Luxon Praises NZ Red Meat Industry's Global Success
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the red meat sector is doing an excellent job promoting our pasture-fed system around the globe.
Meat and edible offal exports fell 15% ($235 million) in the September quarter, Statistics New Zealand says.
The fall in values, after adjusting for seasonal effects, was due to a 13% fall in the quantities exported.
"We are seeing the effect of lower prices after the record meat season last year," international statistics senior manager Jason Attewell says. "In the year ended September, the actual value of meat exports has fallen by around 7%, but quantities were little changed, down 1%."
The fall in meat exports was a leading factor in a drop in total goods exports from the June 2016 quarter. Overall, seasonally adjusted quarterly goods exports fell by 4.8 percent ($605 million).
Other key movements in the September 2016 quarter included a fall in the value of fruit exports, down 5.8% ($40 million) to $644 million, and a rise in the value of forestry products, up 4.1% ($43 million) to $1.1 billion.
Exports of milk powder, butter, and cheese were little changed in the September 2016 quarter.
The seasonally adjusted value of goods imports rose 2.2%, led by a rise in capital goods.
The seasonally adjusted quarterly trade deficit was $1.1 billion, equivalent to 9.5% of exports.
This release focuses on our goods trade. For the year ended June 2016, goods made up 70% of total exports, and 74% of total imports. Goods and Services Trade by Country: Year ended September 2016 will be available on 2 December 2016.
New Zealand dairy farmers are set to be the first in the world to receive access to a new digital physical milk pricing tool that enables them to fix the price for their physical milk.
State farmer Pāmu is opening its farm gates this summer in an effort to give the rural sector the opportunity to see how large-scale, multi-system farming is delivering productivity and profitability across New Zealand.
A five-year study has found that the cost of reducing emissions without technology may be significant and unsustainable for Northland dairy farmers.
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
While the Government has moved quickly to make commercial hauliers' lot easier during the current fuel crisis, they appear to be stuck in the creep box when it comes to the agricultural industry.
Waikato farmers have been told that the Government’s new planning system legislation and the region’s Plan Change 1 (PC1) “won’t mesh together very well”.

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