Category: Country

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Department of Conservation (DOC) is on the lookout for one of the world’s most endangered wetland birds, and asking local farmers and landowners to help.

The native kakī or black stilt birds mostly call Mackenzie Basin’s braided rivers and wetlands home, but conservation staff expected they could be on the move following the recent storms that affected South Island riverbeds.

Spring marked mating season for the endemic bird considered “nationally critical”, a DOC classification for birds considered the most severely threatened and facing an immediate high risk of extinction. It was a taonga species for Māori.

Kakī were vulnerable to habitat loss, changing or unseasonal weather and predators.

DOC asked farmers and the public to report any sightings of the black bird with notable red legs, that may be on the hunt for a new riverside home.

Recovery programme lead, Claudia Mischler said they were mostly found around the Mackenzie Basin, but had been spotted in South Canterbury’s Waimate and as far north as Marlborough.

“There’s a lot of time and energy that goes into trying to save this species,” she said.

“We’re only at about 150 adults in the wild at the moment, so there’s actually fewer kakī out there than there is kākāpō and Kiwi, so they are incredibly rare.”

Conservation staff would seek out kakī nests as part of the recovery programme, then take the eggs into captivity where they were incubated, hatched and later released from captive breeding aviaries, in efforts to protect the young against common predators, stoats, ferrets and hedgehogs.

Mischler said historically the birds had been forced onto farmland when rivers had flooded, as they always sought still water where they could find insects to eat.

“Anywhere there’s water that might last for a while is fair game, that includes just muddy, freshly ploughed paddocks or just paddocks with short grass.

“Basically you’re just looking for a very beautiful, totally black bird with a long bill and red pinky, long legs loitering around the edge of the water.”

She said finding them was not always easy.

“Sometimes it just feels like looking for a needle in a haystack when we’re out there trying to find these pairs in these nest, so the more eyes on the ground we have out there the more useful it is for us… they’re pretty special.”

Mackenzie locals were encouraged to keep an eye out for any leg tags on the birds, but any sightings would be welcome at twizel@doc.govt.nz.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Technology company Halter has replaced around 30 tall transmission towers vital to its virtual farm fencing systems, after they were knocked down by last week’s storms.

By Labour weekend, there were 70 South Island farms affected by disruptions to the virtual, fence-less systems for livestock, mostly in Canterbury, Southland and Otago.

The system works by cows wearing collars that took information like the animal’s location, temperature and weight, and sent it to nearby transmission towers – that were up to nearly 10 metres tall – so farmers could view and control the “breaks” or boundaries in the paddock from their cell phones.

Director of communications, Colin Espiner said it was working with the three remaining farms still experiencing connectivity issues, after repair crews got to work over the long weekend.

“We had around about 70 farms impacted in total, mostly in the South Island, and of those we probably lost around about 30 towers, just being smashed by the sheer force of the gusts of wind.

“We jumped in a couple of trucks in Auckland and drove all the way down to Southland with replacement gear for the farmers that have been impacted over the long weekend, and helped get them set back up again.”

The storm threw areas Canterbury, then Southland and Clutha into a state of emergency, as thousands lost power, slips cut off roads and highways, and many faced widespread damage from falling trees and buildings.

Was your farm affected? Let us know monique.steele@rnz.co.nz

Espiner confirmed outages did not result in virtual fences dropping out, and said there were multiple “fail safes” for when power and cell networks went down.

“When those things happen, the farms have the option of either just holding in place, so the cows remain within their virtual breaks – or if the farmer wants to move them, he or she can simply switch to manual mode and then he or she can move the cows the old fashioned way.”

He said it had been a “pretty wild spring”, so when there had been recent outages, the systems would switch to battery back-up mode so farming could continue as normal.

“So when the power goes out, the entire Halter system switches to battery mode, and we have battery backup for at least two to three days. So in most cases that can bring the farm through.”

Espiner said the data that was essential to farmers was in most cases automatically backed up for a certain amount of time after the system went down.

“We can hold their data for I think anything less than about 20 hours worth of outage, it doesn’t actually have a major impact.

“I’m pretty happy that we actually managed to get almost all of those farms back up within those 20 hours.”

Espiner said for those who had lost data, it may only be one heat lost, but its algorithms could help catch them up.

“So in most cases, farmers won’t have lost any crucial data from our mating systems.”

He said twelve farms in affected regions were mid-mating on the day of the storm, and 23 were scheduled to start in the next couple of weeks.

“In some parts of the country, it is mating season, and Halter obviously helps farmers know when the cows are going to be in the heat as well, so it’s really important for us to get the data back online for them really quickly because they need that data in order to spot when their accounts are going to be in heat and cycling.

“We really prioritised them because that data is just essential for them in order to make informed decisions about mating.”

More than 1,000 farms nationwide had Halter’s virtual fencing and pasture management systems in place.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

One week since a wind storm tore through the country’s south, some Clutha district farmers say the financial hit could be harsher than they originally feared.

Suzie Roy said after a week without power – trying to hold her stock in with kilometres of boundary fencing flattened by falling trees – she had learnt her insurance would only cover building damage.

“How we how we move forward, with 200 kilometres of fencing that needs doing, and 75 percent of our trees on 1600 acres down?” she said.

“It’s quite daunting looking at it at the moment when the damage is just fresh and it’s going to take months, well, years, to get everything done.”

Others were facing a similar hit.

Michaela and Phil Swanson said their farm, which had been “smashed”, would also need extensive – and unfunded – fence repairs.

“Unless you’ve got specific fencing insurance, they [the insurers] are not going to help. I mean, how many farmers know that you’ve got to do that?” Michaela Swanson said.

At community meetings, authorities stressed there was assistance available, including hardship grants from MSD and the Rural Women New Zealand adverse events fund.

Insurers urged farmers to take photos of the damage and lodge their claims as soon as possible.

Phil Swanson said the government needed to stump up more.

“We spend millions of dollars on catastrophes overseas. And there’s what, $150,000 in a mayoral relief fund. Which goes into what? Bureaucrats’ pockets? Cups of tea and biscuits? Where’s the help for our people, our nation?” he said.

This week, logging crews had been out in force across the Clutha district and were asking residents not to attempt to clear trees themselves.

Graham Hunter said he was concerned there were not enough people to get through the enormous workload, and believed the government should consider sending in extra crews.

At the current rate, he said, he was worried the trees he had grown for 30 years would rot where they lay before contractors could reach them.

He estimated they would take a month to clear.

“And that’s just on our place. How many people here [at this meeting]? Probably 200… so that’s the depth of it. Just so much work. It’s hard to see how it’s going to happen.”

Hunter said one week on from the storm, the adrenaline had worn off and he was beginning to face the fallout.

“It happened on Thursday, and Friday was horrible. Saturday was just a bit numb, totally numb. Every day that passes you make a wee bit of progress. Reality has sunk in now.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Retailers in rural New Zealand could be set for a boost if farmers vote on Thursday to go ahead with the sale of Fonterra’s consumer businesses to France’s Lactalis.

ASB economists earlier said the deal was expected to deliver a tax-free capital return of about $3.2 billion to 8000 shareholding farms throughout New Zealand.

“The average return (to shareholders) would be around $392,000 if the sale goes ahead, and we estimate around 60 percent of shareholding farms could receive at least $200,000,” ASB chief economist Nick Tuffley said.

But what will they do with it?

Mike Jones, chief economist at BNZ, said the extra cash flow for farmers would give them options.

“I think we will see a mix of retiring debt, addressing deferred maintenance, probably having a good look at expansion, whether it’s extra land or herd size… and probably a bit of a smattering of discretionary spending in there as well. But overall I think it’s probably going to depend on the age and stage of the participants receiving the money.”

He said farmers were likely to be prudent. “It’s not going to all go on gold-plated utes and tractors.”

But he said, in combination with strong conditions in the primary export sector generally, it was likely to be a boost.

“We’re just starting to see some evidence of a little bit of extra spending and investment. If you look at things like farm sales, tractors, fertiliser imports, rural building consents, all of those areas are starting to show a little bit of growth just in the last two or three months, that wasn’t there before. You wouldn’t say things are roaring away by any means, but there’s definitely some growth that’s coming through. And I think kind of that in collaboration with lower interest rates doing their work as they do throughout the economy is certainly going to help us.”

He said a lot of the money was likely to stay in the regions.

Economist Cameron Bagrie said he expected more spending than debt repayment.

“If you look at the $3.2 billion, it’s going to get ploughed into the economy in some shape or form. That’s about 0.7 percent of GDP. So, if you’re talking about a sizable injection that’s going to hit rural New Zealand, then that will proliferate through to the city centres as well.”

He said tractor sales were already up 13 percent on a year earlier, and that sort of import activity helped boost port cities.

There were many factors working for farmers, he said, such as the lower New Zealand dollar, higher commodity prices and higher payout.

“It looks like the icing on the cake will be subject to approval, this $3.2 billion, which is going to get redeployed into farmers.”

He said there was more optimism in rural New Zealand than in other parts of the country. “Auckland in particular is really struggling.”

But Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said farmers were notoriously conservative about spending so it was likely many would prioritise debt repayment.

“It’s a capital payment effectively rather than an income payment, I’d expect them to probably be cognisant of that and any spending they do undertake is probably going to be more in that sort of capital area rather than rushing off down to the shops to buy a new lounge suite.”

But he said it would help lift activity. “Give it 12 months, 18 months, I think it does help add a bit of momentum to those provincial economies because some of that capex will flow through into more economic activity. But you’re pretty muted in the first instance and I think it will be selective spending.”

Kiernan said the provincial economy should help to improve New Zealand’s overall economic outlook into next year.

“We have been watching the trends in dairy prices and to a lesser extent, horticulture prices over the last probably four months now or so, and they just have been softening a bit. They’re still at good levels but there’s a little bit of caution around that.

“But the fact they’re still high does suggest to us that there will still be money flowing through the provinces.”

Corelogic chief property economist Kelvin Davidson said it was hard to say whether it would mean a boost for activity in the property market, such as in demand for holiday homes in areas adjacent to farming regions.

“I think some farmers are likely to buy property, but others will no doubt pay down some debt, or buy plant and equipment.

“I know anecdotally that farmers in Southland for example have currently got much bigger fish to fry in terms of ensuring consistent milk production without power, and any extra cash they might have may well go to storm clean-up.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

• Fonterra shareholders asked to approve $4.22b sale of consumer brands business Mainland Group
• France’s Lactalis to take ownership of well-known brands Mainland, Anchor
• Farmer shareholders in line for tax-free bonus, pump billions into economy
• Fonterra has multi-year contracts to supply Lactalis
• NZ First leader Winston Peters strongly critical of sale
• Meeting 10.30 AM, 30 October, result expected early afternoon

Fonterra’s farmer shareholders look set to approve the sale of the co-operative’s Mainland Group’s consumer brands business, giving themselves and ultimately the economy a multi-billion dollar payday.

The $4.22 billion sale to the world’s biggest dairy group, French-based Lactalis, was the final step in Fonterra’s transition from would-be global dairy giant in multiple markets, to a slimmed-down New Zealand-based supplier of raw ingredients and high-value products to other manufacturers.

The company pondered a share float of Mainland, but opted instead for what was likely to be a more lucrative trade sale to Lactalis.

Fonterra chair Peter Mcbride had no doubts about the sale.

“The Fonterra board is confident a sale to Lactalis is the highest value option for the Co-op, including over the long-term … [this] gives the board the confidence to unanimously recommend this divestment to shareholders for approval.”

Yes vote for a big pay day

ASB Bank estimated the sale proceeds would ultimately be worth about $4.5b to the economy, with farmer shareholders receiving an average tax-free payout of about $392,000 if the sale went ahead.

Forsyth Barr senior analyst Matt Montgomerie said there was strong support for the deal from shareholders, despite initial apprehension.

“I’ve been around the regions recently doing various presentations, and I think the feel we get is that the vote should pass, and should pass somewhat comfortably,” he said.

The chair of supplier organisation Fonterra’s Dairy Farmers Co-op, John Stevenson, said there had been many robust and emotional discussions about the future direction of Fonterra.

Stevenson said just one of 27 dairy farmers on the co-op’s council voted against selling off Mainland Group.

Among the concerns was a lack of detail about the long-term supply agreements with Lactalis, as well as an emotional appeal about the loss of famous New Zealand brands, including Mainland, Anchor, Kāpiti, and Fernleaf.

“Some of those (consumer) products are good brands because of the New Zealand grass-fed branding around the product,” Montgomerie said.

Because Fonterra produced a significant volume of milk, he said it would be hard for Lactalis to get supply elsewhere, while the broad agreement was along the lines of other large supply agreements.

Increases exposure to global demand

Those opposed to the sale were also concerned Fonterra would be more exposed to the ups and downs of global demand for ingredients.

“It does mean that they don’t have any significant levers to pull in the event of unforeseen circumstances, which in turn, I think means the board will take a more conservative approach to managing capital going forward,” Montgomerie said.

However, he said the potential growth in Fonterra’s Food Services and Ingredients business, particularly in Asia, could offset missed opportunities associated with the forecast future growth in the consumer business.

Fonterra had been allocating more milk away from the commoditised products offered on the global dairy trade, to earn higher returns on products, such as protein concentrates.

The backstory

Fonterra’s plan to sell Mainland followed a strategic review, led by chief executive Miles Hurrell, who was hired to turn the business around following a number of loss-making years.

Saddled with debt, underperforming overseas businesses, and volatile commodity markets, Hurrell oversaw the sale of foreign assets to bring down debt.

The result was the end of costly adventures in Brazil, Chile, China and elsewhere, as well cost-cutting and the sale of non-core assets, such as ice cream maker Tip Top.

Fonterra decided a simplified, stripped-down business was the best option for New Zealand’s dairy products.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

One of the country’s most storied high-country stations is on the market.

Offers of $50 million or more are being sought for Mt Algidus Station, a 22,120-hectare property in the Southern Alps.

Author Mona Anderson lived on the property for 33 years, and detailed her time there in the book A River Rules My Life.

The station – secluded at the confluence of the Wilberforce, Rakaia and Mathias rivers near Canterbury’s Lake Coleridge – was also home to politician William Rolleston in the 1860s.

Sotheby’s International Realty sales associate Matt Finnigan said the vendors, who had lived there for two decades, had added a four-bedroom residence with living areas, a library, drawing room, office and pool cabana, as well as a two-bedroom flat.

The property also included a three-bedroom farmhouse for guest accommodation – with an additional out-house bedroom and standalone bedsit, along with a woolshed and sheep yards, the old shearers’ quarters and other dwellings.

“You very seldom find high country farms that have had this level of capital investment in terms of infrastructure and staff housing and industry farming improvements,” Finnigan said.

Sotheby’s was marketing the property domestically and internationally with an advertising campaign in The New York Times.

New Zealand buyers were still the primary audience, Finnigan said.

“If you look at the last seven years or so, [Overseas Investment Office] applications have been almost non-existent for such properties. What we have realised is actually there’s a large expat database there. You just need to look at our sales for that period – they’ve all been Kiwi or resident buyers.

“So advertising offshore, as we do with all our good real estate, captures that audience.”

The station was a working high-country farm with high stock units and a small permanent staff, Finnigan said. But he expected prospective buyers would be attracted by its history and lifestyle opportunities.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

WorkSafe is urging farmers to install crush protection or a rollover guard on quad bikes following another death in the Far North.

Emergency services were called to a rural property east of Broadwood, in North Hokianga, about 4pm on Thursday following a quad bike accident.

A man died at the scene.

Police, Broadwood Fire Brigade and St John Ambulance responded.

St John sent an ambulance and a rescue helicopter to the remote property.

A WorkSafe spokesman said an investigation was underway, and the agency “strongly recommended” farmers install a crush or rollover protection device on their quad bikes.

He said farm vehicle incidents were one of the top two causes of workplace deaths in New Zealand, which was why agriculture was a priority sector for WorkSafe.

WorkSafe data shows 79 people died in work-related quad bike accidents between 2006 and 2023, with eight of those fatalities in Northland. Waikato had the highest number of deaths, 17, of any region.

The majority of those occurred on farms.

Between 2010 and 2023 just under 700 people were seriously injured using quad bikes at work.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

From extreme heat to extreme cold, the cows which have been in Berwick Settle’s care live in some challenging situations.

Over the past two decades, the former Southland sharemilker has helped set up dairy farms in Cambodia, China, Vietnam and Russia.

His first introduction to fully housed dairy operations, where cows are fed rations in huge barns, was in Indonesia.

Milking 1200 cows in very warm temperatures “on the side of a volcano” was different from the New Zealand pastoral system where cows mostly forage paddocks for their feed and only come to the shed at milking time.

He went on to help set up one of the first of China’s very large dairy farms – 10,000 cows with a tourism operation alongside – in China’s dairy farming central, Houhot, in Inner Mongolia.

In some of the Asian countries he’s worked temperatures can get up to 39C with very high humidity, so managing heat stress is critical, he told Country Life.

“If you don’t get it right, production can crash. Reproduction can drop down to about 10 percent conception and [there are] a lot of abortions, and animal health issues also increase massively.”

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Settle said there is a lot of science and developing technology involved in keeping the cows cool, including sprinkler systems and huge fans.

“When the cow comes to the feeding line, a sprinkler goes on them, they sprinkle them for about 30 seconds, and then the fan blows on for about four-and-a-half minutes.

“So, it’s exactly the same situation where you hop out of a swimming pool on a windy day, you cool down very quickly”.

The Houhot operation allowed tourists to watch the cows milking in the multi-parlour arrangement.

“A 50-a-side parallel herringbone, a 60-bale rotary, a two-by-eight herringbone and a robotic milker all in the one facility.”

They would watch from a visitor’s gallery “so they could sit, walk around and see all the different parlours milking and the cows coming in and out”.

Settle also spent three years managing operations at Hua Xia Farms near the Chinese capital Beijing. It grew to five farms with 35,000 cows.

Cleanliness and management of manure are also challenges with such a high density of animals indoors, he said. There are several steps to make sure udders are clean before milking in such an environment.

“Trying to get some sort of, you know, sustainability practice into the farming operations is very difficult.

“The number of animals per hectare … is incredibly high, so all of the manure needs to be dealt with and carted off site. So you must have good systems around how you deal with your manure.”

At present, Settle is based in Russia working with the Vietnamese company TH Milk resurrecting a dairy farming hub at Efimsevo, southwest of Moscow and not far from Kozelsk. Here there is the challenge of extreme cold – it can reach -25C.

Barns are well insulated but not heated, and water troughs must be fitted with elements to keep the water from freezing.

But his latest assignment has more than just climate challenges to deal with, as Kozelsk is a base for several Russian missile regiments. The farm site is next to a strategic missile base, and drone attacks are constant reminders of the war with Ukraine.

Settle said they were “part of everyday life here”.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Growing up gardening with her grandmother sowed the original seed for heritage seed collector and grower Jemma Ostenfeld.

Originally from Australia’s Gold Coast, she’s been in New Zealand five years and after learning the ropes of seed collecting in Hawke’s Bay, she now collects and sows heritage varieties on a patch of borrowed land at Poroporo in eastern Bay of Plenty.

She grows the seedlings and heritage crops and sells her produce at farmers’ markets in the region.

“I try for over 100 years old – they hold the memory of all the times that they’ve been grown before, so they have more resistance to pests and disease and any environmental conditions like drought,” she told Country Life.

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Heritage seeds are from a plant that has reproduced naturally through “open pollination” and been passed down through the generations.

They are “true-to-type”, Ostenfeld explained, meaning the plant that grows from them is genetically identical.

They can be traced back to early seed catalogues and in the case of traditional Māori vegetables – kamokamo and beans for example – can go back centuries.

When Country Life visited she was in her hand-built greenhouse sowing a heritage lettuce variety from a trusted collector in Northland.

“Every time a seed is grown, it will take on those environmental conditions from that season.

“If it’s grown in a different soil type, it will become adapted to that soil type, plus all the different soil types that it’s been grown in before, so by diversifying the environment that the seeds are grown in, it’s going to take on more qualities of pest resistance, of resistance to harsh environmental conditions, so it gets stronger and stronger year after year.”

She found her passion for seed collecting on her initial travels around New Zealand, connecting with growers and others in the small seed collecting community.

“A lot of the seeds that have come into New Zealand have been smuggled in by like people in the war, sneaking them in their socks, or a lot came over with the Dalmatian gum diggers as well. So they originate in other countries, and then they come here, and they’ve got these amazing stories.”

Ostenfeld has been passed on a few different varieties and been approached to take on a whole seed collection by someone who wants to ensure his seeds are well looked after.

“Sometimes it gets to a point where families can’t necessarily look after those lines anymore, but they still want to keep that seed alive, because it means so much to them.

“It’s one of those things that’s it’s hard to ask for, I think they come to you when the time is right.”

Ostenfeld leads an off-grid life at present in the remote valley, sowing weekly in the spring and watering by hand, heading to farmers’ markets with her certified organic produce at the weekend.

She’s also an educator.

“I’m kind of turning into a mini garden centre trying to provide the average home gardener with the tools to be able to grow healthy food in their garden, as well as education and engagement through workshops.”

She must abide by international seed-saving rules, ensuring strict germination rates, adjusting her growing routines to ensure the best outcome.

She also ensures she can pass on the history of the seeds.

“Before I sell them, I make sure that I go into a deep dive of where they originate from. It might be a plant breeder in the 1800s.”

Seed libraries should be sprinkled around the country, she believes, to ensure seed security in case of major events like Cyclone Gabrielle and Covid which disrupted distribution, she said.

“When we were all locked down, there was such a high demand for seeds that those people almost sold out of a lot of their ranges.

“I think the more people that are growing and saving heritage seeds and distributing them out across the country creates a more secure food system for us.”

Ostenfeld is on the look out for a new patch of land to lease or collaborate on in the Bay of Plenty which has ideal growing conditions, she said.

Learn more:

• Find our more about Jemma Ostenfeld here

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Dairy prices have fallen again in the fortnightly global auction overnight.

The average price at the Global Dairy Trade auction fell 2.4 percent to US$3768 a tonne, the sixth consecutive fall.

It follows the 1.4 percent drop in the previous auction.

The GDT Price Index was at its lowest level since September 2024.

The price of wholemilk powder, which strongly influences payouts for local farmers, fell 2.7 percent to $3503 (NZ$6669) a tonne.

Butter prices fell more than 4 percent, while cheddar prices fell 6.6 percent, and skim milk powder was flat.

NZX head of dairy insights Cristina Alvarado said the auction result was broadly in line with expectations.

“The result reflects a market weighed down by abundant milk supplies from New Zealand, Europe, the United States and Argentina, while demand has softened following heavy buying earlier in the season,” Alvarado said.

“With product deliveries now well aligned to the Christmas, New Year, Chinese New Year and Ramadan periods, buyers appear content with existing coverage, leading to reduced participation and lower clearing prices.”

Wholemilk powder fell for the fifth consecutive auction, with buyers purchasing on a “hand-to-mouth basis” rather than building up their inventories.

Alvarado said North Asia (China) demand was dominant in the auction.

She added that the global butter market was “oversupplied” with Europe and the US reporting strong production and exporting aggressively.

She said US butter exports were up 208 percent year-on-year.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand