Friday, March 29, 2024

Roadshow highlights challenging year

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Alliance chief executive David Surveyor wants farmers to video themselves at work.  Surveyor is travelling the country at present as part of the Alliance Group’s annual roadshow, which began in Omihi on September 22 and will wind-up in Cromwell on October 20.
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He said the roadshow, which is an opportunity for the co-operative’s farmer shareholders and other farmers to learn about the co-operative to hear first-hand from directors and senior managers, has been well-recieved by farmers.

At its recent stop-off in Taihape Surveyor called on farmers to get their smartphones out and video themselves, their farms and their livestock to help tell the story of the NZ red meat sector to overseas consumers.

He said it is important to get those stories on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to help spread the word about the positive messages behind NZ farming. 

Surveyor told the meeting that the co-op’s bottom line for the latest financial year would be effected by a series of events: the impact of covid-19 on the operation of its processing plants; the donning and doffing court decision, the costs of which are being backdated six years; the Southland floods, in particular the impact on Alliance’s Matura plant; and the effect of covid-19 on its subsidiaries, such as The Lamb Company in North America, which is likely to lose money this year.

Details of the financial implications of those events are still being worked through so Surveyor could not provide the roadshow audience with the level of accuracy he usually would on the co-op’s financial performance during the past year, he is confident the final figure “will be a positive number”.

He said Alliance had not only focused on getting through the challenges of the past year, it had also developed a strategy so that it was capable of “winning on the bounce”, making sure it was ready when the market returned.

That meant despite being conscious of spending, it was continuing to invest in programmes so that it maintained its strength and could act quickly in the future.

Alliance chairman Murray Taggart said it had been a tough year for many of the co-op’s member shareholders.

Dry weather in the North Island and top of the South, with a cold and challenging late spring and summer in Southland, was coupled with “abysmal” wool prices and a major price correction in China just prior to Christmas.

Covid-19 produced its own challenges, both on-farm and in the marketplace, although it came with a silver lining in that as a result of the associated economic shock, there seems to be a greater recognition in Wellington of the importance of farming.

He said farmers should be proud of how everyone associated with the company stepped up during a difficult year.

Nominations have opened to fill two vacancies for the office of Director of Alliance Group Limited.

Russell Drummond and Dawn Sangster are retiring by rotation and both are standing for re-election.

The election result will be announced in Invercargill on December 17 at the annual meeting of shareholders.

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