Nine To Noon for Friday 18 September 2020

 

 

09:05 Fonterra back in black

In a big turnaround from last year's loss of $605 million Fonterra has announced a full year profit of $659 million. Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell says 2019/20 was a good year for the Co-op, with profit up, debt down, and a strong milk price. The dairy cooperative has confirmed the final milk payout to farmers for the season just ended at 7 dollars 14 a kilo of milk solids, in line with its forecast, with a further dividend of 5 cents a share. The profit excluding the gains from asset sales and other one-off costs is $382 million. Julia Jones NZX's head of analytics and Massey University Professor of Agri-Business Hamish Gow discuss with Kathryn Ryan.

09:20 Green light for methane-busting livestock feed from NZ seaweed

An aquaculture start-up says it is accelerating plans to commercially cultivate New Zealand seaweed for methane-busting livestock feed. CH4 Global was founded by a group of local tech and bioscience entrepreneurs developing the feed product made from Asparagopsis armata - a native red seaweed which grows in New Zealand and South Australian waters. Trials have shown the seaweed feed can reduce methane produced by cows by up to 90 percent. CH4 Global President and Chief Executive Dr Steve Meller says the company has recently successfully cultivated all the life cycle stages the seaweed,  and it will move to speed up commercial expansion of operations in New Zealand and Australia.

09:30  4 Paws Marathon: a race for dogs, and their owners

The 4 Paws Marathon takes place in Christchurch on Sunday, where runners and their athletic dogs will race to the finishing line together. Kathryn speaks with organiser and owner of three dogs, sport and exercise doctor John Molloy.

09:45 Asia correspondent Elizabeth Beattie

A new Prime Minister for Japan, Yoshihide Suga, and there have been demonstrations in Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar, to protest a new policy that forces elementary and secondary schools in Inner Mongolia to follow a national curriculum promoting Chinese language and history. 

Elizabeth Beattie is a journalist at Thomson Reuters, based in Hong Kong.

10:05 Language and finding home.  Xiaolu Guo: A Lover's Discourse

Award-winning Chinese-born British author, filmmaker and Booker Prize judge Xiaolu Guo tells Kathryn Ryan about her new book A Lover's Discourse.  A 'documentary novel' about love, language, and the meaning of home, A Lover's Discourse is set in Brexit Britain, told through fragments of conversations between two un-named lovers.  It's a tale of the challenges of learning a new language and living in a new culture. Xiaolu largely taught herself English and self translated when she began writing in English.  Literary magazine Granta included Xiaolu Guo in its once-a-decade list of the twenty most promising young British novelists, and today she is writer-in-residence at City University of New York. 

10:35 Book review - Real Life by Brandon Taylor

Melanie O'Loughlin of Unity Books reviews Real Life by Brandon Taylor, published by Daunt Books.

This mid-western campus novel gives us a fresh view of student life as Wallace, a gay, black, PhD biochemistry student in a predominantly white town is pushed out of his protective shell. Over drinks, 'dinner things’ and lab time he is forced to consider what kind of a life is for him. Long-listed for the 2020 Booker Prize, this is a tender and fresh account of American life. 

10:45 The Reading

11:05 New music with Grant Smithies

Funk veteran Lee Field's 1999 album Let's Get A Groove On gets a welcome reissue for Record Store Day next week. We'll hear two tracks from that today, plus a NZ classic from The Subliminals and some squelchy synth-funk from the late Tyrone Brunson.
 

11:30 Sports commentator Sam Ackerman

Sam talks to Kathryn about the Government allowing the Wallabies to have a 3 day quarantine period and asks is this now the precedent? ASB Classic wants the same treatment to give the tournament a fighting chance - and they won't be the only one. Summer of Cricket, golfers, the list goes on. Sam also looks at the legacy of Jonah Lomu's former manager Phil Kingsley-Jones, who passed away this week.

11:45 The week that was with

Comedians Gemma Gracewood and Pinky Agnew