A survey by specialist dairy farm and business management company, Farmright reveals dairy farm working costs have risen 10% a ha while Meat and Wool New Zealand also reports a 9.7% increase in on-farm costs.
Cornerstone shareholding in a third New Zealand dairy company is headed overseas with news yesterday Singapore-based Olam International is to buy 24.99% of Dairy Trust for $101 million.
A dairy industry investment company is watching with interest the class action being considered by a Dunedin law firm over Fonterra's decision to slash the value of its shares, which has potentially wiped off millions of dollars in equity.
Plans to process stock year-round appear to have assured the immediate future of 1100 seasonal meat workers' jobs at Finegand in South Otago.
Silver Fern Farms expects to reduce its debt by $100 million by August 31 and says the proposed investment by PGG Wrightson would lower debt funding costs by $16 million a year.
PGG Wrightson's sudden foray into the meat industry this week took everyone by surprise. Agribusiness Editor Neal Wallace reports that the influence of the move extended far beyond that, signalling a fundamental change in the way agribusinesses will be run in the future.
One of New Zealand's largest fine wool buyers will next season pay a $A2 ($NZ2.53) a head premium for wool from non-mulesed sheep.
Mild weather has been helping Otago farmers get through what was looming as a particularly difficult winter.
Some Silver Fern Farms shareholders believe the meat company could struggle to get the 75% approval needed for the sale of 50% of the co-operative to PGG Wrightson.
The weight of numbers means South Island rebate suppliers in Silver Fern Farms will decide whether the meat co-operative will merge with PGG Wrightson.
The East Otago farmer and Otago chairman of Federated Farmers meat and fibre section said one reason he was initially supportive of PGG Wrightson buying 50% of Dunedin meat co-operative Silver Fern Farms (SFF) was the involvement of businessman and PGG Wrightson chairman, Craig Norgate.
Silver Ferm farms is selling millions of dollars of property, including its central Dunedin head office along with disposing of its recently-closed Burnside deer processing plant.
Savings from the merger of the country's biggest meat processor and exporter and its largest rural servicing company would boost lamb prices by $5 a head next season, its promoters say.
Farmers' fears of losing control looms as the main sticking point in a proposed merger between co-operative meat processor Silver Fern Farms and rural servicing company PGG Wrightson.
Federated Farmers' new president is not immune to the massive land-use change occurring in Southland.
Turkey, the world's 17th largest economy, is a country in a hurry, keen to be seen as a modern, progressive state that has blended Islamic traditions with modern western business ways.
Meat companies were yesterday not surprised a Meat Industry taskforce had collapsed through a lack of industry unity.
Yavuz Taner's company will this year grow, process and export 10,000 tonnes of cherries.
Huge textile factories line the road south from the Turkish industrial city of Bursa.
The future of the proposed Hawea Conservation Park appears in disarray after the owners of Hunter Valley Station yesterday withdrew from the consultation process, saying they had no faith in the Department of Conservation (Doc).
