Record final milk price for Miraka suppliers
Farmers supplying milk to Taupo-based processor Miraka are getting a 2024-25 season base milk price of $10.16/kgMS.
Kingi Smiler, chairman of the Maori dairy company Miraka, which won the inaugural Maori Excellence in Export award He kai kei aku ringa, is proud of what his company has achieved in such a short time.
The award was presented to Miraka by the Minister for Maori Development, Te Ururoa Flavell, at the New Zealand Business Awards in Auckland recently.
Smiler says to receive such an award so early in the history of a company is very pleasing. The company was formally opened in late 2011 and sells product into 23 countries including China and Vietnam, and markets in South America and the Middle East.
It has about 100 local suppliers and produces milk powder and UHT milk.
Smiler says Miraka has great people who work well together, applying good skill sets across the business. The team has been very focused on achieving its results.
“We are pleased at our progress. Certainly we are ahead of plan and that is very positive,” he told Rural News. “Naturally, we are going through a tough cycle at the moment, but we are in good shape.
“It’s been a great opportunity to lead the way in a challenging industry dominated in New Zealand by Fonterra. To be able to be benchmarked and perform at a high level and achieve the success we have had to date is very pleasing.”
Presenting the award, Te Ururoa Flavell praised the efforts of Miraka, saying it is the first company in the world to use renewable electricity and steam to process milk powder.
Flavell says the price premium Miraka pays its milk suppliers has seen an extra $5 million injected into the local rural economy over three years.
New Zealand dairy farmers are set to be the first in the world to receive access to a new digital physical milk pricing tool that enables them to fix the price for their physical milk.
State farmer Pāmu is opening its farm gates this summer in an effort to give the rural sector the opportunity to see how large-scale, multi-system farming is delivering productivity and profitability across New Zealand.
A five-year study has found that the cost of reducing emissions without technology may be significant and unsustainable for Northland dairy farmers.
DairyNZ says Waikato farmers need certainty on Plan Change 1, but they say that certainty must be matched with practical, workable rules and a clear transition that doesn't get ahead of the new resource management system currently under review.
While the Government has moved quickly to make commercial hauliers' lot easier during the current fuel crisis, they appear to be stuck in the creep box when it comes to the agricultural industry.
Waikato farmers have been told that the Government’s new planning system legislation and the region’s Plan Change 1 (PC1) “won’t mesh together very well”.

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