Women in agribusiness – Amy Gillies

Opportunity to improve

By Samantha Tennent

A Waikato farmer keen to diversify the farm business has finally found the perfect fit and taken on a new venture.

Waikato sharemilker Amy Gillies and her husband recently bought Putaruru Hire as a way to diversify their farm business. Since taking over she has modernised the business. From a small dairy farm to a kiwifruit orchard, to a bach and other housing investments, Waikato farmers Amy Gillies and her husband Steve explored them all while working out a reliable way to grow their equity. But it was an advertisement on Trade Me for local business Putaruru

Hire that caught their attention.

The potential return on investment, along with the potential opportunities and the skillsets and knowledge gaps between them, helped the couple decide it was the right choice for them.

“The ultimate goal is to buy a farm, so we were looking for a way to grow our equity,” Amy says.

“We wanted to diversify from the farming business to have some protection from the payout fluctuations and find a way to continue utilise our complementary knowledge and skills.”

Steve is a mechanic by trade and is great at building and fixing equipment and Amy brings financial and business knowledge from her studies and experience across the agribusiness sector.

“I’m always keen to diversify risk and learn about commercial business,” she says.

“This business was well-established, had a consistent income and it was in a great location.

“And we were buying mostly assets which could be sold if the business doesn’t work, so we knew how much we stood to lose and decided it was worth the risk.”

Amy oversees the business, with the existing manager Clint running the day-to-day. She is keen to expand the business to create more turnover and build the team.

They have been adding new equipment and are excited about

Amy Gillies studied AgriScience at Massey University and worked in several roles before going farming full-time.

opportunities to grow the business further with more gear, a marketing strategy and some further diversification.

“Growing the business will support the community as we are meeting our customers’ needs and keeping it local,” she says.

They bought the business from the founder who set it up 30 years ago.

“It already had established roots in the community and we both have really good networks across the region, so it was a great opportunity for us,” she says.

Since taking over she has made a few changes, modernising the business and bringing it into the digital world.

“The previous owner was still doing everything on paper. We have created a website, set up social media, implemented a rental management software system and stopped using carbon copy,” she says.

The software system will provide information around demand, which will support decisions for buying and selling equipment. She has also started using tools through the Hire Industry Association of New Zealand to benchmark to monitor performance and identify opportunities to improve.

They do not know the full potential of the business but the benchmarking data will provide targets and ensure they are fulfilling the needs of their community.

The business goal is to be profitable, which will eventually increase their equity and give them the financial freedom to invest in further opportunities as they arise.

“It really is about who you know, what connections you have and keeping an ear to the ground for opportunities.”

“It really is early days for the hire shop so it’s a bit of work-in-progress, but it’s going to be a great challenge,” she says.

The Gillies are in their third season sharemilking 500 crossbreed cows on the same farm in Putaruru they contract milked for two seasons while they built enough equity to buy the herd.

“We were fortunate to get the position. The owners gave us the chance to contract milk first while we grew our equity,” she says.

“It really is about who you know, what connections you have and keeping an ear to the ground for opportunities.”

They switched the herd from spring calving to a 50% split calving system, with calving periods starting early March and mid-July.

“We can grow grass in June and split calving works well on this farm,” she says.

“We still have good downtime when we get down to one herd in January and June, but even in the busy times we always try to have everyone home by 5:30 – there needs to be a good balance.”

She is responsible for the administration, breeding decisions and calf rearing. They only do six weeks of mating over each mating period, three weeks of artificial breeding and they have been utilising the Forward Pack from LIC for the past few years.

“I wanted to get some of the new genetics but still use the old reliable,” she says.

“We are focused on breeding worth and maintaining the value of the herd, as

Amy Gillies juggles her time working on the farm, being a wife and mother and running the hire business.

The 500-strong crossbreed herd is split calving, with calving periods starting early March and mid-July. we will sell it back to the farm owners or the next sharemilker when we move on.”

This autumn she has used sexed semen, as well as some Wagyu.

“I’m pretty excited about it; having the Wagyu contract means we already know what income we will get from those calves,” she says.

“It’ll help cover the extra costs of the sexed semen and we should be able to almost eliminate our bobby calves, which is a great win.”

She holds a lot of value in data, using the herd records to make breeding and culling decisions.

“Steve will choose animals based on how they look and their behaviour and I’ll choose on the numbers behind them – between us, we sort out what’s happening with the cows,” she says.

The shed is a 32-bail rotary and is set up so only one person needs to be in the shed. Neither Amy nor Steve spend much time in the shed. They enjoy how they have set the farm up to allow them to have time for their other ventures.

“We haven’t made too many other changes with the farm, we just try to

Steve and Amy Gillies were the 2018 Waikato Share Farmers of the Year and placed third at the national finals.

“Growing the business will support the community as we are meeting our customers’ needs and keeping it local.”

do everything better,” she says.

In 2018 they won the Waikato region Share Farmer of the Year category and came third in the national final.

She has spent time as the Share Farmer team leader, as the Waikato regional manager and has held a sponsorship manager role. But having babies and buying a hire shop has shifted her focus and time availability.

They were both heavily involved in Young Farmers, and recently Amy has completed the Fonterra Governance Development programme. She wanted to grow her skills, recognising it would complement the skills she has gathered across her career.

She studied AgriScience at Massey University and spent a couple of years working for Ballance in Northland after she graduated. She took half a year off to travel, then settled into a consulting officer role with DairyNZ in South Waikato in 2011.

“I learnt a lot about farm management from my study and my time with DairyNZ. And after three years with them, I moved onto a role with ANZ, expanding my finance and business knowledge,” she says.

She stayed with ANZ till she went on maternity leave in 2019 to have their first child Arran. She returned for a short stint before finishing completely to have their second child Isla in May this year.

Having the governance training under her belt is a way to keep involved in the sector. Their eventual goal is to own their own farm but in the meantime, they will be ready for any opportunities.

“I feel like we have hit the jackpot, we love the farm and farm owners, and the area we live in,” she says.

“All of our friends seem to be having babies at the moment, we have a great community around us.”

The biggest advice she can give others is to build a network.

“You don’t have to know everything, but as long as you build your network and get to know a lot of people, you will find opportunities and the right opportunities. And you’ll know people to ask for good advice too,” she says.

“Word of mouth is a valuable tool. Put yourself out there, get involved in organisations like Dairy Industry Awards, Young Farmers, Dairy Women’s Network – there are so many things to get involved with and just meet people.”

She says she and Steve do not sit still for long and she envisions once the hire shop is performing at the level they want, they will start looking at other ways to expand and grow.

“We don’t have any specific short-term goals at the moment, but we want to improve the profitability of the hire shop, while adjusting to juggling two kids and both businesses,” she said. n