Meat Board leaders from far south

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 3

Meat Board leaders from far south

Both the chairman and the deputy chairman of the Meat Board now come from the south of the South Island. Mr A. M. Begg, who farms at Stirling, South Otago, and who has been deputy chairman of the board for the last six years, was yesterday elected chairman to succeed Mr Charles Hilgendorf, who has retired. The new deputy chairman is Mr N. D. Mcßae, who farms near Wyndham, Southland, and who has been a producer member of the board for only a few days. Mr Begg said after his election that it did not worry him very much that the board’s centre of power had moved southwards. In the last 30 years there had possibly been only about four or five years when the chairman and deputy chairman had not come from the same island. ■ There would be no changes in the board overnight. The board was very much a team and would continue to be so. Any changes would come after discussions with board and staff members. Plenty of challenges lay

ahead. Possibly the biggest would be that New Zealand would supply an increasing number of markets with increasing quantities of meat, which would bring about a need for changes in marketing. Mr Begg farms about 360 ha of flat to rolling country on which he runs 36001

Coopworth ewes and about 1000 dry sheep. He also fattens between 100 and 150 cattle a year. Before joining the board in 1969 as a Government representative — he became a producer member four years ago — he was a member of the provincial executive and also of the meat and wool section committee of Otago Federated Farmers. He takes an active interest in the Presbyterian Church and is an elder of the church at Stirling. : Mr Begg last year headed! the board and exporters’ mission that signed the contract for the export of lamb to Iran. Asked yesterday about the possible impact of; the hardening American attitude to Iran on the lamb, trade with that country he said it could be inconvenient! but he did not think it was likely to cause any major change in the market. Mr Mcßae has had a rapid ri. to eminence on the board, which he joined as a Government representative in 1976. He was elected a producer representative only last month, taking the place on the board of Mr Hilgendorf.