With many changes in the farming business, Gisborne/Wairoa’s Meat & Wool New Zealand monitor farmers Ken and Kirsty Shaw are right on track to achieve their original goals reports The Gisborne Herald.  Around 100 people were on hand to hear about and see the improvements to their Matawai farm Elmore Station at the annual field day.

Now in the third year of the monitor farm programme, the Shaws have made more than 20 changes to their farming operation and only four have not worked out with other changes making a huge difference on the farm and to the bottom line. The vision for Elmore at the start of the programme was to have an economic farm surplus that was up with the top 10 in the district; to have a farm that was aesthetically pleasing; to repay $100,000 of debt, and to generate enough cash for debt repayment and for the Shaws to have the ability to do what they wanted when they wanted to.
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AgResearch is urging North Island farmers to continue ensuring that their cattle are protected against facial eczema and to monitor their herds for the serious animal health and welfare problem. Facial eczema costs the dairy industry anywhere between $9.6M and $95.2M per year, depending on outbreaks and weather, and the impact on income and animals can be limited by using zinc protection.

“Even with some weather changes now, farmers still need to take facial eczema particularly seriously,” said AgResearch Senior Scientist Dr Chris Morris who is part of a team operating a MAF Sustainable Farming Fund project to monitor zinc protection. “Zinc sulphate is a water-trough treatment which should be effective and easily applied. Facial eczema risk can vary greatly from herd to herd, and even from paddock to paddock, so it is good to be prepared even when the risk in a region appears to be low.”

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Otago farmers are nervously eyeing the approach of winter, with autumn feed stocks depleted by a dry, windy summer reports The ODT. Most of Otago is drier than normal for this time of year, with the hardest-hit areas including North Otago, East Otago, Strath Taieri, Maniototo and Central Otago. “It’s certainly going to be a difficult winter for a lot of people,” Hawea farmer Richard Burdon said.

North Otago Federated Farmers president Ross Ewing agreed, saying while farmers would welcome any rain, cool nights and wind meant it was getting late for vegetation growth to recover. “It’s getting serious. The trouble is, winter is coming and nothing is happening.” Oturehua farmer Ken Gillespie said just 190mm of rain had fallen on his farm since last May, making it one of the driest years he could remember. The long-term annual average was 520mm.

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Major meat processor Silver Fern Farms will expand into the premium lamb market in China on its own after a proposed partnership of processing companies collapsed reports Stuff. The partnership was to be modelled on the successful NZ Lamb Company joint venture in North America, but failed to get past the business case level.

SFF chief executive Keith Cooper has refused to reveal which company or companies pulled out of the consortium of SFF, Alliance and Anzco, but Alliance has since said the returns were unconvincing. He said there was no bad blood between the companies and the North American venture would continue unaffected, but SFF would now look at opportunities to develop its own brand.

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Meat processor Silver Fern Farms is working on replacement funding for an existing $75 million of bonds reports Business Day. The $75m tranche is due to mature in December and the meat processing co-operative is mulling options including a further bond issue or alternative funding from banks.

SFF had about $184.5m of debt at August 31. It needs capital or further facilities to help pay debt that is rolling over and to continue its farm-pasture-to-customer-plate marketing strategy. SFF’s previous capital-raising plan ended with a splutter rather than a surge with farmer suppliers only ploughing in about $22m of new equity, much less than originally envisaged.

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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.

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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.

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Landcorp Farming, the country’s biggest farmer, has produced a narrowed half-year loss helped by higher milk prices and cost control reports Stuff. The SOE today revealed a net operating loss of $6.3 million for the six months to December. That compares to a loss of $10.3m in the same period of the previous year.

Landcorp said higher milk prices boosted dairy income by 16 percent to $39.1m. This helped offset a 19 percent fall, largely thanks to the strong New Zealand dollar, to $33.9m in returns to meat producers. Landcorp said it had managed expenditure “rigorously” with total expenses falling 14 percent to $72.2m, although some purchasing had been delayed until the second-half given price trends for the likes of  fertiliser and fuel.

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Debt levels mean more farmers may have to sell land and leave the business, a rural valuer says, despite Fonterra announcing the second-highest payout in 10 years for dairy farmers. The number of farms sold in the Manawatu-Whanganui region fell almost 60 per cent in 2009, compared with the year before. There have been so few farm sales lately that valuers have found it difficult to put a value on some rural properties, and often need to use their experience to make judgment calls reports The Manawatu Standard.

Hobson and Associates senior member of the Property Institute of New Zealand (PINZ), Neil Hobson, said only four dairy farms had been sold in Manawatu, Rangitikei and Horowhenua in the past 10 months. There had also been four “significant” sheep and beef farms sold. “There are a number of buyers and sellers out there, but it is a matter of reaching prices that are acceptable to both parties and that are bankable for the purchaser and their financiers,” he said.

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New Zealand farmers and vets will be the first in the world to benefit from Simcro’s revolutionary new safety injector, Sekurus TM, which allows operators to administer one handed subcutaneous (under the skin) injections, keeping their hands clear of the injection site reports Scoop.

“The Sekurus injector has a radically different design. It features a patented ‘self-tenting’ needle guard and two-step mechanism that allows the operator to tent the animal’s skin and deliver the vaccine in a one-handed action. This means the other hand can be kept away from the injection site virtually eliminating the risk of accidental self-injection,” explains Simcro director and manager of research and development Rod Walker.

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