Farmers' call
OPINION: Fonterra's $4.22 billion consumer business sale to Lactalis is ruffling a few feathers outside the dairy industry.
New Fonterra director Peter McBride says he is overwhelmed with the response in the election.
“I want farmers to know I will do my very best and I will work hard for them,” he told Dairy News.
“It was a good result. I was quite surprised at the outcome with only two people making it through but I guess that is the system.”
He says going into the election he was concerned the farmers may “just see me as a kiwifruit guy”.
“But I think when they got to meet me in person and heard what I had to say then they understood I had something to offer”.
He says his first priority on the board will be to listen. “When you go onto boards you have got to be really careful just to take your time,” he says.
“My main plan is to try and get my head around the business. It is a very large complex business so my aim is to just to spend time with the senior executive and get as much insight into the business as I possibly can. And just contribute wherever I can.
“In the first six months you have got to do a lot of listening, not a lot of talking.”
McBride will step down as chairman of Zespri in February and retire as a Zespri director at the annual general meeting in July next year.
Asked if he would be ready for the Fonterra chairmanship if the directors wanted him to, he said it was too premature to even talk about it.
Academic Dr Mike Joy and his employer, Victoria University of Wellington have apologised for his comments suggesting that dairy industry CEOs should be hanged for contributing towards nitrate poisoning of waterways.
Environment Southland's catchment improvement funding is once again available for innovative landowners in need of a boost to get their project going.
The team meeting at the Culverden Hotel was relaxed and open, despite being in the middle of calving when stress levels are at peak levels, especially in bitterly cold and wet conditions like today.
A comment by outspoken academic Dr Mike Joy suggesting that dairy industry leaders should be hanged for nitrate contamination of drinking/groundwater has enraged farmers.
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