Word of the day

Asportation – the detachment, movement, or carrying away of property, formerly an essential component of the crime of larceny; the felonious removal of goods from the place where they were deposited; theft.

Rural round-up

Fonterra must evolve – Hugh Stringleman:

Fonterra’s structure must keep evolving, as farmers’ own businesses change through time, former founding director Greg Gent believes.

However, nothing in its structure was preventing farmers from getting the maximum available returns from world dairy markets in the downturn.

As big as it is, Fonterra could not control the milk price.

Fonterra remains silent on dividend impact – Eye to the Long Run:

The staggering hit to milk payouts – around 27% – is also a staggering reduction in the input costs to every product for which milk is an input.

The “model” is supposed to generate returns to suppliers of milk solids and returns to investors (and the two are one in the same for the majority) on sales of processed product. The reduction in input cost must by now be cumulatively very significant. . .

Fonterra overshoot on 2015 advance payment worsens 2016 farmer cash flows – Paul McBeth:

 (BusinessDesk) – Milk prices have dropped so dramatically that Fonterra Cooperative Group effectively overpaid farmers under an advance payments scheme last year, sapping funds available to pay out farmers at the end of the season and leaving them short of cash even before last week’s deep cut to the 2016 forecast payout.

“Last year, Fonterra came out with a higher advance rate schedule during the year, effectively almost overpaying for milk as they went,” Dairy Holdings chief executive Colin Glass told BusinessDesk. “That meant there was nothing left at the end of the year to come through. That’s effectively been the major impact on farm cash flows today.

“Those deferred payments for the previous year haven’t been there and that’s coinciding with what is now the lower advance rate schedule.” . .

 

Hard work and sacrifice reap stellar success – Kate Taylor:

A determination to buy their own farms has seen a set of siblings grow their businesses from 7000 stock units to about 37,000 in 14 years.

One of the partners, Bart and Nukuhia (Nuku) Hadfield, went on to win the 2015 Ahuwhenua Trophy – the BNZ Maori Excellence in Farming Award (sheep and beef).

In 2001 they had pooled resources with Nuku’s siblings – Eugene, Ronald and Marama – and their partners to lease Mangaroa Station in the Ruakituri Valley and neighbouring Ruakaka Station in Tiniroto. . .

El Niño explained as simply as possible – Weather Watch:

It’s been talked about for almost two years in the global scientific community and now it’s finally showing up on weather stations here in New Zealand – El Nino, the weather/climate event that often causes great concern in the rural sector.

But should be we concerned ?  Short answer – yes, somewhat – long answer, yes, but let’s not get carried away, NZ can buck the international trends and we are still not 100% sure how this will all pan out over summer. 

So saying things like “This El Nino will be worse than the drought creating one of the 1990s” is a bit like saying a newly developing tropical low is going to hurt NZ more than Bola did.  But until it fully forms and until we really get a good feeling as to how it’s going to impact New Zealand, then we need to take a deep breath and not talk about extreme worst case scenarios as if they are locked in with certainty…because we simply don’t know this early.  . .

Blair draws a line on farm trespass – Robyn Ainsworth:

TRESPASSERS will definitely be prosecuted under strict new penalties to be introduced to state parliament under the proposed Biosecurity Bill, industry stakeholders heard this week.

The penalties are one plank of the government’s NSW Farm Incursions Policy being rolled out, which NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair (pictured) hopes will be extended nationwide to protect farmers and crack down on the illegal practices of animal welfare activists and others who trespass on farms. . .

 MyFarm share trading shifts to Syndex – Syndex launches offering investors the opportunity to trade farm and orchard shares:

Syndex, the online investment trading platform, has launched today offering investors the opportunity to buy and sell shares in farms and orchards.

Farm investment company, MyFarm, is the inaugural partner for Syndex’s Agri Syndicate Market.

Syndex will allow people to buy and sell shares in MyFarm’s dairy and kiwifruit investment opportunities. It opened today with shares available for purchase in a new Bay of Plenty kiwifruit syndicate and an established Canterbury dairy farm. . .

Will a red hot beef market cool anytime soon? –  Texas Farm Bureau:

The cattle market the last two years is like August weather in Texas. Red hot!

More than 1,680 beef cattle producers gathered at Texas A&M to hear the latest about the cattle market and future trends at the 61st Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course, held this week in College Station.

“I think there is a lot to look forward to down the road,” said Dr. Jason Cleere, conference coordinator and Texas A&M AgriLife beef cattle specialist. . .

Where have all the young men gone?

Author Hannah August was interviewed about her new book “No Country for Old Maids” on Q + A yesterday.

The intro said there are 65,000 more women than men in the 25-49 age group.

That might have been the norm after World War I and II when so many young men were killed. But it’s 70 years since WWII ended and there hasn’t been any plagues or petulance pestilence that struck males harder than females.

The birth rate of boys is usually slightly higher than that for girls. Death rates for boys and young men are usually a bit higher than those for girls and young women as a result of suicide and accident.

But neither or those explain this big difference.

Graphs here on the numbers of males and females in each electorate .

Could the difference be due to something as simple as young men being far less likely than women to fill in census forms and enrol to vote?

If not, where have all the young men gone?

Cool heads

Wise words from Federated Farmers president Dr William Rolleston (6:10) (transcript here):

. . . “I think the most important thing is to have cool heads at this time. . .

“I don’t see it at this point as a crisis. It’ll be a crisis if people start panicking and I don’t see that happening. I see the banks actually working very well with farmers. . . “

The Chicken Littles are saying it’s a crisis.

It’s not.

The low payout will mean most, if not all, dairy farms make a loss this season but banks will work with their clients to get them through the low payout providing their clients work with them.

People will leave the industry. Rolleston rightly said that happens in good times and bad.

But banks understand the cyclical nature of farming and will do everything they can to avoid forcing people out.

They know that’s not good for banks or the troubled clients and would also be bad for untroubled ones by depressing land values and therefore equity for everyone else in the industry.

The Chicken-Littleing by people like Winston Peters who was also interviewed is politics at its worst and Rolleston gets full marks for his response to the question of whether Peters gets any cut through with Feds (7:49):

“I would say we listen politely.”

That’s more than Peters and the others who are trying to engineer a crisis for political reasons deserve.

Labour leader Andrew Little is no better declaring a crisis and the bogey-man of a stepp increase in foreign ownership.

But as Adolf at No Minister points out that Labour’s declaration of a crisis is a good thing:

. . . This is the best news cow cockies have had for some time.  Now that Labour has delivered its midas touch, you can bet on milksold prices improving within six months.

Someone needs to sit down with Little and quietly explain that an outbreak of foot and mouth disease is a crisis for the industry while aa period of low prices is normal in a commodity market. 

Meanwhile, on the farm where the people who really know what’s going on are hard at work, sharemilkers told me this will be a tough season but sooner or later there will be better ones.

Like Rolleston, they’re keeping cool heads.

They’re also accepting that global prices are something they can’t control, concentrating on things they can control and are seriously unimpressed by those trying to precipitate a crisis through political posturing.

Quote of the day

Sweat is fat crying because you just punched it in the face – Farmstrong.

August 10 in history

955 Battle of Lechfeld: Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor defeated the Magyars, ending 50 years of Magyar invasion of the West.

991 Battle of Maldon: English, led by Bryhtnoth, Duke of Essex, were defeated by a band of inland-raiding Vikings.

1270 Yekuno Amlak took the imperial throne of Ethiopia, restoring the Solomonic dynasty to power after a 100-year interregnum.

1316  Second Battle of Athenry.

1519 Ferdinand Magellan’s five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe.

1557 Battle of St. Quentin: Spanish victory over the French in the Habsburg-Valois Wars.

1628 The Swedish warship Vasa sank in the Stockholm harbour after only about 20 minutes on her maiden voyage.

1675 The foundation stone of the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London was laid.

1680 The Pueblo Revolt began in New Mexico.

1792 French Revolution: Storming of the Tuileries Palace, Louis XVI was arrested.

1809 Quito declared independence from Spain.

1829 First ascent of Finsteraarhorn, the highest summit of the Bernese Alps.

1840 HMS Britomart arrived at Akaroa, on Banks Peninsula, a week before a shipload of French colonists landed. The ship’s captain raised the Union Jack to confirm British sovereignty over the area.

1846 The Smithsonian Institution was chartered by the United States Congress after James Smithson donated $500,000 for that purpose.

1861 American Civil War: Battle of Wilson’s Creek.

1901 The U.S. Steel Recognition Strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers began.

1904 Russo-Japanese War: the Battle of the Yellow Sea.

1905 Russo-Japanese War: peace negotiations began in Portsmouth.

1913  Delegates from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece signed the Treaty of Bucharest, ending the Second Balkan War.

1920 World War I: Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI’s representatives signed the Treaty of Sèvres that divides the Ottoman Empire between the Allies.

1932 Rin Tin Tin, German shepherd dog, was born (b. 1918).

1932 A 5.1kg  chondrite-type meteorite broke into at least seven pieces and landed near Archie in Cass County, Missouri.

1940 Bobby Hatfield, American singer (The Righteous Brothers), was born (d. 2003).

1943 Jimmy Griffin, American guitarist (Bread), was born (d. 2005)

1944 World War II: American forces defeated the last Japanese troops on Guam.

1947  Ian Anderson, Scottish singer (Jethro Tull), was born.

1948 Candid Camera made its television debut after being on radio for a year as Candid Microphone.

1954 The groundbreaking ceremony for the Saint Lawrence Seaway was held.

1961  Jon Farriss, Australian musician (INXS).

1969 Members of Charles Manson‘s cult killed Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

1977  David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”) was arrested for a series of killings in the New York City area over the period of one year.

1988  U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, providing $20,000 payments to Japanese Americans who were either interned in or relocated by the United States during World War II.

1990  The Magellan space probe reached Venus.

1990 The Massacre of more than 127 Muslims in North East Sri Lanka by paramilitaries.

1993  An earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter Scale hit the South Island.

1995  Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were indicted for Oklahoma City bombing.  Michael Fortier pleaded guilty in a plea-bargain agreement for his testimony.

1998 The Royal Proclamation of HRH Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah as the crown prince of Brunei.

2003 The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK – 38.5°C (101.3°F) in Kent.

2003 – Yuri Malenchenko became the first person to marry in space.

2006  Scotland Yard disrupted major terrorist plot to destroy aircraft travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States. In the wake of this all toiletries were banned from commercial airplanes.

2009 – Twenty people were killed in Handlová, Trenčín Region, in the deadliest mining disaster in Slovakia’s history.

2012 – The Marikana miners’ strike began near Rustenburg, South Africa.

2013 – The World Championships in Athletics took place in Moscow.

 

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia