This week on The Best of The Country, Jamie Mackay caught up with Stefan Vogel, Rabobank's General Manager of food and agribusiness research division for Australia and New Zealand.
The week's top interviews were:
Dr Jacqueline Rowarth:
Why is Greenpeace outraged (because they're perpetually outraged - that's why!) at theprospects of us eating a "sustainable healthy diet"? We asked one of New Zealand's leading farming academics and found out why a vegetarian diet is better for you than a vegan one. Better still, chose one with a healthy mix of animal protein in there as well.
Our US farming correspondent commented on springtime in Kentucky as the bluegrass blows in the wind! Plus, we talked about the Kentucky Derby, Joe Biden's Ukraine response and why Covid is soooo 2021 now in America.
Siobhan O'Malley:
Not merely content with just being a dairy farmer, school teacher and Meat the Need co-founder, we asked an incredibly busy woman about her latest entrepreneurial venture - Hemprino - New Zealand's latest fashion label which combined the properties of hemp and merino in a single blend. The idea was spawned during the 2018 Kellogg Rural Leadership Course along with fellow alumni Paul Ensor and Harriet Bell.
The Sydney-based General Manager of Rabobank's food and agribusiness research division for Australia and NZ discussed the global commodity markets, including food inflation and the fallout from the Russia/Ukraine conflict.
Chris Russell:
Our Australian correspondent was about to address the Order of Australia Association on food security and climate change. His talk was titled "Can we have our cake and heat it too?"
Christopher Luxon:
Filling in for the PM, who was in Japan, we found the National Party leader in Northland about to do a "town hall' meeting in Waipū where he was expecting to get his ear chewed by some farmers (one in particular)! We asked if he was a manufactured politician plus, we talked about Greenpeace, agricultural GHG emissions, the global supply chain and Easter trading rules.
