Farmer groups mete out surprise decisions

By Glenys Christian

Over the gate


Farmers thought there would be blood on the floor at the Wool Board's annual general meeting in Rotorua last week.

But where it was actually spilled was in the New Zealand Dairy Group boardroom further north in Hamilton, with the resignation of chairman Doug Leeder.

Farmers have high expectations of their leaders, and in dairying, in particular, they trust them with their entire economic futures.

Farming is a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week operation, and farmers expect the people they put into the highest positions in their sector to mirror that level of commitment.

The Wool Board directors, frequently under attack over the past few months for low wool prices, have gained credit for their willingness to accept their own demise if the McKinsey business development plan should decide that.

Few farmers believe this report will deliver magic solutions to their industry's ongoing woes, but their fervent hope is that it will at least set them all out on the same path.

In dairying, farmers have difficulty discerning any clear path forward at present. They are anxious about the lack of information on the proposed new mega co-op and the rush with which some of its elements appear to have been cobbled together.

They are concerned, too, that the requirements of the Government and Commerce Commission seem to rank above their own, and that inter-company disputes have not yet been satisfactorily resolved.

As always, they have tended to put their faith in the person rather than the process, which is why acceptance of Mr Leeder's resignation over a personal matter has come as such a blow.

His championing of a single dairy company has been unswerving, whether he was mulling it over at a milkingshed meeting or, more latterly, speaking out in the full glare of television lights.

Woolgrowers look with envy at such leadership. At a farmer meeting last week before the official AGM, tribute was paid to dairying leaders such as the former chairman of the Dairy Board, Sir Dryden Spring.

Graham Calvert, the chairman of the mega co-op establishment board, was referred to by Cliff Heath of Hunterville as greasing the industry's wheels to make sure it was moving in the right direction.

Leadership was lacking in the wool industry compared with the dairy industry, he said, and there was a "lack of ability to cohesively pull the industry together."

Mr Heath is the former president of the Conservative Party, and before that was organiser of the Farmers for Positive Change group, responsible for the demise of the Meat and Wool Boards' electoral committee.

That change in structure allowed direct farmer votes to determine that, for all the criticism, the board's sitting directors were re-elected at the AGM and remits of no-confidence in the board were not carried.

Board chairman Bruce Munro, the man many woolgrowers thought would be the first to go, ended up - probably to his own surprise - thanking farmers for their support.

But in Hamilton, directors that farmers trust to make the right decisions on their behalf were showing Mr Leeder the door.

It remains to be seen whether either group, woolgrowers or dairy farmers, will come to regret these decisions.

* Glenys Christian can be contacted at glenys@farmindex.co.nz