NZ's handbrake
OPINION: Your old mate gets the sinking feeling that no matter who we vote into power in the hope they will reverse the terminal slide the country is in, there will always be a cohort of naysayers determined to hold us back.
OPINION: The country's dairy farmers will now also have a hand in providing free lunch for schools.
The Government's new school lunch programme unveiled last week will cost $3 a lunch (down from $8) and save $130 million.
The Government had been working with local businesses, including Fonterra, to "transform" the school lunch programme, in a bid to save money.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the Government had "embraced commercial expertise, used government buying power, and generated supply chain efficiencies to realise over $130m of annual cost savings".
Fonterra is already partnering with Sanitarium and the Ministry of Social Development means to provide breakfast as part of the KickStart Breakfast. Since 2009, the programme has served more than 70 million breakfasts and run in over 1400 schools nationwide.
Fertiliser co-operative Ballance has written down $88 million - the full value of its Kapuni urea plant in Taranaki - from its balance sheet in the face of a looming gas shortage.
The Government and horticulture sector have unveiled a new roadmap with an aim to double horticulture farmgate returns by 2035.
Canterbury farmers and the Police Association say they are frustrated by proposed cuts to rural policing in the region.
The strain and pressure of weeks of repairing their flood-damaged properties is starting to tell on farmers and orchardists in the Tasman district.
The sale price of Fonterra’s global consumer and associated businesses to the world’s largest dairy company Lactalis has risen to $4.22 billion.
Alliance Group's proposal to sell a 65% shareholding to Ireland's Dawn Meats won't solve the red meat industry's structural problems, says former Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Toby Williams.