The Central Plateau Dairy Manager of the Year runs a 940-cow operation at Mangakino, in his second year employed by the Maori organisation.
In past jobs, business was usually discussed over a coffee at the table, but working for the large-scale, multi-farm business is significantly different.
Leighton has a meeting every 10 days with the farm managers from the other Wairarapa Moana dairy farms. He has a performance review twice a year with his performance based on the business plan targets set at the start of the year, along with monthly staff records and meeting minutes sent through to head office.
“It’s helped with my organisation and the importance of recording, which all helps me analyse how the farm business is going.”
Leighton was born and bred in Taranaki. After school he went to Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre then got a job as a farm assistant on a 950-cow dairy farm where he stayed for 18 months.
He then got a job managing a 180-cow farm, where he stayed for two seasons. His next job was managing 460 cows, during which he met his wife Nicola.
The couple had one season contract milking and then stepped up to a lower-order sharemilking position milking 500 cows in 2009-10. However, a bad drought hurt them and they stepped back to a managing position the next season.
“We got a really good job managing 500 cows on a System 5 high-input operation, which I hadn’t been involved with before.”
It was a good experience with great employers and they stayed on that farm for four years before they looked for another step up in the industry.
When Leighton applied for a farm manager role with Wairarapa Moana he was faced with a board room of people when he arrived for the interview. He got the job, managing Farm 1 milking 660 cows for a season, before coming across to the current farm milking 940 cows. The land was formerly three small dairy farms which were joined together to form one milking platform two years ago. The farm has a lot of browntop which they are trying to eradicate by doing a two-year cropping cycle in paddocks. This year they grew 10ha maize, 10ha swedes, 5ha rape, 6ha turnips and 12ha chicory.
They also planted 40ha of plantain as a permanent pasture.
They harvested 10.1 tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha last year, but hope this season to harvest 12.5t DM/ha, Leighton says.
The new pastures should help, along with pivot irrigation on 134ha of the farm and the 60ha effluent irrigation.
Leighton entered the Dairy Industry Awards three years ago and won the Human Resources merit award in the Farm Manager competition in Taranaki. Nicola encouraged him to enter again this year because it’s a good competition to have on the CV when looking for future job opportunities. Going through the judging process also makes sure all your policies and procedures are in order, Leighton says.
He has three full-time staff who work an 11-on, 3-off roster, along with Nicola who is solo calf rearer and relief milker.
Nicola rears the calves with their two small children in tow – Dennis, 4 and Madison, 2. She did a six-month course at Taratahi and has always worked alongside Leighton.
This year Leighton won three merit awards – the Fonterra Farm Source Feed Management, DeLaval Livestock Management and Westpac Financial Management and Planning awards.
The new 54-bail rotary has DeLaval milk meters installed, which are a huge help with making decisions based on cow performance, Leighton says.
It’s the first time he has worked on a farm with this level of automation technology. The data collected at every milking makes it easy to make educated decisions as well as easily draft cows based on specific criteria, he says.
Leighton has completed his Level 4 and is currently studying Level 5 through Primary ITO which he hopes will help him step up to an operations manager role in a large-scale dairy farming business.
The couple would look at sharemilking again for the right opportunity, but meanwhile they’re increasing their equity through real estate and hope to buy their own drystock farm one day.
They enjoy farming in the Central Plateau region. It’s central for Nicola to travel and show her Border Terriers, while Leighton enjoys four-wheel driving as co-pilot for his dad in trials around the North Island, and enjoys deer hunting in the area when time allows.
Second place in the Dairy Manager competition went to 31-year-old Reporoa farm manager Anthony Kiff, and Reporoa production manager Josh Strugnell placed third.
