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Reports from many regions say the green grass seen on farms in January has now turned brown.
Certainly this is so on the east coast of both the North and South Islands.
In Waikato, the farm consultancy company AgFirst says things are looking dry on farm. Steven Howarth told Rural News they had a good spring and summer with plenty of feed. But this has burnt off and the promised rain that fell a week ago wasn’t the quantity they were looking for.
“The conditions have created some challenges for farmers with some struggling to get space at processing plants to get their stock killed,” he says.
Howarth says lamb performance has also been variable: good growth rates for some while others struggle with the dry conditions.
Beef cattle have had a good summer, says Agfirst, but now the challenge is getting stock killed after farmers held them back to put on extra weight.
With rain and warm temperatures, the warning is out to farmers to monitor spore counts as there is a risk of facial eczema in some regions, notably the King Country.
“But countering that some cold spells have reduced the risk,” Howarth says.
Apart from this, Howarth says relatively good livestock prices have helped keep up morale onfarm.
With adverse weather set to rain down on the Top of the South, the Bay of Plenty and parts of Northland, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says farmers, foresters, and growers need to prepare for possible challenges.
The grass may be growing again in the drought-stricken coastal area of Taranaki, but the outlook for many farmers there is far from rosy.
Limping towards the end of the season is how Richard Walker describes the situation he's facing due to prolonged drought in coastal areas of Taranaki.
Many contract milkers in badly drought affected regions around the country are coming under severe financial stress and farm owners are being urged to help them through a bad patch until the start of the new season.
With much of the North Island experiencing drought this summer and climate change projected to bring drier and hotter conditions, securing New Zealand’s freshwater resilience is vital, according to state-owned GNS Science.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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