8 | nzdairy DAIRY AWARDS » Hayden and Alienor Diack: Mahia Dairies People the big focus for award high-fliers Karen Phelps Servicing Gore and surrounding areas 027 343 7142 jonod41@gmail.com Services New Builds • Renovations • Sheds • Farm Maintenance We are committed to getting the job done right Hayden and son Ezekiel (top). Alienor, Hayden and Ezekiel inside the wintering shed. The couple have just moved to a 23% lower order sharemilking position on an 240ha effective / 260ha total farm in Edendale Hayden and Alienor Diack, who placed third in the 2024 Southland/Otago Dairy Industry Awards, say they have appreciated the great opportunities they have been presented with in the dairy industry. Now they are focused on paying it forward: “We’re still fresh in our careers in our fifth year in dairy farming. We’ve got to where we are through people putting faith in us so it’s important we now give other opportunities too,” says Hayden. A case in point is a man they met who was thinking of a career change to the dairy industry. The couple took him on as a casual milk harvester and have now offered him a permanent one day a week role as well as assisting him to complete Ag ITO papers with an eye to him taking on a permanent full time position in January 2025. “He was passionate about dairy farming but didn’t know anything. By recruiting him to a one day a week position he can see if dairy farming is what he really wants to do as we know there is a lot of turnover in the first year of dairy farming,” says Alienor. It’s a good example of one of the merit awards the couple won: DairyNZ – People and Culture Award. Recognising that paying staff per hour was not working so well for their two main staff members who are from the Philippines and wanted to be able to regularly send money back home, the Diacks have transitioned to a salary system to give their staff more certainty throughout the year. “People is one of the big passions we have for what we do,” says Hayden. “I like working with people as much as I like working with cows. We put a lot of thought into how we run and lead our team. It’s about valuing our team members and making sure we are looking after them as well as we can.” They run a roster where everyone has a threeday weekend every second weekend and a day off between weekends with a focus on flexibility so people can maintain family and other personal commitments and interests. Providing good housing, team building exercises and celebrating special occasions together rounds out their peoplefocused management style. “We want to not only work together but also get along well together,” says Alienor. They also won the Ecolab Total Farm Hygiene Award. “We run simple systems that are easy for everyone to follow and repeatable so anyone can come in and copy what we do to make sure we are producing really good quality milk. A lot of winning this was down to our team who helped create the systems, used them and monitored them,” says Hayden. The couple were 18% lower-order sharemilking 850 cows in Mokoreta, Southland and have just moved to a 23% lower order sharemilking position on an 240ha effective/260ha total farm in Edendale where they will milk 800 Friesian cross cows through a 54 bail rotary shed with automatic cup removers and Protrack drafting. There is a 650 cow Redpath shed for wintering and Tru-Test Datamars collars. “The farm has some of the best soil in Southland - great for growing grass and production. This will be a simpler farm to manage and it’s closer to Invercargill. The farm is running really well as it is so we are looking to seek out those 1% areas to drive continuous improvement,” says Hayden. “It will be exciting to get more insight into what the cow sare doing with the data from the collar to make decisions.” The couple is also preparing for another big change: a new baby due to arrive in October who will be sibling to two and a half year old Ezekiel. Alienor will be a full time mum as well as continuing to take on the administration side of the business leaving Hayden free to take charge of the day to day running of the farm. “Our aim on every job,” says Hayden, “is to make sure the farms are in a better state and their business in a better position than before we started.”
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