The largest global supplier of wool socks in the active outdoor market wants to step up its wool contract with New Zealand merino growers, worth more than $100 million the last nine years. A top executive team from the United States company SmartWool will meet wool farmers at a North Canterbury function centre on Monday reports Stuff.

The company has indicated it will extend orders for New Zealand- grown merino and mid-micron wool in its partnership with The New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) from double-digit growth projected each year for the next three years. SmartWool will go into more detail at the meeting about its increasing demand for 18 to 26 micron wool and give farmers volume and price projections for its wool requirements to meet growing orders.

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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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Blaming sheep farmers for the loss of 43 jobs at AgResearch is akin to blaming investors for the failure of a finance company. Instead, the focus needs to turn to the private sector to unlock new wool fibre uses reports Scoop.“I think this is a tragedy for the research staff involved and for NZ It highlights a massive gulf between what is expected from research and what’s actually being put into the field,” says Don Nicolson, Fed Farmers President.

“But with the national flock less than half the peak of 70 million reached in 1982, research monies have simply followed this 28-year realignment. AgResearch is basing its business plan on where the sheep industry is, not where it once was. “For wool to be on a par with 1980s returns, it ought to be a $2.8 billion export but now it’s down to just under $500 million. It’s simply wrong to blame farmers for pulling the wool levy when our returns have collapsed.

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Murray Horn, former Treasury secretary and head of ANZ Banking Group’s New Zealand arm, has been tapped to help lure warring factions of the wool sector out of their trenches to create a new industry good bodyreports Scoop. Horn will act as an independent convenor and will call a meeting of wool sector organisations to begin the process of forming a single voice for the industry, said Agriculture Minister David Carter.

Horn’s appointment stems from the work of the Wool Taskforce, which Carter convened last year in the wake of the grower vote to dump Meat & Wool New Zealand’s wool levy. The group reconvened last month to consider the Wool taskforce report: Restoring Profitability to the Strong Wool Sector, which recommended a marketing strategy focusing on wool’s heritage and green credentials.

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Two controversial Canterbury irrigation schemes have come out winners in a competition for projects judged to have the potential to make $1 billion each in sales within 20 years reports Business Day. The $150 million Central Plains Water Enhancement Scheme (CPW), now a cut-down irrigation project after widespread community opposition, and the Hurunui Water Project, were judged as having big potential.

Together, the two want to irrigate more than 100,000 hectares of farmland in central and north Canterbury. They involve land acquisition and the construction of canals and a dam. The competition, which drew 18 entries, was the brainchild of University of Canterbury vice- chancellor Dr Rod Carr.

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The Councils of Lincoln University and Telford Rural Polytechnic are exploring a future relationship that includes a proposal to merge the two institutions next year. This relationship supports a direction signalled by the Lincoln University Council to develop a model of strong collaboration in education and research to support land-based industries.

Lincoln University, New Zealand’s specialist land-based university, is shaping this model in line with two governmental intentions; to drive productivity growth and investment in the export sector and to give young people wider choices in education. This model is one of vertical integration to encompass all aspects of the agricultural and land-based sector provision and supply chain, from secondary school, sub-degree teaching to post-doctoral research, commercialisation and extension activities with industry.

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Two women directors have been elected to the Meat and Wool New Zealand board, displacing men already involved in the industry’s power structures reports Business Day. Kirsten Bryant, of Fordell, has been elected to represent the Western North Island ward and Anne Munro of Fairlie, to represent the Central South Island.

Mrs Bryant was elected with 9620 votes, beating Manawatu farmer Tony Gray (5879) for a seat in which Ron Frew did not seek re-election. The voting return percentage was only 25.25 percent, even though Mr Gray is Federated Farmers’ Manawatu/Rangitikei meat and fibre chairman. During campaigning Mrs Bryant said she was motivated to stand when farmers in her area told Agriculture Minister David Carter that hill country farming was on its last legs.

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New Zealand’s traditional pasture-based farming system faces a conundrum, a leading scientist has warned. Pastoral Genomics scientist Michael Dunbier said we were no longer the world’s lowest-cost food producer, our pastoral system was a major contributor of greenhouse gases, and customers demanded proof that slogans such as clean and green had some validity reports The ODT.

The reality was the our farming systems were contributing methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere and nitrate pollution of the soil and waterways. “They are not satisfied with slogans such as free-range or pasture-fed. We need to look carefully at our systems overall,” he said. In addition, resources such as phosphate were being depleted and questions were being asked about the efficiency and sustainability of fertiliser use in general.

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Textiles New Zealand has entered discussions with the Department of Conservation (DoC) and Animal Health Board to boost the number of possums commercially harvested for use in clothing manufacturing. The fur industry has criticised the departments in the past for limiting access to harvesting areas and poisoning animals, leaving them to die in the bush reports The NZ Herald.

Textiles New Zealand chief executive Elizabeth Tennet said there was the potential to increase the annual harvest from 1.7 million animals to more than 3 million – a move that would double the industry’s annual revenue to $200 million. The fur market was growing, both domestically and overseas, where possum fur was becoming more popular, she said.

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Meat companies are bracing themselves for a late flurry of lambs as favourable growing conditions over most of the country create a grass market. Processing plants have been working short days because of the slow flow of prime lambs, but Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper was confident the forecast number of lambs available for slaughter would be reached reports The ODT.

He said the abundant grass was affecting the flow of lambs from both store suppliers and finishers. There had been a noticeable increase in kill numbers in the past week, he said, and as autumn and winter drew near, farmers would be keen to quit their stock.”We do know stock will come over a period of time, but the risk associated with that is the influx of stock will not be in sync with markeplace requirements. It creates a production-driven model.”

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