Go woke!
OPINION: The Hound reckons the powers at Landcorp (or as they/them like to call themselves, Pāmu) are coming under the microscope with the new government in place.
Former Landcorp chief Chris Kelly says he is humbled at being made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit in the recent Queen's Birthday honours.
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.
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
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