Fonterra's Whareroa Wins Directors Award
Fonterra's Whareroa site took home the prestigious Directors Award at the co-op's 'Oscars of Manufacturing', while Clandeboye led the way with multiple wins at this year's Best Site Cup.
The Fonterra Shareholders Council has given its approval to TAF (trading among farmers), paving the way for Fonterra board to launch the share trading scheme.
For Fonterra to move forward with TAF, the board had to be satisfied that five preconditions were met. The fifth TAF precondition was the support of at least 50% of the Shareholders Council.
Council chair, Ian Brown says there was 97% support for the resolution and this reflected the confidence the Council had in the new capital structure.
"The council's support for the preconditions, which are underpinned by 100% farmer ownership and control, signal that they have reached the standards set by the council on behalf of our farmer shareholders."
Brown says the council has undertaken a robust and fully independent two-year review process to ensure farmers' interests were paramount in the construction and design of TAF.
"From the outset the council viewed 100% farmer shareholder ownership and control as a non-negotiable and that any change to the capital structure had to be an enduring one.
"To ensure this was the case the council engaged the services of a number of external advisors who worked to review all aspects of TAF from a farmers' perspective. We are confident that the protections contained within TAF will preserve 100% farmer shareholder ownership and control and that the TAF model before us will provide the cooperative with stability for years to come."
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”.

OPINION: Central Hawke's Bay farmer Mark Warren recently told the Hawke's Bay Times it's time for a conversation about allowing…
OPINION: A nation that relies as heavily as NZ does on functional global shipping lanes will have to do its…