Keep Your Cool

Module Overview

Dave and Allison King have been farming for 44 years in Riponui in Northland. Dave shares how they’ve managed the ups and downs of a life in farming.

What do you enjoy about farming Dave?

Working out and about in the open. Being your own boss. It’s a great lifestyle.

What are the main pressures?

Staffing is probably our number one pressure. Getting the right staff and finding people that are confident and interested in what they’re doing. We’ve got good staff at the moment.

How big is your operation?

We’ve got 400 cows and we milk twice a day. We’ve got three staff.

What have you learned about managing staff?

Over the years, I’ve learnt that you just can’t fly off the handle. You’ve just got to sit back and weigh things up, keep your cool and work your way through things. When something goes wrong, there’s no use jumping up and down about what’s already happened, otherwise it just upsets everyone, and people shut down. If it goes negative, you’re going nowhere.

So how do you keep your cool? It must be hard sometimes when it’s your farm and there’s so much at stake.

Take a deep breath and keep the communication channels open. Get things down to a level where you can hold a normal discussion. Communication is the number one thing.

What about the weather? Is that a pressure?

You can’t do anything about the weather. You just get on with it and make the most of whatever nature throws at you, don’t you?

What sort of mindset is helpful when things don’t go well?

Onwards and upwards. When you’ve been at the game for long enough, you know what to do, so just get on with it and deal with whatever comes at you. The main thing is to keep your cool and if you need advice, go and look for it. Don’t be scared to go and talk to other farmers and discussion groups. They’re very helpful.

How do you manage workload?

Just do one job at a time and finish it. Don’t start a whole lot at once otherwise you’re going back and forth, back and forth and you get nothing done.

Do you take time off to keep fresh?

You’ve got to take some time out to recharge your batteries and mix and mingle with other people.

What difference does it make when you come back on farm?

It allows you to slow down for a while so you can go hard out again. Farming’s a marathon not a sprint.

Do you have hobbies?

Yes, we go fishing or we go camping and caravanning and all that sort of stuff.

How do you manage that as well as running a busy farm?

You’ve just got to make a day and be a bit flexible. We might decide to go fishing, but sometimes it might take us three days to achieve that. Something happens on farm, so suddenly we’re not going today. But then a few days later it’ll just all click and off we go. When the time’s right, you’ve just gotta do it.

Having things to look forward to is important, isn’t it?

That’s right. It gives you something to work towards and time just seems to go quicker. Before you know it you’re going. As long as you’ve got someone to look after the farm and the runoff, away you go. We might head down at Easter to catch Wings Over Blenheim. We’ll see how it goes.

What are your long term plans?

We’ll be retiring soon. We still want to be on the land while we can. We’ll retire up to the run off and still have an interest. It’ll give us something to do, keep the body going.

If you looked back on everything that you’ve learned, what’s the one thing you’d recommend to someone starting?

Try and keep as healthy as possible. You’ve got to look after your body. Feed yourself properly and don’t skip meals and scrape by. You can’t work unless you have a decent feed and decent food.

What about the mind? How do you maintain a good headspace?

If you’ve got friends nearby stay in touch, give them a call. If you see a neighbour on the road stop and have a chat for half an hour.  We actually went down today, had a cup of coffee and a chat with our neighbours, just to talk things over an hour and then went back to work.

How does that help?

The chances are if you’re going through a certain thing, because it’s been wet or too dry, they are too. So, you can have a vent with the neighbour, and they can have a vent with you. then you’re both good to go again.

Have you heard about Farmstrong?

Yeah it’s on the radar these days. It makes sense that looking after yourself, as well as taking care of your land, is a very good idea.

There’s a lot more costs and drama in farming these days too. To make good decisions, you need a clear head and good advice. Talk to other people. That’s the big thing. Becoming a better farmer is about listening to other people out there, taking whatever advice, you can get on board and then getting on with it.

Farmstrong is a nationwide, rural wellbeing programme that helps farmers manage the ups and downs of farming and growing. Last year, 15,000 farmers and growers improved their wellbeing thanks to Farmstrong. To find out what works for you and lock it in, visit www.farmstrong.co.nz