Editorial: Optimism all around
OPINION: Two reports out last week confirm that the worst may be over for pastoral farmers.
OPINION: The Canadian government's love affair with its lifestyle dairy farmers has got it into trouble once again.
This time the Agriculture Ministers of New Zealand, Australia and the US are being asked by their respective dairy processing organisations to lean heavily on Canada to stop it selling its heavily subsidised dairy products on the world market, a move which is distorting and reducing returns to honest dairy producing countries such as NZ.
This is a significant move and shows Canada that it now has some formidable opponents.
The Canadian dairy industry is small by our standards; its average herd size is in the 80s. But as they say, empty vessels make the most noise and Canadian dairy vessels make the most noise and Canadian dairy farmers have long done that and captured the ear of successive politically fragile governments, to the extent that when the cow bells ring, the government goes head over heels to help.
This sort of behaviour is not limited to Canada. We have seen it in Europe too where farmers hold considerable political power.
However, Canada has always professed to be a free trader and signed up to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) which requires it to do just that. The problem is that when Canada signed up to the CPTPP they were being blatantly dishonest as it seems they were never going to stop indulging their lifestyle dairy farmers.
In doing this, Canada has gone from being a respected free trader and supporter of rules-based trade to being a born-again rogue protectionist colony - a very unstatesman-like action.
In theory, NZ and Canada should be friends and to be fair on most issues we are and will remain so. But their antiquated return to protectionism continues to sour that relationship.
On the eve of his departure from Federated Farmers board, Richard McIntyre is thanking farmers for their support and words of encouragement during his stint as a farmer advocate.
A project reducing strains and sprains on farm has won the Innovation category in the New Zealand Workplace Health and Safety Awards 2025.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ), in partnership with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and other sector organisations, has launched a national survey to understand better the impact of facial eczema (FE) on farmers.
One of New Zealand's latest and largest agrivoltaics farm Te Herenga o Te Rā is delivering clean renewable energy while preserving the land's agricultural value for sheep grazing under the modules.
Global food company Nestle’s chair Paul Bulcke will step down at its next annual meeting in April 2026.
Brendan Attrill of Caiseal Trust in Taranaki has been announced as the 2025 National Ambassador for Sustainable Farming and Growing and recipient of the Gordon Stephenson Trophy at the National Sustainability Showcase at in Wellington this evening.
OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is…
OPINION: Once upon a time the Fieldays were for real farmers, salt of the earth people who thrived on hard…