Rural boom drives strongest Fieldays outlook in years

Wednesday, 10 June 2026

Fieldays CEO Richard Lindroos reckons this year has all the makings of a record-breaking event.

Fieldays is set to have one of its biggest years yet with a buoyant rural sector leaving farmers with more cash in hand.

Fieldays Society CEO Richard Lindroos reckons this year is tracking to be a record-breaking event with farmer confidence and international interest up. He hopes that more successful years will aid future infrastructure improvements at the venue.

“The sector is buoyant. If you look across everything, you know, dairy, sheep and beef and horticulture. They’re having a phenomenal run.

For the first time in recent history, the exhibitor sites are fully sold out prior to the event.

“This could absolutely be one of the biggest years. If you look at all the indicators, sites are sold and ticket sales are up with the best year ever,” Lindroos said.

PGG Wrightson North Island Livestock Manager, Tom Mowat, said this year has seen sheep and beef farmers getting record prices and the outlook is “pretty bright” for the next couple of years.

PGG Wrightson North Island Livestock Manager Tom Mowat said sheep and beef farmers have had near record prices this year.

“There is an international push for protein and people like New Zealand products because it has the clean, green credentials … These are the highest prices farmers have ever seen consistently for beef and lamb.”

Years of losing sheep land to pine trees and land use changes had also created a shortage of sheep in particular, causing prices to roughly double over the last couple of years.

John Davison, right, has been volunteering at Fieldays for 58 years since its first event and reckons it’s grown a huge amount in that time. Pictured with Ken Shearer a fellow volunteer of over 20 years.

Heading into Fieldays, he believed farmers would be looking to invest in things like fencing and infrastructure as well as upgrading some machinery. Agritech could also be popular with technology like virtual fencing increasing beef farmers productivity on steep land.

Rising fuel and fertiliser costs could be a worry, but at this stage stock prices were taking care of that.

Fieldays CEO Richard Lindroos says the challenge for coming years will be how to maximise space with demand for sites hot.

According to Rabobank’s June Agribusiness Report, prime cattle and bull indicators were sitting between $9.20 to $9.40/kg of carcass weight. Meanwhile, AgriHQ data showed slaughter prices for prime lambs in May sat around $10.65/kg of carcass weight, up from $9.25/kg last year.

Similarly, the dairy industry is in a strong position with Fonterra announcing an opening Farmgate Milk Price for the 2026/27 season of $9.75/kgMS and the current season’s midpoint is at $9.70/ kgMS. Fonterra’s total group operating profit was $1.8 billion, up $103 million relative to last year.

In a release, CEO Richard Allen said that despite disruption in global supply chains, “milk production is up considerably” and they had seen their highest third quarter shipment volumes in a decade. This follows Fonterra’s capital payment shareholders received in April.

Fieldays CEO Richard Lindroos pictured with the new temporary Function Centre that replaced The Hub.

All of which had left Lindroos feeling optimistic for a successful event with record spending from farmers. Exhibitor sites had sold out a month ago - the first time they had been sold out going into the event in the past decade or so.

Their next challenge would be to look at how to maximise their space and even possibly extend it, Lindroos said. This year, they had grown the motor vehicle area of the event by 14 sites up from nine to accommodate growing demand, and it was the first area sold out.

International exhibitor numbers were up to 73 from 66 last year. There had also been slight increases in visa support letters processed from 1,054 to 1,102.

One of their new events is a European Union lunch, hosted by the European Union Ambassador to New Zealand, Lawrence Meredith, which will bring together all 27 EU member countries.

“I think geopolitically, everyone is realising that they’ve got to get on with each other and they realise that food security is really important, so they’re coming to get that from New Zealand,” Lindroos said.

“Agritech is another big reason internationals come because, you know, Brazil, China and India, they’ve got the machinery, but they don’t have the New Zealand know-how, innovation and tech.

“If you think about our New Zealand story, companies like Halter and Gallagher started here, so they’re all looking for the next one.”

Lindroos hoped that a successful year would help pave the way to getting some government funding to progress with his infrastructure improvements at the site. He wanted to become the “poster boy” for energy efficiency, the next project on his list, and had plans to eventually build a second pavilion.