Rolleston among award finalists

Dr William Rolleston at Blue Cliffs Station. Photo: supplied

South Canterbury’s Dr William Rolleston is a finalist for the significant contribution award at the Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) awards to be announced at Christchurch in May.

Vying for the honour are also Waikato consulting agricultural economist Phil Journeaux and AgResearch’s principal scientist at the Ruakura campus Dr Stewart Ledgard.

Dr Rolleston is co-founder of biotech and vaccine company South Pacific Sera which emerged from taking blood from animals at his family’s farm at Blue Cliffs Station to produce blood, serum and protein products.

Among many achievements, he was president of Federated Farmers and the World Farmers Organisation.

The trio are among 24 finalists in eight categories for the awards.

A talented lineup is North Island dominated.

Another exception is Dunedin animal DNA genotyping laboratory GenomNZ which is a finalist in the technology category, while Nelson’s Lone Star Farms is a finalist for the people development award.

GenomNZ works with AgResearch scientists and specialises in deer, sheep, goat, cattle and aquaculture.

B+LNZ chief executive Alan Thomson said the finalists were selected from strong entries after a robust judging process.

"We have been very impressed by the quality of entries across all award categories and while this made judging particularly challenging, it has highlighted the depth of talent and innovation in the red meat sector."

Winners will be announced at an awards dinner at Te Pae conference centre on May 20.

For the first time, they will be part of B+LNZ’s two-and-a-half-day Out the Gate event.

Mr Thomson said the event was aiming to set farmers up to be future-fit with a speaker line looking at new research and exploring what was coming next.