Mark Wallace, East Coast FMG Young Farmer of the Year 2022. Photo / Supplied
Mark Wallace, East Coast FMG Young Farmer of the Year 2022. Photo / Supplied
The 2022 FMG Young Farmer of the Year contest series Grand Final takes place from July 7 to 9 in Whangārei, with seven regional finalists competing for the title. Read on to get to know East Coast Young Farmer of the Year Mark Wallace a little better.
Spending 47 days on a live export boat as a veterinarian, Mark Wallace's top priority was his animals.
Docking in China after 21 days at sea, 5499 animals all walked off the ship fatter than when they left New Zealand.
The survival rate of stock on the ship was substantially higher than that on-farm, so much so, that they only lost one animal to natural causes, having left Napier Port with 5500 animals.
"The animal welfare was better than some of the barns I saw in England where they keep their animals all winter," Wallace said.
"It's hard to get in to vet but once you're in it's not that hard really, it was good fun."
Following graduation, he spent two and a half years in Ohakune at Ruapehu Vet Services, where a very small team serviced a 100km radius taking care of all animals - large and small.
"I got a lot of laughs out of my job, probably more than I think I was meant to get. You never quite know what's going to happen when you're working with animals," he said.
"I learnt a lot about people as well, you get people from all walks of life so you see some different things in people that you otherwise wouldn't normally."
He then spent a year in Wairoa, enjoying the beautiful scenery and what the rural community had to offer.
But Wallace had itchy feet and the United Kingdom was calling, so in 2019 he headed off his on OE.
He spent time shearing on trailers in England, before working as a locum vet in the middle of London, as well as Scotland and the Welsh Border.
"I worked with nothing but cats and dogs for four or five months," he said.
"The vet bills are really expensive over there, but people rush their animals in when they're not particularly sick and if you don't charge them enough, they complain that you haven't done enough to figure out what's wrong."
"It was the stark opposite of rural New Zealand where people complain about vet bills," he laughed.
The first Covid outbreak in 2020 caused Wallace to reconsider his options as to whether he continued with his OE or came home.
Choosing the latter, he arrived back in New Zealand in March 2020 and took up another locum position in Ashburton.
This was different again with the majority of his clients being large corporate dairy farms.
"While I did far too many calvings and not much else, it was good to be back in New Zealand and I particularly enjoyed playing club footy for Methven when I was down there."
Mark Wallace works on the family sheep, beef and cropping farm in Waipukurau. Photo / Supplied
Locum vetting had never really been Wallace's plan, but the money was good and it provided an immediate job throughout the 2020 covid period, he said.
"You rarely get time to know your clients or a chance to build up any sort of relationship with them which can be quite difficult."
After six months he moved back to Dannevirke as a locum with the goal of transitioning back to the farm and becoming the second generation to work the land.
"I'd always wanted to be a farmer and one of our staff members had just left so it was the perfect opportunity for me to get onto the farm."
He reckons there is more progression in farming, compared to being a vet.
Mark Wallace has a laugh with Tasman FMG Young Farmer of the Year, Jonny Brown. Photo / Supplied
"Once you get five years in you're very much stuck doing the same thing for 20 years but with farming, you can progress through a lot of different ranks and make improvements."
Now Wallace works on the family sheep, beef and cropping farm in Waipukurau.
A diverse operation, they run a 300-hectare breeding farm and a 690-hectare finishing farm where they fatten lambs, bulls and dairy heifers, and grow cash crops.
"We've got a lot of different enterprises, it keeps things interesting, there's always something that seems to be happening."
Wallace focuses mainly on the stock work while another employee does most of the tractor driving.
Now that he's home, he is able to finally enter the FMG Young Farmer of the Year contest – something he has wanted to do for a long time.
Mark Wallace has a yarn with Waikato Bay of Plenty Young Farmer of the Year, Chris Poole. Photo / Supplied
As a first-time competitor, he admits he was a bit naive about the contest's legacy when entering the preliminary stages of the district contest.
"I didn't realise it was such a big deal, I'm quite excited about it now," he said.
Having no other contest or New Zealand Young Farmer competition experience, he hopes it wouldn't put him at a disadvantage but reckons the pressures he faced as a vet will help him in the contest.
"With different scenarios, you realise you just need to keep calm and take a deep breath and think about what's in front of you.
"Most things are not completely new to you, they're just a different form of something you've already done, so if you think of it like that you can overcome most challenges."
Worried about the head-to-head and some of the practical work, he has been practising so they are not one of his weaknesses come July.
As a hard worker who likes to apply himself and think about things, he reckons the race aspects of the contest will be challenging.
Wallace currently owns a small 50-hectare block but his long-term goal is to own a standalone farm.
He feared escalating property prices would push his dream further into the future, but remained hopeful in the meantime.
