Best practices for optimal pasture application
Good effluent management on a dairy farm combines a well-designed system with proper processes to ensure the right amount of effluent gets applied to pasture at the right time.
Dairy industry good organisation DairyNZ gets its first woman board chair in October.
Waikato farmer Tracy Brown will take over as chair from Ohaupo farmer Jim van der Poel who will step down at DairyNZ’s annual meeting after seven years in the role.
Also stepping down is deputy chair Jacqueline Rowarth.
Brown, a member of DairyNZ board since 2019, milks 700 cows with her husband Wynn near Matamata. Their farm ‘Tiroroa’ won the Waikato Ballance Farm Environment Supreme Award in 2010. An AWDT ‘Escalator’ Alumni, she was a finalist in 2017 Westpac Women of Influence Awards and won a Sustainable Business Network’s ‘Sustainability Superstar’ award in 2018. Brown is also a trustee of the NZ Dairy Industry Awards.
DairyNZ has a governing board of eight members, five directors elected by farmers and three independents, appointed by the board.
Van der Poel has been chair of DairyNZ since 2017, following his election to the board in 2013. He served as a farmer-elected director on the inaugural board in 2007-2009, then again from 2013. Prior to this, he was appointed to the foundation board of DairyNZ’s predecessor Dexcel in 2000, becoming chair in 2003.
During his third reappointment as chair in October last year, van der Poel said he would remain to support the transition of new chief executive Campbell Parker, the development of DairyNZ’s new strategy, and see through the change of government.
“DairyNZ is in good health and it’s time to pass the baton to the next generation,” van der Poel says.
“I have confidence in the depth of the board, the direction of the new chief executive and strategy, and am happy to be handing over duties to Tracy in an orderly way over the next few months.”
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).
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