increase font size
Jacqueline Rowarth
Dairy farmers are set to vote next month on three candidates for two board seats.
In September, dairy farmer levy payers will receive a vote pack including profiles of the candidates and can vote online or by post. They will have until 12pm Thursday, October 17 to cast their votes. Here are the three candidates:
Jacqueline Rowarth
With a background in agricultural science, Jacqueline Rowarth has sat on the DairyNZ board as a farmer-elected director since 2018.
Rowarth has a Bachelors in Agricultural Science and obtained a PhD in Soil Science from Massey University in 1987.
She went on to become the first chief scientist of the Environmental Protection Authority in 2016 before resigning from the role in 2018.
She is a past president of the New Zealand Agricultural and Horticultural Science, and of the New Zealand Grassland Association.
In 2008, Rowarth was awarded the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Agricultural Science.
Earlier this year, Rowarth was named the board’s deputy chair, a new role created as part of the strategic review of DairyNZ’s governance practices.
In June, it was announced that Rowarth would not stand for re-election. However, in July, she announced she would be running for the board again following calls from farmers, expressing regret that she would not continue with the board.
Richard McIntyre
A Horowhenua dairy farmer for 24 years, Richard McIntyre says he is passionate about farming.
McIntyre started out as a farm assistant, working his way up to becoming a herd-owning sharemilker.
 |
|---|
|
Richard McIntyre |
He also has a calf rearing business and a 180ha drystock farm.
McIntyre has been a part of Federated Farmers for 11 years and is currently a Federated Farmers board member and dairy section chair.
Prior to that, he was the industrygood body’s dairy vice chair between 2020 and 2022 and its sharemilker chair between 2016 and 2020.
He has also served as deputy chair of Fish & Game New Zealand between 2021 and 2022 and has served as chair of the NZ Dairy Industry Awards Trust. He currently still sits on the board of the Fish & Game Wellington council.
Kylie Leonard
Taupo-based dairy farmer Kylie Leonard was elected to the Fonterra Cooperative Council in 2020.
Leonard comes from a long history of farming in and around the Central Plateau.
Initially training as a teacher, in 2011 she and her husband Rick entered into a farm equity partnership with her parents.
Leonard has also served as a director of Vetora Bay of Plenty and is currently a councillor on the Taupo District Council.
 |
|---|
|
Kylie Leonard |
In 2018, she received the Dairy Community Leadership Award from Dairy Women’s Network. The award celebrated unsung heroes of rural communities.
In 2023, she was named a Nuffield Scholar, going on to produce a report named ‘Transitioning agriculture towards sustainability together’, which sought to focus on giving farmers a seat at the table of change in order to steer agriculture towards greater sustainability outcomes.
Canterbury farmer Andy Macfarlane has been appointed to the board of AgriZeroNZ, the public-private partnership designed to accelerate the development and deployment of emissions reduction tools for New Zealand farmers.
OPINION: It's a tough pill to swallow that bird flu (avian influenza) has finally arrived in New Zealand. This is a moment many of us have hoped would never come.
Cameron Reed lives between two worlds.
OPINION: At Fieldays this year, one theme kept surfacing across the sector: global shocks are no longer something that happens “over there”. They are now translating quickly into local, farm-level impacts through increasingly complex and connected channels.
Improving health and safety is about incremental gain rather than a sudden decision, says Leeston farmer and Federated Farmers health and safety spokesman David Birkett.
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has admitted that a scheme bringing workers from Pacific nations to work on orchards has become too hard to navigate but says changes are coming.
A new app designed in New Zealand aims to help sheep, beef and deer farmers capture, analyse and use body condition score data more effectively.
Canterbury farmer Andy Macfarlane has been appointed to the board of AgriZeroNZ, the public-private partnership designed to accelerate the development and deployment of emissions reduction tools for New Zealand farmers.
For over 50 years Mel Ewers has been supporting the apple sector navigate through compliance and quality assurance issues.
The apple sector is enjoying a bumper harvest season.
Growers and farmers are being encouraged to have an important conversation before the coming season starts: how to prolong the effectiveness of the crop protection tools they rely on.
