When they were dairy farming, Joanna and husband Richard Greaves looked for staff with the right attitude and a willingness to work hard, not necessarily those with previous experience.

Joanna says people can be taught skills but it’s a positive mindset and can-do attitude that helps ensure success and resilience.

Their own positive attitudes and farming and academic skill are among the reasons the couple won the 2011 Hawkes’ Bay Sharemilker/Equity Farmer of the Year title and were runner up in the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards.

Richard and Joanna, today owners of their own business ‘agbility’, shared some of their experiences with those attending the 2017 Bay of Plenty Dairy Industry Awards field day on Scottie and Jill McLeod’s farm near Whakatane in March.

Rugby and dairying

Richard says there are strong synergies between rugby and dairying, a comparison unsurprising given his love of both endeavours, which has included playing rugby in the United Kingdom.

“New Zealand’s rugby union is the envy of the world. In the All Blacks we have the best rugby brand and in our dairy industry we are also the world’s best.”

Those high standards are achieved in both the sport and the industry by attracting likeminded people with the skillsets to grow and add value.

Joanna is a chartered accountant who has worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers and WHK. Richard, who has a business degree in marketing and management, worked as sales and marketing manager for a farm machinery company in Hastings, before the couple decided to change to dairying in 2007. They later went 50 per cent sharemilking 1400 cows at Darfield, in Canterbury.

Career development

The couple say taking part in dairy awards helped with their career development and they strongly encourage people at all levels in the industry to enter because doing so brings credibility, and opens up opportunities.

Helping others unlock their personal and business potential is what Richard and Joanna are now doing through their latest venture, the Tauranga-based company they call ‘agbility’.

They have combined Richard’s extensive agribusiness knowledge and farming background, with his down-to-earth nature and Joanna’s chartered accounting qualifications, hands-on know how, and zestful approach to life, to help others make the most of opportunities for personal and business growth.