Lydia Goodman named Central Otago Young Grower of the Year 2025
Lydia Goodman has been crowned the Central Otago 2025 Young Grower of the Year regional winner.
Vegetable prices fell 8.7% in September, with lettuce prices falling 45%.
Lettuces is now priced an average of $1.81 a head, says Statistics New Zealand. They were down 30% for the year.
“Prices reached an all-time high of $5.42 for a 500g head of lettuce in July 2018 due to poor weather. But since then we’ve had two major price falls, which meant lettuce prices reached an unseasonably low level this September,” consumer prices manager Geraldine Duoba said.
While lettuce averaged $1.81 a head in September 2018, at the same time last year the price was about 80 cents a head higher, at $2.59.
Vegetable prices fell 8.7% in September, influenced by lower prices for lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. However, meat and poultry prices rose 2%, influenced by higher prices for beef and chicken.
Overall, food prices were almost unchanged in September 2018 (down 0.1%), but showed a slight rise after seasonal adjustment (up 0.3%).
In the year ended September 2018, food prices were also relatively unchanged (up 0.1%). This was driven by higher prices for ready-to-eat food (up 3.5%), and milk, cheese and eggs (up 2.2%). Prices decreased for vegetables (down 8.9%) and fruit (down 3.6%), which helped keep overall food inflation low for the year.
“After the poor weather and a reduced harvest in 2017, vegetable prices have returned to more typical levels for this time of year,” Du
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.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).
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