When Patrick Murray took over his family’s pine seedling nursery in New Zealand, he saw an opportunity to disrupt an entire niche industry. More accuracy, better engineering and smarter machinery would unlock more production per hectare.

Rural contractors will be able to play a role in the revamped agricultural plastic recycling scheme with new regulations due for Cabinet sign-off before this year’s election.

In many parts of rural New Zealand, contracting businesses evolve slowly, shaped as much by people and relationships as by machinery and balance sheets. BT Contracting, based in Mangaroa near Upper Hutt, is one such business. Its story is less about rapid expansion and more about continuity, service and adaptation.

There are moments in every season when frustration spills over into the open and for many in the rural transport and contracting world that moment has clearly arrived. The recent stand-off between industry groups, NZTA and the Ministry of Transport over VDAM settings is not just another policy disagreement, it reflects a growing sense that the machinery of government is drifting away from the practical realities of keeping New Zealand moving.

As herbicide costs climb and resistance pressures increase, many New Zealand growers are revisiting mechanical weed control - not as a step backwards but as a smarter, more flexible way forward. The Lemken Thulit weed harrow is a good example of how modern engineering has reshaped a traditional concept into a precise, crop-friendly tool suited to today’s farming systems.

Väderstad, one of the world’s leading companies in tillage, seeding and planting has recently launched the next generation row unit for the Tempo planter. During the last 15 years, Väderstad Tempo has set the global benchmark for high-speed planting precision. The new row unit takes that legacy even further.

For rural contractors and large-scale pastoral operations, April and May are among the most operationally intensive months of the year.

Kevin Beatty from Molong in Central West New South Wales says smaller livestock and crop producers can get ahead when they have the right mindset and the right gear.

Fertiliser spreading has become a precision job. Section control, variable rate technology and accurate calibration allow nutrients to be placed where they are needed and reduced where they are not, improving input efficiency and helping farmers manage both costs and environmental responsibilities.

Deutz-Fahr New Zealand is proud to introduce the strictly limited 2026 American Signature Series, offering New Zealand operators a unique opportunity to secure premium American-specification AGROTRON Professional Series tractors with market leading purchase terms.

Modern spraying is no longer just about application; it is about accuracy, timing and efficiency. Section control, rate control and drift management technology are helping contractors reduce overlap, minimise waste and ensure crop protection products are applied precisely where they deliver the greatest benefit.

Massey Ferguson has introduced its new MF 9S Series to New Zealand, bringing to the local market a high horse power tractor range that has already earned international recognition for its design, performance and operator comfort.

KP Contracting has never been a business built around noise. In a region like the Manawatū, where farming systems are diverse and the weather can redraw the season in a matter of days, reputation rests on something far more practical than marketing.

Every so often a piece of research appears that does more than add another brick to the wall of agricultural science, it quietly shifts how we think about what is possible. The recent work from the University of Queensland on RNA-based biopesticides looks set to be one of those moments, not because it promises an instant commercial product but because it changes our understanding of how biological crop protection could realistically function in the field.

Based in Mid Canterbury, one of New Zealand’s most productive agricultural regions Allen Custom Drills is an owner-operated business focused on designing and manufacturing air seeder drills built for reliability, accuracy and longevity in real paddock conditions.

The Allen Custom Drills name is well established across New Zealand and has earned a strong reputation among contractors and farmers who need machinery that can cope with challenging soils, tight weather windows and the demands of modern cropping and pasture renewal systems.

Twenty-five years is a long time in agricultural engineering, particularly in the soil engagement space where fashion can often outpace function. Yet the Amazone Catros has not simply survived a quarter of a century. It has steadily evolved, refined and strengthened its place as one of the benchmark compact disc harrows in modern farming systems. Now, with the launch of the Catros+ 12003-2TX at Agritechnica 2025, Amazone has again lifted the bar for high-output shallow cultivation.

There has been a noticeable shift in tone from parts of government over the past year and for rural contractors that change matters, because tone shapes behaviour just as much as regulation does.

There has been a growing gap in recent years between how New Zealand farmers understand their production systems and how those systems are perceived by consumers, both at home and offshore. That gap is not always built on facts. It is often built on headlines, assumptions and overseas production models that bear little resemblance to how sheep and beef farming actually works here. The Making Meat Better initiative exists squarely in that space, not as a marketing slogan but as an attempt to reconnect the story of New Zealand red meat with the realities of how it is produced.