Sheep Outlook and More

When we first lived in New Zealand in 2007-2008, the South Island boasted 14 million sheep and 1 million people.  Today that sheep to human ratio has changed with only 9 million sheep and 1,115,800 people (June 2017).  As a side note, roughly two-thirds of the entire population of New Zealand lives on the North Island. The decline in sheep is due to an increase in dairy cattle (you can check out the new season outlook for 2017-2018 here) and with that comes additional challenges, as we will learn in our adventures together, for water quality.  So, already, Ag and environmental research conducted in NZ has implications (and vice versa) for our own water quality here in our own agricultural (and lawn based) State of Florida. Lots to think about, m : )

Photo courtesy Te Ara