n For myself personally I would describe this year as a year of - PDF document

Otakanini Topu Year End 2017 Firstly I would like to thank, all of you who voted for me last year, given there were a few candidates who stood, I was certainly surprised at the time to have made the cut. n For myself personally I would describe this year as a year of endurance. A year of disappointments’ and a year of failed expectations. o What has been very apparent to me whilst residing on your committee, is the lack of farming i knowledge and the lack of interest shown in our main core farming business as it appears we discuss t 7 everything else but and leave the farming operations solely in the hands of the manager. a 1 Jeffrey Bradley, Manager of Whenuanui Farm is standing for the committee today of whom I fully t support. I believe we are in desperate need of farming intelligence, and experience in farming n 0 excellence to sit at your table. The long term benefits to you the shareholders is acquiring local expertise on the board which in return I would expect to save on unnecessary expenses and ensure e 2 further spending is directed into the right areas’, and will help in the endeavour to promote good farming practices and help to boost your profits. s h The 2017 Annual Report reflects a positive outlook and in my opinion is in stark contrast to reality. e t As a new member to this Committee , and as a novice to Committee Management and Governance I r 9 expected the role to expand my horizons with the assistance and guidance from long standing , P experienced members. In turn I hoped to offer any knowledge I could provide that would be beneficial and of assistance in our farming operations. And of course as a farm girl myself I looked r forward to and was excited about becoming a part of the team. e d From the outset the tone of how this Committee operates was set; b e Never a welcome, never an induction and to date no information has been supplied to myself on our m policies, governing guidelines nor our sustainable farm plan from which we operate. All requests to l b management and the chair to review current contracts from which the topu currently operate – denied by simply not supplying this information. a e It appears the running of this farm is kept within a tight bunch, and there appears to be a reluctance T c to share information of which as committee members we are all entitled to view. e The Audit that was conducted last year by the MLC provided recommendations on our processes. These recommendations throughout the year and to date have not been adhered too. Minutes, and D the distribution of correspondence and documentation pertaining to the running of this farm in a timely and efficient manner – disgraceful - and a fine example of that is your 2016 AGM minutes. I was asked the question by a shareholder early on this year as to “who oversee’s manage ment performance”. This has been a question that has remained in my mind throughout the year as Management performance appears to be the common denominator and at the heart of all disagreements with current committee members, resigned committee members and recently moved on committee members.

I was informed by members of this current committee that we were to accept all advice from the operations manager as expert advice. My question, is what if the advice we receive from the operational manager is not accurate. What policies do we the committee have in place to protect ourselves from poor decision making, who n independently advices us the committee on management performance? What safe procedures do we have in place for the wider staff if they wished to independently and confidentially voice their o opinions or concerns? The answer is we have no structured policies in place that I have seen, and we have no one who measures operational management performance. There is no incentive or i t 7 protective avenues in place for our staff to follow of which is independent or separate from a management . 1 t Advisory consultants are employed, as you will see in the financial accounts this year $20 thousand n dollars’ worth , they are handpicked by management and support management throughout the year 0 and are also partially subsidised by the Federation of Maori Authorities of which we pay $5k a year e 2 subscription to. On this advisory board sit vets, various seed and fertiliser advisors, a farm consultant a bank manager and aside from the local vet not one is locally sourced. Why are there no local s farmers, actual experts in farming in this district sitting on this board, we have very good farmers in h our district with years of experience. Their advice on w hat works and doesn’t work in our area could e have been invaluable and saved on the expense of inexperienced trial and error programs ending in t r the re-invention of the wheel and a loss of large amounts of money. Vets and advisors are not 9 farmers, and the same can be said for the remainder of the business advisory group. P We have an advisor who manages our forestry, we have an advisor in charge of the sheep, we have r another advisor to tell the staff how to manage the pasture, we have an advisor who tells us how to e d look after our stock, we have advisors who tell us how to fertilise. In the 2009 AGM minutes the chair states “they are employing a new manager of whom won’t require advisors”. My question, if b e we already employ an expert operational manager , why the excessive use of advisors? I understand qualified advice is useful but we should not be dependent upon them if we already employ a m l b fulltime expert . And although I do not agree with numerous advisors, I can clearly see that management is reliant on their assistance for most decisions that are made. a e The Makarau Lease block with the lease signed up for 10 years was very poorly set up and advised T upon from the outset, with a set up cost in 2014 of approximately $327K. To Rear 1400 calves per c year was the initial game plan set up by management and his advisors. Who in their right mind with e very poor infrastructure, very poor land and pasture quality and with absolutely NO experience in rearing calves would fly into this blind. Perhaps a good idea would have been to start small and work D your way up to increased numbers as your experience increased. As a result hundreds and hundreds of calves have lost their lives, and thousands of dollars have washed down the creek tarnishing Otakaninis ’ respected reputation along the way . I have taken the time to speak on the phone with Dr Bas Shouten who was the initial advising vet, he was happy to be able to communicate with a member of this committee. Due to poor management and the high fatality rate he did not want his name further associated with the Makarau Unit. His reports grim reading to say the least. On the sale of the milking cows he informed me the cows were of a body score of 2, emaciated. I spoke with Mark Anderson the current advising vet in December 2016, he advised me he believed it should be closed down. However, Mark still continues today to support the Makarau