Australian states embrace virtual fencing, creating growth opportunities for Halter
More Australian states are embracing virtual fencing technology, opening growth opportunities for Kiwi companies like Halter.
Dairy Australia senior industry analyst John Droppert chaired a panel discussion on volatility in the dairy industry. Here are excerpts:
Volatility is a word we hear a lot in dairy these days.
But it’s more than a buzzword; it’s a phenomenon that anyone running a business in this industry can firmly attest is the swinging voter on big dollars and many sleepless nights.
Volatility is actually a tricky term to nail down. Everyone has an idea of what it is, but outside the mathematics and chemistry definitions you get a lot of variation.
Put simply, volatility is the liability to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse. It’s fluctuation, variation, risk. Movement of a given measure around the expected value is part of it – that’s variance (the up and down). The other aspect of volatility is the frequency. So how big are these fluctuations, and how fast are they happening?
In the dairy industry, we face volatility in the price of inputs – feed, water, even electricity (and the availability of some), volatility in the milk price, the weather, sentiment, business relationships (for example between farmer and processor), in corporate structure – who owns what – in market access, in milk production, and who wants it. Those risks are interrelated, some have causal relationships, where volatility breeds more volatility.
Some of that volatility is driven by market interactions (like growing milk production drives prices down) and some by shocks (a drought, or closure of a key market, for example). Some recent examples are millennium drought, 2010-11 floods, DCD, botulism, bluetongue.
Volatility is everywhere. And in many cases, it’s becoming a bigger deal. We’re told the climate is becoming more volatile. Dairy markets certainly are and that reflects commodity markets more broadly.
Very few of the driving forces are within our control, and economic history in particular is littered with examples of well-intentioned attempts to ‘smooth out’ markets ending in expensive failure (examples: wool scheme, Thai rice stockpile, European exchange rate mechanism).
A Chinese business leader says Chinese investors are unfairly viewed as potential security risks in New Zealand.
In the first of two articles focusing on electrification in New Zealand, Leo Argent talks with Mike Casey, operator of the 100% electric-operated Electric Cherries orchard and founder of advocacy group Rewiring Aotearoa.
A Foundation for Arable Research initiative which took a closer look at the efficiency of a key piece of machinery for arable farmers - their combine harvesters - has been recognised at the Primary Industry NZ Awards.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has reiterated New Zealand’s ‘China And’ policy, adding that it wasn’t about choosing one market over another but creating more options for exporters.
A long running trade dispute between New Zealand and Canada over dairy access has been resolved.
New Zealand Police is urging rural property owners to remain vigilant and ensure their property is secure.
OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…
OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…