WOMEN IN AGRIBUSINESS
Love what you do, do it with love By Cheyenne Nicholson
As Mark Twain said, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” This is particularly true for a Matamata dairy farmer whose life may be hectic, but says she wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Waikato farmer Catherine Newland wears several hats, including being a marriage celebrant.
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sk anyone who knows Catherine Newland and they’ll tell you the same thing, she loves being busy. With several different caps to switch between, and another being added to the mix in November with the arrival of her first child, Catherine says the key to juggling it all is making sure you’re doing things you enjoy. “A lot of people would call what I do work. I don’t think of it like that. On the weekends when I’m out with my husband Rhys doing farm jobs it’s not work, it’s just us out there getting things done and enjoying ourselves. It won’t feel like a juggle if you’re enjoying what you’re doing,” she says. Along with farm ownership, she works a 40-hour week as an Agri-Manager for LIC and on weekends switches her gumboots for her party shoes when she’s on the job as a marriage celebrant. “I think as so often happens with kids who grow up on a dairy farm, I didn’t immediately consider dairy farming as a career option. My parents encouraged us to look at all our options and try other things as we always had the option of coming back to the farm. Because of that, I studied teaching then went to Europe for a year,” she says. Her job with LIC was largely inspired by her mum, who also worked for the company. She instilled a passion and interest in herd improvement and genetics in Catherine. “At the time, we were also sharemilking and had our own herd, and seeing the difference that herd
DAIRY FARMER
November 2020
