TARANAKI | SHARE FARMER OF THE YEAR
RUNNER UP in the Taranaki Share Farmer of the Year category were Kelsey and Josh Thompson, sharemilkers from Midhirst and third were Sophie Parker and Matthew Thomas who are 50/50 sharemilkers on a 84ha Oakura property.
John, Kristina and Caleb Wyatt: loving living close to the mountain and beach and farming on the forgiving soils of Taranaki.
Awards trifecta WORDS BY JACKIE HARRIGAN PHOTOS BY: ROSS NOLLY
J
ohn Wyatt has spent the last 14 years working and learning in the dairy industry. He studied his way through all of the Primary ITO training from Level 2 to the Diploma of Agribusiness Management and now has taken out the Dairy Industry Award trifecta - winning all three categories in three different regions - a feat not thought to have been achieved before.
Originally from Dannevirke, John won the 2009 Hawkes Bay/Wairarapa Dairy Trainee of the Year category and was named the 2015 Manawatu Farm Manager of the Year. This year he completed the winning streak by winning the 2021 Taranaki Share Farmer of the Year. John and his wife Kristina, who is a vet working for Taranaki Vet Centre in Stratford, run a low-input system 2 operation, for the past four years contract milking for Mike Hammond on his 106ha,
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315-cow Auroa property. Last year, they welcomed Caleb into their family, with Kristina taking maternity and calving leave, timed to be able to help John with the calving and calf rearing - while also caring for a new baby. “We were lucky to have our parents come and help - my mum came for a week, and then John’s mum came for a week. I would be out on the farm and they would ring me whenever the baby woke so I could rush home and feed him.” Not most people’s idea of maternity leave, but Kristina revelled in the chance to actually work alongside John and learn about the farm from inside the gumboots rather than in the vets overalls. “I had worked on different farms during my vet training but that stint was so great, I really got to see exactly what goes on, and we found that we actually work really well together.” “Calving is actually my favourite time of the year - I don’t mind getting up at 2am to calve a cow.”
FOCUSED COUPLE They are a very focused couple who love to learn, Kristina is working her way through a Postgraduate Certificate in Science and Tech through the Massey Vet faculty by distance learning ticking off a mastitis paper and a lameness paper thus far. John attends lots of discussion groups where he continues to learn. In their low input operation, they don’t buy in any supplement except for a little PKE for calves - grass really is king, and maintaining quality and quantity is the key to production for John. He has spent years finessing his grass production knowledge and practice, and says he is proud of setting the farm record for production on three different farms, crediting attention to detail and focusing on profit not production as core strengths of their business. He puts a huge amount of attention into hitting residuals, and controlling the grass quality - topping in spring after the cows if
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | April 2021
