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The News
Thursday January 29 2015
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Tough times . . . DairyNZ is planning to assist farmers in coping with a lower milk payout.
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DairyNZ set to focus on ‘tactics for tough times’
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Ms Fox says DairyNZ plans to hold four to six events over the next 18 months on DairyNZ plans to assist farmers to get the selected focus farms to demonstrate through with a lower payout. best practices to cope with the challenges with cash flows resulting from North Canterbury consulting officer Noelle Fox says DairyNZ will be the lower milk price payout, the planning selecting focus farms in Waimakariri and process and farmer wellbeing. Hurunui in the coming months as part of The dry summer conditions so far this a national campaign known as ‘‘Tactics season have been challenging, but Ms for Tough Times’’ to assist farmers in Fox says most farmers are coping coping with the low milk price. reasonably well, with irrigation still ‘‘The focus farms should be very possible in the Waimakariri district. interesting. We will follow this farm over ‘‘But growth rates have certainly dropped off with the temperatures, so the next 18 months and look at what the lower payout means for their business. farmers are starting to feel the pinch.’’ ‘‘We are looking to get it together to She says DairyNZ is recommending to support farmers to get through autumn farmers to pay attention to the feed and winter without comprising their budgets to ensure they have enough feed productivity and then follow it through going further. until the end of the next season and Conducting pregnancy tests now will beyond.’’ also assist farmers in making decisions to Last year Fonterra announced its cull cows as required ‘‘to keep on top of predicted farm gate milk price had things’’. slumped to $4.70, down from the record ‘‘It’s getting very dry out there, so we $8.40 payout last season, forcing many are encouraging people to be pro active farmers to look more closely at their farm with culling cows if they need to and to look at all their options.’’ budgets. By DAVID HILL
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A new water storage pond in Waimakariri is closer to becoming a reality. Waimakariri Irrigation Limited (WIL) general manager Brent Walton says the company is working through the conditions of the consents, which were issued last October, ready to begin work on building the storage pond project, worth up to $30 million, later in the year. Before any building begins, an Environment Court appeal, lodged by the Eyre Community Environmental Safety Society (ECESS), is due to be heard in June. ‘‘We are confident we will be able to proceed. We have some pretty onerous conditions and the dam design was peer reviewed by three independent experts.’’ Consents were granted in October to WIL to build a two pond storage system, capable of storing up to 8.2 million cubic metres of water at the corner of Wrights and Dixons Road at Burnt Hill, near Oxford. At the time, the commissioners hoped a suite of ‘‘robust’’ conditions would
address issues of concern raised by submitters. The robust conditions included WIL having peer reviews completed into the design of the ponds, seismic investigations and the adequacy of the lining. In the meantime, Mr Walton says WIL plans to roll out farm management plans this year to assist its farmer shareholders in meeting their nutrient requirements. WIL operations manager Alan Bucklands says in spite of the dry summer, there have been no water restrictions. ‘‘Things are going pretty steadily at the moment and the farmers are pretty happy. ‘‘The river has been good to us so far, so we just have to wait and see what the weather brings us over the next few weeks. ‘‘We’ll just have to keep an eye on it, but the storage, when it happens, will certainly change things and make life easier with a more reliable supply of water.’’