INDUSTRY PEOPLE
Best in Dirt - The Earthworm Story
June is traditionally Fieldays month for many members of the
CAM Magazine readership.
Every year, thousands of exhibitors and visitors flock
to this cornerstone event, hosted by the New Zealand
National Fieldays Society.
In fact, people come from all over the world. According
to the Society, over 130,000 visitors can be expected at
this event this year, the largest of its kind in the Southern
Hemisphere.
This is the 50th year of the event. In the old days, such
events were known as Town and Country or A & P shows,
and they were primarily aimed at and run by farmers.
John Kneebone was the man responsible for suggesting
that a kind of ‘town and country’ show could be held in
New Zealand to do just that: to bring together the urban
and rural aspects of New Zealand life and to give farmers
an opportunity to show off their wares. The first of its
kind was held in 1969 at the Te Rapa Racecourse and
attracted 15,000 people.
Now, the scale of the operation has exponentially
upsized and is about representing our primary industries
and creating a network of like-minded businesses - and
having a good old yarn with other suppliers.
Of course, the evolution of technology has changed the
trajectory of the event too, with every kind of primary
industry represented, and advances in the digital world
have made the first version in 1969 look positively ancient.
It’s held at Mystery Creek—formerly a dairy farm in a
poor state of repair—on a site of 114 hectares. It needs
to be a huge site to accommodate some 1060 exhibitors.
“Fieldays is great for us; we have a lot of people who
are actually thinking about buying something, rather than
just people browsing, and you can get some good deals
over those four days, says Rick McLean of Earthworm,
a business that specialises largely in auger and rock-
breaking attachments for hydraulic equipment.
Earthworm representing at the Diesel Dirt Turf Show in Sydney last month. They will also have a similar site at Fieldays this month.
This is a monthly series on businesses in our industry. We profile one business per month to find out how our hard-working
business owners, employees and contractors manage to run these specialist businesses and what makes them tick in the
New Zealand trade business environment. These are the stories of our CAM people.
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CAM June 2019
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