The theme of the conference is exploring the process of managing the decisions we are faced with as farmers that allows us to fully meet our primary responsibility of producing food that is fit for purpose. This includes exploring the various aspects of farming where decisions need to be made and how and why we make decisions.
Most of us don’t have adequate information for decision making to start with because we have little knowledge to benchmark the information we receive on.Often the information we receive is biased towards the promotion of products that allow prevention or rescue without any discussion on why prevention or rescue has become necessary.
Farmers are unique in that they are isolated in their work place and can be exposed to peer judgment if they are perceived to be “doing something different”. Accordingly this peer judgment can be allowed to influence the decision making process to the ultimate detriment of the farmer and the farm and the food produced.
Our speakers will deliver information that, in general has not been available to New Zealand farmers. Each speaker will present unique information in areas that we believe are crucial for the development of the knowledge required to enable accurate decision making in areas that will take farms and farming families to a state of optimum efficiency in all areas of sustainability and food production.
Conference attendees will be invited to participate in a group exercise involving a farming scenario requiring decisions to be made. Then our first presenter will speak for an hour and then, following question time, the groups will reform to discuss what they have heard and will apply the new information to the earlier decision making exercise and see if the outcome is different.
This process will be followed over the two days with speakers providing new information and attendees utilizing the information to enable effective decision making to meet goals. The interest will be in how the initial first morning decision evolves to the final decision after the new information is incorporated into the process. The idea behind this is to allow the conference to be interactive which allows more information to be made available and to get all the conference goers to realise they are not alone in their issues.
Conference Speakers
John King
John King from Succession is a facilitator in Holistic Management®; a decision making framework that helps farmers realise how the environment makes farm more profitable. John’s interests are farmer innovation, problem solving, and learning, in particular how farmers can combine entrepreneurship and environment to get ahead. John has worked for the Organic Advisory Programme and currently tutors business studies at the Organic Training College of New Zealand at Lincoln. John is trialing a new discussion group technique called Farmer First involving farmers designing and sharing their own farm/business projects with likeminded farmers.
Dr Eric Kawabe PhD, CPAg
I was born in Tokyo Japan in 1940. Graduated B. Ag Sci. at Tokyo University of Ag. & Tech, then came to New Zealand, completed Post Graduate Dip. Ag. Sci at Massey University in 1968. My practical experiences are Teaching Biological Sci. at Northland College, then to work as a project manager for International joint venture beef, sheep farm in Manawatu. Following the success, I was called to another Int, Joint venture in beef production (pasture development and farming system development) in Qurindi, NSW, Australia. Private consulting; Established own business in NSW in 1982 and I have developed my Clientele in beef, sheep, corn, sorghum dairy and cotton in the soil- crop- pasture- animal nutrition in the area which covered whole NSW, part Queensland and Victoria. South America and Japan became my working area later.
Soil Research Union is the name for my client farmers group in Japan which became a major force in North Island (Hokkaido). My PhD was gained from Nihon University in 1995 from my research work in the beef farming system in Australia which was presented at World Conference of Animal Production in 1993, International Grassland Congress in 1985. My belief is in the ecosystem based farming where soil to plant and animal production is carried out in balance and health first, efficiency and mass production last.
John Godwin
My background & how I got to where I am today : - I started my journey in my early 20"s learning & understanding parapsychology, theology, pyramid energies, spiritual healing, divining with a pendulum, rods, etc. This gave me the tools to begin my studies into homoeopathy, isopathy & the reasons why people were getting sick. I was not satisfied with the standard answers for illness so delved into serious research & developed a protocol for successfully finding causes for & treating the health problems in people, animals & the land. My results have been measured by the very large numbers of people & animals that have been through our clinic doors over 20 years practice. We have developed a clinic based in Tauranga entirely on word of mouth referral, with patients requesting help from as far away as the USA & Europe.
David Campbell
Observation without prejudice, simple really? A couple of things you need to know. One; there is no observation without interaction. [Your observations have influence]. Two; observation with prejudice is worthless. [Actually it is worse than this. It is destructive and has given rise to deconstructionism, the worst perversion of the so called scientific principle thus far]. Exercise in your own deconstruction......? So why without prejudice? Well nature has no prejudice nor lies and you and I are a part of it, a participating and functional piece [with influence] in fact I would define observation as: “to witness while participating”. That sounds like life to me.
Will MacFarlane
Will is a 52 year old farmer from Hawkes Bay, specializing in producing elite beef seedstock. With his wife Viv and one other employee, he manages 350 registered Angus cows and their replacements along with 2500 breeding ewes and up to 500 trading cattle on 828 hectares of notoriously summer dry hills of Raukawa, Hastings.
Being a third generation seed-stock breeder, Will has an abiding interest in genetics, paradigms of genetic analysis and gene/environment interaction and expression. In particular he is interested in epigenetic inheritance – environmentally induced adaptations that accrue over time and pass to offspring - non-genetic inheritance. He believes we can ‘create our circumstance’ by recognizing the multi-generational importance of a balanced soil/physical environment in animal health and production.
The Waiterenui Angus herd was established in 1912 by Wills grandfather and has experienced considerable and on-going success in its 98 year history. Since taking over in 1983, Will has tripled herd numbers, dramatically increased production utilising objective measurements via Breedplan and out-crossing with artificial insemination, but now seeks a more metaphysical approach.`
Will is immediate past president of Angus NZ, a director of AngusPure Ltd and Forum 013 Ltd. He is the proud father of Archie (23) doing Masters of Biology at Canterbury University (animal behavior) and Kate who recently graduated with BSc Cant. majoring in environmental science.
David Spalter - General Manager of Huckleberry Farms Ltd (Organic and Natural retail store chain)
I was born in Auckland and studied for a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Conservation Ecology. I have always been self employed (until very recently) since then, owning several businesses since graduating university. As a founding shareholder in Huckleberry Farms I joined to run the company in 2003, at a time when the company was acquiring a second store in Auckland. I was involved in establishing a Korean franchisee for the company and this has given me a great understand of how Asian export markets work, particularly in relation to regulators. Last year, having sold the business, I was employed to remain and help grow the company beyond the three existing stores.
Ben Warren.
Ben Warren aged 36, originates from Bath, England. At Aged 20 Ben was an elite golfer and received a scholarship to play golf and study at the University of South Carolina. After graduating with double honours in Experimental Psychology Ben pursued his passion of golf, unfortunately a back injury ended his playing career and for 2 years Ben was a professional golf coach.
It was in the pursuit of excellence in golf that Ben discovered optimal joint mechanics and began studying to become a certified golf bio-mechanic. The more that Ben learned about the body and the shared nerve innovation between muscles and organs, the more Ben’s interest swung to organ function and nutrition. During the next 5 years Ben studied Nutrition extensively through the Chek Institute in California, a health and exercise institute.
Ben has been running a private health and performance practice in Havelock North for the past 5 years, while simultaneously running nutrition courses across Hawkes Bay. Ben has continued his education by acknowledging the role the mind has to play in health and by becoming a Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner together with skills in applied kinesiology. Ben brings a holistic approach to permanent weight loss and incredible health.
Ben now concentrates on his seminar business and has been contracted as a health presenter by firms like Estee Lauder. Ben has helped over a thousand people in Hawkes Bay become healthy as part of his intensive life changing programme called the Pure Health Revolution, where after an intensive weekend seminar participants go through 12 weeks of nutrition and lifestyle change to create lifelong healthy habits, this programme involves workshops and shopping tours to make the changes as easy as possible. He has recently launched his ‘Life Changing Online Programme’ as a tool to help him reach his goal of making one million New Zealander healthy.
Find out more about Ben at www.bepure.co.nz.
Paul Ashton
Lindsay farm dairies began marketing raw milk in April 2009. This was as a result of the consequences of the dishonesty of the representative of the bank we had our business with. This resulted in unrealistic expectations on us to generate more income because although we were a viable farming enterprise we didn’t fit the banks criteria for economic scale. Thus we were deemed to be uneconomic! We now trade solely in the raw milk market, directly to consumers who are members of our raw food club. The learning curve has been a sharp one but the rewards are huge. With the demand for nutrient dense food growing the potential is as yet unexplored and our future looks assured.
Kevin Bluegum and Murray Chittenham
Kevin and Murray have, between them more than 40 years of constitutional law experience within New Zealand and although not lawyers if you wish to have an objective view of our legal and lawful system you could do no better than to partake of the Kevin and Murray experience! Knowledge gained by both men in the fields of law and finance will give a refreshing take on how we can exert our own authority and take charge of our lives instead of subjugating to some other unseen or unknown party.
Ewan Campbell - Founder of Cambrian Meats and the Probitas Soils System.
“Chaos creates change” and “empty pockets sharpen the mind” are just a couple of sayings that sum up my farming career to date, yet it does not have to be this way. All too often we leave important decisions to the last possible moment. Leading to this point we usually have allowed some one else to make the decision for us on questions we never asked.
·YOU SHOULD SPRAY THOSE WEEDS! (WHY?)
·IF YOU DON’T PUT SUPERPHOSPHATE ON YOUR FARM WILL BE A DISASTER! (HOW?)
·YOU NEED TO BORROW MORE MONEY FROM THE BANK. WE CAN GIVE YOU ALL THE MONEY YOU NEED! (WHERE DOES IT COME FROM?)
In reality to get good answers firstly you need to know the questions.
SO WHAT IS IT YOU WANT FROM FARMING? NOT WHAT DOES SOMEONE ELSE WANT FROM YOU.
Programme
Tuesday 8th June from 3.00pm. Registration at the Kingsgate conference venue.
Wednesday 9th June 8am - 9am: Late Registrations.
9.00am: Welcome and introductions. Arrange groups.
9.10am: John King “Why we do what we do”!
9.30am: Group exercise.
10.00 am: Smoko.
10.30am: Speaker: Eric Kiwabe
11.30am: Exercise and review
12.30 pm: Lunch
1.30pm: John Godwin
2.30pm: Exercise and review
3.00pm: Smoko
3.30pm: David Campbell
4.30pm: Exercise and review
5.30pm: End of day.
6.30pm: Drinks
7.30pm: Dinner.
After dinner speaker Ben Warren
Thursday 10th June.
8.30am: Review of the first day.
8.45am: Will McFarlane
9.45am: Exercise and review
10.15am: Smoko
10.45am: David Spalter/ Paul Ashton
11.45am: Exercise and review
12.15pm: Lunch.
1.15pm: Kevin Bluegum / Murray Chittenham
2.15 pm: Exercise and review
2.45pm: Smoko
3.15pm: Ewan Campbell
4.15 pm: Exercise and review.
4.45pm: Forum
5.30pm: End of day.
6.30pm: Drinks
7.30pm: Dinner
Friday 11th June - Take in some of Rotorua’s well known activities such as the Luge or the Caterpillar museum and / or travel home.
Registration Form
Registration enquiries should be made to Kaye at the Probitas System NZ Ltd office P.O. Box 218, Paeroa 3640. Ph 0508 30 50 90. (07 862 7542). Fax 07 862 6006
Registrations can be made on line by emailing Kaye at probitaspaeroa@clear.net.nz to let her know that you have made a payment to the Conference bank account as listed below. Please DO NOT pay to the normal Probitas bank account.
Conference Fee Bank account for paying online is: Westpac Paeroa03-1572-0072522-01
Conference cost
Early bird Registration:$250 per person if the attendee is registered by 5pm Wed 26th May 2010.
Late Registration Fee: $280 per person if the registration is made after 5pm Wed 26th May 2010
Registration fees include lunch, two smokos and dinner for both days - Wednesday the 10th and Thursday the 11th June 2010.
