Category: Rural

Source: Radio New Zealand

New Zealand milk production hit historic levels in October, with national collections rising 2.8 percent year-on-year.

It marked the biggest October since 2018 and the third-largest month for milk production in New Zealand’s history.

It came as high global supply of milk saw Fonterra lower its forecast farmgate milk price on Tuesday to a mid point of $9.50 per kilogram of milk solids for the current season, down from $10.

NZX dairy analyst Lewis Hoggard said the lower payout would discourage farmers to carry on record milk production.

“There’ll definitely be a correction over time,” he said.

“Farmers have a sort of break-even price for what’s necessary in order to justify how much feed input they need to use. So by lowering that forecast that is gonna disincentivise a little bit of production.

“But $9.50 is still pretty strong, so I still see production being relatively strong going forward.

“But as payouts come down that should bring the supplementary feed down as well.”

Strong pasture growth earlier in spring and a high milk price had farmers feeding more supplement, with palm kernal imports (PKE) up around 7 percent in October.

PKE imports for the season so far were sitting 32 percent higher than last year too.

Hoggard said this was a sign farmers had been pushing production while payout expectations remained strong.

He said despite the reduced payout, Fonterra had lifted its forecast milk collections for this season to 1.545 billion kilos of milk solids, which signalled ongoing production strength.

Meanwhile, in Europe, dairy farmers have warned of a deepening price crisis, with the European Milk Board calling for immediate voluntary production cuts to stop prices collapsing.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Not even fast food giant McDonald’s New Zealand is immune to the rising cost of food, especially for key burger ingredient beef.

However, it recouped its spend on ingredients sourced in New Zealand last year with stronger earnings from its exports of them.

Around 90 percent of the fast food chain’s menu in its 170 restaurants across Aotearoa was sourced from local farms, and it spent $235 million on local produce in 2024, up from $218m in 2023 and $214m in 2022.

It exported more than $287m of local ingredients like beef, cheese and buns to its restaurants in export markets.

Aotearoa was now one of the chain’s top six countries supplying beef for its restaurants globally.

Last year, the American-owned subsidiary used 6000 tonnes of locally-sourced beef for sale domestically, and it exported nearly 30,000 tonnes of it, making up around 10 percent of New Zealand’s total beef exports.

McDonald’s New Zealand’s head of impact and communications Simon Kenny said globally the chain served 70 million people a day, using 2 percent of the world’s beef.

He said price swings locally could have a material impact on the operating costs of its restaurants.

“Like everyone’s seen in the supermarkets, beef’s been one of the biggest ones,” he said. “The beef we’re buying right now is over 20 percent more expensive than it was at the start of the year.”

He said that meant the patty that went into the cheeseburger was 10 cents more expensive than at the start of the year.

“On a product at that kind of cost, it’s a significant input cost that goes up. So yeah, we’re not immune to it.”

StatsNZ data showed food prices increased 4.7 percent in the year to October, and beef was a hotspot of the economy farmers were capitalising on.

Further data revealed meat exports hit $10 billion in the year to October last year, driven by sheepmeat and beef up $625m.

Processor ANZCO in Taranaki’s Waitara made around 500,000 patties a day from local meat supplies, he said.

But Kenny said beef was a commodity it had to buy on the open market.

“Ironically, because of the global demand for beef from other McDonald’s markets, and what we’ve seen this year with the increase in costs… because of those global dynamics, that does impact us domestically.”

He said price increases were considered very carefully, and assured that burger sizes had not changed, as they had global size specifications to stick to.

“McDonald’s is known for value,” Kenny said. “There’s a whole load of costs that we have to factor in to the business with our franchisees every year and then go, okay how do you manage margins but also keep giving customers good value?

“There’s a popular myth that the Big Mac got smaller, and we like to joke that probably your hands got bigger than they were when you were six years old in the ’80s or ’90s.”

He said labour costs for its 10,000 New Zealand staff had also increased.

The subsidiary’s profits saw a 43 percent fall on 2023, to $59,779,000 in 2024, according to company register documents.

The corporate reported it was “facing challenges” in meeting its ambitious scope 3 emissions reduction targets in the latest purpose and impact report.

It wanted to reduce its scope 3 forest, land and agricultural emissions in its value chain by 16 percent off its 2018 baseline of 62,836,186 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide to 52,782,392 megatonnes of carbon dioxide before the end of 2030. It hit 60,245,138 megatonnes in 2024.

It also wanted to maintain no deforestation across its primary deforestation-linked commodities.

But Kenny said New Zealand beef farmers were ahead of many global competitors in this space especially with traceability, even compared to Australia.

“Beef represents when you look at scope 3 emissions, by far the biggest single contributor to our global emissions profile is beef farming.”

He said it was about encouraging sustainable agriculture by ensuring there was best practice on farms, and emissions data and measurement were the first point of call in doing so.

“Actually, New Zealand’s in a really good place when it comes to how we produce beef – we just we have to measure it better and report back better.

“That then helps us report back to our global team and feed into those kind of metrics, versus any radical differences and changes to farming systems.”

Kenny said farmers could “tweak” their systems to improve their impact, like considering regenerative farming principles and other emissions reductions

“I think in the next five years it’s going to be a lot of those kind of tweaks to farming systems and what we already do really well in New Zealand.”

Nearly 50 years ago, in 1976, McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in New Zealand in Porirua.

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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 cooperative Fonterra has narrowed the mid-point price range of the Farmgate Milk Price to $9.50 a kilo of milk solids (kgMS) from $10.

The updated range for the 2025/26 season reflected downward pressure on global prices.

The forecast Farmgate Milk Price range was revised to to $9.00-$10.00 per kgMS from $9.00-$11.00 per kgMS.

“Fonterra started the season with a wide forecast range of $8.00-$11.00 per kgMS. The new midpoint of $9.50 per kgMS is in the middle of this range and remains a strong forecast for the season,” chief executive Miles Hurrell said.

Strong milk flows in New Zealand and other milk producing nations was behind the change.

“This increase in milk supply has put downward pressure on global commodity prices, with seven consecutive price drops in recent Global Dairy Trade events,” he said.

“We continue to be focused on maximising returns for farmer shareholders through both the Farmgate Milk Price and earnings. This includes through building strong relationships with customers who value our products, utilising price risk management tools, and optimising our product mix.”

The co-op also increased its forecast milk collections for the 2025/26 season by 20m kgMS to 1,545m.

“We continue to be focused on maximising returns for farmer shareholders through both the Farmgate Milk Price and earnings,” he said.

“This includes through building strong relationships with customers who value our products, utilising price risk management tools, and optimising our product mix.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Along the short path to Kelmarna community farm visitors are transported from suburbia to a rural oasis.

The 4 and a half acre block of land is nestled between the affluent Auckland suburbs of Ponsonby and Herne Bay, the last place you’d expect to find a farm.

The section is full of fruit trees, flower gardens, vegetables plots, and animals. As Adrian Roche shows First Up around chickens crowd around the gate of their coop hoping to be fed. Bees swarm around their hives in the spring sun.

“We really love having the bees here to help make all that pollination happen, and we love having the honey to sell” says Roche.

There’s even room for a few sheep. The breed, Wiltshires, were chosen because they’re sell shedding. That means they don’t have to be shorn or docked.

Kelmarna is completely organic, and produce, including fruit, vegetables and eggs are sold at the farm shop.

But plants aren’t the only thing being nurtured. The farm has a therapeutic gardening programme for people with mental health needs or intellectual disablities and participants in the programme can cultivate their own small plot of land.

“Some people need support and advice, and some people like the woman that looks after this plot neeeds absolutely no advice because she’s an amazing gardener” says Roche, pointing to one plot that is bursting with spring growth.

The farm’s compost is made on site, referred to as the ‘Soil Factory’.

To cut down on emissions an e-bike is used to collect food scraps from local restaurants and households. they scraps are then composted at Kelmarna and either used on the farm’s garden beds or sold.

Kelmarna’s history is almost as rich as the soil. The land was part of 3000acres Ngati Whatua gifted to the crown in 1840. In the 20th century it was part of St Vincent’s home of compassion.

“In modern speak you might call it an adoption processing centre” Roche says. “So this was common throughout New Zealand where women would be pregnant, out of wedlock, their families would generally organise them to go to places like the Home of Compassion here and have their babies and then the babies would be adopted out”

Some fruit trees from that era remain, while the shed where nuns once milked cows is now the lunch room for volunteers and workers.

The farm started in 1981 when Paul Lagerstedt lead the land from the council.

Adrian Roche began volunteering at Kelmarna in the 90s before becoming an employee in 2003.

“I’ve studied sustainability a lot and they always talk about, the importance of social goals and environmental goals” he says. That’s why I love this project so much, because it’s, doing both things. It’s got really strong social goals of supporting people, supporting the most vulnerable, and then communities, community space, and then also environmental goals about how to produce food that kind of improves the world rather than detracts from the world.

With Jo-Anne Hazel, Roche has written ‘Growing Together’ the story of the first 40 years of Kelmarna Farm.

While researching the book, old gardening diaries were uncovered, detailing early attempts at improving growing conditions. Using fish for fertiliser didn’t turn out so well after the nuns complained.

“They had to put the kibosh on that because the smell was sort of wafting over the neighbourhood and attracting a lot of flies, I suspect”

Fish wasn’t the only animal fertiliser tried.

“One of the most bizarre things was they were taking ashes from cremated animals from the zoo and using it. Very high in potassium maybe, I’m not sure, but it’s recorded there in the diaries”

More recent history hasn’t been without controversy, including 2019’s ‘cowgate’ episode.

“We had a bit of a moment in the glare of the media about selling some of our cattle for meat and then people complaining that the cattle were being turned into meat” Roche says.

The three steers were eventually rehomed, while Kelmarna escaped it’s own brush with death last year.

Community fundraising saved the farm, and a new 20 year lease was signed with Auckland council in April ensuring Kelmarna will continue thriving and growing into the future.

Kelmarna Farm will be hosting a series of ‘Growing Together’ Farm tours on December 5th and 6th led by co-author Adrian Roche.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Waikato pig farm has been fined $437,000 for persistent discharges of raw piggery effluent into the environment, including sewage tanks overflowing into waterways.

Rawhiti Environmental Park was convicted on eight charges in the Hamilton District Court on Thursday under the Resource Management Act.

The 810-hectare piggery near Te Aroha was subject to a years-long investigation by Waikato Regional Council for poor effluent management, including discharge to land and onto streams of the Kaimai-Mamaku Range.

The fine will be the largest imposed under the Resource Management Act in its 34-year history, following government changes this year that saw penalties for non-compliance ramp up and a history of non-compliance considered in future consenting.

Council regional compliance manager Patrick Lynch said it was one of the worst cases it had dealt with, with regard to the extreme environmental impact and repeated failures to comply.

“This offending has been appalling,” Lynch said.

“What I think happened in this situation is that [the company] got overwhelmed through lack of maintenance, lack of investment in infrastructure and intensification of the business.

“And then they’re really in a difficult place, which they placed themselves in, and it’s so hard to recover from that.”

Lynch said serious offending could have severe impacts on the Waihou River, soil health and marine life.

He said the record fine imposed by Judge Melinda Dickey was a “significant outcome”, and he hoped it would encourage better compliance on the farm and encourage other farming companies to take environmental management seriously.

“It’s a real deterrent for this company, but should be a deterrence for others as well.

“We’re really just imploring companies dealing with volumes of waste is just to have good infrastructure, have the infrastructure before you intensify, make sure it’s maintained, keep this stuff front of mind because this is the situation you can end up in.”

Lynch said he hoped the outcome would be meaningful for the community that had been patient through the process.

An enforcement order was imposed on the company to prohibit any future unlawful discharges, as the farm could continue to operate, and will face continued monitoring.

In a statement, a Rawhiti Environmental Park spokesperson said they were sorry the effluent issues occurred and accepted the court’s decision.

The statement said the issues began after the departure of a lease-holder who left the effluent system and infrastructure in poor condition and when Rawhiti resumed control and discovered the system was severely compromised, they moved quickly to put a long-term solution in place.

Rawhiti made the decision to keep the farm operating and invested more than $1 million in a state-of-the-art effluent system.

The spokesperson said Cyclone Gabrielle and the record rainfall through much of 2023 significantly delayed earthworks, which meant the new system could not be commissioned until December 2023.

They said the new system is now performing to a high standard and they are continuing to lift environmental performance including the planting of more than 2000 native plants along waterways to enhance biodiversity and protect water quality.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

A decision to allow the continued use of farrowing crates and mating stalls is the straw that broke the camel’s back for animals rights activsts.

In the past few months, associate agriculture minister Andrew Hoggard, responsible for animal welfare, has drawn intense criticism from animal welfare organisations, particularly for new pig welfare regulations.

The minister’s work to extend the use of sow farrowing crates and mating stalls was agreed to by select committee last week, giving farmers a decade before they need to comply with larger stalls pigs will spend less time in.

Now, animals rights organisation SAFE has asked Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to take the portfolio away from Hoggard, due to what it called a lack of impartiality and conflicts of interest.

“Hoggard’s persistent efforts to undermine and weaken [the Animal Welfare Act 1999] demonstrates clear and significant conflicts with this mandate,” it said in the complaint signed by chief executive Debra Ashton.

“During his tenure as the minister responsible for animal welfare, Minister Hoggard has gained a reputation for ignoring independent animal welfare science, disregarding the advice of the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (NAWAC), sidestepping equitable consultation, and contravening High Court rulings.”

But Hoggard said his farming background and CV showed he was qualified for the role.

“Well, I think SAFE wouldn’t be happy unless there was a vegan in the role who was totally opposed to farming effectively,” he said.

“They want an end to people owning pets, people being able to use animals for agriculture, and all the rest of it.”

From lobbyist to legislator, the Rangitīkei dairy farmer and former Federated Farmers president began his first term in parliament in late 2023.

“I think you compare me to anyone previously in any agriculture role in government, I think my CV stacks up rather impressively,” he said.

Luxon received the complaint from SAFE and said Hoggard had assured he was compliant with the Cabinet Manual 2023.

“The prime minister expects all his ministers to follow the Cabinet manual guidance. Mr Hoggard has assured the PM’s Office that he has followed that guidance,” a spokesperson said.

The Cabinet manual said ministers were responsible for ensuring that no conflicts existed or appeared to exist between their personal interests and their public duty.

Hoggard was also the minister for biosecurity, food safety and associate minister for the environment.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

As is often the case, especially in farming, “fresh is best” when hunting for sheep poo it seems.

Country Life joined Wairarapa sheep, beef, and deer farmer Paul Crick while he was out collecting samples to be analysed as part of a study by Beef and Lamb New Zealand that aims to better understand facial eczema.

He’s one of almost 300 farmers involved in the nationwide study.

“I’ve done a lot of things, but I never thought I’d be called a poo hunter,” he says with a laugh.

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What is facial eczema, or FE?

It’s caused by a toxin-producing fungus found in pasture which affects grazing livestock including, sheep, cows, deer, alpaca and goats.

The toxin impacts the liver, leading to significant health issues such as reduced fertility, weight loss, decreased growth, lower milk production, photosensitivity, sunburn, and in severe cases, death.

There is currently no cure for FE, which costs New Zealand farmers an estimated $332 million annually, according to Beef and Lamb.

“It loves warm, moist, humid conditions. It’s in the sward, animals come along, graze the pasture, ingest the toxin,” Crick explained.

From October, farmers collect about 10 samples from the same mob around different paddocks every couple of weeks. FE remains present in the paddocks until about late May, Crick said.

“What we’re trying to do here is build up a bit of a database and knowledge about where the spores are and hence that’s why we’re collecting the poo samples because we’ll find it in the poo samples themselves.”

There’s an art to finding the right samples as Country Life discovered.

Apart from freshness, it’s important to differentiate smaller lamb poo – more like Smartie pellets – from that of the mature mob. More liquid-like samples are difficult to collect but that’s what the blue gloves are for.

“The ewes tend to like camping in their spot,” Crick said as he hunted around for the perfect specimen.

He got it, and it’s even warm.

“That’s hot out of the oven that one.”

FE is particularly challenging for farmers because “you can’t see it” and there’s no cure – zinc can be used as a preventative measure.

At Glenside, Crick also breeds his own FE-tolerant rams as part of Arahura Sheep Genetics.

He said they wanted to “front foot” the issue and saw that farmers can make good progress quickly through bringing these traits into their flock.

“Good genetics is one tool in the toolbox and there’s other tools that farmers can use.”

It’s the third season he’s been involved in the study.

FE is prevalent in Wairarapa but farmers don’t know how much so.

“It’s here down through the North Island and they’ve actually found spore counts down in Otago.”

Twelve farms in Wairarapa were involved in the first year and all detected spores.

The next season one farm went through the season with none, while one of the 11 that did have spores even presented with clinical signs of FE.

Crick said his first season results came back with no spores detected and he worried it was a “waste of time”, but he said knowing where FE isn’t is just as important as knowing where it is and the conditions that surround it.

“We took our last sample at the end of May and I thought ‘God there’s going to be nothing’.

“It came back with a spore count of over 100,000. It really made me think.”

Beef and Lamb principal scientist Dr Cara Brosnahan said there’s already been some interesting findings from the study which revealed early signs that elevation, pasture height, and even neighbouring farm’s spore counts can impact FE.

She said this year, the final season, is “critical” to building on their understanding.

Beef and Lamb covers all testing costs, including sampling kits and prepaid return courier packaging.

As part of the study farmers also receive regular fungal spore count results, along with an anonymised nationwide map that tracks FE spore levels.

It’s the work of parasitologists like Sarah Riddy.

She and her team at Awanui Labs in Palmerston North process up to 260 samples sent in by farmers each fortnight during the peak FE period, the results of which, along with forms detailing things like breed, grazing, height and type of pasture, inform the nationwide FE map.

“Each of the farmers send in 10 samples per mob and that allows us to give a sort of overall pool value,” she explained.

“It gives them an idea of what’s happening in the mob rather than in each individual animal.”

At the lab, she weighs out one gram from each of the different samples to add up to a total of 10 grams, which is then mixed and diluted with 90 millilitres of water and spun to allow the sample to distribute evenly.

It’s then loaded onto a chamber and analysed under microscope – a grid helps her count the number of spores manually.

“One thing parasitologists are good at is microscopy, we spend our whole days on a microscope counting. So we’re very good with numbers.”

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Mitchel Hoare is pretty busy these days, with not only a 500-hectare farm to run and shares in a native plant nursery, but a new agricultural drone venture.

He and fellow farmer Andrew Blackmore set up King Country Ag Drones about six months ago.

They saw a gap in the market, bought some “state of the art equipment”, and “between the two of us, in our spare time, we’re giving this a crack”.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

The big banks are responding to an ongoing drop in global dairy prices, with the ANZ the latest to trim its farmgate milk price.

ANZ has revised down its forecast to $9.65 per kilogram of milk solids for the 2025/26 season.

Against its previous forecast of $10.00/kgMS, the latest figure released on Friday represents a 3.5 percent downgrade in the expected payout.

This follows the lead of the BNZ which, on Thursday, revised its figure to $9.50/kgMS and the NZX, which lowered its forecast to $9.49 /kgMS.

ANZ agricultural economist Matt Dilly said dairy prices are coming under increasing downward pressure with surging global supply.

Since its high in May, the GDT Price Index has dropped 18 percent.

Global dairy prices, particularly butter, have dropped amid strong milk production in New Zealand and other major dairy exporting markets.

On top of that, whole milk powder prices have slumped nearly a quarter since May.

“Dairy prices peaked in May with the benchmark whole milk powder (WMP) prices well over USD4,470 a tonne, now whole milk powder is looking at USD3405,” Dilly said.

“The benchmark whole milk powder (WMP) price has dropped 23.8 percent over that time. But in our view, it’s butter that’s been driving the dairy market since early last year.

“Butter prices were really high last year and no one could make enough of it. Now everyone’s making too much of it.”

The production situation has improved this year in both the EU and the US. In both markets, the fat components of the milk are also rising strongly, which means more butter can be made from each litre of milk.

One mitigating factor for dairy farmers here is the weak New Zealand dollar.

All eyes in the rural sector will be on Fonterra’s quarterly update on December 4 when it also releases the first quarter FY2025 trading results.

The dairy co-operative is forecasting a midpoint of $10/kgMS but it too is likely to come under pressure to revise downward.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Warning: Readers may find these images distressing

Animal welfare activists, public submitters and the associate agriculture minister are still at odds around the use of farrowing crates and mating stalls at pig farms, amid the release of covert footage inside one.

The Ministry for Primary Industries was investigating what it called “minor animal welfare issues” at a South Taranaki pig farm, after activists released covert footage from inside the barn using farrowing crates.

MPI animal welfare inspectors visited the farm last week following a complaint it received from animal rights group SAFE relating to footage it received from ‘Grassroots Campaign’.

Videos showed large, lactating sows constrained in farrowing crates, unable to move beyond standing, one with a large open wound, some without water or dirty water only, and some biting the metal bars.

Piglets were able to access the sow for milk and lived separately in heated homes, but had no natural material like hay, and dead piglets were piled up in a rubbish bin.

SAFE chief executive Debra Ashton said farrowing crates were a cruel practice that should be banned, as previous governments had promised.

“That must be a horrible existence for those pigs in those conditions,” Ashton said.

“What we’ve really seen here is animal cruelty where pigs are confined in those crates that are so small, they can’t turn around, look after their piglets properly.

“These are conditions that are typical on a farm that is using farrowing crates, and that I think is our biggest concern that this is business as usual.”

Ashton said it received the footage externally from “brave people”, and conditions were kept behind closed doors without it.

“We’re not asking for anyone to enter a property to get footage. But out of frustration, we can see why people would do this.”

She said releasing the footage was not about victimising farmers.

“We are talking about a system that the government is allowing, we’re not trying to pick on individual farmers.”

Associate Agriculture Minister Andrew Hoggard led legislative changes that sought to amend the minimum standards for pig farming that retained the use of both farrowing crates and mating stalls, but with slightly larger sizes and less time for pigs spent in them.

The select committee members reported back to Parliament on Tuesday that the changes could proceed without amendment.

Most public submissions opposed the legislative changes.

Hoggard said the new legislative changes aimed to maximise piglet survivability.

“I know a lot of people out there find the images reasonably confronting. However, that’s the whole goal of what it is we’re doing, is to actually minimize the time that sows spend in a farrowing crate down to just seven days.”

He said submissions on the changes were looked over for balance, but those affected by the changes like the pork industry must be considered.

“In terms of submissions, well, obviously the animal welfare organisations mobilised a whole bunch of people, and so yep, most of the submissions were opposed,” he said.

“But quite frankly, it’s not about the number of submissions for or against, because if that’s how we decided things in New Zealand, then we wouldn’t bother with a Parliament.

“At the end of the day, we have to make a call on what’s best for the country, and in terms of our pork industry.”

He said MPI investigated the farm, so it was an operational matter he could not specifically comment on.

The Taranaki farm in the videos was approached for comment.

MPI said the farm’s “minor welfare issues” were being addressed and inquiries and follow-up inspections were continuing.

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