Ploughing Champs success
Sean Leslie and Casey Tilson from Middlemarch, with horses Beau and Dough, took out the Rural News Horse Plough award at the Power Farming NZ Ploughing Championships at Horotiu, near Hamilton, on April 13-14.
Ideal conditions greeted competitors at the 61st National Ploughing championships held near Rongotea in the Manawatu over the weekend.
The weather was fine and sunny and this helped attract good crowds for the two days of competition. There was a good representation from both the North and South Island for the event.
The chairman of World Ploughing, Colin Millar says the local organisers and the owner of the land where the competition was held really stepped up to the mark because it was beautiful site and well prepared land. The event was well run.
"The soil conditions were amazing, the level of the grass and the stubble was exceptional. We told the competitors they could remove as much straw as they like because there was no straw on the site," he says.
One of the events which attracted the crowds was the Rural News sponsored horse ploughing competition which saw six competitors in the race to win the coveted Rural News trophy. Sean Leslie and Kaye Walker from Middlemarch who took out the trophy.
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).
OPINION: The Greens aren’t serious people when it comes to the economy, so let’s not spend too much on their…
OPINION: PM Chris Luxon is getting pinged lately for rolling out the old 'we're still a new government' line when…