Hamish Matthews

His region covers from Kaiwaka west through to the Dargaville coast and back through Tangiteroria to Whangarei and south.

Hamish was born and bred on a small dairy/beef farm in Kaitaia. After completing an Ag Commerce degree at Massey he worked for Landcorp helping with the North Island dairy portfolio and the first forest to farm conversions north of Taupo.

His OE took him 10 years in the UK and Ireland, managing pasture-based dairy farms. The highlight of which was proving the profitability of grazing and building a second cowshed and grazing platform on an estate in Devon. Prior to starting with DairyNZ Hamish managed a 600 cow farm in Mangakino.

DairyNZ was appealing to Hamish because of the opportunity to help facilitate farmer to farmer learning and sharing of research-based knowledge, one of the really positive parts of the industry.