Dairy life with Donna McKinley

On May 8, I embarked on the most unforgettable journey to meet up with 10 fellow New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards’ regional dairy trainee winners. Arriving at the airport we were greeted by our incredible study tour hosts, Nathan Erksine and Sally Bosch. They had an exciting itinerary in place for us, much of which we might not have had the opportunity to do if it wasn’t for the NZDIA competition.

We all travelled by minibus from Queenstown airport to the highly-credited Fergburger for lunch before heading to Shotover Jet Boats. We then set off for the next leg of our journey, the beautiful Cardrona Distillery. We received a guided tour around the establishment, sat down for an in-depth conversation and all got to taste the spirits being made there. We then made tracks to our accommodation in Gore, where an amazing guest speaker was lined up for us – the vibrant Loshni Manikam, who is 2018’s NZ Dairy Woman of the Year. Loshni spoke to us about leadership, passion and goals.

Bright and early on Wednesday morning our practical skills were put to the test at Nathan’s dairy farm. As a part of the judging section we were given four different farm tasks to complete within a timeframe, which all went towards to our judging. As teams of four went out for judging the others stayed behind to complete a wearable dairy arts challenge, certainly the most hilarious part of our trip with some fantastic items being created. Following this we headed to Edendale Fonterra for a tour of the factory and some insight behind the workings of where our milk goes once it leaves our farm gates. Quite a long day once again but it didn’t end there – we headed back to our hotel for dinner and a very intuitive and passionate presentation from Don Moore of Dairy Holdings Ltd.

We all got a bit of a culture shock on the Thursday as we reluctantly hopped out of bed at 5am for a CrossFit team building session. After a quick shower and breakfast we were back on the road –this time headed to the Tiwai Point Aluminum Smelter. Then we went to the Southern Dairy Hub to hear about everything the research team has been doing and caught up with some representatives from Ravensdown, who introduced us to new technology and nutrient research. Dinner with all of the NZDIA entrants wrapped up our study and we began to organise ourselves for judged interviews on the Friday.

Each of us found value in different things during the tour. For me it was networking with likeminded farmers, Loshni’s speech on leadership and seeing the aluminium smelter. When I asked Nathan Erskine why he’s involved with the NZDIA he replied: “It’s a way of giving back to the industry and it makes me happy to be a part of developing new industry leaders”. Nathan and Sally loved hosting us as much as we entrants loved being a part of it.

Regional dairy trainees Andrew Trolove, Sam Goffriller, Simone Smail and Aaron Courage presenting their wearable arts.

The NZDIA regional dairy trainees group all dressed up for the National Awards Evening.

One of the many fun events the trainees did with the national sponsors.