A small shed used for little else than storing rubbish bins for most of the last 12 years is being recommissioned as preparations are made for the return of the Royal Show to the Hawke's Bay Showground this year.
The six-bay dairy shed, complete with milking plant, is needed during the running of a dairy section, the first held at the Hawke's Bay Show since the Royal Hawke's Bay Show in 2003.
Graham Thomas, who showed cattle at that show and who is the third generation running dairy cattle on the former World War I rehab farm at Te Kura, near Otane, has agreed to run the dairy section in which he hopes there will be 50-75 entries.
Expecting to be showing 8-10 of his own friesians, he is hoping for entries from at least as far as Waikato, where dairy classes remain a feature of the local A and P show which will be held a week after the Royal Show in Hastings, which runs from October 21-23.
The Royal Show, effectively a national championship for the major stock-showing classes, will be held at the Hawke's Bay Showgrounds again in 2016 and 2017 under an agreement between the Hawke's Bay A and P Society and the Royal Agricultural Society.
It is intended a pigs section will also return to the show, which will be the first Royal Show since December 2013 when it was staged at Manfeild by a consortium which collapsed and was unable to continue staging the event.
Dairy sections have disappeared from many shows, although they have still been held at the Wairarapa and Manawatu shows in the pre-Christmas stage of the show season, and Horowhenua and Masterton in January-February.
Some of the cows could be at the showgrounds for several days, and those producing could milk about 25 litres a day each.
Show general manager Brent Linn says it can't be sold and can't be poured "down the drain" but plans are being made for the disposal of the milk. Dairy plant experts had inspected the plant in the shed and have found little work is needed to have it running.