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Featured Country Life stories
Farmers count blessings with "life-saving rain" but others under pressure
Radio New Zealand's Country Life team regularly check in with farms and orchards around the country. Here's the latest regional wrap -- it is dry out there for farmers.
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From pup to pro: Miley the Huntaway hits her stride
31 Jan 2025We catch up with Miley the young Huntaway and her trainer Chris Shaw as she celebrates her first birthday and see what this pup has been up to. You will be…
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"We'd known each other for 17 years before we got married!"
31 Jan 2025There'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.
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Chef couple finds new home on the range
20 Dec 2024Wallingford Homestead in Central Hawke's Bay was once a bustling base for the local farming community. These days it's helping bridge the urban-rural divide and…
Country Life headlines with summaries.
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'Cutting the trees down is part of the experience'
20 Dec 2024Thousands 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…
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Rodeo girls giddy up for new season
22 Dec 2024The rodeo season is underway and Waikato sisters Lylah and Riley Wood are in an arena practising their rodeo skills, a sport which has taken them to the US with a national youth team this year.
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A Golden Bay farm grows, processes and sells Angus beef and lamb direct to the public
13 Dec 2024Sustainability, 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.
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Gearing up for farming life
What's it like for a young couple beginning their farming journey in difficult times?
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Green shoots for Hawke's Bay apple industry with 'well-needed' capital injection
Country Life: Shane Flynn from Craigmore Sustainables explains why they see a bright future for the region's horticulture sector.
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How pills for cows and 'light recipes' may help slow global warming
7 Dec 2024A range of tools are not too far off to knock back greenhouse gases from livestock burps.
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Milking does and making cheese, all in a day's work
6 Dec 2024"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."
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'Defend the shed' - how the poultry industry has been preparing for a bird flu outbreak
8 Dec 2024How are chicken and egg farms protecting themselves from avian flu? Country Life visited a broiler chicken farm to find out what good biosecurity practice involves.
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Could biochar be the wonder product for forestry and farming?
30 Nov 2024A large farm and forestry operation in the Far North is keen to turn its slash from upcoming harvests into something that benefits the land, climate and stock.
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Ditching the lawn mower and other curious ways to grow great tomatoes
29 Nov 2024Meet Anthony and Angela Tringham, of Curious Croppers, the couple growing heirloom tomatoes using agroecology principles.
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Trug-making almost a lost art
30 Nov 2024Tony Hitchcock has been crafting trugs - wooden garden baskets - for several years using untreated willow or hazel and poplar sourced locally from around Golden Bay.
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Schoolkids put buzz back into biodiversity on a dairy farm
23 Nov 2024Young school students plant habitat for an endangered skink and learn heaps about biodiversity at a nature reserve on a North Canterbury farm.
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Getting the jump on wallabies in the Bay of Plenty
22 Nov 2024How are efforts to control wallabies in the Bay of Plenty working?
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Young Kiwi rides high learning ancient equestrian craft
15 Nov 2024Sophia Stratford is following an ancient pathway, learning to make saddles through one of London's Worshipful Companies and she's given up a lot to get there.
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On the hunt for wallaby at 'Ground Zero'
15 Nov 2024A group of Te Arawa iwi are trying to reclaim their forest from mobs of wallabies which they say are killing the bush and gobbling up farmland.
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Healthy cows and worm-rich soil make Motupipi milkers happy
There's no looking back for a dairy farming couple who stopped adding imported feed and synthetic fertilisers to their paddocks.
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In the pink - keeping peonies all in the family
8 Nov 2024Flower 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.
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All creatures great and small: The zoo hospital helping native wildlife
8 Nov 2024Country Life goes inside Wellington Zoo's animal hospital, Te Kōhanga, where they help rehabilitate native birds ready for release back into the wild.
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Nitrogen: Friend or foe?
8 Nov 2024Scientists look at the details underpinning nitrogen and its use in agriculture and horticulture and its impacts on the environment
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Stockfeed from tough bugs 'good for planet and people'
In a Rotorua lab scientists are cooking up plans to create stockfeed out of greenhouse gases captured from geothermal power stations.
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The gore and the glory of a rural vet round
1 Nov 2024Kaipara-based Scottish vet Rory Dean has written a book based on his experiences as a rural vet in the UK and New Zealand.
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No looking back for farmer who switched to regenerative agriculture
25 Oct 2024John Legg's regenerative farming journey has been a big learning curve but the dairy farmer says the gains have been steady.
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Country Life: The truth about flower farming
Kate Briant, of The Rural Florist, juggles a busy young family with her burgeoning flower growing business.
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Getting cosy and creative under canvas
A riverside tent becomes a classroom for the day for children taking part in the Ruamāhanga Farm Foundation project, connecting the awa with the local community.
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