Farmers have rejected two remits put forward by Meat Industry Excellence to Beef + Lamb New Zealand's annual meeting.
MIE was seeking to replace the two processor representative positions on the board of B+LNZ with its own directors.
It also wanted B+LNZ to endorse and fund all costs incurred by it to ‘‘continue developing and implementing the savings and positive opportunities'' identified in the Pathways to Long Term Sustainability Report, which it commissioned and was launched in March last year.
The processor representation remit failed, with 76% of voters against and 20% in favour, while the funding remit was lost on a vote of 75% against and 23% in favour.
In 2014, farmers backed a remit from MIE seeking B+LNZ to back MIE's quest for industry reform.
Yesterday, B+LNZ chairman James Parsons said B+LNZ had provided about $297,000 to MIE; $40,000 went towards farmer awareness meetings when MIE first started up, while an additional $20,000 was provided for MIE to develop a business plan and funding application, with clear milestones.
$237,000 was provided towards the Pathways report and communications strategy.
While there were still farmers that wanted B+LNZ to support MIE, most agreed with the board's view that farmers' levy investment should be focused in other areas, Mr Parsons said.
The voter turnout was 15.64% of the 17,027 farmers on the B+LNZ roll and that was largely in line with voter turnouts for an annual meeting where there were no significant or major company transactions to vote on.
He was satisfied those farmers who participated represented the views of the wider farming community.
It was now time for the sheep and beef sector to ‘‘pull together and focus on what we can agree on rather than the things we disagree on'', Mr Parsons said.
‘‘Lamb returns are unsatisfactory and we need to focus collectively on putting things in place that we can agree on and that will future-proof our sector for not only ourselves but also the next generation of farmers,'' he said.
He urged MIE and all farmers ‘‘to respect that democracy has had it say'' and now get behind their elected directors and share ideas constructively with them.
