Junket?
OPINION: The Hound notes that the Taxpayers’ Union recently revealed that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) spent more than $125,000 for its presence at this year’s Mystery Creek Fieldays.
OPINION: The news that most banks are pulling back or taking a more cautious approach to lending to the rural sector should come as no surprise.
The signs were obvious at this year’s National Fieldays.
Normally banks are out selling debt for all they’re worth, but this year they had retreated inside their much smaller sites, mostly showing the flag to a few key clients and checking the mood of the event.
The Reserve Bank’s move to get banks to increase their capital reserves, to protect bank deposits, will pressure their ability to lend. The days of banks’ carefree lending are over.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that before lending on a farm a bank will take a microscopic look at the property and its viability. For example, how compliant is the farm in environmental matters and is the asking price realistic given its likely future? That makes sense.
But the trouble for many farmers is that tighter lending criteria pinch their ability to spend money on necessary new infrastructure such as feed pads or cow homes or better effluent systems.
Dairy News has already heard that bankers’ pressure on some Southland farmers to repay loan principal is forcing them to try to raise profit at the expense of getting on with farm tasks.
With banks squeezing farmers, the Government’s environmental agenda could be at risk, or at least it may face pushback from farmers.
Farmers’ discretionary spending on environmental improvements will be nudged down their priority lists, or such spending will generally be curtailed, dampening the economies of rural towns. This is not a good outcome because NZ will only maintain its position as a producer of high quality, sustainable food by adhering to good on farm standards. And the reality is that rural NZ is the real NZ.
Banks’ decisions to cut the size of their agri portfolios, and all that this may mean, come as the country moves into an election year. For not the first time farming may be the centre of the debate.
Analysis by Dunedin-based Techion New Zealand shows the cost of undetected drench resistance in sheep has exploded to an estimated $98 million a year.
Shipping disruption caused by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea has so far not impacted fertiliser prices or supply on farm.
The opportunity to spend more time on farm while providing a dedicated service for shareholders attracted new environmental manager Ben Howden to work for Waimakariri Irrigation Limited (WIL).
Federated Farmers claims that the Otago Regional Council is charging ahead unnecessarily with piling more regulation on rural communities.
Dairy sheep and goat farmers are being told to reduce milk supply as processors face a slump in global demand for their products.
OPINION: We have good friends from way back who had lived in one of our major cities for many years.