Helping farmers reach N targets
A DairyNZ programme to help farmers in two Canterbury catchments to reduce N loss has proved highly successful.
Overseer Limited has appointed Jill Gower as its new chief executive.
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?’”
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has informed staff it will cut 391 jobs following a consultation period.