Front Page Podcast: Do troubles for Fonterra mean trouble for farmers?

Surveys show farmers are already the most pessimistic they've been in a decade. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Each week The Front Page takes you behind the scenes of the biggest story from the New Zealand Herald and Newstalk ZB. Today it's the worrying financials of Fonterra, and what it means for our farmers. Hosted by Frances Cook.

Fonterra's numbers aren't looking good, with the dairy giant saying it expects a full-year loss of $675 million.

It's the second annual loss in a row, and comes when Federated Farmers surveys already show farmers are the most pessimistic they've been in a decade.

The co-op says it won't pay a dividend for the year to July 31 so that it can pay off debt.

The one silver lining is that it seems farmer will still get paid.

Fonterra says its $6.30-$6.40 per kg milk price for the 2018/19 season will remain in place, as will the current forecast for 2019/20 of $6.25 to $7.25 kg.

But that doesn't mean it's plain sailing, as the lack of dividend will bite, and Fonterra still needs to prove it's correcting course.

For the latest Front Page podcast I talked to Herald business journalist Jamie Gray about where these problems came from, if farmers should worry, and how much blame former CEO Theo Spierings should get.

For the interview, watch the video podcast.

If you have questions about Herald investigations, or want to stay up to date on social media, you can find host Frances Cook on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on the podcast apps, including iHeartRadio here, Apple podcasts here, Spotify here, and Google podcasts here.