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Recent Posts
- 2022 will be tumultuous for New Zealand’s primary industries
- Economic storm clouds lie ahead
- Managing inflation will be painful
- Crunch times ahead for agricultural methane and nitrous oxide
- New twists to carbon farming
- Dairy is a key to New Zealand’s future
- Wrestling with forestry decisions
- The COVID trajectory has taken off
- New Zealand needs a COVID reset
- Post-1989 forest owners face complex decisions
- Fonterra moves on strategy and stucture
- The ETS is both a goldmine and a minefield
- Carbon farming will determine the future of sheep, beef and production forestry
- Institutional investors outgun Government at carbon auction
- Food-derived opioids are a medical frontier
- Carbon farmers need to understand the ETS
- Carbon-farming economics are also attractive on easier country
- Carbon farming steps forward on the North Island hard-hill country
- The big picture with sheep
- Sheep remain dominant on South Island hill and high country
- Intensive sheep and beef provide cash but wealth depends on capital gain
- Searching for the future on the North Island hills
- Fonterra’s restructure proposal risks the co-operative
- Fonterra heads towards a new capital structure with scope for unintended consequences
- Sheep and beef farms are getting squeezed
- A2 moves from a brand to a category
- Pastoral Lands Bill hits rocky ground
- The NZ system for GHG reporting will be crucial
- Forestry issues still need much debate
- Zespri faces a China conundrum
- New Zealand’s internal inflation is not benign
- Dairy markets have hit a sweet spot but big challenges remain
- The winding path of COVID-19
- Rolleston Rescue 1968
- Farewell to Sir Bob Elliott
- Pivoting from production to permanent forests
- House-price inflation and interest rates are bound at the hip
- Regenerative agriculture is not redundant but can be misguided
- It’s time for Fonterra to define the new path ahead
- Agriculture will change but pastoral agriculture will survive and prosper
- Reserve Bank drives economic policy
- Green-lipped mussels are becoming heavy lifters
- Composting mootels can transform dairy, but only if we get things right
- Fonterra stabilises finances with back to basics model, selling assets and retaining profits
- Coronavirus border policies need a deeper rethink
- Green vegetables grow at the feet of big mountains
- Big win for Fonterra from latest DIRA amendments
- A resource-based perspective on immigration
- Can strong wool find a new El Dorado?
- Is regenerative agriculture the real deal
Category Archives: Meat Industry
Sheep meats are in a sweet spot
[This post was published online on 7 August at http://www.stuff.co.nz and also in most of the FairfaxNZ newspapers] This year has been an exceptional year for many sheep farmers. Lamb and mutton prices have been at record levels. The key … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, Meat Industry
1 Comment
Mycoplasma bovis can transfer to sheep, goats, deer, pigs and poultry
Currently, there is a fervent ‘behind-the-scenes’ debate as to whether eradication of Mycoplasma bovis from New Zealand is feasible. It is well over a month, possibly close to two months, since the international Technical Advisory Group (TAG) voted six to … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, Dairy, Meat Industry, Mycoplasma bovis
3 Comments
A smorgasbord of agricultural issues
[For the last three years I have been writing fortnightly columns for NZFarmer, which is delivered free to all New Zealand farmers. However the agricultural press in New Zealand is undergoing major change. One part of that change is that … Continue reading
Posted in A1 and A2 milk, Agribusiness, China, Dairy, Meat Industry, Mycoplasma bovis
1 Comment
The wheat and chaff of synthetic food
It has become fashionable for agri-food commentators to talk of disruptive change. In particular, in recent months there has been much talk about industry disruption that will supposedly occur from synthetic food, with much of that grown in a laboratory. … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, Dairy, Meat Industry
11 Comments
Alternatives to dairy in New Zealand – the challenges are under-estimated
Readers of my articles will know that I believe we can find solutions to the multiple problems that face our New Zealand dairy industry. However, the current conventional wisdom within New Zealand’s dominating urban constituency is that there is no … Continue reading
Posted in Dairy, Land and water, Meat Industry
5 Comments
Fifty years of Canterbury farming revolution
The ideas for this article were triggered by a recent reunion of former Ministry of Agriculture Canterbury farm advisers. There were about 45 of us who got together to tell tales of former years. Our collective experiences that day went … Continue reading
Posted in Dairy, Land and water, Meat Industry, Uncategorized
4 Comments
The Rise of China’s Agriculture
Although it leaves many New Zealanders uncomfortable, there is a stark reality that the future of New Zealand’s agricultural industries, and hence the overall economy, is highly dependent on China. The reason is very simple: there is no-one else in … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, China, Dairy, Meat Industry, Rural development
7 Comments
Changing agri-food perspectives
When I was an undergraduate back in the 1960s – in some ways it seems just yesterday – the dominant agricultural paradigms were about farm production and management. As students, we learned nothing about marketing. And when marketing did come … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, Dairy, Meat Industry
5 Comments
The snow has come again
Every year we all talk about the weather and how fickle it is. This year is no different. In most parts of the country, June and July were unseasonably warm. Where I am in Canterbury, winter grass growth has possibly … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, Dairy, Meat Industry
1 Comment
Nervous times at Silver Fern Farms
Silver Fern Farms announced last week to its farmer suppliers that it now expects no more than a breakeven return for the year ending 30 September 2016. This should focus the minds of its farmer shareholders, who vote on 12 … Continue reading
Posted in Agribusiness, Meat Industry
4 Comments
Posts from Keith Woodford 