Farmlands AGM 2026: Have your say.

The Farmlands Board provides their perspective on the upcoming AGM and shareholder proposals.

Your co-operative’s Annual General Meeting is on Tuesday 24th November at 6.30pm, in Gore and online. This year there are four resolutions provided by the Farmlands Board (resolutions 1-4), and six proposals from shareholders (resolutions 5-10).

What you can do:

• Read the notice. The Notice of Meeting explains in detail each proposal, in the proposers’ words and with a reply from the Board. Everything you need is here.
• Check you can vote. You can vote if you’re a Transacting Shareholder in good financial standing. If your shareholding entity is a company or other Body Corporate you must complete a proxy vote or nominate a representative to be eligible to vote. 
• Choose how. Join online, attend in person at the James Cumming Community Centre in Gore, or send a proxy by 6.30PM on Sunday 22nd November. Proxy forms are available to vote here: https://meetings.lumiconnect.com/300-569-811-383.

Where we stand on this year’s resolutions and shareholder proposals:

• Adopting the Annual Report and appointing Deloitte as auditor (Resolutions 1 and 2): We’d like you to vote yes.
• Confirming the re-appointments of Rob Hewett and Will Clarke on the Board (Resolutions 3 and 4): We’d like you to vote yes. Over the next two years four long-serving directors will retire by rotation, and keeping experience at the board table is in the best interests of our co-operative to retain knowledge and skill. If Rob and Will don’t continue, by the end of 2027 7 out of 9 directors will have had a year or less on the Farmlands Board. New directors bring fresh thinking, and they need experienced colleagues to guide them. Keeping that experience at the table protects the co-operative’s direction while the Board renews.
• Auditing the Chair’s finances (Resolution 5): We‘d like you to vote no. The finances of our directors are beyond our scope to investigate, and we see no evidence of the need to do so. All interests have been appropriately disclosed and all conflicts managed within our robust processes.
• Reversing the AgriZeroNZ decision (Resolution 6): We‘d like you to vote no. The investment is about access to products for those who want them, and not a position by Farmlands on any issues or causes our shareholders wish to champion. We have contractual commitments that would be costly to exit. In addition, we may be unable to access future products which many of our shareholders may wish to purchase
• No other directorships for Farmlands Directors and Chief Executive (Resolution 7): We‘d like you to vote no. Many shareholder candidates run their own farm companies, and this would stop them standing for future elections. If passed, all our current directors would need to consider whether they could continue on our Board. The proposal would also stop our Chief Executive and directors sitting on the boards of our joint ventures and subsidiaries, which is how we oversee those businesses. The skill of our Board and Chief Executive directly impacts the outcomes our co-operative can achieve, and we need to ensure we are able to attract a strong range of directors and executives with a variety of skills and experience.
• Removing Rob Hewett as director (Resolution 8): We‘d like you to vote no. The Board is satisfied that the required processes were followed and Rob’s conflict of interest on AgriZeroNZ was managed appropriately. He took no part in the Board’s discussion or decision to invest, and those safeguards will continue to be applied. Rob remains an important member of the Board, bringing deep sector experience and knowledge at a time when other long-serving directors are reaching the end of their terms. The Board continues to support his appointment and has full confidence in him as Chair.
• Exploring an exit from AgriZeroNZ (Resolution 9): We‘d like you to vote no. Farmlands has committed $1 million over three years to AgriZeroNZ - the smallest of any shareholding partner - and has entered a binding agreement. An exit would not return that money to shareholders and could mean Farmlands was excluded from accessing products.
• Restricting methane-reduction investment (Resolution 10): We‘d like you to vote no. This proposal is worded so widely it could mean special meetings for everyday decisions the co-operative makes, paid for by every shareholder. It could also affect products we already sell and the manufacturing we already do and have broad implications to the way we operate and serve our shareholders.

We respect every shareholder’s right to put forward a proposal, and to choose which products they use. We know we won’t always agree, we know we do agree that we want a strong future for our co-operative.

Please read the Notice of Meeting and vote. We look forward to seeing you in person or online at the AGM.

Questions about voting or proxies? Email agm@farmlands.co.nz.

Questions for the Farmlands Board? Email board@farmlands.co.nz.

Media query or communications request? Contact communications@farmlands.co.nz.

For full detail of each proposal including the wording of the resolutions, the proposers' statement and our response, please refer to the Notice of Meeting.