Help available for flood-hit farmers
The chair of the Otago Rural Support Trust, Tom Pinckney, says he believes that they will be especially busy in the coming months as the enormity of the floods hit home.
A Ministry of Primary Industries report says the 2020-21 season payout won’t be as high as last season.
It says Covid-19 has impacted the dairy sector around logistics and supply channel disruptions.
However, it notes that despite the recent fall in commodity prices, dairy companies had contracted a high proportion of milk from last season at good prices and this helped.
But the outlook for the coming season is not good with markets signalling a 14% fall in farm gate prices.
It says the current range sits between $5.60 and $6.50/kgMS which will be close to, and in some cases below, break-even levels of profitability.
“It has the potential to undermine the financial viability of some marginal and highly indebted farm businesses,” says the report.
The report flags the potential of the drought and shortage of feed as being a factor, but points to concerns around protectionist and subsidised dairying in the US and the European Union.
It notes that if there is a flood of subsided dairy products on the global market this could add to the volatility and weakening of the dairy market which will impact on New Zealand.
Overall the report is stating what one might expect in the Covid-19 environment. Uncertainty in many areas and questions being asked about whether some trends, such as consumer preferences, will remain once life returns to whatever normal there will be in the future.
The report flags uncertainty and challenges ahead, mostly related to Covid-19.
The good news is that in the past year to the end of June, revenue from primary exports will be up by $1.7 billion on the previous year, helped significantly by dairy exports which were up $512 million from the start of March.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the relationship between New Zealand and the US will remain strong and enduring irrespective of changing administrations.
More than 200 people turned out on Thursday, November 21 to see what progress has been made on one of NZ's biggest and most comprehensive agriculture research programmes on regenerative agriculture.
The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) says securing more China label registrations and developing its own nutritional manufacturing capability are high on its agenda.
Stellar speakers, top-notch trade sites, innovation, technology and connections are all on offer at the 2025 East Coast Farming Expo being once again hosted in Wairoa in February.
As a guest of the Italian Trade Association, Rural News Group Machinery Editor Mark Daniel took the opportunity to make an early November dash to Bologna to the 46th EIMA exhibition.
The horticulture sector is a big winner from recent free trade deals sealed with the Gulf states, says Associate Agriculture Minister Nicola Grigg.
OPINION: Fonterra may have sold its dairy farms in China but the appetite for collaboration with the country remains strong.
OPINION: The Listener's latest piece on winter grazing among Southland dairy farmers leaves much to be desired.