Two $15,000 scholarships, which include international travel, are on offer to tertiary students interested in pursuing a career in the dairy and animal breeding sector.
CRV Ambreed offers the scholarships annually - one each to Massey and Lincoln university undergraduate science students.
The scholarship includes a trip to one of CRV's international business units of the students' choice in Czech Republic, Brazil, the US or Holland to observe dairy systems in other parts of the world, plus $3000 towards the cost of the students' tertiary studies.
Students can apply for the scholarships through Lincoln University and Massey University's scholarship offices. Applications close on March 15.
Hunt for butterfly
Bay Bush Action volunteers have been travelling around Northland's large forests hunting for the beautiful, rarely seen, highly endangered, forest ringlet butterfly. They've been hunting for this amazing butterfly with Steve Wheatley from Sir David Attenborough's Butterfly Conservation group in the UK. This Forest Ringlet butterfly is a species found only in New Zealand and it's the only one of its species. In other words, there are no close relatives.
NAIT system down
The National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system will be down for maintenance between 6.15pm-7.45pm today. During the outage the NAIT system will not be accessible, but will resume to normal operation once the upgrade is completed. Anyone needing to contact NAIT during the shutdown can call 0800 482 463 or email info@OSPRI.co.NZ.
White is the new yellow
Fonterra has developed a new white butter to meet growing demand from some Middle East food manufacturers who prefer butter from grain fed cows which produce dairy products with a pale colour. Fonterra has reduced the golden appearance of its butter from grass-fed cows for customers to use in spreadable jar cheese, recombined cream cheese, and could soon be using in icecream. The new product is being sold in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Turkey and Pakistan. Future plans include launching it in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and South America.
Firm wool auction
Eighty-five per cent of the 9230 bales on offer sold at the North Island wool auction on January 19. New Zealand Wool Services International Ltd CEO John Dawson said restricted client activity coupled with the Chinese New Year holiday limited the market. Compared to the January 12 North Island auction, fine crossbred full fleece was firm for good style and 4 to 7 per cent cheaper for poorer styles, good colour coarse crossbred fleece was 1.5 per cent dearer with average to poor styles firm to 3 per cent cheaper, and short first lambs were 2 to 3 per cent cheaper. The next sale today consists of 9600 bales from the South Island and 8850 bales from the North Island.