Farm Update

It has been another outstanding year for the farms, with a record 4.9m milk solids produced as we strive to achieve our 12-5-Optimise farming strategy.

At our annual staff awards in July we again came together to celebrate this collective achievement and to acknowledge individual farms and teams for their success across a range of areas important for our overall business performance. This year the whole WMI team gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Taupò and were lucky to have Eric Rush join us as our keynote speaker. Eric regaled us with stories of growing up in the Far North, to becoming an All Black and playing for the NZ Sevens Team, and then moving on to become a successful businessman. His down-to-earth and humorous approach to life really hit-the-mark with the team and provided some great insights into what it means to strive and succeed.

A special mention must be given to the Farm 4 team, ably lead by Kim Turner, for taking out a large haul of awards I would also like to acknowledge, and thank once again, our community of suppliers who joined us for the evening, with over 26 sponsoring the night. It is fantastic to see such support from the wider community and to spend time strengthening our partnerships.

The night was great fun, and an important moment in the year for everyone to take a quick break and reflect on a job well done. Working the farm entails a busy life, and one where everyone works extremely hard to achieve the best we can for the Wairarapa Moana whànau, so it’s important we take a moment to acknowledge and appreciate everyone’s efforts.

So please join me in thanking the team and congratulating the award winners for the 2020/21 season!

available on the night! The efforts from Kim and her all-female team this past season are just outstanding, and we congratulate them for their great efforts and achievement. Michael Allan and Roger Wereta jointly took out our big award for the night – our Values Award. This award recognises those who best demonstrate the WMI values in their work. An outstanding achievement for both Michael and Roger and we congratulate them for their leadership in this area.

Staff Awards

Award Name First

Pasture & Feed Management Farm 1

DSU Best Stock Management Best Calf Rearing Award DSU Reproduction Award Ropiha Road Farm Farm 4 Ropiha Road Farm

Dairy Reproduction Award

Farm 14 Best Whare Award Pablo Bedoya & Heidi Schwarz – Farm 15 Dairy Financial Management Award Farm 4 The Extra Mile Award Mark Glasgow – Ropiha Road Farm Farm Dairy Hygiene & Management Award Farm 1 Health & Safety Award Kaharoa Road Farm Farm Pride Award Farm 4 Ground Zero Award Kaharoa Road Farm Whakamaru Whenua Award Farm 4 Nga Tangata Award Farm 3 Te Ara Miraka Award Farm 4 Dairy Support Unit of the Year Kaharoa Road Farm Dairy Unit of the Year Farm 4 Wairarapa Moana Incorporation Values Award Roger Wereta & Michael Allan

Farm Pride Update

Work also continues on our farm-pride initiative, where we are cleaning up our old farm infrastructure including old buildings, milking sheds and effluent ponds. Farms 3 and 4 have been largely completed, with working continuing on other parts of the farms.

Guided by our Whakamaru Whenua philosophy, great efforts are being made to look after our whenua for the future in everything we do. For this project this has meant recycling any-and-all material we can and ensuring nothing is dumped in our old effluent ponds as they are covered over and reverted back into pasture. In these efforts we have managed to extract over 1000 tonnes of old concrete from across the farms, which will be crushed and re-used for our tanker tracks.

Work will continue on this initiative over the coming season, in addition to our planting programme which will involve planting over 25 kms of new shelterbelts across all our farms for the 2021/22 season. Over the course of the next few seasons, we will continue to plant more shelter for our animals and other areas of the farm will be planted to create greater biodiversity and carbon sinks, as part of enhancing our whenua for future generations.

Feed-out Contribution

This year we also contributed up to $10,000 of our milk to the Feed-Out Programme, aimed at providing food to the community from farmers. As one of NZ’s largest dairy enterprises, and to fit with our values, it was a no-brainer for WMI to put its hand up and contribute to such a great community initiative. Part of our conditions though was for the programme to ensure it reached out to our whànau, Mangakino and Wairarapa communities.

It was interesting to note at this year’s Miraka annual dinner how many farmers were willing to contribute to this initiative as it grows into the future, and great to have Wairarapa Moana leading by example again by supporting the initiative early this season.

Just a reminder too, that we are always looking for motivated staff wanting to join our team. If you have any whànau that might be interested in working hard and building a career in farming, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our HR team in Taupò. We’d love to hear from you!

Ngà mihi Anaru Smiler Group General Manager

Left to Right: Concrete pit; Farm 4 cow shed demolition; Farm 7 old and new effluent ponds