Any of you who think animal welfare issues are just another of todays PC issues that have got out of control, need to think again and look at the blog response www.interest.co.nz have had when they broke this story. All farmers should tread carefully in this area and public perception is a strong influence in food and negative stories can be damaging. Also look at reaction to David Carters response to the issue, on a later story.

Bernard Hickey details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9am in association with ASB, starting with news broken late yesterday by interest.co.nz of an animal neglect story at New Zealand’s biggest privately owned dairy farming group.

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Communications and IT Minister Steven Joyce has announced coverage targets for the roll out of broadband to rural communities. Within six years he expects over 80 % of rural households to have access to broadband with speeds of at least 5Mbit/s, with the remainder to achieve speeds of at least 1Mbit/s reports Stuff. Meanwhile, 93 % of rural schools will receive fibre delivering speeds of at least 100Mbit/s, with the remaining seven percent to achieve speeds of at least 10Mbit/s.

“Around half of rural households are coping with dial up speeds currently and that’s not good enough in the 21st century,” Joyce says in a statement released today. “Providing fibre to the vast majority of rural schools will effectively deliver the capacity to provide faster broadband to the communities they serve. Fibre backhaul is currently the primary limiting factor in the delivery of rural broadband and getting fibre to schools will address that.”

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Two of the leading players in NZ agriculture – Silver Fern Farms and Livestock Improvement (LIC) – have jointly developed a pilot programme which when proven, will deliver “enabling knowledge” to implement an integrated supply chain from farmer partners of Silver Fern Farms to their international customer partners.

· Silver Fern Farms is New Zealand’s leading procurer, processor and marketer of lamb, mutton, beef, venison and associated products to more than 60 countries
· LIC is one of the largest integrated herd improvement organisations in the world with proven data and analysis management.

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This September quarter the National Banks rural report focuses on rural land values, in todays climate. It looks at economic principles of business to help purchasers and vendors make decisions beneficial to their future. The report covers why the market is depressed today, and where  values sit compared to past levels. 

The real cost of debt is studied and whether farms will experience the levels of capital growth they have in the past. Also commented on, are profit margins in farming, the importance of water and a warning that farmers should expect heightened volatility in the future.

As always a good read.

The average deer farmers’ net cash income is up on last year, the MAF’s farm monitoring data shows. The model results and commentary from MAF’s deer monitoring reports were released this week showing deer farms’ net income increased 43 percent in the North Island and 22 percent in the South Island between 2007/08 and 2008/09.

The improvement comes despite the impact of a drought affected season, resulting in a decrease in both fawning percentages and carcass weights. MAF Policy Analyst Deborah Hackell says deer farmer morale is positive with farmers expecting their businesses will remain profitable in the short to medium-term. “Tight supply and continued demand have driven up the price of venison but prices for velvet are down, resulting in a shift away from velveting stags,” says Deborah.

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Does the farmer put the vet in an animal welfare conflict? Sometimes, yes. Given NZ’s economic dependence on agriculture, and the growing attention to animal welfare here and overseas, it is unsurprising there has been concurrent development of animal-welfare law reports Rural News. Although education brings about change in some farmers’ thinking, sadly some require enforcement through the courts. Lawyers and organisations like MAF Enforcement must ensure the interests of many are not compromised by the unlawful actions of a few.

Increasing attention to animal welfare affects vets and farmers, particularly those struggling to prioritise or balance animal welfare with business interests, or attitudes based on outdated farm practices. Consider develvetting. The vet carries out the annual surgery on the sire stag for a client deer farmer, something done for the past 10 years. The vet knows the client is not approved to remove velvet from his animals yet has never enquired who does it. If it’s not the usual attending vet or approved person, probably the farmer has develvetted the spikers; again, potential conflict.

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Otago farming leader Rob Lawson has spent the past two weeks investigating one of NZ and Australia’s largest supermarket chains as one of 30 participants in the Woolworths Agricultural Business Scholarship Programme in Sydney. Mr Lawson, who runs a family sheep and cattle farm at Waikouaiti, was the only participant from outside Australia and the first NZer to attend the programme in the three years it has been run.

The Woolworth’s programme is run in conjunction with the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales and the University of Western Sydney, and during the two weeks participants hear from senior Woolworth’s staff and external experts, visit stores and distribution networks and complete group and course work reports The ODT.

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A Waimate farm has been fined $6000 for a “sloppy practice” that could have compromised NZ’s $5.5 billion meat export industry. Cantley Developments, which owns and operates the farm, and farm manager Janet McKenzie, pleaded guilty to the charge of presenting non-complying animal material for processing reports The Timaru Herald. Crown prosecutor Tim Gresson appeared in the Timaru District Court yesterday on behalf of the NZ Food Safety Authority, which administers the Animal Products Act. The act prohibits suppliers of farmed mammals from presenting animal material for processing, if it has been treated with or exposed to a registered agricultural compound and is within the relevant withholding period as stated on the label of the compound.

On September 14 last year Ms McKenzie supplied 35 bobby calves from the Waimate farm to Silver Fern Farms at Fairton for processing. The next day one of the calves was randomly selected for a residue test that gave a positive result. Mr Gresson said 12 days before the calf arrived at the freezing works, Scourban Plus – a registered agricultural compound used for treating bacterial infections in animals, was purchased by Ms McKenzie. The label on the product stated that the withholding period from presenting for processing was 14 days for cattle. It also warned that it was not for use in bobby calves as they are typically sent to the works at an age under 14 days old.

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Massey University professor Paul Moughan says although NZ still has some world-class science teams in certain areas, it has lost the lead in some other areas of agrifood. ‘Now is the time to muster our resources and achieve new alignments in agrifood research and tertiary education,’ he says. Writing in Massey University newsletter MasseyNews, Moughan notes that overseas there are numerous recent examples of the merging of complementary agrifoods research and training organizations reports Rural News. He says in the case of universities, such re-alignments are also driven by the educational imperative that the undergraduate educational experience should be broad-based and that students should be exposed to diverse disciplines and lines of thinking.

‘Much of a student’s learning occurs outside formal lectures and the whole academic and social milieu of the university is very important. ‘Many of the best modern universities recognise that the education of students is enhanced when teaching and learning is undertaken within a diverse mix of students, staff and disciplines.’ A recent move to merge state-owned crown research institute AgResearch and Lincoln fell through. He says combining Massey’s and Lincoln’s strengths will create a world-class organisation of critical size and would offer undergraduate and postgraduate scholars an unsurpassed broad-based educational experience.

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The development of the world’s first global dairy futures market could cement NZ’s position as an industry leader, NZX says, but there are doubts that farmers will have the financial sophistication to use it reports The NZ Herald. Sharemarket operator NZX is designing the futures platform to help world dairying players manage their risk in increasingly volatile markets. NZX head of traded products Fiona Mackenzie says dairy commodities are unique in that unlike cocoa, wheat, sugar or coffee, they do not have a futures mechanism to help protect players exposed to price movements. Because dairy prices have historically not been particularly volatile, there hasn’t been a push to start a futures market.

However, the ANZ Commodity Price Index for dairy products more than doubled between August 2006 and November 2007, before dropping 58.4 per cent by February this year. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange offers skim milk powder and liquid milk futures contracts but Mackenzie said neither helped management of global price risk. NZX plans a suite of dairy derivatives, the first being whole milk powder (WMP) contracts. New Zealand, through dairy giant Fonterra, is a 30% player in the global WMP market. The new derivatives platform, expected to start in November, is a “pretty sizeable” capital investment for NZX, Mackenzie said.

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