Listen: Federated Farmers' Andrew Hoggard on Fonterra gag

Fonterra has accused former director Leonie Guiney of a breach of contract and confidence and restrained publisher NZX Rural Limited from using, publishing or disseminating confidential information allegedly received from her.

Andrew Hoggard says Fonterra's move has caused the 'Streisand effect' - where an issue gains more attention through being censored than if it was published in the first place.

The Vice President of Federated Farmers spoke to The Country's Jamie Mackay saying "now everyone in the country's going to want to read it and want to find out about it and it's just created a whole lot of interest."

Hoggard says incidents like this detract from all the good work Fonterra does, "there's so much good PR they're trying to do, but when the top people do something dumb like this it sort of makes all that money spent on the other stuff, down the toilet effectively."

Also in today's interview - Hoggard talks about the spread of Mycoplasma bovis.