The Country 11/02/26: Jon Pemberton and Steve Abel talk to Jamie Mackay

A Southland dairy farmer and Ag Proud founder, and the Green Party Agriculture spokesperson, stop for a chat. Pemberton talks about his contribution to National Lamb Day, and Abel discusses what the Green Party could offer farmers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
John o' pemberton's come all the way from Southland. He's
a dairy farmer down there, got out of bed at
three o'clock in the morning. Probably no hardship for a
dairy farmer. But John O, you're with ag Proud, you're
the chair of ag Proud. You guys are instrumental in
getting National Lamb Day up and running. But what's the
connection between a Southland dairy farmer and Lamb Day?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Look here, look, I guess egg Proud was sort of
in a position where we're just looking for reconnection really
and look, I must give credit to Ken McDonald and
Pete McDonald. We're sitting around having a one night to
how do we reconnect the town and country and Lamb
Day sort of throwing out there, and then that float
on with Kid Ark right from Beef and Lamb Ink

(00:40):
and he's down duck shooting with sort of chewing the
fat one afternoon and I sort of angled something that
might help a bit more engagement with the New Zealand
and Beef and Lamb and asked for a date change
from May to February. You know, bring back to when
the ship left lines up with barbecues and let's undershamably
trying copy astroliers leave.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
And this is just the beginning of the activity for
National Lamb Day, which is on Sunday. You are a
Southland and you will be at the y Mumu Field Days,
the Southern Field Days on Friday as well. I and
we might catch up again because you've got activity down
there as well.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, correct, We've We've got barbecues in the morning and
some Argentinian style cooked lamb getting out in the afternoon.
So the engagement with the general public, I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Going to catch you on Friday. Look just as very
kind of them to turn up here today. I've been
trying to track them down for a while. Greens Eggs
spokesperson Steve Abel Now, I don't normally associate Greens and
being farmer friendly. Tell me I'm wrong, Steve, Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, absolutely wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
I mean we need farming, we need farmers. In fact,
we probably need more farmers than we currently do, and
we need to do it in a way that's viable
for livelihoods of people in rural communities and viable for
the environment. And I believe as many farmers approving that
we can produce food and fiber in a way that
is sustainable and also look after rivers and our precious

(02:02):
native species.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I hope to have you as a regular leading into
the election. Just to be fair about this one very quickly,
what is your What are your ad credentials?

Speaker 3 (02:11):
I mean, I would say my primary credential and I
sit on the Primary Production select Committee, is I have
an overarching view of the relationship between food production and
animal farming, particularly and the environment. My background is I'm
an environmentalist. Like most New Zealanders, I have family donkey

(02:31):
deep in the agricultural sector, and you know, we have
generations of it. My mum was brought up on a farm,
my dad was worked for dow Ghetti's and Halibi's and
the like. So I'm acutely aware of the importance of
the cultural tradition of farming in our country and the
importance of it as a basis for livelihoods in our
rural sector. One final point about today is that I

(02:51):
think it's notable that we mark this extraordinary day when
we exported the first refrigerated land in the eighteen nineties.
That is the sort of innovation we need to be
thinking about going into the next century. This is how
we make sure we have many prolians that are good
for the planet and good for people.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
There we go Steve Abel will hear more from him
as we count down to the November five or is
it seven election, And yeah, we're going to take a
break November seven. We're going to wrap it with one
of the great supporters of National Lamb Day, Rabobank and
Todd charteris