farmers Archive

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  Russel rattles another - by frog

  
  
  
   Yesterday Winston, unsurprisingly, made an ethnic and not so oblique reference to Australians, in response to Russel’s first question in the house.  Today it became clear that what parliament has acquired is not just an Australian, but a Little Aussie Battler who is going to stand up for ordinary kiwis.  Check out this exchange between [...] read more
  July 2, 2008 9:44 pm - 10 Comments
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  The world food summit - by frog

  
  
  
  Sue Kedgley’s postcards from Rome attracted a lot of comment on the blogosphere for her attacks both on free trade and wealthy nations’ subsidies of their own farmers.  From my perspective, being concerned about both of those things at the same time is an entirely consistent stance.  The reality is that wealthy and powerful countries [...] read more
  June 12, 2008 4:23 pm - 12 Comments
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  Jeanette on Close Up - by frog

  
  
  
  Close Up also featured Jeanette last night asking Fonterra to consider making a gesture to New Zealanders who are feeling the pain of rising food prices by selling its domestic milk at a reasonable margin but not a price related to the international market price.  Fonterra termed this a  subsidy and resisted the concept but [...] read more
  June 12, 2008 9:43 am - 48 Comments
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  Jeanette’s Food Manifesto - by frog

  
  
  
  Here’s another extract from Jeanette’s speech yesterday: Our coalition has written a manifesto. It reads: We the people shall have control over our food. We will sustain ourselves. Our food supply will be independent from world price shocks and shortages We will grow the delicious healthy food our people need to thrive Seasonal fruit and [...] read more
  June 1, 2008 10:09 am - No Comments
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  Fonterra has more money for industrial dairy - by frog

  
  
  
  Was it really only one month ago that we were falling off our chairs over the fact that Fonterra was forecast to pay dairy farmers $7.30 for a kilo of milk solids?  That gave the average farm $850,000 of income.  Well, records are made to be broken, so today Fonterra is hinting the payment could [...] read more
  May 27, 2008 3:27 pm - 12 Comments
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  China looks to NZ food and farms - by frog

  
  
  
  The head of HSBC, Margaret Leung is in the Herald this morning saying that we can expect lots more Chinese financial interest in New Zealand assets. It is interesting that she particularly singles out food as an area for future investment: “At the moment we are financing quite a bit of meat exports but we [...] read more
  May 6, 2008 8:53 am - 5 Comments
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  Industrial dairy’s big payout - by frog

  
  
  
  While it is good to see some of our farmers doing well I do have to wonder what Fonterra’s record payout for dairy farmers ($7.30 per kilogram of milk solids, up from $4.46/kg last year) will do to further encourage dairy conversions. New Zealand is currently rapidly converting diverse farms and forests into a monolith [...] read more
  April 11, 2008 3:04 pm - 22 Comments
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  Aussie farmers think consumers are missing out - by frog

  
  
  
  I mentioned 3 months ago that Australia’s Consumer Commission has launched an inquiry into food prices. The Australian National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) has just testified at that inquiry that the prices consumers were paying for food was not reflected by the payments that farmers were receiving for producing food. The NFF said consumers who were [...] read more
  April 11, 2008 2:36 pm - 2 Comments
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  Cornering dairy - by frog

  
  
  
  The news this morning is full of stories about the 3rd major political event for the week – a State of the Environment report to be released at lunchtime today is likely to be highly critical of the impact of our dairy industry on the environment.  Radio New Zealand currently has a Morning Report debate [...] read more
  January 31, 2008 8:46 am - 31 Comments
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  Food sovereignty - by frog

  
  
  
  The future of New Zealand’s grocery market continues to wind its way through the courts. Last year the High Court overruled the Commerce Commission’s decision to prevent either Foodstuffs or Woolworths from buying the Warehouse. The Commerce Commission is now appealing that decision and a result is expected from Justice Mallon shortly. The Commerce Commission [...] read more
  January 30, 2008 4:51 pm - 13 Comments