Speech
New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays
May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand - English, Maori, Cook Island Maori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language.
Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the morning and the sun has risen (Sign).
May I specifically greet you: Dr Jack Parle, President of the NZ National Fieldays Society; Rt Hon Helen Clark, Prime Minister; Hon Pete Hodgson, Minister of Research, Science & Technology; Your Excellency William McCormack, United States Ambassador to New Zealand; members of Parliament; Mayors of the Region; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen.
I thank you for the invitation to my wife Susan and I to Mystery Creek for the 2008 New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays.
I have been asked to officially open this year's Fieldays, but before I do I would like to comment briefly on the significance of this event.
The genesis for Fieldays began with a committee meeting. Committee meetings don't always enjoy a good write-up in New Zealand, but this one seems to have brought all the key players together. Described in Linda Thompson's 25th anniversary history, it went like this:
"One afternoon in mid-October 1967 under the chairmanship of Tom Hodgson, two city public relations men, the Vice-Chancellor of the fledgling University on the hill, the local newspaper editor, the family Doctor who was Mayor of the city, two Federated Farmers men, the head and public relations officer of the city-based Agricultural Research Centre, and a representative from the A and P Show Association got together to talk about a way to bring town and country together for a festival of farming."
The principle of bringing "town and country together for a festival of farming" remains, but I suspect those visionary pioneers would never have imagined how this event would grow.
The first Fieldays, held at Te Rapa Racecourse, attracted a respectable 15,000 visitors. Forty years later Fieldays, which has been here at Mystery Creek since its third outing, attracts some 130,000 visitors from 38 countries, including 250 accredited media representatives, and is the largest annual event of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.
I am advised that University of Waikato researchers estimate that it generates an economic impact of $630 million a year for the New Zealand economy, of which $80 million goes directly into the regional economy. With that sort of economic impact and covering a 56 hectare site, Fieldays is, in effect, a "four day city."
It is a tribute to people such the late Sir Don Llewellyn, the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of Waikato University, Dr Dennis Rogers, the Mayor when Fieldays started, aviation top dressing pioneer "Ozzie" James, and John Scott, to name but a few, that this amazing event exists today. To all those who had wisdom and foresight to push for this event, we offer thanks.
Fieldays underscores the significance of agriculture to the New Zealand economy. While New Zealand has in the last 40 years diversified its export products and markets, dairy products, meat and wool—the main products of pastoral farming—continue to account for more than a third of New Zealand's exports commodities.
The theme of this year's Fieldays, the Science of Farming, also highlights the role of science in improving productivity and animal health and developing innovative new products and technologies.
As the recent World Food Summit in Rome has shown, there is a growing and desperate worldwide problem. Not only is there the need for greater food production, but also for production that does not result in environmental degradation that causes even greater harm.
New Zealand is well placed, as a world leader in pastoral farming and research, to meet some of this demand and to proffer advice, and develop technologies that can assist other nations, particularly those in the third world, to improve production sustainably.
Almost 75 years ago, my predecessor Lord Bledisloe, in an address which described grassland as the main source of New Zealand's wealth, pinpointed the importance of farmers working with manufacturers and scientists of many hues to advance pastoral research. In the colourful approaching quaint language of the time, he said that,
"by pooling their knowledge and experience for the common good [they would] justify, to the full, Nature's bounteous endowment and advance the economic value of New Zealand's prolific verdure."
And on that note, it gives me great pleasure as Governor-General to declare the 2008 New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays officially open and, in New Zealand's first language, Maori, I will close by offering greetings and wishing everyone good health and fortitude in your endeavours.
No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tena koutou katoa.