The Country 13/06/25: Te Radar talks to Jamie Mackay

The voice of Fieldays and FMG Young Farmer grand final refuses to spill the beans on his favourite for this year's competition. He talks about how important the Innovation Awards are to Fieldays.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Sky is the voice of Field Days and the
voice of the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final,
which is coming up in the Cargo in early July.
Andrew Lumsdon AKA to Radar, you better pack your scarf
and your winter.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Was I have been acclimatizing by moving slowly further south.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
So Mystery Creek has been great. I'm warm here. By
the time we get to in Vicargo, I'll be good.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
But I'll tell you what, I'm hoping to look a
little bit better on Grand Final day than you look today, Jamie.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
In a little bit of a competition.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I heard out there last night a little bit of
sort of into radio awards and off off off Broadway.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, we went off piece. It was the the Rural
Broadcasting Radio Awards and we're throwing podcasts in there as well.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Podcasts.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
So it was just basically three or four hours in
the in the Hamilton, the spates Alehouse and then the
tron just ripping on each other. It was fun.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Look, I said every year one of these single best
things about Field Days is that everybody who matters is
in a room. It was interesting, you know, it has
the big, the soapy thing. The MP I thing yesterday
some of the awards, the primary lunch dinner, you had
everybody who matted there. And I think for those European
delegations for the you know that we're twenty five different nations,
for them to see that you can have a sector

(01:09):
where everybody who matters is in a room. I don't
think you were there, but you know, you know you
had your radio show.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I was at the spat table were you were.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
It's been great catching up with people anyway, great pleasure
last night.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Look, I could talk about anything.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
We had the Innovation Awards last night and I said,
with it, not a single one of these stands at
field Days. I think there's something like eleven hundred exhibitors
would be there without somebody at some point having a
bloody good idea.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
And that's what we were celebrating last night.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I think. And I've got to get in there before
we ditch and hit the road. But I think the
best thing you can do at field Days, especially if
you've never been before, is go to the innovation site.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Look, and one of the single best things in there.
You've got to see the kids. Every year, I know St.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Paul's has a great representation the ideas that are coming
out from kids and innovators, and all they need to
do is they just need a bit of They just
need a little bit of courage. In fact, one of
the ones from the one that won the Younger the
Young Innovator one Saint Paul's Collegiate with the Kiwi prone.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
But a way of just.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Taking clips off orchards doesn't need to be high tech.
We had people using lasers for this, that and the
other thing. We had bowluses great solution for what do
we do with all of our Bobby calves? Classic New
Zealand thing. Look at a Bobby clarf? What are we
going to do with it? Why don't we eat it?

Speaker 3 (02:20):
And meat? Taking out one.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Of the awards for since you're sort of a high
tech kind of jerky.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, I met him. It's the I think South Islandarry
event last year Daniel Carson's's name, And this is exactly
what we need to do because the Bobby calf issue
for the dairy industry is a huge issue and it's
one that won't go away. So we have to find
an end use for them.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
And that end use, as it turns out, is being
put into all kinds of you know, other food and
food ingredients. Really interesting thing about this the number of
innovations there to use downstream products, you know, waste sheepskins.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I think there were various other bits and pieces.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
What do we do with something that doesn't have a use,
and being New Zealand's we.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Think we could probably do something with their Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
The prototype section was won by a product called emit less.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Ye by Ruminate Bio Technical because a slow release bowluss
which they reckon can deliver amazingly seventy five percent methane
reduction in cattle for one hundred days from a single treatment,
and I know they've been working on that for a
long time. As we say, meet won the early stage
one Growth and Scale krop X a Varto one, which first.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Of its kind technology.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
It uses direct measurements to determine the transpiration of a crop,
which obviously if that is something you need to know,
it's a pretty good tool.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
And yeah, yeah, okay, I'm just going to wrap this
because I've got the twenty twenty four Young Farmer of
the Year George Dodson over there, and we're going to
talk and he'll be handing over the cloak of knowledge
and in the cargo, Yes he will. And have you
got an early favorite for us?

Speaker 3 (03:48):
No, I can't.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
We had Hugh Jackson on the show I think yesterday
promoting his Young Farmer's Party in Hamilton's tonight it is tonight.
Are you too old for a Young Farmer's Party?

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Yes I am.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
But hey, look, you've got a few people who have
been there before. You've got people who are in New
I just saw them on stage over at the MPI Conversation.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
You cannot pick a winner.