MSA triumph
OPINION: Methane Science Accord, a farmer-led organisation advocating for zero tax on ruminant methane, will be quietly celebrating its first foray into fertiliser co-operative governance.
Ravensdown’s 2021/22 Annual Results, announced yesterday, include an overall Group profit of $95 million.
The results also include an underlying profit of $68 million in the core fertiliser business, before taxation and rebate.
Chairman, Bruce Wills called it one of Ravensdown’s “best ever results”, achieved in a year dominated by volatile pricing and global supply challenges.
Total fertiliser sold was slightly up at 1.22 million tonnes, and revenue at $922 million was up $210 million on last year, reflecting the rising price environment that dominated the year.
“The rapidly rising international prices makes fertiliser hard to budget for our farmers. To help them, Ravensdown focussed on product margins and yielded a FY22 group margin percentage lower than last year.”
Chief executive Garry Diack says Ravensdown’s fundamental belief is that this cash is better in use on-farm than in the company’s hands.
“Consistent with out cooperative values we have positioned the balance sheet for another challenging year in 2023 with $347M of stock in store – providing confidence to customers for spring.”
Ravensdown Shipping Services provided a $26 million boost to the Group’s bottom-line performance.
“The volatility of the market is not going away, and we need the capacity to capitalise on procurement pricing opportunities, and we need to continue investment in technological support to reduce New Zealand’s fertiliser footprint. The need for a capital buffer for the increasing risk a cooperative structure faces, compels a conservative approach to shareholder rebate for 2022,” says Diack.
Given this year’s performance and next year’s challenges, a shareholder rebate of $25 per tonne has been declared.
The year at a glance
Agriculture and Forestry Minister, Todd McClay is encouraging farmers, growers, and foresters not to take unnecessary risks, asking that they heed weather warnings today.
With nearly two million underutilised dairy calves born annually and the beef price outlook strong, New Zealand’s opportunity to build a scalable dairy-beef system is now.
Graduates of a newly-updated Agri-Women’s Development Trust (AWDT) course are taking more value than ever from the programme, with some even walking away calling themselves the “farm CFO”.
Meet the Need, a farmer-led charity, says food insecurity in New Zealand is dire, with one in four children now living in a household experiencing food insecurity, according to Ministry of Health data.
Applications have now opened for the 2026 Meat Industry Association scholarships.
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) says it is backing aspiring dairy farmers through a new initiative designed to make the first step to farm ownership or sharemilking easier.
OPINION: The Greens have taken the high moral ground on the Palestine issue and been leading political agitators in related…
One of the most galling aspects of the tariffs whacked on our farm exports to the US is the fact…