Country Life

Can a small town plant its way towards carbon neutrality? In Ōtaki, landowners, school children, volunteers and community groups are creating a ring of native forest around the town.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can find more about the Ōtaki Carbon Forest Project, here.

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Anisha visits The Good Cow's milk vending station in North Canterbury.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Interested in vending machine milk? Listen to Sally’s story on a stall near Wellington, here.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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Zoë Vaughan shares how Earth Glow converts butchery waste into balms and creams.

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This week Country Life is food foraging around Christchurch, picking flowers for a floral fundraiser and finding out what it takes to become a top young winegrower.

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Chef Adam Harrison forages produce around Christchurch for his Michelin-starred kitchen.

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New Zealand's top young viticulturists put their technical knowledge, practical skills and leadership abilities to the test in the Young Viticulturist of the Year competition.

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"Every corner of this farm she's touched something, planted something," says Pattie O'Boyle of the legacy left behind by Marangai's first farming family.

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A wrap of news from RNZ's rural news desk

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This week Country Life is on a high tech beef farm and visits a training centre teaching how to handle rural health emergencies.

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Introducing virtual fencing and other technology has helped the Hardwick-Smith family double the profitability of some parts of their sheep and beef hill country farm.

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With lambing well underway, sheep grazier Peter Crook shares some down-to-earth advice on how to deal with triplet lambs.

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The Rural Health Academic Centre, Ashburton, teaches young doctors and nurses how to handle rural emergencies.

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Injured feathered patients find a safe and restful spot to recuperate in Averil Osborne's ward.

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A wrap of conditions on farms and orchards around New Zealand

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This week Country Life is on farms looking for meteorites, and newborn calves, visits a herd home for cows and takes you into the world of a station cook preparing "smoko".

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Searching for a bit of space debris in a farm paddock is like looking for a needle in a haystack, except you're not quite sure where the haystack is. Country Life joins in the hunt for fragments of the fireball which shot over the lower North Island in late July.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Spending an extra half a million dollars building a herd home for his cows means Paul Kuriger can milk for an extra month while helping protect the many waterways on his farm, Crystal Rivers.

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Back in 2021 producer Sally Round got up before the birds to meet Carterton dairy farmer Jodie James and his team to find out what happens over calving.

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Our Changing World's Claire Concannon talks to station cook Philippa Cameron.

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Tune in to Our Changing World to find out what Claire was in Duntroon for.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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Country Life visits a centre helping injured birds of prey return to the wild and an insect farm breeding beneficial bugs.

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The NZ Raptor Trust has spent the last decade helping birds of prey recover from road accidents and return to the wild.

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Bioforce grows beneficial insects, sending them around the country to gardeners and orchardists, providing a fighting force to beat back pests in tunnel houses and greenhouses, the natural way.

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Dairy farmer Amanda Jordan lives in view of one of Aotearoa's most beautiful sights, but she says visitors are playing with lives snapping photos of Mt Taranaki on the winding rural road where she lives.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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This week Country Life delves into the world of rare breeds, meets a farmer foraging seed for her native trees and heads to an olive grove on the Kapiti Coast.

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After decades farming sheep and beef on rugged hill country, Diana and Grant Crosse made an unlikely career change, swapping livestock for olive trees near Ōtaki on the Kāpiti Coast. The transition has brought new challenges, new skills and a whole new lifestyle, but much of their farming know-how still applies.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Farmer Sandra Campbell shows us the native trees she's grown from foraged seed, and how they're making her farm a "nicer place to be."

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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John Earney finds the value in rare, sometimes almost forgotten breeds of animal. The president of the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand says that's the key to ensuring their survival - be they farm animals or native species.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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This week Country Life digs into the arable world, meets the maker of the world's "supreme champion cheese" and learns about growing plants hydroponically in Horowhenua.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Husband and wife duo Tony and Lisa Dale-Low traded corporate life in the city for growing fresh herbs and salad greens.

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In the heart of Taranaki dairy country, a large silver trophy has arrived from Europe. The team at Lactalis' Bridge Street plant in Eltham are the proud makers of a cheese judged Supreme Champion at the 2026 International Cheese and Dairy Awards in June. Sally Round went to meet master cheesemaker Cathy Lang.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Scott Champion shares how the Foundation for Arable Research is working to rebuild confidence and stability in the cropping sector.

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A wrap of conditions on farms and orchards around the country.

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This week Country life talks to an American poultry farmer about her bird flu experience, visits a llama farmer and meets a family who've been farming celery for more than a century.

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For 120 years, the Franklin family has farmed celery through changing markets, wild weather and six generations of family life. Alongside the celery fields, visitors now wander through sunflower patches, butterfly houses and a bustling farmyard where one cheeky goat has become a bit of a celebrity.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can find more about Franklin Farm, here.

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It was the 1990s when many farms were looking to diversify. 'Why not llamas?', thought Southland spinner and farmer Janette Buckingham.

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What happens when bird flu arrives on your farm? Delaware poultry farmer and educator Georgie Cartanza shares her first hand experience of an H5N1 outbreak, the loss of 148,000 birds, and the biosecurity lessons she believes every farmer should know.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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This week on Country life, the team chat to Irish farmer and author John Connell and heads to East Timor to see how money earnt in New Zealand orchards is benefiting those back home.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Producer Anna Thomas travelled to Timor-Leste with assistance from the Asia New Zealand Foundation

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Thousands of Timorese have applied to join New Zealand's seasonal worker scheme, which opened to Timor Leste for the first time in 2026. Seven months of orchard work could earn them up to $40,000, considered a fortune in one of the world's poorest countries. Anna Thomas travelled to Timor Leste to meet some of the families benefiting from their remittances.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Producer Anna Thomas travelled to Timor-Leste with assistance from the Asia New Zealand Foundation.

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Irish writer and farmer John Connell latest book is The Wisdom of Farmers. He shares some of the pearls of wisdom he has learnt from a decade of farming with Country Life.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Anisha Satya speaks with farmer Nigel Woodhead about his "mosaic" farming system.

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A wrap of news from RNZ's rural news desk

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The late Sir Sam Neill told Country Life he was excited by the "farming" side of wine, that and the beautiful Otago landscape where his Two Paddocks vineyard is set. We paid the actor and vintner a visit back in the spring of 2022.

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This week Country Life takes you stargazing at a farm near Lake Tekapo, goes behind the scenes of a wool auction in Napier and is with some belching cows being measured for methane emissions at a giant barn in Waikato.

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Gianina gives an update on her suburban vege garden. She's preparing to plant garlic as the stars align around Matariki.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can see photos and hear more about the garden set up from our previous episode, here.

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Anisha learns about Matariki, lightyears, and farm diversification on a starry night in Lake Tekapo.

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Country Life steps ringside for the "verbal boxing match" of a wool auction in Napier. Richard Kells of Kells Wool traces his experience of the wool industry from the era of skinny sheep in the 1980s to the reviving industry of present day.

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A giant barn in Waikato features 10 feeder bins for cows to graze from freely allowing their burps to be measured for methane emissions.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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Sally Round chats to Otago farmer Becks Smith about her ventures, and Braden Crosby of the Bragato Institute. Anisha Satya eats deep-friend locusts, and Mark Leishman checks out the drones fighting wilding pines in South Canterbury.

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Mark Leishman heads to a South Canterbury farm to join a drone pilot extinguishing weeds and finds out about the potential of the technology on farm.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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French grape growers are being paid to pull out vines in order to rebalance supply and demand, while those in Australia have taken out millions and turned to other crops. In New Zealand, with our Sauvignon Blanc still in demand, growers are being offered a tool to help them decide whether to mothball vines until the market improves. Braden Crosby of the Marlborough-based Bragato Research Institute explains.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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To find the mothballing decision-making tool, go to bri.co.nz

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Anisha eats locusts at a food-grade insect farm in Dunedin.

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Otago farmer, vet and entrepreneur Becks Smith has many jobs. You might find her on a roof installing solar panels, scanning ewes in the yard or sitting in front of a microphone for her podcast about sustainability in farming. She is Country Life's guest this week.

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Gianina Schwanecke is talking bulls at a bull sale on the East Coast. Tangihau Angus stud is famous for setting the nation’s top prices. Can it do it again this year? Sally Round is at a coffee tree orchard in the Far North whose trailblazing owner Rob Schluter is on a new path to focus on the mystique of coffee and Anisha Satya sits down for a yarn on the farm with Bill Deans whose family farm in Canterbury is home to the rare and “chunky" mudfish.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Ikarus coffee has been a trailblazer growing coffee in NZ. Fourteen years after the first successful seedlings went in, Rob Schluter has doubled the number of coffee trees on his steep farm above Doubtless Bay, and there's a new venture brewing to bring the magic of coffee to life from farm to cup.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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For the past two years Tangihau Angus had set the top price for the breed and all bulls - breaking two national records. Gianina Schwanecke returned to see how they'd fare this year.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can catch our previous story on Tangihau Angus, here.

Or learn more from them directly, here.

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All 56 bulls paraded through the pen sold, for an average price of *$24,550 each. Tangihau's top bull sold for $100,000.
*Corrected price

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Bill Deans shares how planting waterways on his family's farm have provided a home for New Zealand's second-rarest native fish.

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A wrap of conditions on farms and orchards around the country for the month of June

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Country Life heads to Gore for the Tussock Country Music festival, visits a woollen mill in the heart of a remote hill country station whose farmer has fulfilled her dream of creating a hub for wool, and Nuffield scholar Lisa Portas chats about the potential for New Zealand farmers to increase the value of the fibre.

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Anisha visits Gore for a slice of the Tussock Country Music Festival - boots, utes, mullets and all!

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Taking the wool off the sheep's back and turning it into yarn within a few paces of the shearing shed has been a dream come true for a North Island sheep farmer. Patrizia Vieno has built a mini mill on her hill country station near Tinui.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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Wairarapa-based Nuffield Scholar Lisa Portas recently wrapped up her research looking into why New Zealand's strong-wool sector struggles to capture value despite producing a sustainable fibre.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can find her Nuffield Scholar report, here.

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This week Country Life heads to a basketball game to celebrate rural migrants, checks out the new tech at Fieldays and follows the journey of urban food scraps to a banana farm.

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Food scraps from retirement villages and schools are heping to nourish a banana orchard and other farms via the City to Farm project, which aims to keep organic waste out of landfill and help curb climate change. This story was first broadcast in July 2025.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Anisha learns how the rural Filipino migrant community has grown in the last 20 years - and watches some basketball.

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Anthony Clyde, considered the godfather of e-bikes in New Zealand, has created a new electric farmbike that's proving a hit at Fieldays, the Galvbike.

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You can learn more about Galvbike, here.

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A wrap of the week's news from RNZ's rural news team.

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Follow along over the next few months as Gianina Schwanecke turns her backyard into a food garden in the name of resiliency.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Country Life digs into the art of growing your own food and dips into the archives to to visit one of the country's longest running alternative communities.

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Rainbow Valley in Golden Bay is one of New Zealand's longest running alternative communities. Country Life paid the community a visit last year as it turned 50 years old.

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Guillermo and Christina Tolentino share the joys and challenges of migrating to rural New Zealand.

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This week Country Life is at a training centre for wild Kaimanawa horses, and checks out the oyster harvest in Bluff.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Anisha heads to Bluff to understand the state of the wild oyster fishery.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Kelly Wilson trains Kaimanawa wild horses at the sanctuary she's built on just over 18 hectares, a few minutes out of Taupō. Jimmy Ellingham paid her a visit to see how she helps get them used to the human touch so they can be rehomed.

You can find photos, video and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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Steve Allan's been trapping and making traps for nearly 50 years. His simple, strong kill traps made in his home factory in Northland have eradicated thousands of pests over the years and can be found as far away as the Falkland Islands.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

With thanks to:

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A round up of conditions on farms and orchards around the country

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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This week Country Life follows a farrier as he fits a horse with new shoes, compares different milks and their nutritional benefits, and visit's an actor's bit of country in Middle Earth.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

In this episode:

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William Kircher, known for his role as Bifur the dwarf in The Hobbit trilogy, has moved to the country. When not performing overseas, he and jazz singer Nicole Chesterman Kircher are enjoying the rural pace with sheep, chooks, fruit trees and an honesty box at the gate.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

With thanks to:

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From working with 2000 degrees Celsius heat to moving a half tonne animal, being a farrier is no easy job, as Country Life found out.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can find more about Barton Blacksmithing Services, here.

With thanks to:

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A round-up of the week's rural news.

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Country Life speaks to a Massey University professor who specialises in nutrition and food chemistry about different types of milk - their pros and cons.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

With thanks to:

And to hear more from the previous guests featured:

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Ever wondered how farmed salmon produce the next generation? Anisha tours Akaroa King Salmon's hatchery in Canterbury, and an award-winning Māori trust-owned farm in Te Tai Tokerau has had to battle fierce flooding this year. Sally is in the farm ute touring the damage. Also, Dairy Woman of the Year Hinehou Timutimu talks about how she is inspired to farm for the community.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

In this episode:

0:42 - Rural News Wrap

7:37 - Farming takes a village

15:49 - Northland's storms test award-winning farm

30:16 - Spawning day on a salmon farm

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What does it take to make salmon babies that grow into big, tasty fish. Anisha Satya visits Akaroa King Salmon's hatchery in North Canterbury.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

With thanks to:

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In just three years the Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust's beef farm in Northland was able to boast a "million-dollar herd" on its rehabilitated whenua, winning the prestigious Ahuwhenua Trophy in 2025. But this year the farm has been hit by floods and mudslides from intense weather events. Sally Round paid a visit to see how the farm has coped.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here, and the Ahuwhenua Trophy, here.

With thanks to:

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Anisha Satya speaks to Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year winner, Hinehou Timutimu, about how community-focused farming makes an impact.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

With thanks to:

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A wrap of news from RNZ's rural news desk

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Sally meets the founder of skincare brand Nudi Point, Gianina's at the Pureore Hunting Competition, and Anisha's bug-hunting in the Ashburton Forks.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

In this episode:

With thanks to:

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The nearly 40-year-old competition, which runs during the peak hunting period known as the roar, is the only such of its kind run by the Department of Conservation.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

You can find more about the Pureora Hunting Competition, here.

Check out last week's episode when Country Life headed out for a hunt with Allen Juno, here.

With thanks to:

Make sure you’re following us on your favourite podcast app, so you don’t miss new episodes every Friday evening.

Want to chat to us or find out more about RNZ Podcasts? Join the RNZ Podcasts Discussion Facebook group where we share behind the scenes info about our series, and invite you to share feedback, recommendations and ask us questions.

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Anisha meets Ashburton Forks farmers who are trapping, planting and testing their way to healthier farms.

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Northland skin care brand Nudi Point is named after the swimming hole where Blair Coates spent many happy summers. The former banker who suffered bad skin as a teen makes moisturisers and serums in the converted cow shed.

You can find photos and read more about the stories in this episode on our webpage, here.

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A round-up of the week's rural news.

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