Agria gives up bid to wrest control of PGW board
A move by PGG Wrightson Limited’s biggest shareholder to take control of the board has fizzled out.
Early arrival of the dry period in the lower North Island has ‘subdued’ sales of store lambs in the past week or so.
PGG Wrightson’s Tony Gallen says the store market has been “hard work” because it’s been so dry and this uncertainty has caused a drop in the number of lambs coming forward in the last few weeks. He told Rural News that farmers appear to hanging on to stock in the hope rain will come and don’t want to sell their stock at low prices.
“We had decent numbers of store animals earlier on, but the other week the numbers were back a bit. Everyone is saying that if it could rain in the next week or ten days they’d be fine, but if it doesn’t come, there could be problems.
“Last year, there was 80-100mm in January and the drought didn’t kick in until late February. But this year it was showery and cool pre-Christmas and all of a sudden the rain stopped and it’s got stinking hot.”
Store lambs are fetching $1.90-$2.10/kg.
Gallen says on a positive note, there was a large ewe fair at Feilding the other week with some 13,500 ewes for sale and prices were on a par with the rest of the country. “Two-tooths were fetching $1.50-$2.00 and in some cases $3.00. Five-year-old ewes made $0.95-$1.05/kg.”
Gallen believes the cattle market has been positive until now. He says at a recent weaner fair most of the vendors were happy provided the weaner bulls had a bit of weight on them.
“Only the dairy weaners have been on sale and the typical Friesian/Hereford cross bulls sold at $450-$550. Heifers made $350-$450 each.”
Analysis by Dunedin-based Techion New Zealand shows the cost of undetected drench resistance in sheep has exploded to an estimated $98 million a year.
Shipping disruption caused by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea has so far not impacted fertiliser prices or supply on farm.
The opportunity to spend more time on farm while providing a dedicated service for shareholders attracted new environmental manager Ben Howden to work for Waimakariri Irrigation Limited (WIL).
Federated Farmers claims that the Otago Regional Council is charging ahead unnecessarily with piling more regulation on rural communities.
Dairy sheep and goat farmers are being told to reduce milk supply as processors face a slump in global demand for their products.
OPINION: We have good friends from way back who had lived in one of our major cities for many years.