By ELLEN READ
Nine years ago Adrian and Pauline Ball had no dairy farming experience, but now they have been named the country's best.
The young Tirau couple took top honours at the Fonterra Westpac Dairy Excellence Awards at Mystery Creek on Friday.
In 1994 the Balls converted their farm to dairying,
despite having no dairy farming experience. They learned quickly and now milk 370 cows on their 115ha property.
At Friday's gala dinner, attended by more than 450 people, Dr Patrick Shannon was presented with the Holden NZ Lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the country's dairy industry.
The Livestock Improvement scientist has researched and developed many of the major herd improvement programmes now used by New Zealand farmers.
One of his achievements was the development of liquid semen technologies and a semen allocation and distribution system, a world-leading dairy sire progeny testing programme, and sire and cow production and breeding indexes.
The accumulated benefit of these programmes added an estimated $350 million to dairy farmers' incomes in the 2002-2003 season.
Other winners:
RD1 Farm Manager Award: Shanan Wadsworth for his work overseeing a herd of 800 cows on a Te Puke dairy farm.
DTS Environment Award: Greg and Gerry Glover for soil protection systems and an extensive tree planting initiative as well as staff training in animal welfare and OSH regulations.
Fegan and Co Human Resources Award: Neil and Julie Hamilton of Waitaki.
Pioneer Business Growth Award: Northland's Bruce and Julie Paton - who were also the runners up to the main award.
Ravensdown Fertiliser Quality Management Award: Michael and Heather Burmeister, of Pahiatua.
