dairy farming

Otago Sharemilker-Equity Farmer of the Year winners James and Helen Hartshorne have been awarded third place in the national final.

Debt-free dairy farm acquisition is the key to smoothing out volatility of global milk prices and keeping would-be investors in quarterly dividends, a small group of southern investors was told yesterday.

Dairy supply is expected to be abundant through early 2012 as the southern hemisphere works to clear the results of a strong season and milk production continues to outpace demand in the northern hemisphere.

The New Zealand economy would be in a parlous state were it not for the thriving dairy industry. It has taken many decades for our milk farmers to reach this level of global success, millions upon millions of dollars invested in research and new product development, and a vast amount of capital.

Environment Southland has "had a gutsful" of non-compliance by dairy farmers in the region.

A judge has rejected the Crafar family's legal bid to immediately strike out efforts to have it evicted from its Reporoa farm.

Two dairy farms have to pay a total of $46,500 for illegal discharges of dairy effluent, penalties imposed in the Oamaru District Court yesterday.

The dairy industry is going on the offensive with an advertising campaign to bridge a lack of understanding from urban New Zealand and remind people of the sector's economic role.

A high milk price offsetting below-target production has allowed South American dairy farmer New Zealand Farming Systems Uruguay to reaffirm earlier financial guidelines of an expected full-year loss on earnings before interest and tax of up to $NZ14 million.

Growing foreign interest in buying New Zealand farmland raises nationally significant issues about who benefits and the money trail, a leading primary sector academic says.