Prince William like ‘just another guy': NZ inventor
Mr Lightfoot introduced his award-winning eco invention to Prince William during the prince's surprise visit to the United Kingdom's regenerative agriculture festival; Groundswell, this week.
A festival official had organised for Prince William to stop at Mr Lightfoot's stall because he was the stall holder that had travelled the furthest.
After a quick chat with one of the prince's team, who had already heard about the edible bale netting, Mr Lightfoot stood at his stall ready for the prince's arrival.
"I had my card in my hand and my brochure ready ... "
However, after speaking on stage, the prince headed off in another direction.
"He had six security guards, and the crowd. There was just thousands of people around. And me being me, I just bee-lined for him and stopped him. And before the security guys could get a word in, I started talking about my edible bail net.
The prince, as the eldest son of the reigning British monarch, inherited the Duke of Cornwall title and estates, becoming custodian of 52,172ha of land across 19 counties.
Orepuki farmer and Kiwi Econet inventor Grant Lightfoot met Prince William this week during the prince's surprise visit to the UK's regenerative agriculture festival, Groundswell. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED
Mr Lightfoot invited the prince to see the eco-friendly bale net.
"It was so funny. Everyone just [did] a complete U-turn and came straight over to see me and my bail."
During a brief chat with the prince, he explained the benefits of the wrap and how it could be eaten by stock animals and saved the environment.
"I spoke to him like he was just another guy, and he spoke to me the same way. He took my business card, my brochure and said, 'we'll be in contact'."
A video taken of the meeting and shared on social media platforms had gone viral, Mr Lightfoot said.
Two days before Groundswell, the Southland farmer decided on an unscheduled early morning stopover at Jeremy Clarkson's Diddley Squat farm.
But he initially took a wrong turn into Mr Clarkson's neighbour's property.
"So, I went up there and got talking to the film guy — they were just about to start filming.
"He said, 'you know you're trespassing, blah blah blah'.
"I said, 'no, I didn't know that. I thought I'd just drive up and say g'day."
"Once I told him who I was, the attitude changed."
Orepuki farmer Grant Lightfoot talks to Prince William about his product.
They had already heard about the product through social media.
The show's producer expressed an interest in featuring Kiwi Econet on Mr Clarkson's show sometime in the future.
Mr Lightfoot, who had been travelling through Europe promoting the product, is continuing his promotional tour in the United States before returning to Southland.
The new product had made "the world an oyster", he said.
"People cannot believe what I've got, because everyone hates plastic."
Farmers already producing baleage were able to use their existing machinery.
"So that's another big bonus as well."
He had fielded global inquiries, including from Switzerland, Europe and Chile, and expects to be able to meet demand.
The edible bale netting, made of jute yarn, is manufactured and shipped from India.
— Toni McDonald
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
19 hours ago
- Otago Daily Times
Trump plans $340m White House ballroom
After paving over the Rose Garden and adding gold leaf in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump will embark on his most dramatic addition to the White House yet: a new, multimillion-dollar ballroom to be built adjacent to the mansion's East Wing. Trump, a former real estate developer with a penchant for decorating, has long complained the White House lacked a large-scale ballroom for entertaining. The White House on Thursday announced plans to break ground in September on the project, which could prove to be the most extensive one since Harry Truman completed an entire renovation in 1952. The White House was originally finished in 1800 and partially rebuilt after being burned by the British during the War of 1812. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that work on the 8360 sq m facility will be completed "long before" Trump's four-year term ends in January 2029. The $US200 million ($NZ340 million) cost of the ballroom, which will be able to seat 650 people, will be donated by Trump and other donors, she said. Presidents have used the intimate State Dining Room for events, as well as the larger East Room for bigger VIP lists, and sometimes will have a tent temporarily constructed on the South Lawn to host big dinners. "When it rains, it's a disaster," Trump said of the tents when asked about the new ballroom on Thursday. Trump's home at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, has a grand ballroom and a smaller one, both with glittering chandeliers and white walls decorated with gold flourishes. The Republican president has been determined to put his stamp on the executive mansion. He installed gold-filigreed decorations in the Oval Office and erected giant flagpoles on the north and south lawns. The Rose Garden is currently a construction site with the grass uprooted and replaced by a concrete patio of the type Trump enjoys at Mar-a-Lago. Trump first offered to build a $US100 million ballroom at the White House back in 2010, an offer to then-President Barack Obama that went unanswered. The East Wing of the White House will be "modernised" as part of the project. Offices there, including the one used by First Lady Melania Trump, will be temporarily relocated, Leavitt said. As if to reassure traditionalists, the White House said the theme and architectural heritage will be "almost identical" to the rest of the house. It said Trump in recent weeks held meetings with members of the White House staff, the National Park Service, the White House Military Office and the US Secret Service to discuss design features and planning. "It'll be a great legacy project," Trump said on Thursday.
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Peaky Blinders creator to pen new James Bond movie
Steven Knight will write the highly anticipated next James Bond movie. Photo / Getty Images Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech. Already a subscriber? Sign in here Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen. Steven Knight will write the highly anticipated next James Bond movie. Photo / Getty Images Steven Knight, the creator of gritty TV crime series Peaky Blinders, will write the highly anticipated next James Bond movie, studio Amazon MGM announced today. Knight will work alongside previously announced director Denis Villeneuve (Dune) to bring the world's most famous fictional spy back to the big screen after a prolonged absence. Amazon MGM Studios acquired creative control of the 007 movies in February and has moved quickly to get one of Hollywood's most valuable franchises back into production. There has been no new Bond film since 2021's No Time To Die. Knight is best known as the mind behind violent British gangster series Peaky Blinders, which was set in industrial England at the turn of the 20th century and became a global hit.
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Cigarette-lighter cameras, paralysing pens - a look inside the spy museum's den of secrets
Many of the artifacts in the vault came from one man: H. Keith Melton, a founding board member of the museum, who became one of the world's renowned spy collectors. He is not a former intelligence agent himself; rather, he made his money as one of the country's largest McDonald's franchise owners. Disguises in the vault of the International Spy Museum in Washington. Photo / Alyssa Schukar, The New York Times A condition of his donation, which he first pledged in 2016, was that the collection would eventually be moved to the museum itself, Melton said. 'To properly care for, maintain, catalogue, access the artifacts, they needed to be on the premises,' Melton said in an interview. 'You can't deal with it remotely. Artifacts need care and feeding and vigilance, and they need to make sure they're not deteriorating.' The collections team at the International Spy Museum recently opened the doors to its den of secrets, offering a reporter and photographer a look at tools of the trade that, like much of spy craft itself, are kept out of public view. There are roughly 4000 books in the vault, most of them donated by Melton. The most treasured of these is a World War II-era briefing book created by MI9, a wartime branch of British intelligence, to get Americans up to speed on its top-secret espionage innovations. It includes designs for cameras disguised as cigarette lighters, coat buttons and gold teeth concealing compasses, and maps printed on clothing. Laura Hicken, the museum's collections manager, estimated that there were fewer than 20 copies of this book in the world. Among the museum's newest acquisitions are original courtroom sketches by William Sharp, an illustrator who died in 1961. One is of Rudolf Abel, the Soviet spy who operated undercover in the US for almost a decade and who was portrayed by Mark Rylance in the 2015 Steven Spielberg thriller Bridge of Spies. In the drawings, Sharp portrayed Abel as looking stressed. A mini-motorcycle that British spies could unfold in seconds after parachuting behind German lines during World War II, in the vault of the International Spy Museum in Washington. Photo / Alyssa Schukar, The New York Times 'For us, where so much of our history is told through gadgets and weapons and concealment devices, this is so incredibly personal and such an intimate look into the consequences of the things we cover,' Hicken said, referring to the sketch. The museum, which is recognised by Guinness World Records as the world's largest espionage museum, has come under criticism in the past for sanitising the unethical behaviour of spy agencies. Another set of Sharp-penned sketches is from the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were arrested in 1950 for espionage and executed in 1953. The drawings feature Judge Irving R. Kaufman, who sentenced them to death, and an unguarded Ethel Rosenberg, whose culpability has come under doubt in the last decade. The Spy Museum has also received gifts and loans from international governments. The South Korean Government, for example, lent items said to have been seized from a North Korean spy who crossed into the south. Among these is a pen that, when clicked a certain way, would have been capable of injecting a paralysing agent into an unsuspecting victim, as well as a code sheet that spies could use to communicate with someone equipped with a counter code sheet. The German Government lent an army propaganda rocket from the early 1940s. These were launched over Russian soldiers on the battlefield, where they would eject pamphlets encouraging them to abandon Josef Stalin. According to a translation, the pamphlets inside the rocket say: 'Red Army men! You will not experience peace, you will not return to your home. Stalin will not allow this because he knows that any Red Army soldier who has been in Europe will pose a threat to the Stalinist system.' Sitting on top of a large shelf is a couch that belonged to Robert P. Hanssen, a former FBI agent who spied for Moscow off and on for decades. Suitcases and radios in the vault of the International Spy Museum in Washington. Photo / Alyssa Schukar, The New York Times Hanssen died in 2023 in his Colorado prison cell. Melton also persuaded Hanssen's family to donate other items, including a suit and watches. The museum has no shortage of knives, some of which are hidden in spatulas and boots. But there are less subtle blades, including one developed by the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, to be a combat weapon. 'There are a lot of challenging elements to our collection because so much of it was meant to kill or destroy or distract,' Hicken said. 'We have powders that were meant to be tipped into gas tanks that would essentially erode the gas tank very quickly so you could disable somebody's vehicle.' Also in the vault are several items that once belonged to Tony Mendez, the celebrated CIA officer who was played by Ben Affleck in the 2012 Academy Award-winning movie Argo. Mendez was particularly known for disguises, exfiltration and forgery. One drawer in the vault includes wigs he designed and a pair of shoes with lifts inside to make the wearer appear significantly taller. In addition, there's a self-portrait of Mendez, a former board member of the museum, depicting several aspects of the Argo story, which involved Mendez's plan to rescue American diplomats trapped in Iran in 1980. 'Everything in our collection is two things,' Hicken said. 'The purse actually conceals a camera. The pen conceals a microdot viewer. The shoe has a knife in it.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Written by: Sopan Deb Photographs by: Alyssa Schukar ©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
