Phillip is this year’s Canterbury/North Otago farm manager of the year and works among Ngai Tahu’s conversion project at Eyrewell, on the north bank of the Waimakariri River near Oxford.
He manages Dairy One, the first of three successful pilot conversions to start milking last season on what will eventually be a complex that includes 14 dairy farms spread over 5900ha.
Dairy One is milking 1300 cows and under Phillip’s watch is on target to be well above the farm’s production budget this year despite pivot irrigators being battered by the late spring wind storm and water restrictions in February. Phillip and Melissa joined Ngai Tahu Farming as a way to further their progression.
They see large scale management as a legitimate career path that will help them get to farm ownership.
Melissa, a Lincoln University Diploma of Agriculture graduate, was the girl next door, working on a neighbouring farm when Phillip was managing near Te Pirita. The couple now have a one-year-old daughter, Emily, and Melissa works on Dairy One part-time bringing in the three herds most afternoons. The focused couple save almost all of Phillip’s wages.
“We want to be able to go to the bank with enough money to be a good lending proposition for a 600-cow sharemilking job by 2018, depending on cow prices,” Phillip said.
They’re already more than halfway to their equity goal for that job and now see the benefits annually of compounding interest returns. Within 10 years they want to be in a position to convert a relative’s farm for them and at that point or soon after move into land ownership.
Phillip and Melissa are avidly learning all they can, developing skills in managing staff, finances and the use of onfarm technologies.
They’ve got an impressive array of desktop and mobile technologies at their fingertips and Phillip uses them fully, helping him manage feed inputs to maximise the profitable use of supplements – grain and molasses fed in the farm dairy, monitor a range of environmental performance indices and benchmark himself against other farms in the complex in terms of costs, financial and environmental performance and production. He’s on track for farm working expenses to come in at less than $3.67/kg milksolids.
The automation means milking is a one-person job and the centre pivots that also apply effluent help make it possible for the 352ha unit to be run by just two people on any given day. It frees up time for an absolute focus on pasture management, setting up 12-hour breaks and hitting residuals.
Because it’s just come out of trees, mowing isn’t a good option. The only tool he has to clean up with is the older cows – one of the three herds – but it’s not a common occurrence. He’s committed to training his staff well and ultimately wants to see them step up to management roles too.
“Sometimes I back down and pretend to be the junior so they can take over the decision-making.”
This season their second in charge from last year has stepped up to become a manager within the complex.
Phillip’s been dairying for 13 years and has worked his way up the ranks, earning the Upper South Island Dairy Trainee of the Year title in 2006. The couple also won the TH Enterprises Leadership Award, the RD1 Farm Management Award and the Westpac Financial Planning and Management Award.
Rakaia farm manager Steve Veix was second and also won the Primary ITO Human Resource Management Award.
Jonathon and Stacey Hoets, also from Rakaia were third and took out the Scansouth Best Livestock Award and the Fonterra Best Practice Award.
The Pye Group Most Promising Farm Manager merit award went to Mark Cudmore of Glenavy.
