Friday, March 29, 2024

First timers taking at shot at dairy industry awards

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This year’s New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards are attracting a large numbers of first-time entrants to the awards, which aims to help people progress their career in the dairy industry.
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National convenor Chris Keeping said an analysis of the 532 entries received in the competitions – including the Sharemilker-Equity Farmer of the Year, Farm Manager of the Year and Dairy Trainee of the Year – showed 338 were entering one of the contests for the first time.

“The sharemilker contest is the country’s longest running dairy farming competition and hundreds, actually more likely thousands, of sharemilkers have participated over the years. So we are rapt that the awards programme has remained relevant and attractive to new entrants each year.”

Keeping said of the 114 entered in the Sharemilker-Equity Farmer contest, 69 had entered for the first time. In the Farm Manager competition there were 94 first-time entrants from a total of 160, and 175 entered in the Dairy Trainee contest were first-timers from the 258 entrants.

She said the awards’ byline “Passion for Progression” had developed its programme to assist people as they progressed through the varying steps in the industry, from farm assistant to farm manager and on to sharemilking and farm ownership.

“We are continually reviewing the awards programme and structure to ensure we embrace the variety of employment arrangements and trends being taken on farms.

“It’s also incredibly important to us that all entrants have a positive experience from entering the competitions. This may be learning some new ideas or skills, making friends or having some fun as at the end of the day all entrants need to have gained some value from the process and we hope they will want to experience that again either in the same competition or another as they progress.”

Entrants are now being invited to information events in their region to learn about the judging process. The events also provide an opportunity for them to meet the other entrants and build relationships with sponsors and organisers.

For more information on the awards programme visit www.dairyindustryawards.co.nz.

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