Dairy Awards Entries Close in One Week

Dairy Awards Entries Close in One Week

The New Zealand Dairy Trainee of the Year competition is again attracting strong interest with more than 200 entered so far in the popular nationwide contest.

All entries in the 2015 New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards – including the dairy trainee, New Zealand Sharemilker/Equity Farmer of the Year and New Zealand Farm Manager of the Year competitions – close at midnight on Sunday, November 30.

Entries are being accepted online at www.dairyindustryawards.co.nz.

National convenor Chris Keeping says the trainee competition, with 208 entries to date, has become a great avenue for young dairy farmers to prove their ability and promote their farming skills to prospective employers.

“Without a doubt by entering and participating in the dairy trainee competition, these young people are developing the skills, profile and networks they need to move up in the dairy industry. They know it can help them get promoted to higher paying jobs and introduce them to people that can influence their dairy farming career.”

Mrs Keeping says the farm manager competition currently has 123 entrants, and the highly respected and well known sharemilker/equity farmer contest has 71 entries.

“We always struggle to get entries in early in the sharemilker competition. We’ve got a week to go and our regional committees will be working hard to encourage people to put themselves forward and grab some of the opportunities that will come their way by entering,” she says.

“It is fair to say that we have been working harder and harder to get entries in the contest in the past few years. There could be a number of reasons for this and so as an organisation we will obviously have to assess what those reasons are and how they can best be overcome.”

The Awards are supported by national sponsors Westpac, DairyNZ, Ecolab, Federated Farmers, Fonterra, Honda Motorcycles NZ, LIC, Meridian Energy, New Zealand Farm Source, Ravensdown, and Triplejump, along with industry partner Primary ITO.

Mrs Keeping says a total of 572 entries were received in the 2014 awards, including 292 in the trainee competition, 165 in the farm manager and 115 entries in the sharemilker/equity farmer of the year.

“There is traditionally a late surge of entries.”

Visit www.dairyindustryawards.co.nz for more information.

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