The Country 12/06/26: Tanya Houghton talks to Jamie Mackay

Farmlands’ chief executive and our host for Fieldays wraps the week. She discusses Farmlands’ partnership with the Rural Support Trust and digital wellbeing platform Ignite to deliver a free online mental health and wellbeing service for farmers and growers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tarnia Halton, Chief Executive of Farmlands, Thank you very much
for hosting us for these past three days. Talk to
me about what you're doing with the Rural Support Trust
because you had a big launch on Wednesday.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
We did, and thanks for bringing it up. It's been
great to have you guys on the site. So Farmlands
in conjunction with Rural Support Trust and Ignite altai Roa
launched on Wednesday, a new platform for rural communities, farmers
and growers and their farno all around the country to
be able to access. You can jump onto it via
the Rural Support Trust website and it enables you to

(00:32):
book support sessions, whether online, in person or over the phone,
across many different parts of your health and well being.
So obviously it's a really big support Jamie for mental health,
but you can also access nutrition advice, you can access
financial advice. It's really about saying we know that around

(00:52):
fifty percent of the people who make contact with Rural
Support actually need to be recommended to other providers for
further support, and this is the platform that we're going
to be able to make that happen for rural New Zealand.
So it's a really big step forward.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Okay, good on you, and good on Farmlands for getting
behind the rural support. Trust you are here. You're one
of the biggest sites. You've had people streaming in and
out the whole time. I can't believe how incredibly busy
it's been. And I know you've been the chief executive
since when twenty twenty one?

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yeah, end of twenty one.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Okay, so talk to me. This is the best field
days in your tenure crowd wise participation.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, absolutely, it's been incredibly busy. We've had lots of
people through our site. But I think the really exciting
thing and what you notice walking around Mystery Crete is
the good positive vibe that is there. There's obviously people
quite rightly giving a lot of consideration to what the
coming season looks like and what any impact from the
Middle East might be, but definitely a much more positive

(01:52):
vibe than we've seen for a little while. And we're
enjoying having so many people come through our site. We've
just launched down new brand positioning and it's our team
is full of energy and I know that that is
being experienced by customers coming through the Farmlands site.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yes, and I love the we positioning statement right beside
us never rest some rural never gets up early. Everyone
else is just like love your work now. One of
your recent acquisitions is donohu'es right doneghe donigh's donaghuez. I
better get it right, So I'm going to bid you farewell. Tarani,
thank you, thank you very much for hosting us. You

(02:28):
have been wonderful, as have all your staff