Lower payout, high costs 'a new norm'
Inflated on-farm costs and low milk payout seems to have become the new norm for farmers, says Waikato Federated Farmers dairy chair Matthew Zonderop.
Dairy industry good organisation DairyNZ gets its first woman board chair in October.
Waikato farmer Tracy Brown will take over as chair from Ohaupo farmer Jim van der Poel who will step down at DairyNZ’s annual meeting after seven years in the role.
Also stepping down is deputy chair Jacqueline Rowarth.
Brown, a member of DairyNZ board since 2019, milks 700 cows with her husband Wynn near Matamata. Their farm ‘Tiroroa’ won the Waikato Ballance Farm Environment Supreme Award in 2010. An AWDT ‘Escalator’ Alumni, she was a finalist in 2017 Westpac Women of Influence Awards and won a Sustainable Business Network’s ‘Sustainability Superstar’ award in 2018. Brown is also a trustee of the NZ Dairy Industry Awards.
DairyNZ has a governing board of eight members, five directors elected by farmers and three independents, appointed by the board.
Van der Poel has been chair of DairyNZ since 2017, following his election to the board in 2013. He served as a farmer-elected director on the inaugural board in 2007-2009, then again from 2013. Prior to this, he was appointed to the foundation board of DairyNZ’s predecessor Dexcel in 2000, becoming chair in 2003.
During his third reappointment as chair in October last year, van der Poel said he would remain to support the transition of new chief executive Campbell Parker, the development of DairyNZ’s new strategy, and see through the change of government.
“DairyNZ is in good health and it’s time to pass the baton to the next generation,” van der Poel says.
“I have confidence in the depth of the board, the direction of the new chief executive and strategy, and am happy to be handing over duties to Tracy in an orderly way over the next few months.”
A Christchurch manufacturer of woollen covers for newborn lambs says his covers pay dividends in survival rates and liveweight gains, especially at a time when farmers are feeling the economic pinch.
The Poultry Industry Association of New Zealand (PIANZ) has won the New Zealand Veterinary Association (NZVA) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Award.
Farmers with experience and breeding knowledge are deeply concerned about the pressure to breed for low methane sheep traits and its effects on other important traits they have been pursuing over the last 100 years.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is investing in the development of an integrated pest management approach to safeguard New Zealand’s maize and sweetcorn industries against fall armyworm.
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