FARMERS’ LEADER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21947, 15 February 1946, Page 2

FARMERS’ LEADER

VISITOR TO GISBORNE At present in Gisborne to meet local farmers on matters of interest, to the industry is Mr. B. V. Cooksley, Lower Hutt. Wellington, provisional president of the Federated Farmers of New Zealand, chairman of the Farmers’ Federation. and chairman of the Dominion Council of Commercial Gardeners. Now 51 years of age, Mr. Cooksley is a South Islander from Seaward Downs, where his father was a dairy farmer. From there he left with the Main Body for the 1914-18 war, in which he won the Military Medal and reached commissioned rank. On demobilisation he rejoined his father, then on a mixed farm in the Wairoa district, but later left the land for a period in business. Fifteen years ago he commenced market-gardening in the Hutt Valley. Since then he has. been prominent in matters of primary production, particularly in the sphere of market gardening. For seven years he has been returned unopposed to the position of president of the growers’ national organisation. When .Japan declared war, he enlisted again, and after some service in Trentham as a captain he was transferred to the Ministry of Primary Production for war purposes. He will be a member of the New Zealand delegation to the international conference of primary producers to be held in London in May next and will leave for Britain in the middle of next month.