With the South Island's West Coast in the grip of drought, which is a highly unusual event, most farmers on the West Coast will have no idea how to cope with it or its aftermath.

IrrigationNZ says water storage needs to be fast-tracked to drought-proof agriculture as New Zealand can no longer carry the cost of a significant drought every five years.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy was impressed by the scale of Brazilian agriculture when he met with Brazilian Agriculture Minister Mendes Ribeiro Filho in Brasilia at the end of a nine-day trade mission to Latin America led by Prime Minister John Key.

DairyNZ chairman John Luxton receives the supreme honour today as one of four recipients of this year's Massey University Distinguished Alumni awards.

Agribusiness banking specialist Rabobank has moved to reassure clients impacted by drought conditions in the North Island that it will work to support them.

Environment Minister Amy Adams and Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy this week start a series of meetings throughout the country with councils, iwi, environment groups, businesses and the public to discuss proposed changes to the resource management system.

 It was always going to be a tough ask to sell 14,000 store lambs when much of the North Island is in drought so vendors were not surprised when prices dropped around $5/hd on last week.

Over 1,200 weaners was a smaller yarding than expected but due to continuing dry conditions the smaller number may well have worked in favor of those vendors trading today, though prices were still below expectations.

Unfortunately lamb prices have continued to move lower in the last two week as big numbers of lambs continue to hit the market due to drought conditions.

Cattle continue to pour out for slaughter with cows leading the charge. Some companies continue to focus heavily on killing cows with less space being allocated for steer or bull.

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