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25 March 2020

To Our Clients,

Today we enter a “New World” in New Zealand and the coming month will force us to consider new ways to work and interact with others. That will bring new challenges on top of an already difficult time with the drought.

While that is the new reality, it does not mean you are alone, and we are keen to help where and when we can. While our team is working from home and we are essentially a virtual organisation right now, we can still work with you via the phone and internet.

We are also getting clarification as to whether some of the services we offer are classified as “essential services” to assist in animal welfare, health and safety, feed budgeting, financial planning,  and most important of all, helping with people’s wellbeing on the farm. If we get confirmation, we MAY be able to visit your farm if it is in extraordinary circumstances and obviously following all protocols around separation and hygiene.  We will let you know what further assistance we can provide once we have clarification from MPI.

In the meantime, we can still work with you over the phone or internet on issues such as:

  • Immediate advice on wage subsidies and leave support from the Governments’ Covid-19 packages
  • Cashflow management, business advice and modelling – for example to assess the impact of changes in your business as a result of Covid-19 regarding wage subsidy qualification etc
  • Drought management
  • Feed budgeting
  • Benchmarking physical and financial performance.
  • Land use planning (land inventory, alternative land use, subsidies for retirement/vegetation options)
  • Resource consents
  • Environmental management (mapping, identifying priorities for environmental compliance, Overseer modelling, Farmax modelling).
  • Health and Safety issues
  • Establishment and management of leases.

In the current “locked-down” environment you may also have the time to think about and get advice on longer-term issues including:

  • Share farming and equity share arrangements
  • Governance and strategic planning
  • Farm succession planning
  • Market value assessments for all Rural and lifestyle property
  • Values for sale and purchase, ownership entity change and family structures.

While our offices are closed, you can still contact either your consultant directly, or call the following

Sheep and Beef - Chris Garland – 027 437 9834

Dairy - Chris Lewis – 027 446 0294

Valuation - Fergus Rutherford – 027 483 6293

General Enquiries – Megan Futter – 027 894 3729

At BakerAg our mission is all about “Inspiring Agriculture.” That is in good times and bad. We encourage you to  pick up the phone or have a Skype or Zoom chat with anyone in our team. Even if it’s to have a moan about the weather.

We are all in this together and we can get through this if we all look out for each other.