Silver Fern Farms roadshow highlights global demand
The second event in the Silver Fern Farms ‘Pasture to Plate Roadshow’ landed in Feilding last week, headed by chair and King Country farmer, Anna Nelson, and chief executive Dan Boulton.
Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dean Hamilton will leave the company end of the year.
SFF chairman Rob Hewett says search has commenced for a new chief executive.
Hewett says the board is “understandably saddened” by Hamilton’s decision to resign, announced today.
“However, we’ve been discussing for some time the demands on him of working away from home, and appreciate and accept Dean’s desire for change.“
“Dean has achieved an enormous amount in what will be 3 years as chief executive of Silver Fern Farms.”
Under his leadership, the company achieved a recapitalisation through the $260m investment by Shanghai Maling and partnership with the Silver Fern Farms Cooperative: a 2020 business strategy was also developed.
Hewitt says Hamilton has realigned the organisational leadership team “to support that strategy, improved farmer engagement, strengthened organisational culture, rationalised our plant platform, increased investment in health & safety and sustainability, and introduced strong financial and risk management disciplines.”
“Dean will leave the company in its strongest ever financial position, with a clear strategic direction and a very capable leadership team.”
Hamilton says he is really proud of what SFF has achieved.
“We’ve got a really passionate group of people, farmer partners and customers around the world who are committed to the success of Silver Fern Farms. Having worked our way through a challenging period, we’ve now got real momentum in the business,” he says.
“Though I will be sad to leave Silver Fern Farms, I have real confidence that we’ve got the right people and capital resources to execute and win with our long-term plate to pasture strategy.”
Federated Farmers says it is cautiously welcoming signals from the Government that a major shake-up of local government is on its way.
Ashburton cropping and dairy farmer Matthew Paton has been elected to the board of rural services company, Ruralco.
The global agricultural landscape has entered a new phase where geopolitics – not only traditional market forces – will dictate agricultural trade flows, prices, and production decisions.
National Lamb Day is set to return in 2026 with organisers saying the celebrations will be bigger than ever.
Fonterra has dropped its forecast milk price mid-point by 50c as a surge in global milk production is putting downward pressure on commodity prices.
The chance of a $10-plus milk price for this season appears to be depleting.

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