The annual dairy industry awards have undergone a revamp to allow more people to enter them this year.
Executive chairman Gavin Roden said the entry criteria for all three competitions had been adjusted to reflect the varied employment contracts in today's industry.
The sharemilker-equity farmer of the year competition has been rebranded the share farmer of the year, the farm manager contest has changed to dairy manager of the year, and, while the name of the dairy trainee competition isn't changing, the age range for entrants is now 18 to 25 years old, as opposed to 30.
He said the changes would help to recognise competent employees who fell through the gaps of the old criteria.
"In the dairy trainee side of things, we identified a few years ago that a few of our winners were not trainees - these guys were progressing on into management roles or contract milking.
"The dairy trainee was set up to identify genuine trainees that have really just started out, knew a little bit about farming, but didn't know too much.
"On the farm managers' side of things, we had extremely competent contract milkers that were self employed, versus farm managers who were obviously salaried, and then we had some very good 2IC herd managers that had too much experience, so they couldn't fit into the dairy trainee but they also couldn't fit into the farm manager competition."
