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• Published date: 13 April 2021
• Date: 13 April 2021

More than nine million people die every year from starvation; 3.1 million are children. Food production, although increasing, can’t keep pace, especially in some lands where climatic change has affected production and water supplies.

Obviously too many Kiwis aspire to an office life instead of one of working clothes and overalls. People who grow and produce food need skilled labour and sufficient income to pay decent wages. The land to be worked to provide our food, and much of our overseas income, needs skilled people to make it their career. Non-harvested crops rotting on the ground is a disgrace that the pandemic is only partly responsible for.

WHO warns of a water and food crisis worsening in many places in spite of modern innovations in food production.

Some people writing letters on food production and oil company propaganda need to let nurse read it first, or a senior high school pupil.

Sam McHarg

Kerikeri

Caveat emptor

On May 11 last year I bought a microwave from (a retailer in) Kaitaia. It works very well, but I was amazed that it didn’t have a bulb in the oven.

About nine months later my son said there is one. So very dim it’s hard to see any light. So I phoned the retailer and talked to an employee. After some time she told me she had been in touch with (the maker) and as it was still under warranty they would replace it. Next time she phoned she said the bulb had arrived and she had given it to a sparky.

Everything she said was a lie. It just seems (the retailer) has made a sale and profit, so is now not interested in making sure the client’s purchase remains operational.

So I contacted another sparky, qualified to do the replacement. That was about a month ago. Still not done, because (the maker) hasn’t got any equipment to honour their warranty.

How many months do you have to wait for a 12-month warranty to be honoured? When anyone buys something new you expect the article to work completely, and as that bulb never worked at all (the makers) should get off their butt and look after the people who look after them.

Pete Fisher

Kaitaia

Covid-19 doublespeak

Re Bill Morris (A specialist, letters April 8): Vaccines are ‘attenuated or killed micro-organisms for prevention, amelioration or treatment’.

The mRNA are definitely not this. When you say ‘modern short definition’, this is a part of the Covid-19 doublespeak that changes longstanding definitions to fit the self-serving memes around this. Furthermore, the mRNA do not prevent or cure the illness, but rather, maybe, ameliorate...