Episode Details

• NZ dairy season sets new production record

• BNZ and Pāmu pioneer new model to earn revenue from native forests

• KWKiwi's William Kenna wins Bay of Plenty Young Grower title

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NZ dairy season sets new production record

New Zealand's dairy industry has set a new full-season production record, with two-billion-and-twenty-six-million kilograms of milk solids collected in the 2025/26 season — up four-point-five percent on last season and four-point-one percent above the previous record set in 2020/21.

May collections alone hit one-hundred-and-eight-million-seven-hundred-and-thirty-thousand kilograms of milk solids, a five percent year-on-year increase and a new record for the month.

The record reflects a sector that has shifted back into expansion mode after years of consolidation, driven by stronger global commodity prices, improved farmgate returns and favourable La Niña weather conditions through summer that kept pasture growth strong and reduced supplementary feed requirements.

Looking ahead, the growth trajectory is expected to ease. Rising fuel, fertiliser, feed and freight costs linked to the Strait of Hormuz disruption are already lifting input costs, and a strong El Niño event is anticipated.

June collections are forecast to ease around three-point-three percent year-on-year, with July also slightly lower.

BNZ and Pāmu pioneer new model to earn revenue from native forests

BNZ and state-owned farming enterprise Pāmu have developed a new way for landowners to generate revenue from existing native forests — without needing to plant new trees or wait decades for carbon credits.

Under the model, Pāmu leases a six-hundred hectare native block in northern Hawke's Bay to BNZ, which uses the forest's carbon removals to account for its own emissions. The majority of revenue flows back to Pāmu to fund pest control and additional planting.

Native forests planted before 1990 are excluded from the Emissions Trading Scheme, leaving landowners with no way to monetise their conservation assets. This leasehold approach works outside the ETS while meeting international carbon accounting standards.

Pāmu chief executive Mark Leslie says the approach values the contribution of established native forests today, rather than waiting decades for new plantings to mature. BNZ hopes others will adopt the model.

KWKiwi's William Kenna wins Bay of Plenty Young Grower title

William Kenna, orchard and innovation lead at his family's kiwifruit business KWKiwi near Katikati, has won the Bay of Plenty 2026 Young Grower title and heads to the national competition in Cromwell on August twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth.

Kenna returned to the family business in 2020 after studying marketing and logistics, and now splits his time between orchard work and developing in-house technology tools covering fruit quality forecasting, smarter water use and climate insights.

Runner-up was Aimee Barker-Gilbert from Hume Pack-N-Cool in Katikati, with Patterson Kelly from Trevelyan's Pack and Cool in Te Puke placing third.

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