Agri-business boom at Fieldays

MEDIA RELEASE
31 August 2007, for immediate release

Agri-business boom at Fieldays

The New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays continues to be New Zealand’s most successful agricultural hypermarket with sales figures from the 2007 event released today.

Fieldays exhibitors report sales during the four day event of over $180 million, a new Fieldays record. Including the sales following the event, the total grew to $273 million. Fieldays General Manager, Barry Quayle says that the event continues to be a significant business driver in the agricultural sector. “Fieldays is more than the largest agricultural showcase in the Southern Hemisphere, the event is an indispensable element of agri-business in New Zealand, providing the unique opportunity for agricultural suppliers to meet and sell to the largest gathering of farmers and growers in New Zealand, as well as buyers from overseas,” Quayle says.

Fifteen percent of Fieldays sales are to overseas farmers and organisations, a figure organisers hope to build upon with the Fieldays Goes Global initiative, a programme designed to support exhibitors in attracting high-value international customers to the event, supported by tailored travel and itinerary options and specialist trade advice.

Quayle is pleased with the reported results and is optimistic about the future of the event. “It’s important to remember that dairy farmers are yet to receive the actual benefit of the increased payout,” Quayle says. “A range of other factors including the readjustment of the New Zealand dollar, positive movements in other primary industry sectors and, of course, the excitement surrounding our 40th birthday celebrations will add to the buoyant dairy industry to continue the success of Fieldays in 2008.”

Professor Frank Scrimgeour of the University of Waikato Management School says that the ongoing success of Fieldays is a testament to the breadth and depth of agribusiness activity at the event. “The 2007 success continues the strong recent history of the event and provides a robust platform for future growth - facilitating the uptake of new technology within New Zealand agriculture and as a significant export event as overseas sales expand significantly,” he says.

Plans are well underway for an extra special Fieldays in 2008, when the event will celebrate 40 years of business and put Premier Feature, ‘The Science of Farming (supported by AgResearch) under the microscope.
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