A powerhouse of the Maori dairy sector

So says Nick Hume, chief executive of Wairarapa Moana Incorporation (WMI) which runs a large farming operation in the central North Island. Recently they held a field day at their property near Mangakino.

Just down the road at the Atiamuru power station the pylons and cables fan out across the countryside. Like Atiamuri, WMI is a powerhouse, in this case of dairying. 

The numbers are staggering: 10,500 cows, 4030 replacements, 400 bulls, 3900ha of 12 dairy farms and three support blocks. In the past year this has produced just on 4 million kgMS. About a quarter of the farming platform is irrigated.

As the name Wairarapa Moana suggests, the owners of this land are originally from Wairarapa and they were given the present block after the Crown took their ancestral land which included Lake Wairarapa. 

Development of the present farms didn’t start until the 1950’s when the Government made money available. It was by all accounts pretty rough land. You’d hardly think so today as you drive past or walk any one of the farms. They are pristine and clearly doing well.

They have superb pastures, modern dairy  and ancillary sheds and new homes for many of the 70 staff employed by WMI and the sharemilkers who run four of the 12 dairy farms.

Despite the incessant rain, the field day attracted more than a hundred people who heard presentations from FOMA, DairyNZ, WMI staff and WorksafeNZ. Knowing the weather was going to be bad, WMI staff placed large hay bales inside the covered yards of the woolshed, and installed special lighting and heating for comfort for the morning presentations. In the afternoon visitors were bused to see some parts of the property including the new dairy sheds and other infrastructure. 

WMI chief executive Nick Hume is an accountant who worked for a large international company before taking on his current role. But he has a strong farming background, having been brought up on a sheep and beef farm in Hawkes Bay and a dairy farm in Wairarapa. He has a ‘structured management’ approach, meeting every ten days with the staff managing farms and with his senior management team who report on the status of their individual properties, cow condition and pastures cover. Operations managers also keep regular contact with the managers.

Hume says managing the WMI farms is a challenge in volatile times; the key to this is good staff communication, a strategy everyone understands and what role they have to play.

“We have designed a system which we think is resilient and to which people can adapt. We are system three and we have strategically chosen that because we feel with that system we can respond either by putting in more feed if the payout is good or pull back on feed if it’s bad.”

WMI has a policy of bringing in half a tonne of PKE/cow/year and they grow maize onfarm and where possible grass silage. All young stock are raised on the support blocks, the calves going there when they are 100kg and the cows going from the end of May until near calving. 

WMI has also invested heavily on environmental work: in the last eight years $8 million has been spent lining all the effluent ponds. Great care is taken to use just the right amount of fertiliser and water.

Operations manager David March says the result is a win win: lower input costs and a better environment – a key goal in all Maori farming operations. Farming within limits is now an everyday part of farming life and he encourages any to get involved in local groups dealing with such issues.  

The business spends a lot of time and money recruiting and retaining good staff. People want to work for WMI and there is a constant flow of CV’s coming in.

The Miraka Connection

WMI is a 27% shareholder in the Maori dairy company Miraka which is not far away. Kingi Smiler is chairman of both Miraka and WMI.

“Our objective has always been to run a vertically integrated business so Miraka is part of that strategy created five years ago. Now we’re building on that and making sure we have a resilient business that can manage volatility in payout, the environment and all those challenges likely to come in future. 

“We expect to be running a resilient, profitable organisation  through all those challenges.”

WMI succeeds by having a clear strategy, discipline and the ability to train and retain good staff, Smiler says.  

And the business needs and has a strong balance sheet that can cope with market volatility – but it’s not easy to break even in low pay-out years. 

“The short term is going to be extremely difficult, and we expect the next 12-18 months to be as difficult as the current season. I’ll be very surprised if that changes. Let’s hope it does with some upside.

“While in low payout years it’s difficult for Miraka, it’s even more difficult for our suppliers. But we believe our particular business model will be more resilient than Fonterra’s in low payout years in commodity markets,” he says.

Potential for young

One farm manager at WMI is Khardinn Wereta, a man passionate about and dedicated to the dairy industry. He sees huge opportunities for young people in dairying but says they need to change their attitudes to work – they have been spoon-fed.

“We need to change the way we teach agriculture in schools. Generally it’s taught from 9am to 5pm and the kids go home. We need to get them on the farms at 4am to milk the cows and they need to realise their day may not finish until late in the evening.” Too much “cotton wool put around these kids” have queered the expectations, he says.

Wereta was raised on a farm where he had to work and was given good values and a strong work ethic that have helped him rise through the ranks of the dairy industry. Being given responsibility has also helped. 

But the young generation has little understanding of the primary sector, he says. “It’s surprising how many kids think milk comes from a pump inside a factory rather than from a cow. They are quite shocked to see that it comes from a living thing; the conversion of grass to milk is a concept they don’t understand.”