A genetics company which provided defect bull semen to farmers last year has received a warning from the Commerce Commission about its marketing.

The head of Federated Farmers has apologised to Chinese dairy consumers over Fonterra's botulism scare.

"Was the Fonterra milk scandal caused by New Zealand being 'hostage to a blinkered devotion to laissez-faire market ideology'?" asks Bryce Edwards.

"There will be a reckoning, but now is not the time." Federated Farmers breaks its silence on the infant formula contamination scare.

Leaky homes, free market devotion and a 'festering sore' of a tourism campaign - New Zealand is coming under fire in the state-sanctioned Chinese media.

Federated Farmers says news that FrieslandCampina of the Netherlands had taken a 7.5% stake in Canterbury's Synlait Milk could herald a shakeup for the NZ dairy industry.

A new deal between New Zealand and China to promote agricultural cooperation between the two countries is an important step forward with the export destination, says Federated Farmers.

A climate expert believes summers like this one will become the new norm for New Zealand. Droughts have already been declared across much of the North Island.

The drought is working its way down the country, and with with no change predicted until at least mid-March, farmers from Northland to Southland are suffering.

Big dry forces stock selloffs, but Aucklanders can still water gardens, wash cars thanks to Waikato River supplies

Dry weather and the high kiwi dollar are causing "a deepening pessimism" to spread among sheep and beef farmers.

"Million-dollar rain" was how Hawke's Bay Federated Farmers president Bruce Wills described yesterday's downpours which swept the region.

A genetics company's refusal to pay compensation over calves who were born with a mutation could result in a "civil war" between farmers, says Federated Farmers.

The controversial compulsory electronic tagging for all cattle finally goes live this weekend.