A former agricultural science leader has delivered a broadside at what he sees as a lack of objectivity in the science structure, saying there is little technology transfer and it is impossible to separate “good science from company spin”. Jock Allison, the former director of the Invermay Research Centre, told the Clutha Agricultural Development Board annual meeting last week that scientists no longer talked to farmers and the competitive funding model for science did not allow for research results to be passed to farmers reports The ODT.

“Often, useful technologies are not promoted to industry as there is no financial allocation to ensure that happens,” he said. “The research bodies are just ticking off the contracts and moving on to apply for the next two- or three-year period of funding.” Dr Allison was also scathing about the impact on technology transfer of crown research institutions entering commercial alliances in which companies invest in and own the results.

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A PGG Wrightson livestock manager and auctioneer has been fined $11,000 and ordered to pay $9000 in vet and investigations costs for leaving more than 1400 sheep to starve. Stock agent Neville William Clark, 46, pleaded guilty on Monday to leaving 250 sheep, 1100 lambs and 120 in-lamb ewes on a 412ha forest block just south of Gisborne reports Stuff.

Those not already dead were worm- ridden, weak and emaciated. Dozens of the animals were euthanased. Judge Adeane said Clark was a first-time offender, and there was no suggestion he was “willfully cruel for the sake of cruelty. Rather he has fallen short of good [farming] standards”. An Agriculture and Forestry Ministry statement of facts presented to Gisborne District Court this week said the land could not possibly have provided enough feed for the animals.

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New Zealand Farming Systems Uruguay (NZS), the NZX-listed dairy company, has sold 2,500 hectares of land on its Tobay farm in eastern Uruguay for US$8.5 million in a move that will allow it to repay nearly half an outstanding debt to shareholder PGG Wrightson reports Stuff. Some US$5 million of the proceeds will go to paying back a little under the NZ$16 million NZS owes in arrears to PGW relating to performance payments incurred in the 2007/08 financial year.

The remaining US$3.5 million will allow NZS to intensify its focus on owning dairy-producing farmland and processing facilities. Some 1500 hectares of high quality milk-producing farmland has been retained at the Tobay property, and this is where most of the investment has occurred since acquisition and where two milking sheds are operating.

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The rural property market remains sluggish, but there is some improvement on the horizon, experts say. REINZ  figures show the value of farm prices dropped to a national median of $1 million in December, compared with $1.65m in 2008 and $1.53m in 2007. PGG Wrightson real estate manager Stuart Jackson said that although the market was sluggish, there were signs of movement reports Stuff.

“When you look at the same period last year, the outlook was all negative and we were worried about how bad it was going to be, but like all these things, it’s a slow improvement.” Mr Jackson said the average sale time for farms was about 160 days, compared with about 80 days in 2007. “That sounds pretty bad, but you have to remember it was as high as 190 days at one point last year. (more…)

A Maori trust, with financial backing believed to come from Dubai, has contracted to buy 28 farms in Southland, with plans to buy others throughout the country. The cost of the farm purchases so far is estimated at more than $150 million. Inquiries by the Otago Daily Times have revealed concerns in the rural industry about the group’s actions, from delays confirming the sales contracts to deposits not being paid as expected. Two of Southland’s largest rural real estate companies, PGG Wrightson and Southern Wide, declined to deal with the trust, but the farms have been bought through other real estate agents.

Group spokesman Wynn Murray said the trust was a serious buyer. It had financial backing, including from overseas, and sales contracts would be made final in late February or early March. The delay was because of dairy farmers wanting to see out the milking season and deposits would be paid when contracts were finalised, he said. Mr Murray, from Invercargill, declined to name the trust he represented or confirm rumours its funding came from Dubai.

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Trading in PGG Wrightson’s rights for new shares ended yesterday, marking a significant point in what is now seen as a successful capital raising reports Business Day.

The rights issue will remove a debt cloud from the rural services firm, and should see PGGW’s share price increase, market commentators say. PGGW’s $249.4 million capital raising, including the $180.7m rights issue, will enable it to pay back $200m to banks in March 2010. The fact that a significant number of the rights have been taken up by investors has also removed any pressure on underwriters. The rights have been trading since November 27 at prices between 10c and 18.3c and on daily volumes of between two million and 17 million-plus.

Hamilton Hindin Greene director Grant Williamson said the fact the rights held by cornerstone shareholders had been retained or traded between those parties meant there was less pressure on other shareholders. The selling pressure on PGGW head shares should now disappear, given the relative success of the capital raising. “I think it’s pretty much a forgone conclusion the underwriters will not end up with a large overhang, with the large holders accounting for all their rights.”

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PGG Wrightson shareholders have blasted the company’s board for losing nearly $50 million on the failed Silver Ferns Farm deal and called for its directors to resign reports The NZ Herald. The board of NZ’s largest rural supplier fronted up at its annual meeting in Auckland yesterday to face more than a hundred investors who were furious about the company’s performance.

PGW reported an after-tax loss of $66.4 million compared with a profit of $73.2 million for the June year after it had to write off $49.6 million for settlement and due diligence costs associated with its failed deal to buy a 50 per cent stake in meat processor Silver Fern Farms. The deal fell over last year after PGW failed to get finance and then had to pay a $42 million compensation package to Silver Fern because the deal was unconditional.

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Angry shareholders confronted the board of loss-making fledgling firm NZ Farming Systems Uruguay wondering if they were ever going to see the returns they were promised reports Stuff. At the company’s annual general meeting in Auckland yesterday, shareholders, many of them farmers, grilled directors and management about the firm’s farming practices and intentions in Uruguay. Chairman Keith Smith said he was confident it would recover due to a recent increase in dairy prices, performance of pasture under irrigation and development of the Uruguayan farming talent.

The beleaguered PGG Wrightson subsidiary predicted a return on capital four times higher than the NZ average in its 2007 prospectus. But since then it has had consecutive losses, and now says it will not break even until 2011. Buoyed by the dairy boom, the firm bought more land than it had planned to in its first 18 months for conversion to NZ -style pasture-based dairy farms. Then came the credit crunch, milk prices collapsed, and Uruguay was hit by a one-in-30-year drought in the last financial year, which led to significantly lower milk production and higher irrigation costs.

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PGG Wrightson would remain a “NZ Inc story” despite a Chinese company scooping up a 13 per cent stake in the agricultural services firm, an analyst says. But opponents believe Wrightson’s decision to sell $36 million of new shares to young Chinese agriculture company Agria Corporation is another case of NZ’s production sector potentially falling into foreign hands reports Stuff.

The sale announced on Friday is the first part of a larger equity raising plan in response to demands from Wrightson’s bankers to repay $200m of debt by March. Forsyth Barr head of research Rob Mercer said NZ’s point of difference globally was its agricultural, assets-rich economy which was attractive to Asian investors such as Agria.

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PGG Wrightson is seeking to correct what it calls “speculative, uninformed and often wildly inaccurate” comment being made about the company reports The NZ Herald. The commentary comes after the company said, in its annual result published on August 27, that under a renegotiation of its banking facilities it had agreed to repay $200 million of debt by March 31 next year. “My concern is that this has given rise to extensive comment that is speculative, uninformed and often wildly inaccurate,” Smith said in his letter today.

Among “clarifications and corrections” he wanted to make, he said PGG Wrightson was not offering to sell businesses that formed part of its operating core. Reports of preliminary discussions with potential buyers for businesses such as Seeds and Fruitfed Supplies were “entirely wrong”, Smith said. Rather, the company had said in its results that it would review the sale of selected non-core businesses.

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