Young NZ dairy farmer wins Australasian award

Young NZ dairy farmer wins Australasian award

Young farmers who completed Rabobank’s inaugural Farm Managers Program (FMP) held in October last year are seeing results where it counts, with gains already materialising from the application of new business management skills.

Late last month six outstanding FMP graduates, hailing from across New Zealand and Australia, were picked from a group of 36 to fly to Sydney and present the results of their self-designed FMP management-project. The practical project had been applied to their farms in the months following the week-long course, and was designed to help utilise the new skills gained on the FMP.

Rabobank head of rural banking Australia and New Zealand, Neil Dobbin and Rabobank head of Food and Agribusiness Research (FAR) Australia and New Zealand, Bill Cordingley joined FMP Director, Angus Taylor and Rabobank’s business program’s manager, Kobie Tesoriero to judge the presentations, which aimed to show how each graduate had used the skills learnt on the course, held in Mt Eliza Australia, to make positive changes to their businesses.

Ms Tesoriero says that one of the common challenges that comes with doing a business management course is the application of new skills once back in your everyday environment.

“The project is designed to give graduates a structured way to apply their learnings’ from the course back on-farm in a systematic and effective manner,” Ms Tesoriero said, adding that the opportunity to come to Sydney and also to be in the running for a $2000 prize gives the already motivated graduates added incentive to start implementing what they have learnt straight away.

“The six FMP graduates that are here with us today have each applied the skills they learnt on the program to their everyday lives with enormous success. Whether it is through greater communication or more strategic thinking in terms of their businesses direction, each presenter went back to their farm and stepped-up to the challenge of implementing change,” she told the audience made-up of senior Rabobank staff and the family and friends of the six finalists.

Shaun Kelly is manager of farming business, Muskit Enterprises Limited, located 12 kilometres north of Dannevirke in Southern Hawkes Bay. Mr Kelly’s role in the business is operations manager over the two dairy units and runoff.

Mr Kelly was chosen as the ultimate winner of the FMP Management Project Award from the six finalists that presented their projects at Rabobank’s head office, after he detailed the gains he had made as a result of implementing his project, titled ‘Managing People,’ which focused on addressing the work-place culture and employment structure of the business.

Mr Kelly focused on the issues relating to taking allocated time-off and annual leave on a dairy operation that milks all year round. In order to address this issue he looked at ways to manage labour more strategically and to give staff more ownership of their tasks.

“I decided that changing the roster structure and employing a fifth labour unit was the best approach to solving the issues we were experiencing. I spoke to both senior management and my team of employees about my ideas with an excellent response from both parties,” Mr Kelly said.

“My team were very keen to take on more responsibility and ownership, which was not something I had considered properly in the past. They have really embraced the increased responsibility and it has allowed me to step back from things a little bit and think more about the overall direction of the business,” he said.

“I think that senior management were always hoping that I would take on more of a role in addressing the wider strategic concerns of the business, but I didn’t have the tools until after I attended the Farm Managers Program. We are now looking for a fifth staff member and are well on the way to addressing the issues that I identified when I began the project,” Mr Kelly said. “I am still referring to my notes from the FMP almost daily, I think that the benefits from completing the course will just keep unfolding.”

Announcing Mr Kelly as the winner of the FMP Management Project, Mr Dobbin said that each of the six finalists should be extremely proud of the achievements they had made since completing the course.

“We were extremely impressed with the results that everyone who presented their projects this afternoon had achieved in such a short period of time. However, one presenter stood out as having implemented the ideas from the course in a very systematic, wide-ranging and forward thinking manner. Saying this, I would like to congratulate Shaun Kelly as the winner of the FMP Management Project Award,” Mr Dobbin said.

“To see people complete the course, apply the concepts to their business and have positive results is simply very satisfying to be a part of,” he said.

The FMP includes sessions lead by business experts on topics such as business planning, people management, financial management, time management and succession planning, with the content of each session developed and presented in such a way that it is directly relevant to young farmers.

Ms Tesoriero said that the group of six finalists had embraced the ideas put forward in these sessions last October and as a result had made significant and wide-ranging improvements to their businesses in the six months since the course.

“In the current environment, it is even more important than ever that young farmers are exposed to positive ways to take charge of the aspects of their businesses that are in their control. They may not be able to control the weather, and they may not be the chief decision maker in the businesses yet, but there are certainly issues and ideas that this generation of progressive producers should take on board as early in their careers as possible,” Ms Tesoriero says.

Mr Kelly said that another key take-home from the FMP was the network of fellow participants that he continues to keep in contact with, something Ms Tesoriero says is an invaluable source of ideas and support for every FMP graduate.

“One of the most important aspects of this course is that it gives young farmers a chance to sit in a room with like minded people from all corners of New Zealand and Australia. We encouraged everyone to actively maintain their connections when they get back to their businesses so that they can bounce ideas off one another, or simply offer support,” Ms Tesoriero says.
The first course of its kind, the Rabobank Farm Managers Program is designed for farm business managers who will be running and taking ownership of a leading agribusiness in the future.
Applications for the 2007 FMP close on May 25, with the course running from the 8th to the 12th of October in Christchurch, New Zealand. For more information on the 2007 Farm Managers Program, contact Kobie Tesoriero by phone: 0061 2 8115 2241, email: bmp@rabobank.com, or contact your local Rabobank finance manager.

Rabobank New Zealand is a part of the international Rabobank Group, the world's leading specialist in food and agribusiness banking. Rabobank has more than 100 years' experience providing customised banking and finance solutions to businesses involved in all aspects of food and agribusiness. Rabobank has a AAA credit rating and is ranked one of the world’s safest banks by Global Finance magazine.

Rabobank operates in 43 countries, servicing the needs of more than nine million clients worldwide through a network of more than 1500 offices and branches. Rabobank New Zealand is one of the leading rural lenders and a significant provider of business and corporate banking and financial services to the New Zealand food and agribusiness sector. The bank has 29 locations throughout New Zealand.

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