The cost of fruit and vegetables helped bump up food prices by 0.7 per cent during September, Statistics NZ said today.

The company at the centre of a large scale bid to buy 16 NZ dairy farms has commissioned a survey on Kiwi attitudes towards foreign investment.

Contrary to public opinion, there is no queue of foreigners to buy farmland in New Zealand.

Prices slipped 1.3 per cent at Fonterra's latest online auction of milk powder, holding near a four-month high and keeping intact one of the pillars of New Zealand's terms of trade.

Exports were up 15 per cent or $405 million in August from a year earlier to $3.2 billion, led by higher prices for dairy products.

Some British consumers say they won't buy New Zealand lamb because of concerns over the halal method of killing animals.

Fonterra has unveiled its second highest ever farmer payout, at $6.70 per kilo of milksolid, and says profits are up 12pc.

Lower taxes from foreign investors have helped push NZ's current account deficit up.

The ten countries with the greatest economic freedom.

A Chinese bid to buy 20 NZ farms will be rejected or severely restricted after an Overseas Investment Office review, the Herald understands.

At Merrill Lynch in 1998, the ever-cheerful John Key was nicknamed "the smiling assassin" after he fired some 50 members of his team.

The proposal to immediately block the sale of Crafar Farms to foreign interests and urgently review the Overseas Investment Act is myopic and xenophobic.

Fonterra says it has set a new export record, sending 2.1 million tonnes of product to market for the first time in its nine-year history.

Tony Bouchier says his phone has been ringing red hot with support for a campaign to stop NZ farms being sold overseas.