Local farmer takes charge at Feds

JO RICHARDS

A Golden Bay farmer has taken over the top job at Federated Farmers.

Kotinga dairy farmer Wayne Langford stepped in to fill Andrew Hoggard’s gumboots following the latter’s surprise resignation earlier this month.

While ex-president Hoggard will be fighting the forthcoming general election as a parliamentary candidate for the ACT Party, Wayne will continue battling for New Zealand farmers’ interests – at least for the next couple of months – as acting president of the organisation.

Having served as vice president prior to his unexpected promotion, Wayne was able to hit the ground running and immediately got stuck into his new role. In a Federated Farmers’ bulletin issued to members last week, he made it clear that he intended to carry on where Andrew left off. “My promise to farmers is that you can expect nothing less from me – I plan to be in there, boots and all, fighting for all farmers best interests on the big issues whether that be emissions pricing, the costof-farming crisis, or anything in between. I might have a slightly different style to Andrew, but the objective remains the same.”

Wayne reiterated a familiar message from the farming community. “Farmers aren’t looking for a handout from Government and are happy to stand on our own two feet. All we really want is for the Government to stop weighing us down with impractical, unpragmatic, and unfair regulations so we can get on with doing what we do best – farming.”

He also called for a prompt response to the just-released Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use report, which he said contained “some sensible and fair” recommendations. “The Government now needs to show some courage, stand up to the forestry industry, and act on the recommendations quickly. We need to see change.”

Wayne will remain acting president until Federated Farmers AGM in July when he hopes the role will be made permanent.