Friday, March 29, 2024

Farm business manager wins award

Avatar photo
Taupō farm business manager James van Bohemen was awarded the 2021 Rabobank Business Management prize for up-and-coming farmers.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Selected from a group of New Zealand’s most progressive young farmer graduates of the 2019 Rabobank Farm Managers Programme (FMP), Van Bohemen is recognised for his project that demonstrates how he effectively utilised the lessons from the programme in his role as the farm business manager at Pamu’s Rangitaiki Station, near Taupō.

Designed for emerging farmers, the FMP focuses on the development of business management skills, with an emphasis on business planning, leadership, people management and self-awareness.

The 8300ha Rangitaiki Station employs 24 staff across a range of enterprises, including sheep, beef and deer breeding and finishing units, and has an intensive bull beef system.

Van Bohemen’s management project included two key focus areas: people development and business profitability.

“The people component was centered around attracting good people to the station and then working with them to expand their skillsets,” Van Bohemen said.

“As part of this, individual staff development plans have now been developed for each of our staff and this has allowed me to gain a much better understanding of the areas where our employees want to develop their skills and where they see their careers heading.

“In addition, we’ve done some work together as a group to develop the culture

of the organisation.

“We joined a local Red Meat Profit Partnership (RMPP) Action Network group, which helps keep team members up-to-date on key industry developments, as well as providing valuable networking opportunities.”

The business focus of the project initially involved analysing the station’s operations and identifying opportunities to make it more profitable.

“Following this process, we made the decision to conduct a farm policy review on our sheep, beef and deer farm systems, which I was given the opportunity to lead,” he said.

“This led us to explore a number of different farming policies focusing on creating a simplified, repeatable farm system that could deliver consistent production and profit.

Van Bohemen says the FMP was a phenomenal course which had changed his mind set on his own career aspirations.

“When I undertook the course in 2019, I was the farm operations manager at Rangitaiki and I hadn’t really aspired to the farm business manager position as I’d envisaged my future would be in a more hands-on farming role,” he said.

“The programme changed my thinking on this, as it really sparked my interest in some of the softer skills surrounding farm management, like working on the business and working with people, which are so crucial in running a large-scale farming operation like Rangitaiki.

Since then, Van Bohemen moved into the farm business manager role and says some of the lessons from the course have proven invaluable.

“In particular, I found the sessions on people management and succession planning really useful,” he said.

“I’d previously viewed succession planning as something that was only really important in the context of family farming operations, however, the session on this topic opened my eyes to the importance of succession planning for all organisations.”

Rabobank South Island regional manager and one of the judges for the award Michael Dunn says the management projects were undertaken so that participants could put into practice the tools, theories and ideas from the programme and utilise these to make improvements in their own operation.

“James’ management project clearly illustrated what he’d learnt on the programme and how he’d taken the learnings to effect positive change at Rangitaiki,” Dunn said.

“His presentation highlighted his willingness to challenge the status quo and, by looking at new opportunities and what could be improved, he’s been able to move the dial within the business.”

The Rabobank Farm Managers Programme has been run since 2006 for young farmers from across NZ and Australia.

Previous programmes have seen farmers from both sides of the Tasman joining together on the same course but for the first time, separate programmes were run in both NZ and Australia this year.

The NZ programme was attended by 32 Kiwi farmers representing the sheep and beef, deer, dairy and grains sectors.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading