This episode featured as part of the Agritech segment in partnership with Sensehub by MSD.

A bale net you can leave on and let the cows eat has travelled from a Kiwi shed to the doorstep of one of King Charles’s farms. Named ‘Kiwi EcoNet’, the solution is the brainchild of Southland’s Grant Lightfoot.

“You don’t have to take it off the bale; any animal can eat it.

“You just chuck the whole bale out like that in the feeder.”

He and his partner hand-knitted the first 85 metres themselves before the job moved to a factory in India. The netting runs through any baler without a single adjustment, and measuring 350 metres a roll, it costs more than plastic.

The roll at King Charles’s place went across after his farm manager asked for one at the Royal Welsh Show. Back home, Lightfoot has pre-sold his first container and sent another to Switzerland.

“I’ve had farmers ringing up and saying, ‘nah, I’m sick of plastic’.

“They want the biodegradable net.”

For more details, see here.

This episode featured as part of the Agritech segment in partnership with Sensehub by MSD. To learn more, visit www.sensehub.co.nz

CountryWide CONNECT with Andy Thompson & Sarah Perriam-Lampp is our daily rural show livestreamed from 11am-1pm. Visit country-wide.co.nz on how to watch/listen or download the CountryWide CONNECT mobile app, available on Apple iOS and Android.