Misguided campaign
OPINION: Last week, Greenpeace lit up Fonterra's Auckland headquarters with 'messages from the common people' - that the sector is polluting the environment.
OPINION: The country's dairy farmers will now also have a hand in providing free lunch for schools.
The Government's new school lunch programme unveiled last week will cost $3 a lunch (down from $8) and save $130 million.
The Government had been working with local businesses, including Fonterra, to "transform" the school lunch programme, in a bid to save money.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says the Government had "embraced commercial expertise, used government buying power, and generated supply chain efficiencies to realise over $130m of annual cost savings".
Fonterra is already partnering with Sanitarium and the Ministry of Social Development means to provide breakfast as part of the KickStart Breakfast. Since 2009, the programme has served more than 70 million breakfasts and run in over 1400 schools nationwide.
Red meat farmers are urging the Government to act on the growing number of whole sheep and beef farm sales for conversion to forestry, particularly carbon farming.
The days of rising on-farm inflation and subdued farmgate prices are coming to an end for farmers, helping lift confidence.
A blockbuster year and an exciting performance: that's how Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) Director General, Ray Smith is describing the massive upsurge in the fortunes of the primary sector exports for the year ended June 2025.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.