PGG Wrightson Revenue Tops $1.1b as Profit Jumps 46%
After delivering a strong financial year, rural trader PGG Wrightson says the coming months will depend on customer confidence and weather.
A lift in meat and dairy manufacturing helped increase total manufacturing sales in the June 2016 quarter, Statistics New Zealand says.
After adjusting for seasonal effects, the volume of total manufacturing sales rose 2.8% in the June 2016 quarter, with meat and dairy product manufacturing volumes rising 8.6%.
"This quarter's large rise in meat and dairy manufacturing sales followed a sizeable fall in the March 2016 quarter," business indicators manager Tehseen Islam says.
"Despite some large movements in recent quarters, the sales volumes for meat and dairy have increased just slightly from where they were in early 2014," Islam says. "This contrasts with the sales values, which have dropped significantly since then, mainly due to falling dairy prices."
Dairy manufacturing prices were 33% lower in the June 2016 quarter than in the March 2014 quarter, while meat manufacturing prices were 4.2% higher.
The trend for the meat and dairy product manufacturing sales value (which includes price effects) has fallen 20% since a series high in the March 2014 quarter, while the volume trend has risen 3.2% over the same period.
Outside meat and dairy, the sales volume rose in most other manufacturing industries in the June 2016 quarter, with notable rises in industries supplying products to the construction sector. Petroleum and coal product manufacturing had the largest fall in the latest quarter, following large rises in the previous two quarters.
The sales volume for total manufacturing excluding meat and dairy was up 1.4% in the June 2016 quarter.
Testing confirms H5 bird flu in a single northern giant petrel, found dead on a remote Cape Palliser beach in the Wairarapa, says Dr Mary van Andel, the Ministry for Primary Industries' (MPI) Chief Veterinary Officer.
"What's for dinner?" may sound like a simple question, but for many Kiwi parents, answering it has become a job in itself.
Fifty Eight years ago, on the 16th of August 1968, August Claas, the founder of the harvesting company and father of Helmut Claas, personally presented a Claas Senator combine harvester to Scottish farmer John Steven.
New Zealand consumers are paying more for beef mince than ever before, with the average retail price now sitting above $24 per kilogram, according to Rabobank.
State farmer Pamu has delivered its strongest operating result on record.
Four years since it was first detected in New Zealand, researchers and growers now know much more about management of maize pest fall armyworm (FAW).