Meet The Bay of Plenty Horticulture Team

Farmlands has progressively built a strong team in the Bay of Plenty horticulture advisory and service sector, as we’ve refocused efforts to support our shareholders’ expanding businesses.

With a few recent changes, it’s timely to highlight the team who are dedicated to servicing our many sharehold-ers in the region, operating predominantly in the kiwifruit and avocado sectors.

We are excited that two key former team members returned to Farmlands last season.

Chris Cleaver, previously based in Te Puke for 5 years has returned to the fold after a couple of years working in the post-harvest kiwifruit sector. Chris now services sharehold-ers in the Te Puke and Whakatane areas.
Dean Gower also re-joined our Te Puke based team after a few years working in the post-harvest kiwifruit sector.

Many growers will know Dean, given his almost 30 years of horticulture experience in the Bay of Plenty. Dean re-joins former colleague Mark Loeffen in Te Puke. Mark has a wealth of experience in the kiwifruit sector spanning 40 years and prides himself in providing extremely in-formed advice to is many long-standing customers. It could be said that Mark holds the encyclopaedia of Te Puke kiwifruit growing history in his head!

Jason Day, an Opotiki local with strong family connections to the early pioneers of kiwifruit growing in the district, has returned to the area and is based at our Opotiki branch. Over the last couple of years, he has grown strong and val-ued relationships with many East Coast shareholders.

Jeff Dunstan is a more recent addition to the team, based at our Te Puna branch and joins us with experience in post-harvest and orchard management.

Graeme Lee who’s based at our Tauranga branch leads our Bay of Plenty Horticulture team. He’s worked in the team for five years but has a lifetime of experience in the sector. For many years Graeme was engaged in the family’s export cut flower business and more recently has developed his property into an avocado orchard.

Supporting and underpinning this team is Dwayne Farrington — a veteran of the kiwifruit sector with 25 years’ experience, the last 11 at Farmlands, most recently as Crop Technical Leader. Dwayne has recently taken up the key responsibility of Business Development Manager, assisting corporate and large operators in the kiwifruit and avocado sector from the Bay of Plenty through to Northland.

Rounding out the team, will be an additional technical advi-sor, based at our Tauranga store.

Collectively the Bay of Plenty team has over 120 years experience in the horticulture industry.
They pride themselves in offering trusted and unbiased technical advice to our grower shareholders.
The team is backed by an enthusiastic crew in each branch who are keenly growing their own knowledge in the horticulture sector.

	Graeme Lee Shareholder Services Manager, Bay of Plenty 027 598 0336 graeme.lee@farmlands.co.nz			Mark Loeffen Senior Technical Advisor, Te Puke 027 705 6215 mark.loeffen@farmlands.co.nz
	Chris Cleaver Technical Advisor, Te Puke - Edgecumbe 027 254 1794 chris.cleaver@farmlands.co.nz			Jason Day Technical Advisor, Opotiki 027 661 5565 jason.day@farmlands.co.nz
	Dean Gower Technical Advisor, Te Puke 027 233 8387 dean.gower@farmlands.co.nz			Jeff Dunstan Technical Advisor, Te Puna 027 495 4661 jeff.dunstan@farmlands.co.nz