Hinehou Timutimu Named 2026 Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year
Bay of Plenty leader and General Manager of Te Tawa Kaiti Lands Trust, Hinehou Timutimu, has been announced as the 2026 Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year.
She was up against some “awesome ladies” in the other finalists, though she was the underdog in some ways, she told Dairy News.
Though already in leadership as a Federated Farmers national board member and West Coast president, she sees the “awesome stuff” other women are doing out there as groundbreaking for the industry.
An aspect of the Dairy Women’s title that delights Milne is “judgement by your peers”. “Dairy women are 50% of this vibrant industry and to be backed by them saying ‘here, have a crack at going further and seeing what you can do’ is humbling and amazing. That’s the big thing for me – 11,000 farming ladies are with me.”
On going further in agricultural leadership, she says she is keen to see what happens, and to have an opportunity to push the messages about dairying in general. “This is another platform to do that. We’re getting to be the cousins out in the country and the rest of New Zealand does not understand us very well. They need to understand us better so we can continue to grow our industry; to be able to do that New Zealand has to back us.”
Milne was brought up on a family West Coast sheep and beef farm; her mother was the farmer, her father an accountant.
Milne now farms with her partner at Rotomanu in the Lake Brunner catchment on the West Coast. They have a small high BW Jersey herd of 200 cows.
On a separate run-off they rear replacement heifer calves and run a localised contracting operation making silage pits, hay, baleage, effluent spreading from ponds, herd homes and stand-off pads.
The 2015 Dairy Woman of the Year judging panel comprised Mark Heer from DWN gold partner ASB Bank, Sandy Burghan from Global Women New Zealand, DWN trustee Alison Gibb, DWN chair and 2014 Dairy Woman of the Year winner Justine Kidd, and Fonterra representative Janet Rosanowski.
Of Milne, the panel said:
“Katie demonstrates an unselfish contribution to the dairy industry delivered with a passion and zest that gets attention. She already plays in a space beyond her immediate expertise, experience and comfort zone, epitomising a dairy woman determined to make a difference and thus achieving great advocacy outcomes for the wider dairy industry.”
Milne has been West Coast provincial Federated Farmers president since 2008, and holds a position on the national board, where she is spokesperson on adverse events, rural security, local government, ACC and employment.
Her prize is a Fonterra-sponsored scholarship to the Global Women ‘Women in Leadership’ programme valued at $25,000. The programme will give her 12 months of exposure to globally focussed women in leadership roles in the New Zealand business sector.
