DAIRY CHAMPION
Northland dairy farmer Donna Griggs has been named the 2021 Dairy Women’s Network Regional Leader of the Year for her contribution to the farming community.
Strength in humility By Anne Boswell
A Northland sharemilker knew from a young age that dairy farming was the career for her and since embarking on her farming journey, has embraced all the opportunities presented to her.
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hen Northland dairy farmer Donna Griggs was announced as the Dairy Women’s Network (DWN) Regional Leader of the Year, her childhood school friends reminisced that they could never beat her in an arm wrestle. “It must have been all the farm work,” Griggs laughs. Some years later, it is not only physical
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strength she is being celebrated for, but also her great strength in supporting dairy women and the rural communities she has been a part of. In May, she surpassed 80 volunteer regional leaders supporting dairy women around the country to win the title of Regional Leader of the Year. But in the fashion that befits her humble nature, she insists she represents all of the DWN regional
leaders in New Zealand as a whole. “For me, the title means an opportunity to grow in leadership skills and to bring that knowledge forward into the Dairy Women’s Network community, our farming community and our business,” she says. Growing up in a sharemilking family, she is the eldest of five children. The family farmed throughout the Waikato, King Country and south-west Auckland
DAIRY FARMER
August 2021
