A time of opportunity

This is, he says, based on the ongoing issue of global supply shortages that in turn, will lead to good prices.

Alongside the chains of office at Mystery Creek, Allen is also the managing director of the Agfirst consultancy group, based out of Hamilton.

Originally brought up on a beef and sheep farm near Raetahi in the King Country, Allen studied at Lincoln University, came to the Waikato and got involved in the Young Farmers Organisation, including a couple of nudges at the NZ Young Farmer of the Year Competition.

Around twenty years ago, his YF connections saw him 'doing time' in the Fielddays car parks, then fast forward to around six years ago joined the board and being appointed president in November 2019.

"It was certainly a baptism of fire after being elected president, as by March 2020 we were in the thick of Covid-19 and quickly realised that we probably wouldn't be able to run the June Fieldays event," he told Dairy News.

"With the help of an amazing team, we quickly changed tack, created the Fieldays Online format that, looking back, worked extremely well.

"Indeed, we took what we learned and ran the format parallel with the 2021 physical event. Not surprisingly, Fieldays 2021 saw the biggest event in our Society's history with near 133,000 people heading through the turnstiles.

“We realised at the event, that while people relished the ability to see and touch new technology, it also offered visitors to catch up with commercial contacts and friends and in some cases, just get off the farm for a day,” he says.

For 2022, Fieldays is pushing ahead with plans for another physical offering in June, on the basis that by then the Omicron outbreak will be past its peak and hopefully, we shall be heading towards normality.

“As you can imagine, we have been planning how to deliver the event over the last few weeks, being acutely aware that at under Covid Red regulations, it won’t happen, but at Covid Orange we can go ahead. That means we have to make sure that we have fool-proof logistics to get exhibitors into the event safely.”

Looking at the broader agricultural picture, Allen, wearing his consultancy hat, says there is ongoing pressure of labour shortages, environmental issues and rising input costs.

“Thankfully, the latter is being is being offset by good commodity prices, but many farmers are concerned about where the future is heading.”

He says the problem of attracting new entrants to agriculture and indeed, retaining existing workers, is certainly something that needs to be addressed.

“Over the last decade we have certainly seen rates of pay increase, so that with benefits such as subsidised housing, the gross wage is far in excess of the national average.”

He also suggests that there has also been a marked improvement in the standard of housing alongside reduced working hours driven by better rostering.

“I do believe that farm workers are definitely enjoying a better lifestyle, but we still need to address the misconception in some quarters that farm work is still about cow muck and 4am starts.”

Anxious Farmers

James Allen says the ongoing issues of clean water and emissions are also causing many farmers some anxiety, but in general they believe there must be changes, but are concerned by the accelerated time frames being set out by government.

“On emissions, rural businesses realise that the need to choose between an individual farmbased or producer-levy type system, or they will be forced to join the ETS. I also get the impression that farmers are getting a little frustrated, by the industry bodies they fund appearing to be getting too close to the government departments who are driving the proposed changes.”

Looking at the coming months, Allen suggests that the situation playing out in the Ukrainian conflict will undoubtably lead to increased grain prices, meaning there will likely be a reduction in supplementary feeding in Europe and North America, meaning reduced production and prices staying high.