Northland farmers losing time and money to poor internet
The lack of quality internet coverage in Northland is costing farmers time and money, says Federated Farmers Northland president Colin Hannah.
Dairy farming leader Richard McIntyre claims LIC has fallen short of its moral obligation to farmers, who recently received bad sire semen from the herd improvement company.
McIntyre, Federated Farmers dairy section chair, says the listed farmer-owned co-op originally fulfilled their legal obligations as set out in their terms and conditions by refunding the cost of the semen.
“But in our view, they fell well short of their moral obligation to affected farmers,” he told Rural News. “We asked LIC to look at additional ways to mitigate the impact of this semen failure on farmers and they have done that.”
McIntyre, who milks cows in Manawatu, also received 26 bad straws but he says he was one of the “lucky” ones.
“My farm had 26 straws across both ‘failures’, so at the lower end of affected farmers. We run a split calving system where we dry off largely based on days to calving which means that this hasn’t had a huge impact of our farm,” he explains.
“I’m very concerned about the impact on the other 1100 farmers with systems that are more heavily reliant on mean calving and empty rate, particularly those who had a large percentage of their herd affected.”
LIC contacted affected farmers on October 26 about a semen quality issue that has affected some batches of fresh conventional Premier Sires straws – inseminated on farms on 17 - 19 October and 23 - 25 October. It offered a package with two categories – a product credit to affected farmers’ accounts for the affected straws used and, depending on the herd impact, a goodwill payment was also credited.
Last week, LIC chair Corrigan Sowman and chief executive David Chin faced farmer shareholders during a webinar. Farmers were told that the co-op had already paid out over $2 million to farmers.
![]() |
---|
Federated Farmers dairy section chair Richard McIntyre. |
Chin apologised to farmers, adding that LIC had not lived up to the high standards expected by shareholders.
He says an independent internal investigation is underway to ascertain how two batches of bad semen were delivered to 1127 farms around the country - semen collected, processed and packed into straws and then sent to farms on October 15th and October 21st failed to pass quality control tests on day three.
Chin says LIC is still no closer to finding out how the batches were impacted.
“We are having a thorough investigation and looking at the processes,” he told farmers.
He says the report will be presented to the LIC board and its shareholder reference group and be used to help the co-op improve its operations.
Sowman, who only took over as LIC chair last month, told farmers that the board takes the incident very seriously.
“On behalf of the board, we are disappointed that we have let you down as farmers.”
LIC's Offer
While opening the first electrode boiler at its Edendale site, Fonterra has announced a $70 million investment in two further new electrode boilers.
Fonterra says its ongoing legal battle with Australian processor Bega Cheese won’t change its divestment plans.
With an amendment to the Medicines Act proposing human medicines could be approved in 30 days if the product has approval from two recognised overseas jurisdictions, there’s a call for a similar approach to be applied to animal medicines.
The Government wants to make sure that rural communities get a level of service that people who live in cities often complacently expect.
As the New Zealand Government launches negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement with India, one Canterbury-based vegetable seed breeder is already benefiting from exporting to the world's fifth-largest economy.
Onenui Station on Mahia Peninsula in northern Hawke's Bay is a world first in more ways than one.
OPINION: You would've missed this one if you rely on mainstream media for your news, but your old mate reckons…
OPINION: With the Government applying some fiscal discipline to scientific research funding, this mutt thinks it might be timely to…