Kavinda Herath/Stuff
Southland Federated Farmers sharemilker chairperson Jason Herrick is running to get on the national board.
A Southlander has not been on the national board of Federated Farmers since 2011 and farmer Jason Herrick is determined to change that.
Federated Farmers sharemilker chairperson Herrick will be running to get a seat on the rural advocacy group’s top table.
“I’m running because I would like to make a difference, not just at the provincial level but at the national level as well,” he said.
Herrick thought he had the ability to speak about the hard issues and doing what was right, rather than what was easy.
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“The ability to make noise at the right level,” he said.
If elected, the top three priorities on Herrick’s list are employment and immigration, fresh water and winter grazing.
Dairy farmers in Southland have been struggling with staff shortages, especially since the borders closed, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is nationwide, the staff shortages, but Southland, in particular, has a huge issue with staff shortages because we rely heavily on the migrant staff down here,” he said.
Herrick himself has struggled for the past two and a half years with staff shortages. Recently, he was finally able to acquire full staff to run the farm.
He emphasised it was really important to have a voice from the bottom of the South Island speaking on the national board, as Southland was a vast area with a lot of Federated Farmers’ members.
“At the moment Southland seems to have a lot of issues and a lot more going forward than we’re currently seeing in other provinces around New Zealand.
“They don’t understand the full issues that Southlanders are facing in the Water and Land Plan and so on,” he said.
According to Herrick, a lot of people on the board had not understood winter grazing very well and not having that voice for it had been hard for farmers.
“At the moment with winter grazing, a lot of farmers are faced by farming by consent.
“So putting regulations in place as an example where they have to apply for a consent to do everything on the ground, is in my opinion unworkable and unachievable.”
Herrick is also determined to change the perception of farming in the wider community as well.
Farmers in the agricultural sector had been made to look like villains by government departments and media, and he felt that it was deterring young Kiwis from joining the industry, Herrick said.
“Why would they want to join an industry that’s got so much negativity around it?,” he said.
Herrick said he had the backing of all his Southland Federated Farmers executives and most other people he spoke to, he said.
Southlander Don Nicholson was president of the national board in 2011.
