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Ahead of this week's grand final for the FMG Young Famer of the Year 2023, we look back at our interview with all 7 of the finalists as we head to the final in Timaru on Thursday.

On today’s episode… We catch up with the winner of this year’s Ahuwhenua Young Maori Grower Award… We profile one of the country’s best-known vets… And we talk to an award-winning scientist turned farmer.

On today’s episode… We talk bulls with Max Tweedie… We speak to the entrepreneur behind 'A Lady Butcher'… And we profile 'Good George' whisky curator Kate Gibson.

Fernglen is a hill-country Wairarapa farm with something a bit different on the flats… There’s a milking shed and twelve hundred friendly milking ewes… Cam Ravenwood is one of the 5-strong family team that works in the business… He joins us now.

Ian Knowles has had a different start into farming than most. .. He trained and worked in ag science and, well he’s never shaken off that interest in research… His farm in Waipara, North Canterbury, is one big petri dish… And for his endeavours, he’s been awarded the Ballance Farm Environment Award for Canterbury… He joins us now.

Grace Rehu is only 21 but has taken away a very big prize in Maori horticulture - she’s the 2023 winner of the Ahuwhenua Young MāoriGrower Trophy… The awards event was attended by 900 people… She’s based in Hastings, where she works for Turners and Growers, and she joins us now.

Ginny Dodunski is one of NZ’s best-known vets, especially now, through her role with Wormwise… Whether she likes it or not she’s the face of worms for sheep and beef farms; the parasite spokesperson if you like. She joins us today from the NZ Veterinary Conference.

Alright, time for this week’s View From the Top Paddock, and this week we head over to the West Coast to catch up with former Fed Farmers President Katie Milne.

If you’re a whisky drinker then you’ll enjoy this idea… Fancy going in shares on a barrel of whisky, choosing the flavours, then watching it age, all the while the value goes up?... Here to tell us more is Kate Gibson, the Spirit brand manager for Good George Brewing, based in Hamilton, she joins Hamish in the Auckland studios.

Hannah Miller Childs is a butcher and has a butchery called A Lady Butcher. She also gets to cook what she produces, as she owns the Auckland restaurant Churly’s… Together with her husband, she’s involved in brewing beer at Behemoth Brewery… She joins us now.

Max Tweedie and his wife Lucy farm at Tutira. Their Hallmark Angus stud is run across Mokara and Pa Hill farms, totalling 990 ha of medium to steep pumice hill country, with some easier land for fodder crops… It has one of the largest, highly recorded stud herds in the country…we’ve been chatting to Max regularly since Cyclone Gabrielle impacted them hard. Max joins us again now.

Today we are heading to a remote part of West Scotland - the Kintyre Peninsula - where Duncan Macalister farms 2000 acres at Glenbarr Farms.

Today we’re getting alongside a wool buyer who’s been in the business 42 years… Roger Fuller is based in Christchurch and works as a broker for Wools of NZ… He’s been on the board of the Wool Classers Association, and has worked for Wrightsons, and Elders, as well as being a senior auctioneer… In 2022 he won the Canterbury A&P Association award for outstanding voluntary services to the Show.; you get the picture!

John Skurr works for the meat company Alliance, but his focus isn’t just the meat or the muscle part of the animal… It’s all the other bits - the specialty parts that are used for food ingredients and other uses. He joins us from Canterbury where he also spends his time running Hereford and Dorset Down studs, on his Oxford farm.

Proposed changes to immigration rules for NZ have been announced by the government… The man with his finger on the pulse for immigration and the rural workforce, is Richard McIntrye, a dairy farmer and Federated Farmers spokesperson.

Let’s see what’s going on in the rural print media, and this week we’re joined by the Editor of NZ Dairy Exporter Jackie Harrigan.

Time to catch up with the Carter’s Brand Ambassador, former All Black Richard Loe.