Rural round-up

Positive GDT results and strong demand encouraging – Fonterra:

New Zealand dairy farmers are off to a great start to 2021 as prices leapt 3.9 percent across the board in first the first Global Dairy Trade auction of the year.

During the first global dairy trade event, the average price for commodities rose to more than $US3420 ($NZ4715) per metric tonne.

Whole milk powder, the most important product for New Zealand farmers, lifted 3.1 percent – its highest level in 12 months.

Fonterra chief financial officer Marc Rivers told Morning Report the results showed demand was strong across all regions, particularly across China and Asia. . .

Northland weed control harnesses tiny biocontrol agents – Donna Russell:

Biocontrol agents are increasingly replacing sprays to control Northland’s most challenging weeds.

Entomologist Dr Jenny Dymock, of Doubtless Bay in the Far North, works with the Northland Regional Council to provide biocontrol services throughout Northland.

She helps to distribute biocontrol agents and monitors their distribution and effectiveness.

Northland’s semi-tropical climate provides a warm welcome for weeds and controlling them can be daunting and expensive. . .

 

Now you see it,now you don't…..
Pictures taken less the 5 mins apart. What's in store for today's weather 😬 pic.twitter.com/dGS4BWYpuZ

— 🚜🐄 🧢Bruce🧢 🐄🚜 (@fairleigh_ag) January 4, 2021

Leave Tarras alone, it’s a rare gem – Joe Bennett:

Oh for crying out loud, how hard can it be? Of course we shouldn’t build a bloody great airport at Tarras. There are limitless reasons but the simplest and most obvious is that New Zealand is defined by Tarrasness. And not by having bloody great airports.

Who is the bloody great airport for? It isn’t for the eight citizens of Tarras. It isn’t for you and it isn’t for me. It is for tourists. It’s to get them to the pretty bits quicker. Even though they’re so desperate to see this land that they’re happy to spend thousands of dollars and cross thousands of miles of ocean just to do so, we must needs spend millions of dollars in order to save them the inconvenience of driving a couple of hours down State Highway 1 and then another couple of hours inland. Really? Don’t make me laugh.

To quote the perspicacious author of A Land of Two Halves by Joe Bennett, published the best part of 20 years ago now and sadly out of print but still as fresh as dew and pretty well bang right in every particular, “tourists do not come to this country to see what man has done. They come to see what he has not yet undone.” And he hasn’t yet undone Tarras. Leave it alone. . . 

NZ-grown papaya tested as possible dengue treatment – Tracy Neal:

New Zealand-grown papaya is being studied to find out if an extract from its leaves could be an effective treatment for dengue fever

The first extracts from the leaves of the fruit grown at a Northland research orchard are now part of a clinical study at universities in the UK and in Asia.

The project is spearheaded by Queenstown based company Fuller Young International.

Managing director Raymond Young said research and development within New Zealand has been supported by Crown institutes, Plant and Food Research and Auckland based Callaghan Innovation. . .

Applications are now open for the 2021 Beef + Lamb Ambassador Chef award:

Applications are now open for young New Zealand chefs to plate up their best beef and lamb dishes in the hope of becoming the very first Beef + Lamb Young Ambassador Chef.

For twenty-five years, Beef + Lamb New Zealand has been shaping the careers of chefs around the country by selecting those who are creating and serving incredible beef and lamb dishes in their restaurants to be Ambassador Chefs.  To celebrate this milestone, Beef + Lamb New Zealand are offering a one-off opportunity for a young emerging chef to put their culinary skills to the test and join the 2021 Ambassador Chefs – Tejas Nikam, Paddock to Plate Waikato; Phil Clark, Phil’s Kitchen; Jack Crosti, Mela and Norka Mella Munoz, Mangapapa Hotel.

Beef + Lamb Foodservice Manager, Lisa Moloney says the winning young chef will be someone who is hungry to learn more and take up opportunities to be mentored by some of New Zealand’s top chefs. . .

Planting willows in our new dew ponds/wetland field corridor

We are smashing the start of 2021

About 500 trees of different kinds planted around our farm work pic.twitter.com/gmLI485ytP

— James Rebanks (@herdyshepherd1) January 4, 2021

ABARES: Raw commodities exports are definitely no raw deal for ag – Andrew Marshall:

Contrary to popular belief, converting raw farm commodities into value-added foods, textiles or other manufactured export products does not create much, if any, extra value for Australia’s economy.

In fact, our economy is actually thriving with agriculture’s predominantly “raw deals” on the export front, according to analysis by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics and Sciences.

ABARES calculates Australia’s $48 billion a year agri-food export sector generates about the same value for the economy from raw commodity sales as processed products.

Global markets and supply chains have changed so much in recent decades that the popular mantra about needing to process farm commodities at home to make them more valuable on global markets is not necessarily relevant to a large portion of Australia’s ag export sector. . .

Rural round-up

Price fixing doesn’t work Part XVII – Tim Worstall:

Thailand is finding out, in a most painful manner, what happens to those who try to fix prices:

Thailand, once the world’s biggest exporter, is short of funds to help growers under Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s 2011 program to buy the crop at above-market rates. After the government built record stockpiles big enough to meet about a third of global import demand, exports and prices have dropped, farmers aren’t being paid, and the program is the target of anti-corruption probes. Political unrest may contribute to slower growth in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.

In order to curry favour with the rice farmers who compose a substantial part of the electorate prices were fixed and fixed high. The inevitable thus happens, magically more is produced than anyone wants to consume and here at least it is looking like the government will go bust over it. “Produced” is of course a flexible word: there are long running reports of rice being smuggled over the Burmese border to take advantage of those high Thai prices. . . .

NAIT helps clear Northland TB infection:

ONLY ONE bovine tuberculosis (TB) infected herd remains in Northland.

Six other herds have been cleared by TBfree New Zealand. The single, remaining infected herd has recently had a whole herd TB test and is also on the verge of being cleared of the disease. The six other herds were linked by stock movements made before the disease was diagnosed.

TBfree Northland committee chair Neil MacMillan QSM said the cooperation of farmers and landowners in allowing TB testing and wild animal control contractors’ access to their properties to remove the disease was appreciated. . .

Rain and visitors pour into Waimumu – Terry Brosnahan:

It was cold, wet and muddy, but the money still poured in at the Southern Field Days at Waimumu, near Gore, this week.

Persistent rain on the second day of the three-day event didn’t deter farmers from attending and spending.  

Exhibitors spoken to reported strong sales and enquiries. They said farmers and contractors had done their research and were ready to do business rather than just come for a day out.

Field days chairman Mark Dillon said 12,100 people paid to attend the first day and 12,500 the second. Figures for Friday, the final day were not available when Farmers Weekly went to print. In 2012 a record 33,000 people went through the gates of the biennial event. Based on the area filled, a record number of cars were parked. . . .

Biocontrol bugs on show at Waimumu:

THEY’RE CREEPY, they’re crawly, and they’re on display in the Environment Southland marquee at Southern Field Days.

Following on from biocontrol success in several areas, a raft of biocontrol agents including Dung beetles, Broom galls mites, Green thistle beetles; Gorse soft shoot moths and Ragwort plume moths are making an appearance in the council’s tent this year.

Senior biosecurity officer Randall Milne says it’s an opportunity to educate the public about biosecurity and biocontrol agents. . .

Success: farming smarter, not harder –

Fifteen years ago Doug Avery was locked into failure.

The Marlborough sheep and beef farmer was barely coping, personally and financially, after years of successive drought had ravaged his farm.

“The severity of eight years of drought, including four one-in-one-hundred-year droughts, was so bad that I recognised the road that I was travelling was completely stuffed,” Avery says.

His 1500ha farm, Bonaveree, overlooking the Dominion Salt facility at Lake Grassmere, has been in the family for nearly 100 years.

But the glorious sunshine and drying nor’westerly winds that create perfect conditions for extracting salt from seawater were destroying the 59-year-old and his farming business.  . .

From white gold to kiwi gold:

Exchanging the dairy farm for kiwifruit vines came down to seeing the golden-sweet potential that was ripe for the picking for Bay of Plenty couple Elaine and Wayne Skiffington.

After 28 years of dairy farming, the couple decided to invest all their efforts into kiwifruit around 12 years ago and have never looked back.

“We saw the potential kiwifruit had to offer and went for it,” Wayne says.

Originally purchasing their 50 hectare property in Pongakawa, in the Western Bay of Plenty 20 years ago for run-off purposes for the dairy farm, it also happened to include a kiwifruit orchard. Not knowing much about kiwifruit but not wanting to get rid of the vines, the couple decided to lease the orchard to Direct Management Services (DMS), while they ran the farm. . .