Karn Dhaliwal won the 2026 Zanda McDonald Award for New Zealand.
Karn Dhaliwal says he was “quite taken aback” to hear his name called out at the 2026 Zanda McDonald Awards last night.
Dhaliwal, 32, from Te Hoe in Waikato, was announced as the New Zealand recipient of the transtasman award at a celebration dinner during the Impact Summit in Christchurch.
Bryce Neyland, from Gol Gol, New South Wales, and a civil engineer for Select Harvests, was the Australian winner.
Dhaliwal started as a rural banker and fertiliser rep before returning to farming, although not dairying like his parents.
Instead, he chose to build a diverse horticultural and cropping business, becoming the founder and owner of Ohinewai Harvest Ltd and Dhaliwal Ag.
Youthful enthusiasm helped propel Dhaliwal and his wife, Briar, into the horticulture industry, he told The Country’s Jamie Mackay.
“We always wanted to go farming, but we found it was hard to go and invest in dairy because it’s a really capital-intensive industry to be a part of... to get scale from the start was a real challenge.
“So we looked at a whole lot of other things, and at the time, we didn’t really take into account the risk profile of them because we were young.
“We decided to start a horticultural-based business because we saw a lot of opportunity in that market.”
Dhaliwal said the couple went into cropping and grew watermelons for the local market.
They then developed a blueberry orchard, which he said exported to Australia, and have just completed a 10ha red kiwifruit orchard.
“It’s been a real journey, but the opportunities that it has given us have given us what we’ve wanted to achieve, and a great entry point at scale into the sector.”
Dhaliwal said Waikato was a great place to grow kiwifruit.
“In Tauranga, as you may know, there is a shortage of land, so Auckland and Waikato are the fastest growing regions for kiwifruit plantings in New Zealand.
“They don’t like the frost, so we do frost protect with water, but other than that, it is an ideal climate to grow kiwifruit in.”
Market gardening can be challenging, something Dhaliwal experienced first-hand during Cyclone Gabrielle.
“One of our big years in our annual cropping business, we increased our plantings and took on quite a substantial contract,” he said.
“We invested a lot, and unfortunately Cyclone Gabrielle came in and wiped out the whole lot.”
He said he learned from the experience and his business came back stronger.
“We never asked the question, ‘what if a once-in-50-year event came through?’
“So we went away from that, rebuilt our business in a different location and split up all our blocks across four lease farms.
“And since that day, we’ve mitigated a lot of that risk, and we have a lot more resilient business out of it.”
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Established in 2014 in memory of Australian cattle industry leader Zanda McDonald, the award recognises professionals aged 21-35 who are making a significant contribution to the primary industries across Australia and New Zealand.
As part of the Zanda McDonald Award, both winners will receive a tailored professional development package including a mentoring trip across Australia and New Zealand, $10,000 towards further education or training, media coaching and ongoing networking opportunities.
Dhaliwal said he wanted to spend the next year building up his technical and leadership expertise.
“Specifically, around the technical capability of production systems, that’s pastoral and cropping.
“Around leadership styles; how to lead through difficult situations and bring your team along, because we can’t do this ourselves, and we’ve learned that the hard way in our business.
“I’m really keen to draw on expertise and use it to do a better job in the primary sector.”