For Immediate Release

19 November 2009

Organisers of the 2010 New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards have changed the way judges evaluate some criteria in the Sharemilker of the Year and Farm Manager of the Year competitions.

National Convenor Chris Keeping says that since entries had opened on November 1, organisers had received significant interest in the changes that have been made to the human resource management section in both contests and the financial management section of the farm manager contest.

The Dairy Awards runs three awards - the Sharemilker of the Year, Farm Manager of the Year and Dairy Trainee of the Year.

"We decided there needed to be changes in the human resource section as some of our sharemilker and farm manager entrants manage one or more staff while others have no staff responsibility at all.

"We also looked at the financial section in the farm manager competition as this is another area where there can be a wide variation in what farm managers are responsible for," Mrs Keeping says.

"Our objective was to make the contests fairer for all entrants and for them not to feel disadvantaged if they did not employ staff or were not directly responsible for the finances of the farm they managed."

She says those managing staff will be judged on the management and development of their staff, while those with no staff will be judged on other relationships such as those with their farm owner and rural professionals. In the farm manager contest, entrants with involvement in farm finances will be judged on planning and monitoring while those with no involvement will be judged on their understanding and awareness of effect on farm finances.

The changes do not affect the Dairy Trainee of the Year contest.

The New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards are supported by national sponsors Westpac, DairyNZ, Ecolab, Federated Farmers, Fonterra, Honda Motorcycles NZ, LIC, Meridian Energy, Ravensdown and RD1, along with industry partner Agriculture ITO.

Entry forms can be downloaded from <http://www.dairyindustryawards.co.nz> Entries close on December 24.

ENDS

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