The dairy industry leader Jim van der Poel has been named the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Primary Industries Award, the highest honour at the Primary Industries New Zealand Awards in Auckland.
More than 500 people packed the Cordis hotel for the awards dinner, the sell-out finale to the two-day Primary Industries New Zealand Summit run jointly by Federated Farmers and the events company Brightstar. The summit brought farmers, growers, scientists and agribusiness leaders together to talk about where the sector goes next in an election year, and the awards capped it by handing out ten honours across communication, leadership, innovation, conservation and product excellence.
Van der Poel drew a standing ovation when his name was read out. Judges called him an absolute titan of the New Zealand dairy industry, pointing to more than four decades of service. He was instrumental in the merger that created Fonterra in 2001, and he chaired the DairyNZ board from 2017 to 2024, a stretch that took in volatile milk prices, tighter environmental rules and the long fight to stamp out the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis. Few people have shaped the way the country milks cows and sells the result more than he has.
It was a strong night for women leading rural organisations. Kate Acland, the chair of Beef and Lamb New Zealand, was named Rural Woman of the Year, with judges crediting her inspirational leadership and the work she has done to shift the culture inside a sector that has had a hard few seasons. The Emerging Leader Award went to Danielle Hovmand, recognising the next generation already stepping up.
The broadcaster Jamie Mackay won Agricultural Communicator of the Year. Mackay founded and still hosts The Country, the rural radio show he has fronted for more than 30 years, building it from a regional programme into a national fixture that thousands of farmers listen to over lunch. The Excellence in Agricultural Journalism Rongo Award went to Alexa Cook, and the Champion Award went to Neil Bateup, a long-serving figure in rural firefighting and community support.
The innovation prizes pointed to the practical problems the sector is wrestling with. The Technology and Innovation Project Award went to Prism Earth, a company that has built a system to help New Zealand exporters prove their products are not linked to deforestation. That matters because the European Union is phasing in rules that will block goods unless suppliers can show exactly where the raw material came from, and the work is aimed squarely at protecting access to a market worth hundreds of millions of dollars to New Zealand growers and farmers.
The Food, Beverage and Fibre Product Award went to T and G Global for its ENVY apple, a premium variety that has become one of the country’s most successful horticultural exports and one of the higher earners per hectare for the orchardists who grow it. The Team and Collaboration Award went to Sow the Seed, a project run through the Horticulture and Agriculture Teachers Association that works to get more young people interested in careers on the land and in the packhouse.
The Guardianship and Conservation Award, also known as the Kaitiakitanga Award, went to Parininihi ki Waitotara, a Taranaki-based Maori agribusiness that has spent decades building environmental care into the way it farms its land. Kaitiakitanga is the Maori idea of guardianship, the duty to look after land and water so it can be passed on in good shape, and the judges singled out the measurable results the organisation has put behind the principle.
The awards landed at an awkward moment for the wider economy. The same week, the Westpac McDermott Miller Employment Confidence Index fell to its lowest level since the survey began in 2004, with a net 60 percent of people saying jobs are hard to find. A fuel supply shock has knocked the broader recovery off course, and the dollar has been sliding. Against that backdrop, the primary sector remains the part of the economy still pulling its weight, with dairy, meat and horticulture exports holding up and earning the foreign income the country runs on.
That is part of why the evening mattered beyond the trophies. The people in the room produce the milk powder, lamb, apples and kiwifruit that sit behind a large share of New Zealand’s export earnings, and the sector has spent years copping criticism over emissions, water quality and animal welfare. A night that celebrated the scientists building deforestation tools, the teachers pulling teenagers into the industry and the iwi farming with conservation built in was a reminder that the response to those pressures is already coming from inside the gate.
For van der Poel, the recognition arrived after a career that has touched almost every big change in the dairy industry since the 1980s. He is still farming, still on boards, and still arguing the sector’s case in Wellington. The standing ovation suggested the room agreed the honour was overdue.
Were you at the summit, or do you work in the primary sector yourself? Tell us who you think deserved a trophy, and share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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