The sad death of John Clarke aka Fred Dagg has got The Country's Jamie Mackay remembering the late 70s/early 80s when farmers were perhaps thought of more fondly than they are today.
This coupled with TVNZ's Sunday programme depicting farmers in a poor light prompts Mackay to ask Jim Hopkins "where have we gone wrong?"
Rural Raconteur Hopkins believes we haven't gone wrong at all, but that "the world has moved on".
He goes on to explain that the growing urban/rural divide and a lack of family connections to the agricultural world have pushed people away not only in New Zealand but globally.
"The first world is disengaged from its rural hinterland" says Hopkins, who believes the realities of farming life are not palatable to urban folk.