Dairy farmer takes out Tasman FMG Young Farmer of the Year
A Darfield Young Farmer is one step closer to winning one of New Zealand’s most prestigious farming awards after being crowned the Season 56 Tasman FMG Young Farmer of the Year.
The 55th season of the FMG Young Farmer of the Year contest has been launched this week.
The contest will kick off on 15 October 2022 with the first of 11 district contests.
New Zealand Young Farmers (NZYF) is inviting its members to register and see if they can make it through to the Regional Finals round.
District contests are one-day events organised by NZYF Clubs. The top contestants from each district contest will progress through to the regional finals, where they will compete for a spot in the grant finals.
Seven regional finals will be held between February and April 2023.
The annual contest saw beef farmer Tim Dangen take out the top prize in July this year, adding his name to the long list of champions.
“We’re fantastic farmers, we know it, we just need to continue to tell the positive stories from our industry,” he says.
Dangen is a member of the Auckland City Young Farmers Club and beat his brother-in-law Chris Poole for the title.
“It was a great day, we had a great time and worked through a bunch of different modules, had our farmlet that we kept going back to, and then we closed it out with Agri-Sports at the end which was a highlight for me”.
Dangen says he is keen to inspire young people to ‘get amongst it’ and says the contest’s platform is good advocacy for the primary sector.
“We need to be proud of what we do, we’re world-leading farmers, there are challenges out there, but solutions are available to all these challenges, we just need to make sure we continue to attract the right people towards the sector and we’ll carry on being world leaders like we are,” he says.
The contest will trial a new structure this year in the Northern and Waikato/Bay of Plenty Regions. These will be two-day events, with day one resembling the traditional district contest and day two aligning more closely with a regional final.
The end goal remains the same – to find the regions’ best to represent them as Grand Finalists, says NZYF Chief Executive, Lynda Coppersmith.
“We know that FMG Young Farmer of the Year is a long season normally and it puts a lot of pressure on our member volunteers to deliver a lot of events”.
“We’re trialling this to look at ways that we can still find New Zealand’s best Young Farmer, but in a way that is potentially more streamlined”.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford is claiming “some real success” on the 12 policy priorities it placed before the Coalition Government.
Federated Farmers is throwing its support behind the Fast-track Approvals Bill introduced by the Coalition Government to enable a fast-track decision-making process for infrastructure and development projects.
The latest report from ANZ isn’t good news for sheep farmers: lamb returns are forecast to remain low.
Divine table grapes that herald the start of a brand-new industry in Hawke’s Bay have been coming off vines in Maraekakaho.
In what appears to be a casualty of the downturn in the agricultural sector, a well-known machinery brand is now in the hands of liquidators and owing creditors $6.6 million.
One of New Zealand’s deepest breeder Jersey herds – known for its enduring connection through cattle with the UK’s longest reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II – will host its 75th anniversary celebration sale on-farm on April 22.