SPECIAL REPORT: BUILDING A PORTFOLIO
“Find your rhino”: latch on to opportunity Dairy farmer Carlos Cuadrado urged others wanting to grow their business to behave like an Oxpecker bird and partner with a bigger player. Anne Lee reports from the SIDE conference.
F
ind your rhino – that’s the message from Argentina-born dairy farmer Carlos Cuadrado to those looking at ways to progress and grow their business. He likens the partnership he and his wife Gisela have with established farmers to that of the Oxpecker bird and the rhino. The rhino is the big animal that wants to get on with it while the Oxpecker helps with the small stuff. “My advice is - find your rhino,” he says. Four farmers spoke about their experiences progressing and investing with others at the South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) in Ashburton last month in a session on getting in and getting out – what those getting out want and what those getting in have. Carlos is from a dairying family in Argentina and came to New Zealand with his wife Gisella in 2002. Both have agricultural degrees and quickly grasped the Kiwi, grass-based dairy system but it took returning to Argentina in 2006 for a short stint to realise they were ready to fully commit to living and farming here and go after the opportunities they knew existed. They had arrived with nothing but working hard and taking every opportunity to learn was the first step – whether that was through courses, DairyNZ discussion groups and specialist workshops, reading, conferences or talking to other farmers, Carlos says. Getting good at what you do and building a reputation as a hardworking, good person is key, he says. It was their reputation that saw their farm owner agree
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Malcolm Ellis, John Donkers and Carlos Cuadrado: find your rhino.
to take them on as variable order sharemilkers on their 900-cow farm and it was their absolute focus on building farming skills and the strictest of cost control that allowed them to build equity. Their efforts, presence in the community and results got noticed by other well-established farmers and in 2012 they were approached to join a 560-cow equity partnership with Greg and Rachel Roadley and two other couples. In 2016 the partnership bought a second farm – a 430-cow farm near Oamaru. Earlier this year the partnership was dissolved and Carlos and Gisela bought the Oamaru farm while continuing to variable order
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2021
