25 years on - where are they now?
To celebrate 25 years of the Hugh Williams Memorial Scholarship, Ravensdown caught up with past recipients to see where their careers have taken them, and what the future holds for the industry.
Ravensdown is getting ready to roll out a new set of pasture and benchmarking tools designed to enable smarter nutrient decisions by showing planned versus actual nutrient spending over time.
HawkEye will integrate imagery from the air, nutrient input and pasture quality on the ground, and the status of the soil.
The company notes that farmers need help to avoid drowning in a sea of data coming from sensors on irrigators, spreading trucks, soil tests and pasture scanning.
The HawkEye information will offer a farmer insight into the state of a paddock and allow informed decisions.
For example, a map showing soil test results overlaid with the spreading history and the pasture response will enable better nitrogen efficiency. The result might be the use of less nitrogen and better understanding of target time and place of application.
Using an open industry standard such as DataLinker, farmers will be able to export data and mapping elements to GPS or C-Dax devices.
This will allow use of the system to forecast available feed, benchmark pasture production, and map and monitor spreading or spraying.
Also, soil fertility, nitrogen efficiency and environmental performance can be addressed via 24/7 web access and the help of technical experts and field based agri-managers.
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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