Helping farmers reach N targets
A DairyNZ programme to help farmers in two Canterbury catchments to reduce N loss has proved highly successful.
Gower has been Overseer’s interim chief executive since Caroline Read left the position in February 2022 to take up a role at FishServe.
She has also served as the organisation’s manager finance, governance & reporting from July 2021 until February 2022 and their company secretary for two years prior to that.</p
She also spent nine years in various roles at Sport New Zealand.
Overseer has been the subject of controversy in the last year after a Science Advisory Panel report found its signature tool, OverseerFM, was inaccurate.
Gower says she looks forward to consolidating and building the core business, but also taking advantage of emerging opportunities.
“It has been a challenging couple of years, however the light is starting to shine on OverseerFM’s value as a decision tool,” she says.
“That’s a relief to the team because knowing that OverseerFM actually helps farmers and growers respond to the enormous pressures on them personally, on their businesses and on our environment is what gets us out of bed in the morning.”
Gower says many farmers haven’t been shy about telling the organisation that the tool has been foisted upon them.
“We can’t control how the tool is used so the question became ‘what can we do to ensure using OverseerFM is easy to use and worthwhile?’”
