Fonterra FY26 Results: $9.69 Milk Price, $3.4bn Profit
Fonterra has unveiled its annual results for the 2026 financial year, posting $27 billion in revenue and close to $20 billion returned to New Zealand farmer owners and unit holders.
RETIRING Fonterra director Jim van der Poel is back on the board of DairyNZ having retired from it in 2009. He was one of five candidates for Barbara Kuriger’s seat on the board following Kuriger’s resignation in order to stand for Parliament.
“We had a fantastic line-up of candidates, all of whom could have added to the board, but the successful candidate is Jim van der Poel,” chairman John Luxton told the annual meeting.
Luxton, who has chaired DairyNZ since it was formed in 2007 from the merger of Dexcel and Dairy Insight, is one of three farmer-elected directors due to retire by rotation next year. The other two are Ben Allomes and Michael Spaans.
Turnout by voter was 19.31% with a total of 2719 valid ballots cast. Weighted votes were 525,897,398 giving a 28.46% turnout. DairyNZ was unable to provide the breakdown of votes before this article went to press. The unsuccessful candidates were Donna Smit, Greg Maughan, Murray Jamieson, and Dirk Sieling.
The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (the College) and Hauora Taiwhenua Rural Health Network are calling for investment in a proposed new training pathway for rural GPs, warning that many rural practices are struggling to recruit while a large share of the existing workforce nears retirement.
Federated Farmers has called on Central Otago District Council (CODC) to drop or vote down a plan to truck sludge from Alexandra and Cromwell to farmland near Lauder, warning it would compound an "outrageous" situation created by a separate council's decision weeks earlier.
Synlait has swung to second-half profit as operations stabilise, but the dairy processor still posted a $75.4m annual loss.
LIC shareholders have elected a new North Island representative to the co-operative's Board, along with five representatives to its Shareholder Reference Group (SRG), following the company's Annual Meeting held in Invercargill.
Farmers across parts of Southland and South Otago are continuing to deal with difficult conditions after a prolonged run of wet weather, with pressure building around feed supply, stock management, pasture damage, farm infrastructure and everyday workloads.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.