Seminar speaker Bios | Wednesday

9.30am  Unpacking the Land for Life Partnership

Rachel Agnew | Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Senior Rural Advisor – Land for Life

Land for Life is driven by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC), with funding from Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), and in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy Aotearoa New Zealand (TNC NZ) to help farmers reduce erosion on their farms and adopt more regenerative, resilient and profitable farming systems.

It provides the tools, expertise and capital needed for farmers to preserve productivity and business performance, whilst meeting environmental and regulatory demands.

Rachel Agnew is a Senior Rural Advisor - Land for Life based at Hawkes Bay Regional Council Napier offices.  Her primary focus being to engage with farmers and landowners interested in understanding the Land for Life programme and acting as a connector and linker to the Land for Life programme and connecting to Hawkes Bay Regional Council’s Catchment Advisors and the wider Catchment Operations team.  Rachel will also work with Catchment Group’s and Collectives who might be interested in how Land for Life can connect into their catchment plans

Rachel will share current state of the Land for Life programme, and in particular next steps since the announcement of MPI funding in December 2024.  This will provide an opportunity for interested farmers and landowners to understand more about the programme.

10.15am  Land Use Change

Conrad Wilkshire | Property Brokers General Manager, Rural
                

11am Genetic Technologies - back to basics      

Dr John Roche | Chief Science Advisor, Ministry for Primary Industries

On Farm Support helps farmers and growers access support, information and advice to meet their business and personal goals. It’s a free service, that takes a region-by-region approach and has established teams across New Zealand including Hawke’s Bay and Tairāwhiti.

The teams have local knowledge, connections and expertise to provide tailored on-the-ground assistance. Last year, On Farm Support joined MPI’s wider effort to assist farmers, growers and their communities in the emergency response to Cyclone Hale and Cyclone Gabrielle. 

Teams have been building relationships in the primary sector, participating in a range of events including the FMG Young Farmer of the Year regional competitions and Ballance Farm Environment Awards. 

On Farm Support services include:
Farm planning support - helping farmers and growers gain access to farm planning support and advice.
Access to existing services - making it easier for farmers and growers to find and apply available advice and guidance.
Funding and support providing farmers and growers with a clear understanding of available funding and support options.
Innovation and tools - helping support innovative farming practices by providing access to tools and resources.
Applying farmer insights - gathering information and insights from farmers and growers in the regions to inform MPI's wider organisation, advice, and operations.

11.45am  Behind the virtual fence​​​​​​​

James Parsons | Northland Hill Country Farmer
James Parsons is based in Northland; he owns a 600 ha hill country sheep and beef property near Dargaville and was the first Halter Base™ beef farmer to deploy collars on his businesses stud beef herd in November 2023.

James has a strong governance background serving on several industry boards over the years. He is also a partner with AgFirst Northland and a 2008 Nuffield Scholar.  Being an early adopter of virtual fencing for beef, James is now specialising in providing advice to farmers considering virtual fencing. 

His property is a very steep hill country farm so was the ideal testing ground for Halter collars in a hill country beef system. 260 cows and replacement heifers are collared with uncollared calves creep grazing ahead of mum. Stud bulls are left uncollared. Pasture utilisation was the big prize James was chasing, which is challenging with conventional methods on steep hill country with big paddocks. Halter has completely changed the game around pasture utilisation on James’s farm.

James will share his businesses journey with using Halter, what management changes were required, return on investment farmers can expect, and how to think differently about water infrastructure and physical fencing when using virtual fencing.

Mathew Barham | Central Hawke's Bay Farmer
2012 Hawke’s Bay Farmers of the Year, Mathew and Gemma Barham farm 1020 hectare Mangatarata Station, a sheep & beef farming operation located in Central Hawkes Bay, where we have farmed since 2006.Innovative systems are crucial to Matthew & Gemma’s business providing up to date data for them and their team. Mangatarata Station has been using Gallagher eShepherd since February 2024 at which time we started with 100 neckbands.  Two weeks after seeing the first 100 neckbands effectiveness we purchased a further 300.  These 400 neckbands were on 8 mobs of bulls (Jersey, Hereford and Angus) grazing either kale or oats, with the addition of hay and balage in feeders over the winter.  eShepherd has revolutionised our wintering system taking the chore of day to day break feeding out of the equation.  We were amazed with the detail and the ability to run mobs alongside each other with none of the normal bull social issues.  Staff learnt the system quickly and were heavily involved with the integration of the neckbands into the system and enjoyed the change around the daily commitment of not having to shift break fences for mobs.  We will winter approx 550 bulls this coming winter with neckbands and have been planning this (planting different crops in certain areas) since the end of last winter.  We are very excited about developing our farming system using this high-tech technology.​​​​​​​

12.30pm  Beef + Lamb NZ led panel discussion
From Research to Reality : Managing Facial Eczema and Parasites on Farm

Caras Brosnahan | Principal Scientist Animal Health Research; Beef + Lamb NZ
Cara is a scientist with a curiosity and passion for animal health. Her career has been focused on investigating causes of disease and finding new tools to identify these. 

Cara is the Principal Scientist, Animal Health Research at Beef + Lamb New Zealand. In her role she identifies needs, manages and designs research on priority animal health areas for sheep and beef farmers. She loves working with farmers and researchers in her role to find solutions that will help farmers in their business. ​​​

Greg Tattersfield | FarmPro and Wormwise facilitator
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Greg is a sheep and beef veterinarian with broad industry experience who is passionate about improving productivity. Throughout his career Greg has been a hands-on vet, a lecturer, published papers, held senior management roles in corporate farming business and supervised farms. An experience facilitator, Greg has facilitated a 3-year Beef and lamb monitor farm project in Hawkes Bay farm discussion groups.

Greg is currently the Beef and Lamb NZ Wormwise facilitator for the Gisborne and Wairoa region. He is also an accredited, elite level Farmax consultant.

3pm Ben Purua  FarmUpNZ
​​​​​​​Sponsored by Rural Support Trust
After growing up in an environment where gangs, substance and sexual abuse and domestic violence was normal, the Ahuwhenua Young Māori Farmer of the Year was on a pathway to being another negative statistic. However Ben found his passion for farming during his time in Waikeria Prison.

He shares his journey on social media at ‘FarmUpNz’ on Facebook and Instagram.Along with his wife Nikki, they promote well-being through their clothing line, Kāmu tō Pāmu. ​​​​​​​

• 2024 Ahuwhenua Young Māori Farmer Award winner 
• Farm Manager at Waimakariri Lands Ltd, Tirau in South Waikato. 
• 2024 NZ Dairy Manager of the Year for the Central Plateau 
• 2024 National NZ Dairy Industry People and Leadership Award. 
• The Food and Fibre Youth Network - He Tatai Rangahua council member

Seminar speaker Bios | Thursday

9.30am Combating Drench Resistance

Trevor Rudman | Parascope

Trevor has 30-plus years of experience in the animal health industry – the last 20 covering anthelmintics. His company Parascope is an independent farm parasitology advisory service that has helped farmers throughout New Zealand to analyse and improve processes on their farms reducing the risk of, and overcoming, drench resistance. Using his depth of knowledge and experience, Trevor can offer specific, practical advice that will improve production and increase profitability. 

Being industry trained has given Trevor a comprehensive knowledge of drench actives and product formulations and a deep understanding of their importance in how actives perform. This expertise, along with a practical, tailored approach to each farm, are key to Parascope’s success. 

Parascope recognises the critical importance of current knowledge and information, after graduating from Massey University, Trevor has successfully completed numerous courses including several NZVA VetScholar courses; he also has a ParaBoss Certificate in Sheep Parasite Management awarded by the University of New England. Trevor is also a member of the New Zealand Society for Parasitology. 

10.15am 

James Powrie  | Hawke’s Bay Forestry Group CE  
and Urban Kākābeak Project Lead

James went to a school career evening in 1984, and 3 weeks later was pruning trees for the NZ Forest Service.  The smell of pine pitch and native bush did the rest.

Work at Carter Holt Harvey, Rayonier, Interpine and HB Regional Council, followed land science and forestry science degrees.  He now operates RedAxe Forestry Intelligence and supports the HB Forestry Group and others with Forest related project management.

James thinks he made an ideal career choice and enjoys supporting others to choose a life in the forest and making the forest industry a better thing.

James spearheaded Hawke’s Bay’s woody debris survey post Cyclone Gabrielle which was conducted by Interpine Innovation.

James’ far reaching involvement in conservation and growing make him a fascinating presenter.

11am Wild about Wool Panel Discussion

John McWhirter | CEO of Wools of New Zealand
John brings over 30 years’ experience in CEO and GM roles at some of New Zealand’s largest companies, with expertise across manufacturing and logistics, sales and marketing, both locally and internationally.  Throughout his career he has identified and developed market opportunities that have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

John is currently CEO of Wools of New Zealand, having joined after selling the Hellers NZ business, where he was CEO for a decade.  Under his leadership, Hellers grew to become a successful New Zealand business that grew revenue to a quarter of a billion dollars in just 20 years through product development, marketing and global expansion.  Prior to Hellers, John held various leadership positions in General Management, Operations and Sales and Marketing with PGW, George Western Foods, Tegel and Mars.

Growing up in South Canterbury, John was exposed to the sheep, beef, and diary sectors from an early age and has retained a strong connection with rural New Zealand.  This connection, along with a passion to see the wool industry once again become successful, motivated his move to Wools of New Zealand several years ago.  He believes that market development is key to the sector’s success.

John holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Canterbury and is a member of the Institute of Directors.  He is married with two daughters and now has two grandsons.

Tom O'Sullivan | Business Development Manager​​​​​​​; Floc

Tom O’Sullivan has had a strong connection to New Zealand agriculture, particularly meat and fibre.

Raised on a sheep and beef farm in Hinds, Mid Canterbury, Tom spent his youth working on the family farm. Following high school at St Bede’s College in Christchurch, Tom attended Lincoln University where he completed a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

Post university, Tom has had 30-year career in agri-business management, manufacturing and marketing in New Zealand. 

In 2009, Tom took the opportunity to run a family farming business, Pukenui Station, in southwestern Hawke’s Bay. This gave Tom a hands-on appreciation of the challenges running a 11,000 stock unit sheep, cattle and deer property. 

During this period, due to decreasing returns for wool, Tom got actively involved in the struggling NZ wool industry. He joining as a trustee of the Campaign for Wool NZ and proceeded to Chair the entity for 3 years. 

His role with the Campaign allowed him to build a wide network in the NZ wool industry, including connecting with Wellington based T&R Interior Systems Ltd.

Tom joined the T&R business in early 2024 as Business Development Manager for the innovative new wool acoustic panels ‘FLOC’. Tom combines his commercial experience, with a passion for farming, to educate the world of the benefits of this exciting new range of acoustic products made 100% from NZ strong wool. 

Kate Cullwick | Foxtrot Home

​​​​​​​

Dan Norman | National Buyer, Big Save Furniture 

11.45am Wahine te Pamu

​​​​​​​The panel discussion will give an insight into the opportunities and successes the primary industries offer women.​​​​​​​

Nancy Crawshaw | Current Zanda award winner 

Alice Anderson | HBRC Catchment Lead 

Alice has been heavily involved with New Zealand Young Farmers, ranging from the Chairman of Tikokino YF Club (2020-2024) to holding a number of roles for the East Coast Region including (Secretary, Chairman/National Committee representative and currently Vice Chairman). 

She also owns Anowai Dorset Downs a sheep stud here in Hawke's Bay, where she competes at A & P shows in the North Island and breed rams for sale every year. She still enjoys lending a hand on her parents property which runs a variety of different stock classes from breeding hinds, cattle and sheep, while also working full time for the Regional Council in their Catchment Management Team, working specifically with farmers looking at highly erodible land.

Ariana Hadfield | Rabobank Agribusiness Manager 

Mauri ora tatou! Ko Ariana ahau. He uri tenei no Ngati Awa me Ngai te Rangi.

Ariana grew up in the Ruakituri Valley, Wairoa and in 2018 she completed her bachelor’s degree in Agri-commerce majoring in Māori Agribusiness. She is currently a Agribusiness Manager with Rabo bank.
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Mickey Trotter | Sheep & beef farmer and agritourism 

2.30pm

Hon Andrew Hoggard
Minister for Biosecurity, Minister for Food Safety, 
Associate Minister of Agriculture (Animal Welfare, Skills), 
Associate Minister for the Environment

Hon Mark Patterson
​​​​​​​Minister for Rural Communities 
Associate Minister of Agriculture
Associate Minister for Regional Development