10 | Delos Santos family success well-earned The Carbernz Farming Limited team Carlos Delos Santos, Harkean Pajares, Neil Ohoylan, Nathaniel Palanca, Malcom Padilla, Harren Pajares. The farm employs five full time staff. Claire, Cara, Bernice and Carlos Delos Santos. Kelly Deeks RURAL PEOPLE » Carlos Delos Santos LY R PROUD SUPPO TING Carbernz Farming Ltd The road to farm ownership may be long and challenging, but it is achievable according to Carlos and Bernice Delos Santos, who are currently 50/50 sharemilking 1000 cows at Hamurana near Rotorua, and they aim to buy their first farm in the next four years. Carlos and Bernice have been in the dairy industry for 22 years, working their way up from relief milkers, through lower order sharemilking, and continuing to grow their business and their herd. “The advice I got from my accountant many years ago was ‘live miserable’,” Carlos says. “When you come from wages to lower order or contract milking, you get a lump sum pay from milk solids produced every month and you can afford to spend this on nice things like vehicles, phones, and furniture, and it can be easy to lose focus on why you are doing it in the first place. For our first few months lower order sharemilking, my wife and I ate noodles and rice to get through and never really spent anything. We focused on building our equity and saved enough to purchase some cows. We remember quite clearly how excited we were when we bought our first 30 cows in 2008.” In 2017, Carlos and Bernice were 50/50 sharemilking 300 cows at Ngakuru and entered the Central Plateau Dairy Industry Awards with a view to improving their business. As well as the title of Central Plateau Sharefarmer of the Year, the couple walked away from the competition with a firm plan for how to achieve farm ownership. They immediately started grazing all their young stock off farm, enabling them to increase their herd to 360 cows, and they worked out how many cows they needed to be milking each year in order to get to 1000 cows. “The whole idea of growing our herd is to be able to sell the majority of our cows and put that into the deposit for our farm,” Carlos says. “We knew 300 cows wasn’t going to cut it, and we were going to have to keep moving on to get the numbers.” Carlos says he and Bernice are fortunate to have their current position, as large herd sharemilking jobs are like hens’ teeth. There are not many larger sharemilking jobs, and a second sharemilking job with 500 or 600 cows would likely go to a dedicated sharemilker rather than an absentee one. “The next opportunity for us is to rear more replacements with the idea to sell our main herd in two, three, or four years’ time then milk all heifers on our first farm. 1000 cows will get us a farm, but there will be a few obstacles on the way so we still need to be mindful of our expenses.” Anyone starting out lower order sharemilking with a view to farm ownership should keep their “The next opportunity for us is to rear more replacements with the idea to sell our main herd in two, three, or four years’ time then milk all heifers on our first farm.” eyes on the prize, and get good people around them. “Some would say farm ownership is not achievable any more - stay away from those people. Remain focused - it’s not going to happen overnight and you’ve got to be patient enough to keep working hard every day, all year for the next few years. There are a lot more challenges than good years, but surviving those challenges will stand you in good stead. We never gave up on our dream, and now it’s only a few years away.”
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