The future of agriculture is full of exciting opportunities for our young people to explore. This session will begin with panel discussion to showcase young rural leaders who will share their own career journey. They will share what they see as the future of work and what new opportunities there could be for young people, as well as their top tips for anyone looking to start a career in ag. The panel discussion will be followed by a tour of Blinc Innovation Hub to showcase the cutting edge technology that is helping to transform the future of work in NZ and abroad.
1:00pm Welcome & Introduction
1:05pm Future of work quick fire keynotes – 5 minutes each
1:20pm Panel discussion with audience Q&A
1:30pm End panel and move to Innovation Tour
2:00pm Tour concludes, event ends, students free to continue to explore Hub
Meet the Speakers
Sarah Perriam, MC
Sarah Perriam has a passion for sharing the stories of New Zealand’s premium food & beverage producers environmental, animal welfare and global trade business practices are often mis-understood by the public.
Sarah previously co-hosted ‘Rural Exchange’ on Magic Talk and her Friday ‘rural’ segment with Duncan Garner on the AM Show as a platform to regularly talk about the big issues in agri-business. She is now working on new media endeavours in the agri-food space, including the launch of her new podcast – naked.hungry sober – targeted at curious consumers and passion producers.
In 2018, she hosted the 50th FMG Young Farmer of the Year live-broadcast on Newshub.co.nz and was nominated as a finalist in the Westpac Women of Influence.
She has recently been involved as a speaker & MC at many events around New Zealand, including the 2019 Boma Grow Summit, bringing professional pre-production management and time-management at the event with her years as a producer and event manager.
Sarah hopes that with a public trend towards more critical thinking and thought lead journalism the primary sector is on the right track to changing the perception of farmers to passionate food producers.
Ash-Leigh Campbell, Ngai Tahu Farming
Ash-Leigh was raised on a small lifestyle property in Lincoln and is now a Technical Farm Manager at Ngāi Tahu, helping to oversee eight dairy farms. She completed a diploma in Agriculture, a diploma in Farm Management and is currently completing her Bachelor’s of Commerce (Agriculture) at Lincoln University.
Ash-Leigh was the first female finalist in the dairy competition for the Ahuwhenua Māori Young Farmer of the Year (2016). She is also the inaugural winner of the New Zealand Young Farmers Excellence Awards (2017). Ash-Leigh was elected to the New Zealand Young Farmers National Board in 2018 and is the Chair, the first woman to hold the position in 12 years. Her hobbies outside of Young Farmers include her Texel sheep stud, Bell-View Texel’s.
Cameron Black, NZAB
Cameron comes from an agribusiness banking background and has worked in relationship management roles as well as in the agri corporate space. Originally from a farming background in Southland, he has an appreciation of the importance of developing and applying practical debt funding solutions that are achievable for farmers.
Cameron is also highly involved with Young Farmers through various leadership roles and was a runner-up in the 2018 Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final.
Dr Seth Laurenson, AgResearch
Seth is the Acting Science Impact Leader for Soil & Water at AgResearch, one of New Zealand's Crown Research Institutes. He launched a new tool for farmers in 2019 that turns data into a visualisation of potential land use change, helping with decision-making on farm.
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