Oxford dairy farmer Darcy Bishop has never forgotten the advice his father gave him.
“Dad always taught me in farming you should always take time to smell the roses,” Darcy says.
Easier said than done, however, when you’re as busy as Darcy is.
This third-generation, dairy farmer milks 945 cows on 285ha near Oxford in Canterbury. Darcy’s overseen substantial growth in the family business, and it hasn’t always been plain sailing.
“We’d just scaled up our operation to progress as a family. So, we took the plunge and came down south. It was a $7 payout when we decided to make the move and by the time we arrived suddenly it was only $3.90, so that was really tough. If someone had told me it was going to be like that, I probably wouldn’t have carried on farming. It was stressful,” he says.
That’s when Darcy realised he needed to start taking care of himself as well as the farm.
“That experience really taught me that no industry is always ‘up’. There are going to be fluctuations in the market. You’ve got to learn to live with that and still be able to enjoy the ride as much as you can,” he says.
“Scaling up like that also made me realise there’s no limit to the number of hours you could put into an operation like this. To avoid burnout, you need to be proactive and do other things and get off-farm. After all, you’re only young once. You’ve got to make the most of that.”
Luckily, Darcy’s mate Ben Peake, another dairy farmer, was on the same wavelength and came up with a simple but effective solution. Occasionally, he’d randomly text his local farmer mates a short message “tools down” – and then suggest a time and place to meet off-farm. It worked.
“It was a bit of a shock at first,” laughs Darcy. “But getting that text definitely made my ears prick up. I guess it just took off from there.”
Now when things are a bit quieter on-farm, Darcy and half a dozen mates will flick each other a text and then head out for an afternoon lunch, a run or a bike ride. Sometimes farming’s in the mix too.
“Quite often we’ll go to the pub for lunch and then do a tour of someone’s farm. We did it here last week. All the guys that farm round here are like-minded; if they know something that could be helpful to your farm, they don’t mind sharing it,” he says.
“It makes you realise as a farmer that you’re all going through the same thing. You might be worrying ‘is everyone short of grass like me?’ But if you don’t meet up with your mates then you don’t talk about it. It’s really important to stay connected to people. A quick text to someone doesn’t cost anything and could make someone’s day a lot better.”
The overall impact has been profound. Darcy manages his operation differently these days.
He’s found time in his schedule to take up kayaking and compete in iconic events like the Coast to Coast race.
When things are a bit quieter on the farm, Darcy Bishop likes to catch up with his farming mates or go kayaking on the Waimakariri River.
“I’ve really enjoyed it. What you see down the river, you don’t see anywhere else. And going down rapids, it’s a feeling like no other. It’s something I never thought I’d do and it’s really energising,” he says.
How does he do it and still run a busy farm? Teamwork.
“I have great staff who’ve been with me for many years now. It’s all about respect – paying people what they’re worth and then organising decent rosters so that everyone gets the time off they need,” he says.
He says he also times his breaks carefully.
“There are definitely times on-farm when you’re flat out and can’t go anywhere. As a farm manager and owner, you realise that, so you just have to knuckle down and do the farm work. But when things quieten down, that’s when you need to take time to smell the roses. If you don’t do that time passes by pretty quickly.”
“Once I get through calving and mating, and I’ve been on the farm for three or four months without leaving much, it feels bliss going for a kayak. It’s my reward and you’ve got to reward yourself in farming because if you don’t do it, nobody else will.”
“It’s easy in farming to go into your little cocoon and not socialise with people. So these days I make sure I get off-farm regularly whenever I can. Christchurch is only 40-minutes’ drive and the Waimakariri River is handy for my kayaking.”
He says there are wider benefits to achieving better work-life balance too.
“Getting that balance right between your family, your farm and your own personal wellbeing can be difficult, but it’s important. For me nowadays farming’s all about family. I get great support from my wife. I’ve got three awesome children, a great mum and dad. If I’m in a good space, the farm goes better, and everyone benefits,” he says.
