Six hubs provide education & opportunity at Fieldays

Everything from sustainability to digital futures and careers will be on show.

The new Sustainability Hub will take centre stage when it comes to exhibitors and visitors at this year's Fieldays.

Four years in the planning, the Fieldays Sustainability Hub is a collaboration between Fieldays and the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA)- to help educate visitors and exhibitors so future generations gain the benefit from improved sustainability practices in this country's food and fibre sector increasingly demanded by customers.

It will feature sustainabilityfocused organisations such as the Ministry for the Environment, Toitii Envirocare, Wilderlab and RiverWatch at its site, E38 on the corner of M Road and E Street, next to the Village Green.

The Fieldays Sustainability Trail, available on the Fieldays App, will see visitors able to visit exhibitors demonstrating sustainability practices, products, and initiatives. Fieldays itself is leading by example building the internationally recognised ISO 20121 Sustainable Events Standards into its management procedures, working on what was achieved last year.

The new hub joins five others at Fieldays, two ofwhich were launched just last year; the Fieldays Forestry Hub and Fieldays Digital Futures -both ofwhich will be back again, bigger and better, says Fieldays Programme Manager, Steve Chappell

"The hubs are one-stop shops where visitors can see coordinated content in key locations and follow each ofthe trails around the event;' he says.

The Fieldays Forestry Hub will have a larger footprint this year at site G80 with around 25 exhibitors taking part. In 2022, this hub debuted at Fieldays, giving an idea to visitors of the ways in which the forestry and wood-processing sectors contribute to the national economy.

Aiming to attract young people to an exciting future in the sector, the emphasis is very much on how wood will become even more important in our lives in the future.

Fieldays Digital Futures at PD50 will double in size this year and is a chance for visitors to talk first-hand to key players in the data landscape, discuss the way forward, and identify where they are on their digital joumey. With all the reporting that farmers now have to undertake, internet connectivity is often a problem.

At the hub they will be able to have risk-free conversations with a range of organisations as to what their options may be. "They may have a solution that can work for you;' Chappell says.

The Fieldays Innovation Hub carries on the impetus which saw the event founded 55 years ago,