Last year they placed runner-up, and taking out Hawke’s Bay-Wairarapa Share Farmer of the Year this year was the culmination of eight years hard work in the industry.
Although growing up on a sheep and beef farm, Jaime went straight from high school into teachers college and began her teaching career, with Mark working in the logging industry.
The long drives back and forth to work along with the dangerous nature of logging prompted the couple to rethink their careers.
“We wanted to spend more time together and I guess we’ve always been country people at heart, we really enjoy the outdoors,” Jaime says.
The couple sat down and thought about their options and what would work well for them, and decided dairy farming was the way to go with its career progression potential. It meant Jaime would still be able to teach when needed to prop up their income and gave them the chance to be their own boss.
“We knew the progression was good if you worked hard and we were certainly willing to do that.”
They sold their house and car, and spent three months in America before coming back to a farm assistant role, with Jaime calf-rearing and keeping up work as a teacher.
They moved on to a herd manager role with Dannevirke farmers Russell and Karen Phillips and the couple say had it not been for their desire to move up the career ladder they would have stayed there.
“Working for the Phillips was great, we were taught a lot. The farm was high-input so we learned all about feed calculations and they had high expectations too, which helped push us a bit further. I think that job helped get us into our lower-order job on this farm five years ago,” Mark says.
Having both the finance and the desire to work hard, next step was lower-order sharemilking for farm owners Mike and Sherynn Harold and Stuart and Sandra Cordell. During this time the couple entered the Dairy Industry Awards for the first time to figure out how they could run their business better.
“We wanted a 50:50 job and part of that was getting recognised and getting our name out there. We were fortunate that the opportunity came up here when it did. We were quite lucky.”
They are heavily involved in their local dairy community through DairyNZ discussion groups, and formed the Efficient Farm Systems group, which they convene. They describe it as a closed group where members could put all their financials on the table, and nitpick at everything and learn to become better farmers.
“That’s the good thing about dairy – everyone is after the same result, you’re not undercutting someone else to get more milk, there’s not that competition like we had in logging,” Mark says.
“We can all work together and help each other out. It’s amazing the support we’ve had and continue to get on a daily basis.”
They formed their 50:50 company with the farm owners two years ago, but this is the first season they have owned 100% of their 50:50 agreement.
“We owned 50% equity of the 50:50 sharemilking company, which was an innovative way of stepping into it.”
Mark and Jaime stick to a pasture-based system and are focused on managing their grass well, which Mark admits isn’t always easy. Although summer-safe, the silt loam soils of the Dannevirke property can be challenging in winter and as a result, most of their stock are wintered off, except 50-100 cows to keep control of the winter pasture on the platform.
The farm also sits in a catchment area under Horizons One Plan and has consents in place. This means there are restraints they have to work around.
Along with Share Farmers of the Year, they also took out the LIC Recording and Productivity, DairyNZ Human Resources and Westpac Business Performance awards.
Jaime says their key principal is “hoof and tooth”, matching stocking rates to suit grass supply and culling accordingly. They cull extensively for “passenger cows” by targeting their bottom 10% production worth cows and herd-test four times a year to keep their genetics in tip-top shape and make sure they aren’t wasting valuable pasture on those that don’t give them the production.
The judges’ comments about their herd recognised the time they take to keep and maintain extensive records and noted this was being used to drive a better bottom line through the sale of surplus stock and selective mating policies.
“If you record everything you have so many more tools to use and to make decisions with and that’s something we do in all areas of the business” Jaime says.
Their award for human resources was another win for the couple, who pride themselves on treating their workers right and helping them achieve their own goals. They have one full-time worker, Mark Figgess, and part-timer Devin Thompson.
They take time to work out how their employees learn, what they want to get from their jobs and their career progression, and how they can help them get there.
“We have regular meetings with them and make sure to involve them in fun off-farm activities as well as giving them the time for professional development. We put a lot of measures in place to make sure they don’t fail, like end-of-the-day checklists. We want to see them succeed.”
Coming from a logging background, health and safety is important to both Mark and Jaime and they have made it clear to their staff that if there’s a hazard on the farm that hasn’t already been identified or they see anyone doing something unsafe, they should speak up so everyone gets home safe at the end of the day.
“We live and breathe health and safety on a daily basis,” Jaime says.
“When I was logging I had three freak accidents where people were air-lifted off the job, so I can get quite sensitive about health and safety. It’s not a nice feeling going through and having to speak to their wife or partner about what’s happened and I want to avoid that,” Mark says.
On the back of a tough couple of years in the dairy industry, Mark and Jaime have coped well and remain optimistic about the future.
Their positive attitude and continuing motivation to better themselves has stood them in good stead, and was recognised by judges. They say the awards have forced them to keep looking at and creating new goals for themselves and made them realise what drives their business.
“After entering the awards a couple of times we have really come to realise what drives our profitability and why our farming system is so profitable. For us, it’s all about growing grass. We are a grass-based system, and if you focus on the basics and get that right, you’ll be ok,” Mark says.
Runners-up were Carterton contract milkers Adam and Rebecca Giddens.
