| 15 nzdairy Emma Bailey Callum Pilsworth moved to New Zealand for ‘just a year’ in 2017 to work on a dairy farm, now nine years later he has continued to progress his career and been named runner-up Dairy Manager of the Year for the Southland and Otago Region. He also took home $4000 in prize money and one merit award at the region’s Dairy Industry Awards held in Invercargill in March. Callum, 29 , is the farm manager for North South Farms Dairy owned by Southern Sky Dairies Ltd, milking 1280 cows on 465ha near Lumsden where he is based with his wife Samantha and their two daughters, Beth, 3, and seven-month-old Harper. He was pleased with the win. “It was bloody awesome, I was bloody stoked.” He made the top five last year. “It was good to get the feedback so I had something to go off and that definitely came into play for this year. The feedback was ten times better this year. “We are corporate farming so some of the stuff we run into is quite challenging and out of my control. “It has been a real challenging season; I reckon we’ve had four mini droughts. We have no irrigation so we are not summer safe.” He’s been based in Northern Southland for five years. “We’ve been on this farm for a year. It is 95 per cent flat and five per cent hilly.” The farm has a public cycle track through the middle and two thirds of it is visible from the main road between Invercargill and Queenstown. He came to New Zealand in 2017 thanks to a scholarship with Robert Craig in Scotland. “He would send people out here for a year then they would come back and work for him for a year. I was the third person they sent to Fairlie to work on a farm. After the year he wasn’t quite in a position to take everyone on in Scotland so he said if we wanted to stay on we should.” Callum began milking cows at a friend’s dairy farm from age 12 in Bradford, Yorkshire before going on to study dairy farm management at university. “I’m 100 percent glad I stayed, especially when I look at what I have achieved in the nine years we have been here. When I go back home, friends from uni are still doing the same job. In the UK there is that age thing, that people under 40 are not ready to be a manager.” This coming season he moves to a new role as operations manager over two farms, the one he is on and one in Riverdale and will oversee and assist the two new managers. The feedback was ten times better this year The farm has a public cycle track through the middle and two thirds of it is visible from the main road between Invercargill and Queenstown. DAIRY PEOPLE » Callum Pilsworth “It will be a more strategic role. I will definitely be encouraging them to enter.” His wife Samantha is head calf rearer on the farm and relieves across the farm wherever needed. After a busy year for the winter break they will return to the UK for a family wedding. “We definitely miss not having grandparents nearby, so hopefully they will come out and see us this summer.” The couple have also purchased a lifestyle property in Lumsden to build equity by rearing calves and stock trading. Their ultimate goal is to buy a dairy farm or a young stock block. GRASS FEED AVAILABLE OUR SERVICES SOUTHLAND WIDE STOCK FEED DELIVERY OPTIONS • Full Cultivation • Strip Tillage • Precision Drill • Grass &Maize Silage • Full Balage Services • Muck Spreading • Carting Campbell 027 786 0082 | cbonnarcontracting@gmail.com CAMPBELL BONNAR CONTRACTING LTD
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