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Hundreds of WOMOlife shearers earn their blades
News FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – August 15, 2022 15 Hundreds of WOMOlife shearers earn their blades
MORE than 300 young people successfully completed WOMOlife’s innovative training courses in shearing and wool handling last year, a step towards developing a sustainable career.
WOMOlife – which stands for work wise, move – was set up for the wool-harvesting industry by Agricademy to provide both practical and life skills for trainees to succeed in the first years of employment.
The pilot project, which attracted 311 trainees, 70% of whom were Māori, was funded by the Provincial Growth Fund through Kaiaka and the New Zealand Shearing Contractors Association, (NZSCA).
The training targets the “digital” generation and the way they learn. It features online courses including videos for trainees to learn from the best, anytime and anywhere; face to face onfarm training courses; and wellbeing modules – MoveWise, EatWise, and MoneyWise.
Logan, a shearer who took part in one of WOMOlife’s upskilling courses, said he found it really valuable. Not only his technical skills improved, he said.
“It’s really important to be involved in things like movement, your money, and nutrition too. A course like this – it’s fantastic.”
NZSCA president Mark Barrowcliffe said since the demise of the Wool Board and levy, training has struggled nationally but the WOMOlife model is what the industry needs. “We’re offering more than just the shearing or the wool-handling training, it’s the whole picture of your body and your mind. We’re training you to be a rural athlete.”
WOMOlife’s manager and shearing contractor Luke Mullins said with the right training, a career in shearing and wool handling is really rewarding. “We’re working really hard to develop more pathways for the next generation into the industry.”
Trainer Mouse O’Neill fully backs the WOMOlife approach: “The improvement we see in our trainees is outstanding from start to finish.”
Founder and managing director Alister Shennan developed Agricademy in 2018 to provide a training model that was very different to the existing offerings, without having to go into a classroom setting.
After working in a senior role at the Primary ITO, Shennan could see industry was not getting the training it wanted or giving trainees the skills they needed to do well.
“There needed to be a complete rethink of training in agriculture,” he said.
“I am passionate about Agricademy’s model, where youth can upskill quickly and have early successes which equips them with confidence to do the job well.”
With WOMOlife courses set to continue in the wool-harvesting industry, Agricademy is expanding its training model into the dairy sector with Get Milking. This will combine online courses, practical onfarm learning, and health and wellbeing modules. Agricademy’s training model offers a step up or into the agriculture sector, providing trainees with the practical and life skills to succeed in the first stages of employment, and to go on to have the opportunity of a well-paid career.
“Agricademy’s approach offers the rural sector training that attracts and retains workers with the skills they need, at a time where there are many thousands of jobs on offer on New Zealand farms,” said Shennan.
We’re offering more than just the shearing or the woolhandling training, it’s the whole picture ... we’re training you to be a rural athlete.
WAY IN: Manager and shearing contractor Luke Mullins says WOMOlife is ‘working really hard to develop more pathways for the next generation into the industry’.
the tractor’s insured for more than they are.
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EXPERIENCED: First elected in 2020, Sarah von Dadelszen from Central Hawke’s Bay is seeking re-election as a director of insurance co-operative FMG.
Six contenders for seats on FMG board
Hugh Stringleman hugh.stringleman@globalhq.co.nz
SIX candidates are contesting two member directorships of rural insurance co-operative FMG in the lead-up to its annual general meeting in Napier and online on Friday, August 26.
Sitting director Sarah von Dadelszen is standing for re-election in one of the seats.
The second vacancy is a result of Tatua Cooperative chair Steve Allen standing down from FMG after five years.
First elected in 2020, Von Dadelszen is also on the Ballance board and that of Centralines, and was formerly on AGMARDT, CHB Consumer Power Trust, the NZ Beef Council, NZ Young Farmers and the Fonterra Shareholders’ Council.
The five new candidates, listed alphabetically, are Gray Baldwin, Conor English, Simon Hopcroft, Paula Kearns and Kylie Leonard.
Baldwin is a dairy and cropping farmer in South Waikato, presently a director of LIC, Farmlands and Trinity Lands and a former director of Ballance. His governance experience in farming co-operatives goes back to 2009.
English is the former chief executive of Federated Farmers, an independent adviser to the Reserve Bank, executive chair of Fiber Fresh farming enterprise and a director of private and listed companies and a state-owned enterprise.
Hopcroft is a multi-farm dairy owner in Southland, former Young Farmer of the Year and former Fonterra co-operative councillor. He has a BCom (Ag) from Lincoln University and has undertaken courses on co-operative governance run by Fonterra and Farmlands.
Kearns is a chartered accountant and Northland avocado grower, a director of Landcorp Farming and the Mt Wellington Trust Hotels, and a trustee and chair of the Northland Events Centre and of Mahitahi Hauora, a Northland primary health entity.
Leonard is a dairy farmer from Central Plateau, a member of the Fonterra Co-operative Council, director of Vetora, councillor of Taupō Council and a trustee of Hillary Outdoors. She too has been through the Fonterra and Farmlands governance programmes.
The FMG board provides guidance to members of the co-operative, after advice from an external consultant, to deem which candidates are “most suitable” for the role of director.
The overriding criteria come from insurance industry legislation and the Reserve Bank, and include “governance experience with a mediumlarge size commercial organisation or equivalent board, or has held a senior leadership role in a commercial environment”.
Other criteria include an understanding of and belief in the principles of mutuality, the core purpose, vision and values of FMG and connectedness to the rural sector.
Von Dadelszen, Hopcroft and Kearns were assessed most suitable.
Candidates will speak at the AGM and voting closes afterwards.
Other resolutions include setting remuneration for the board chair and directors and the ratification of the special director re-appointment of Sinead Horgan, a chartered accountant.
The FMG board provides guidance on which candidates are “most suitable” for the role of director.
Breaking news?
GETTING AROUND: UBCO work bikes, a familiar sight on New Zealand farms, are being joined by a stable of lightweight electric adventure vehicles as the company eyes a listing.
UBCO seeks more money to accelerate
Hugh Stringleman hugh.stringleman@globalhq.co.nz
UBCO electric bikes has begun to raise another US$15 million (about $23.8m) of capital from wholesale investors by way of a convertible note bridging round.
The bridging round is ahead of a possible initial public offering the Tauranga-based unlisted company is considering for 12-18 months’ time. If it comes to pass, convertible notes will earn interest and then convert into fully paid shares.
There have been previous capital raisings and the current share registry is diverse and multinational.
UBCO has grand plans for development in lightweight electric adventure vehicles, to extend its current 2X2 adventure and work bikes, many of them used on New Zealand farms.
In the information memorandum, financial projections include $8m of sales revenue achieved this financial year, quadrupling to $32m in FY23 and leaping to $150m in FY24.
In terms of annual sales units the progression is 1100, rising to 4000, and then to 17,500.
The company now has 100 staff members, half in Tauranga and half overseas in the United States, Australia and Europe.
It is selling the fifth generation of the 2X2 with a 20% better motor efficiency, optional solar chargeable power supply and strengthened frame.
Since the company launch in 2015 sales have exceeded 3000 units.
The second vehicle for UBCO will be a Sage (FRX1) trail bike followed by a four-wheel vehicle.
It is also developing an intelligent platform for the motor controllers, for authenticating users, data collection, battery health and charge, service diagnostics and fleet management, accessible from a mobile app for the bike owners.
Since the previous capital raising of $10m, in 2021, UBCO has entered a strategic partnership with TPK Holdings of Taiwan, an electric component manufacturing company.
The TPK connection will enable UBCO to scale up from batch manufacturing to rolling production of hundreds or thousands of units.
It has an order for 1500 bikes from Tucker Powersports in the US to be delivered by March next year.
More than 20 dealers have been signed in the US and UBCO intends to grow that type of outlet ten-fold.
In the US the base prices for UBCO bikes are $6000 to $7000. In NZ the range is $7500 to $8000.
A sales hub has been established in London, and UBCO participated in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s trade delegation there in late June, early July.
Interested wholesale investors can register through Syndex Exchange and the Snowball Effect fundraising websites with a $5000 minimum.
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Local voice must be heard on 3W
Staff reporter
THE government has lost its social licence around Three Waters reform in the face of overwhelming opposition, Communities 4 Local Democracy says.
It needs to listen to the community demanding better water reform rather than pushing forward with a plan that could deliver disastrous outcomes, the local government group said in its submission to the Finance and Expenditure committee on the government’s Water Services Entities Bill.
C4LD is a coalition of 31 territorial and unitary local authorities that was formed to develop and propose reforms to the government’s proposed Three Waters policy settings.
C4LD chair and Manawatū District Mayor Helen Worboys said thousands of submitters, most of them asset-owning local authorities, and the vast majority of those polled by various councils at points throughout this process, have all given the clear message that this isn’t the reform they want to see.
“We’ve put together a common sense, home-grown model that will work,” said Worboys.
“It’s a model that’s been developed with decades of real-life experience in New Zealand, not one lifted from a country nothing like New Zealand and developed by a government department with limited to no experience in infrastructure policy and utility regulation.
“C4LD’s approach to Three Waters reform is built upon, and extends, the Productivity Commission’s recommendations, and our approach is neither frivolous nor unusual.”
The approach has as its foundation the principle that community property rights in Three Waters assets should be both respected and meaningful.
Also among its points is a request that the government amend its reform process and allow time for a revised approach to be reflected in draft legislation.
When it comes to decisionmaking on investments, asset owners should have discussions with local mana whenua that consider co-design and partnership arrangements that acknowledge and enable Te Tiritibased pathways at a local and regional level.
Asset owners should also agree to commit to meeting health and environmental standards, once regulatory and performance standards are in place, within an appropriate time frame.
The regulatory framework should also specify a “backstop” provision that identifies a set of circumstances that would justify future Crown intervention if an asset owner was not making acceptable progress towards meeting those regulatory requirements.
On the issue of asset ownership, the Bill before the select committee has the assets of territorial and unitary authorities compulsorily transferred to the four new water services entities.
The submission argues this is a compelled transfer, not an agreed transfer.
“Further, the Bill only allocates to these councils a ‘share’ in one of the new water service entities proportionate to their population size, rather than being proportionate to the true value of the transferring assets. This ‘share’ only entitles them to vote on a possible (but highly unlikely) privatisation proposal. All other rights and obligations of the present owners of the Three Waters assets are extinguished.
“Quite simply, this Bill is expropriating without compensation the assets of councils held on behalf of their communities. This is legislation of the worse kind,” the submission says.
Worboys said the government prematurely selected a highly risky mega merger option without properly considering credible alternative options. It also focused on only one factor, scale.
“This contributed to premature selection of a preferred model following a relatively cursory review of the international experience. Other government centralisation ‘reforms’ appear to be under stress, most notably the polytechnic reforms into the mega-entity Te Pūkenga.”
Worboys said the inadequate understanding of other available policy reform options was a contributing factor to this position.
“It would be a disaster for New Zealand if similar policy failures were to replicate themselves in the water infrastructure sector because a similarly flawed approach to policy analysis was adopted.
“We were told that the select committee process would be the time that the public could finally get their say on Three Waters.
“We want the government to live up to that commitment and actually listen to what the overwhelming majority of the public is saying.”
Ours is a model that has been developed with decades of reallife experience in New Zealand, not lifted from a country nothing like New Zealand.
Helen Worboys Communities 4 Local Democracy
HEAR US: The Three Waters Bill is legislation of the worst kind, Manawatū District Mayor Helen Worboys says.
Biosecurity centre for Lincoln a world first
Staff reporter
LINCOLN University is launching a new research centre to tackle the big biosecurity issues facing New Zealand and the world.
The Centre for One Biosecurity Research, Analysis and Synthesis (COBRAS) will be the first of its kind in the world, with a focus on predicting and mitigating the impact of invasive weeds, animals and pathogens.
It will bring together more than 100 of the world’s top biosecurity researchers and stakeholders.
The COBRAS multi-disciplinary team comprises highly respected researchers from the domains of animal, environmental and plant health, Mātauraka Māori, economics and climate change, and is led by Distinguished Professor Philip Hulme, one of NZ’s leading biosecurity scientists.
COBRAS will also work closely with relevant ministries, industry, regional councils and iwi, as well as international partners – for example the Australian Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis.
Hulme said COBRAS has been established to answer a pressing need for a co-ordinated global response to address the growing biosecurity risks to animal, plant and environmental health.
“The Sars-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the need to more effectively protect international and national borders against invasive species which can cause multiple impacts to people, plants and animals, with significant sociological, political and environmental implications.
“We recognise that we need to act collectively and co-operatively to mitigate these impacts, yet strong and enduring sectoral silos persist, severely limiting our ability to mount an effective ‘one biosecurity’ holistic approach,” Hulme said.
“COBRAS will deliver that ‘one biosecurity’ response, and will at the same time establish Lincoln University as the international leader in land-based interdisciplinary biosecurity policy and research.”
COBRAS will generate accelerated scientific discovery through synthesis, data access and collaboration, implementing an extensive series of questionled workshops to tackle emerging local and international biosecurity issues.
“With teams of researchers and stakeholders from all over the world contributing to COBRAS, the centre will have a consequential and immediate impact on biosecurity science,” Hulme said.
“We have already established links with new interdisciplinary centres in the United States and Chile that are addressing the interface between biosecurity and disease biology as well as biocultural diversity.
“Longer term milestones will include establishing an international collaborative biosecurity research network, a corpus of interdisciplinary publications in high-profile journals and securing ongoing funding.”
COBRAS hosted its first stateof-the-art synthesis workshop at Lincoln University in June, when the key focus for the participants was identifying research priorities across the NZ biosecurity system, and the extent to which current expertise meets those needs.
“It is quite clear that the days of lone entomologists or pathologists beavering away in the lab are no longer sufficient to address the social and policy challenges of biosecurity, yet the opportunity to bring different disciplines and ideas to bear on these problems has been missing in New Zealand up until now,” Hulme said.
20 FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – August 15, 2022
Newsmaker
Getting a taste of the big time
Dylan Bibby has had a taste of international equestrian show jumping and wants more. The Hawke’s Bay teenager talks to Neal Wallace about his aims and aspirations – and the fences he must still clear if he is to succeed on the international stage.
ABIG chunk of Dylan Bibby’s equestrian future requires finding the right horse, and they are not cheap.
A nationally competitive horse can cost $100,000. You will need to add another digit or two to that figure to secure one that is internationally competitive.
The 18-year-old aspiring farmer and stock agent from Ongaonga in the Central Hawke’s Bay has just returned from an Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) event in Germany, where he was one of 30 riders from around the world to participate in the FEI Youth Equestrian Games.
The trip involved an intense 10-days of competition, lessons on life skills and experiencing the European equestrian scene.
It has only enhanced his love of the sport while confirming how small New Zealand is in the equestrian world.
One of the equestrian centres he visited in Germany had two indoor and two outdoor arenas attached to a large stable complex where horses live year-round.
There was an inevitability that Bibby would be involved in equestrian sports given that his mother Kelly was a groom for renowned NZ show jumper and eventer Merran Hain.
“We had horses on the farm and from an early age I was going to pony club events and from that I grew to love horses and equestrian events,” says Bibby.
He loves the excitement of show jumping so has focused on that discipline as opposed to those that require dressage, something he finds tedious.
“It doesn’t have the same excitement. At its low level, it’s trotting and cantering, it’s not as exciting as jumping a fence.”
Bibby’s first big break came when he was aged 11 or 12, when a friend, Pam Hamilton, gave him the use of a well-bred pony that was still to fulfil its show jumping potential.
It took five years of work and gradual improvement but Bibby eventually took the pony, Daisy Patch, to the top of its class.
“That was a big step. It meant I got my name associated with the top equestrian riders.”
Owners began approaching him with ponies to ride, two of which were exceptionally good and gave him further success.
Bibby says training a pony is similar to training any athlete, requiring confidence, patience, time and exposure to competition.
“It requires a slow progressive build-up,” Bibby says.
Riders need to be confident, making quick and accurate decisions – and well balanced, especially with young horses.
“If you’re not confident in yourself, it’s not easy to get an inexperienced horse to take the next step.”
Training involves daily hill rides around the farm of his parents, Hamish and Kelly Bibby, to build up strength and endurance.
This is interspersed with flat training to develop a horse’s athleticism and suppleness.
Jump training is limited to jumping low logs or low objects.
New opportunities materialised as Bibby’s success grew, with a new mount several years ago taking him to second place in the Equestrian Sports NZ show jumping Grand Prix for his category.
“It got my name out there and I started picking up further rides,” Bibby says.
The following year he won the NZ Junior Rider Under-18 title and for the past two years he has been competing in the NZ Junior Rider Under-21 category.
His progression and development as a show jumper peaked in January this year when he won selection for the FEI Youth Equestrian Games, an event created by FEI for riders aged 14 to 18 following postponement of this year’s Youth Olympic Games.
Replica show jumping circuits were erected around the world where young riders competed for the right to attend one of the world’s biggest equestrian shows in Aachen, Germany.
NZ was allocated one spot for the 10-day trip on late June. Bibby won it, joining 29 other young equestrians from around the world.
At its peak 30,000 people watched the events.
Riders attending the Youth Equestrian Games drew horses out of a hat, then had two days to become acquainted before a show jumping competition.
The 30 riders were first split into teams, with Bibby aligned with riders from Australia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and United Arab Emirates in the Australasian team.
After two days of competition the team placed fifth.
The focus then shifted to individual competition and after a clear first round, Bibby was lying second. He dropped two rails in his second ride to finish midtable.
The young riders were also given advice on education, planning, psychological pressures and other life skills, and spent time at stables and equestrian centres.
Bibby says the visit was a revelation and highlighted to him the reality of what is required if he wants to attempt to get to the top of the sport.
That would require more success in NZ and Australia and then a shift to the United States or Europe along with some serious financial backing.
“If I can’t win here or in Australia, there is no chance winning over there,” he says.
“At the moment it is a hobby, but I would like to get to the highest level, a member of the Nation’s Cup Team.”
Achieving that could potentially open the door to Olympic selection, but both would require an exceptional horse.
His immediate focus is on finishing his Primary ITO studies in farming and preparing to learn the ropes as a stock agent.
As for show jumping, Bibby is preparing for the coming domestic season, which runs from September to March, and in which he has three horses. Two will be his mainstays, and another young horse will be exposed to limited competition.
INTERNATIONAL EQUESTRIAN: Dylan Bibby from Hawke’s Bay in action at the FEI Youth Equestrian Games in Germany earlier this year. Photo: Libby Law Photography/ESNZ
