Agriculture

Has your business registered for the Food Act 2014?

It’s the final countdown for businesses that make, sell or transport food to meet the 28 February 2019 Food Act registration deadline. This includes food manufacturing, such as manufacturers of dried/dehydrated fruit or vegetables, confectionery, meat, poultry, fish products, dairy products and fresh ready-to-eat salads. New Zealand Food Safety (a business unit of the Ministry for Primary Industries/MPI), is urging owners/managers of all New Zealand businesses that make, sell or transport food, which have not registered yet, to find out immediately if they need to register a plan or programme under the Food Act 2014. The Food Act came into force on 1 March 2016 and introduced a common-sense, risk-based approach to food safety. New Zealand Food Safety’s Manager Food & Beverage, Sally Johnston said that under the Food Act all people growing, making, transporting and selling food had a responsibility to keep it safe and suitable. “Most New Zealand food businesses have now registered, which is excellent,” Ms Johnston said. “New Zealand Food Safety, local councils and industry organisations are working hard to help all remaining businesses to meet the 28 February 2019 deadline for registration. “If existing food businesses are not registered by the 28 February deadline, they will be operating unregistered businesses, their retail customers may refuse to accept their goods or use their services, and MPI and local councils may need to take enforcement action. So, immediate action needs to be taken to get registered. “We want make it easier for businesses to make safe and suitable food and comply with food safety requirements.” Under the Food Act, new food businesses have to register as soon as they start trading and existing food businesses (operating under the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974 or Food Act 1981) had from 1 March 2016 until 28 February 2019 to register […]

2018 tractor and farm machinery on NZFood website

2018 tractor and farm machinery sales set new record

Sales of tractors and farm machinery hit a new record in 2018 and there are no signs of a slow down, says NZ Tractor and Machinery Association (TAMA) president, John Tulloch. TAMA figures to the end of December showed a total of 4640 retail sales across all HP (horsepower) categories compared to 4079 in 2017 and 4062 in the boom dairy year of 2014. Mr Tulloch said he expects the strong sales trend to continue through 2019 unless there was a global event that had a sudden impact. “Of course we never know what the weather will throw at us but most of our customers are used to dealing with climate variations, even extreme ones. We’ve had a wet season but that could well be followed by a dry season.” The dairy industry, which accounts for a large proportion of TAMA sales, was looking to improve based on the last four global dairy trade auctions. The latest auction on January 15 resulted in a GDT price index increase of 4.2%. The increases were reflecting the flow-on impacts of the European summer drought on local dairy production there, Mr Tulloch said. The current Australian drought would also affect production across the Tasman. “When global supplies are tight and demand is good then prices have to go up. This would be a welcome relief to our industry after recent difficulties for dairying.” The improving outlook combined with new environmental restrictions being introduced in New Zealand might see more dairy farmers, especially those in the South Island, move to wintering cows inside. Under-roof wintering causes less damage to pastures and results in less effluent run-off. It also boosts the condition of dairy cows. “As profit returns to dairy we expect that farmers will look at the benefits of wintering inside. These cows are […]

Food production innovation to be adopted overseas

A Tasmanian engineering innovation in strawberry and other hydroponic food production is set to be adopted by major berry producers in the UK and Europe. Rod Marshall, Managing Director of Marshall Machinery in Launceston, has returned from meetings in the UK and Europe, in response to expressions of interest from international berry producers. At these meetings, Mr Marshall demonstrated and promoted the unique “COIR-RX” hydroponic substrate processing machine, which has been entirely researched, developed and manufactured by his company in Tasmania. Worldwide, crops such as strawberries, tomatoes and capsicums are planted within plastic substrate bags containing coir, rock-wool, or other materials, then disposed of at the end of each growing cycle. Until now, the process to separate the plastic from substrate and plant material, then package materials for recycling, has been a massive, mainly manual process for growers, or simply dumped into landfill. The COIR-RX processing machine replaces this manual process with a mobile platform that travels along the ends of strawberry rows to feed in the materials, separate them, then automatically capture, compress and wrap the plastic for recycling. The machine also ejects the organic material which becomes an effective mulch. A single COIR-RX machine can process up to 2000 one-metre long substrate bags per hour. This takes less than 5% of the time and half the cost of the current laborious process of removing, transporting, picking through materials, manually sorting and bagging. The system is also vastly more discriminating while sorting, ensuring a much more pure separation result for both plants and plastic. Mr Marshall said, “After years of research and development, we now have a functional machine that is proving itself in actual field use.” “Marshall Machinery is now ready to respond to expressions of interest it has received from major berry producers in the UK, who […]

How do food manufacturers pick those dates on their product packaging?

No one wants to serve spoiled food to their families. Conversely, consumers don’t want to throw food away unnecessarily – but we certainly do. Part of these losses are due to consumers being confused about the “use-by” and “best before” dates on food packaging. Contrary to popular impression, the current system of food product dating isn’t really designed to help us figure out when something from the fridge has passed the line from edible to inedible. Aside from the labelling issues, how are these dates even generated? Food producers, particularly small-scale companies just entering the food business, often have a difficult time knowing what dates to put on their items. But manufacturers have a few ways – both art and science – to figure out how long their foods will be safe to eat. Dates can be about rotating product, not necessarily when it’s safe to eat the food. Consumer confusion Out of a mistaken concern for food safety, 91 percent of consumers occasionally throw food away based on the “sell by” date – which isn’t really about product safety at all. “Sell by” dates are meant to let stores know how to rotate their stock. A survey conducted by the Food Marketing Institute in 2011 found that among their actions to keep food safe, 37 percent of consumers reported discarding food “every time” it’s past the “use by” date – even though the date only denotes “peak quality” as determined by the manufacturer. The most we can get from the dates currently listed on food products is a general idea of how long that particular item has been in the marketplace. They don’t tell consumers when the product shifts from being safe to not safe. Figuring out when food’s gone foul A lot of factors determine the usable life of […]

Aurecon appoints CSIRO leader to manufacturing practice

Will bring advanced technical capability and strategic thought leadership to Aurecon’s manufacturing business. Global engineering and infrastructure advisory company Aurecon has appointed Dr Ingrid Appelqvist as its new Client Director for Manufacturing. The appointment of Dr Appelqvist, effective September 17, comes as Aurecon grows its manufacturing work in response to Australia’s and New Zealand’s growing importance as a food supplier to Asia. The Australian Trade Commission says that by 2050, 60 per cent of the global demand for food will come from Asia.[1] Dr Appelqvist is a distinguished food scientist with a strong track record as a leader. She joins Aurecon from CSIRO, where she led the Food Structure group at the Agriculture and Food Business Unit – a position that saw her working on healthier foods that retain palatability and nutrition-uptake in the body. Her expertise in food design includes advanced food manufacturing processes and technologies, an expertise she will facilitate for Aurecon’s agri-food clients. Dr Alex Wonhas, Managing Director – Energy, Resources and Manufacturing at Aurecon, said the hiring of Dr Appelqvist will bring advanced technical capability and strategic thought-leadership to Aurecon’s manufacturing business at a time when Australia’s and New Zealand’s agri-business industries are gearing up for growth. “There is growing demand for high-quality and innovative food products from Asian markets. The ANZ agri-food-dairy industry has an opportunity to capture the most lucrative segments of these value-chains,” said Dr Wonhas. “Dr Appelqvist will help our clients implement leading-edge technologies and processes to give them an advantage in these growth markets.” Dr Wonhas said advanced manufacturing techniques – underpinned by new innovative process technologies, sensors, automation and machine learning – could enable higher quality and higher margin products. Aurecon’s food manufacturing practice takes a supply-chain view of the industry and focuses on quality of the product, food safety […]

Sustainable Foods Summit successful in Singapore

The Asia-Pacific edition of the Sustainable Foods Summit drew to a successful close a few weeks ago in Singapore. About 200 executives attended the Asia-Pacific and European (hosted earlier in Amsterdam) editions. Eight of the key outcomes of these two executive summits were. Proteins crisis in Asia In his opening keynote, David Yeung (Founder of Green Common in Hong Kong and the Green Monday movement) said the Asian food industry is facing a sustainability crisis. The growing population and changes in food consumption were putting a strain on protein production systems. Livestock products generate about 15% of all greenhouse gases and take up two-thirds of agricultural land. There are 1.5 billion cows on the planet, generating 5.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide; this is more carbon emissions of the UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Japan and South Korea combined. Pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, especially in Asia. China houses almost half the global pig population, with roughly 723 million pigs reared for meat consumption. Intensive pork production brings environmental and health repercussions. Ben McCarron presented latest research from Asia Research and Engagement, showing that meat & seafood consumption in Asia is projected to rise by 78% between 2018 and 2050. The increase will require an additional 7.1 million km2 land area, 1 billion m3 water per annum, 39,000 tonnes of antibiotics per annum, and generate an additional 5.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum. Potential of clean meat Shir Friedman, Co-Founder of the Israeli company Supermeat, believes the future is with clean meat: cellular meat grown in refineries. She said clean meat overcomes ethical issues concerning rearing and slaughtering animals, whilst providing consumers identical meat products. After commercialisation, her company is looking to license its cultured meat technology to conventional meat […]

Waste canola oil becomes a key to improved fertiliser

A new type of slow-release fertiliser that results in better plant health and less wasted nutrients has been invented at Flinders University by Dr Justin Chalker and his team in the Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology. The fertiliser is released slowly into soils because it is encapsulated in a renewable polymer made from canola oil, which is an abundant food waste product. “We are taking recycled cooking oil, converting it into a fertiliser component, and using it to grow more food,” explains Dr Chalker. “It’s is an important way to contribute to a circular economy.” Dr Chalker and his team have created a polymer from waste canola oil and elemental sulphur (a by-product from the creation of petroleum products) as an organic coating for the fertiliser components ammonium sulphate, calcium hydrogen phosphate and potassium chloride. Nutrients from this slow-release fertiliser are released to the soil after water slowly dissolves and leaches the inorganic components from the polymer-nutrient block. In tests conducted on tomato plants, researchers found the nutrients were released in a controlled fashion, resulting in less wasted fertiliser and better health for the plants growing in this soil. Results from this study (Sulfur Polymer Composites as Controlled-Release Fertiliser, DOI: 10.1039/C8OB02130A) are featured in a special New Talent issue of the journal Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry — which features Dr Chalker among selected leading young researchers from around the world. The polymer, being formed from waste products that are abundant, is cheap to produce, making it an ideal solution for producing superior fertilisers that are a necessary part of meeting global food production demands, especially in areas with poor soil quality. A significant additional benefit of the polymer’s slow release qualities is that it prevents fertiliser runoff, which protects the environment, and greatly improves the efficiency of the fertiliser […]

‘Clean it up or stop it’ – call for action on environmentally damaging intensive winter feeding

The agriculture industry is being challenged to clean up its act and enforce much higher standards for the environmentally damaging practice of intensive winter feeding. There is increasing public concern about the practice after photos and film revealed dairy cattle being kept belly deep in mud and rivers being dirtied by sediment runoff from intensive winter feeding paddocks. Fish & Game Chief Executive Martin Taylor says the agriculture industry needs to take a tougher line. “What is happening at the moment is completely unacceptable. We need greater leadership from the agriculture industry to stop its worst members continuing their hugely damaging practice,” Mr Taylor says. “We welcome Otago Federated Farmers’ criticism of forcing animals into mud-filled paddocks and Dairy NZ’s guidelines to improve the situation, but others must also step up and be counted. “Federated Farmers in Southland needs to say where it stands as it has been actively trying to undermine Dairy NZ’s guidelines and weaken the region’s environmental plan to accommodate intensive winter feeding. “And nationally, Federated Farmers must commit itself to clean up a practice which is hurting the reputation of many of their members who are doing the right thing and looking after the environment.” Martin Taylor says opposition to both feedlots and intensive winter grazing is now widespread from right across the community. “Over the last week, we have seen a huge groundswell of opinion against these practices from environmental groups, Fish & Game, vets and good farmers,” he says. “They all say what is going on at the moment shouldn’t happen. “If winter grazing cannot be done in an environmentally sensitive and sustainable way, then it has to be stopped and an alternative found. “Farming’s bad performers can no longer continue severely damaging our rivers, lakes and streams, taking away Kiwis ability to enjoy […]

Farm survey reveals net income not high

Farmers’ returns are struggling to keep up with the mainly inflation caused cost price squeeze, a new Lincoln University survey has found. In recent times just over a quarter of farms obtained 30 per cent or more of their income from ‘off farm’ to help bolster the books. The farm survey obtained data on contemporary net capital ‘gains’ and returns from 400 farmers. Analysed and reported on in an article* by Lincoln academics Bruce Greig, Peter Nuthall & Kevin Old, it “provides food for thought and debate over the overall profitability of farming, and the consequent future of family farms which have traditionally been the cornerstone of rural society.” Associate Professor Nuthall said off-farm income was “surprisingly high with an average across all farms of nearly 25% of net income. In an increasingly uncertain world, this diversification is sound.” “Annual net cash returns and net capital gains provide farmers with their actual and potential monetary rewards, which respectively on average are not as high as might be imagined.” He said over time farmers need to become more efficient just to cover the cost price squeeze, which is a constant feature of contemporary agriculture and horticulture. “The Consumer Price Index indicates an annual compound change of 5.1 per cent. The survey shows the farm cash surplus is barely holding its own.” He said the best performers in this survey were arable, dairy support and some horticultural operations. The ‘all farms’ averages also showed real net capital gains have been close to zero on average, over the long term. “Given the low level of annual return (2.5% on capital in recent years), and virtually zero net real capital gains, it is clear farmers, and their families, must obtain many side benefits from farm life compensating for the low returns. “Rural living seemingly […]

Michael and Susie Woodward nz food man site

Synlait applauds high performing dairy farmers

Synlait recognised high achievers in their milk supplier network at their annual conference in Christchurch for dairy farmers and partners on Thursday 28 June. Nine accolades were up for grabs at the 2018 Synlait Dairy Honours Awards. “We make a point of celebrating the significant achievements of an increasingly large number of high performing dairy farmers each year,” says John Penno, Synlait’s CEO and Managing Director. “Through our Lead With Pride™ programme, we encourage our dairy farmers to adopt best practice in milk quality, animal health and welfare, social responsibility and environmental sustainability. This results in high performing operations, which were evident in our 2018 finalists.” Michael and Susie Woodward accepting the ANZ 2017-2018 Supreme Lead with Pride Award. “The standard was extremely high and I would like to congratulate each of our winners, particularly Michael and Susie Woodward from Theland Purata Farm Group Ltd – Tapatoru Dairies, who took out the ANZ 2017-2018 Supreme Lead With Pride™ Award as well as the PwC 2017-2018 Excellence in Social Responsibility Award.” 2017-2018 DAIRY HONOURS AwardS Winners Milk Quality Awards This category recognises suppliers who consistently supply excellent quality milk. Zee Tags 2017-2018 Lowest Somatic Cell Count Award, Kyle Weaver of Deebury Pastoral Partnership Vodafone 2017-2018 Most Improved Milk Quality, Johan Joubert, Landcorp Pāmu – Waimakariri Farm IQ 2017-2018 Best Milk Quality (weighted by farm size) Award, Jackson Hann, Mundtville Farms Ltd Tru Test 2017-2018 Best Milk Quality Award, Ruurd and Rachel Lieuwes, Lieuwes Abbott Ltd Lead With Pride™ Awards (judged) This category is judged by an independent third party who focus on the way award finalists care for their animals, the environment in which they farm and for the people they employ. Deosan 2017-2018 Excellence in Animal Health and Welfare Award, Shaun Wilson, Craigmore Farming Balance 2017-2018 Excellence in […]

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