For Richard and Nikita Grabham, the key to success lies in supporting your people.

A good work-life balance and lots of development opportunities were the tips they shared with the crowd at a recent DairyNZ event, hosted on their Lismore farm.

The pair won Share Farmers of the Year at the Canterbury and North Otago New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards in early April.

They also took home the DairyNZ People and Culture award, the LIC Animal Wellbeing, Recording and Productivity Award, and the Trelleborg Sustainable Pasture Award that night.

“The LIC recording [award] was my section, the pasture [award] was Richard’s section, and the people and culture [award] was for both of us,” Nikita said at the time.

“We’re a really good team.”

Nikita has been on farms her entire life; she was born to a farming family in Ranfurly in 1995.

The family moved to take over Deegan Dairies in 2008.

Between now and then, she earned a bachelor of science, majoring in biology, at the University of Canterbury, worked on a dairy farm in Leicester, England, and managed herds in Culverden and Mayfield.

Her partner Richard hails from a small village in Gloucestershire, England.

“I guess, when I was young, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.”

Despite not having a farming background, he picked up odd farm jobs as a teenager - “milking cows, chasing sheep” - which appealed to him.

He studied agriculture there before moving to Ashburton at 19 for five years.

“As soon as I got here, I fell in love with the system.

“I don’t think I’d still be dairy farming if I were still in the UK.”

Richard did move back to the UK for a farm manager role, but found himself back here after only one season.

His biggest current goal is to buy a farm of his own, which he’s hoping to do in the next few years.

Nikita and Richard have contracted milked for Deegan Dairies, owned by Nikita’s father, for the last three years

They’ve got a well-oiled machine of many systems, and they said it all works because they put people first.

That started with the two of them finding their footing as contract milkers.

“We probably had more arguments in the first three months of contract milking than in the last five years,” Richard said.

“That was mostly down to no one [knowing] what their exact role was.”

“We both wanted to do everything on-farm.”

“Nikita’s really good at the people management and animal health side of things… and I’m really good at the hands-on, physical stuff.”

Taking care of the staff with things like a six-on, two-off roster, a two-and-a-half hour lunch break, and consistent communication have helped the pair make an environment people want to stay in.

“We’re pretty lucky with the team that we’ve got at the moment.”

Richard pointed to a display of flags, letters and drawings.

“They’re from ex-backpackers or ex-staff who’ve come to work for us, and left us presents,” he said.

“That’s when you know you’re probably doing something right.”

That feeds their business for the future, too, as those staff recommend Deegan Dairies to others hunting for work.

Nikita said they’ve tried to run the farm how they would have wanted to be run with past employers.

“Some people love to work 120 hours a fortnight, so we've had to make it very clear, when we interview, that that’s not what we’re about.

“It’s a learning in progress, really, making it really transparent about what our team environment is like, and how we like to run our farm.”

by Anisha Satya