AUTOMATED milking machines and calf feeders are letting four Waikato dairy farmers take farming easier while retaining healthy businesses.

Former LIC boss Mark Dewdney is the new chief executive of PGG Wrightson (PGW).

Westpac and Meridian Energy are giving farmers easier access to solar energy, with potential savings on power bills in the thousands each year.

DOUBLING NEW Zealand’s primary exports to $60 billion by 2025 is “a challenge” but it is good to have something to aim for, Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy says.

THE FACTIONS once warring over the South Island’s Mackenzie Basin appear to have agreed to a collaborative process of landscape management.

AT LEAST 300 people turned out in Dannevirke last week to voice their concern at the ‘major economic consequences’ of Horizons Regional Council’s One Plan to the Tararua District.

FORMER Fonterra chairman Henry van der Heyden will sign off his 21-year stint in dairy industry governance on May 31.

DAIRY GIANT Fonterra is responsible for most of New Zealand’s dairy exports and accounts for approximately one-third of global trade.

HURRAH,HURRAH. Congratulations to Rural News’ sister publication Dairy News’ for its March 26 editorial leader.  At last, a farming magazine editorial asking a vital question – Production or profitability?   What a relief!

BAYER WANTS double digit growth in Australasia, and some of that will come from New Zealand innovation, says Bayer’s new chief for Australia and New Zealand, Dr Jacqueline Applegate.