• National promises water storage loans and fertiliser security plan

• ACT pushes to keep agriculture as standalone school subject

• Canterbury flood warning network gets $2.5 million dollar upgrade

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National promises water storage loans and fertiliser security plan

National is promising three-hundred million dollars in concessional loans for water storage projects and a new fertiliser security strategy if re-elected, as part of what it calls a plan to protect New Zealand’s sixty-five-point-two billion dollar food and fibre export sector.

Agriculture spokesperson Todd McClay says New Zealand receives more rainfall per person than almost any developed nation, yet only captures two percent of total annual rainfall. He says four-hundred-thousand hectares are ready for irrigation right now, waiting on storage projects and consents.

The water package includes five prioritised storage projects, New Zealand’s first long-term water infrastructure pipeline and a National Rural and Provincial Water Use Strategy to be published in 2027.

On fertiliser, associate spokesperson Mike Butterick says National will negotiate supply security agreements with key supplier countries and establish a ten million dollar Critical Inputs Fund to support domestic nitrogen production.

ACT pushes to keep agriculture as standalone school subject

ACT is campaigning to keep Agricultural and Horticultural Science as a standalone Year Eleven subject, after learning the subject will not be retained in its own right under the updated school curriculum.

Agriculture spokesperson Andrew Hoggard says removing the subject sends the wrong message for a food and fibre producing nation forecasting sixty-four-point-three billion dollars in exports this year.

More than one-hundred-and-eleven-thousand students have studied Agricultural and Horticultural Science across three-hundred-and-fifty-nine schools over the past nine years — and sixty-three percent of those students are at urban schools, making it a far broader offering than a rural-only subject.

Hoggard says schools like Feilding High School, which recently featured on Country Calendar, will face a real gap in their Year Eleven programme — and notes that dance remains a standalone subject while agriculture does not.

Canterbury flood warning network gets $2.5 million dollar upgrade

Canterbury’s flood warning network is being strengthened under a two-point-five million dollar upgrade programme, part of a twelve-point-eight-eight million dollar national investment across ten regions.

Environment Canterbury is coordinating the project on behalf of participating councils, with the Crown funding sixty percent and councils contributing forty percent. The funding comes from the Government’s Regional Infrastructure Fund announced last year.

One-hundred-and-twenty high-priority monitoring sites have been identified across Canterbury, with ninety to be upgraded over the next two years. Three critical sites are already complete, with work underway on the next three.

The upgraded sites feature duplicated power supplies, communication systems, data loggers and sensors — reducing the risk of outages during the severe weather events when flood warnings matter most.

For farming communities on Canterbury’s flood-prone plains, reliable early warning systems are critical to protecting stock, property and infrastructure.