Swedish Woman in Final of Dairy Farming Contest

The 12 regional finalists competing for the New Zealand Farm Manager of the Year title include one woman, eight men and three couples.

The West Coast Top of the South representative, Maria Carlson, stands out as the only woman and the youngest finalist at just 24 competing in the competition to identify the best dairy farm manager in the country.

Ms Carlson is also Swedish and has been in New Zealand just five years, launching her dairy industry career as a trainee in 2005.

Since then she has progressed up the dairy farming ladder and is currently a farm manager on a 220ha property milking nearly 600 cows near Havelock, in the Marlborough Sounds.

She is one of seven farm managers in the final competing alongside two equity farm managers and three contract milkers.

The finalists are aged from 24 to 41.

The New Zealand Farm Manager of the Year competition is part of the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards, which also organises the New Zealand Sharemilker of the Year and New Zealand Dairy Trainee of the Year competitions. The winners of all three competitions are competing for more than $130,000 in cash and prizes and will be announced in Rotorua on May 15.

The New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards are supported by national sponsors Westpac, DairyNZ, Ecolab, Federated Farmers, Fonterra, Honda Motorcycles NZ, LIC, Meridian Energy, Ravensdown and RD1, along with industry partner Agriculture ITO.

National Convenor Chris Keeping says the farm manager competition is open to farm managers, equity farm managers, contract milkers and equity contract milkers, so long as they have less than 25% equity in the farm business.

A farm manager is paid a salary to manage the farm, whereas an equity farm manager owns a stake in the farm they are paid a salary to manage. A contract milker is paid an agreed amount to manage the farm as well as to pay some costs associated with running the farm dairy.

Mrs Keeping says there has been considerable interest in Ms Carlson’s success, due to her nationality and sex.

“There has never been a female winner in this competition and men have outnumbered women in every final. In 2008 we had a record three females in the final and the best female result was last year, when our sole female finalist from the Waikato, Zasha Osborne, placed second.”

She says the diverse range of backgrounds and farming positions held by this year’s finalists will also make it difficult for the judges.

“We have finalists relatively new to the industry like Maria, and others who have been dairy farming for 16 years.

“When this is coupled with the differing positions held, it will make it tough for judges to decide how to separate a contract milker overseeing a 250-cow farm to a farm manager on a 650-cow farm and an equity farm manager running a 1500-cow farm.

“There are a lot of variables and that’s why we altered the judging criteria in the human resource and financial sections of the competition this year. We wanted to make it a bit fairer to judge entrants who oversee staff and finances as well as for those who don’t have staff or make financial decisions.”

The 2010 New Zealand Farm Manager of the Year finalists are:
Auckland Hauraki – Paul Mahoney, 33, farm manager
Bay of Plenty – Russell Meade, 28, farm manager
Canterbury North Otago – Hamish & Natalie Davidson, both 33, equity farm managers
Central Plateau – Rhys & Pen Bullock, aged 38 and 36, contract milkers
Hawkes Bay Wairarapa – Monty Monteith, 38, equity farm manager
Manawatu Rangitikei Horowhenua – Michael & Susanna Booth, 26 and 24, farm managers
Northland – Mark Clements, 41, farm manager
Otago – Gareth Ferguson, 30, farm manager
Southland – Don Moore, farm manager
Taranaki – Marc Jackson, 24, contract milker
Waikato – William McKnight, 30, contract milker
West Coast Top of the South – Maria Carlson, 24, farm manager.

The finalists will all undergo a round of on-farm judging next month, with the last aspect of the judging, an interview, to be completed in Rotorua. More information on each of the finalists can be found at www.dairyindustryawards.co..nz.