Stories by Cosmo Kentish-Barnes

A training initiative in Southland is giving young adults with high-functioning disabilities the skills required to work on a dairy farm.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to come in and give a dyed-in-the-wool farmer a wee nudge. This is where Southland entrepreneur Laura Todd comes in.

Tuatapere's picturesque domain is transformed into a sensory celebration of rural life during the annual Waiau A&P Show.

Rainbow Valley is located on regenerating whenua at the end of a gravel road near Tākaka. Several families share the land and help run a small farm for the benefit of the whole community.

Hemp grows beside wheat, barley and peas at Blair and Jody Drysdale's farm in Northern Southland. The seeds are pressed and made into nutritional oil and skincare cream, that the couple sell direct to…

Red seaweed - grown in Bluff - significantly reduces methane emissions in beef and dairy cattle with no adverse effects to the animals, their products or the environment, scientists say.

There's never a dull day on Kaihoka, the Wyllie's isolated Golden Bay farm, which has been the backdrop for scenes from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Thousands of perfectly shaped trees are harvested in the lead-up to the festive season at Andrew McAllister's Needle Fresh Christmas tree farm in Swannanoa. In a next door paddock he's created a huge…

Sustainability, animal welfare and forging a connection between producer and consumer are at the core of how things are done at Ellis Creek Farm, near the Abel Tasman National Park in Golden Bay.

"We do the whole process here on the farm because it preserves the quality of the milk. It's only traveling from the barn to my cheese kitchen."

Tony Hitchcock has been crafting trugs - wooden garden baskets - for several years using untreated willow or hazel and poplar sourced locally from around Golden Bay.

Young school students plant habitat for an endangered skink and learn heaps about biodiversity at a nature reserve on a North Canterbury farm.

There's no looking back for a dairy farming couple who stopped adding imported feed and synthetic fertilisers to their paddocks.

Scientists look at the details underpinning nitrogen and its use in agriculture and horticulture and its impacts on the environment

Flower picking and packing for export is in full swing at Prebbleton Peonies. Most of the large, fragrant flowers are flown daily to Japan, the US and Europe.

John Legg's regenerative farming journey has been a big learning curve but the dairy farmer says the gains have been steady.

Hunters for Hope's Steve Hill and Adam Kreisel turn surplus venison from hunters and farmers into high-protein food parcels for low income families.

Ocean views makes harvesting of iceberg lettuce and broccoli a lot more pleasant for Ben Scott and his staff at Claverley Farm in North Canterbury.

Dome glamping, farm tours and jetting up the Hurunui River supplements income and highlights cultural heritage at a traditional sheep farm.

An "eye-opening" farm trial could help clean up New Zealand's rivers and streams.

Maury Leyland and John Penno have created a health food supplement based on protein extracted from leafy greens and in particular, locally grown lucerne.

"I've been farming on my own account for 52 years and cut down a fair share of trees, so now is my time to leave this place better than we found it," Chris Bolderston told Country Life.

Methven farmer Hamish Marr is proud to showcase farmers' and growers' innovations to overseas governments "and anyone else who is buying our products". 

There's often little that can be done to prevent erosion of farmland, but the roots which grow from trees like willow and poplar are one way to help secure land that is at risk of slipping and…

A backyard initiative is keeping blokes busy in North Canterbury. The Cheviot MenzShed is a tooled-up workshop where men can tinker, talk and share their skills with the local community.