In 2011 they won the Taranaki farm manager title and went on to take second place nationally – not bad for the former “desk job people” who initially began milking cows while they looked for other jobs.
Jody met English-born Charlie during her overseas experience and led him back to Taranaki at the end of the global financial crisis where they struggled to find jobs, but took a shine to relief milking.
That led to a dairy assistant job for Charlie and herd testing for Jody, before moving onto contract milking and now their second season as lower-order sharemilkers.
“We see ourselves in a phase of hard work and consolidation but we figure with that amount of equity we could step back from operational activities and take on more governance and leadership roles.”
They also won the Taranaki Dairy Industry Awards Variable Order Cup, the DairyNZ Human Resources Award, the Federated Farmers Leadership Award, the Honda Farm Safety and Health Award, and the Meridian Energy Farm Environment Award.
Second place in the competition went to Patea 50:50 sharemilkers Jason and Gemma Skittrup who won the Ecolab Farm Dairy Hygiene Award and the LIC Recording and Productivity Award. Third place went to Stratford 24% sharemilkers Greg and Amanda Bland who also won the Triplejump Risk Management Award and the Westpac Business Performance Award. Patea 21% variable order sharemilkers Josh and Alex Cooper won the Ravensdown Pasture Performance Award.
