Apr 11, 2025
Executive Committee Report
We’ve just passed the peak of the rut in Hawkes Bay, with hinds in good condition thanks to timely rain all summer. We’re not exactly swimming in grass, but we’re clearly way better off than many areas west and north of us.
Our home block is on the Takapau plains, with dairy farms, vineyards and cropping operations for neighbours. Even here, the wild deer issue won’t go away. We have had several on the boundary in the last fortnight, with one particularly ugly two-year-old specimen somehow squeezing or jumping his way through or over a top up fence and in with the spikers. Despite his free-range diet and open plan living, he is smaller than most of our spikers and sports a pathetic set of antlers. The threat to an antler-based breeding programme is a real one, even here, maybe fifteen kilometres from the state forest park.
The Executive is well aware of the plethora of issues with wild deer. Not only the growing numbers reported pretty much everywhere but also some of the finer details arising from the potential capture or harvest of these feral animals. It represents a reputational and market access risk for the industry if feral animals make it into the venison supply chain, not to mention a slap in the face for farmers who do everything required of them to raise their venison properly. The Executive Committee will be working with DINZ and the government to address this concern as we move forward.
From the political newsroom (the much more boring stuff that we do in the background), we had the Special General Meeting last week, to ratify the changes to the NZDFA constitution that were required under the new rules for Incorporated Societies. This has been a large body of work for us, which meant some subtle tweaks to the constitution, and an online meeting was an awkward but simple way to get that explained and signed off. Some valid issues around NZDFA farmer representation were raised during the discussion and will be dealt with over the next few months.
We are also pleased to see a significant number of farmers putting their names forward for the upcoming industry positions on the SAP, NZDFA Executive and DINZ board. All the positions that deer farmers will vote on, individually or via the SAP, have several quality candidates to consider over the next couple of months. This is a good situation for our small industry and shows the ability and commitment of many of our grassroots farmers and leaders.
That’s the local gossip and politics done for now. The fun bit is the annual deer industry conference in Queenstown this May, with this year’s theme celebrating 50 years of the NZDFA. This promises to be a memorable event, marking the golden anniversary of deer farming in New Zealand. Not quite the scale of past events, when turnouts were huge and driven by the excitement of a brand-new farming industry, but still a great celebration of a maturing pastoral farming system that adds much to the landscape of the country and to the national coffers. We’ll see you there.
Karen Middelberg
NZDFA Executive Committee
