Fonterra is reducing its 2011-12 forecast payout by 15c/kgMS as a result of declining commodity prices and a soaring Kiwi dollar.

New Zealand's leading rural recycling programme is running a rewards initiative this autumn to encourage more farmers to recycle.

Starting a family provided the impetus for 2012 Northland Sharemilker/Equity Farmers of the Year, Miles Harrison and Lucy Heffernan, to commit to the dairy industry.

It's Taranaki Anniversary Day on Monday – but for the eight Young Farmers competing in The National Bank Young Farmer Contest, this won't be a day for relaxing.

THE PUBLIC, and fellow farmers, are quick to complain if stock, particularly dairy cows, stray into streams and waterways. But it seems many regional councils can do little about the problem.

SIX YEARS ago New Zealand Young Farmers (NZYF) as an organisation was in dire straits. But a merger with the flagship event, the National Bank Young Farmer Contest, in 2006, and a concerted effort to boost membership nationwide since, has turned the organisation around.

CORPORATE-STYLE farm businesses are no barrier to young farmer career progression and offer a new pathway to the traditional goal of ownership, says the promoter of an innovative dairy investment fund.

You could almost sense the relief among Lincoln University Dairy Farm’s management team at the Focus Day held recently on the showcase 160ha irrigated property.

People change behaviours when the rewards are right. These rewards can be economic and/or emotional – but they have to be greater than the cost (including energy) of implementation of the change, and the cost of not changing. 

WITH THE final piece of the National Animal Identification and Traceability (NAIT) scheme jigsaw in place – the legislation – I decide it's time to bite the bullet and register our 10ha farmlet.