Support for BLNZ at 85%

In last year's referendum the organisation received 85% support, chairman James Parsons says.

A bunch of factors contributed to that increased level of support, Parsons told the BLNZ annual meeting on March 23.

The farmers' council structure has been "absolutely critical" to driving greater engagement with farmers.

"Our management team have developed a culture under the leadership of Scott Champion where we've become much more responsive – we've engaged with farmers in a much more genuine way," he said. Champion was farewelled at the annual meeting

"We shook off some of that old 'producer board' culture that we'd inherited from the Meat Board and the Wool Board when we merged into Meat and Wool New Zealand and we've become a much fitter and more responsive team."

BLNZ was created by farmers to do the things that farmers didn't want to do themselves: knocking on the doors of Parliament, investing collectively in research, extension activities, market access, market development type work and providing leadership for the sector.

"I'm not suggesting for a second that we're perfect; we've actually got a lot of room for improvement. To be honest, that's what excites us as an organisation: we know we've come a long way but we know we've got so much more potential to deliver greater value for farmers," Parsons said.

BLNZ spends about $5 million annually on research and development. "We then leverage a significant amount through other parties and government to invest in research and development that really fits the needs of sheep and beef farmers."

A constitutional review was committed to last year in the referendum process. It is in need of an overhaul, from a governance structure through to technical amendments, Parsons said.

Parsons told Rural News the last time the annual meeting was in Northland was about 12 years ago.

"The local farmer council was proud of the opportunity to host it up here and Northland often gets forgotten so it was an opportunity to showcase some of the things that are going on. If you are south of Auckland you forget about how much land is north of the [Auckland Harbour] bridge."

Parsons, who has a 478ha hill country farm at Tangowahine, Northland, said one of his directors had never been to Northland.

"I had to explain what kikuyu was," he joked.