Buyer for VLG assets
The New Zealand Rural Land Company (NZL) says it has entered conditional agreements to buy assets from the Van Leeuwen Group (VGL), which went into receivership last week.
The owners of one of New Zealand's largest dairy operations, the Van Leeuwen Dairy Group, say the operation is alive and well.
Adriaan and Wilma van Leeuwen told Dairy News by email from overseas that the South Canterbury business is not in receivership, as rumoured.
They also had heard this rumour, on RNZ National radio, but say it is "false". The group has 12 holdings and 12,000 dairy cows, and is the world's largest robotic milking farm. Last year it expanded by installing 24 Lely robots in three barns of 500 cows each.
Adriaan and Wilma also made the Rich List last year with wealth estimated at $65 million.
A vet is calling for all animals to be vaccinated against a new strain of leptospirosis (lepto) discovered on New Zealand dairy farms in recent years.
Two major red meat sector projects are getting up to a combined $1.7 million in funding from the New Zealand Meat Board (NZMB).
Angus Barr and Tara Dwyer of The Wandle, Lone Star Farms in Strath Taieri have been named the Regional Supreme Winners at the Otago Ballance Farm Environment Awards in Dunedin.
OPINION: The distress that the politicians and bureaucrats are causing to the people of Wairoa and the wider Tairāwhiti is unforgivable.
Dairy
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.