Country Life

The Country Life team take you all over the motu to hear the extraordinary stories of every day rural New Zealand.

Presented and produced by Sally Round, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes, Duncan Smith and Gianina Schwanecke

An abstract heart constructed from shapes similar to rural fields seen in aerial photography sits behind the text 'Country Life'.

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FULL SHOW: Country Life for 20 September 2024

We meet a mother and daughter growing microgreens and head to a North Canterbury dairy farm using crops to mop up nasties which could end up in waterways.
New episode
New born lambs

From selling shoes in China to sprouting microgreens in Te Puke

Kali sold shoes in China before coming to NZ. She discovered her green fingers just out of Te Puke where she has joined forces with her daughter to grow microgreens.
Mother and daughter, Kali and Jiang Yu, in the greenhouse

Catch crops help prevent nitrogen from leaching into waterways

Trials on a North Canterbury dairy farm have found that early sown oats and Italian ryegrass are taking up excess urine deposited by winter grazing cows.
Plant & Food Research catch crop trials

Kerry Worsnop on a better approach to policy

Nuffield scholar and former Gisborne District Councillor Kerry Worsnop on how policymakers can better work with those on the land.
Farmer Kerry Worsnop farms 45km west of Gisborne

Rural News Wrap for 20 September 2024

A round-up of the week's agricultural news.
Strawberries PYO in Auckland

FULL SHOW: Country Life for 13 September 2024

Hear from an expert on China's consumer market, meet a former dairy high-flyer now farming a very different sort of protein and learn more about a niche rural business using deer antlers.
The couple mostly use red deer antlers.

A cut above: Couple making 'one of a kind' knives

Jacinda and Richy Sheridan have carved out a niche for themselves, making hunting and farm knives using deer antlers.
Jacinda and Richy Sheridan run Sheridan Hunting Knives from the farm they run in Motu, near Gisborne.

Milk high fliers move into hops and plant proteins

Meet a farmer who has developed a food supplement based on a protein extracted from green leaves and established North Canterbury's first commercial hop gardens.
Leaft Foods and hops

The inside skinny on China's consumers from Mark Tanner

Mark Tanner knows what people in China are consuming. He's the founder of China Skinny, a market research company based in Shanghai.
Mark Tanner, China Skinny founder

Rural News Wrap for 13 September 2024

A round-up of the week's agricultural news.
Winstone Pulp International meeting

FULL SHOW: Country Life for 6 September 2024

It's Conservation Week! We meet a North Canterbury farmer rewilding his land and we check back in with the school children helping restore part of a South Wairarapa river.
Punawai

Farmer retires land he says "shouldn't ever have animals on it"

"I've been farming on my own account for 52 years and cut down a fair share of trees, so now is my time to leave this place better than we found it," Chris Bolderston told Country Life.
Punawai

"It's lovely planting new trees and making nature"

In Part 2 of a three part series, schoolchildren head to Waihinga Farm to plant saplings among ancient podocarps on the edge of the Ruamāhanga River.
Schoolchildren planting kawakawa on Waihinga Farm's QEII block

Adding birds to the farmer's toolbox

How do you stop birds colliding with New York's skyscrapers and how can New Zealand farmers benefit from birds and other wildlife? These are just some of the questions Sara Kross has been trying to answer from her lab at Canterbury University.
Dr Sara Kross

Rural News Wrap for 6 September 2024

A round-up of the week's agricultural news.
Each hives contains thousands of bees - between 25,000 to 30,000.

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