The five finalists have been decided for the Otago Daily Times and Rural Life Year of the Farmer initiative. This week, rural editor Sally Rae talks to the third of the finalists — rural champion Myfanwy Alexander, of Duntroon, about her farming philosophy.
Video / Otago Daily Times
The five finalists have been decided for the Otago Daily Times and Rural Life Year of the Farmer initiative. This week, ODT rural editor Sally Rae talks to the third of the finalists — rural champion Myfanwy Alexander, of Duntroon — about her farming philosophy.
With a headful of foilsstill intact, Myfanwy Alexander was underneath the milking platform trying to sort out an operational problem.
The call came during a hairdresser’s visit to Alexander’s home at Duntroon in the Waitaki Valley.
The mobile stylist’s visit was easier to fit in than a trip to town during the busy calving season.
But in typical Alexander style, she simply laughed it off.
For there is not much that gets this force of nature down — her mantra is: “If you’ve got your health and people you love, that’s all that matters.”
The Welsh-born dairy farmer, who has made New Zealand her home, said she had seen how others had become so hell-bent on building empires that they “missed the actual important things”.
And she saw a lot of people getting quite worked up, particularly with what was going on in the agricultural sector at the moment, and believed they needed to “calm down a little bit”.
“At the end of the day, if you’ve got your health, a roof over your head, a job to get up for and a purpose to get going, you’ve got your loved ones, you’re actually bloody rich.”
A contract milker on a 280ha effective 1000-cow farm, Alexander is mother to Emily, 13, and Isabelle, 12, president of North Otago Federated Farmers, the regional lead for the Dairy Women’s Network, and on the South Island Dairy Event governance group.
Fuelled by copious cups of tea — “if you tested my blood, it’s tea” — and very much a glass-half-full (particularly if it’s gin) person, she scoffs at the idea of work-life balance.
Myfanwy Alexander is grateful to the Duntroon community for taking her in during a tough time in her life. Photo / Stephen Jacquiery
Life at Penmark Farms is organised chaos with lots of balls in the air, but it was all about what you did in those “small moments” that mattered; sitting down as a family and watching a movie together while eating home-made pizza, or tackling an adventure like the recent Spring Challenge women’s adventure race in the Waitaki Valley.
Despite being from a non-farming background, Alexander decided from a young age she wanted to farm and she completed a science degree in agriculture, with honours, at the Royal Agricultural University at Cirencester.
The eldest of seven girls — she used to joke her own daughters had brothers but she put them on the bobby truck — she had grown up knowing that girls could do anything.
Her academic father was supportive of all that his daughters wanted to do, including farming, and she had seen him work hard for his own dreams and continually strive to do better.
While at university, she spent two months of work experience on a dairy farm in New Zealand.
She had always supported the All Blacks as her second-favourite rugby team after Wales.
Having loved the experience, she returned to the United Kingdom, finished her degree and headed back to New Zealand where she started in the North Island before moving south.
Nine years ago, Alexander moved to the Waitaki district with her then-partner and their two young daughters, then aged 3 and 5.
He left later that year and she continued for the rest of the season.
The girl gang then headed off to manage farms locally for six years before moving two years ago to contract milk on their current property.
Alexander speaks animatedly of the Duntroon community where she moved as a single mother with young children and found it so incredibly welcoming, saying she was seen instantly as a friend whom they had not met until that point.
“It was hard work, it was bloody hard work. It was really difficult to balance being fully committed at work, being fully committed as a mother. I had this massive thing I could do it all on my own.
“It’s a pretty special community. I came here around a difficult time in my life, they welcomed me in with open arms. I had the most amazing support.
Myfanwy Alexander checks on the residents in the calf shed. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery
“Having this community around me ... they just took me in and made me feel I could ask for help. Everyone here looked after me ... that’s why I want to give back so much to the area.”
The Danseys Pass Trail Ride — the longest one-day trail ride in New Zealand and Australia — was proof of that “amazing community”
Since its inception in 1999, it has attracted thousands of riders and money raised directly benefited pupils of Duntroon School, including the funding of a fourth teacher.
Alexander has been the instigator of a group of local farming women who meet to talk “business stuff” in a supportive environment.
With Chatham House rules, that meant the likes of finances could be spoken about freely as they discussed both the good and the bad of how the year was going.
It was driven by chats with women at various events and functions, which were usually interrupted, and the realisation that those women “had so much to give”.
So she messaged them and said, “I want your brains in my business.”
Alexander has three fulltime staff, all loyal Filipino workers, plus herself, and then two of her staff’s partners came for calving and to do the odd bit of relief milking.
She was fortunate to have a great team and she also had very supportive farm owners and regular communication with them.
Rather than the likes of a blanket mob of Kiwicross, there was great diversity among the breeds in the cow herd, including her favourite feisty shorthorns, and that was something she enjoyed, particularly heading out to the calving paddock in the morning to see the new arrivals.
And despite calving more than 920 cows this season, she still had her favourites, including ear tag number 1066.
Alexander’s family were spread around the world with her sisters in the UK, Uzbekistan and Los Angeles, although all had visited her in New Zealand.
Asked whether they thought she was crazy to pursue a farming career on the other side of the world from her birthplace, she said: “I think we’re all a bit nuts — strength in numbers — we all sort of do daft stuff. I think living in London is nuts.”
Saying she did not know whether it was a strength or a weakness, Alexander admitted she was “quite bloody-minded”.
“I set my mind to something, that’s what’s happening. I just get on with things. I know what I want and I just keep going for it, I guess.”
Duntroon was only a short drive from the Waitaki lakes and her partner, Scott Kingan, is renovating a caravan they bought this year, ideal for holidaying in the warmer months.
At 37, Alexander was conscious that her body was not always going to hold up to the rigours of dairy farming. She had put it through a lot over the past “pretty full-on” 16 years.
So she was keen to take on more governance roles while still being involved in the industry, but stepping back a little from day-to-day operations.
