Saturday, March 30, 2024

Sticking to the strategy

Avatar photo
Every area of Justin and Melissa Slattery’s dairying business has a plan with short, medium and long-term goals.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Those goals form their strategic plan – a plan that’s become their touchstone and the foundation they refer back to when assessing any option or monitoring their progress.

The Culverden couple are this year’s Canterbury-North Otago Sharemilker-Equity Farmers of the Year and are on track to achieve the overall medium-term goal in their strategic plan – owning a 100ha dairy farm in the next five years.

Melissa says when they developed the plan they set an equity growth target of 30% year on year. So far, since being self-employed they have grown at an average of 112%.

Both Melissa and Justin are originally from Waikato, near Te Aroha and both their families are dairying but that’s not where either of them headed initially.

Justin left school at 15 and spent the next four years completing an engineering apprenticeship while Melissa worked for accounting firm Diprose Miller after completing high school and studied while working full-time.

Impressively she took the same amount of time to become a chartered accountant as those who study full-time.

About the time Justin finished his apprenticeship the opportunity came up for him to return home as manager on the 180-cow farm.

He did that for one year before stepping up to lower-order sharemilking for Theo Verryt.

Two years later the couple were able to buy the cows and go 50:50 sharemilking on the property.

In the first year of the 50:50 job they entered the Dairy Industry Awards. While they didn’t place, the feedback was invaluable and they knew they would enter again.

As part of their plan to boost top-line income and produce stock suitable for the Chinese export market they’ve used straight Friesian semen this season.

They also used short gestation length semen in the seventh week of mating to bring the seventh week of calving forward as they work on improving reproductive performance.

When the couple moved to Culverden they took a fresh look at their human resources, employment and health and safety policies.

They planned out their staff roles, first looking at their strategic plan and the goals they had for each aspect of the business. They then looked at where they might have weaknesses and aimed to recruit people who could best help plug those gaps.

“For instance when we scrutinised our business and looked at the data we keep we could see there was an opportunity with our calf rearing so we took someone on who as part of their overall skills was passionate about calf rearing, and that’s how we employed Carl Stewart,” Melissa says.

She still works part time from home for Diprose Miller and they have a one-year-old son, Ryan.

They also took on a staff member who had good experience with K-line irrigation as the farm has a mix of pivots, K-line and long lateral irrigation.

“He’d worked on this farm before and he’s taught me a lot about managing that irrigation well,” Justin says.

At the same time the couple took a good look at their health and safety policy and with the help of Hazard Co set up a comprehensive policy with plans where hazards are identified and recorded. Staff and visitors are given up-to-date information to keep them safe including a hazard map and sign-in registers.

Justin says he and the two staff have regular meetings and first on the agenda is always health and safety.

Staff were inducted into the policy and Justin and Melissa strive to have a genuine culture where people are appreciated and looked after.

Their efforts in the area earned them the Honda Farm Safety and Health award.

The couple won the Westpac Business Performance award and given her accounting background it’s no surprise Melissa has strict oversight of the couple’s financials.

She uses BankLink to manage cashflows and closely monitor actuals against budget.

One of the most powerful tools is the ability to forecast cashflows – allowing the couple to make timely farm management or investment decisions.

Again that all ties back into their strategic plan.

Runners-up in the Canterbury awards were Tony Coltman and Dana Carver of Dunsandel with David Le Heron of Rakaia taking out third place.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading