Closer liaison for farmers with Feds

Lloyd Davy, the new Federated Farmers field officer for the area from Hawke's Bay to Rotorua, including Gisborne and Taupo. He is based in Hastings. Photo / Duncan Brown

Hawke's Bay farmers looking for a closer link to their national union and lobby group will be pleased with the arrival of a new field officer based in Hastings.

Lloyd Davy, appointed Federated Farmers field officer for the area from Hawke's Bay to Rotorua, including Gisborne and Taupo, arrives in the Bay at a time of increased membership of the organisation in the region.

There was an increase of more than 20 members over the last year, provincial president Will Foley reported at Federated Farmer's HB's annual meeting earlier this month -- a coincidental increase, Mr Davy notes, and not one for which he could claim the credit.

The position puts him at the forefront of day-to-day contact with members of what wears the apparently undisputed mantle of largest lobby group in the country.

Federated Farmers exists, buy its own description, to "maintain a strong, progressive, profitable and sustainable farming industry through advocacy, organisation and collaboration."

It represents 28,000 farmers and their families, with a reach to about 65 per cent of all pastoral farmers, through 24 provincial bases and the seven industry groups of the sectors of primary industry.

Mr Davy, however, comes from a media background rather than a farming background, although he has worked for the Feds' own publication, the National Farming Review.