Make the right decision, Peters urges Fonterra farmers
New Zealand First leader and Foreign Minister Winston Peters is ratcheting up pressure on Fonterra farmers as they vote on divesting the co-operative’s consumer and related businesses.
HAVE LYTTELTON port's problems finally become too much for Fonterra?
Kotahi – the Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms' freight and logistics joint venture – committed container volume to Timaru which "is expected to quickly exceed the 80,000 TEU shipped across PrimePort's wharves when traffic last peaked in 2008".
Fonterra's 2010 decision to rail containers 170km from Clandeboye, South Canterbury to Lyttelton, instead of 30km to Timaru, saw Timaru PrimePort's volumes plummet with the loss of jobs and subsequent sale of the container business to Port of Tauranga.
Announcing a 10-year alliance with Kotahi this week Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns said Timaru is set to become an important South Island freight gateway thanks to the Kotahi deal and investments in a new freight hub at Rolleston, southwest of Christchurch.
"Kotahi's cargo commitment, which includes container traffic from customers around Timaru, gives Port of Tauranga the certainty to proceed with infrastructure to accommodate 6500 TEU ships (at Timaru). Timaru, as a key destination for a revitalised coastal shipping industry, will play a growing role in marshalling South Island export traffic north for these ships."
There are rail connections between Timaru, Rolleston, and Fonterra's expanding Darfield site. Services from Lyttelton were disrupted by the Canterbury earthquakes and more recently concerns about double-handling of freight due to limited container capacity on the port side of the Lyttelton tunnel.
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: While farmers are busy and diligently doing their best to deal with unwanted gasses, the opponents of farming - namely the Greens and their mates - are busy polluting the atmosphere with tirades of hot air about what farmers supposedly aren't doing.
OPINION: For close to eight years now, I have found myself talking about methane quite a lot.
The Royal A&P Show of New Zealand, hosted by the Canterbury A&P Association, is back next month, bigger and better after the uncertainty of last year.
Claims that farmers are polluters of waterways and aquifers and 'don't care' still ring out from environmental groups and individuals. The phrase 'dirty dairying' continues to surface from time to time. But as reporter Peter Burke points out, quite the opposite is the case. He says, quietly and behind the scenes, farmers are embracing new ideas and technologies to make their farms sustainable, resilient, environmentally friendly and profitable.
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…