Climate-friendly cows closer
Dairy farmers are one step closer to breeding cow with lower methane emissions, offering an innovative way to reduce the nation's agricultural carbon footprint without compromising farm productivity.
Six years of exceptional dairy progeny will remain the legacy of CRV Ambreed jersey bull Okura Lika Murmur as he retires this month, the company says.
Breeding manager Aaron Parker says Murmur has given nearly 500,000 doses of semen, and has 22,464 daughters herd testing in New Zealand and a long list of sons.
He is credited with having expanded CRV Ambreed's exporting market, especially in South Africa, North America and Australia.
"He has bred outstanding sons and daughters with super production, udder and capacity traits," says Parker. "Hundreds of his cows have been contract mated in NZ and as a sire of sons he has produced some of country's best Jersey bulls."
This season six Murmur sons were released to market as 'daughter proven sires' and are among NZ's highest ranking bulls including Roma Murmur Kingpin, Kaitaka Murmur Lazarus and Ashvale OLM Highlite.
"Kingpin, CRV Ambreed's highest selling jersey sire this season, is a superstar in production because he is Murmur's son."
Other sons and grandsons include Kingpin's son, Puketawa King Connacht JG.
"Connacht is an elite young sire in our Jersey team this year based on his parental information and scientific data. With his daughters coming into milk this season, we expect to see big things from him," Parker said.
Murmur was bought in 2005 from breeders Luke and Lyna Beehre of the Okura Stud, north of Whangarei. The stud bred Okura Manhatten, a game changer for the industry.
Parker says after Manhatten, Murmur is the next most influential Jersey sire to have been bred in NZ. "We will be hearing Murmur's name in the dairy industry for many years."
Winning four of the big categories at the 2026 New Zealand Cheese Awards feels special, says Meyer Cheese general manager Miel Meyer.
Local cheesemakers are being urged to embrace competition from imports but also ensure their products are never invisible in the country.
Ireland's Minister of state for Agriculture says it’s hard to explain to Irish farmers the size and scale of NZ farms.
Dairy farming in New Zealand offers career progression and this has motivated 2026 Central Plateau Share Farmers of the Year Navdeep Singh and Jobanpreet Kaur.
A partnership between Canterbury milk processor Synlait and the world's largest food producer, Nestlé, has been celebrated with a visit to a North Canterbury farm by a group including senior staff from Synlait, the Ravensdown subsidiary EcoPond, and Nestlé's Switzerland head office.
Canterbury milk processor Synlait is blaming what it calls "a perfect storm" of setbacks for a big loss in its half year result for the six months ended January 31, 2026.
OPINION: Synlait's woes show no sign of ending anytime soon.
OPINION: The mainstream media's obsession with (sleazy) 'tabloid' issues were to the fore at Fonterra's recent media conference to discuss…