Keith and Hillary McNab have their crystal ball out. They estimate they lost about 800 lambs in last month's storm, but now their attention is focused on what opportunities having fewer mouths to feed will provide them and their Owaka Valley farm in the coming months.
A crop of summer turnips or whole crop barley was not originally planned for the paddock beside Lex Morris' dairy shed, but the storm last month has forced a change in thinking.
The question of whether New Zealand has reached peak dairy has been occupying the minds of a group of University of Otago academics.
Researchers at the University of Otago have found that streams flowing through integrated sheep and beef farms are just as healthy as those flowing through organic farms.
A new deal with a European flooring distributor has the potential to absorb more than two million kilograms of New Zealand crossbred wool a year.
Otago rural servicing companies will put competition to one side today as they start delivering food parcels and checking on the needs of Clutha farmers hit by last week's storms.
Almost 40 southern farmers hit by last month's storm have been identified as struggling to cope in some way and have been visited by farm consultants and other professionals.
Thirty-one bull breeders from the United Kingdom and the United States made a brief tour of New Zealand last week following the Simmental World Congress held in Melbourne a week earlier.
The man co-ordinating the storm recovery is urging sheep, beef and dairy farmers to work together for mutual benefit.
Dairy farmers struggling with low pasture cover could face a tighter situation in two weeks' time unless they carefully manage grazing.
Agricultural processors are being invited to make submissions on how they can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions or help suppliers reduce theirs.
The Lyttelton Port Company has ended merger talks with Port Otago - just weeks before the two boards were to consider a proposal - so it can focus on repairing damage after last month's earthquake.
Crossbred wool prices continue to firm, reaching values last seen in 1996.
Lex Morris estimates he has two weeks' capacity left in his dairy-shed effluent ponds, which have been filling steadily because exceptionally wet weather has prevented him from irrigating it on to pasture.
A difficult era in the history of the meat company Silver Fern Farms will end with the repayment ahead of schedule of $75 million in bonds.
There were no obvious signs yesterday of the stress and anxiety Ross Wilson must have felt a week ago.
A Singaporean investor in several New Zealand agricultural companies says it is doing so because the country will be a future food-producing power house for Asia.
Volunteers will this week deliver food parcels to Otago farmers who bore the brunt of last week's storms and ask what help they need, replicating the relief effort which started in Southland yesterday.
Farmers should not expect any sudden changes to rules governing fresh water management following last week's report by the Land and Water Forum, according to the Otago Regional Council.
Sheep farmers will be stocking up on penicillin to try to stave off disease in lambs which survived last week's unprecedented storms, but could still die in the next five to six weeks.
