Farming smarter with technology
The National Fieldays is an annual fixture in the farming calendar: it draws in thousands of farmers, contractors, and industry professionals from across the country.
Handypiece is a fully portable shearing handpiece being used by thousands of farmers and ag workers, in diverse roles across the globe.
While the main use is sheep shearing, it is also finding favour with those operators crutching, dagging, cow tail trimming and cattle branding, alongside alpaca and goat shearing, TB testing of deer, grass sampling and plant trimming.
The Handypiece Pro has variable speed ranging from 2400 – 3500rpm. Dagging, crutching and trimming cows’ tails operate well at a mid-speed of 2700rpm, while anyone wanting to get a nice cut while shearing can wind it all the way up to 3500rpm. The brushless motor means the battery lasts even longer and it is possible to crutch up to 300-400 sheep from one battery charge.
The Handypiece kit comes with 12 amp/hr and 6 amp/ hr batteries, battery charger, a belt, holster and pouch all made from heavy-duty leather, 5m extension cord and a carry kit bag.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).