Federated Farmers: Feds leader keen to 'open minds'

Katie Milne: "Getting home to the farm reinvigorates me. Because of what I've got at home, that's why I've got to go back, to try and punch above my weight for all farmers."

At first Katie Milne was bemused by the huge media interest in her becoming the first female president of Federated Farmers since its origins as the NZ Farmers' Union in 1899.

Hailed as a woman "breaking through the glass ceiling" - or the "grass ceiling" as some quipped - "I was surprised how much attention the gender factor attracted," she says.

"But when I had time to reflect, I totally get it. I understand it's a point of interest and a milestone that agriculture was seen in the wider public as being progressive. It shows that no matter what your gender, if you have the skillset and you're the right person for the job, you'll get voted through."

It also underlines what's been happening on farms for years, Katie says.

"We all know as farmers that often the key part of the business is the fact it's a partnership of a man and a woman on the land. It might be that the woman is good with the stock and grass management, and the male is good with machinery and animal husbandry - there's all sorts of interesting combinations.

"It's good that more women are now taking their skills off the farm, like the men, and having input into leadership and the direction of agriculture in general."

For anyone who has read Katie's CV, it would be no surprise she has gained the Feds' top job. From early work experience as diverse as slaughter floor carcass grader then lab technician in a West Coast freezing works, through to grain farming during two years of OE in Alberta Canada, once Katie and her partner Ian Whitmore bought a 100 hectare (effective) dairy farm by Lake Brunner, near Hokitika, in 1992 she was soon moving into leadership roles.

"Having different points of view and opening up other's minds to it, that's a good thing."

Just a sample: 1992-1995 meat inspector MAF Phoenix Meat Company; 2003-2010 West Coast TB free committee; 2002-2008 West Coast Dairy chair Federated Farmers, then its president; 2006-2009 West Coast Focus Farm founding board member; 2013, National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee; 2014 deputy chair Rural Health Alliance Aotearoa; 2017 director of Westland Milk Products. In 2015 she was named Dairy Woman of the Year and Women of Influence (Rural) Award winner.

Her mum was also a person who threw herself into life and "maybe through osmosis" Katie picked up that can-do attitude too.

Katie's family have been sheep and beef farmers in south Westland way back in the 1800s, "since the first of them were thrown off at Gillespie's Beach to go and find some land and survive".

When Katie and her siblings got home from school "mum would have us out on the farm on lambing beat, driving the tractor to feed out, or whatever else was needed. She was one of the first, if not the first, woman to go to Flock House [agriculture school] in Bulls. She was also a West Coast provincial president."

Another motivation was the RMA, which threw up situations where people who often knew little about agriculture were telling farmers what they could and couldn't do.

"We'd just bought the farm and I needed to understand how that piece of legislation worked," Katie says.

In a district where the annual rainfall, can vary from 3.5 metres to 6.5, and with a river that "makes or breaks us quite regularly, we needed to know we could still go out and dig a drain without needing a resource consent".

As she started attending various meetings, she found a preponderance of older men.
"They were great for experience, and I learned a lot from them, but I didn't necessarily agree with the things they were thinking of saying [in submissions]. They would draw pretty staunch lines in the sand, with traditional thinking.

"It hit home to me early - these people who were about to retire had a lot to say about how the future of farming should be and they're not going to be a part of it. So I felt I needed to be in at the front and early."

The RMA stuff showed her another aspect that today is at the forefront of the Federated Farmers' position on water quality.

"For example, there were ideas that were relevant to a dry environment but they were going to try to put them on us in a wet environment. It brought home to me there are regional differences and they're important.

"Now we're taking that a step further and arguing for a catchment by catchment focus. Problems, and solutions, can be dramatically different from one area to the next within a district."

Do women bring a different way of thinking to board meetings? "Yes, to a point," Katie says. "I don't know how men's brains work but I know women often come at things from a different angle.

"Time and again you see it. A solution will be proposed and I notice quite regularly with the fellas that they've made up their minds. [Women] might go through a whole different process, thinking of different ramifications down the line and asking 'what if ... ?'.

"Having different points of view and opening up other's minds to it, that's a good thing, I think."

Katie says she's probably happier in a pair of gumboots than getting dressed up for a meeting.

"I never know what to wear, especially in Wellington where it tends to be 'code black'. My natural fit is on the land, doing things.

"But that's what makes this [president] role really interesting. You go into all sorts of situations, rub shoulders with people, work on that urban-rural disconnect, explain to them in my fashion and help them understand farmers a bit better so we can all have better outcomes.

"That's exciting and important, just as getting home to the farm reinvigorates me. Because of what I've got at home, that's why I've got to go back, to try and punch above my weight for all farmers."