The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has regional Offices covering New Zealand. Click on your area of the map to find out more about your regional contacts, or go directly through the text hyperlinks. This region has a sub-tropical climate and is bounded to the south by New Zealand's largest city, Auckland.
Northland is New Zealand's third largest dairy producing region.
The climate and soils of the Waikato make it one of the most productive grass growing regions in the world. For this reason, the Waikato is New Zealand's most important dairy region and is the site of the Ruakura Research Centre, internationally known for dairy research. The relatively dry climate of the East Coast of the North Island makes the region an excellent producer of sheep and cattle and grapegrowing, particularly Chardonnay. Much of the country is very steep, however, and prone to erosion . In the central area of the eastern coast of the North Island is Hawke's Bay.