Southland farmer voted off Alliance board
17 Dec, 2020 07:45 PM
2 minutes to read
By: Sally Rae
Southland sheep and beef farmer Russell Drummond has been narrowly voted off the board of Alliance Group.
Drummond, who was elected in 2014, and Ranfurly farmer Dawn Sangster retired by rotation in this year s director elections and both sought re-election.
In the result, announced yesterday at the co-operative s annual meeting in Invercargill, Sangster topped the voting with 23,729,251 votes, followed by Pat McEvedy, of Southbridge, with 20,538,214. Drummond (20,335,533) and Stuart Campbell, of Feilding (10,762,549), were the unsuccessful candidates.
In his chairman s address, Murray Taggart said it had been a challenging farming season across the co-operative s key catchments with extreme drought in the northern and central regions and a very difficult spring and early summer in Southland and South Otago.
“If we were in China, we d see that as prudent behaviour,” he said. The market offered some of the best farm-gate returns for farmers because Chinese buyers would often pay more for specific cuts, Taggart said. “Lamb flats are popular through all the hot pot restaurants, for example,” he said. China is Alliance s single-largest market for lamb, but also takes a lot of beef. The past year had taught the group to redirect to different markets based on how accessible they were, Taggart said. When China went into a Covid-19 lockdown early in the year, product was redirected to Europe, and by the time the content began shutting down, the Chinese borders were reopening, he recalled.