DairyNZ lifts breakeven milk price forecast to $8.68 for 2025/26 season
According to DairyNZ's latest Econ Tracker update, there has been a rise in the forecast breakeven milk price for the 2025/26 season.
The dairy industry is supporting councils in their efforts to get all farmers to meet their effluent obligations.
DairyNZ and Waikato Dairy Leaders Group chair Jim van der Poel says everyone is disappointed that a few individuals continue to let the sector down by not complying with effluent management rules.
“There is no excuse for repeated [preventable] offences,” says van der Poel.
He was responding to news that a Cambridge farming company and one of its directors were each convicted of eight charges under the Resource Management Act in early March in Hamilton District Court and fined a total of $131,840.
This is the largest total fine imposed for illegal dairy effluent discharges into the environment in the Waikato region since the RMA came into force in 1991.
The company, Pollock Farms (2011) Ltd, runs a dairy farm on Victoria Road near Cambridge. One of its directors, Dawson Craig Pollock, was prosecuted for similar breaches of the RMA in 1993 and 2001.
Van der Poel says the total fine in this prosecution is significant and sends a strong message to farmers.
“We support the Waikato Regional Council and other regional councils in monitoring and prosecuting farmers for serious infringements of the rules.
“From our point of view, any breach is one too many. Managing effluent is a necessary part of running an efficient dairy system.
“The sector needs those farmers who aren’t doing the right thing with their effluent management to step up, take responsibility and make the necessary changes.”
DairyNZ supports farmers in making such changes: resources are available to help all dairy farmers -- a Dairy Effluent Storage Calculator, A Farmer’s Guide to Building a New Effluent Storage Pond and access to accredited effluent system designers.
“Most dairy farmers are doing their utmost to… protect the environment and the waterways that run on and near their farms every day,” says van der Poel.
“Significant non-compliance for dairy effluent discharges nationally in 2016-17 was 5.2%, the lowest on record, but we realise there is still a way to go.”
The dairy sector is helping farmers to operate more sustainably, overseeing huge improvements during the last decade, including fencing off 99.4% of significant waterways.
The sector strategy document Dairy Tomorrow says, firstly, ‘We will protect and nurture the environment for future generations’ “and we intend to get all our farmers on track to achieving that goal,” says van der Poel.
“Our vision is clear: we want healthy waterways, and we will help farmers achieve it, just as the vast majority of farmers are committed to doing their bit.”
Funding is proving crucial for predator control despite a broken model reliant on the goodwill of volunteers.
A major milestone on New Zealand's unique journey to eradicate Mycoplasma bovis could come before the end of this year.
We're working through it, and we'll get to it.
The debate around New Zealand's future in the Paris Agreement is heating up.
A technical lab manager for Apata, Phoebe Scherer, has won the Bay of Plenty 2025 Young Grower regional title.
Following heavy rain which caused flooding in parts of Nelson-Tasman and sewerage overflows in Marlborough, the Insurance & Financial Services Ombudsman Scheme (IFSO Scheme) is urging homeowners and tenants to be cautious when cleaning up and to take the right steps to support claims.
OPINION: It's official, Fieldays 2025 clocked 110,000 visitors over the four days.
OPINION: The Federated Farmers rural advocacy hub at Fieldays has been touted as a great success.