Northland farm, Okaihau Pastoral Holdings Ltd, is the 2019 Dairy Business of the Year Supreme Award winner. Okaihau, a 367-hectare property milking 1150-1200 cows and producing about 646,000 kilograms of milksolids, is an equity partnership with 17 shareholders. Okaihau also won the Best Northland Farm Performance award and High Input Farm with Best Financials.
Headlands farm consultant and Okaihau independent director, Paul Martin, said the win is reassuring for the shareholders, most of who do not live in Northland or visit the farm often.
Judges Danny Donaghy from Massey University and Michael Lawrence, director of Naylor Lawrence and Associates, said the awards evening was about celebrating the cream of the dairy industry. This year the awards were held at the Millennium Hotel in Queenstown with over 100 guests in attendance.
“The dairy industry is always facing challenges from multiple directions. Payout, climate, banking pressure, regulations, compliance and disease have all existed to varying degrees and continue to be a part of the landscape that the industry operates in”.
They said what defines the industry and its participants is their capacity to cope with those challenges and come out on top. Judges said to be the Supreme Winner in a year with such tough competition required some very strong metrics.
And for the first time in DBOY’s 12-year history, this year two dairy businesses were named Runner Up. Richard and Nadine McCullough from McCullough Farm Partnership Ltd from Waikato and Rebecca and Brent Miller from River Terrace Dairy Ltd from Canterbury.
Judges said it was unusual for two runner-up farms to be chosen but the metrics were such they could not be separated. Both McCullough Farm Partnership and River Terrace Dairy were finalists in both the People Performance and Environmental categories.
All 2019 Regional Winners will be holding Regional Optimisation Days on their farms later this year. These days highlight how the winning farms have made resilient and profitable systems.
For a full list of the DBOY19 award winners and their KPIs click HERE
For the full story from Dairy Farmer’s July issues click HERE
