With the South Island earthquake dominating our screens, Rural News Group had the opportunity to catch up with Fonterra’s Director of Farmer services, Matt Bolger at Wednesday’s Farm Focus Day at Owl Farm, Cambridge.

Stick to your knitting and fine-tune what you do, advises Beef + Lamb NZ chairman James Parsons, for farmers to get through the next year, with forecasts down for lamb, beef and wool.

Problems in the Chinese market and delays in commissioning its new nutritional plant are being blamed by Westland Milk Products for some of its recent financial woes.

Chinese moves on the New Zealand meat industry are again noteworthy, with NZ Binxi (Oamaru) Foods making a $25.3 million bid for a 100% takeover of Blue Sky Meats, Invercargill.

An invisible ‘tracer’ mixed with paint, plastics or ink and applied to wine bottle closures, corks or labels is the latest high-technology product developed to counter the growing trend of counterfeit wine.

Experts are echoing the Prime Minister John Key’s concerns about Trans Pacific Partnership under a Trump administration.

KPMG’s latest research report on foreign direct investment in New Zealand gives perspective to much of the uninformed hype over this issue, in particular the emphasis on China’s role.

Tasmania will send fresh milk to China from early next year.

Tatua chief executive Paul McGilvary will step down on January 31, a satisfied man.

A newly published report by KPMG shows that in the last two years China has been the single biggest offshore investor in the New Zealand dairy sector, placing 28% of the $1.3 billion that came into dairy and milk processing from offshore.