Gong for agribusiness stalwart

Kelly says he could not have achieved what he did without the help of others. He says it's good to see agriculture being recognised.

Kelly has spent his whole working life in the agriculture sector.

His father was a vet and he followed in his footsteps, graduating from Massey University in 1969. He was a vet in Bay of Plenty then a lecturer at Melbourne University before returning to Massey to study for a masters degree in veterinary science.

In the 1990s he joined the NZ Dairy Board as general manager strategy and strategic planning. There he helped form Fonterra, Dexcel and Dairy Insight. But when Fonterra moved to Auckland he stayed in Wellington and soon became Landcorp's chief executive.

"In those days the Dairy Board controlled all NZ's exports of dairy products. We developed techniques to work out the profitability of those products and shipped them to various parts of the world; it was a very exciting time," Kelly told Rural News.

"Even then I remember we were beset by low payouts and high payouts, but I think the extremes of volatility we are seeing in the dairy industry today are greater than we saw in those days."

Kelly believes the dairy sector has as a whole taken on too much debt and become too reliant on supplements such as PKE. Many farmers no longer see or practise the advantages of all-grass farming, he says.

"The reliance on supplements is fine in years of high payout, but it becomes a major challenge when the payout is low," he says.

While Kelly has retired from Landcorp, he is still very involved in the sector. He is chancellor of Massey University, chair of Beef + Lamb NZ Genetics and has many other roles in ag science.