The Meat Industry Excellence group is calling on farmers to vote in the Silver Fern Farms director elections which end on Friday - and preferably for the candidate its endorsing.
MIE chairman John McCarthy said farmers needed to vote if they wanted change and to reform the sector.
He said the MIE was backing the West Otago farmer Fiona Hancox in her bid for a one of the two available director seats on the board.
"We've said that we're endorsing Fiona Hancox who is one of our ex-committee members and she's standing very firmly on a platform of reform, on a platform of an enhanced co-operative model offering scale and a benefit to New Zealand and to farmers' incomes in general.
"I think that farmers through out New Zealand are really feeling the pinch, a combination of drought and the on-going predatory type relationship that exists especially now between the co-ops and their suppliers."
The other two candidates contesting the election were incumbent Silver Fern Farm directors Rob Hewett and Herstall Ulrich.