Fonterra has posted a 53pc drop in interim net profit as high dairy commodity prices hit the dairy co-op's margins.

While the timing of this is far from ideal given last year's events, this voluntary recall came from Fonterra's own testing, writes Willy Leferink.

Many city-dwellers may still peg rural women as domestic types, but modern farming women are on the land or in the office, running big businesses and driving the exports that are the backbone of NZ's economy.

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.

Maori-controlled, with a Vietnamese connection, one of the country's newest dairy companies does things a little bit differently from the big boys, discovers Jamie Gray.

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.

A battle between farmers and a genetics company over a hairy mutation in calves shows no signs of cooling down.

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.