A judge has ordered a Northland farmer to pay $24,000 for illegal discharges of dairy effluent from a storage tank and pond at the man's Donnelly's Crossing property in 2010.

THE TAF issue is nothing compared to the next hurdle for farmers: the implementation of national policy statements for freshwater management, says Federated Farmers Dairy chairperson Willy Leferink.

New Zealand's major livestock industries have welcomed the recently introduced enhancements to the national animal identification and tracing scheme (NAIT).

FOOD PRICES have dropped in the course of the past year. Supermarket shoppers might question the evidence, but the mid-June data from Statistics NZ was clear: since last May the cost of the overall shopping basket has dropped by 0.2%. 

YOUR COWS might not be pugging your paddocks, but are they causing unseen compaction and consequent production losses?

Fonterra has welcomed Government announcements on the 2011 Review of New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme, while restating its commitment to emissions reductions.

New Zealand's leading rural lender, ANZ New Zealand, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with dairy industry organisation DairyNZ to work together to boost the financial performance of dairy farms.

THE UNITED Nations general assembly in December 2009 declared 2012 to be the International Year of Cooperatives in recognition of the contribution of cooperatives to global, social and economic development.

Federated Farmers West Coast provincial president, Katie Milne, has been elected to the farmer lobby's board.

A Waikato farming company has been fined nearly $32,000 for illegally discharging dairy effluent.