"It's got to be all good for the economy. I don't think people in town realise how good it is for New Zealand," he said.
Mr Adam, who has a sharemilker milking 520 cows, was busy lambing yesterday and had not had much time to dwell on the news, but he said he was very happy with the announcement.
Fonterra was a New Zealand-owned co-operative so profits stayed in New Zealand and that was "fantastic", Otago Federated Farmers president Mike Lord, who has a dairy farm on the Taieri, said.
Everyone, whether they were a Government employee, beneficiary or superannuitant, would benefit from it.
While things were "looking good at the moment", Mr Lord said it was a volatile world and he encouraged farmers to use their money wisely.
Fonterra Shareholders' Council chairman Simon Couper agreed the result was "one all New Zealanders will benefit from".
"The record payout has been driven by record revenues, which equates to over 10 times the forecast total economic activity of $1.15 billion for the 2011 Rugby World Cup. This is a great result, not only for Fonterra farmers but New Zealand as a whole," Mr Couper said.
It was a heartening result for shareholders, especially given the struggles of the past couple of years, when many farmers had faced the impact of drought conditions and were recovering from volatile markets.
The payout presented an opportunity for farmers to reduce the high debt ceiling they carried and put money back into their business and, with 50c from every dollar a farmer earned going back into the local economy, the extra payout was "great news for our communities".
There were still some areas the council believed required more attention from the Fonterra board, including the rise in corporate costs and the fall in normalised earnings in the Australia-New Zealand business segment, he said.
Federated Farmers dairy vice-president Robin Barkla described it as a "great result" on which to farewell Fonterra CEO Andrew Ferrier.
Mr Ferrier - the 2011 Agribusiness Person of the Year - announced earlier this year that he was stepping down after eight years as chief executive.
His successor, Theo Spierings, takes over on Monday.
