They say the essentials in life are shelter and food. Like chicken and egg, which one should come first? Once highly productive soils for food production is gone to housing, there is no coming back and New Zealand’s recent Our Land 2021 report outlines the big crossroads our country is in. To read the report, visit https://environment.govt.nz/publications/our-land-2021/ This interview was featured as part of this week’s Opinion Maker programme brought to you by Farmlands, New Zealand's largest farmer owned rural supplies co-operative. Visit them at farmlands.co.nz To listen to the show on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

By the end of 2022, New Zealand farmers & growers need to know their greenhouse gas numbers, so where do you even start? What tools are there to measure livestock’s nitrous oxide and methane emissions or your on-farm sequestration rate? For practical information, backed by science, to help farmers and growers get to grips with climate change, visit https://www.agmatters.nz/ To learn more about He Waka Eke Noa: The Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership, visit https://hewakaekenoa.nz/ This interview was featured as part of this week’s Opinion Maker programme brought to you by Farmlands, New Zealand's largest farmer owned rural supplies co-operative. Visit them at farmlands.co.nz To listen to the show on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

Leadership comes in many forms as the world evolves and the farming industry deals with a rapid rate of change. In this week’s Opinion Maker, Sarah asks the four finalists in the 2021 Zanda McDonald Award for New Zealand what their ideas of leadership really look like, how to have your ideas heard, how they have felt supported in the primary sector to thrive and their advice to other young leaders. For more information about the Zanda McDonald Award, visit: www.zandamcdonaldaward.com This interview was featured as part of this week’s Opinion Maker programme brought to you by Farmlands, New Zealand's largest farmer owned rural supplies co-operative. Visit them at farmlands.co.nz To listen to the show on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

Associate Professor Miranda Mirosa from Otago University has been the author of what is now known as ‘The Mirosa Report’ advising the NZ government on what is needed to not only fix, but first find out how big and where the problem lies. To read the Mirosa Report, the briefing to investigate food waste in New Zealand to the Parliamentary Environment Committee: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/SCR_96164/cebeaf7cf20b40245fdf5c60601d83a2ac5b105f This interview was featured as part of this week’s Opinion Maker programme brought to you by Farmlands, New Zealand's largest farmer owned rural supplies co-operative. Visit them at farmlands.co.nz To listen to the show on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

Anna Yallop, General Manager at Bioresource Processing Alliance explains how we can utilise our secondary by-products from our primary industries in order to lower the amount of food that is wasted. For more information on the Bioresource Processing Alliance: https://bioresourceprocessing.co.nz/ This interview was featured as part of this week’s Opinion Maker programme brought to you by Farmlands, New Zealand's largest farmer owned rural supplies co-operative. Visit them at farmlands.co.nz To listen to the show on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

What started out as a small members bill led to the New Zealand government creating a $32 million fund to support nationwide food distribution initiatives, rescuing food waste and feeding our most needy. For more read the report of the Environment Committee: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/SCR_96164/cebeaf7cf20b40245fdf5c60601d83a2ac5b105f This interview was featured as part of this week’s Opinion Maker programme brought to you by Farmlands, New Zealand's largest farmer owned rural supplies co-operative. Visit them at farmlands.co.nz To listen to the show on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

New Zealand land-owners who wish to plant permanent native tree forests in their marginal, steep country and to provide filtration buffer zones for waterways often are doing so at the expense of the long-term financial sustainability of their farming operation. Forever Forest’s is an initiative that forest manager, Adrian Loo, explains helps line up the dollars to plant from retail emitters to off-set with land-owners looking to find the capital to plant native trees and in-turn the premium carbon credits that promote biodiversity. For more info: https://www.foreverforests.co.nz/ To listen to the interview on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​

Driving carbon credits as the only way forward has seen a monoculture mindset in New Zealand forestry and a Canterbury farmer is calling for our Emissions Trading Scheme to include agriculture must be adapted to include native trees to improve biodiversity outcomes. UK-born, Rakaia-based crop & sheep farmer and passionate conservationist, Andrew Luddington, shared his opinion on how we need to make native trees a priority in policy making. For more information: https://farmersweekly.co.nz/topic/opinion/view/pulpit-native-trees-should-be-a-priority To listen to the interview on podcast, visit www.sarahscountry.com Subscribe to Sarah’s Country on the podcast and if you love us, please leave a review! Contact the show: sarah@sarahscountry.com Follow Sarah’s Country on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahscountry Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahscountry​