This year's Budget has confirmed ongoing funding for the collection of agriculture and horticultural statistics.

Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton said almost $71 million would be spent over the next four years to ensure that policy makers and industry had robust data to make future decisions on.

"The New Zealand Government, as a member of many international organisations, has an obligation to provide accurate and relevant statistics on its economy – and a huge part of that is agriculture. Last year, farming and forestry
were among this country's biggest industries, providing 67 per cent of New Zealand's export earnings.

"It seems crazy to me that any Government could even have considered not having official statistics on such an important part of the economy."

The previous National Government abolished agricultural and horticultural statistics collection in the 1990s, and restored it in 1999 – on a one-off basis.

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>