Dairy industry leaders have put farmers on notice to lift their game after a damning report showed many have substandard effluent management systems. Fonterra announced yesterday that from next season it will visit every supplier’s farm each year to inspect dairy-effluent systems. The company has demanded higher compliance with the regulations, with threatening fines and the refusal to collect milk from repeat offenders reports The ODT.

The latest Clean Streams Accord data, gathered by regional councils, shows the number of farmers around New Zealand adhering to council dairy-effluent discharge consents has slipped from 64% in 2007-08 to 60% in 2008-09. “That’s a level that whilst we do not like it, you have got to say it’s not a bad level. It’s one of the best in the country.”

(more…)

Women know more about the dynamics of dairy farm finances than most of them realise, says Rebecca Rowe, a former rural banking manager and ex-farm consultant. She was talking to about 30 women who were at Woodville’s Dairy Women’s Network day that aimed at empowering dairy women by giving them budgeting tools to take charge of their farm financial planning.

 It means they become empowered, rather than have financial incomings and outgoings just happening to them, Ms Rowe explained in the Manawatu Standard. About half of the women said they had done farm budgets, but many were uninitiated and she estimated less than half were doing farm budgets every year – let alone updating them every two months to keep them valid, as advised.

(more…)

Dairy farmers spilling cow effluent were seen by the public as more of a threat to society than drink-drivers or murderers, Southland dairy farmer Mike Horgan told a dairy industry conference in Invercargill yesterday. His daughter Bridget, 19, and two friends, Megan Hamilton, 22, of Winton, and Virginia Armstrong, 22, were killed by a drink-driver on Good Friday in 1995.

Mr Horgan told delegates at the NZ Large Herds conference at Stadium Southland about his shift from Taranaki to Southland in 1994, and the challenges he had faced, including criticism from sheep farmers. While he admitted the dairy industry could be let down by mediocrity, Mr Horgan criticised the public and the media’s willingness to condemn dairy farmers reports The Southland Times.

(more…)

Dairy farmers needed to make a greater effort to be aware of their neighbours and their concerns, delegates at the Large Herds Conference were told yesterday. Speaking at the opening of the annual conference in Invercargill, NZ Large Herds Association chairman Bryan Beeston said farmers had to make sure the tools and skills they used were up to the job to ensure environmental compliance reports The Southland Times.

“There have been many instances where machinery has failed, people not trained, the suppliers of the gear, the systems we run, are not up to the job.” But he was confident the conference would show the industry was complying with the standards and conditions placed on it by councils and the Government.

(more…)

Booming South Island milk production will prop up Fonterra’s national collection this year as the North Island wilts from lack of rain in the season’s home straight reports Business Day. The giant global dairy exporter, which collects 92 per cent of the country’s milk and earns 25 per cent of NZ’s export returns, said with the end of the 2009-10 season approaching, South Island milk production was 9 per cent up on last season, while the North Island was 1 per cent behind.

Overall, Fonterra suppliers’ national milk production is currently around 2 per cent ahead of last year’s 1.3 billion litres, said Fonterra general manager, milk supply, Tim Deane. But for some North Island dairy farmers hoping to use Fonterra’s projected $6-plus/kg milksolids payout this season to recover from previous drought and last year’s recession-squeezed payout, that overall 1 per cent North Island dip skates over some ugly figures.

(more…)

At 22, Clarence and Elise Stolte are the youngest winners of a regional sharemilker of the year title for at least 10 years. But they have a maturity beyond their years reports The Dom Post. In just two years as 25 per cent sharemilkers on a family-owned farm near Masterton, they have built up savings and assets of $150,000. Now they intend to take on a $650,000 loan and step up to 50 per cent sharemilking.

Their plan is to build assets of $1.8 million within 15 years so they can buy their own farm. They are quietly confident. “We’ve done our planning and we know how to get there,” Elise says. “We know there will be risks but we can manage them.” Their youth is not a factor, they say. “What’s age got to do with it,” Clarence says. “We don’t want to be categorised as ‘young’ sharemilkers, we want to be ‘excellent’ sharemilkers.”

(more…)

A return to the days of many farms being converted to dairying is not expected, a leading rural financier says in The ODT. Rabobank senior protein analyst Hayley Moynihan said a more conservative approach by farmers, tighter credit and lower farm values would not see a return “to the heady days of new dairy conversions”.

However, milk prices would see most farmers return to cash profitability this year and, if expenditure was controlled, potentialprofits would be comparable to 2007-08, she said. Mrs Moynihan expected milk production to grow 2% this year due to herd expansion, feed supplements and moderate climatic conditions over most of the country.

(more…)

It is technically autumn, but most of the country is still basking in summer. We are all feeling pretty pleased about that, but sheep and beef farmers’ grins are the widest reports Jon Morgan from the Dom Post. After three years of drought on the North Island’s east coast, its farmers are revelling in the greenness of their hills. And it’s the same all over – except for Northland, which is experiencing a drought for the first time in more than 10 years.

And even in Northland all is not lost. Farmers from further down the island are turning up at stock sales in Wellsford and Kaikohe to buy weaner steers at prices that will help lift sagging spirits. For dairy farmers, the joys of a green summer come mainly from less stress on their cows, although the slightly increased milk they are giving will mean a timely lift in profits in a high payout year. Fonterra reports milk flow is almost 2 per cent up on last year, despite the Northland drought, though a big contributor is the new South Island conversions.

(more…)

The National Bank studies Fonterra’s proposed changes in capital structure, and looks at how new generation co-operatives( two UK and two NZ NGC’s)  have performed in the market.

They say it seems clear that the financial performance of a new generation co-operative needs to be very strong to support the price of a restricted share close to asset backing. The report shows that share price premiums/discounts over asset backing are quite variable between companies and for the same company over time.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FOA) wants a global livestock tax to reduce the contribution their flatulence makes to greenhouse gas emissions reports Rural News.

The FAO says urgent investments, major agricultural research efforts and robust governance are required to ensure the world’s livestock sector responds to a growing demand for animal products and at the same time contributes to poverty reduction, food security, environmental sustainability and human health. “The sector is consuming a large share of the world’s resources and is contributing a significant portion of global greenhouse gases emissions,” the FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture report says.

(more…)