B+LNZ quarterly activity update September 2026

The following was emailed to farmers on 28 September 2026

image of B+LNZ branded hat infront of sheep yard

Welcome to this quarter’s snapshot of levy-funded work underway. B+LNZ invests farmer levy money into practical research, tools and programmes that lift productivity, strengthen resilience and support long term profitability across the sheep and beef sector.

B+LNZ has been helping farmers prepare for the range of conditions El Niño can bring, including the potential for dry weather in some regions and wetter conditions in others. This has included workshops, an e-diary story on preparing for summer, and an upcoming webinar, providing practical information to help farmers plan ahead.

Championing farming excellence

Eliminating Facial Eczema Impacts (EFEI)

  • The Sheep Poo Study, is now complete, providing a clearer picture of the spread of FE and how spore levels vary across New Zealand throughout the season. The study has helped identify the fungus responsible, where FE spores are being detected, and when the key periods of FE risk occur. More information about the study can be found here.  
  • FE spores were detected from Northland to Otago in Season 3, with spores still present into July in some regions. 
  • Clinical FE was reported by 25 percent of study participants, highlighting the ongoing impact of the disease on farms. 
  • Farmers who weren’t part of the study can still contribute by reporting whether their livestock had FE this year through this short questionnaire.  
  • The EFEI programme is also exploring new ways to make science easier to understand and apply. Farmers, scientists and a science illustrator recently came together to explore how visual storytelling could bring research findings, including the discovery of Pseudopithomyces toxicarius, the fungus responsible for FE, to life. Insights from the workshop will help shape a new visual resource to support FE awareness and knowledge.

Parasites 

  • B+LNZ has completed a review of the latest science on external parasites, including sheep ked, scrotal mange mite, cattle tick, lice and blowfly. Read the full review here. 
  • The review confirms that current tools such as shearing, dipping and pour-on treatments remain effective, but reinforce the growing concerns around chemical resistance and the potential impact of a changing climate on parasite risk. 
  • An oral lice treatment from the isoxazoline family is now also available, providing another option where wool length or wet weather can make treatment timing difficult. 
  • The review highlights Integrated Pest Management as the way forward, combining nutrition, shearing, targeted chemical use and pasture and grazing management rather than relying on chemicals alone.

DAGI app now live

  • The DAGI (Drench and Grazing Integration) app is now live, giving farmers a clearer picture of worm risk across their farm. The app uses paddock traffic lights to show where worm risk is higher, helping farmers make more strategic grazing and drench decisions to help reduce the risk of drench resistance. 
  • After nine months of beta trials, early users have already changed where they put young stock based on the information, helping avoid drops in growth and reduce drench use. B+LNZ is a funding partner of DAGI, investing in a practical tool that delivers a direct benefit to farmers by helping them make more targeted parasite management decisions.  
  • DAGI is available to download for Android and Apple users. Find out more about DAGI.

Dairy Beef Opportunities programme

  • A new partnership between Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms is creating an opportunity for dairy farmers to add value to their beef calves. 
  • Farmers using selected beef sires can now have calves tagged as “performance beef calves”, identifying them as suitable for the beef-on-dairy value chain. These calves will be sought after by finishers, and cattle processed through the Silver Fern Farms beef-on-dairy programme will qualify for a premium. 
  • B+LNZ’s Beef-on-Dairy Progeny Test has helped inform the selection of these sires, with the latest data and tools used to identify bulls that can produce high-quality dairy-beef calves. The selected sires have high growth rates, while also meeting requirements for calving ease and gestation length. 
  • It’s a good example of B+LNZ research supporting industry collaboration, with Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms helping turn better genetic decisions into a tangible opportunity for dairy farmers. Find out more about the Fonterra and Silver Fern Farms partnership. 
  • The Dairy Beef Opportunities programme is a joint initiative between DairyNZ and B+LNZ, with the Meat Industry Association and Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand also involved.

Resilient Pastures

  • The Resilient Pastures programme has two new resources available for farmers, with a recent Inside Dairy article providing an update on the work underway and a new podcast exploring whether pastures will thrive in the future. 
  • B+LNZ is an industry partner in the programme, supporting research that can create value across dairy-beef farming systems by improving pasture persistence, resilience and feed supply under changing conditions.

Progeny Test adopts new name to better reflect its role

  • B+LNZ’s long-running Dairy Beef Progeny Test has been renamed the Beef-on-Dairy Progeny Test (BoDPT). While the programme remains unchanged, the new name better reflects its purpose and aligns with terminology now widely used across New Zealand and internationally.

Cool Sheep Programme

  • The three-year Cool Sheep® programme is drawing to a close. Supported by the Ministry for Primary Industries through the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF), it has strengthened the genetic evaluation and genomic capability that will continue to benefit sheep farmers across a much wider range of traits than simply low methane genetics. 
  • A key achievement was introducing methane breeding values and an Emissions Index into the New Zealand Genetic Evaluation (NZGE), giving farmers the option to consider methane alongside productivity and profitability when selecting rams.  
  • The programme supported large-scale sire genotyping, helping improve the accuracy of breeding values for important traits such as health, productivity and resilience. It will also make genomic tools more accessible to minority breeds and less-connected flocks.  
  • Cool Sheep also supported the development of nProve Tracker, giving farmers a practical way to track genetic progress in their flocks.

Cool Beef launches

  • The new four-year Cool Beef programme is investigating how beef cattle can use feed more efficiently, with the potential to improve productivity and profitability for farmers. Because methane is a natural by-product of digestion, better feed efficiency could also mean lower methane emissions.  
  • The programme will measure feed intake, feed efficiency, methane emissions and production traits to build the science needed for future breeding tools.  
  • Cool Beef is fully funded by the Ag Emissions Centre, with B+LNZ leading and delivering the research and contributing the expertise needed to turn the results into practical options for farmers. Read more about the programme here.

Extension programme

  • B+LNZ’s extension programme continues to help farmers lift productivity and profitability through practical, farmer-led learning and farm system change. 
  • Regional delivery plans are currently being finalised by B+LNZ’s Extension team, Farmer Councils and Kāhui. These plans will guide extension activities from October and ensure programmes reflect local priorities and opportunities to improve on-farm outcomes. 
  • Focus Groups continue to expand nationwide, with farmers diving deeper into topics that can improve on-farm performance. With new groups starting and others finishing we have around 50 groups at any one time. Recent discussions from our Lamb Survivability Focus Groups highlighted practical tools to improve lamb survival, including pre-lamb ewe nutrition, veterinary lubricant and the use of post-mortems. 
  • B+LNZ’s Hub Farm Programme continues to provide farmers with the opportunity to follow farm system change in real time. Recent results from Western North Island Hub Farm Ohineiti Station include a 15 percent increase in mature ewe scanning and a 10kg carcase weight per hectare lift in production, while Waikato Hub Farm Blueridge Farms is showcasing how a more intensive bull-finishing system can improve both business and environmental outcomes.  
  • Farmers are also engaging in larger extension events, including the CSI Showcase in Timaru (120 attendees) and Farming for Profit events such as Making Every Kilogram Count in Tasman (70 attendees) focused on growing more kilograms of carcase weight out the gate and improving farm profitability. 
  • B+LNZ continues to partner with industry organisations to support innovation and knowledge sharing. A recent B+LNZ-supported field day at Rahiri Farm (led by Bioeconomy Science Institute) brought together farmers, researchers and industry partners to explore practical ways of improving the productivity of underperforming hill country through deferred grazing, drone oversowing and targeted fertiliser application. 
  • We have provided extra support this year for triplet management as many farmers scanned higher than usual, including a workshop in the Manawatu titled ‘Triple the lambs/triple the opportunities’ with more than 50 attending, a podcast which had over 550 downloads, as well as a webinar interviewing BSI experts Dave Stevens and Sue McCord which had over 220 registrations. 
  • Supporting continuous improvement also means connecting New Zealand farmers with global insights. Representatives from B+LNZ, including six Farmer Councillors and two Kāhui members, attended this year’s LambEx conference in Adelaide.

Māori agribusiness

  • Through B+LNZ’s East Coast Recovery initiative, more than 30 organisations partnered to support East Coast farmers and whenua Māori landowners affected by January’s severe weather event, securing around $130,000 in funding and in-kind support. The recovery event attracted close to 300 attendees.  
  • B+LNZ’s Māori agribusiness team is also investing in future farming leaders through initiatives such as Shepherds’ Day workshops. Around 50 young shepherds recently attended a hands-on workshop in Waikato focused on working dogs, nutrition and farm technology.

People and capability

  • To help farmers build and support strong teams, B+LNZ recently refreshed its Employment Hub, bringing together practical tools and resources to support recruitment, onboarding and people management. 
  • Applications are now open for the second year of the B+LNZ Rural Leadership Advancement Scholarship programme, providing six livestock farmers with the opportunity to strengthen their leadership capability and expand their impact on the sector. Applications close 11 October. 
  • B+LNZ’s Generation Next programme is 10 years old. These stories of graduates including Leora Werner and Ben Fahey, highlight how the programme has helped develop the next generation of farming leaders. 
  • On the global stage, New Zealand was represented at the Global Sheep Forum Next Generation programme by Grace Pettit (Tararua) and Carey Pawson-Edwards (South Canterbury). Supported by B+LNZ, the programme brought together young sheep farmers from five countries to build international connections and explore the future of sheep farming. 
  • B+LNZ continues to support cadetships such as Growing Future Farmers (GFF), supporting the programme’s call for farm hosts for future intakes.

Energising the sector

Telling farmer stories

  • B+LNZ launched a media campaign in July to share positive stories about the red meat sector with urban audiences. Running across the New Zealand Herald, Newstalk ZB and social media, the campaign has featured Alliance’s Lorneville plant and a Waikato farm using technology to improve productivity and environmental outcomes. Both stories have reached tens of thousands of readers. 
  • We are continuing to share positive stories about the red meat sector through newspapers and radio around the country.

Celebrating red meat and sport

  • B+LNZ supported the New Zealand Team during the Commonwealth Games as an official supplier to New Zealand House in Glasgow. New Zealand beef and lamb featured on the menu, showcasing our world-leading product and its connection with high-performance sport.

Reaching young students

  • The 2025 Impact Report for Farmer Time for Schools showed the B+LNZ funded programme connected 1,075 students and their 43 teachers with 39 farmers across New Zealand. Farmer Time also featured during an episode of Country Calendar on 9 August.

Insights

  • B+LNZ’s New Season Outlook 2026–27 forecasts another strong year for sheep and beef farmers, although margins are expected to tighten. Farmgate prices are forecast to ease from the exceptional levels of 2025–26, while input costs are expected to rise 4.2 percent. 
  • B+LNZ’s latest Stock Number Survey shows the continued shift towards beef cattle. Beef numbers increased 3.3 percent to an estimated 3.96 million at 30 June 2026, while sheep numbers fell 2.0 percent to 22.78 million. The lamb crop is expected to remain relatively steady.  
  • See these other B+LNZ reports for information about on-farm inflation and the market outlooks: on-farm inflation and Quarterly Markets Update.

Advocacy

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