Nick Templer, 28, and Anieka Venekamp, 29, put their win down to their complementary strengths. While Nick looks after financials, HR and stock management Anieka concentrates on animal health and pasture management as well as keeping a close eye on breeding.
“Together we think we make a very strong team,” Anieka said.
The couple, who are engaged to be married but have been too busy to set a date yet, are in their third season contract milking 650 cows on a system four farm for Lyall and Jan Hopcroft at Balfour. They have a one-year-old daughter, Maycie.
Anieka came to New Zealand from Holland with her dairy farming parents when she was five and was manager on her parents’ farm when she met Nick who was working on a sheep and beef farm at the time. He soon became an assistant on the dairy farm and was 2IC when the farm was sold.
When they’re not farming, Nick is out hunting pigs or deer and Anieka enjoys photography. Nick, along with 2015 Southland-Otago Sharemilker-Equity Farmer of the Year Jono Bavin, is hoping someone will find them a duck pond near Auckland as the national finals of the competition coincide with the opening of the duck shooting season.
It was their third time entering the awards, with Nick runner-up in the 2012 Southland Dairy Trainee of the Year competition.
The couple also won the Environment Merit Award, the Leadership Merit Award and the Planning and Management Merit Award.
Second in the region’s farm manager contest was Winton farm manager Irving Solis. Edendale contract milkers Mick and Jess Annan were third.
