National Agricultural Fieldays chairman Lloyd Downing is off to the US on a marketing mission to sell Kiwi farming ingenuity. The organisation - which runs the biggest agricultural show in the Southern Hemisphere at Mystery Creek near Hamilton - will have a stall at the Kentucky National Farm Machinery Show this week reports the NZ Herald. "What I would like to think they would do is to see us on the site at Kentucky and then either come out to Mystery Creek to see the one-stop-shop with all NZ technology on display or if they come out at any other time of the year ... we could point them in the right direction." At an Israeli agricultural show 95% of visitors were from overseas and 5% were local, Downing said. "We're the other way around [in NZ] ... we need to change that," he said."There's only so many farmers in NZ and for some of our exhibitors to expand they need to be expanding offshore." The farming sector was recession proof to a degree and food was not discretionary expenditure, Downing said. "You can make a decision whether you're going to buy a car or whether you put it off for six months but you can't do that with food." Downing also planned to visit a show in Kansas and head to Paris, France, for another show where he would meet rural organisations and gather ideas for the NZ event at Mystery Creek.
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