Feilding is a town in the Manawatu District of the North Island of New Zealand. It is located on State Highway 54, 20 kilometres north of Palmerston North. The town is the seat of the Manawatu District Council. Feilding has won the annual New Zealand's Most Beautiful Town award 16 times. It is an Edwardian-themed town. The town is currently extending its CBD beautification featuring paving and planter boxes on the footpaths on the main streets in the CBD, including the realignment and beautification of Fergusson Street to the South Street entrance of Manfeild Park. The town is a service town for the surrounding farming district. The Feilding Saleyards have been a vital part of the wider Manawatu community for over 125 years. As transport systems improved and farming practices changed, the need for small, local saleyards all but disappeared, leaving few major selling complexes in New Zealand. Manawatu is a diverse and fertile farming area with high production, high stock-carrying capacity and a stable climate. These factors make Feilding Saleyards a popular medium for many farmers. A unique aspect of Feilding Saleyards is their location in the centre of town. The Manawatu Plains, on which the town is sited, are very fertile land, and as such it is a prosperous agricultural area. Being located on the floodplain of a major river has its problems, however, and in February 2004 the town suffered extensive flooding. In 2009 the Horizons Regional Council commissioned a new flood protection scheme to prevent extensive flooding in the future.
History
European settlement
The town was named after Colonel William H. A. Feilding, a director of the Emigrants and Colonists Aid Corporation Ltd. who negotiated the purchase of a 100,000 acre block of land from the Wellington provincial government in 1871. The first European settlers arrived from Great Britain on 22 January 1874. The Feilding Edwardian Project Inc. was established in September 1993 by local businesses with the aim of revitalising the central business area of Feilding. Many of the commercial buildings were built in the 1900s and have been restored and preserved over time. Feilding is home to a number of historic collections, buildings, monuments and museums, including THE Coach House Museum, St Johns Church, Feilding Club, Feilding Hotel, AND Feilding & Districts Steam Rail Society.
Military presence
In recent years there has been a steady increase in military families from the Royal New Zealand Air Force buying property and living in Feilding, mainly due to the close proximity of RNZAF Base Ohakea. In 2017 it was announced that the Republic of Singapore Air Force was looking to establish a permanent F-15 fighter jet training base at Ohakea, but this was scrapped in December 2018 due to "excessive costs involved".
Marae
Feilding has two marae, connected to the Iwi of Ngāti Kauwhata: Aorangi Marae and its Maniaihu meeting house; and Kauwhata Marae or Kai Iwi Pā and its Kauwhata meeting house.
Features
One of New Zealand's main motor racing circuits, Manfeild, is located at the southern edge of the town
There is an active light aircraft airfield at the eastern edge of the town
Employing about 30 people with a payroll of $1.5m in 2015, Proliant, an Iowa based firm privately held by the father and son team of Wally and Nix Lauridsen, constructed a $24m factory on the outskirts of Feilding for the production of a byproduct from cattle blood plasma, bovine serum albumin, which is used in pharmaceuticals, vaccines and medical research. Proliant produces about half of the world's BSA. In the Manawatu District of the people aged 15 years or over:
