‘Market set to spin in favour of strong wool’
strong wool price fell 41% between 1990/91 and 2018/19 to an average annual price of $3.52/kg clean.
THERE is growing confidence that profitability could be returning to the strong wool sector.
Prices are inching towards $4/ kg, helped by demand exceeding supply as sheep numbers continue to fall. New uses for the fibre are imminent and there is evidence consumers are switching from fossil fuel products to those made from natural fibre.
Industry leaders warn not to expect a sudden recovery in prices, but they are more confident than they have been in decades that better times are ahead.
They acknowledge producers have heard such promises before, but say the market feels different this time.
Associate Agriculture Minister and NZ First Member of Parliament Mark Patterson said he has never been more confident of a recovery in the strong wool sector, and, while admitting to going out on a limb, predicts $10/kg will one day be achieved.
His optimism is based on the multiple research and development projects underway and evidence consumers are turning off fossil fuel fibres.
Sector leaders acknowledge returns are still well below what growers need.
In inflation-adjusted terms, the
It subsequently fell to $3/kg or below for the next three years until starting to lift in 2023-24.
In the 1990s, wool carpets comprised up to 95% of soft floor coverings.
By 2021 that had fallen to between 10% and 15%, depending on the market.
Latest data shows it has increased to 18-19% with Wools of NZ reporting a 25% increase in sales of its floor coverings in 2023-24.
The challenge facing the industry is that since the demise of the Wool Board 22 years ago, consumers have not been told of the merits of strong wool.
Despite that, a new generation of consumers are seeking natural, environmentally friendly products and are discovering wool.
Prospects are being boosted by new uses and products such as carpet tiles and insulation, while a policy to use wool in government buildings is pending.
Growing interest from global architecture companies and expansion of India’s textile industry also hold promise.
Patterson, who has responsibility for wool, is especially enthused about the particles, pigments and powders developed by Wool Research of
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Oats
the future sprouting down south
A group of oat growers in Southland and Otago have made significant strides in oat breeding and development, increasing yields and improving nutrition in oats.
Growing consumer demand and new uses hopefully mean a brighter future for the strong wool sector. Angela Stevens is pictured competing in the woolhandling section at this year’s Golden Shears final.
Photo: Pete Nikolaison/Golden Shears
Neal Wallace and Annette Scott
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COMPREHENSIVE: Rob Hewett has been appointed chair of Bremworth, after a group of disgruntled shareholders pushed for a change to the company’s board.
P8
The Global Dairy Trade price index remained steady and unmoving after the latest auction.
Mozzarella was the biggest improver on the night, at plus 5.1%, and anhydrous milk fats the biggest loser, at minus 1.8%. Butter prices continued their record run, up a further 1.1% to US$7667/tonne, now 4% higher than the previous peak in June last year.
News in brief GDT steady Salmonella survey
The Ministry for Primary Industries has launched a salmonella survey as an outbreak from last year continues in Southland and Otago.
Surveillance principal adviser at the MPI Jonathan Watts said Southland and South Otago have been experiencing a significant outbreak of salmonella in cattle since spring last year. The survey is to help understand the risk factors that led to the outbreak and mitigate future outbreaks.
Cherri liquidation
One of New Zealand’s largest cherry growers, Cherri Global, has gone into liquidation.
Cherri Global, with orchards in Hawke’s Bay and Central Otago, and subsidiary companies Cherri Holdings and Cherri Machinery, was placed in liquidation on March 8. According to the first PwC report, more than 30 unsecured creditors are owned about $42 million.
Discharge fines
Gore man Bryson Clark has been fined $130,000 after pleading guilty to discharging leachate in February 2024 from farm tailings, leachate from sileage, and dairy effluent onto land in circumstances where it could enter water.
Environment Southland compliance manager Donna Ferguson said the impact of the event was among the most serious the council had investigated and led to the death of thousands of eels.
New Zealand (WRONZ), which can be used in personal care, cosmetics, printing, painting and coating.
Wool Source, a WRONZ subsidiary, is building a pilot plant to advance development of the patented products.
Improved prices are one pillar of rebuilding the wool sector, which also requires a leadership structure that Patterson said must be led by farmers.
Tim Bathgate, an associate with Otago-based chartered accountants Shand Thomson, said a wool income target of covering shearing costs, which in 2023 were $2.55/kg not including shed and production costs, would be a start.
He said clients’ focus in recent years has, unsurprisingly, been on lamb production, but should prices improve farmers could start looking favourably at wool again.
Bathgate noted shearing costs have been impacted by contractors being bound to changes in the minimum wage and competition from Australian employers.
The wool sector of the future will not resemble that which operated before the Wool Board was dismantled, and that means a likely move away from farmers relying on the auction system.
Wool Impact chief executive Andy Caughey said the future of NZ strong wool is in globally recognised brands backed by the NZ strong wool production story.
Fleeces will need be separated and sold according to tailored specifications and markets to meet various end-use requirements, which will attract different prices.
“We can tell the crossbred story with integrity. We need a pathway for growers to give reassurance to manufacturers,” he said.
“We need to treat it as a portfolio of wool types.
“For us to restore our reputation as wool’s leading producer and to earn premium prices, we have to bring a renewed focus on genetics, selection for wool, harvesting, grading and presentation because it’s about NZ’s reputation and our farmer’s reputation.”
Campaign for Wool manager Kara Biggs said the organisation’s educational, promotional and advocacy work is starting to bear fruit.
“I believe sustainable price increases are closer now than ever before.”
She gives five reasons for her optimism: increased wool activity and innovation, growing positive consumer sentiment towards wool, more diverse wool supply systems, growers using data to verify their production systems and industry collaboration.
That collaboration was evident in convincing Kainga Ora (Housing NZ) to reopen its tender system to consider wool floor coverings.
“Four years ago things were very different to now and it’s very positive,” she said.
Exporters marshal US tariff arguments
ONigel Stirling MARKETS Trade
NE of the country’s largest meat exporters believes its investment in further processing in the United States should be grounds for it to be exempted from tariffs on lamb.
US President Donald Trump is due to announce reciprocal tariff rates on imports from more than 200 countries on April 2.
Farm lobbies in the US are also calling for tariffs as high as 25% on Australian and New Zealand lamb to stem surging imports they say are wiping out US sheep producers.
One exporter spoken to by Farmers Weekly believes any specific tariffs on NZ and Australian lamb would be on top of next month’s reciprocal tariffs, which researchers at Yale University recently estimated could be as high as 16% for goods imported from New Zealand.
DIVIDENDS: Campaign for Wool manager
Kara Biggs says the organisation’s educational, promotional and advocacy work is starting to bear fruit.
Photo: Supplied
“The reciprocal tariff is a global thing. Everyone is going to be hit by it in different ways and that is cool and there is going to be a limit to how you can fight against it but to me it is what they do on top of that,” the exporter said.
A director of another of the country’s largest meat exporters, who also did not want to be named, said the company believes its investment in the Lamb Company should be taken into consideration by the Trump administration when setting tariffs.
The Lamb Company, which buys 60% of NZ’s lamb exports to the US, and is owned by Alliance Group, ANZCO, Silver Fern Farms and Perth-based WAMMCO, owns three processing plants in North America.
Between 2015 and 2020 it spent $30 million on a new plant near Philadelphia and improving its two other plants, including one in Los Angeles. It employs around 250 people. It also accounts for a much smaller share of NZ beef exports to the US.
“Yes the grass is grown in NZ and primal cuts arrive there from NZ, but the cutting and packaging occurs in the US,” the meat company director said.
“That is Trump’s rallying cry, that ‘tariff’ is a beautiful word and tariffs will create jobs and if you want to avoid tariffs do your manufacturing in the US.”
The director did not know if all of the Lamb Company’s shareholders were agreed on such an approach but said the board of the exporter they belonged to agreed it was a logical argument to put back on the Americans.
ANZCO’s general manager of sales and marketing, Rick Walker, said he is not aware of an
INVESTMENT: The Lamb Company, which
is
of
agreed position among the Lamb Company’s shareholders but believes it is a valid argument to make.
“It is a valid one and if we face the situation where the lamb industry is targeted then yes, obviously, we will be doing everything we can to argue through the NZ government to try and mitigate the damage.”
On beef Walker believed NZ exporters have the upper hand.
Such is the US beef shortage, NZ exporters could demand importers either absorb a large portion of any tariff or pass it on to consumers. Asked if higher prices could turn off US consumers, Walker was optimistic.
“There has been talk for a long time that beef prices are at record highs and consumers just can’t pay this much and yet beef consumption continues to grow and retail prices continue to rise.
“It shows the massive resilience of the US beef market.”
buys 60%
NZ’s lamb exports to the US, and
owned by Alliance Group, ANZCO, Silver Fern Farms and Perth-based WAMMCO, owns three processing plants in North America.
Photo: Pexels
NZ would be ‘mad’ to quit Paris pact
Neal Wallace POLITICS Climate change
ALLS for New Zealand
Cto leave the Paris Agreement on climate change have been labelled “completely mad” by trade expert Stephen Jacobi.
“I’ve heard those calls and they are completely mad,” said Jacobi, the executive director of the New Zealand International Business Forum.
Jacobi said doing so would mean the loss of market access, and the economic and reputational cost would be significant.
Meat Industry Association chief executive Sirma Karapeeva said about 80% of NZ’s exports are destined for markets that either already have or are proposing mandatory climate-related disclosures.
“For example, both the European Union and United Kingdom free trade agreements contain specific provisions that enforce commitments made under the Paris Agreement.”
These are enforceable obligations and withdrawing from
the agreement would pose legal, commercial and reputational risks for exporters and the sector.
Jacobi and Karapeeva were commenting on calls for NZ to follow the lead of the United States and leave the Paris Agreement.
The 2015 agreement commits the 196 signatories to reduce emissions and work together to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Last week Beef + Lamb NZ chair
Kate Acland said in an opinion piece published in Farmers Weekly that to leave Paris would result in reputational damage and threaten trade agreements, many with highpaying markets.
ACT leader David Seymour previously floated the idea that NZ should exit, but last week changed his tune, saying the risk to market access and to our international reputation would exceed any benefits.
“Yes we should [stay] because the trade retaliation from not being in would be greater than the cost of being in it,” he said.
Dave Courtney, Silver Fern Farms’ chief customer officer, said as protectionism increases, it’s
important NZ shows leadership and upholds rather than walks away from international arrangements.
“Many of our larger highvalue customers are required to demonstrate action towards emissions reduction within their full supply chain, which includes SFF and our suppliers.”
He said farmers measuring and reducing their emissions footprint would leverage new commercial opportunities and value.
Dairy Companies Association of NZ executive director Kimberly Crewther said the organisation does not support withdrawing but wants the government to ensure the agreement is implemented to support its core purpose of limiting global temperature increases while maintaining food production.
“The NZ negotiators who worked on the agreement got good outcomes in establishing a framework that recognised the critical role of nutrition and enabled flexibility for countries to set targets appropriate to their national circumstances.”
Crewther said global food systems could be adversely impacted
CHANGE: ACT leader David Seymour previously floated the idea that NZ should exit the Paris Agreement, but last week changed his tune, saying the risk to market access and to our international reputation would exceed any benefits.
We will not risk losing access to markets.
Simon Watts Climate Change Minister
if emission reduction targets are met by limiting emissions-efficient production.
“We are pleased that the government has committed to avoiding policies that only achieve emissions reductions through production cuts, and risk emissions leakage.”
Should NZ fail to meet its emission reduction commitments,
Crewther wants the government to engage with other signatories to ensure the agreement is consistent with the core purpose of the agreement, which includes food production.
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said NZ is committed to the agreement, which is in the interests of the country and exporters.
“This remains unchanged, and we will not risk losing access to markets. That’s not good for our rural communities or our economy.”
He said a review on new 2050 methane targets will be confirmed later this year.
New Zealand’s Envy apples protected by court in China
Richard Rennie NEWS Horticulture
CHINESE orchardists who unlawfully cultivated the New Zealand-sourced Envy apple variety have been given a sharp message from that country’s Supreme People’s Court. The court upheld an earlier ruling that a defendant had breached T&G’s proprietary rights by unlawfully cultivating the Scilate apple variety, marketed
as the Envy brand. The defendant had grown, harvested and sold the apples.
T&G was awarded RMB 3.3 million, about $NZ800,000, and the defendant was also ordered to cut out the illegally grown apple trees.
T&G CEO Gareth Edgecombe welcomed the court’s decision on what he said was a vital aspect of the company’s business model that needed to be protected.
“Our whole business model is based on plant protection, and this
is for our own business and for our partner orchardists as well.”
He said the ruling came under China’s newly strengthened Seed Law, which protects plant variety rights and aims to stop illegal production and infringement.
“It has laid a solid foundation for our future enforcement actions,” he said.
China is a problematic market for illegally grown fruit. Zespri has also taken action against illegally branded fruit being sold there, and more than 8000 hectares of
illegally acquired SunGold fruit is providing an additional headache for Zespri executives to manage.
Edgecombe said T&G’s strategy is to know what is planted, and where, while also undertaking constant surveillance on plant material and brand protection.
Envy represents a significant success story for the company since first being launched in 2008 and is now grown in 13 locations across both hemispheres.
“If you have a brand programme
like Envy that has value in it, that is where you will see this sort of action,” Edgecombe said.
Determining the legality of fruit can sometimes extend to DNA analysis, and this had been the case with the latest instance.
Edgecombe said having a local growing Chinese partner on the ground there who was managing significant volumes of legitimate Envy was an important demonstration to Chinese authorities of the company’s intent.
Fonterra result ‘shows strategy working’
Gerald Piddock NEWS Fonterra
FONTERRA’S strong interim result for the 2025 financial year shows that its strategy is working, chief executive Miles Hurrell says.
It is a reflection of the hard work across the co-op from its farmerowners through to those selling the product in the market, he said.
“What we set out to deliver a year ago is happening. We have seen the confidence come through in those conversations with potential investors.”
Fonterra is divesting its consumer business and is currently perusing both an IPO and trade sale of this business and will select one, which its shareholders will vote on.
The co-operative reported a half-year profit after tax of $729 million for the 2025 financial year, earnings of 44 cents per share, and will pay an interim dividend of 22 cents per share.
It also lifted its earnings range to 55-75 cents per share. Fonterra CFO Andrew Murray said this was
a result of resilience across its three business channels.
They were able to quickly respond to the higher milk price and this led to higher levels of resilience in their consumer and food service businesses, he said.
“It’s across all three of the channels.”
Its consumer business had an improved second quarter with a strong volume of sales coming out of southeast Asia, Murray said.
It also updated its milk price, narrowing its range from $9.50$10.50/kg MS to $9.70-$10.30. Its midpoint remained unchanged at $10/kg MS.
Hurrell said global conditions remain favourable with strong demand from key importing regions. The co-operative is also well prepared to weather any potential geopolitical issues it faces.
“In term of where our focus goes, it’s about the things we can control.”
Hurrell said the result also shows the co-op is starting to get value from how its farmers farm in NZ.
While some farmers and some in government might be questioning
First-half profit boasts 8% bump
Hugh Stringleman NEWS Fonterra
FONTERRA has reported a strong interim profit after tax of $729 million, up 8% on the previous corresponding period in FY24.
Operating profit in the first half of FY25 was up 16% to $1.1 billion and 44c earnings per share were up 10%.
The co-op will pay a fully imputed interim dividend of 22c a share and unit, and remains on track to deliver full-year earnings in the range 55c to 75c.
Fonterra has narrowed the farmgate milk price range to $9.70-$10.30, keeping the forecast mid-point steady at $10/kg.
Chief executive Miles Hurrell said Fonterra was focused on driving value, which includes delivering strong financial performance while achieving the highest sustainable farmgate milk price.
“We are seeing good demand for our quality products, and our teams have worked hard to optimise our product portfolio to capture value from the market conditions, leaving us well contracted for the season.
“We have also optimised the advance rate schedule to get cash to farmers sooner, underpinned by our balance sheet strength.
“Favourable pasture growth across most of New Zealand earlier in the season delivered forecast
whether NZ should opt out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, he said, customer feedback is showing the importance of farmers reducing their emissions.
milk collections up 2.7% to 1510 million kg in the full season, but many parts of the country are currently experiencing very dry conditions,” he said.
The average milk collection per farm is forecast to be 184,000kg compared with 175,000kg last season. Fonterra said its milk collection market share is steady on 78% from 8200 farms, down 200 because of consolidations and sales to other land uses and competitors.
The ingredients channel delivered 63% of the operating profit, at $696m, followed by foodservice at $230m and consumer division $173m.
Fonterra claimed that the foodservice profit was healthy when compared with the record high of $342m in FY24 when input costs were much lower.
Consumer sales volumes were up 8.5% and gross margin increased despite the higher milk price and operating profit was largely flat on the previous corresponding period.
“As we look to the balance of the year ahead, we are focused on maintaining this momentum in performance, while progressing delivery of our strategy, including the dual-track consumer divestment process, which is on track as planned,” Hurrell said. Net debt has increased by $1.3bn to $5.5bn because of the higher advance rate and the higher
In term of where our focus goes, it’s about the things we can control.
who are prepared to pay the value that they do because of what they demand in how we farm or do we go to a market and customer that doesn’t?”
He was also optimistic about the possibility of New Zealand’s free trade negotiations with India resulting in access to that market.
“We have a lot to offer, not just in products but also in services as well to support the growing Indian economy.”
“While you may see governments slow down their ambition, it’s not being slowed down from a customer perspective and that’s what is more important to us.”
This will be explained when the board and management meet with farmers in the coming weeks at roadshows, he said.
“Clearly Fonterra has a choice. Do we play with those customers
‘Earn while you learn’ idea for students
Samantha Tennent TECHNOLOGY Training
MANY students leave school early because unpaid work experience simply isn’t an option – they need a paycheque, not just experience. But what if that barrier was removed?
Finding a way to compensate students for hands-on learning could be the key to keeping them in school and vocational training longer.
“A young person in New Zealand can leave school at 16, or even 15 with a principal and parent signature,” said Josh Williams from Skills Consulting Group at the Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence (FFCoVE) insights forum in Wellington last week.
“So if you can leave school at 15 and get a job where you will be paid, shouldn’t you also be able to partially leave school and have that secondary employment, secondary school and work experience?”
Williams presented data highlighting only 31% of Year 1113 students pursue degree-level study, and only 6% participate in trades academies, with 18% in food and fibre.
He demonstrated that trades academies (or secondary-tertiary programmes, STP) significantly improve retention, with 45%
Looking ahead, while acknowledging that pundits have predicted another buoyant milk price for the 2025-2026 year, he was more cautious, pointing out they are in a volatile geopolitical environment.
“My message back to farmershareholders is that be mindful that we are dealing in an international market.”
SHOWCASED: Virtual reality and artificial intelligence are being explored for their potential in training and assessment, which was showcased during the Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence insights forum in Wellington.
Shouldn’t you be able to partially leave school and have secondary employment?
Josh Williams Skills Consulting Group
staying over three years.
“The chances of leaving within a year (of joining the sector) are 40% for someone who hasn’t completed an STP, compared to 45% remaining for at least three years if they had. If churn and retaining people is what we’re worried about, then this shows that trades academies work.”
Secondary school pathways were one of the presentations at the CoVE forum in Wellington, where around 75 attendees heard about the work from the past four years.
The Food and Fibre CoVE was set up in 2021 as part of the 2020 Reform of Vocational Education.
Its goal is to improve vocational training for New Zealand’s food and fibre sector by identifying opportunities for growth through research, insights and lifelong workplace learning.
Associate Minister of Agriculture Andrew Hoggard opened the two-day forum by sharing progress from the government and his personal experiences with on-the-job learning. He believes pastoral care is a significant factor in ensuring learners’ success.
“Measuring productivity needs to be in terms of higher wages for people and higher profits for businesses,” was a key message in economist Shamubeel Eaqub’s keynote speech. He emphasised the need to work smarter, not harder, as we continue to face workforce challenges into the future.
The CoVE has been involved in 80 projects since its inception and is exploring its future direction post-2025 when the original funding ceases.
DELIVERY: From left, Fonterra chief financial officer Andrew Murray, chief executive Miles Hurrell and chair Peter McBride address the media on the co-operative’s interim result for the 2025 financial year.
Miles Hurrell Fonterra
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Native options highlight challenges
Richard Rennie NEWS Environment
THE tough and expensive business of re-establishing native trees in New Zealand means there is no “one size fits all” approach, with four optimal options available to landowners, depending upon their situation.
Stanislav Garbuz, leader of the native afforestation research programme at the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Te Uru Rakāu, presented those options to delegates at the International Union of Forest Research Organisations conference, hosted by Scion in Rotorua.
His work reviewed the scalable, evidence-based restoration methods available for native forests across a variety of terrain and locations.
“Restoring native forests is complex, faces high establishment costs, slow regeneration in degraded landscapes, issues with seeding survival, erosion and uncertainty in what final success will look like,” he said.
Typically, establishing a native forest runs many times over the cost per hectare of planting exotic pine, with estimates varying from $5600 a hectare to $30,000/ha. And ongoing pest and weed management costs to get trees to a self-care stage can run many times more again.
The four methods Garbuz and his team examined were direct establishment, natural reversion, the Timata method and transitional techniques.
Direct establishment represents the highest cost, highest certainty method that has proven best on degraded land with no seed sources available and offers immediate erosion control.
“It is especially effective if the landscape has been recently affected.”
He cited a Northland project working with local iwi on 300ha that has proven a good case study.
Natural reversion and regeneration leverages off existing seed sources with minimal intervention, making it a “lowerslower” option in terms of costs and time involved.
He highlighted a Bank’s Peninsula project that draws on part of the property already containing native forest area that acts as a seed source to enable future reversion, alongside planting done with landowners.
“It requires long-term community commitment and education, along with good land management approaches.”
The Timata method of restoration has recently enjoyed greater publicity, thanks to work done by high-profile farmer and conservationist John Burke.
It has been demonstrated as a lower cost, intensive means of establishing native forest by using
Wine exporter loads up ahead of tariffs
Nigel Stirling MARKETS Wine
WINE exporters are stockpiling their product in warehouses in the United States to beat possible tariffs next month.
US President Donald Trump is due to announce reciprocal tariffs on the more than 200 countries the US trades with on April 2. A recent study by Yale University researchers estimated reciprocal tariffs on imports from NZ could be as high as 16%.
What other markets should we focus our efforts on?
David Babich Babich Wines
The US is NZ’s largest wine market, buying $800 million of NZ wine last year.
West Auckland-based Babich Wines is one of more than 100 NZ wine producers that export to the US.
Chief executive David Babich said shipping deadlines mean orders received after the middle of February would not have made it to the US in time to beat the April 2 announcement date. He said uncertainty over
commercial forestry techniques applied to native plantings. It is estimated to lower per hectare costs of establishment by as much as $20,000 a hectare.
Kānuka and mānuka are used as early colonisers, spaced further apart than conventional native reforestation methods dictate. The method has been demonstrated around Lake Tutira in Hawke’s Bay and has gained greater interest from regional councils in the upper North Island.
Garbuz said the approach combines science and community goals in a method that is flexible to different sites’ challenges. However, it also requires detailed planning, collaboration and a good level of community engagement to
be a complete success.
“Even with careful planning there are a number of obstacles, particularly with browsers.”
There is also significant outlay required for plant guards, fertilisers and herbicide treatments early on.
Additional interventions may include fencing and weed control and have a role to play on sites with high grazing pressure, poor soils or heavy weed competition and where passive restoration alone may not be enough.
Garbuz also pointed to knowledge gaps in New Zealand about native restoration that includes levels of carbon sequestration in natives during establishment and cost:benefit
data for landowners, and what constitutes a cost-effective nursery production model.
Trump’s intended tariff targets and customers’ desire to keep inventories to a minimum had meant there had been no large increase in direct orders to meet that deadline.
“The main response has been business as usual. We have put an extra loading of stock into our own US-based warehouse, however.”
Babich said the company keeps warehouse space in the US to “supply customers not large enough to order direct from NZ”.
“We hold about three months’ stock but have moved this up to five months in case we get increased demand due to the imposition of tariffs.”
NZ Winegrowers chief executive Philip Gregan said strong US demand during the covid pandemic had been followed by a period of weak sales.
“Some of the apparent increase in consumption around covid from 2022 onwards was driven by supply chain uncertainty and building up stocks so that retailers could guarantee that they had product available to sell.
“Now it is clear that the supply chain in the US was carrying excess stock and they are now rapidly de-stocking.”
Babich expected “mixed” results from negotiations with importers over who would carry the cost of any tariff.
“Some will absorb what they can while others will leave it to the importer to pay the tariff.
“We have had some recent benefit for exporters from the depreciating NZ dollar, so that does support a mixed approach where the supplier contributes to some of the tariff cost.”
Asked what strategies he could deploy should NZ wine be hit with tariffs, Babich said he was considering two things.
“Can our wine stand being at a higher price point if tariffs are applied and, second, what other markets should we focus our efforts on to mitigate a reduction in demand due to higher shelf prices in the US.”
This week’s poll question: Have your say at farmersweekly.co.nz/poll Is the government doing enough to stop wholefarm conversions to forestry?
Genetics insights at the click of a mouse
Annette Scott TECHNOLOGY Sheep and beef
A FREE, online programme aimed at increasing the use of highquality genetics in New Zealand’s beef industry has been unveiled by Beef + Lamb NZ.
Launched at the BLNZ Genetics beef breeder forum in Christchurch, nProve Beef aims to put genetics insights into the hands of commercial farmers.
BLNZ Genetics systems manager David Campbell told farmers the nProve programme is an important component of Informing NZ Beef (INZB) delivering intuitive, easy-to use genetics tools for farmers.
“Using a series of buttons and slider scales, the tool finds stud breeders who rank highly in the traits specifically important to you.”
The seven-year INZB programme, a partnership between BLNZ and the Ministry for Primary Industries, co-funded through the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund, aims to boost sector profits by $460 million.
A key milestone is the introduction of three new, NZdesigned beef cattle indexes, the Maternal (NZ$Maternal), Terminal (NZ$Terminal) and Beef-on-Dairy (BOD) (NZ$BeefxDairy) tailored to
NZ’s unique farming systems.
BOD is becoming a part of the toolkit in breeding beef cows with dairy bulls as industry practice gains momentum bringing resilience and sustainability to dairy and beef supply chains while allowing dairy cows to produce replacement heifers for the milking herd and beef cross calves that are worth more because they produce more kilograms of beef.
BLNZ’s general manager for farming excellence, Dan Brier, said the nProve tool has been built in collaboration with commercial farmers for use by commercial farmers.
“Farmers can customise what they are looking for in their bull team.”
In his presentation, BLNZ Genetics specialist livestock Jason Archer said the new indexes will help farmers “get their head around a good bull without 58 pieces of information”.
“This will tell you what you want a bull to do in the choice of three purposes, creating a consistent approach for commercial beef producers to identify genetics for their farming businesses.”
As part of the nProve rollout, BLNZ will run Better Beef Breeding workshops across the country. They will include sessions to help farmers get the most out of nProve Beef and the new indexes.
RETURN OF THE NATIVE: No one method offers the silver bullet solution to re-establishing native forests, with community resources, location and seed sources all requiring consideration, says Stanislav Garbuz.
EXPORT: West Auckland-based
Babich Wines is one of more than 100 NZ wine producers that export to the US.
DCANZ upbeat on India dairy prospects
Richard Rennie and Neal Wallace NEWS Trade
DAIRY processors are welcoming the use of the word “comprehensive” in describing the New Zealand-India trade negotiations which began last week.
Prior to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s arrival in New Delhi, intensive efforts by Minister for Trade and Investment Todd McClay with his Indian counterpart had set the terms of engagement to be known as the “Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement” between the two countries.
Luxon described it as a breakthrough, coming after McClay has visited India five times and had eight meetings with his counterpart.
NZ’s recent efforts also included a visit from Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Luxon’s meeting last year with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Kimberly Crewther, CEO for Dairy Companies Association of NZ (DCANZ), said it was good to see the commitment from both sides to a comprehensive agreement, the first bilateral negotiations since 2016.
Those negotiations foundered on agreement over NZ dairy’s access to the world’s largest dairy production market, which has been
a sticking point since.
Crewther acknowledged dairy’s significance to both countries.
“But it is good to see that the negotiating table is the place to discuss this.”
In the absence of a free trade agreement with India, Fonterra has adopted a softly-softly approach to the market. India is expected
We have a broad range of ingredients that we can supply including specialised protein ingredients across a broad range of products.
Kimberly Crewther DCANZ CEO
to face a domestic production shortfall in seven to 10 years.
“And at that point we would like to be at the front of the queue,” said Crewther.
She pointed to continuing economic growth, an emerging middle class and shifts in diets as people consume a broader range of dairy-based products.
Estimates are the middle class of 350 million will double by 2030.
At present tariffs of 30-60% remain in place for most dairy products. Fonterra exited its local joint venture Dreamery product range in early 2022, with no plans for similar projects in the immediate future.
Crewther said flexibility in any agreement was possible and “very
much for the negotiating table” where they may get down to specific products.
“It is not often you have an agreement that is a blanket one for everything.”
Meanwhile, the red meat sector has also welcomed the formal launch of FTA negotiations with India.
Nathan Guy, the independent chair of the Meat Industry Association (MIA), is part of Luxon’s business delegation, alongside representatives from three red meat companies.
“Like many developing countries around the world, India has experienced significant economic growth over recent decades and has a growing middle class with a focus on health and wellness, who are seeking high quality and nutritious animal protein options.”
Guy said India offers real opportunities for NZ, which has a reputation as a trusted, reliable and responsible trading partner
“As well as sheepmeat products, the wide range of by-products known as the fifth quarter provide significant opportunities for NZ, with offal exports boosted through the rise of the petfood industry and the strengthening demand for serum exports.
“India plays a key role in the pharmaceutical industry, manufacturing and exporting products such as vaccines to other countries.
“NZ’s fifth-quarter products are sought after because of our disease-free status,” he said.
Spore counts point to high facial eczema risk
Staff reporter NEWS Animal welfare
FACIAL eczema is again proving to be an issue on farms across the North Island and parts of the South Island as counts of diseasecausing spore have steadily increased over the past month.
Sheep and cattle develop FE after eating pasture that contains a fungus that, when entering the animal’s rumen, releases a toxic spore that attacks the bile duct and liver.
Speaking at a recent Beef+Lamb NZ seminar in Huntly, rural veterinarian Ginny Dodunski urged farmers to talk to their local vet and get a risk assessment done on their farm.
Eczema is a lot like worms –where the worst of the spores are in the base of the pasture, she said.
Awanui Veterinary’s weekly data based on spore count collections from across the country shows numbers have come off their seasonal peak from a week ago as the count enters week 12 out of its 22-week coverage starting in January.
In Northland, counts have stayed above the 30,000 spore threshold –
FUNGUS: Sheep and cattle get facial eczema after eating pasture containing a fungus that, when entering the animal’s rumen, releases a toxic spore that attacks its bile duct and liver.
the level that tells farmers that it is time to take preventative action.
In Whakatane, counts have spiked above 700,000 over the past three weeks and in central and southern Waikato, counts have been recorded at 195,000 and 270,000 in the past few weeks. Counts are also above the threshold in Taranaki, peaking at 293,000 at New Plymouth and 155,000 in Ruapehu.
In Hawke’s Bay, counts jumped to 130,000 before dropping to
Swift changes at the top of Bremworth
Hugh Stringleman NEWS Food and fibre
LISTED wool carpet company
Bremworth has appointed four new independent directors with immediate effect, from a group of disgruntled shareholders reportedly representing more than one-third of the company’s owners.
The new chair will be Silver Fern Farms and Farmlands chair Rob Hewett, who was appointed along with Julie Bohnenn, Murray Dyer and Trevor Burt.
Paul Izzard, Katherine Turner and Dianne Williams are stepping down from the board and former chair George Adams and John Rae are staying on as board members.
What it calls constructive engagement since March 1 resulted in the board changes and a withdrawal of the need for a special meeting, the company announced.
The revolutionary group emerged last month with demands for a special meeting of shareholders, the complete removal of the board and the appointment of the four new directors.
50,000-55,000 over the past two weeks.
In the lower North Island, counts have steadily lifted over the past three weeks with counts recorded at 315,000 for Horowhenua, 380,000 in Manawatū, 135,000 in Tararua and 110,000 in Wairarapa. Spore counts have also jumped in the South Island, climbing to 110,000 in Westland-West Coast before dropping to 60,000 in the latest week. Spore readings were also high in Tasman, averaging 50,000 in the past few weeks.
The then board said it attempted to engage with the group of requesting shareholders to avoid the disruption of a special meeting at a critical junction when a strategic review is in progress.
Bremworth had said earlier that offers had been received from outside parties and the strategic review would consider the best long-term ownership structure.
The changes on the board are effective immediately, though all new directors will have to stand for election at the next
annual meeting, not scheduled until November.
Hewett said the refreshed board would conduct a comprehensive review of Bremworth’s operations, ensuring disciplined financial management and a renewed commitment to the company’s core business and growth opportunities.
“Bremworth is at a crucial crossroads. We will need to call on the experience of all directors as we take Bremworth into its new era, which demands a fresh approach to drive growth and earnings.
“The new directors are committed to bringing our collective agri, operating and governance experience and skills to stabilising the business, protecting shareholder value, and unlocking the potential of Bremworth,” Hewett said.
Bremworth has 71 million issued shares and is presently trading around 60c, giving a market capitalisation of $42 million.
The largest shareholders are associated with former directors of Bremworth, Grant Biel and the late Tony Timpson.
COMPREHENSIVE: Rob Hewett has been appointed chair of Bremworth, in addition to Silver Fern Farms, Farmlands Cooperative and Woolworks.
SCALE: India’s 70 million dairy farmers account for a significant political force, capable of influencing that country’s moves on freeing up trade in dairy products.
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The Future of Wool
‘I’m more confident than I’ve ever been’
Neal Wallace MARKETS Food and fibre
MARK Patterson believes $10/kg for crossbred wool is achievable and farmers will soon be breeding wool attributes back into their flocks.
The associate agriculture minister and South Otago sheep and beef farmer said his optimism stems from the nearly 10 New Zealand companies working on new uses and products for crossbred wool.
What he considers the moonshot are pigments, particles and powders being developed by Wool Research of NZ (WRONZ).
“That is one farmers should really be watching.”
He is calling 2025 the year for wool, believing wool-based developments will once again make the fibre an economic contributor for sheep farmers.
“Absolutely we can. I’m more confident than I’ve ever been.”
It is unlikely all wool initiatives being pursued will be viable,
Patterson said, but if two or three come off it will create significant new demand.
His confidence is boosted by consumers looking for natural alternatives to synthetic fibre and the enthusiasm of United States architectural services company
Gensler investigating the use of wool floor covering, acoustic panels and insulation in new buildings.
Hang in there. This is more
than just hope and if we get it right, it’s a major opportunity.
Mark Patterson Associate Minister of Agriculture
With 2023 revenue of $NZ3.23 billion, Gensler partners with clients in over 100 countries, including 10 of Fortune magazine’s most profitable companies and nine of the world’s largest pharmaceutical, technology and entertainment companies.
Gensler has a goal of a zerocarbon impact portfolio by 2030.
“They’ve been out here and visited farms and they are very excited about using wool,” Patterson said.
He is also closely watching India, which currently takes 16% of our wool but has plans to triple the size of its textile industry.
Meanwhile, the government is expected to soon announce details of its policy on wool in government buildings, which is part of the NZ First-National coalition agreement.
Patterson said improved prices are only one part of the equation needed for a permanent recovery for wool.
Any improvement in prices needs to reach farmers but he does not believe the traditional auction system will achieve that.
Instead, farmers need direct links with users and processors to shorten the supply chain and to receive feedback on fibre quality.
“The auction system hasn’t delivered for us.
“Farmers need to have a conversation with the industry about how to take wool to market more direct.”
It also requires sector leadership and that means bringing together entities such as Wool Impact, Campaign for Wool, WRONZ and Beef + Lamb NZ to create a leadership structure.
“It has be driven by farmers as they own a large portion of the supply chain.”
He said there is much happening behind closed doors to address these challenges and the government is willing to do its part.
His message to farmers is simple: “Hang in there. This is more than just hope and if we get it right, it’s a major opportunity.”
Time to cash in and turn research into reality
Annette Scott NEWS Food and fibre
ESTABLISHING a model structure geared with new uses to position high value and high volume is key to ensuring the future for New Zealand strong wool, says Wool Research of New Zealand chair Andrew Morrison.
Morrison is confident there is an enduring future for strong wool but he said new uses and new initiatives are needed to pull the sector out of the doldrums.
“There is a future for strong wool, but not if we keep doing what we have always done as we will only get what we have always got,” the new industry leader said. Finding new high-value, high-
volume uses for NZ strong wool is a fundamental priority for WRONZ.
“We have 21 wool industry members operating in the traditional use space. They asked for us to look at new uses and we will play our part in the new use spaces.
“We can support and encourage existing uses because there is still
demand but we need to expand to incorporate new uses; even the old users have got to look at new initiatives,” Morrison said.
But he said the purpose must be an enduring model structure geared to position the product for high value and high volume.
Morrison said WRONZ is committed to its co-funded Ministry for Primary Industries
Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFFF) fund New Uses for Strong Wool research programme.
The now-complete seven-year research programme has delivered several new deconstructed products that have established a variety of new types of consumer products that can be made while
Continued page 12
ALTERNATIVES: Mark Patterson says his confidence in wool is boosted by consumers looking for natural alternatives to synthetic fibre.
The sorry tale of how wool unravelled
Neal Wallace NEWS Food and fibre
THE intent was quite straightforward but the reality vastly different when farmers overwhelmingly voted to disestablish the Wool Board in 2003.
In response to lingering concerns about the sector’s financial performance and the performance of the board, in 2000 consultants McKinsey and Co had undertaken a study and recommended the dissolution of the board and the establishment of new industry good commercial entities including a move into biotechnology using wool derivatives.
An overwhelming 96.9% of growers who voted at a subsequent referendum in September 2003 were in favour of winding up the Wool Board.
The participation rate was equivalent to just 35.5% of wool growers.
It brought the shutters down on an entity established in 1944, although there were earlier iterations dating back to 1936, which had responsibility for marketing, promotion, market development, wool and sheep research and technology transfer.
Following the referendum, the board’s assets and functions were transferred to a transitional body, the New Zealand Wool Board Disestablishment Company Ltd (DisCo).
It prepared the Wool Board’s final report and financial statements, collected a 2% transitional levy on wool for a limited range of industry good purposes and oversaw the distribution of board assets.
Farmers with more than 250 sheep were allocated redeemable preference and ordinary shares in Wool Equities Ltd (WEL), for crossbred growers, or Merino Grower Investments Ltd, for Merino growers.
SheepCo, a non-profit organisation, was formed to fund research and development with funding from the commodity wool levy.
Of the $40 million in board cash and assets available to be distributed, WEL received nearly $14m in cash and $10.8m in assets to invest in business that would improve grower returns.
A 2016 Farmers Weekly investigation revealed that the WEL investment portfolio included products such as keratin and companies like Romney Rugs and Just Shorn, a 74% stake in Bruce Woollen Mill and 100% of Town & Country Textiles NZ.
WEL also made an unsuccessful bid in 2011 for the wool marketer Wool Services International.
But WEL failed to live up to the expectations promoted by McKinsey.
Farmers Weekly reported in 2016 that in 2012 it had equity of just $2.4m, assets of just over $3m, liabilities of $712,000 and cash of $1.8m.
Its 2014 unaudited accounts showed equity of just $287,000, assets of $1.85m, liabilities of $1.56m and cash of $38,000.
From 2006 to 2016 WEL had racked up cumulative losses of $24.6m.
Later, Primary Wool Cooperative became a cornerstone shareholder, but the relationship soon unravelled with the co-
operative declining to put forward director nominations due to the state of its accounts.
In 2009 farmers voted to stop paying a levy for wool research and the following year AgResearch closed its wool and textiles research division with the loss of 36 scientists and technicians.
This was despite a governmentappointed task force at the time identifying research and development as essential to creating new products, uses and markets for New Zealand wool, which it considered key to the industry’s recovery.
Equally there were farmers questioning the merits of paying a research levy citing the lack of progress in developing new products and uses from the fibre.
• In the 1990s, wool carpets made up to 95% of soft floor coverings.
• In 2021 wool’s share of that market had fallen to between 10% and 15%.
• NZ sells 148,000 tonnes of carpet a year – mostly synthetic.
• In 1990 NZ produced close to 250,000 tonnes of strong wool. In 2024 NZ produced about 100,000 tonnes of strong wool.
• Of that, 85,000 tonnes is exported.
Wool’s
Wool Source geared to ‘ink’ a deal
Annette Scott TECHNOLOGY Food and fibre
THE research is over, the pilot plant has done its job and Wool Source, a subsidiary of Wool Research of New Zealand, is geared for business, driving new demand and pricing for growers.
A business case has been confirmed by Corporate Value Associates (CVA) with Wool Source particles, pigments and powders all assessed as having large addressable markets with defined, unique product benefits and strong commercial proposition.
The CVA work approved several pathways forward with recommendation the best option was to establish a commercial entity that would be responsible for the development of a production facility and all commercial trading.
WRONZ subsequently set up Wool Source Manufacturing with
DICTATING: Wool Source chief executive Tom Hooper says it is now the market dictating as manufacturing aligns to large markets that can pay increased prices for wool.
Continued from page 10
maintaining the fundamental properties of wool.
Under the recently incorporated subsidiary, Wool Source Manufacturing, intended to be the vehicle used for commercial transactions, WRONZ has an ultimate plan to build and operate a 1 million kilogramme facility, the stepping stone to investigate commercial products and volume opportunities that will be the cornerstone of a $20 million commercial scale processing plant.
“When we reach the market validation point, WRONZ will have committed $11.6m, 60% of the cost, with conversations underway to fund the remaining 40%.
“Yes, we can take the criticism, let’s hurry up, but research programmes have yielded phenomenal results, now validation needs to be done properly to benefit the research and deliver both volume and value.
“We have looked at the market
a board and committee overseeing the commercial development activity.
Wool Source chief executive Tom Hooper said the pre-research is over, the pilot plant has been working for three years and the focus in now on the three Ps –powder, particles and pigments.
The commercial development programme is conditional on two fundamental points being achieved for the three products.
Both market validation and product readiness for commercial supply are required to be proven to commit to the next phase, the building of the production facility.
“We are now into applied research, product development and commercialisation.
“While research is ongoing it’s now the market telling us what they want as we align to large markets that can pay increased prices for wool.
“What drives a lot of our products across all three Ps are bio-based materials to replace synthetics.”
Two key markets have been identified for powder: hydrolysed keratin for use in shampoo, and the building material industry because of wool’s natural fire retardancy.
European environmental regulations are driving packaging companies towards alternatives to synthetics in coating and laminate formulations, which led to an opportunity for Wool Source powder.
The key market for powder is with industrial coatings for flexibility and anti-marring.
“This is a woollen product to replace the outer layer of coatings in packaging such as cosmetic and perfume boxes.”
Innovations with pigments are hitting the ink market to provide colourant for the increasingly popular bioplastics segment, especially for screen printing.
size of the places we are playing in and these are significant.
“We haven’t pursued any research that is only low value or low volume.
“The challenge now is we have created this wonderful research and we need to establish the structure to create and capture value and volume.
“We are working hard on that model and we are giving industry the opportunity to invest,” Morrison said.
Wool Source has produced sample production materials of particles, powders and pigments and is working on scale-up options and costs for a commercial plant to be established at Lincoln.
“The detailed business case is set now to build the deconstruction facility to meet the needs of particles, powders and pigments.”
The pilot plant has enabled testing of the scalability of production processes, identifying more cost-efficient high-volume options that will aid competitive cost models once commercial production begins.
adoptions processes are all achieved.
We are now into applied research, product development and commercialisation.
Tom Hooper Wool Source
“It is unique, and we are the only people that we are aware of who can do a full colour pallet of biobased inks.
“That [ink] market is the most complex and hardest to crack, but also the biggest.”
Key markets are Europe and North America, where legislation requires the swapping of materials.
North America is driven by brands with trials underway with several of the biggest brands in the world.
“Next is to build the production facility but we have to prove that demand, price point, and product
We have created this wonderful research and we need to establish the structure to create and capture value and volume.
Andrew Morrison WRONZ
“When we get the market validation points required, we will push go.”
WRONZ believes this will bring the best opportunity to move the dial on the wool price, using upwards of 20 million kilograms of wool annually.
This wool will be bought directly from the farm gate.
“Farmers want us to save the industry and believe me I’m a farmer too; holy shit it is hard, I’m losing as much sleep as they are.
“This is about solutions as a farming collective.
“We are running as fast as we can but the magnitude of the opportunities the programme
“Demand is proven around the world, done and happy.
“Price is okay; proof will be when people start paying but we’ve talked price and its not been too much of a problem.”
Product adoption process is the most complex and hardest.
“We are talking to really big firms stepping through that process.
“We are not in control; we are relying on our partners to want to do it. That’s the bit we’ve got to get over the line and depending on the use depends on how complex that process is.
“We have to nail all of the above before we build a factory.
“Everyone wants us to go fast but no one wants a failure.
“We are really aware of the state of the sector and the need for speed.
“We are going as fast as we can but doing it all right to ensure we
build a good business.”
Hooper said there is no defined timeframe.
“We are running lots of trials with lots of clients all around the world. We need to get clients through that product adoption process, that’s the current key focus.”
The first mid-size factory is envisaged to start with 1 million kg (1000 tonnes) of wool with the optimal target 20 million kg (20,000t).
The first commercial volumes of particles were shipped to Japan last December.
“We are buying in small quantities from farmers now and that will grow significantly as we can step upwards to the [20,000t] target.”
Hooper said the progression of the new-use products into the commercial market represents the final step of the journey to see new uses for strong wool driving new demand and pricing for growers.
has delivered needs its deserved time and we won’t build until the markets are secured.”
Morrison acknowledged red meat is currently doing the heavy lifting for sheep farmers.
“But when WRONZ delivers that will have a massive impact on farm profitability.”
In its 2024 annual report
WRONZ, together with the NZ Wool Industry Charitable Trust it controls, reported an overall deficit
SOLUTIONS: WRONZ chair
Andrew Morrison says saving the strong wool industry is about new-use solutions as a farming collective.
for the year of $1.5m, compared with the previous year’s deficit of $968,000.
The investment portfolio as of June 30 last year totalled almost $33m, which is $1.6m lower than the same time in 2023.
Total assets as June 30, 2024 were $37m with the key components of this being the investment portfolio and pilot plant. The 2023 total assets were $39m.
PIGMENTS: Innovations with pigments are hitting the ink market to provide colourant for the increasingly popular bioplastics segment, especially for screen printing.
Photo: Supplied
SHEEP SHEARING WOUND PROTOCOL
In the unlikely event of a wound occurring during shearing, follow this guide
IS THIS A MINOR WOUND? IS THIS A MODERATE WOUND?
• Minor facial/ear nicks
• Minor graze of skin
• Superficial cuts under <5cm in length
• Minor bleeding
• Pizzle, udder, scrotum or vulva cuts
• Cuts that extend deeper into tissue or muscle or are over >5cm in length
• Contaminated wounds
THIS A MAJOR WOUND?
• Excessive bleeding
• Tendons are cut
• Stomach or intestines visible
• Deep cut
Vet clinic contact details
Authorised pain relief
Wound spray products
Action & Treatment
Clean wound and apply antiseptic
Consider pain relief
Action & Treatment
Place in hospital pen and alert farm staff
First Aid Apply wound spray
Apply pain relief
Veterinary advice
Action & Treatment
Notify farmer immediately
Veterinary advice while stopping the bleeding
Apply pain relief
Euthanase if required
We’re here for the good of the country.
‘Zero investment results in zero results’
Neal Wallace MARKETS Food and fibre
THE strong wool sector is reaping what it has not sown, having for 22 years failed to invest in promoting the fibre and educating consumers about its merits.
“Zero investment results in zero results,” said Wools of NZ chief executive John McWhirter. Consumers are positively responding to the limited amount of investment companies are now making, with sales of wool carpets growing, new products such as wool tiles released and carpet manufacturers investing in processing equipment.
“The future is bright. This is a
sustainable fibre and it will make money for farmers, the industry and NZ,” said McWhirter.
“There is absolutely a future for wool.”
Wools of NZ sees part of that future in shortening the supply chain. It recently launched the Natural Fibre Exchange (NFX), a global auction system modelled on the Global Dairy Trade (GDT).
As with the GDT, McWhirter said, a larger pool of buyers and the way the NFX auction operates will create better price transparency than the current auction system. He believes this will lead to better prices and greater demand.
“Now we have 6000 farmers selling their wool to hundreds of international buyers so it changes
farmers cut costs by changing shearing patterns, says John McWhirter
the dynamics of the auction system in favour of farmers.”
He does not expect a sudden jump in prices in the NFX early auctions.
“Initially I believe prices will be as well as they are currently but I have no doubt we will deliver better pricing in the medium to long term.”
Demand is growing for wool 50 to 100mm in length and suitable for carpet manufacturing, but volume is limited as farmers cut costs by changing shearing patterns.
To attract volume, Wools of NZ is offering $5/kg contracts.
McWhirter said since farmers voted to disestablish the Wool Board in 2003 there has been next to nothing invested in promoting the merits of wool, a role farmers at the time expected businesses to fill.
“For the last 20 years no one out there has been telling consumers why they should buy wool.”
McWhirter said petrochemical carpet producers immediately filled the void, promoting their products as cheaper, less inclined to fade and having the ability to wash out stains.
The data is not precise, but McWhirter said in the 1990s, wool carpets constituted up to 95% of soft floor coverings in some markets.
By 2021 that had fallen to between 10% and 15% depending on the market.
Latest data shows global sales of wool floor coverings had increased to about 18-19% and he said there is growing demand in China, India,
CONSUMERS: For the past 20 years, says Wools of NZ CEO John McWhirter, ‘no one out there has been telling consumers why they should buy wool’.
“The more wool we trade, the faster we’ll go.”
I have no doubt we will deliver better pricing in the medium to long term.
the United Kingdom, Europe and significant potential in the United States.
“All the pointers are that wool demand will grow and we won’t have enough.”
To use those opportunities, McWhirter said, companies like Wools of NZ need farmer support, to provide the raw material and economic influence.
McWhirter said to grow returns, farmers will need to make some management changes, such as shifting shearing patterns to supply wool of the required length, but as it makes up less than 2% of world fibre, wool needs to be promoted as the Rolls-Royce of fibre, something people aspire to have.
Consumers in many countries replace the floor coverings in one room at a time, unlike in NZ, where they tend to replace the whole house.
If they can be convinced to use wool in one room at a time, McWhirter said, he would consider that a victory.
‘There is still a future for strong wool’
Annette Scott NEWS Food and fibre
MARK Copland has been farming sheep all his life and while he says wool is “bloody slow”, he has confidence the strong wool sector has a future, “when industry gets things right”.
Copland, who is president of the New Zealand Sheepbreeders Association, heads a fourth-generation mixed sheep, beef and arable operation in Mid Canterbury, where the family’s original McCombie Border Leicester Stud, started in 1932 by Mark’s grandfather and known as Westmere Farming since 1953, is still surviving.
“My father used to get through on wool and meat was the bonus. Now wool is only talked about for what it is not making.
“It has lost sync with inflation and wool can’t physically cover the cost of the way we are producing it.
“There is a future for strong wool, though the $50 million
question being what the future is.
“Wool has lot of positives.
“It’s about awareness, developing new uses and getting markets for it.”
The Copland farming operation – including a commercial breeding flock of Romney and Border Romneys – will have fewer breeding ewes going forward, but will have more finishing lambs.
The sheep industry is so small it’s almost a niche industry these days.
Mark Copland
Mid Canterbury
“If we can get them [lambs] is another question. There are a lot of curveballs in between and that includes reduced numbers in the stud in line with reduced ram sales.
“We still have the commercial ewes; we are still buying in Romney replacements and I reiterate, there is still a future for strong wool.
“Historically not much has changed. Just the goal posts have moved, and it’s hard work.
“We are struggling with the sheep but on the back of our other farming activities we are doing okay.
“Our son Hugh is chasing more crop, but the commercial crossbred ewes are still paying for the shearing and I never begrudge the shearers’ money.”
Copland, a respected judge in the industry, said all breeds, especially maternal breeds, are feeling the pinch with declining numbers.
“Meat breeds are still flying the flag but at the end of the day we need something to produce the meat lambs.”
Copland is upbeat about the future of sheep farming.
“Wool has got its value; it just needs to be found back and it will do.
“There’s enough out there working on it, it’s just not happening in a hurry.
“The sheep industry is so small it’s almost a niche industry these days. I’m happy to stay a part of it.”
HIGHLIGHT: Taking out the supreme champion wool award with their Border Leicester
a
LIMITED: Demand is growing for wool 50 to 100mm in length and suitable for carpet manufacturing, but volume is limited as
John McWhirter Wools of NZ
stud ram fleece at the NZ Agricultural Show has been
career highlight for Mark and Robyn Copland, who remain upbeat about the future of strong wool.
Photo: Annette Scott
From the Editor
Business as usual not an option for wool
Neal Wallace Senior reporter
ASTORY relayed by Wool Impact chief executive Andy Caughey about a recent meeting with two people from the United States wearing Allbirds shoes may provide a template for a recovery of the strong wool sector.
Allbirds shoes are made from Merino wool and the company was co-founded by former New Zealand footballer Tim Brown.
Caughey says his two guests were surprised to learn their chosen footwear was made from wool, as that was not the reason for their purchase.
They bought them purely because of the reputation and status of the Allbirds brand.
Caughey says that encounter illustrates the power of brands and he believes the viability of the strong wool sector can be rebuilt through developing brands based on the fibre’s merits and attributes.
Strong wool’s dismal performance in the 22 years since the demise of the Wool Board reinforces the reality that business as usual is not an option.
The supply chain of the future will, by necessity, be vastly different.
For all its failings, the Wool Board successfully educated consumers on the merits of wool, but since its closure, a generation of consumers has been left in ignorance of those attributes.
As we discovered in our special report published this week, the days of farmers consigning their total clip to the auction system appear over.
Sector and industry groups have spent years trying to restore viability. They see the future of strong wool in branded products and growers having close links to industry and users.
Growers will have to be strategic, work closely with their buyers and treat their clip as a portfolio of wool types tailored to the requirements of various users.
It is understandable if sheep farmers dismiss this renewed confidence as yet another promise, but things feel different this time.
There is a suite of new and repurposed products in development or close to release. Demand for wool exceeds supply, and consumers are questioning the environmental impact of plastic alternatives.
Sector leaders say they have never been more confident, optimism that comes after
Farmers Weekly is published by GlobalHQ, PO Box 529, Feilding 4740. New Zealand Phone: 0800 85 25 80 Website: www.farmersweekly.co.nz
EDITOR Bryan Gibson 06 323 1519
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EDITORIAL
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Neal Wallace 03 474 9240 neal.wallace@globalhq.co.nz
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Is the government doing enough to stop wholefarm conversions to forestry?
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several years’ work turning around the sector’s fortunes.
That work has been done on the cheap, the costs met by taxpayers partnering with agricultural companies and growers while individual businesses have funded marketing out of cashflow.
Assuming a recovery is imminent, attention needs to turn to how to manage the strong wool sector. What are its core roles and how will it be funded?
We need to avoid the mistakes of the past, specifically the assumption made in 2003 that manufacturers and retailers would pick up the Wool Board’s role of generic strong wool promotion.
They didn’t last time, so why would they do it this time?
Naturally farmers will want to see substantial and permanent improvements in prices before agreeing to pay a levy on wool.
Twenty years of low wool returns have contributed to inconsistent profitability for crossbred sheep farmers.
Improving wool prices will smooth out those fluctuating fortunes, but – given the extent to which many farmers now treat wool as a byproduct – if we do not spark a recovery this time, there may not be another chance.
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Letters of the week
Build trust with shareholders
Peter McDonald Dipton
THE excellent letters recently around cooperatives and their benefits by Hamish Gow, James Lockhart and Mike O’Connor have prompted me to write to essentially give a farmer or alternate view on cooperatives, namely Alliance Group.
I feel the “freeloader” term is an unhelpful one to describe farmers who wisely use sheepmeat procurement behaviours for their own benefit.
One must go back to why this “freeloading” is occurring.
The sheepmeat processors provided the conditions for third-party trading. With it came a loss of trust between the shareholder and the co-operative.
The fear of losing space or priority was the stick that kept all the farmers supplying.
Even before the dust settled as a car roared up our gravel road and the Alliance drafter put a foot on the ground, the same question would be asked: “What’s your space like for the week?”
That tight space kept us glued to the co-operative.
Alliance, because of a species mix heavily weighted towards sheepmeat, carried the majority of the overcapacity risk. Somehow it believed it was a whole-of-industry problem.
The risks were relative to the exposure to sheepmeat.
Alliance failed to downward adjust capacity, therefore enabling shareholders/ suppliers with a choice without consequence, which accelerated more overcapacity. Shareholders/suppliers always knew Alliance would welcome them back.
Controlling capacity lets you not only control costs and therefore the ability to run competitive pricing, but also, critically, you get to regulate suppliers’ behaviours to your benefit.
So, while I agree with the views of all the three correspondents around a select few who now have the burden of setting schedules for the benefit of all, I differ in that this operating environment was curated by Alliance. Farmers predictably only reacted to the structure in front of them.
It’s simple enough: build trust with shareholders through pricing transparency, which will auger through to certainty of supply. This equation is underpinned by a tight control of processing capacity.
Grant Marshall 027 887 5568
Steve McLaren 027 205 1456
Auckland/Northland Partnership Manager steve.mclaren@globalhq.co.nz
ALMOST three-quarters of voters thought improved access to genetic technologies would not have a positive effect on New Zealand farming. Many of the 74.3% who voted No thought that our green and sustainable image would be threatened. “The NZ economy is based on our clean green image. The worst thing a government could do is introduce GM and MRNA jabs for the animals,” one voter said. Of the 23.3% who thought gene tech would be positive for the food and fibre sector, the consistent view was that the value of our sustainable, natural brand was overstated.
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PRODUCTION
Last week’s question: Do you think improved access to genetic technologies would have a positive effect on New Zealand’s food and fibre sector?
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What does ‘thriving’ actually mean?
Eating the elephant
Daniel Eb
Daniel Eb helps Kiwis connect with farming through his agency Dirt Road Comms and Open Farms. His family farms in Kaipara. eating.the.elephant.nz@gmail.com
IHAD a writing mentor once, a good man called David Paine. Like any great teacher, his time came with a price. Submit a poor piece of work and he’d send me gruffly back to my desk. Put the effort in and he’d go through every word with me – line by line and all afternoon, if that’s what it took.
He died a few years ago. I’m lucky to have his surfboard now – a rare Wayne Parks 8’2 beauty with his name still in the bag. I think about him every time I’m out there.
David had a golden rule of copywriting. We were expressly forbidden to use the word “excited” in our work. Leaning on “excited” was the easy way out, he
said. Using it meant we weren’t doing the hard bits of great writing – asking people questions to figure out why the thing mattered and then finding the words to make people care about it.
David would have had the same issue with the term “thriving”.
“Thriving rural communities” is a line that does a lot of heavy lifting in almost every food and fibre mission or strategy statement these days.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with “thriving”. Everyone (urban folks included) wants our rural communities to thrive. But you can hide too much behind that line.
The conventional wisdom is that increasing economic growth is how we’ll “thrive”. When our farms, orchards, forests and factories make more dosh, then we’ll have the resources to thrive.
Since 1965, New Zealand’s export sector has grown at an average of 3.48% annually –significantly outpacing the broader NZ economy. What a ride. In that time, rural communities have shrunk by an average of at least 10% – in many places by much more. Fellow Elephant Eater Ben Anderson recently wrote about what this loss feels like.
The same technological innovations that enabled more productivity from fewer people and inputs – from the tractor yesterday, to the drone and data collar today – have contributed to dollar-value growth on the books. But does that matter if the local school and services close?
Looking nationally, NZ’s GDP is now US$252 billion. It was US$5bn in 1960. We’re the wealthiest we’ve ever been, but few would describe us as thriving. It’s a strange world we find ourselves in. The material indicators of economic growth –cheap consumer goods, modern healthcare, cheap food, cheap energy – are all there. Yet the true indicators of thriving – the mental wellbeing of our kids, our health, the natural environment, trust in our leaders, financial security and national morale – are generally pointing in the wrong direction.
We’re at the point where David would tell us to dig deeper and ask what a thriving community would actually look and feel like.
For many, the simplest metric for measuring thriving is more people – particularly young people who bring energy and fresh ideas for the future.
When I look around the sector, I see alternative pathways emerging for the revitalisation of rural NZ. Landify is a service matching retiring landowners with new farmers looking to buy. Seedling uses a split ownership system to let young farmers buy back shares over time from investor groups interested in funding regenerative food production. Harvest Collective aims to bring together 200 Wellington families to buy a farm and invest in a new farmer, in return for produce.
Greg and Rachel Hart in the Hawke’s Bay are turning a section of their farm into an agri-hood community for innovative young families looking to make a living
from the land. Nikki Verbeet is working on a fantastic project to turn rural community halls into shared workspaces – enabling the now 20% of Kiwis who work mostly from home to seriously consider a rural life. In France, slasheurscueilleurs (“slash gatherers”, as in “I’m a lawyer/farmer”) are young people who juggle city careers with running peri-urban farms.
I particularly like these initiatives because they focus on putting young people on a path to land ownership.
There’s nothing more powerful than skin in the game when it comes to building community or stewarding nature. Half a century of data is staring right at us. The conventional wisdom that broad economic growth alone will deliver
thriving communities is wrong. We have to design to thrive now. We need to proactively steer growth towards small farms focused on innovative niche products and services. We need to blend urban and rural life in our peri-urban spaces (particularly the Golden Triangle between Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga), enable more parttime farming, finance eco-system regeneration, design healthy local food systems and invest upfront in getting young people onto increasingly unaffordable land. Turning “thriving” from a corporate comment to a lived reality will not be fast, easy or cheap.
So back to the desk we go. We’ve got work to do.
Tariff war might not go the way we hope
In my view
Conor English
English is a director of Silvereye, a Wellington-based government relations and PR firm. He is a former exporter, CEO of Federated Farmers and independent adviser to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
BOXER Mike Tyson
famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”. He was pointing out in his own unique, direct way, that sometimes things don’t go the way you think. There can be unintended consequences. Your opponent can counter punch, so a “Plan B” can be useful.
The United States government has a plan to use tariffs as a way of incentivising other countries to do things that are helpful to the US. Things like curtail immigrants or drugs travelling over the border, or to shift their manufacturing jobs to the US. US President Donald Trump has called the word tariffs “the most beautiful word in the dictionary” so it’s clear he likes the idea of using tariffs. It is not a new logic.
Maybe this plan will work?
The plan is already underway.
First up, a 10% tariff on goods from China, and energy products from Canada. Tariffs will be set at 25% for most other goods from Canada and Mexico. If these countries change their drug, migration and manufacturing policies, the US will look to review the tariff levels. That’s the new deal.
New Zealand had its own tariffs for many years, as was fashionable. For well over a century, tariffs were a source of significant government revenue. But now we seek fair trade, with no tariffs, quotas or other barriers in our trading relationships. It matters to us as a small trading country at the bottom of the world. Multilateral co-operation and enforcement frameworks such as the World Trade Organisation are vital.
The US has its own history of tariffs. An excellent example of how things can end up like a punch in the face is the passing of the “Smoot Hawley” Tariff Act in June 1930. This raised tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods, despite a petition signed by 1028 economists asking President Herbert Hoover to veto the legislation. He didn’t. The theory was it would save jobs and protect local producers from international competition following the share market crash in October 1929.
But it didn’t make things
better, it made things worse.
The US’s trading partners punched back. They retaliated, just as Canada (and probably soon Mexico and the European Union) is doing now.
The world economy and geopolitics have evolved significantly since the Great Depression and what happened then may not happen now. However, history can perhaps provide some small insight as to how this might play out.
After Smoot- Hawley passed –yes – US imports fell 66% from $4.4 billion in 1929 to $1.5bn in 1933. So that must be good for domestic jobs and industries?
Well no, because other countries punched back with their own tariffs, and sourced imports from other countries rather than the US.
As a result, US exports also decreased 61% from $5.4bn to $2.1bn. GNP fell from $103.1bn in 1929 to $55.6bn in 1933, a drop of around 50% over four years.
So rather than create jobs, jobs were lost, and plenty of them.
The factories that produced those export goods couldn’t sell their products, so staff lost their jobs. Unemployment, at 8% in 1930, jumped to 25% in 1932–33.
So how does this fast-changing situation affect New Zealand?
Unlike 100 years ago, we get
impacted very quickly by the transmission of changes in our exchange rate, interest rates, commodity prices, share markets and trade flows. This then flows through our economy.
For example, if inflation goes up in the US because of the new tariffs, international interest rates may go up, thus reducing the speed of any reductions on our mortgage rates. Dairy commodity prices might rise, but so too might international oil prices, pushing up our fuel prices and inflation. Our dollar may fall, making it cheaper for tourists to visit, but the cost of servicing our increasing national debt more expensive. Chinesebuilt EVs may be more available and cheaper here as cars are diverted from the US market. There will be all sorts of positive and negative impacts, unintended consequences and unforeseen outcomes – we just don’t know what will happen. We do know that it creates more uncertainty, and that’s not helpful to anyone. So will it be a punch in the face, as Mike Tyson suggests, or a pat on the back? Either way, we need to be fleet of foot and have a “Plan B”.
THRIVE: Greg and Rachel Hart are two of the many people Daniel Eb says are transforming New Zealand farming so it can really thrive.
EVOLVED: The world economy and geopolitics have evolved significantly since the Great Depression and what happened then may not happen now. However, history can perhaps provide some small insight as to how this might play out, says Conor English. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Sector Focus
Southern group grows oats of the future
Gerhard Uys TECHNOLOGY Arable
AGROUP of oat growers in Southland and Otago are growing the oats of the future.
The Oat Industry Group has made significant strides in oat breeding and development, achieving increased yields and improved nutrition in oats.
Southland arable farmer and oat grower Graeme Gardyne said in a triple whammy for Southland growers, the Flemings oat mill in Gore closed in 2000.
This left no local outlet for growers.
When the mill closure was announced, the government abandoned the Gore-based Crop & Food Research milling oat breeding programme, while continuing more lucrative forage oat research.
Harraways in Dunedin, at that stage mainly a wheat mill, decided to focus more on oat processing and Gore growers began delivering about 1000 tonnes to them.
Today some of those same Southland growers, along with new ones, deliver about 14,000t of oats to Harraways every year.
Around 2004 growers and Harraways realised the industry needed a breeding programme, and along with director of Plant Research Mark Elliot, decided to get a programme running again.
Managing director at Plant Research Adrian Russell, who works with Southland and Otago oat growers on a breeding programme, said 20 years ago they began scouting the world to see
what varieties will do well locally, but none of the oats ticked all the boxes for the New Zealand market.
Harraways specifications for milling were different to what the Europeans wanted, with overseas material tending to be very tall, with smaller, skinnier grains, making them harder to mill with Harraways’ equipment.
“We figured that the only way to get varieties suitable for New Zealand was to develop, cross and select them here,” Russell said.
At the time they couldn’t afford to fully fund a breeding programme for a small market, as they couldn’t get a return on investment.
If the yield gap gets too big, why would a farmer want to grow oats?
Adrian
Russell Plant Research
The Oat Industry Group was formed and a grower levy was put in place; Harraways agreed to match it.
This partially funds the programme.
Recently Otis oat milk also set up the 1% Fund, with 1% of Otis oat milk sales going back to the industry ecosystem.
Russell said the breeding group works because industry, in the form of Harraways, growers and researchers, get together. Feedback of what works and what doesn’t is immediate.
Running trials often means failing, said Russell.
A number of years ago they
trialled cultivar 10103, which ticked all the boxes for growers in terms of agronomy, yield and quality.
However, it failed when milled, because a taste test showed it had the wrong texture and “mouth feel” for consumers.
“It had a higher level of soluble fibre called beta glucan that made the porridge sticky when eaten,” Russell said.
An oat variety needs to meet criteria along the line, but milling is the real acid test, he says.
A good oat variety needs to grow consistently and yield well over the breadth of growers’ properties, taking into account the variations between seasons, weather patterns, soil types, and micro climates. This is a challenge, Gardyne said.
In previous crop trials, for example, one experienced an unusually strong wind and rain event causing the taller varieties to lodge.
In another season an extreme wind event caused high seed losses in some varieties.
Russel said that was actually good for the programme, even though it was bad for growers, because they identified that a cultivar Harraways uses, L5, holds onto its grain really well.
Oats that tick the growth and agronomy boxes are also sent to Cates Grain & Seed in Canterbury to be entered into the seed certification system prior to entering commercial use by growers.
Seed certification by an independent entity (Assure Quality) helps to maintain the integrity, uniformity and purity of
the varieties that are released from the breeding programme.
“Using that system has already helped with the quality of the varieties and the seed that’s been going out to the growers.”
Russell said the oats of the future have to be competitive with other cereals.
“If the yield gap gets too big, why would a farmer want to grow oats, they’ll just grow wheat or barley.
“Without incremental advances in yield, the gap will keep getting bigger.”
Luckily trials of varieties, such as Gardyne, named after Graeme’s family, have shown yield gains, with Russell saying the average yield of 7t per hectare is edging closer to 8t per hectare.
The oats of the future will also have to cope with new disease pressures and any climate change events.
At the moment the industry relies on the L5 variety, but in future it hopes to have multiple varieties so the industry can spread its risk.
Russell said plant breeding is a long-term activity and the patience of the oat group has been key to its success.
“Year after year and we see incremental gains.”
New varieties have about 2% more protein content, yield is higher, and Harraways is seeing improved nutrition.
“We are testing about 1000 varieties annually. The more years you do trials, the more robust your data becomes.”
And Southland is where it’s at for oats, said Gardyne, with the long cool seasons that oats like, and a growing number of younger growers interested in taking the industry forward.
PATIENCE: Southland arable farmer and oat grower Graeme Gardyne, left, and managing director at Plant Research Adrian Russell. They say oat trials take patience and season after season of production.
Photo: Gerhard Uys
Guiding FAR r esearch and ex tension
Want to have more say in the Foundation for Arable Research’s priorities and activities? Get involved with your regional grower-led Arable Research Group (ARG)
ARGs, which include lev y payers and industr y representatives, have been in operation since FAR’s inception They are a direct link bet ween growers and FAR staff, providing feedback on regional issues, concerns and oppor tunities Seven ARGs operate across the countr y, and rig ht now they are all looking for new members
Region al a r a ble pla n s
Traditionally, ARGs have met with FAR staff three or four times a year to pass on information and consider ideas for new research projects However, thanks to FAR’s new regional strategy, the groups now have more influence
FAR chief executive Alison Stewar t says the goal of the regional strategy is quite simple to make it easier for any grower, any where in New Zealand, to access relevant FAR research, events and information
“ With this in mind, we have appointed seven par t-time, regionally-based staff whose role is to work with ARGs to design and deliver a plan to meet the needs of growers in their region Development of these regional plans is under way now, and they will be updated annually ARG members also have a say on what new research projects FAR takes on Each year they look through a range of proposals to sense check them for industr y and regional relevance ”
W h at ’s t h e p r oc es s for joining a n ARG?
In the past, ARG membership processes have been relatively informal, with places of ten filled via word of mouth However, to ensure transparency, FAR has now established a more formal, annual, process involving official nominations and, where necessar y, elections
You can nominate yourself, or any other lev y payer in your region, for ARG membership by completing a simple form outlining the nominee’s name, address and contact details, along with a few words as to why that person would be a good ARG candidate for your region If nominating anyone other than yourself, make sure you get their agreement first Where more nominations are received than there are vacancies, lev y payers in the region will be asked to vote in an online election
You can stay on an ARG for up to four terms of three-years, and the nomination/election process will occur ever y year to ensure a constant mix of new and experienced members
Nominations for this year’s process close on 30 April, and if required, voting will take place in May Newly appointed members will take up their roles on July 1
What ’s
Upcoming event s
Northern North Island
South West North Island
Northern South Island
Eastern North Island
Mid Canterbury
South Canterbury, North Otago
South Otago, Southland
Au t u m n Rou n d Up S e r i es
This year’s autumn round ups will cover cereal cultivar per formance, soil carbon and crop establishment plus region specific topics
D u n s a n d e l Monday 24 March, 1 00pm - 3 30pm Dunsandel Communit y Centre
A s h b u r ton
Tuesday 25 March, 8 00am - 10 30am Hotel Ashbur ton
Tim a r u Tuesday 25 March, 1 00pm - 3 30pm
Caroline Bay Lounge, 1 Vir tue Avenue
G or e Thursday 27 March, 8 00am - 10 30am Croydon Lodge Hotel
Pa lm e r s ton Nor t h Monday 31 March, 5 00pm - 7 30pm Distinction Hotel, Cuba Street
H a s t i ng s
Tuesday 1 April, 12 00pm - 2 30pm L andWise Green Shed, 21 Ruahapia Road
M et hve n Wednesday 2 April, 11 00am - 1 30pm Mt Hut t Memorial Hall
FA R Con fe r e nc e 2 0 2 5
Add this year’s conference to your calendar!
it like being on an ARG?
For Michael Gardyne, who runs a mixed cropping and winter lamb gra zing operation near Gore, ARG membership has been a wor thwhile experience
“I was asked to join the South Otago-Southland ARG in 2022 I was keen to help Southland farmers by giving feedback to FAR and help keep FAR’s work relevant to Southland growers and the challenges we face
“It’s been interesting to see the work that goes on behind the scenes at FAR and how it is more than what you see at field days , ” Michael says
Te Awamutu farmer Simon Fookes joined the Nor thern Nor th Island ARG in 2022 His family farm grows 125ha of maize using a strip till system and winter gra ze 800 to 1000 cows on annual r yegrass
“I got involved with the ARG as I was interested to see how FAR works and to be able to have a say The process is a lot more collaborative than I expected with the ARG members being asked questions and being par t of an open discussion
“I am learning a lot from it and moving for ward as a grower as wel l,” Simon says
Register at far org nz /events
We look for ward to seeing you there!
Challenges mount for UK maize growers
Gerald Piddock NEWS Arable
TWO visiting representatives from the United Kingdom maize growing industry say their farmers are facing increasingly challenging circumstances to grow their crop as they battle climate change and a tough regulatory environment.
The industry is facing a range of issues, UK Maize Growers Association’s Jon Myhill and Kate Baker told around 90 farmers at a maize field day organised by the Foundation for Arable Research at Tamahere in Waikato.
Around 250,000 hectares of maize is grown in the UK with 6065% used as silage for the beef and dairy industries, 30% going into biodigesters where it is turned into energy and the rest sold as maize grain.
The latter is a challenging crop to grow because of genetics and the country’s cold, wet climate.
The yield is around 8-9 tonnes a hectare.
Myhill said climate change impacts mean farmers are also
getting heavier and more frequent rain in autumn.
For example, farmers typically plant the crop in April, but last year it was still too wet to plant in late May.
“Our longest day is June 21, and we probably had 50% of our crop that still hadn’t emerged. We’re naturally up against a very difficult situation.”
Maize doesn’t have the best reputation in the UK.
Baker said there is also a big push from the UK government to grow maize more sustainably but without crippling them with added costs.
“Maize doesn’t have the best reputation in the UK.”
This was due to some of the practices around harvest time – stubble finding its way into waterways, soil compaction and pollution from nutrient runoff being the main concerns.
Myhill said using maize to fuel biodigesters has grown
substantially as farmers have exited the UK dairy industry due to succession issues and low milk prices.
It is also increasingly profitable with growers planting maize within a 30km radius. The biodigesters process about 30,00050,000 tonnes of organic matter a year, which includes maize silage.
“It’s allowed farmers to have a stable income.”
The biodigesters also produce digestate as a byproduct, which farmers can then apply to the land as fertiliser.
UK growers are also facing greater restrictions around agrichemical insecticides with the amount of land used to grow canola shrinking by 50% in the past four years due to cabbage stem flea beetle.
Sugarbeet growers are facing similar issues with insect pests and a lack of available treatments.
Farmers are also facing greater restrictions around what they can use for bird control with their product of choice up for review in the European Union in the next few years. If it is not approved, they will lose their ability to use it.
“Once that approval falls off,
NZ-grown grain mark boost for local farmers
THE Foundation for Arable Research is registering a New Zealand-grown grain certification mark on behalf of all local grain growers.
The general manager of business operations at FAR, Ivan Lawrie, said the initiative is part of a wider industry campaign to increase the use of NZ-grown grains.
Such a certification would allow a logo to be put on packaging of products derived from locally grown grains and drive consumer awareness.
The foundation is working with Eat New Zealand CEO Angela Clifford and industry partners on the registration of a certification mark for New Zealand-grown grains through the Intellectual Property Office.
End users using the trademark will only be able to use New Zealand-grown grain in their trademarked products and must use grains or flour from a verified supplier, he said.
FAR is currently receiving advice on wording for a licence, he said.
Companies that want to use the mark will have to register with FAR as the independent holder of the certification and will then be granted a licence to use the
grain mark, under specified conditions.
Lawrie said they had not signed any agreements with end users yet, but that there is a strong group of interested bakers and food manufacturers who are “keen to sign up to the process” and label their products as locally grown grains.
“The idea is to start small,” Lawrie said.
There will be a wider public campaign once the mark has been registered and licences are in place, he said.
The establishment of the new mark should occur soon,
we’ll have nothing in the pipeline at all, which is really concerning because we did a survey two years ago on the loss of seed bird repellent and we think we will lose 30% of our cropping area instantly if were to lose bird repellent.”
Another challenge is herbicide resistance to weeds such as black grass, which has seen farmers in some areas of the UK that used to grow cereals stop because it is no longer economical. In January, glyphosate-resistant weeds were found for first time in Italian ryegrass, he said.
Don’t be tempted by cheap
pasture seed
Staff reporter NEWS Arable
CHOOSING pasture seed at bargain prices may seem an attractive way for farmers to reduce autumn or spring re-sowing costs, but it comes with significant risks, warns the New Zealand Plant Breeders and Research Association.
As the autumn regrassing season approaches, the PBRA is urging farmers to choose modern proprietary cultivars that are supported by years of investment, testing and development.
member companies deploy specific management systems to ensure endophyte levels and seed quality are maintained, and they also come with support and advice from experienced field staff.
“It might be tempting to consider buying cheap, uncertified seed, but the risk of poor pasture performance is high, as is the risk to on-farm biosecurity from the introduction of unwanted weeds,” she said.
tional Forage Variety Trials across several regions, so farmers can compare their performance against other options in similar farming areas to their own.
if all legal requirements are met.
In February Lawrie told Farmer’s Weekly that “if we can increase by 50% the amount of locally grown grain that the end consumer uses we’re onto a good thing”.
“The impact of paying $20 or $30 more per tonne makes a material difference to local growers, but because there’s so much that goes into the price of bread, such an increase will only mean a few cents more for the consumer per, for example, a loaf of bread.”
Choosing uncertified or unknown cultivar options can result in poorer strike rates and weed infestation. Cheap pasture seed may also contain unknown and potentially low or non-existent endophyte, crucial for pasture persistence and good livestock performance.
Newly appointed PBRA chief executive Sarah Clark said modern ryegrass cultivars are inoculated with new and known endophyte strains that are designed to reduce the effects of some performance-limiting livestock challenges and enhance persistence.
Clark said PBRA
The general manager of PBRA member company Germinal New Zealand, Simon Larsen, said many of the proprietary cultivars have also been included in multiple Na-
PBRA member companies have good supplies of their proprietary ryegrass cultivars available for sowing this autumn after last year’s challenging season resulting from lower farmgate prices and the hike in input costs experienced over the past two years.
Larsen expects improving farmgate prices will have a positive influence on the volume of seed sown in this autumn’s regrassing period.
GROWERS: Jon Myhill and Kate Baker of the UK Maize Growers Association talk to growers at a FAR-run field day at Tamahere.
Kate Baker UK Maize Growers Assn
Gerhard Uys NEWS Arable
IMPACT: The general manager of business operations at the Foundation for Arable Research, Ivan Lawrie, says increasing the use of locally grown grain by 50% would have a significant positive impact on local growers.
Photo: Gerhard Uys
IMPROVED: PBRA chief executive Sarah Clark says modern ryegrass cultivars are inoculated with new and known endophyte strains that are designed to reduce the effects of some performance-limiting livestock challenges.
Photo: Supplied
‘Step up’ for contract milkers
With droughts forcing an early herd dry-off in parts of the country, farm owners are being encouraged to get behind their contract milkers facing months of slim income.
Brendan Attrill, Federated Farmers sharefarm owner chair, says dire conditions in many dairying regions are putting a huge strain on farming relationships.
“There’s no doubt that a fair chunk of those relationships between farm owners and contract milkers and sharemilkers are being really tested at the moment.
“Farmers are being forced to make some very hard decisions – like drying the cows off much earlier than usual.
“That’s putting a lot of pressure on people, particularly our contract milkers in those drought zones.”
For contract milkers paid by milk processors, the reality is stark: “You’re not going to get a lot of income for about four or five months,” Attrill explains.
“For some of our contract milkers, they just can’t survive that.”
Speaking on the Federated Farmers Podcast, he urged contract milkers to be upfront with farm owners about the financial strain they’re under.
“If you’re a contract milker, you need to be very clear with the owner: ‘Look, we’ve got staff to pay, we’ve got overheads to cover, we’ve got to put food on the table.’
“If you don’t tell them the situation, it’s more difficult for the farm owner
to know how to support you.”
Attrill says, in times like these, farm owners need to front-foot the problem and back their contract milkers.
“They should acknowledge their contract milker is possibly looking at a three- or four-month period with little to no income and may need financial assistance.
“We need the owners to really step up and provide some support.
“A small payment each month could help them feel secure in their decision-making and reinforce their commitment to your farm.
“It will also ensure they’re ready to hit the ground running next season.”
Attrill reminds owners why they chose their contract milkers in the first place.
“You’ve seen something in them at the start of the season; you think they’ve got expertise that benefits your business.
“Nothing has changed about that person sitting across the table— except we’re now facing a drought that means we’re going to lose 60 to 80 days of lactation.
“So, let’s get behind them now and make sure we retain good people in the industry, because we could lose some real talent if we don’t help them through.”
Sam Ebbett, Federated Farmers sharefarmer chair, says that kind of support would be a huge boost to contract milkers at a time when things aren’t going to plan.
“If the farm owner was to step up to the plate and back their
Let’s get behind them (contract milkers) now and make sure we retain good people in the industry, because we could lose some real talent if we don’t help them through.
Brendan Attrill Federated Farmers sharefarm owner chair
sharefarmer through a time like this, that would mean a lot.
“If you invest now in good people –I think the return on your investment next season would be massive.”
Ebbett’s key message for
sharemilkers and contract milkers impacted by the drought is simple: communicate.
“You need to keep the lines of communication open and be transparent with your farm owner, giving an honest representation of the situation.
“It’s doing your stocktake of what feed’s available, conditionscoring the herd regularly, checking the water supply, and relaying all that information to the farm owner.
“You need to be an open book, so every piece of information is available to the farm owner, so you can make the best decisions possible.”
Attrill agrees, saying contract milkers and sharemilkers need to
COMMUNICATE:
Brendan Attrill, Federated Farmers sharefarm owner chair, says dire conditions in many dairying regions are putting a huge strain on farming relationships.
elevate their concerns quickly.
“If you’re feeling under pressure or the plan isn’t working, you need to elevate that so the farm owner can change tack, bring in more resource and support.”
He says it’s important that farmers don’t get paralysed by the situation but keep making decisions.
“You don’t want to let this season roll over into having an impact on next season, because then you’ll have a double whammy with two difficult seasons.
“You have to keep making good decisions that will get condition back on your cows, pasture back in play, and make sure you’ve got really good feed plans underway.
“That’s how you’ll really set yourself up for success next season.”
Sir Graeme: farmers need more collaboration, not confrontation
Incentivise farmers, get practical not adversarial, and stop tying landowners up in crazy rules.
That was the thrust of Sir Graeme Harrison’s message to the recent Bluegreens forum.
The Bluegreens are the National Party’s advisory group on environmental issues, like the challenges and opportunities facing farm-led conservation, and includes many current Ministers.
“To borrow someone else’s words: you can’t be green if you’re in the red,” Sir Graeme says.
“The current Resource Management Act (RMA) processes are just too adversarial.
“You’re confronting regulators when what’s needed to help farmers become real conservationists is more collaboration.”
Sir Graeme founded Anzco Foods and was chairman as it grew into one of New Zealand’s largest meat and related product exporters.
Life turned full circle for him when, after 34 years with Anzco, he returned to farming at Methven in 2016, on a property that incorporates 75ha of the family cropping and sheep farm he’d left as a 17-year-old.
His 2300ha Mt Alford Station has Angus cows, 4000 breeding ewes and Fresian-cross bulls bought in as 100kg calves from the dairy industry – about 18,000 stock units in all.
Under Sir Graeme’s stewardship there’s also expanding areas of regenerating bush.
“It’s a complicated property,” he says.
“Alford has flats but also pretty steep hill country, and it can be cold and wet. It used to be burnt but that finished with the end of supplementary minimum prices in the mid-1980s.”
Having made good money offfarm – an advantage he recognises most farmers don’t have – he’s been
I’d like it to end up where regulators can say, ‘well, we think this but it’s not a rule. Let’s talk about it and see if we can come to a reasonable position’.
Sir Graeme Harrison Canterbury farmer, ANZCO Foods founder, National Party board member
able to accelerate planting and other conservation initiatives.
But that hasn’t come without frustrations. Large parts of Mt Alford Station are under restrictive planning overlays that mean even basic activities like putting in a new fence or lanes can require a resource consent.
On top of this, the previous Government’s freshwater rules required fencing of waterways where
there was no practical way to put in fences, and also restrictive rules over so-called wetlands.
“I told the Bluegreens if you didn’t have the experience I have, running businesses, building factories and so on, when people with clipboards turn up, you’d be inclined to go into your shell,” Sir Graeme says.
“It’s too hard – people don’t want confrontation.
“But I’m an older man in a hurry, so I’m going to deal with it.”
The RMA’s adversarial slant leads to a ‘top down’ approach, he says.
“That’s where the regulators come from. But it needs to be the other way round because the landscapes from which we work are quite different, and the people who know that best are those who actually farm the land.
“Even on my own properties there’s big variations, so one size does not fit all.”
Sir Graeme regularly refers to research by Emeritus Professor
Farmers deserve incentives to look after those natural areas, he says.
“If you put in 10,000 native plants a year, which is what we’ve put in our lowland areas, that’s $100,000 when you take into account fencing, plant guards, spraying for the first three years.”
Farmers shoulder these costs with little or no help, and their reward is often more red tape.
Sir Graeme battled shonky lowslope fencing maps and rules that were applied to steep gorges at the back of his property.
“We did fence them in the end, but I had to get consent to bring a bulldozer in to clear an access lane, and I had to get a neighbour’s agreement.
“The attitude was we were scarring the landscape. They worried about
COLLABORATE: Sir Graeme Harrison, seen here planting native trees on his Mt Alford Station, says what’s needed to help farmers become real conservationists is more collaboration.
us removing one of two plants and completely missed the big picture.”
For Sir Graeme, reform of resource management laws needs to encourage collaboration.
“I’d like it to end up where regulators can say, ‘well, we think this but it’s not a rule. Let’s talk about it and see if we can come to a reasonable position’.”
In many areas across New Zealand, RMA overlays mean farmers need resource consents for everyday farming activities.
Federated Farmers has been advocating for decades for environmental rules that respect property rights.
The Government has indicated it will replace the RMA with new rules that will place the enjoyment of property rights as a guiding principle.
Announcements are expected within the next few weeks, and Federated Farmers will be engaging in this process on behalf of its members.
David Norton, which found 25% of New Zealand’s remaining native vegetation – that’s 2.9 million hectares – is on sheep and cattle farms.
Whole-farm conversions to forestry still happening
The farm next door to Dean Rabbidge’s Wyndham farm is about to be planted fenceto-fence in pine trees – and he’s absolutely gutted.
“I just don’t understand how these whole-farm conversions to forestry are still happening,” the Federated Farmers Southland meat and wool chair says.
“The Prime Minister stood up in front of hundreds of local farmers in Gore at the Restoring Farmer Confidence Tour last December saying they were going to stop this happening.
“He was very clear on his intent, and we absolutely back it, but that intent doesn’t line up with what we’re seeing on the ground.
“We still seem to have some landowners and buyers pushing the envelope on the ‘intention to plant a forest’ exception criteria, chasing those carbon returns.”
Rabbidge says Wyndham district already has a serious problem with feral pigs and deer.
“With pines being planted, I’ve now got a 2000ha pest nursery going in next door. Most forestry guys don’t give a s*** about dealing with feral animals.
“But what’s worse is that with more forestry on food-producing land, even if it’s production forestry, it will mean fewer jobs in our local community.
“We saw it here in the ’90s: schools closed, towns dwindled, rugby clubs folded – and we just don’t want it.”
Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Toby Williams says questions around landowners’ pre-December
planting intentions are sprouting in several districts.
“There’s a grey area causing concern and I’m copping a lot of phone calls from frustrated farmers.
“Everybody needs clarity about what burden of proof is required to satisfy ‘intent to afforest’ criteria,” Williams says.
At the Southland event in December, the Government announced a three-year moratorium on full-farm conversions to exotic forest being registered in the ETS on classes 1 to 5 farmland.
Only 15,000 hectares of class 6 farmland for exotic forest can gain ETS registration each year, allocated ‘first come, first served’.
Under the new rules, farmers can still plant up to 25% of their farm in forestry that can be ETS-registered.
There is still scope for landowners currently in the process of afforestation who can ‘demonstrate an intent to afforest prior to 4 December 2024’ to register in the ETS.
Just what ‘demonstrating intent’ looks like is what is causing Federated Farmers concern.
MPI says a landowner must provide evidence of afforestation intention dated before 4 December 2024, such as a land purchase agreement, or seedling order.
“Federated Farmers 100% backs the Government’s decision to draw a line in the sand from 4 December 2024,” Williams says.
“The decision should stop the relentless march of pines over prime farmland but leave farmers with
flexibility to put up to 25% of their land in trees under the ETS.
“If someone is going to use that ‘intent to plant’ loophole to plant a farm, they should need concrete proof rigorously checked by MPI,” Williams says.
“It should need to stand up to intense scrutiny, with a paper trail
and digital footprint that can be audited, showing clear intent to not only plant but to enter the ETS.”
Devastated Gisborne locals recently learned the 1760ha, 16,000 stock unit Waipaoa Station will go into pines.
“That farm went through the Overseas Investment Office approval
If someone is going to use that ‘intent to plant’ loophole to plant a farm, they should need concrete proof rigorously checked by MPI.
Toby Williams Federated Farmers meat and wool chair
for sale process and was turned down.
“Now the owners say they’re going to put it into forestry themselves for 100% carbon with the intention selling it to offshore buyers,” Williams says.
Duff Farms, adjacent to Rabbidge’s farm, has only recently been sold.
“There was never any indication it would go into trees. Then out of the blue last month, it was sold to IFS Growth, a specialist forestry company,” Rabbidge says.
“They’re big enough to basically have a monopoly on all the seedling trees in Southland and they’re claiming that’s enough to prove their ‘intent’ with Duff Farms.”
Rabbidge says if it’s going to be a production forest, with no ETS claim beyond 25%, then it’s within the new rules and he’ll have to live with it.
“But with a purchase price of around $22 million, the economics just don’t stack up. I can’t see how it could possibly be viable without carbon revenue.”
Local farmers were already dismayed that Glen Islay, a 60,000-stock unit dairy, beef and cropping farm on the Hokonui hills, sold last year and is also to be planted out.
“The Duff Farms sale is just another kick in the guts for our sheep and beef sector, with 17,000 stock units gone,” Rabbidge says.
“I was talking to the local shearing contractor, and he’s lost 10% of his work. The crutching guy is down 10%. It’s starting to hit everyone from tailing contractors to transporters.
“The effects are massive for a small town like Wyndham, and this is happening all over New Zealand.”
FRUSTRATED: Southland farmer Dean Rabbidge wants to know how neighbouring properties are still set for full pine conversion, despite promises to stop such changes.
Co-governance by stealth in Canty?
Federated Farmers will strongly resist any move to dilute farmer and wider community input into decisions and actions in Canterbury’s 10 water zones, David Acland says.
“We don’t have a problem with a refresh of zone committees,” the Federated Farmers Mid-Canterbury president says.
“In fact, we support a review of how they operate and their priority objectives going forward, but councils need to listen to clear feedback from their local communities on freshwater issues.”
At the direction of the region’s Mayoral Forum, Environment Canterbury (ECan) launched a review of water zone committees last year.
A proposed new structure includes a core leadership group of councils and mana whenua representatives – but farmers and the wider community are left out in the cold.
This is in stark contrast to the current zone committee model, which includes between four and six seats around the table for interested community stakeholders, like farmers.
“It’s fair to say the proposal has stirred up a bit of a response in our
rural communities. People are really concerned,” Acland says.
“To ECan’s credit, they do seem to have noticed people aren’t happy, and they’ve changed their tone with reassurances that input from the community is still important.
“They’re reassuring people that whatever zone groupings are landed on will get to make the call themselves on how they involve their local communities.”
We need a four-legged stool with community representation inside the inner circle making recommendations, not just three with ECan, the district council, and mana whenua.
Bill Thomas Ashburton Water Zone Committee chair and Federated Farmers member
Canterbury’s Water Management Strategy was put together in 2009, sparked by severe droughts at the time. Ten water zone committees were launched soon after.
ECan acknowledges they
have been effective providing a community voice to councils on water challenges and putting together Zone Implementation Plans (ZIPS).
Ashburton Water Zone Committee chair Bill Thomas is a Federated Farmers member who runs arable, sheep, beef and dairy grazing at his family’s historic Longbeach Estate.
He’s determined to make sure farmers and other water interest groups aren’t sidelined from decision-making in whatever final form of zone water group is settled on.
“We need a four-legged stool with community representation inside the inner circle making recommendations, not just three with ECan, the district council, and mana whenua,” Thomas says.
“I think that’s the feedback they’ve been getting loud and clear across Canterbury. If it’s just the councils and iwi sitting around the table, it has a bit of co-governance by stealth vibe about it.”
When preliminary review proposals surfaced, the Ashburton Zone Committee pulled together a group of more than 20 community representatives, including farmers, irrigators and members of the business community.
INPUT: Federated Farmers supports a review of how water zones operate, but David Acland says councils need to listen to clear feedback from their local communities on freshwater issues.
“We decided we wanted the community to be in the tent, and when ECan came to do an initial presentation on that core leadership group model, we pushed back.”
Like Acland, Thomas detects a change in tone from ECan.
“What we’re hearing now is that it will be a local call on how the community and water stakeholders will be involved, not a rigid model dictated from council’s head office.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve found with ECan is that when you’re dealing with them on the ground in the community, you feel like you’re making progress, but when you get further up the chain, it doesn’t always go the way you think it’s going to go,” Thomas says.
For that reason, Thomas thinks the
form and guarantee of community involvement in local water leadership groups beyond councils and iwi needs to be written into agreements.
Any new water zone group should get a say on proposed new regulation or any significant local water consent issue before it happens, he says.
That will mean there’s a greater chance of finding a compromise or practical solution everyone can live with.
“We know there’s got to be regulation, and we’re not going to agree with all of them.
“But if we understand them, and we’re listened to on how to make them more practical, we should achieve a bit more compromise.
“We don’t feel that’s happened, certainly not in the last three years,” Thomas says.
CONCERNED: David Acland says farmers and the wider community must have a seat at the table in whatever form of zone water group is settled on.
co nz/2753498
Located in the Wairau Valley, approximately 49 kilometres* west of Blenheim, this highly attractive forest has been carefully managed with investment in internal tracking , thinning , and pruning to produce a high value tree crop Existing registration in the ETS means an incoming purchaser can benefit from the future sale of carbon credits Contact us to arrange your guided inspection
+ 208 1ha* freehold land, 185 3ha* Radiata pine;
+ Single 1994 age class, majority pruned;
+ Immediately generate carbon credits;
+ Proximity to domestic processors and export markets;
+ Well regarded forestry area, 100% low erosion classification;
+ Attractive stands of indigenous forest and stony stream
Quality investment
Strategically positioned, the sale of our vendors
Situated in Stage 1 of the waterways, for quick access to the canal entrance and the peaceful, quiet spot!
This fabulous low maintenance 358sqm holiday or retirement home, has an attached granny flat with natural estuary views. Harvest your happiness here.
Driveway to boat ramp and double garaging, plus plenty of off-street parking for the boat.
Fly in, fly out (Whitianga airport).
Get your ducks in a row, and sow your seeds for your future now.
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By Negotiation
Make time to arrange your viewing today! harcourts.net/nz/office/whitianga/listing/ l25351998
Katrina Carlyon Sales & Marketing Consultant 021 724 200 katrina.carlyon@harcourts.co.nz www.harcourtscoromandel.co.nz Licensed Agent REAA 2008
Rangitikei.
With a current lease of 80 ha, the property is
hectares effective. Consented for irrigation which covers approx. 205 hectares.
46 aside Herringbone shed with shed feeder.
Invest in dairy, where GREEN is GOLD
PINEVIEW MANGAMAIRE
114 hectare / 281 acre flat to easy dairy unit located at Glen Oroua, approx. 33 km west of Palmerston North.
400.61 hectares in the renown Ngapaeruru District, is this picturesque property, presently run as a dairy support and beef unit of easy contoured land, nestled amongst 57 hectares of QEII Trust lands.
• Currently milking 350 cows.
• Irrigation consent in place.
Pineview is well laid out and accessed, complimented by first class improvements which include 4 stand woolshed and covered yards, covered cattle yards, formally cattle stud selling centre, with attached hay and implement shed and storage.
• Pivot irrigator and K Line.
• 26 aside Herringbone shed.
• Four bedroom home.
A 35 year old 4 bedroom home is well sited to enjoy the view of Pineview in a private sheltered setting.
Call me today for
Pineview offers A1 infrastructure, including reticulated water and fertility, where cattle grow well.
Offers Over $3,500,000 + GST (if any)
We welcome your inspection by appointment. www.forfarms.co.nz - Property ID FF3968
Parewanui Road, BULLS
Canal Front and All Day Sun 6 Hei Esplanade, Whitianga Waterways
A man was doing a bit of research on Loughor Castle and came across an excavation report, dating back to the early 1900’s, which mentioned the finding of a cemetery within the castle’s walls.
One of the skeletons they exhumed was, they deduced from its length and robust appearance, of someone of high status but, and this is really strange, another person’s skull was embedded in the skeleton’s torso. Intrigued, obviously, he delved into all his books and notes and trawled the internet to see if any more information could be found.
Eventually, in Swansea University’s library he came across a Victorian book entitled ‘A History Of Glamorgan’s First Castles’ and found an account of a siege that occurred in 1201.
It said that the eldest son of the Norman lord who held the castle was killed when one of the besiegers loaded his trebuchet with the only missile to hand, the head of a peasant executed for stealing food the day before. By an amazing fluke the young man was hit and killed by his shot!
This is believed to be the first recorded case, anywhere in the world, of the use of a serf face to heir missile!
Trees produce truffles at around year 7, producing up to 1kg a year by year 15. Currently black truffles are selling at $2,500$3,000 per kg, with high demand. It grows under them.
Great stock shade and shelter with 0% loss of grazing land. Stock protector options are available for cattle, sheep & deer.
Fantastic stock feed which is low tannin and high in carbohydrates. Produces up to 1 ton of acorns per tree each year.
Extremely resilient. Fire resistant, stabilises erosion, frost & snow resistant to -9 degrees. Drought & heat tolerant over 40 degrees. Add value far into the future. Trees last over 200 years. Cork harvest income at year 25, then every 10 years. Potential carbon credits at 30% with a minimum 1ha canopy cover. For tree availability call 021 327 637 or visit truffles.nz
Senior Sales Agronomist
CANTERBURY
Cates has been a cornerstone of Mid Canterbury’s grain and seed industry for over 50 years, working alongside generations of local farming families. As one of the regions first independent grain and seed companies, they specialise in the multiplication, production, and marketing of clove, pasture seeds, cereals, pulses, and brassicas, supplying both domestic and international markets.
Their commitment to the future of agriculture is reflected in their research and development initiatives using advanced breeding techniques.
With the upcoming retirement of a highly valued team member, they are looking for an experienced Agronomist to join them to service the Darfield (and surrounding area) territory. Reporting to the Sales Manager, you’ll work closely with farmers, providing expert advice and tailored solutions to help them maximise their crop potential and connect with global seed markets.
Naturally, you are a strong communicator and proven relationship builder, well versed in agronomy practices, and can add value to an already high performing organisation.
This is an exciting opportunity to join a company that values innovation and making a real impact in the farming community.
For full details, please visit www.eqconsultants.co.nz Recruitment/Current Vacancies to apply.
For a confidential conversation, please call Rob Malpass on 021 225 3899
LEASE LAND
WAIKATO WIDE, any size considered, competitive rates, references available. Phone/txt 022 430 4760.
LEASE LAND WANTED. Well established farming business seeking lease for dry stock sheep and beef. Flat or hill country. Rangitikei, Manawatu, Horowhenua regions. Please contact Anthony 027 645 6706.
RED DEVON BULLS. Quality. Well grown. Waimouri Stud Feilding. Phone 027 224 3838.
BOOK AN AD. For only
$3.30 + gst per word you can book a word only ad in Farmers Weekly Classifieds section. Phone 0800 85 25 80 to book in or email wordads@agrihq.co.nz
PUMPS
HIGH PRESSURE WATER PUMPS, suitable on high headlifts. Low energy usage for single/3-phase motors, waterwheel and turbine drives. Low maintenance costs and easy to service. Enquiries phone 04 526 4415, email sales@hydra-cell.co.nz
RAMS FOR SALE
SOUND TERMINAL SIRES
Suffolk Southdown X and Southdown rams for heavy lambs. Suit ewes or hoggets. $300 - $600. Phone 021 133 7533.
HILL COUNTRY 2-tooth Perendales. Quality sires. Good wool and easy care lambing. $300 - $600. Phone 021 133 7533.
WILTSHIRES-ARVIDSON.
Self shearing sheep. No1 for Facial Eczema. David 027 2771 556.
SHEEP SCANNING AVAILABLE SERVICING SOUTH
WAIKATO King Country, Ruapehu, Taupo, Taihape areas. Experienced operator. EID and Foetal Ageing. Phone 027 479 4918.
STOCK FEED
ROUND BALES for sale. Silage and hay. Bay of Plenty. Phone 027 443 0042.
WANTED TO BUY
WHAT’S SITTING IN your barn? Ford, Ferguson, Hitachi, Komatsu, JD. Be it an excavator, loader or tractor, wherever it is in NZ. Don’t let it rust. We may trade in and return you a brand new bucket for your digger or cash for your pocket. Email admin@loaderparts.co.nz or phone Colin 0274 426 936.
Advertise your birth, death and family notices with us
IN-MILK CROSS BREED HERD & MACHINERY AUCTION
(Owner Bred for 27 years)
A/c H and S MacDonald
Date: Tuesday 8th April 2025
Address: 1226 Kairanga Bunnythorpe Road Palmerston North OCD 26229
Viewing from: 9.00am
Start Time: 10.30am (Machinery & Sundries), 12:30pm (Herd) will be available for online bidding
COMPRISING: Herd 12.30pm
100 x 2- 8yr Xbred Cows
Approx 25 % Jrsy, 15 % Frsn, 60 % Xbred BW334 PW392, (BWs up to 415, PWs up to 749) RA 99%
Traditionally 450 MS System 2 Cows, 106000SCC
HB Shed, Milked OAD From Xmas this season
DTC 25th July to LIC Premier Sires Xbred and Fsn (6 weeks)
Tailed with Hereford Bull, (out 3rd Jan)
29 Xbred In-Calf Heifers
BW392 PW388
DTC 20th July to Jsy Bull, (out 3rd Jan)
MACHINERY: 10.30am
2003 Lamborghini Tractor 100 HP FEL, Massey Fergusen 265 FEL, Vico 1.5T Spreader, Kverneland 3.8m Mower, Maschio 3m Power Harrow, Jaylor Mixer Wagon, Burkhart Bale Feeder, Hustler SL350 Bale Feeder.
Visit carrfieldslivestock.co.nz – upcoming Auctions for a full list.
AUCTIONEERS NOTE:
A very tidy, smaller genuine herd available due to our retiring vendors. The herd has been owner operated and managed for the past 27 years. An offering of a mixed breed herd, low input, quiet cows that have proven to produce on a simple system.
PAYMENT TERMS: 14 days after the auction
DELVERY: Within 3 days post auction (later by prior arrangement).
CARRFIELDS LIVESTOCK AGENTS:
David Haworth 027 450 4133
Hamish Manthel 027 432 0298
GLEN ISLAY LTD
8th Annual On farm Calf Sale Thursday 27th March, 1.00pm 519 Waimea Valley Road, RD7, Gore
COMPRISING OF APPROX.
650 Angus, Hereford & Angus/Hereford X Heifer & Steer Calves
All calves are from renown breeding stock and top class sires
FOR ALL ENQUIRIES CONTACT: Matt McBain 027 306 5807
7th April 2025 12.00 pm
28 Speckle Park registered VIC Cows 1 Speckle Park Registered R3 Herd Sire 43 Speckle Park X Angus Speckle Park VIC cows
Viewing in paddock 10.30 am onwards
Sale on farm and also streamed live on My Livestock Catalogue’s available online at www.Korakospecklepark.co.nz
Note: Final dispersal sale of young stock in September.
YOUR DAIRY LISTINGS NOW
Due to excessive demand and strong buyer interest Carrfields is actively looking for more herds and heifers to market on your behalf. We have orders to fill right now! Contact your local Carrfields Livestock Representative, or visit www.carrfieldslivestock.co.nz to view our current listings
AUCTIONEERS
MT MABLE ANGUS Stud Capital PTIC 2023 fully registered Stud Heifers for sale
● The full complement of the 2023 PTIC fully transferable replacement heifers
● First 22 lots, pick for pick on a reserve basis
● Lots 23-48 on the market as individual lots
● Fully performance and pedigree recorded – 5 star recording
● Fetal ages available
● In calf to proven easy calving, good natured bulls
PGG Wrightson has been favoured by our vendors to seek expressions of interest in the sale of the Waikite Simmental Herd.
Founded in 1988 the Waikite Simmental Stud is one of the top cattle breeding operations in New Zealand, specialising in producing high-quality bulls for beef farming Further enquries: Cam Heggie | 027 501 8182 pggwrightson.co.nz
ribbed medium framed milky cows exhibiting great udders and temperament Michael & Cherie have owned their herd for over 15 years and have a passion for their animals and have strived to use the best possible genetics available to make steady production and conformation improvements within the herd
The Berkers are in the process of buying their first farm hence giving you a great opportunity to buy top animals that will be an asset to any farming operation
Sale Group Details:
172 Friesian/Friesian X & Jersey Cows
BW 369 PW465 RA 100% (Inc 10 Inmilk MT Cows)
33 Friesian/Friesian X Incalf Heifers | BW 447 PW 433
37 Friesian/Friesian X R1yr Heifers | BW 477 PW 451
6 Friesian/Friesian X R1yr Bulls
BW 543 PW 515 (4 Ex contract Frn & 2 Frn X) - All animals G3 tested - 33 animals contracted to LIC 2025 or 2026 Awaiting CRV contracts
- 23 animals are carrying the polled gene - Herd Ave last 5 years, 520-540 Kg/MS/cow, 390/410 cows, 200,000
Walking
Strong export demand underpins lamb prices
Higher paying markets inject life into export returns – and the outlook for the rest of the season is positive.
FARMGATE lamb prices have got off to a cracking start this year. The key drivers are strong export returns, a favourable currency, and tighter-than-normal supplies of lambs into processing plants.
After reaching almost rock bottom last April, average export values for lamb steadily climbed to where they are today. That export support has been a catalyst for the turnaround in farmgate returns.
That success can be attributed to solid demand from many of our traditional markets and reflects the longstanding relationships New Zealand’s exporters have maintained.
Five months into this export season, it’s clear to see the changes in where NZ lamb is heading.
Lamb exports to the United Kingdom and European Union combined are more than the total volume shipped to China so far this season.
This is the first time this has happened since February 2018. From that point, China became the dominant market for NZ lamb, effectively reducing our reliance on our high-value traditional markets. But that dominance has slipped since peaking through 2021/2022.
There is still plenty of anticipation that China will suddenly recover and demand the volumes it once did – but that needs to be put into perspective. China’s drive through 2019-2022 was underpinned by external forces – African swine fever and the covid-19 recovery.
There’s every chance we may not see that frenzied demand return, but it would be at least beneficial for demand to step up a gear to support the overall carcase value and current returns.
Recent free trade agreements with the UK and EU have cemented our position in these markets.
The agreement with the EU has also given NZ an upper hand on Australia in terms of market access, as they are still seeking to ink a deal.
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It’s clear to see the changes in where NZ lamb is heading.
NZ lamb exports to the highly valued EU market this season have totalled over 26,000 tonnes. In comparison, Australia has shipped only 2000t.
This has been hugely beneficial given the level of demand for lamb in recent months as these markets looked to secure products for both the Christmas and Easter demand periods.
New Zealand exported over
6000t of chilled lamb in February – the highest volume since February 2022 but still nearly 700t below the five-year average.
This reflects the larger chilled volumes that were shipped in earlier years.
Out of February’s chilled lamb exports, 57% made its way to four key EU markets, with additional strong support from the UK and United States.
This robust demand has also been underpinned by declining sheepmeat production across each of the EU, UK, and US industries.
Despite this decline, consumer demand has remained strong, increasing the need for imported
supplies to complement domestic production and consumption. The strength of these higher paying markets is certainly injecting life into export returns and therefore farmgate lamb prices. The outlook over the remainder of the season is positive and looks set to build on current market conditions. What this means for farmgate prices is further pricing upside and the potential for lamb returns to punch over $9/kg through late winter/early spring.
VOLUME: Five months into this export season, lamb exports to the UK and EU combined are more than the total volume shipped to China so far this season – the first time this has happened since February 2018.
Mel Croad MARKETS Sheep and beef
Cattle Sheep Deer
Weekly saleyard results
These weekly saleyard results are collated by the AgriHQ LivestockEye team. Cattle weights and prices are averages and sheep prices are ranges. For more detailed results and analysis subscribe to your selection of LivestockEye reports. Scan the QR code or visit www.agrihq.co.nz/livestock-reports
Lorneville | March 18
bulls, 170kg
Weaner exotic-beef heifers, 170kg
Prime steers, 480kg
Store lambs, all 95-135
Prime ewes, all 80-130
Prime lambs, all 130-190
Weaner Fairs/Calf Sales
Peria | March 13 | 1936 cattle
EXOTIC APPEAL: The Masterton saleyards rostrum was a busy place last week for the 1600-head yarding of weaners. The mixed markings of Simmental-cross breeding were common and popular with buyers.
Photo: Emma Gardiner, PGG Wrightson
Weather
May April showers, though, come your way
Philip Duncan NEWS Weather
THERE were some terrific downpours last week across dry parts of both main islands. In particular, Canterbury had a soaking in the past seven days –but there were other parts of New Zealand that enjoyed a drink from the sky, too.
The North Island’s west also got some rain and showers – although it depends on who you talk to when trying to figure out how much fell and whether or not it will make much of a difference in the big picture.
The dry weather was first noticeable to me in the upper North Island last winter, as I had to start watering my garden before spring had even started.
I’ve only just recently stopped watering my garden – not because of rain arriving, but due to Watercare (which manages Auckland’s water infrastructure) asking people to reduce water usage.
Farmers are telling me about their concerns going into this
winter with dry conditions since last winter for many. While some have had rain relief – or shower relief – in recent weeks, the dry has still outweighed the wet for most. Rainfall deficits continue.
High pressure continues to mostly dominate New Zealand and it’s coming from a long way away. We call it a “high pressure belt” because it looks like a big belt around the halfway mark of the southern hemisphere.
The high pressure belt is firmly in charge.
If Earth was Humpty Dumpty then the high pressure belt over the southern hemisphere holds his pants up.
The belt of high pressure stretches from South America over the Indian Ocean to southern Australia. These highs then continue to track eastwards and are why places like South Australia are in a very serious rainfall deficit now.
These highs then drift over the Tasman Sea and NZ, then out east over the Pacific Ocean, past South America and over the South
Atlantic and back over the Indian Ocean towards us again.
For the past few months this belt has not really been broken or undone.
We briefly saw a weak area in the belt last week, with heavy rain around parts of NZ on Tuesday and Wednesday thanks to low pressure. But the high pressure belt is firmly in charge – while at the same time the tropics haven’t been so busy to our north. This is all combining to keep things dry.
You can’t make a silver lining without a cloud – and we’re looking for those rain clouds in particular.
Two things are noticeable over the next couple of weeks: 1) High pressure zones aren’t quite as powerful as a month ago. It’s only a subtle change but it’s better at reducing the size of the dry areas these highs create. 2) More low pressure energy is developing both north and south of NZ – and is worth monitoring.
In my view NZ looks to lean drier again for the rest of March in many regions – so for many of you April is now going to be a critical month to get rain before we get closer to winter’s cold.
GATHERING: Rainfall accumulation over seven days starting from 7am on Sunday March 23 through to 7am on Sunday March 30.
