Here are just a few of the media pieces covering the impact of Rural Leaders’ Programme Alumni in industries and communities across the sector.
Cam Henderson
Nuffield 2019, Kellogg 2017
Cam has been featured in a Meet the Need story about his family’s support for the charity, which gets high-quality protein from farmers to Kiwi families facing food insecurity. Henderson, who milks 750 cows south of Oxford, first came across the concept as Canterbury Federated Farmers provincial president. Three years ago, the family made it their single charitable focus. For Henderson, a food-producing nation shouldn’t have people who can’t afford to eat. He challenges fellow farmers to think about their legacy: not milk production or farms owned, but how many people their success has helped.
Mark Hooper
Kellogg 2018
Mark has been appointed as an independent director on the NZPork board. The Lepperton dairy farmer and former Taranaki Federated Farmers president brings years of governance and advocacy experience, including time on the Federated Farmers national board. NZPork chair Paul Bucknell said Hooper’s understanding of farming and rural communities will help the board support pig farmers through change. Hooper says he’s optimistic about the sector’s future and excited to join the board.
Read the full NZPork media release: Mark Hooper appointed to NZPork Board
Jen Corkran
Kellogg 2023
Jen has joined colleague Michael Harvey on a RaboResearch podcast to discuss her new report, New Zealand’s protein moment. Rabobank’s Senior Animal Protein Analyst says today’s strong red meat prices come from global supply shortages rather than strategy, and won’t last forever. Her advice is to use this window to prove the value of New Zealand’s pasture-based protein. It’s not about producing more, she says, but showing why our protein is worth what it’s worth.
Listen to Jen on the RaboResearch podcast: New Zealand’s protein moment: Making every bite count
Brett Robinson
Kellogg 2023
Brett has spoken to Country-Wide’s Sarah Perriam-Lampp about his Kellogg research into the financial conversations families have at the kitchen table during farm succession. The Rural Coach partner and former banker found that talk of profitability and viability is often missing. His key message is to start early. He says parents lead the way by sharing the business’s finances and past hardships, giving the next generation the financial literacy to understand the whole picture.
Tracey Perkins
Nuffield 2026 (Current Scholar), Kellogg 2021
Tracey is speaking at Te Mana o Ngā Wāhine 2026 in Queenstown on Friday 30 October. The one-day kaupapa Māori event, hosted by Te Kāinga Wāhine at Te Atamira, celebrates wāhine Māori under the theme Puāwai: Stories of Becoming. In her talk, Taking the Long Road Home: Remembering What We Carry, Tracey draws on travel through more than ten countries this year. She shares a personal journey of identity, belonging and the lasting value of Indigenous knowledge.
Sandra Faulkner
Nuffield 2012, Kellogg 2011
Sandra Faulkner has featured in Farmers Weekly warning councils not to use the Government’s proposed rates cap as cover for shifting costs onto farmers. The Federated Farmers local government spokesperson pointed to Gore, where farmers face a potential 28% rates hike. A former district councillor, she explains that the 2–4% cap applies to a council’s total rates revenue, not individual bills. Councils should find genuine savings rather than make farmers the easy target, she says.
Read the full Farmers Weekly piece: ‘Triple whammy’ rates plan fires up Feds.
Richard Dawkins
Kellogg 2023
Richard Dawkins has been a leading voice on water storage in recent weeks as Federated Farmers’ spokesperson on the issue. Writing in Farmers Weekly, he urged the next government to make storage a national priority, and asked what New Zealand could learn from Tasmania. Responding to National’s $300m loan scheme, he told RNZ that storage is critical infrastructure for resilience and rural growth. He told the NZ Herald the scheme should go further and include seed funding.
Emily Levenson
Kellogg 2026
Emily Levenson has spoken to Country-Wide’s Sarah Perriam-Lampp about her Kellogg report, What Happens Between Farm and Fork? Her research maps New Zealand’s domestic fresh produce supply chain, drawing on interviews with growers, wholesalers and retailers. She found the supply chain relies heavily on roads and ferries, with the Cook Strait crossing, the Gisborne state highway and the Northland–Auckland route as key risks. She’s calling for a farm-to-plate strategy that covers everything from poverty to on-farm input costs.
Julia Hardwick-Smith
Kellogg 2026
Julia is featured leading a new Beef + Lamb NZ Ladies’ Lamb Survivability Focus Group in Taranaki. The Taranaki sheep and beef farmer brings a background in animal science and genetics, along with her own research into triplet lamb survival. The farmer-led group meets four times a year, covering ewe nutrition, body condition scoring, scanning and lambing management. The first session is at Toko Tavern on Monday 23 November, 11am–2pm, with registrations open through Beef + Lamb NZ.
Find out more about the Beef + Lamb NZ Ladies’ Lamb Survivability Focus Group.
Kate Tomlinson
Kellogg 2026
Kate has joined Conan on the From the Soil Up podcast to discuss her Kellogg research into Canterbury’s multicultural dairy workforce. Analysing ten years of census data, she found New Zealand European workers fell from 74% to 57% of the region’s dairy workforce between 2013 and 2023. She says cultural intelligence is a learnable skill. Farmers who understand differences in communication and hierarchy, and who build trust, can create safer, higher-performing teams where everyone feels able to speak up.
Watch Kate’s interview: The Changing Face of New Zealand Dairy Farming.
Geoff Crawford
Kellogg 2025
Geoff Crawford has helped bring together more than 130 business leaders, exporters, iwi and hapū representatives and government agencies at Northland Regional Council’s Global Shifts, Local Future events. As Chair of the Joint Regional Economic Development Committee, the regional councillor says the Waitangi and Whangārei events gave Northland businesses the chance to hear directly from experienced exporters and trade leaders. The region exported around $2.6 billion of goods and services in 2025, up about eight per cent on the year before.
Read the full Scoop piece: Northland’s Export Future Built On Strengths, Not Size.
Jodie Goudswaard
Kellogg 2025
Jodie Goudswaard has been featured by DairyNZ to mark the International Day of Rural Women on 15 October. As manager of DairyBase, New Zealand’s largest and longest-running dairy benchmarking service, she helps farmers put science-based solutions to work on-farm. Raised on a dairy farm, she has a strong focus on targeted planting on her own property. Jodie says women are now doing everything in farming, with support networks like Dairy Women’s Network making it easy to find your people.
Read the full DairyNZ news piece: Celebrating the International Day of Rural Women.
Clare Bradley
Nuffield 2026 (Current Scholar)
Clare Bradley has spoken on a plenary panel at the Global Bioeconomy Summit in Dublin while travelling for her Nuffield scholarship. The AgriSea CEO outlined the family company’s 30 years of producing seaweed biostimulants, mainly for New Zealand’s dairy sector. She described how AgriSea is scaling its impact through the world’s first seaweed nanocellulose biorefinery and a knowledge-sharing partnership with US non-profit Green Wave. Drawing on her Nuffield research, she said scale means different things to different people, and those most affected should help define it.
Read the full LinkedIn post here: Scaling is about sharing knowledge, not building a bigger factory.
