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Featured Country Life stories
From shearing shed to chic
Country Life visits a shearing shed where the wool clip's being turned into fashionable woollen coats.
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Inside the Kiwi cream cheese factory whipping up treats for Asia
5:55 am todayA growing taste for pastries, cakes and dairy-topped drinks in China and Southeast Asia is fuelling demand for New Zealand-made cream cheese.
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Farming, tea and tales gone by
27 Sep 2025Farmer Ian Buckingham was born at Lansdown Farm at Hook near Waimate 85 years ago, and he's never left.
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Storm's got your back (and knees)
27 Sep 2025Physio and farmer Storm Baynes-Ryan gives in-paddock advice to help Te Tai Rāwhiti farmers recover from injuries, stay strong and keep fit.
Country Life headlines with summaries.
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Country Life: Sniffing out new life at Trufflewood
27 Sep 2025Springer Spaniel Indie has just finished her first harvest as a truffle hunter, showing outstanding skills for a pup.
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Romene: From sheep to sheet mask
20 Sep 2025Southland sheep farmer Megan Seator is unravelling new uses for Romney's strong wool in a range of skincare products.
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The many lessons of the pā harakeke
20 Sep 2025For close to 30 years, Whanganui couple Marilyn and Marty Vreede have been making paper from leftover harakeke from the district's many weavers, while also helping to revitalise te reo Māori.
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A thread runs through it
20 Sep 2025Huhana Smith grows fruit and harakeke at Kuku, north of Wellington. Standing on the shoulders of her ancestors, she's growing healthy food and, potentially, a sustainable fashion industry.
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Treading Lightly - shoelaces made from sheep and salad
13 Sep 2025Meet Jacob Smith, the 21-year-old turning wool and veggie scraps into fashion-forward biodegradable shoelaces.
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A cosmic farewell to the man who makes rural radio sing
13 Sep 2025For nearly two decades, RNZ producer Cosmo Kentish-Barnes has been roaming the South Island countryside on the trail of stories for Country Life.
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Dairy farmer rewarded for environmental efforts on Canterbury plains
16 Sep 2025It's all go in the calving shed, but with tech doing the heavy lifting, dairy farmer Dan Schat has time for a yarn about the cold, the costs, and the season so far.
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Country Life: From the Archive - Rewilding at Punawai
After a lifetime of working to clear land, Chris Bolderston is rewilding parts of his sheep and beef farm in North Canterbury.
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A wild night in the bush with 'Jack-of-all-trails'
6 Sep 2025Fifteen-year-old Jack Karetai-Barrett took Country Life on a night walk through Whakatāne's kiwi country.
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DIY crew nail it for pest-free Te Horo
6 Sep 2025A garage in Te Horo is buzzing to the sounds of backyard builders making traps to protect birds moving between the coast and the Tararua range.
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Green brew benefits for livestock emissions
30 Aug 2025Researchers across the ditch are making good progress in their efforts to reduce emissions created from the brewing process, while also creating benefits for livestock.
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Old tool, new cool
30 Aug 2025Beth Pearsall wants to revive the ancient skill of scything. She loves swishing the sharp-bladed tool through her own garden and holds workshops to teach others about the scythe and its uses.
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Trans-Tasman farmers dig deep for dairy's future
30 Aug 2025Swapping science, stories and solutions about regen dairying was the task at hand for farmers, researchers and advisors from NZ and Australia at a gathering in Canterbury.
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Creamy, sustainable and high in fibre - barley eyes up the dairy aisle
A new barley, bred for high fibre and low waste, is being turned into milk and yoghurt - a sustainable alternative with benefits for farmers and big potential in the global dairy-free market.
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From gumboots to storybooks: Farming with a twist of magic
Emma Nowell transforms life on the land into art, children's stories and games, while keeping the farm and family at the heart of it all.
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Wholly Cow: Cambridge butcher's childhood dream come true
The Andrews family has gone from selling farm-raised meats at a farmers' market to running their own butchery.
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Miley the Huntaway's a 'main dog' now
For the past year, Country Life has been watching Wairarapa dog triallist Chris Shaw train up his latest working dog, Miley - a young Huntaway that's got that "X-factor".
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Mud and Blood - Westland rugby teams battle it out
Every winter, the Woodham Shield brings together remote South Westland communities for a fiercely contested grassroots rugby battle steeped in pride and tradition.
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'Farmluencer' creates online community for female farmers
Anthea Rolfe started the Females in Farming social media page a year ago and said it just exploded.
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Cover crops and critters - a dirty love affair
9 Aug 2025Stephen Newman has gone from IT to conventional farming to becoming a devotee of the regenerative farming movement.
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How to weather the great grass shutdown in the south
9 Aug 2025The gloom and wet of winter is especially challenging for Southland's farms where pasture can go for nearly a third of the year without growth.
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Should we be farming weka?
5 Aug 2025That's the focus of a recent research paper that looked at how commercialising native species might help with conservation.
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Sales boom for Kāpiti Coast roadside raw milk red shed
2 Aug 2025It's a busy time of year for Stacey Faith, calving 300-plus cows, rearing their calves and keeping the Faith Farm's roadside milk dispensing outlet going, providing locals with milk fresh from the…
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Outsmarting a million dollar pest
Are some grapevines better at defending themselves from pests? Trials are being conducted to find out.
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