36 | MEAT & WOOL » Four Rivers Farming Keeping it positive All hands to the pump for drenching at Four Rivers. Partners: Doug Harvie, Craig Wyatt, Brett Challis, Robyn Friedrich and Tom Saul. Software solutions, including Cash Manager, Focus, MYOB, Xero and Figured Harvie GreenWyatt is here to help you maintain and grow your agri business. Our rural business accounting, business and planning disciplines. David Gale 0274 989 205 Graeme Gale 03 489 7322 Email: heli@heliotago.co.nz Quality Guaranteed Why Wait, Call: East Otago Contracting Ltd R E L I A B L E G E A R , Q U A L I T Y J O B For grass work enquiries contact Robbie: 0274 332 093 For ground work enquiries contact Gerard 0274 049 965 4 Rivers Farming Company Ltd. Kim Newth Since taking up the reins as general manager of Four Rivers Farming at Waikouaiti in mid-2019, John Fitzgerald has endeavoured to create a supportive culture with good work-life balance for his team. He admits that can be dif cult to achieve at peak times of year, but longer days are minimised as much as possible. “We like them to nish early if they’ve had an early start. People need to have that time with their families and for other interests outside of work. What we’re trying to avoid is burn-out.” Four Rivers Farming comprises three adjacent hill country sheep and beef properties (approximately 8000ha in total) at Waikouaiti and another 730ha coastal nishing property called Akatore, south of Dunedin near the mouth of the Taieri River. Provided it doesn’t get too dry, some 38,000 stock units are typically wintered on the land. John works with a team of seven on the home operation and another two at Akatore. Before this current role, he and wife Rachael were based in North Canterbury, where John worked as farm manager at Ferniehurst Station for seven years. Staff attraction and retention is an ongoing challenge for the sheep and beef sector. John went through the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme several years ago and wrote a research paper on this topic. It highlighted a high level of discontent among senior farm managers, some of whom were considering leaving the sector to seek out better work-life balance. It is certainly something that John is very mindful of in his own farming practice today. “We try and have regular debrief sessions. It’s a good opportunity to talk about anything that may have happened and discuss what we’ve got on for that week. If you can share a few laughs about something that hasn’t quite gone to plan, it really helps lighten the load. It’s really important that the workplace is a fun and enjoyable environment to be in, which generally relates back to the overall team culture.” Attracting quality staff to the sector, especially on farm, remains a big issue. John observes there are some good programmes seeking to address that, such as Growing Future Farmers and cadet schemes. “[But] I think we still need more.” Meanwhile, John says his big focus at Four Rivers is to create consistent, robust production. He’s feeling optimistic that goal is achievable this year, having had a good season with a lot of grass on the hills. The ram is out and John says the sheep are in great shape. The predominantly Romdale ock is bred to handle the hill and hard seasonal conditions. “Of course, we also have a focus on improving maternal traits with both the sheep and cattle.” Wool prices remain so low that they fall well short of covering shearing costs. John says it’s great to see initiatives like Wool Impact NZ – “all I can say is, please let it work because it’s a crying shame to see how much manpower goes into making this great product that is worth so little.” A positive for the sector is the strength of global sheepmeat and beef prices. “Without that we’d be in dif culty, especially with costs starting to in ate.” With environmental rules fast-changing, John is staying in the loop on latest developments as a member of Beef and Lamb New Zealand’s Central South Island Farm Council and the East Otago Catchment Group committee.
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