Booming rural economy on display at Fieldays

By Corin Dann of RNZ

The booming rural economy will be on full display when the annual Fieldays agricultural showcase kicks off in Hamilton's Mystery Creek on Wednesday morning.

The event is sold out this year, with over 1100 exhibitors and vendors showcasing farm products ranging from combine harvesters to high-tech drones.

"It's a testament to how strong agri-business is. Agri-business pays the rent and more for New Zealand," said Richard Lindroos, chief executive of Fieldays.

The strong interest comes as the dairy sector, red meat, horticulture, and even the long-struggling wool sector enjoy strong prices this year.

New Zealand's special agricultural trade envoy, Nathan Guy, said it was unusual that all the stars had aligned for the primary sector this year, and the sector was in good shape.

"Let's look back a couple of years in the red meat sector, it was very much the doldrums, farmers, particularly sheep farmers, weren't making any money, now they are paying down debt, reinvesting inside the farm gate, and they are very optimistic about their future," he said.

Federated Farmers meat and wool chair Richard Dawkins said farmers were likely to put any extra money to good use.

"We need to use these good times to not only play a bit of catch-up, reduce short-term debt, you know catch up on deferred maintenance and things. We also need to build resilience into our systems, so the next downturn we [are] able to weather those issues, so I dare say farmers will be spending and investing in their businesses," Dawkins said.

Joining the thousands visiting Fieldays this year are MPs from acoss the political spectrum, with plenty of election-year policy announcements expected.

Lindroos said he was looking forward to hearing what MPs had to say about fixing the infrastructure deficit New Zealand faces, both in urban and rural areas, and how the country could build energy resilience.

"It's election year, so they are all here, they are here so it's great that we have a democracy that New Zealanders can basically have those dialogues with the politicians that they are going to elect later in the year," Lindroos said.

This year's event, which runs for four days, would also be attended by politicians and trade leaders from around the world, including the UK, India, and the EU.

Lindroos said it was an exciting place to visit that highlighted the best of New Zealand.

"It isn't just the tech that we have, and we have innovation areas and hubs ranging right through to forestry, to education, to health, so the rural visitor can get what they want, but also the urbanite coming down to Fieldays can see how it is operating."

This story was first published on rnz.co.nz