Divestment means Fonterra can focus on its strengths
OPINION: Fonterra's board has certainly presented us, as shareholders, with a major issue to consider.
Coronavirus is forcing Fonterra to cancel its farmer shareholder meetings to discuss its interim results.
The co-op usually holds farmer meetings throughout the dairy belt to discuss results; instead, two webinars are being organised this week for farmers to hear from Fonterra leadership and ask questions.
Fonterra Shareholders Council chairman James Barron says restrictions caused by coronavirus means no shareholder meetings are taking place.
Councillors have also been encouraged to phone farmer shareholders rather than holding face-to-face meetings.
Fonterra farmers will get details on how to get on the webinars from their Farm Source reps.
Barron says the situation around coronavirus is changing constantly.
“Farmers, like everyone else, is bracing for uncertainty around coronavirus,” he says.
Fonterra chairman John Monaghan says coronavirus is now a global event.
He acknowledged the thousands of Kiwi businesses and communities doing it tough as a result of restrictions in place.
“These are unprecedented times, at least in my lifetime.”
The following rural/ farming events have now either been ‘postponed’ or cancelled due to the current COVID-19 situation:
• Agrifood week
• Central District field days
• International Agribusiness Summit
• NZ Shears
• All Beef and Lamb NZ events
• All regional NZ Dairy Industry Award events
• Mackenzie Easter Show
• Auckland Easter Show
• Dairy Women Network conference
• Irrigation NZ conference
• National Fieldays
Meat co-operative, Alliance has met with a group of farmer shareholders, who oppose the sale of a controlling stake in the co-op to Irish company Dawn Meats.
Rollovers of quad bikes or ATVs towing calf milk trailers have typically prompted a Safety Alert from Safer Farms, the industry-led organisation dedicated to fostering a safer farming culture across New Zealand.
The Government has announced it has invested $8 million in lower methane dairy genetics research.
A group of Kiwi farmers are urging Alliance farmer-shareholders to vote against a deal that would see the red meat co-operative sell approximately $270 million in shares to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
In a few hundred words it's impossible to adequately describe the outstanding contribution that James Brendan Bolger made to New Zealand since he first entered politics in 1972.
Dawn Meats is set to increase its proposed investment in Alliance Group by up to $25 million following stronger than forecast year-end results by Alliance.
OPINION: Voting is underway for Fonterra’s divestment proposal, with shareholders deciding whether or not sell its consumer brands business.
OPINION: Politicians and Wellington bureaucrats should take a leaf out of the book of Canterbury District Police Commander Superintendent Tony Hill.