It is their third time entering. The number one difference this year was to give themselves more time, Paul says.
“We wanted to win it this year. We put huge value on these awards.
“In my last job I was running around working on the farm. This year we had a one-man shed and I was only milking every second morning once mating was over – every other morning I was up at 5.30am working on the computer. Then Kate would take over.”
Paul has always placed strong emphasis on entering the awards. He entered as a dairy trainee in 2011 and placed second.
“The number one reason for entering is to take that next step up. There are still good jobs out there but there is really strong competition. You have to be the best at what you do if you want to have your pick of jobs.”
Sixty people applied for the couple’s current job, contract milking 485 cows for Jonathan Robinson and Mary Graham at Cambridge. They have signed up for a second season with the goal to then go 50% sharemilking, lease a farm or start an equity partnership.
Paul and Kate own two rental houses and are growing their stock assets, with 38 rising two-year-olds and 49 three-year-olds being milked on a free lease.
“We have increased our equity position rapidly in the last three years and entering the awards has helped us monitor that,” Paul says.
“It’s really eye opening. We have low drawings and it helps to show you’re saving for a reason.”
They won the Westpac Financial Planning and Management Award and the New Zealand Farm Source Farm Management Award, which were the two awards they had targeted.
“I think they’re the most important – to show you manage the farm and manage your finances well.”
Entering the awards had definitely lifted their best-practice performance, Kate says.
'We wanted to win it this year. We put huge value on these awards.'
It had improved their record keeping for farm data as well as farm policy, including human resources and health and safety. It had also put them in the habit of setting targets and reminding them about their long-term goal of farm ownership.
Keeping a close eye on equity growth and progression helped to justify the sacrifices they make farming, Kate says.
“Sometimes farming is difficult and you wonder why you’re doing it. When your friends have every weekend off and are having family lunches and you’re sitting in the truck with the kids in the pouring rain – it’s good to remember why you’re doing it.”
The couple have two sons: Rupert, 22 months old, and William, nine months.
Neither Paul nor Kate is from a farming background. Paul was born in Sydney and moved to Cambridge when he was 13 years old. He saw early on the success that could be had by people working their way up in the dairy industry.
“A lot of my friends’ parents were farmers and were very successful – and a lot of them had come from nothing.”
He was keen to enter the agricultural industry in some capacity and studied a Bachelor of Commerce in Agriculture from Lincoln University before travelling for almost three years, driving tractors and milking cows.
Kate, born and raised in Christchurch, studied a Bachelor of Science at Canterbury University then worked at GeneMark for LIC in Hamilton.
The pair met briefly while travelling and working in London and got together once they were back in NZ.
After nine months working for an irrigation company, Paul was offered a job milking cows in Arohena and progressed from 2IC to farm manager then went contract milking 470 cows at Parawera.
Kate returned to work at GeneMark then studied a postgraduate diploma in teaching from Waikato University and taught agriculture and science at St Peter’s in Cambridge for a year before she fell pregnant with Rupert.
Second place went to Okoroire contract milkers Ed Auton and Rebecca Walker, and in third place was Morrinsville contract milker Will Rolton.
