Maitland Manning, National Industry Support Manager at NZ Pork, grew up on a farm in the Wairarapa and retained his affinity for farming all his life.
“Whenever there was an opportunity to work in the primary industry sector, I jumped at it,” he says.
His career since he completed a BSc in zoology at the University of Canterbury has seen Maitland work in horticulture and crop and food research, as well as at Beef & Lamb NZ and Dairy NZ before joining NZ Pork.
In between, he worked at the ESR doing groundwater research, in IT in London and in rural land conservation for the QEII National Trust. A strong strand in his career has also been farmer wellbeing, and Maitland remains committed to the GoodYarn mental health literacy programme for rural and urban workplaces.
In his previous role for Dairy NZ, he worked in the animal feed team, managing the homegrown feed project, helping farmers make most of the feed they grow and advising on how to augment that feed.
Maitland sees his role at the NZFMA to be the voice of pig farmers on this national body, and also to make sure relevant information is fed back to the farmers, for instance when regulatory changes affect farmers who mill their own feed.
