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Chilean collaboration may benefit NZ sheep farmers.
Superbly capable, hard-arse SUV. PAGE 24
Its business as usual for Anzco. PAGE 7
PAGE 21-22
TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS JANUARY 16, 2018: ISSUE 645
www.ruralnews.co.nz
Farmers under siege SUDESH KISSUN sudeshk@ruralnews.co.nz
FARMERS ARE under pressure on several fronts and need support to get through extremely trying times, says Rural Support Trust chairman Neil Bateup. Challenging weather is putting extra strain on farmers already facing new compliance rules and public pressure on sustainability and environmental issues. The new Labour-led Government’s focus on water quality isn’t helping. Bateup, honoured for services to farming in this year’s new year honours list, says recent media reports on farmer suicides partly reflect the acute challenges facing the primary sector. “There are a number of factors behind farmer suicides,” he told Rural News. The Coroner’s office released figures following an official information request last month, showing 22 farmers committed suicide in 201617, compared to 18 the year before, but cautioned these were provisional pending official findings. The statistics cover the period to the end of June this year. Farmer suicides reached a peak in 2007-8, when there were 28. Bateup is encouraging farmers to seek help from their Rural Support Trusts. He says the trust has been fielding calls from farmers in Taranaki and Manawatu; these farmers are reeling under the effects of long spells of dry weather. The trust is organising off-farm events for farmers, getting them to talk
to one another and offering technical advice for farmers to tackle the big dry. Minister for Agriculture and Rural Communities Damien O’Connor has extended the medium-scale adverse event classification to the drought-hit Grey and Buller districts of the South Island’s West Coast. Last month, he declared drought in Taranaki and western parts of the Manawatu-Whanganui and Wellington regions. The classification gives Rural Support Trusts extra money to help serve
their communities, such as organising local events, arranging recovery facilitators who work one-to-one with farmers, and recovery coordination. Bateup says the challenging weather is putting extra strain on farmers at an already busy time of year. “A lot of stress is driven by a wet autumn and winter which carried on until summer hit,” he says. “We didn’t actually have a spring and now it’s turned dry, so from a weather perspective too there’s been a lot of pressure on farmers.”
Bateup, who milks 650 cows in Waikato, says dairy farmers have done a lot to improve water quality, and have built new fences and effluent management systems. But farmers feel their hard work is not being recognised. “Farmers are disappointed,” Bateup says. He points out that not all new compliance rules are bad, but farmers running small businesses can’t hire new HR staff so they end up with bigger workloads.
TOUGH GOING SO FAR Rural News caught up last week with Broadgate Harvesting’s Matthew Reed as two of his machines were harvesting a 12.4ha Sanette winter barley crop for Rupert Wright, near Darfield. The crop, contracted for stock feed, was pivot-irrigated through the summer and Wright was hoping for a yield of 8-8t/ha, although he says the yield is down in some areas of the field that had spent “a few days under water” because of heavy rain after sowing. But with rain threatening, the harvest was called off with about half the paddock left to be done another day. Reed says his harvest crews have been dodging frequent showers through early January. “I’m hoping that in another week or so the weather will settle down and let us crack on with harvest,” he says. More page 5
CHANGE OF OWNERS FOR ANZCO PAM TIPA pamelat@ruralnews.co.nz
ANZCO FOODS is to become 100% owned by its long-time Japanese major shareholder Itoham Foods. The change in the ownership will complete a planned succession process: the founder and current chairman, Sir Graeme Harrison, said in 2015 that he planned to retire. He will step down at the company’s annual meeting in March. Itoham Yonekyu Holdings, through its subsidiary Itoham Foods, has received ministerial consent under the Overseas Investment Act to increase its shareholding in ANZCO Foods Ltd from 65% to 100%. Mitsubishi Corporation has a 39% shareholding in Itoham Yonekyu. ANZCO is New Zealand’s fifthlargest exporter and second-largest meat industry-related business, with an annual turnover of $1.45 billion. The company has 3000 employees, mainly in regional NZ and a network of eight offshore offices. ANZCO Foods is currently 82.35% overseas owned. Itoham Yonekyu’s shareholding will buy all the shares now held by Nippon Suisan Kaisha Ltd (Nissui) and ANZCO Foods directors and management. Nissui holds 16.76% of the shares; Harrison and management have 18.24%. – Business as usual, pg 7