7 May 2001 Close involvement by Lincoln University

Lincoln University and the South Island Dairy Event have been together since the start. The University was one of the initiators of the event back in 1999 and is a corporate partner today.

This year of course, the University is hosting the event on its campus so the involvement runs particularly deep.

Organising the detail of the event in association with the SIDE committee is Lincoln's Professional Development Group.

The event coordinator from the Professional Development Group is Helen Shrewsbury who has been associated with the two past SIDEs and says that all indications are that this year's one will be outstanding.

Along with farmers and Dexcel representatives, there are Lincoln University staff members on the SIDE committee - Professor Tony Bywater of the Animal and Food Sciences Division, Professor Keith Cameron of the Soil, Plant and Ecological Sciences Division, and Peter Fleming of the Applied Management and Computing Division.

Peter is the treasurer of the SIDE committee and Marianne Duncan of the Animal and Food Sciences Group is the committee secretary.

Most of the SIDE committee meetings have been held at the University.

"These committee meetings with the farmer and Dexcel representatives have been particularly productive," says Keith Cameron.

"The broad representation has allowed us to clearly identify what dairy farmers want to hear and learn from an event of this nature.

"The farmer representatives are critical in ensuring the relevance of the event. They've been the eyes and ears out on the land.

"This year for the first time the SIDE partners ran a 'road show' which travelled to various parts of the South Island providing farmers with some of the best of the workshops from the past two SIDEs. Through the contact which that road show provided with the rural communities we've been able to learn more about farmers' concerns and particular interests and encourage them to come to this year's event."

Lincoln University's involvement with SIDE 2001 also includes the provision of speakers at various workshop sessions.

This year animal scientist Professor Andrew Sykes will be talking about trace elements; Senior Accounting Lecturer Jack Radford will speak about investments; Dr Derek Newman will discuss how to measure  financial health of the farm; Ian Mclndoe of Lincoln Ventures will deal with irrigation options; and Professor Keith Cameron and the University's Director of Farms, Tony Whatman, will join Dexcel CEO Dr Rob Pringle and Max Duncan, who is managing Lincoln's dairy farm conversion project, in a session exploring what South Island dairy farmers want out of the new Lincoln University dairy farm.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.