Farmers' call
OPINION: Fonterra's $4.22 billion consumer business sale to Lactalis is ruffling a few feathers outside the dairy industry.
Fonterra has revised the forecast for its 2021/22 New Zealand milk collections to 1,500 million kgMS, down from its opening forecast of 1,523 million kgMS.
Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell says varied weather and challenging growing conditions across many parts of the country earlier in the season saw actual milk collections down on the same period last year.
“We were expecting conditions to improve over the Christmas-New Year period, but this has not evaluated.
“As a result, we have revised our 2021/22 forecast down 1.6% to 1,500 million kgMS.”
In response to the lower milk supply, Hurrell says at this stage no change is needed to the volume of product the co-op is offering on the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) platform.
“Due to the high demand for off-GDT sales, we had already reduced the volume we were offering on the GDT platform earlier in the season,” Hurrell says.
He says the co-op will continue to monitor the situation and carefully manage its sales both on and off-GDT.
Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.
A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.
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