Listen to The Country online: Official Cash Rate with Rabobank senior economist Ben Picton

Ben Picton, Rabobank’s senior economist, was a bit surprised by yesterday’s Official Cash Rate announcement. Photo / 123RF

Today on The Country radio show, host Jamie Mackay catches up with Ben Picton, Rabobank’s senior economist, to take a closer look at yesterday’s Official Cash Rate announcement.

On with the show:

Ben Picton:

Rabobank’s senior economist expresses some surprise with yesterday’s OCR announcement where the Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate by 25 basis points to 5.25%. It is the first cut since March 2020.

Richard McIntyre:

Federated Farmers’ banking spokesman says the broad scope of the banking inquiry announced this week will hit the mark for farmers and rural communities and that farmers have been asking serious questions about the levels of competition, profitability and transparency in rural lending for a long time now; and it looks like they’re about to get answers.

Peter Newbold:

PGG Wrightson’s Real Estate general manager takes his monthly look at the state of the rural market and pays tribute to a long-time servant of the company.

Jo Luxton:

We last chatted to Labour’s agriculture spokeswoman on July 15 but we haven’t heard boo from her since. Does Labour actually have any agriculture policies? Or are they asleep at the wheel?

Cameron Henderson:

DairyNZ director and North Canterbury dairy farmer talks about the ongoing dry in his region, the improving prospects facing the industry and why urgent RMA changes are being welcomed to avoid an avalanche of red tape around regulation around discharges.

Listen below: