Articles tagged Dairying

Fonterra Cooperative Group won’t be changing its ownership structure, but is keen on bringing on partners to fund future projects, says director Scott St John. Paul McBeth reports.

The investigation into a Northland contract milker caught on camera hitting cows with a steel pipe is ongoing over a month after authorities were given footage of the abuse. Farah Hancock reports.

Shane Jones has warned the forestry industry to avoid the fate of the dairy industry, which lost the support of urban voters seemingly overnight. Gavin Evans reports.

Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters doubled down on last week's New Zealand First party attacks on the performance and leadership of Fonterra, saying the country's largest business was costing the economy more than $2 billion from food safety and animal welfare scares.

Rod Oram has followed a trail of bad management decisions and poor governance to discover why Fonterra is staring down the barrel of a massive writedown on its investment in Beingmate. He raises questions about the role of Fonterra's auditor, PwC, and a stifled culture of debate on its board.

Beingmate, Fonterra's troubled investment in China, is blaming the co-op for its losses, according to a formal letter Beingmate has reportedly sent to Chinese financial regulators in response to their enquiries.

Rod Oram warns in this week's column that Fonterra shareholders should brace for more bad news about the cooperative's disastrous investment in Beingmate Baby and Child Food.

Rod Oram looks this week at Fonterra's apparently ground-shifting announcement about reducing its net carbon emissions to zero by 2050. He writes Fonterra's caveats mean the plan is not as impressive as it looks.

Rod Oram went under the covers of Fonterra's result this week to see if Theo Spierings deserved his $8.3 million salary. He finds New Zealand's biggest exporter has a long way to go to produce more value from its milk and its key Chinese investment is struggling.

Rod Oram takes a look in this week's column at the future of farming. He argues it's time for farmers to stop squandering their natural capital and avoid an environmental bankruptcy, in the same way farmers dug themselves out of financial bankruptcy in the late 1980s.