THE MEAT industry has taken a small step in rationalisation with Blue Sky Meats buying a Gore beef and venison exporter.

B+L CHAIRMAN James Parsons will be throwing his hat in the ring again for the northern North Island farmer director position which he holds now and for the chairmanship.

SHEEP AND BEEF farmers should ride the wave of the upward cycle in commodity trade by ensuring they reinvest and build more buffer into their businesses, says Beef + Lamb NZ chairman James Parsons.

A HIGHLY experienced Filipino dairy farm manager says many New Zealand farmers and managers don’t have the people, management and leadership skills to be good employers.

CHINA and Russia are the biggest factors in the global dairy price crash of the last four months, says Rabobank New Zealand and Asia director of dairy research, Hayley Moynihan.

A LARGE and effective network involving farmers is the only way of effecting change in the dairy industry, according to Dr Rick Pridmore, DairyNZ’s strategy and investment leader for sustainability.

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…

HIGHER SHEEP and beef prices seem set to buffer the drop in export earnings from dairying, according to the latest economic update from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

FONTERRA IS ruling out clawing back money from its farmer suppliers despite some being paid more than the latest revised forecast payout.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy has congratulated a group of Whangarei school students for their work promoting the primary sector to their peers.