The 50:50 sharemilker who with husband Andrew won the 2013 Waikato Sharemilker of the Year title believes formal training has been one of those key steps in her dairy career.
“Pretty much all my learning came from Primary ITO,” Michelle says. She completed the Diploma in Agribusiness Management in 2009.
“I grew up on a farm but it doesn’t mean I knew anything.”
Michelle spent her childhood on a family-run dairy farm in Matamata before heading to the bright lights of Auckland and London to pursue a career in banking. She met Andrew at the same banking firm in Auckland. They married and spent three years abroad before deciding in 2001 that a rural life back in New Zealand would be great for bringing up a family.
When they returned to NZ Andrew picked up a farm assistant role on a 224-cow property at Te Puke and for the following three seasons the couple incrementally increased their workload and responsibilities, ending up with their first 50:50 sharemilking position in 2004.
“We took little steps,” Michelle says. “We took a debt with a 50:50 [sharemilking] job. As soon as that debt was paid off we’d move on after that third year and debt ourselves up again, but not hugely.”
Michelle took a similar step-by-step approach to completing her agribusiness diploma. Because of family commitments and having children it took her nearly six years to complete the diploma part-time, but she is glad her steady approach and persistence paid off.
The qualification encompasses five key learning areas: business and finance, taxation and investment, resource management and planning, ownership and risk, and human resource management. Trainees must then complete a detailed business plan for their farm. Michelle now takes responsibility for the financial side of the couple’s farming business.
Although familiar with the banking sector she learned many new financial planning skills during her diploma studies, including how to analyse cashflow.
“It was a great tool to have learned. We can now look at [projected] cashflows for our farm two or three years in advance. We can see a rough picture of what our surplus is for the end of the year and we can make decisions around what we’re going to do with that surplus. It gives us a quick snapshot,” she says.
For the banker who “never wanted to marry a farmer”, Michelle has come full circle and is proving that, step by step and with formal training under her belt, dairy farming offers a promising future.
• For more information about the Diploma in Agribusiness Management visit www.primaryito.ac.nz/diploma.
