TeenAg, an agriculture sector youth programme run by New Zealand Young Farmers, will receive $146,000 of support under a new partnership announced today by Youth Minister Nikki Kaye. “This is about supporting more young people to develop skills such as leadership and learn about potential career opportunities in the primary sector, which is such a vital part of our economy,” says Ms Kaye. “TeenAg aims to promote a positive picture of agriculture and raise awareness of agricultural careers from an early age. “The funding announced today will support around 500 more young people to participate in the programme.” TeenAg consists…

New Zealand’s sheep and beef farmers have a profound story to tell about where and how our meat is produced, says Mike Lee. New Zealand’s sheep and beef farmers are sitting on a grass-fed gold mine. This is according to Mike Lee, the CEO and founder of New York-based food design and innovation agency Studio Industries, who says this country’s farmers have a great story to tell consumers hungry to know where and how their meat is produced. Visiting this country, Lee says it is about creating the profound out of the mundane – and for NZ sheep and beef…

Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges and Science and Innovation Minister Paul Goldsmith today announced $2 million funding for a wood-processing facility which uses automation and robotics to turn low-value pine trees into high-value wood products. This is just one of the local initiatives announced at the release of the Tairāwhiti Economic Action Plan in Gisborne. “Forestry is a major employer in the region and this funding accelerates research and development in this sector. This technology from Wood Engineering Technology Ltd ensures that even low value ‘pulp’ logs, or forestry blocks on remote sites, can become economically viable,” says Mr Bridges.…

Trade barriers cost New Zealand billions of dollars annually, according to an NZIER report for the Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand (DCANZ). The report, titled Dairy trade’s economic contribution to New Zealand, highlights the strong contribution the dairy sector has continued to make to New Zealand’s national and regional economic development, even while it has been at the bottom of a price cycle, and despite global dairy markets remaining highly distorted. “Trade barriers are a significant cost to New Zealand. Tariffs alone are suppressing the value of our dairy products by around 1.3 billion dollars annually,” says DCANZ Chairman…

Fonterra’s Research and Development Centre has developed a new white butter product to meet growing demand from manufacturers in the Middle East market. The New Zealand dairy co-op developed the product alongside its global ingredients business NZMP. Fonterra’s butter is renowned amongst Middle East consumers for its golden appearance thanks to milk from grass fed cows. However, a niche segment of manufacturers prefer white butter as a processing ingredient for their food products. These Middle Eastern food manufacturers have traditionally sourced butter from grain fed cows which produce dairy products with a pale colour, according to Fonterra. The co-op seized…

The Farming Robots Market Projected to Reach $5.7 Billion by 2024 Brandon Marshall has a look at this market on machinery.com.  He writes, Transparency Market Research (TMR), has released a report, “Agriculture Robots Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 – 2024,” predicting a sizeable increase in demand for agriculture robots within the decade. The report estimates that the agricultural robotics industry has generated USD $1.01 billion in revenue globally as of 2016. Going forward, TMR suggest that revenue for this industry will rise to approximately $5.7 billion by the end of 2024. This estimate…

Waste-to-energy showcase for reluctant New Zealand dairy sector A 1,100-cow dairy in southern California became the first-ever operation in the world known to produce no-sulfur renewable diesel products from manure on a livestock facility in late April. The milestone is the culmination of three years of collaboration between Scott Brothers Dairy in San Jacinto, California, and Ag Waste Solutions (AWS), a privately held company that designed the farm’s manure processing system. “To make it to the top of the hill is a euphoric moment,” dairyman Bruce Scott says. Steve McCorkle, founder and CEO of AWS, announced the partnership’s achievement on…

As New Zealand marks the one-year anniversary of its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with South Korea, Fonterra Co-operative Group is gearing up to take advantage of huge potential for its dairy products there, particularly cheese. Since the FTA was signed in December 2015, New Zealand has experienced 16 per cent growth in exports of food and beverage products to Korea. The country is New Zealand’s fifth largest cheese market, worth US$50 million (NZ$70m) a year – comparable to New Zealand’s cheese trade to the United States. New Zealand’s new annual duty free quota of 7000 metric tonnes (MT) of cheese…

Fonterra is on track to become the first global dairy processor to have farm-to-fork electronic traceability. By 2020 the co-op’s 11,000 supplier farms around the world would be part of the system; any product concerns will be traced anywhere on the supply chain within three hours. The world-class traceability standards will extend to Fonterra’s 140 plants at 50 sites in nine countries, in seven languages and involving 2000 unique food items. Already, all New Zealand and Australian-sourced products, representing 74% of total global production, can be electronically traced through the supply chain from manufacturing sites to customers. While the co-op…

Reader insists that the question must be asked  Dear Sirs, In regard to the mysterious “agro Centre” which has appeared somewhere in the Arabian desert seemingly built and constructed by the New Zealand taxpayer you, the Taxpayers Union, and other questioners have all been asking the wrong question. The question that you should be asking is this: Is this agri hub the pivot of a counter trade deal between New Zealand and the Saudis?If it is the central component of a counter trade deal then the New Zealand government deserves credit for its imagination in implanting itself into a valuable…