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 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.
New episode
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.

FULL SHOW: Country Life for 30 August 2024

This week the Country Life team heads to a small-scale salt farm in Northland and meets a conservationist collecting endangered wildflowers.
Sunset over Doubtless Bay. James' motto for his salt farm is "Leave Nothing But Footprints"

A sweet life farming salt - "just a man and his bucket"

James Moore is up to his knees in the waves at Cable Bay in Northland, a bucket in each hand. He's a small-scale salt farmer, with a plan to help others into salt farming.
James collects seawater by hand from Cable Bay in Northland

The Ruatoria 'Noah's ark' for native plants

Graeme Atkins has collected the "Noah's Ark" of endangered wild cuttings, including the beautiful ngutukākā or kakabeak flower.
Kākābeak is named for its beautiful red flowers, which hang in clusters of 15-20 blooms and are shaped like a kaka's beak.

Dairy farmer Stephen Crawford

South Otago's biggest organic dairy farm might go conventional after news the dairy company which picks up the milk is reviewing the premiums for organic milk.
Stephen Crawford

On The Farm for 30 August 2024

It's been a kind winter for most North Island farmers now busy with lambing and calving. Meanwhile sheep farmers in the South Island hope to see prices rise again.
Calves at the calfeteria

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