She jokes she is an “okay farmer”, who husband Jim finds useful for standing in a gateway, but her relational and business strengths are no laughing matter.
Sue has been seven years on the Rural Support Trust (RST) in Northland, twice that length of time on Northern Wairoa Vet Club governance, served on the Agri Women’s Development Trust, collects DairyBase data and recently became a Farmstrong ambassador.
She intends to combine Dairy Connect networking and RST facilitation, both tasks that require her full attention when the telephone rings.
“Someone has to have the conversations and I think my roles are best done by people who are actively involved in farming.”
Some 23 years after coming back to Jim’s parents’ farm, the couple have become an anchor for farming families in a district that sees more than its fair share of challenges.
Tangiteroria is halfway between Whangarei and Dargaville, just far enough west to suffer repeated droughts in the past 10 years.
But it is the Wairoa River that brings some of the biggest farming recovery challenges.
Massive falls of rain on the eastern coast overwhelm the Hikurangi drainage scheme and all that water backs up for a long journey to the west, past Tangiteroria.
The Wairoa breaks its banks and puts the river terraces under water almost annually.
The Rhynds’ dairy and nearby beef farms are a little higher than the Wairoa, but they have been under several times in recent years, starting with the July 2007 flood when power was out for four days just before calving.
“Pukehuia Road is a stopbank so once the floodwaters crest over the road they inundate our lower paddocks and it will take four or five days for the river to go down,” Jim explained.
Among the Dairy Connect resources Sue has drawn on are fellow Tangiteroria farmers Jan and Ambie Beatty.
They have farmed through floods, droughts and high interest rates, often concurrently, and are happy to pass on their knowledge.
“Do the little things well, don’t listen to the nay-sayers, there is always light at the end of the tunnel,” Jan said on how to get through farming challenges.
Jim Rhynd remembered the 2011 big flood in late January when he had to strip and swim to reach a stranded tractor when water rose quickly.
Another big flood in 2014 prompted Jim and Sue to get all lower Wairoa farmers together to get explanations from the Northland Regional Council about how the whole Kaipara catchment was managed.
“It is a 42,000ha catchment and we live on a flood plain – there have always been floods.
“When you understand that we are going to have more of these events it helps to be prepared,” Jim said.
Sue added the Beattys were great examples of farmers who live with floods and plan for recovery.
When Sue’s appointment was announced in December, Northland was expecting the worst effects of an El Nino summer, but that hasn’t eventuated.
Nonetheless there are real needs throughout the province, mostly stemming from low milk payouts.
Sue encouraged farmers to use Dairy Connect – a service which helps connect farmers looking for knowledge and advice in an area, with those that have it.
“Dairy farmers have to make big decisions, often involving thousands, if not millions of dollars. Having someone that has ‘been there done that’ to bounce ideas off is invaluable,” she said.
“That is what Dairy Connect is all about – we have a database of around 50 Northland farmers who have experience across different areas.
“It is not about telling people what is right and what is wrong – it is just about sharing ideas, which farmers could take or leave.”
The Rhynds have a milking herd of 200 mostly Jersey cows and Jim uses Murray Grey bulls to generate weaners for sale in March and May.
They have been once-a-day milking for the past eight years in order to not employ another person and provide a second house.
Production has been steady at about 280kg/cow, Jim said.
The big El Nino year of 1998-99 was when the Rhynds went OAD for the first time, preparing the way for a full-season approach in recent years.
Droughts were more of a problem for the beef farm and its 250 breeding cows, Jim said.
He went out of trading cattle because of the workload that conflicted with dairying, especially in the afternoons before going OAD.
None of the Rhynds’ community roles have been applied for.
One thing led to another through local schools, dairy discussion groups, the Tangiteroria sports complex and the vet club, where Jim is chairman and Sue was secretary for 13 years and now sits on the board.
Community work would take up to 20 hours a week, Sue thought, as well as a lot of thinking time.
She was very fortunate in having Jim to bounce ideas off, she said.
