Another year gone and still no flying cars. But, let’s pat ourselves on the back for getting through another confusing year. Saddle up, we are taking a quick trip down recent memory lane. 

January: It’s Brexit, honey

After four and a half years of will-they-won’t-they, the UK and the EU finally break up. The rest of the world struggles to care. We are too busy worrying about shipping delays and their potential to upend meat processing. The horrors of the January 2020 slaughter backlog still  ring in our ears. But, the grass continues to grow for everyone outside of the Northland region. The sky does not fall in. So, we moan about the lack of sunshine instead.

Stoush of the month: NZ beekeepers vs the Japanese authorities regarding how much herbicide is acceptable in honey.

February: Lead and low slope maps

Covid-19 is back and all the introverts are rewarded with a three day lockdown on Valentine’s day. Auckland does it all over again on the 28th. Medsafe approves the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine and we are to expect our first vaccine shipment in April. Exciting!

Nearly 300 farmers take up the Ministry of Environment’s invitation to point out errors in its “low slope” map. The map is supposed to show which parcels of land are flat enough to fence cattle and deer out of waterways. But, like many constructed from satellite data in a bureaucrat’s office, it has some distance from reality. In some cases, containing land only accessible via helicopter. The government eventually backs down (in July) with a much less ambitious map and watered down stock exclusion rules for waterways.

Summer has finally begun, but it’s already too much for Northland and the Hawkes Bay where farmers nervously wait for rain. Gore shearer, Megan Whitehead breaks the woman’s world shearing record with 661 lambs shorn in 9 hours.

Stoush of the month: The Dunedin city council forgets to check its emails over the holidays and overlooks that lead levels in the rural Otago towns of Waikouaiti and Karitane are nearly 40 times the acceptable limit. Residents will be carting water from tankers until August when residents are allowed to drink from their taps once more. Although, it’s still a mystery where the lead came from.

March: regulations, depopulations and the Suez Canal

The Aucklanders are allowed out of their houses on the 7th. There is a Tsunami warning but nothing happens. Three cheers for NZ, we have a world leading response to covid and tsunamis.

MPI issued a press release saying that it will depopulate the Five Star Beef feedlot as part of the Mycoplasma Bovis eradication campaign. This appears to be news to Anzco/Five Star Beef and it doesn’t happen. In other government news: we are to expect a free trade agreement between NZ and the freshly divorced UK any minute now (see October) and the government agrees to defer it’s new “Intensive Grazing” regulations for a year. 

Stoush of the month: The tiny digger vs the giant ship wedged in the Suez Canal

April: Why hello, Australia

Australia pops our bubble, we are allowed out of the country now and we celebrate this with a bizarre balloon dance. It hasn’t rained in a while along the east coast. Banks Peninsula is toasted. Can we use the word “drought” yet? No, not until the 28th.

Meat companies are sweating through record high cattle kills, shipping delays and labour shortages, but they manage to keep the wheels from falling off, somehow. The lamb price starts going crazy, but in a good way.

Stoush of the month: The government announces a ban on live exports, commencing 2023. The animal activists rejoice. Those involved in the live export industry are less than pleased.

May: Floods, stabbings and cyber attacks

Staff and shoppers are stabbed in a Dunedin supermarket. It’s the worst thing to ever happen in a NZ supermarket until September when it happens all over again. The Waikato District Health Board forgets to update it’s software for 12 years straight and is overthrown by a cyberattack on its Window’s 7 computers. Canterbury is in drought until it suffers a 100 year flood. We get quarantine-free travel to the Cook Islands.

Bremworth announces that it will ditch synthetics and only manufacture wool carpets. There is a 563km vintage tractor trek to raise money for the Southland Charity Hospital.

Stoush of the month: There is a letter writing campaign to get the government to ease border restrictions for agricultural staff. Although it is a bit overshadowed by the biblical floods and shopper stabbings.

June: Phew, halfway there

Ashburton starts the month in a mess after the floods. Without the Ashburton bridge connecting it to the rest of the country, the lower South Island gets to fulfill some fantasies about being its own republic. Auckland is hit by a tornado.

All hail the power of the mighty pen, there are some border class exemptions issued for 200 dairy workers and 50 vets. The Climate Change Commission releases its final recommendations and we all pretend we’ve read them.

Our Australian cousins beat us to a free trade agreement with the UK (neener, neener, neener), but they are also in a tense political battle with China via the World Trade Organisation (sad trombone noise). Would NZ please step in to help Australia and China be friends again? All sphincters tighten.

Stoush of the month: Two words: “Ute” and “tax”

July: It snows, it’s fine

It snowed, which is now news-worthy during the warmest June-July period on record.

The government condemns “malicious cyber activity” from hackers aligned with the Chinese state. “Zip it” say the NZ exporters worried about losing the country’s largest trading partner.

The Bales4Blair campaign, which initially asked farmers to donate 200 bales of wool to insulate the Southland Charity Hospital, rings in the wool donations at 421 bales. This earns $78,500 for the hospital.

The 2020 Olympic games finally kick off. A $10 lamb slaughter contract is released for September and prices for store lambs are now hotter than the Auckland real estate market.

The trans-tasman travel bubble is put on pause as Australian covid cases get out of control.

Stoush of the month: Groundswell’s Howl of Protest. Are farmers all racist misogynists? No, seriously guys, the government says they are listening to farmer concerns. Why would they lie?.

August: Stay at home and watch the Olympics

Covid is back, but no matter, we will simply have a short, sharp lockdown and carry on our merry way. Sit back and enjoy the Olympics, or read the Commerce Commissions damning report on the lack of competition for supermarket food prices. Or, perhaps catch up on one of the many governmental reforms taking place. Definitely don’t go to the Cook Islands for quarantine free travel, that’s off the cards.

A government-appointed scientific advisory panel concludes that Overseer is not an appropriate tool for regulating real-time farm nutrient losses. A fact that could have been gleaned over a single cup of tea with a farmer and their consultant. The government also takes a backstep on winter grazing regulations, abandoning the pugging depth and resowing rules. Which, again, could have been a cup of tea conversation.

Stoush of the month: How many plastic bag equivalents are in a houselot of synthetic carpet? Bremworth says 22,000 while advertising their woollen carpets. Godfrey Hirst threatens legal action.

September: Terrorism and pests

A man stabs people at an Auckland supermarket, during a lockdown, whilst under active police surveillance. This stabbing is labelled a terrorist attack, as opposed to the other supermarket knife attack which was labelled as something other than terrorising.

In more positive news, most of us are allowed out of lockdown. Unless you live in Auckland, or sometimes also Waikato and Northland. Scientists toilet train cows. University of Waikato announces a Bachelor degree in Climate Change. 

The chilled lamb season is a bit of a short lived affair given that there are few lambs to process and even fewer ships to take them to the European Christmas markets.

Stoush of the month: After a rough ride into winter and a slow start to spring, feed is tight and it’s farmers vs the pests that want to eat the non-existent pasture

October: UK and NZ are friends again

On the 18th, the government is advised that there is a risk of this covid outbreak getting out of control. “Oh now it’s getting out of control?” ask the Aucklanders who have been in a short, sharp lockdown for two months at this point.

A free trade agreement with the UK is agreed in principle. We will be sending them honey and apples in exchange for bulldozers and buses. There is a snow storm during lambing, which is not fine. 

Stoush of the month: It’s sheep vs pine trees as the carbon price hits $65/t.

November: picnics for Aucklanders

Auckland is allowed takeaways and picnics with their ongoing lockdown. They also get a promise that they can soon come out to play with us. We want to know what happens in the likely event that they disease us. Can we isolate ourselves on our farms? Federated Farmers encourage us to make a list of dogs in case we get carted away. The MIQ lottery is getting on everyone’s nerves. The government steamrolls over local councils to mandate  it’s much maligned Three Waters policy. Groundswell has another protest which everyone worries will be hijacked by anti-vaxxers (it isn’t). The mainstream media start reporting that vaccine mandates could trigger a(nother) terrorist attack. Thanks guys, that’s super helpful.

Stoush of the month: Judith Collins and Simon Bridges won’t stop bickering, so the National party turns the damn car around and drives home.

December: Let’s guess

I am going to give you a sneak peak behind the curtain of the glamorous life of a columnist. I am writing this in early December so I don’t actually know what this month has dealt us. As far as covid goes, December looks to be another action-packed month. There’s a traffic light system, a new covid variant with a name that sounds an awful lot like the baddie from ‘Transformers’, and we will soon have rapid antigen tests available via pharmacies. We will also have Aucklanders amongst us after the 15th.

The grass is growing for most of us (not you, Wairarapa) and I assume lots of other interesting things are happening too. The government wants us reassured that Santa is double vaxxed and kitted out with a vaccine pass. Excellent, that was weighing on my mind.

Stoush of the month: The hospitality sector vs the vaccine mandates. Probably.