To look forward I have to look back and reflect on what I saw as a young town boy who wanted to own my own farm one day.
Two things led me to the industry. The first was moving from town at age 12 to a lifestyle block surrounded by dairy farms. I was given the chore of feeding the pigs on said lifestyle block and hated every bloody minute of it.
Every morning I was up early so I would see the lights on in a cowshed across the paddock and one day decided to investigate. From then on I spent more time over there and at friends’ dairy farms than at home, eventually getting out of feeding the pigs.
You could say I saw the light.
The second was what the industry had to offer if you could get past the perception back then and still entrenched today of you only go farming if you’re a dumb bugger.
There were hundreds of people starting with nothing and working their way through the 50:50 sharemilking system and owning their own farms by age 30.
There was a programme called the Farm Cadet Scheme where young people were supported and mentored through their career, there were institutions like Flock House in Bulls where young people could learn practical farming skills, Massey and Lincoln were flat out delivering agriculture degrees and, of course, before 1984 farming was given a lot of government support.
In short, there was a pathway to success.
Sure you had to work hard and be focused but it was there and, without a doubt, everyone who wanted to take that pathway had the goal of owning their own farm.
Where are we today?
Institutions that were instrumental in the success of the industry have been shut down or reduced.
Flock House closed in 1988, leaving amazing facilities in wrack and ruin. The Farm Cadet Scheme was dismantled in favour of unit-based training and Massey and Lincoln are but shadows of their former selves in their agriculture degree output.
The desire to own your own farm has decreased drastically.
Young people don’t want to work as hard physically as they used to.
To my biggest dismay, we have let the 50:50 sharemilking system decline to where the death rites are about to be administered.
Despite all this there is still the opportunity to make the dairy industry sexy in an effort to attract and retain young people.
We can ensure there are clear pathways to success at whatever level a person aspires to but we also must have a clear pathway to farm ownership for those who want it or else we will end up with a whole lot of dairy farms that nobody wants.
The naysayers of the dairy industry might be happy with that but it will not be good for Fonterra or New Zealand’s finances.
To achieve this we should reinvigorate the 50:50 sharemilking system or those in equity partnerships must change their mission statements to include a goal of allowing the junior partner to eventually own the farm or allow easy exit clauses so they can go and buy their own farm.
I challenge farmers to be part of the solution not the problem.
We have used the systems of the past to get to where we have and we need to give others the opportunity too.
Highlighting the successes of our young people in the industry is so important to motivate those considering it as a career. You only have to go to a regional or national Dairy Industry Awards dinner to see the amount of success out there.
Yet, none of this success is reported outside the rural media.
After his negative journalism on the dairy industry two years ago I invited Cameron Bennett to a Dairy Awards national dinner at Sky City, right next to the TVNZ building in Auckland. I did not even get the courtesy of a reply.
I challenge mainstream media to come to a NZ Dairy Awards evening and report on the successes of the industry instead of being negative about the industry all of the time.
I come back to my first statement of looking through the perception of the industry and what it has to offer.
The physical nature of the work has been negated by technology and will become more so over the years.
Farmers are at the leading edge of technology on environmental issues and have probably done more collectively than any other part of society yet still bear the brunt of the blame for water quality.
The wheel is starting to turn on farm training with a new version of the Farm Cadet Scheme implemented. Wages and conditions in general are in line with mainstream careers. Older farmers want to exit the industry and, hopefully, their thoughts will turn back to the sharemilking system to help younger people to progress.
If I was a young person now and with the same ambitions and drive I had 40 years ago I would be happy. There is so much opportunity to progress in the industry and I don’t believe farm ownership is impossible.
Land prices have dropped, there is a large selection of farms to choose from, you can enter the industry without the need to buy shares if you supply an independent, if you want to supply Fonterra the share price is low and there are more flexible options, interest rates are low and with the right debt levels profits to be made.
In conclusion, the way to attract and retain young people to dairy farming is to highlight and promote the benefits of the industry and the pathways that are within it and once they are attracted to it ensure there is plenty of encouragement and support to keep them engaged going forward – nothing different from what we have been talking about for the past 40 or more years but just practising what we have been preaching.
