Country Life

From a block of gorse-infected scrubland on Banks Peninsula, renowned botanist Hugh Wilson has spent half a lifetime growing Hinewai Reserve into a 1600-hectare paradise of regenerated native forest by leaving nature to it.

Blacksmith Jamie Hughes has a niche business crafting knives and hand-forged metalwork for chefs, farmers and tourists from his smithy in Norsewood. Tough economic times means he's feeling it from all angles like many small businesses in rural New Zealand.

Serena Lyders has found her calling as a traditional Māori healer, giving back to rural communities and working with shearers all around the motu.

A round-up of the week's agricultural news with RNZ rural news reporter Sally Murphy

This week Country Life meets a traditional Māori healer helping shearers around the motu and things heat up in a blacksmith's forge in Norsewood. Later we explore a native forest that grew from rough, gorsey farmland and meet the botanist behind the impressive regeneration project.

Fifth generation dairy farmer Jason Christensen took a break from the family farm to try life as a DOC ranger. His experience in the world of conservation, evident on the Mt Bruce farm in the foothills of the Tararuas, saw him awarded two of this year's Greater Wellington Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

Country Life visits a food garden in Taranaki, where whānau are getting their hands in the soil and finding out how to sustain themselves from their own backyards.

Neil and Sandra Chesterton and their two sons escaped Afghanistan over the mountains on horseback after 9/11. The Inglewood vet was working for a charity there. He and Sandra chat to Country Life about helping vets in the country and their extraordinary departure.

A round-up of the week's agricultural news.

This week on Country Life we hear about a country vet's daring horseback escape from Afghanistan over the mountains on horseback after 9/11. We meet Pounamu Skelton who is on a mission to help Maori grow their own food and later we head to the foothills of the Tararuas, where a former DOC ranger has put his conservation background to use on the family dairy farm.

Who knows what goes on in a herd of cows as they walk to the milking shed? Plenty, according to Inglewood vet Neil Chesterton, who has made this his life's work and become a world-renowned expert on lameness in dairy cows.

Have you ever wondered where all the food for Wellington Zoo's 500 animals come from? The answer might surprise you... Gianina Schwanecke meets with the zoo's animal science manager to find out more and joins a group of otters for dinner.

It's the last day of the kumara harvest at Dunsmore Gardens, a farm on the outskirts of Dargaville. It's also time to celebrate after the grower lost 99 percent of his crop last season.

A round-up of the week's agricultural news.

This week Country Life is at the last day of the kumara harvest in Northland, joins a quartet of otters at Wellington Zoo for dinner to learn more about where the animals' food comes from and speaks to Inglewood vet Neil Chesterton about a lifetime of treating lameness in dairy cows.

On the rural outskirts of Taupō a young couple have started a mushroom venture far removed from their previous life in Auckland. Maggie Tweedie took a trip to a small block of land amid the green hills of Wairakei to meet Benson Thomas and Hattie MacLennan.

In 1973 Alan Wilkes was out with his Labrador Zara and comrades at the opening of the duck shooting season. This story from the Spectrum archives was recorded on Kohangatera, a network of lagoons along the Palliser Bay coast.

West Otago farmer, Adrian McIntyre, says the late grain harvest down his way means there are plenty of ducks around for the opening of the duck shooting season. The first weekend is a bit like Christmas, he says

Many drought-declared areas have now had some rain, but farms still have very low pasture covers going into winter. There's been superb weather for the gold kiwifruit harvest in Bay of Plenty which only has a couple of weeks to go and the Hayward variety is underway. Lamb prices remain depressed making some question the future of the sector.

This week Country Life meets a young couple who left their city life to set up a mushroom farm and heads to the maimai with a hunter at daybreak at the start of the duck shooting season half a century ago.