covenant, but not by Tony for much longer. Tony says:
"If there was no lagoon, house or covenant on this land, I could get top dollar from the dairy industry but this land deserves to be protected for future generations."
I couldn't agree more. The article continues,"Originally the lagoon covered an area of 17 hectares, but after major drainage efforts were made by dairy farmers in the rearly 1980's to expand grazing lands, all that remained in 2003 when he brought the property was a mudhole one hectare in size."

"Big lagoon's destruction was not unique. It was a casualty of an ongoing war from industry, farming and other factors against wetlands all across New Zealand." Mr Reiger said.

Tony's efforts have been Herculean and I'm grateful to him for it. Now, if we can just spread his enthusiasm for wetlands right across the region, we'd be starting to redress some of the wrongs inflicted upon the landscape in the name of progress and private property rights. 

Solar eclipse

Peter Jackson writes:
Kia ora, The Sun finally rewarded us with a brief appearence between clouds to show us the partial eclipse after patiently waiting for a parting in the dense cloud cover. So here's a shot taken at around 8.35pm looking through the Unitron 75mm f16 & taken with a Canon Ixus 500 - also a shot of sun beams while trying to salute or politely request for the sun to please appear before setting again behind clouds...... Sunny thoughts Peter Jackson Te Anau

Fishing for reason.

From today's Southland Times, alarm sounds over the blue cod fishery in the south but not everyone is 'concerned'

"Declining blue cod catch rates have fishery experts concerned about the future of a multimillion-dollar quota area off the Southland coast."

"Saltwater Science director Glen Carbines said his company was two years into the four-year study and preliminary findings were concerning."


"... We can safely say we have concerns for the fishery," he said.

However, our 'rip, sh*t and bust' spokesperson, Cyril Lawless, famous for his dismissal of the plight of the Hectors dolphins, thinks otherwise.


"Riverton Fishermen's Association president Cyril Lawless said he did not have concerns for the industry."

If you didn't laugh, you'd cry.

I'm not feeling so chipper about what's in my freezer either...

Go Organic

My next engagement is speaking to the Agriculture New Zealand 'Go Organic' group on Wednesday night. I've spoken to classes of students taking this course over several years and it's always surprising to me how various they are, both in age and in background. In general, they seem to be ordinary Southlanders who are taking their gardening a step further into organics and I like to take the opportunity to try to lever them a little further still toward permaculture and some of the other food-growing, soil management practices that we employ out here on our land. It's always a fun group to talk with.

We've got rain!

The water trucks had been running for several days, refilling water tanks in Otatara and Riverton and no doubt other rural Southland enclaves as well, but they won't be rolling today - we've had a couple of days of rain now and that'll be doing their job for them. How common is a winter drought down here I wonder?