Nufarm Shuts New Zealand Plant
25 April 2014 
Nufarm plans to restructure its Australian and New Zealand operations over the next two years.
In the company’s latest restructuring move, Nufarm Limited announced will close its Otahuhu, Aukland, New Zealand plant and lay off 59 employees. The shutdown is a result of a manufacturing review the company began last month. Operations that this plant previously executed will be moved to Laverton, Victoria in Australia, according to a press release.
The change will generate an extra $3.25 million in savings annually, while the sale of the property will earn $9.3 million, according to the company. Other cost-cutting measures will include eliminating service and administrative jobs and reorganizing management.
Nufarm Managing Director Doug Rathbone said in a press release, “We will maintain a development laboratory in Auckland to support both local and global product innovation and we will retain our North Island warehouse facilities. In addition, we will expand warehouse and logistics support in the South Island to support our growing business in the south. These changes will result in a more efficient regional business that will continue to meet New Zealand-based customer requirements around reliability and flexibility of supply and a high quality product portfolio developed for local New Zealand conditions.”
The change is the latest in a series of facility closings. Nufarm announced in March that two of its sites at Welshpool and Lytton, Australia were slated to be shut down in addition to six more Australian service centers.
The company lists three service centers in New South Wales, one in Queensland, one in South Australia and two in Victoria and Tasmania on its website.
Nufarm was founded in Australia in the 1950s and expanded from herbicide sales into manufacturing, marketing, and selling a diverse suite of crop protection products. Its global presence includes manufacturing operations in 16 countries, marketing operations in more than 25 countries and sales in more than 100 countries.
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