NZ Dairy Winter 2021

38 | nz dairy DAIRY AWARDS » Andrea & Blair Muggeridge ‘Basic’ systems impress judges at Virginia Wright P 07 333 8885 | M 021 758 432 | 12 OTTO RD, REPOROA martelliruralengineering@outlook.co.nz www.facebook.com/martelliruralengineering BUILD REPAIR MAINTAIN PROUD TO SUPPORT ANDREA AND BLAIR MUGGERIDGE Proud to support Andrea & Blair and Trevor & Harriet STOCKFOODS 0800 457 927 www.jswap.co.nz W hen Andrea Muggeridge’s parents, Trevor and Harriet Hamilton, were adding a new farm to TH Enterprises in 2012, she and her husband Blair asked whether they could be the ones to manage it. They had been manag- ing another of their farms in Rerewhakaaitu for a few years already and they liked the look of the new purchase on Highway 5 between Taupo and Rotorua in Reporoa. “TH Enterprises doesn’t have sharemilkers, they have farm managers, and we get paid a man- ager’s wage, but obviously Trevor and Harriet want to help their children so they’ve set it up so that we can hopefully buy enough shares over time to slowly take over ownership. Andrea’s brother, Jonathan Hamilton is doing the same thing as an equity manager on one of the TH Enterprises farms in Darfield,”explains Blair. When they first arrived at Reporoa they were not yet equity managers, but they knew the opportuni- ty was coming and they were ready for a change. “We came here just as farm managers,” says Blair. “When we came here it was sort of four little farms that weren’t configured properly so we spent the first six months re-fencing and re-watering the whole farm with a race right down the middle so it worked as one instead of four kind of tacked on to each other.” That was in the 2012-2013 season Andrea and Blair have spent the nearly ten years since setting up what they refer to as “basic farming systems”, the last six of those as equity managers. Their systems may be basic but they’re clearly running them well having recently won the Central Plateau Share Farmer of the Year Award before coming third nationally. With five full-time and two part-time staff they milk 1100 cows with a stocking rate of 3.7, and they run them on a pasture-based system with their grass and silage supplemented by palm kernel when necessary. They don’t have crops or particularly high-tech systems, as Blair puts it: “We just feed cows and we milk cows, it’s that simple.We stick to the basics, but our main goal is to do the basics well. I guess our overall running of the farm must have stood out to the judges be- cause we won five of the merits and scored quite highly in all areas.” “I think they liked our structures,” added Andrea, “and how we worked together as a team with our different roles. We have a lot of policies and procedures that back up our systems, and we won Human Resources nationally as well so I think our retention of staff and looking after them progression-wise and training really shone through.” The Muggeridges have a procedure in place for every single task on farm. Staff are trained then assessed for their confidence and care is taken to make sure they know what they’re doing at every level. It’s that thoroughness that translates into a farm that runs smoothly, and in areas like effluent it helped ensure that the farm won the Environ- mental award with all staff trained to be able to monitor and assess the soil, to record their data, and to take responsibility for the irrigation of their own run. Andrea puts some of their success down to the dairy company they supply, Miraka . “They run an incentive programme they call Te Ara Miraka with a whole lot of boxes to tick around sustainability and taking care of the environment and if you tick all the boxes you can make an extra 20 cents a kilo, so that really encouraged us to bring in good data for important areas and we’ve run with that on quite a sophisticated level.” With their systems at home running smoothly both Andrea and Blair are looking at new opportu- nities in TH Enterprises. Blair has been offered the role of operations manager for all the North Island farms and Andrea that of HR for the company. They’ll live on farm and help out on farm when needed but it would involve bringing a manager in to run the farm they’re equity managers of. It’s all part and parcel of their master plan with one clear goal in mind, as Blair explains. “ Short term we own 20% but long term we want to buy Trevor and Harriet out. Having a good payout for the last couple of years we’re looking to buy another 6% which will give us 26% and if it keeps going that way we might be able to buy them out in no longer than10 years.” The winning haul at the NZ Dairy Industry awards for Reporoa couple Blair and Andrea Muggeridge.