PGG Wrightson Revenue Tops $1.1b as Profit Jumps 46%
After delivering a strong financial year, rural trader PGG Wrightson says the coming months will depend on customer confidence and weather.
Canterbury farmer Michelle Pye has been elected to Fonterra’s board for a three-year term.
Sitting director Alison Watters was re-elected. The third candidate, Mike Fleming, chair of Fortuna Group Ltd, was unsuccessful.
Elections were held for two director positions – director Andy Macfarlane retired after completing eight years on the board.
Michelle and her husband Leighton have owned and operated Pye Group, a large-scale agricultural business based in Canterbury, for over 23 years. They farm over 7,000 hectares with dairy, cropping, process vegetable, grazing, transport and contracting operations. Pye Group’s dairy business consists of ten farms producing 4.5 million milk solids with a further three farms to be added to the group next season.
Michelle has recently been re-elected for a second term as a councillor for Timaru District Council. She is also a director of Potatoes NZ and the chair of The Potato Seed Co-op Ltd. Previously Michelle has been a member of the Fonterra Co-operative Council where she was a committee chair. She was also an inaugural member of the Fonterra Sustainability Advisory Panel.
In the Co-operative Council elections, David Beuth and Tom Houston were elected from Northern Bay of Plenty and Eastern Bay of Plenty wards respectively.
In seven other Co-operative Council wards where elections were due, nominees were elected unopposed.
The councillors in these wards are:
Ward 5 – Hauraki - Ryan Burton
Ward 8 – South Waikato - Wynn Brown
Ward 9 – King Country - Paulette Johns
Ward 14 – Coastal Taranaki - Anne Bridges
Ward 15 – Southern Taranaki - Shirley Kissick
Ward 20 – North Canterbury - Patrick Whittle
Ward 23 – Otago - Larry Frost
Kissick and Whittle are new councillors; the remainder of the above group are re-elected incumbents.
OPINION: The time has come for the Government to back the organic sector.
Plan ahead and be patient. That’s the message to farmers and horticulturalists from the chairman of the NZ Agricultural Aviation Association, Kent Weir.
The industry is crying out for graduates with agricultural related degrees.
While GPS and guidance have become the norm and yield mapping and variable application continues to gain traction, most agricultural machinery manufacturers continue to expand their technology offerings, amalgamating the vast amounts of data being collected to streamline real-time and ongoing management decisions.
Supply chain problems, growing protectionism and a move to greater food security are some of the key challenges facing New Zealand exporters, according to our top trade negotiator, Vangelis Vitalis.
A spat within the ranks of the New Zealand Deer Farmers Association has resulted in the suspension of outspoken North Canterbury farmer Barry Cuttance.
OPINION: After hogging the media limelight for telling a NZ Chinese MP to "go back home", Winston Peters has decided…
OPINION: With fuel prices soaring, one would have expected most farmers to be reclaiming excise duty on petrol.