FARMSTRONG
The Flett farm milks 680 cows and is a winter milk farm, which means life is busy for the family.
Making farming easier Southland dairy farmer Brooke Flett shares how a new programme designed to boost the resilience of rural communities helps her navigate the challenges of farming.
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hereabouts are you farming? I work on our family dairy farm in Southland. I’m the fourth generation to farm here and I’ve been back on-farm for seven years. We’re winter milking 680 cows with the help of five staff, including myself. What do you enjoy about farming? I’m very fortunate I’m farming with family. My parents are still involved and I’m farming alongside my brother. I really enjoy being able to work with them and carry on my parents’ farming business. I also like the freedom and flexibility – some days you’re doing an afternoon of admin, other days you’re outside working in the sunshine. You’re your own boss. I like the way farming works too – you get out what you put in – and can see the benefits of your hard work.
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Farming brings its fair share of pressure too. Tell us about that. Yes, Dad and I were recently chatting about that, because we have all been working some long days and it feels never-ending. We were trying to work out what changes we can make and being quite honest with ourselves that as much as we need time off to refresh, that’s not always going to be possible unless we make changes with things we can control. There’s always a long to-do list on-farm. Getting breaks can be hard, can’t it? Yes, but I think we’re often our own worst enemies because we love the work. But the reality is you’ve got to take some time every now and then to have a break. As I told Dad, it’s about being in a position to decide for yourself when you need a sleep in, even if you decide not
to do it. I don’t mind doing the hours, but if the option isn’t there, and you’re completely head down, bum up all the time without a break, that’s when farming gets hard. Busy as you are, you enrolled in the Know Your Mindset course on managing pressure and change. What made you sign up? I’d done other AgriWomens’ courses and liked them. A course that was going to stop me feeling too stressed or overwhelmed sounded like a great idea. There’s a lot of content out there about this, but this course had a proper rural lens to it. It’s easy to just say ‘do this and remove stress from your life’ but it’s hard to make it work in a farming context because there’s so much about farming you can’t control, like the weather. It can feel impossible at times.
DAIRY FARMER
July 2022
