A step in the right direction

He says for his committee to plan for next year's field days with any confidence, the Government needs to do two things: "They need to open the borders and keep them open," he told Rural News. "The second thing is that the Government must stop the vaccine mandate."

With the 2022 field days cancelled, Cole says the committee has two plans going forward - one around having a show in 2023 and the other around not having a show.

The call was made to cancel the show around January 23, when the Government put the country under red alert level as the first Omicron cases surfaced.

Cole believes the early call led to potential exhibitors not incurring heavy losses.

"What happened in 2021 was that we cancelled the show late in the piece and exhibitors had already moved machinery and products from south."

Cole says to stage the field days next year, organisers need to restore confidence among its exhibitors.

"Right now, that confidence is not there."

Cole, a retired dairy farmer, has been involved with the organising committee for many years.

He told Rural News that canceling the event this year has disappointed many people in Northland and the decision was quite hard on everyone.

Cole says organising committee members are volunteers, giving up their time to plan and run the three-day event.

"We do this for the community and our goal is to hold an exciting event every year," he adds. "Sadly, we haven't been able to do it this year and a lot of people have been left disappointed."