Field day

You're with Angus Burley and The Country Hour on ABC Radio.

Now the big ag field days do provide an opportunity for people to check out innovation, kick the tyres and potentially negotiate a deal on farm equipment.

And as we discussed yesterday, more than 10,000 people were at day one of the Henty machinery field days.

But with those rising input costs and off the back of a couple of dry years in some areas, are people pulling out the checkbook or leaving it in the ute? Reporter Emily Doak headed along to find out.

Yeah, Chris Rolson from Rand and a primary producer.

Saving my pennies.

That was Matt from Tarkata ending that report from Emily Doke.

There are some great pictures up on the ABC Rural Facebook page, or they'll be going up shortly, from the Henty Machinery Field Days too.

Riley Kennedy from Business Desk.

Rural Broadcaster of the Year, as awarded at the Spades Ale House at Field Days.

That's right.

And hopefully we'll have him on this week because there's actually quite a lot to cover with the milk prices and everything as well.

So they have, like, what's the farm they call it in New Zealand? You know where they shop for the new technology and all the new tractors?

Oh, like Field Days.

Field Days.

Field Days.

So I was watching this YouTube video of the Field Days for rubbish trucks in the States.

Yeah.

And they've got this rubbish truck that has just been fitted with these cameras and they're like AI cameras.

[upbeat music] Going to the Henty Field Days.

A lot of good people there.

See you at the Henty Field Days.

There's nothing like it anywhere.

The Henty Machinery Field Days Podcast.

Jamie and Lee with you this morning.

Now, Henty Machinery Field Day, September 22, 23, 24.

However, you're about to get more excited-

you know at the at the end of winter so she hadn't paid a power bill for like 11 months of living in the house and so that's that's that's where satisfaction comes from seeing that sort of

thing yeah um you exhibited it at field days is that right

yeah

so i'm really interested in what the reception of that was like but also that sort of entrepreneurial spirit and like that's an unexpected play you might be the first architect to have a store field days And I'm really fascinated in why did you choose there and what was the reception like?

Yeah, yeah, that was, yeah, yeah, well,

we thought that, It would suit farmers

You know, you often have a dilapidated cottage that needs to be replaced for the shear milk or whatever.

So we see it not just for affordable housing in the towns and the cities, but it has application on farms as second homes for batches.

But I suppose, can I give you an example of what social licence would look like in New Zealand? Of course.

In that every year there is a one-week festival in winter called Field Days.

You may have them in Australia as well, which is where farmers, farmers industry, everything surrounding farming happens.

and all the people associated with that.

And a lot of politicians gather in this place for a week.

And during that week, all we hear from field days is how important this sector is, the great innovations that they are doing, how they're looking to tackle climate change, say, for example, by putting masks on cows.

I mean, you couldn't really make it up, could you? And so all that week, you hear that in the media, on radio, long-form journalism, online, social media, everything, blanket coverage, and there's no critique of it.

And coming back into New Zealand, I'm quite shocked.

They're now rolling the product out into the U.K., and Ireland, and they're developing the next version of the technology as well.

So I think they launched, Chris was saying, at Field Days a couple of years ago, about 2024.

So the growth has been pretty exponential in the last couple of years.

We'll get the story behind that with Chris Morgan.

So, Chris, I mentioned there at the start, of course, that the company and the product has had a hell of a 12 months, which is really good to hear.

But the uptake of it on New Zealand farms, can you tell us sort of roughly how many units have been installed around the country? How many farms are operating it?

Yeah, so since we launched the product in 2004 at Field Days in the innovation segment, there was some early adapters of technology, early farmers that took on that technology.

And since then, we're now on over 350 farms throughout New Zealand, and we've got 7,800 of these units in operation on a daily basis.

We've been a little bit dry over here in WA and it's been a slight concern for a lot of people.

So late August, September is like field day time over there, isn't it?

Yep, so we do – so there's track the shows, field days, demo days.

Everything comes into one.

There's two major ones and one – the last one is on today and tomorrow at Newdigate.

After Newdigate Field Day, it's just a clean-up out there, but there's no other shows.

A couple of – dealerships and that they'll do a little few demos and and um a couple little stragglers after it but realistically the pressure's off so yeah it's um yeah

to compare what's going on over there at the moment it'd be like a few henty look for the easterners here to understand be like a few henty machinery field days running consecutively over a couple of weeks