One of the skill sets farmers should look for as part of the governance review of Fonterra's board is 'good bugger”, says Federated Farmer's National Dairy chairperson Andrew Hoggard.

'We do need a good bugger on the board. We have to remind the rest of New Zealand that Fonterra is grassroots, made up of farmers who are good, honest people working on the land.

Andrew Hoggard, Federated Farmer's National Dairy chairperson, wants to change the public's perception that farmers are whingers.

'We have got to get back that iconic image into the public's head, but currently we're losing that image.

'We can do better. Farmers need to front for farmers. I get emails from people asking why the hell New Zealand farmers are supplying that 'corporate overseas owned Fonterra?” They don't realise Fonterra is a New Zealand owned co-op. I don't know why that has slipped people's minds but we have got to change that.”

Andrew says he also gets asked 'why are farmers whinging? They should try living on $15 an hour”.

'I've also had a senior local body politician asking me if it is really that bad in dairy farming right now, and all this makes me wonder where are we going wrong.

'I get frustrated with the whole whinging image, but don't know how to get away from it. The media ring me up wanting a comment and I attempt to tell them the facts, being as honest as possible.”

Andrew says he is not one to go around offering his opinion, he says no farmer goes out to offer an opinion.

'People ring up and we tell them the fact. I'm not sure if it's always been the urban image that farmers always whinge. It's a hard one to deal with.

'When the media call up, how do you say what the true situation is and not sound like a whinger? It's a big bloody challenge and I'm not sure how get round it when some people have that mind set.”

Andrew farms 560 cows near Fielding across 300 hectares and has two children aged five and three with his wife Audra.

His farm is on the banks of the Oroua River and his family draws their drinking water from that river too.

Andrew believes in precision agriculture and is applying technology to his farming operation.

He was among the speakers at a recent Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers dairy sector seminar called 'We are in this together”.