Rabobank sets the bears among the cows, puts the blame on China

Is glyphosate, being a sodium salt, not too dissimilar to salt water in its effect on killing weeds? Is the long term effect of saturating the land with this herbicide not too dissimilar to flooding a low lying paddock with salt water?

Belle, they are not paid to predict - that's the job of market makers , who never get the chance or wish to disclose their book.

And Labours CGT. Goverment revenue will be haemoraging soon.

Greens ideas on a sub $5 payout.... "looking quite good" isn't really the decription I'd use...

Hands raised and running in circles... " sell more NZ land to China.... Sell more NZ land to China.... Yes, yes! That'll see us solve this problem... More land to China I say!"

Hands raised and running in circles... " sell more NZ land to China.... Sell more NZ land to China.... Yes, yes! That'll see us solve this problem... More land to China I say!"

They were trying the same thing they use in NZ - listening to their own propganda and throwing money at things.



Megafarms because thats volume of production, and attempting to get value-add products.  5 yrs before TAF Fonterra was trying to split the corporate and co-op suppliers off into different business groups because a profitable funcational ingredients business wasn't glamourous enough and suppliers kept telling them to reduce their debt.  The government was pushing to get Queen St investors to have some more of the Dairy action.



 When shareholders (suppliers) first heard about the split up they told management in no uncertain terms they could shove the split into a place the sun don't sign.   Hence the need for them (politicians and executive) to impliment TAF to work around the existing shareholders.



It has completely zero interest in NZ supplier profits.



This was pointed out loudly by myself and others at the time.

Now, with investor shareholders, Fonterra has a legally recognised peculniary responsibility to look after their interests and their shareholders shareholdings,   and ZERO responsibility towards farmers.



It is not a co-operative. Not since TAF.  Anyone whotells you it is...check their data, ask why they might try to be selling you snake oil.  Who are they in bed with, what is their history, are they just a fanatical diehard loyalist (or quoting one)



A cooperative would be watching it's cost and market structure to bolster it's suppliers - Fonterra has instead implimented a bid to get its own ownership fingers into farms.  this is completely the opposite to supporting the cooperative, and 100% into corporate model buyouts.



Why else would they be selling below cost?

well the farmers aren't enjoying it - so I'd say everyone

wehy is Commerce Commission allowing dairy companies to force suppliers to sell product at under cost.   you wouldn't be allowed to do that in other businesses

Buy chicken, UK farmers are getting under 100 pounds a tonne for wheat. Chicken and pork will get cheap. Feedlots in the States are using the cheap grain to increase weights = Short term spike.

You forgot to add Fonterras and MPIs push to up production or do you already know the answer.

With the Auction I'm not sure on the good or bad, but I do see that someone was going to do it so better us than "them".

Sheep and beef farmers are fully aware of how markets work. Some newcomers in the dairy industry are going to learn the hard way, along with town investors in farming. There is no magic industry that is immune to markets.

Yep, that's the only viable plan - it all hinges on the price, the tenancy agreements for the ex farmers and the settlement with the bankers.

Spot on Chris-M! We are in the midst of NZs second process of colonisation.  First by the Europeans and now by the Chinese. They have built their 'ghost cities ' and now as cities fill so the land grab of NZ continues in earnest! 

The question is, how many muskets and blankets will YOU get for your little piece of God 's own? 

That is all. Carry on.

the General

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Bang on and predicted by the "xenophobes"

Good on the Chinese for playing the long-game. If New Zealanders are willing to sell-out the next generations of Kiwi's for a dollar then we deserve everything we get.

The "own collection time" is not a stupid idea - however it very badly managed - and in such a way I just can't understand why the Shareholders Councils are ignoring the issue.



I can only assume that the idea is to either (a) deliberately run the company into the ground and blame it on suppliers, or (b) make the "own collection time" as inefficient as possible so that it can be cancelled due to costs



Rather than properly schedule pickups, they use the same "fix time" calculations, and make tankers wait - or just drop them off the run if their pickup time falls into the suppliers window, to be picked up as an "exception handled" later.      This seems to be bacuase the huge software project to manage the runs has never really worked properly, and has several well known bugs, but it's become un-politic to bring it up, and less to expect it to be fixed.  (I get the feeling either the person left, or a foreign (now closed) company created the original software...and Fonterra never owned the code rights, only the usage rights.)



They do have high grade product.  But. like the rest of NZ they struggle to employ such high paid expert workforce if they're not productive, and keeping top scientists and designers occupied is an expensive business.  And since they sell wholesale....



things like late-off-farm issues can be dealt with but they aren't and never have been.

TAF and other corporate activities (eg Sky broadcasts) are the BAU at Fonterra, that's the price of going corporate and forgetting the very co-op strengths that build the company...but that's what you get by worshipping the corporate showpieces, and not the driving force behind the success.

 Thus a Late-off-farm is far more likely to result in a telephone call to tell the farmer to buck up their act or else, or a visit to tell them that they will be helped and that if they don't comply then they will get refused pickup (the latter phrase is deemed "help").  And seriously for a below-proper-cost sale price...just what level of service and cooperation are Fonterra expecting??



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But I've always said they're inefficient "corporates" with a throw munny attitude.

dont tell me folks are going to start realising this?

if that happens they might actually stop listening to their own propoganda/poropoganda-ists and start acting like a market (customer) focussed company rather than a social/political quango.

Giving some credit to Fonterra, they are fast tracking their expansion plans e.g. Paihiatua, Lichfield, Edendale etc.  They have gone from approx 98% of all milk collected to 87% of all milk.  Despite that 11% drop in market share they are receiving record amounts of milk with an expected 2% (though currently around 6%) increase in milk this season.  They weren't expecting to have to do some of that capital expansion quite so soon, so once these expansions are complete things will run more smoothly.  The expansions will give them more flexibility of product over the flush from 2015 onwards.

Rabo's forecast prices in your link seem to be $300-400 per tonne above recent auction prices.

well found