Friday, March 29, 2024

Youth focus for new associate

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The encouragement of young people in dairy farming is top of the list for DairyNZ associate director Elaine Cook, who began her six-month term in the newly created position last month.
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She is an investor in a Southland dairy farm and won the Sharemilker of the Year Award with her late husband Wayne in 2006.

He died two years later on a hunting trip. Now living in Waikato, where she grew up on her parents’ dairy farm at Hoe-o-Tainui, near Morrinsville, Cook wants to build on her experience as a director of the Southland Demonstration Dairy Farm Trust and is completing the Fonterra Governance Development Programme.

The non-voting board position she has taken up with DairyNZ aims to give aspiring directors an opportunity to develop their governance and leadership skills.

Cook said the young staff employed for their 800-cow sharemilking contract in Southland and their 450-cow dairy farm had demonstrated outstanding determination, ability and loyalty.

“After Wayne passed away unexpectedly my focus changed to our three daughters,” she said.

“Fortunately I had good young staff, all in their early 20s, who stuck with me and helped me run the final eight months of our sharemilking contract. They were fantastic because each of them was committed to Wayne and I was part of that.

“We liked seeing people achieve what they wanted to do because that’s success for them.”

Incentives to their staff included bonus trips and experiences, such as flights and accommodation at a Bathurst supercars championship for one enthusiast and a week’s hunting from a helicopter in Fiordland for another staff member.

“We thought we could offer young people an avenue into sharemilking,” she said.

“We had the knowledge and the systems and we wanted to equity partner with the right people so they could progressively buy us out.”

She describes herself as a grassroots farmer who milked cows as a youngster, took care of young animals and enjoyed an outdoor lifestyle that included showjumping at a national youth level. She now runs her own farm business coaching service.

It is essential to pass the baton to the next generation of farmers, she believes, and suggests there could be a primary sector-wide response to a currently negative spin being put on dairy farming.

“I am concerned about our public perception,” she said.

“Definitely the dairy farmers get a hammering in Southland where there’s a strong ‘dirty dairying’ campaign.”

Many supporters of this campaign had never visited a farm and didn’t want to as a lot of their criticism was driven by emotion.

“It hurts because farming is a family thing,” she said.

“Our kids and grand-kids are at school and in the community and might be thinking their parents are doing the wrong thing.”

Cook doesn’t dispute that dairy farming affects the environment but believes credit should be given to farmers who have accepted and responded to the need to minimise dairying’s environmental footprint.

When her role with DairyNZ finishes at the end of February Walton dairy farm owner Grant Wills will start his half-year term as an associate director. The Walton farmer has been a Fonterra Shareholders’ Council (FSC) councillor for the Matamata ward since 2007.

He said the opportunity to sit on a board without being a fully-fledged director is unique because it offers a first-hand look at how an experienced governance team functions.

“I have a fair idea (of board workings) from being on the FSC but the role of a director is different,” he said.

A former Piako Sharemilker of the Year winner who, with his wife Karen Preston, was this year’s supreme award winner in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards for Waikato, he completed Lincoln University’s Kellogg Rural Leaders Programme in 2009. In the Matamata region he has been the chairman of a school board of trustees and a local domain board, involved in tennis as a player, coach, referee and administrator and used to coach college basketball.

“It’s very worthwhile helping people get across the line,” he said.

His 244ha Walton farm (215ha effective) was a DairyNZ ‘tight management’ focus farm during 2009-2011 and the 650-cow sharemilked herd produced 400 kg milksolids/cow in the last drought season.

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