Listen to The Country online with Jamie Mackay: Live exports, Women’s Day, Wanaka Show and more

Valerie Adams competes in the gumboot throwing competition at the Hilux New Zealand Rural Games in 2020. Photo / Kurt Bayer

Today on The Country, Jamie Mackay catches up with Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard at day one of the Rural Games in Palmerston North.

On with the show:

Andrew Hoggard

Amongst other things, we discuss the Government’s plan to overturn the ban on live animal exports - a half-billion-dollar industry - plus SNAs.

Siobhan O’Malley

It’s International Women’s Day so today we thought we’d yarn to one of leading women in NZ agriculture. She’s the co-founder of rural charity Meat The Need, co-founder of Hemprino, school teacher, and if that’s not enough she’s a Hokitika dairy farmer in her spare time!

Chanelle Purser

We catch up with weather and track conditions with a West Otago dairy farmer on the ground at the Wanaka Show.

Simon Beamish

A Hawke’s Bay farm devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle has bounced back to win the supreme award at the East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards this week. Simon, Josi, Hugo and Pip Beamish of Awapai were announced as the winners at an event in Gisborne.

Chris Brandolino

NIWA research has outlined the extraordinary magnitude of flooding in Hawke’s Bay from Cyclone Gabrielle. Probability modelling also shows floods of that size were around one in a thousand years pre-Gabrielle - but post-Gabrielle, it’s now a one in 550-year event!

Barry Soper

Our political correspondent talks about a good week for the government and a bad week for TVNZ.

Listen below: