Farmers are offered hands-on training in how to use OSPRI’s National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) programme.

New Zealand and the Netherlands are world leaders in dairying. New Zealand has developed a unique system with a low cost price. The Netherlands has developed highly productive and efficient dairy farming using the latest technologies. 

It is costing dairy farmers an “awful lot of money” to have poorly grown heifers, says AgFirst consultant Gareth Baynham.

Organisers of the first ever Hilux New Zealand Rural Games confirmed it will become an annual event after attracting more than 7500 spectators to Queenstown over the Waitangi holiday weekend.

Farm to farm movements are being monitored and if you’re not recording them on NAIT expect a call, says Stu Hutchings of NAIT parent body Ospri.

IT'S BEEN a big year for agriculture with the rise and fall – and still falling – of dairying prices. And for the first time in many years, sheep and beef farmers are feeling good – or is it that they know dairy aren’t in such a happy frame of mind? We take a look back on the year to see what was good, what was bad and what was downright ugly…

Longland Dairies, near Hinds, Mid Canterbury, was the supreme winner of the 2014 Dairy Business of the Year competition.

MENTION WATER quality and the topics that spring to mind are run-off, leaching and the state of our lakes and rivers, but for livestock farmers animal health should be up there too, says a Feilding nutritionist.

CHANGING FARM jobs is usually no big deal other than meeting new bosses and learning how they farm. 

MEET PETER Moore, newly appointed general manager PGG Wrightson Livestock.