McIvor moving to OSPRI
Beef + Lamb New Zealand chief executive for the past eight years, Sam McIvor is heading for new pastures at Ospri, which runs NZ’s integrated animal disease management and traceability service.
There have been negativities around farmers saying the sheep sector is declining.
Farmers are noting that the sheep flock is down to 28 million and returns aren’t good enough, says BLNZ chair James Parsons.
“However, right now we are running at our five year average for lamb per kilo of carcase weight,” he says. “It is not stellar, but in terms of averages we are ticking along okay.”
Meanwhile, Parsons says he has a “shed full” of wool on his farm that he hasn’t yet sold, but wool is always up and down.
“It is a commodity: China suddenly decides to stop buying and the price falls [but] in 12 months they will be back into it and the price will be up.”
Beef has been an interesting one: the schedule for bull was about $3.30/kg five years ago and is now sitting at $5.20/kg.
“The beef prices have really come up so we are seeing a lot more interest and probably have a bit more beef production and are decreasing sheep flocks,” he adds.
“We haven’t seen a big shift to dairy in the last couple of years understandably…. Some of the environmental regulations coming in are putting a dampener on those dairy conversions.”
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
OPINION: This old mutt well remembers the wailing, whining and gnashing of teeth by former West Coast MP and Labour…
OPINION: Your canine crusader gets a little fed up with the some in media, union hacks, opposition politicians and hard-core…