No new faces on Meat Board

Press, 27 March 1980, Page 3

No new faces on Meat Board

By

D. L. FYFE

There will be no new faces on the Meat Board after yesterday’s elections. Mr J. L. Daniell, of Masterton, who has been a member of the board since 1971, was re-elected, and Mr N. D. Mcßae, of Mokoreta, 16km from Wyndham in Southland, succeeded in his bid to become a producer member. He has been a Gove r n m e n t-appointed board member since 1976. Mr Mcßae will take the seat vacated by Mr Charles Hilgendorf, of Sherwood in Mid-Canterbury, who did not seek re-election after serving on the board for 19 years, the last eight as chairman. Mr Hilgendorf’s successor as chairman will be selected at a board meeting on April 9. Two Canterbury men were among the candidates for the two seats on the board. They were Messrs B. E. Lili, of Montalto in Mid-Canter-bury, and J. O. Acland, of Mount Peel station in South Canterbury. Mr.W. R. Martin, of Ahuroa, North Auckland, a former member ofl

the board, also sought a seat. The five candidates appeared before the board’s electoral committee, which spent almost three hours hearing the views of each candidate separately and questioning him, but after the last candidate left the meeting room the committee took only 15 minutes to make its selections. “These two persons will do very well. In fact, any of the candidates would have done very well,” said Mr Hilgendorf, when the committee reported the result of the election. “I am a farmer and closer to the farming sector than Government,” said Mr Mcßae when asked why he had sought producer membership of the board. His 1400 ha property at Mokoreta comprises rolling country, including some oversown tussock and about 120 ha still to be developed. It carries 7500 mainly Bor-der-Romney ewes, 2500 hoggets, and a breeding herd of 350 mainly Angus and I Angus-cross cows. About

1000 cattle are fattened a year, some of which are bought in.

Mr Mcßae is not very active in farming organisations, but he is a director of several Southland companies, mainly connected with farming, and he has joined three - other fanners, an accountant, and an engineer in the purchase of a 64ha property on the Edendale plains, of which 48ha is in black currants. He is chairman of the board’s finance committee at present. Mr Daniell’s first attempt to win a seat on the board in the late 1960 s was unsuccessful. He became a member of the electoral committee in 1963, and after resigning to contest the board election returned to the committee. He came on to the board in 1971 when Mr C. F. Jones retired. Mr Daniell is chairman of the board’s production and grades committee and represents it on the Meat Research Institute, the Meat Export Development Company, and Sheeplan, of which he is chairman.