Twelve Months of The Sharefarming Consultants
Its amazing how much (and how little) can change in a year. 12 months ago, I set out to try something different, offering consulting services that specialised in sharemilking and contract milking relationships. We also offered the service specifically for sharemilkers and contract milkers to have their agreements reviewed, picking up mistakes that could have cost contract milkers and sharemilkers as little a few thousand to a full hundred thousand dollars. In the past twelve months, we have worked with just over 50 clients as at the end of November, not a bad nudge in just under a year.
A low was losing this good boy Charlie - but we are so grateful for these images by Viv Gehrmann
It has been a year of highs and lows, learning and growing. Highs have included the number of incredible people I have had the opportunity to meet and chat to; every day for the last week, someone has said how great it is we are here and that we need to keep going. And we have had the opportunity to work with the most diligent and passionate farm owners New Zealand has to offer, who want to see their sharefarmer thriving in the industry and moving through to farm ownership.
One of the lowlights has been seeing some of the worst cases of exploitation I have ever come across, one case conducted by someone affiliated with industry good organisations and using those brands to build trust with would be contract milkers. In these examples, couples and families came away with as little as $30,000 to live on for doing a full seasons work while in one case being harassed and abused daily, with little or no control over their work.
Twelve months on, we are still seeing contract milker exploitation, but more contract milkers now know of a pathway to avoid it. Unfortunately for every one of those contract milkers that avoids being exploited, there are a dozen others who are just so grateful to be given the opportunity and have no idea on the basics of due diligence.
How do we change this? Right at the moment, I don’t know. Until a farm owner is prosecuted for this exploitation, we are going to repeat the same mistakes year on year.
If you are a contract milker or sharemilker (or wanting to be) next season, the one piece of advice I have for you is to put those business owner pants on, do the numbers, seek independent advice on all agreements and offers, ask around about the farm owner and walk away when things aren’t right. It is a lot easier to go get a town job and a milk for rent role for a year than it is to get into a role that decimates you and your family financially and having to get out of that debt at the other end.
Farm owners – I ask that you call out poor advice, support your peers to do a good job for their sharefarmers and champion the industry to do better. Sharefarming in New Zealand is the envy of the world, and the farmers of 1937 who established the Sharemilking Act were really on to something special. Sharefarmers are essential to our industry, especially as farmers want to retire or step into other interests – the great ones need to be retained and cared for to enable this to happen.
