Former Silver Fern Farms chief executive Keith Cooper is seeking a position on the board of fertiliser company Ballance Agri Nutrients.
It is shaping up to be an interesting election, with Mr Cooper standing against incumbent director Murray Taggart, who is also chairman of Alliance Group. Temuka farmer Nick Ward is also standing.
Mr Cooper resigned from Silver Fern Farms in October last year after seven years in the position. He lives in Dunedin and also owns a 272ha irrigated intensive beef, lamb finishing and dairy support property at Middlemarch.
He is deputy chairman of the Otago Rugby Football Union and a Dunedin City Council companies director.
In his candidate profile, Mr Cooper said innovation and ''ongoing challenge to the norm'' was key to the company's future success.
Part of that process should include board refreshment to ensure ''fresh and vibrant thinking'' was brought to the table.
''New and diverse views are healthy to stimulating productive debate in a collegial manner,'' he said.
Mr Taggart, who farms a 666ha irrigated sheep, beef and cropping property near Oxford, was first elected to the Ballance board in 2009. Strong governance was essential to meet the challenges ahead, he said.
Having served two terms on the board, he had a good understanding of the challenges the co operative faced and offered governance and commercial experience and sound commercial acumen.
Mr Ward and his wife Michelle farm an intensive cropping farm near Temuka, along with livestock finishing.
In 2009, the couple were the Canterbury supreme winners of the Ballance farm environment awards.
Soil management and environmental challenges were key issues for agriculture over the next decade, Mr Ward said. Ballance needed to take its leadership ''to a new level'' around agri nutrient management, data collection and further implementation of Ag Hub.