Best Innovation Showcase award goes to the dogs

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) have discovered having dogs around is a great way to attract people to their interactive site at Fieldays.

MPI have been awarded the Best Innovation Showcase Site, picking up their first Fieldays award in three years of exhibiting under that title.

MPI Fieldays organiser Gabrielle Frayling said having a beagle, a labrador and a harrier hound on site has been a great way to gain attention both at the exhibit and around the expo.

Frayling said the Best Innovation Showcase Site award is a nice reward for the time spent putting the exhibit together.

“It takes us about five or six months of planning to get everything together,” Frayling said.

“So we are very excited [to win].”

The exhibit is set up to show visitors the MPI’s role as a regulatory body for helping to grow and protect New Zealand.

It also provides a platform for the MPI to suggest ways the public can do their bit to help.

“Everybody is part of growing and protecting New Zealand,” Frayling said.

“The dogs are a great way to highlight or a great way to get people talking about all the different things that they can do.”