Silver Fern Farms roadshow highlights global demand
The second event in the Silver Fern Farms ‘Pasture to Plate Roadshow’ landed in Feilding last week, headed by chair and King Country farmer, Anna Nelson, and chief executive Dan Boulton.
Applications for Silver Fern Farms Cooperative’s first board appointed farmer directors are open.
Meat processor Silver Fern Farms is inviting applications for the newly created board appointed farmer director position.
SFF chairman Rob Hewett says the new role opens up a directorship opportunity on the board which assists in ensuring constructive rejuvenation of its governors.
“With adoption of our new constitution, the cooperative is now seeking applications for the newly established board appointed farmer director,” he says
“The appointed director role will ensure the cooperative has a sound succession plan in place to ensure active farmer elected directors are well equipped and gain governance experience.”
SFF is 50% owned by SFF Cooperative and Chinese company, Shanghai Maling respectively.
The current board is made up of five directors from SFF Co-op and five from Shanghai Maling,
To be eligible for the new board role, candidates must be a current shareholder of the cooperative and have supplied a minimum of 400 stock units to Silver Fern Farms for each of the two years ended 31 December 2017 and 31 December 2018. Eligibility also includes those that have a legal or beneficial interest in a shareholder supplier e.g. a shareholder of a company, partner in a Partnership or a named beneficiary of a Trust.
The successful applicant will be appointed to the Board of the cooperative for a maximum term of three years, following which if they wish to continue, they will need to make themselves available for election. They can choose to seek election prior to the three year term expiring.
Applications close at 5pm, 20th December 2018.
Federated Farmers says almost 2000 farmers have signed a petition launched this month to urge the Government to step in and provide certainty while the badly broken resource consent system is fixed.
Zespri’s counter-seasonal Zespri Global Supply (ZGS) programme is underway with approximately 33 million trays, or 118,800 tonnes, expected this year from orchards throughout France, Italy, Greece, Korea, and Japan.
Animal owners can help protect life-saving antibiotics from resistant bacteria by keeping their animals healthy, says the New Zealand Veterinary Association.
According to analysis by the Meat Industry Association (MIA), New Zealand red meat exports reached $827 million in October, a 27% increase on the same period last year.
The black and white coat of Holstein- Friesian cows is globally recognised as a symbol of dairy farming and a defining trait of domestic cattle. But until recently, scientists didn’t know which genes were responsible for the Holstein’s spots.
According to the New Zealand Dairy Statistics 2024/25 report, New Zealand dairy farmers are achieving more with fewer cows.

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