McRae Wins Southern South Island B+LNZ Director Vote
Matt McRae, a farmer from Mokoreta in Southland who runs a sheep, beef and dairy support business alongside a sheep stud, has been elected to the Beef +Lamb NZ Board as a farmer director.
OPINION: Your canine crusader was impressed to see that Beef + Lamb levypayers gave their farmer organisation a strong message at last month's annual meeting when they rejected the board's move for a big jump in director fees.
Farmers were so enraged by the move that they not only rejected the fee hike, but also voted out one director and just re-elected the other incumbent by a very slim margin.
However, despite all of this, BLNZ chair Andrew Morrison still had the chutzpah to say that the board "stood by its decision" to propose the big increase in director fees.
This old mate wonders if Morrison's off-farm life as a company director - as he is also a director of fertiliser co-op Ballance - and the $175,000-plus he pulls in annual remuneration between BLNZ and Ballance alone is putting him out-of-touch with the economic realities that farmers are currently facing?
Specialist agriculture lender Oxbury has entered the New Zealand market, offering livestock finance to farmers.
New research suggests Aotearoa New Zealand farmers are broadly matching phosphorus fertiliser use to the needs of their soils, helping maintain relatively stable nutrient levels across the country’s agricultural land.
Helensville farmers, Donald and Kirsten Watson of Moreland Pastoral, have been named the Auckland Regional Supreme Winners at the Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
Marc and Megan Lalich were named 2026 Share Farmers of the Year at last night's Canterbury/North Otago Dairy Industry Awards.
William John Poole, a third year Agribusiness student at Massey University, has been awarded the Dr Warren Parker and Pāmu Scholarship.
The most outstanding CNH dealers from across Australia and New Zealand for the past year have been revealed, with two New Zealand dealerships amongst the major winners.

OPINION: If you ask this old mutt, the choice at the next election isn't shaping up as a contest of…
OPINION: A mate of yours says we're long overdue for a reckoning on what value farmers really get for the…