A long serving director in the dairy industry is stepping aside from his role with Dairy NZ this month.

Waikato man Jim van der Poel was a director of the first dairy industry goods body that was set up in 1999. He later became a director of Dexcel before joining the board of DairyNZ when it was incorporated in 2007 and has been a director of Fonterra since 2002.
Fourteen candidates will be contesting three vacancies to replace current directors Jim and Alistair Body and Barbara Kuriger who are both retiring by rotation. Alistair and Barbara are standing for re-election and face competition from Ben Allomes, Sue Brown, Mary Cooper, Murray Douglas, Kevin Ferris, Eric Kolver, George Moss, Amanda Phillips, Gary Reymer, Henk Smit, Gary Townshend and Gerard van Beek.
All farmers who pay a milksolids levy are eligible to vote although the election does not take place on a ‘one man, one vote' basis; it is weighted according to each farmer's milksolids production for the 2008/09 year.
Voting packs will be sent out on September 23 and results will be announced at DairyNZ's annual general meeting in Palmerston North on October 22.