FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final returns to Taranaki for Season 58
It’s been a long time coming, but the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final is returning to the Naki for Season 58.
Sam Hodsell, the 2021 Otago-Southland FMG Young Farmer of the Year, says it’s critical to identify and manage workplace risks on their farm – but he and his family are also actively putting tangible measures in place to help protect people if someone does make a mistake.
“For instance, we’ve recently purchased and had big red buoys screwed onto all our irrigation pipes,” says Sam, who 50/50 sharemilks with his partner Jenna for his parents Craig and Gaewyn on the 250 hectare family farm at Taramoa in Southland.
“That was learning from a near miss and we wanted to make sure the pipes were highly visible and they certainly are now. We have also benefited from productivity gains due to saving time looking for lost pipes.”
Sam sourced the buoys from New Zealand CeeMee company, which sells innovative farming safety solutions. The Hodsells are now also looking at installing rollover crush protection on quad bikes.
“My parents have always been very aware about health and safety,” says Sam.
“Growing up, I learned a lot from seeing the measures my dad put in place on farm.
“We have a health and safety plan, training register and incident report. We used online templates provided by farming industry organisations to draw those up and it was pretty straightforward. We sat down as a team and identified our risks and talked about how we could manage, minimise or eliminate them.
“Identifying and managing risk is also ongoing. For instance, one of our critical risks is working with large animals. We provide training for our people, to make sure they have the skills to safely do all aspects of their work. With livestock that includes training people to work in safe ways around animals and also how to read an animal’s behaviour. However, we recognise that it takes a long time to pick that up.”
Fatigue has also been identified as a critical risk on farm and over the past two years, Sam and Jenna have increased their staff numbers to help address that – with resulting benefits.
“Fatigue is one of the biggest risks from my point of view,” says Sam.
“Employing extra staff means more of the workload is shared. We talk with people about how they are feeling, and if they are tired, I will say go home and get some rest. I know if I’m feeling tired or under the weather, I don’t do the best job and there’s a risk of taking shortcuts. I don’t want anyone working if they are feeling like that.”
Phoebe Scherer, a technical manager from the Bay of Plenty, has won the 2025 Young Grower of the Year national title.
The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand (FCANZ) celebrated the best of the best at the 2025 Fencing Industry Awards, providing the opportunity to honour both rising talent and industry stalwarts.
Award-winning boutique cheese company, Cranky Goat Ltd has gone into voluntary liquidation.
As an independent review of the National Pest Management Plan for TB finds the goal of complete eradication by 2055 is still valide, feedback is being sought on how to finish the job.
Beef + Lamb New Zealand has launched an AI-powered digital assistant to help farmers using the B+LNZ Knowledge Hub to create tailored answers and resources for their farming businesses.
A tiny organism from the arid mountains of mainland Greece is facilitating a new way of growing healthier animals on farms across New Zealand.
OPINION: Westland Milk may have won the contract to supply butter to Costco NZ but Open Country Dairy is having…
OPINION: The Gene Technology Bill has divided the farming community with strong arguments on both the pros and cons of…