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About 100 farmers in the Whanganui area are facing production losses this season of up to $100,000 as a result of the recent floods.
That’s the view of Whanganui Federated Farmers provincial president Brian Doughty, a key man in assessing damage and co-ordinating help. Last week he stayed in Whanganui doing this rather than attending the Feds annual conference.
Doughty says in the worst cases up to 25% of the land has been damaged and many hit badly in the 2004 floods have been hit again.
“The loss of production, plus some re-instatement, is a substantial loss for those farmers,” he told Rural News. “If you take the whole Whanganui area it amounts to over $1 million and probably more like $2.5m if you include the Waitotara Valley area.”
Doughty says some farmers want the event declared ‘major’, which would trigger more cash from the Government. But MPI and Minister Nathan Guy say it is a ‘medium scale’ event and that farmers are resilient and will help each other.
“I told the minister ‘that’s true, but farmers holding hands won’t grow any grass’. I left it at that.”
Doughty says from what he’s heard farmers don’t necessarily want a lot of money, but rather to be recognised for their plight.
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Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers arable chair, Bevan Lill, said Beef + Lamb NZ data indicated that for the last six years, the average arable return on investment was about 0.8% while inflation ran about 4% - so the average arable farm was going backwards at about 3% a year.
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LIC shareholders have elected a new North Island representative to the co-operative's Board, along with five representatives to its Shareholder Reference Group (SRG), following the company's Annual Meeting held in Invercargill.
Farmers across parts of Southland and South Otago are continuing to deal with difficult conditions after a prolonged run of wet weather, with pressure building around feed supply, stock management, pasture damage, farm infrastructure and everyday workloads.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.
For Canterbury dairy farmers Sian Meijer and Rick Wobben, wearable technology has become one of their most valuable on-farm tools - helping manage 1850 cows across an expansive, high-performing dairy operation while improving efficiency, mating outcomes and day-to-day decision making.
Fonterra has unveiled its annual results for the 2026 financial year, posting $27 billion in revenue and close to $20 billion returned to New Zealand farmer owners and unit holders.
The first major update to the Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare in more than a decade has been released, marking what DairyNZ describes as an important step in ensuring animal welfare standards continue to evolve alongside scientific evidence and on-farm realities.
