Pair reap reward of daring move

Jaime and Mark Arnold after their big success at the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards in Wellington last Saturday.

The huge pay cuts Mark and Jaime Arnold took to trade city life in Napier for a major lifestyle change in Southern Hawke's Bay dairy farming just eight years ago has got the ultimate thumbs-up, with major honours at the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards.

The couple were named Share Farmers of the Year in front of 530 people in Wellington TSB Arena on Saturday night.

Along the way they picked up the Ecolab Farm Dairy Hygiene Award, the Ravensdown Pasture Performance Award, and the Westpac Business Performance Award.

It was part of a unique night for the awards' Hawke's Bay-Wairarapa region, with Nicholas Bailey, who works on a farm near Greytown, winning the Dairy Trainee of the Year Award, while Thomas Chatfield, Bay of Plenty, was named Dairy Manager of the Year.

The awards carried almost $170,000 prizes, more than $50,000 worth to the Arnolds, who 50per cent sharemilk 500 cows for Mike and Sherynn Harold and Stuart and Sandra Cordell at Dannevirke.

The former logging crew manager and teacher went on a single herd manager's salary when they stepped onto a dairy farm for the first time, the outcome impressing Share Farmer judge and DairyNZ senior consulting officer Abby Scott.

"They chose to go dairy farming as they thought it would be a good lifestyle for their family and they had a long-term view of their future in it," she said.

It is their fifth season on the farm, and a great relationship with the farm owners led the owners to partner them as they progressed from lower order to 50per cent sharemilking.

Mrs Scott said that, over five years, the couple developed a "really impressive" database of information, and also analysed and completed budgets on more than 10 different progression opportunities.

"Doing this had helped them make the decision that they were better off to stay where they are and to look to land ownership or an equity partnership as their next step," she said.

The couple's big move dates back to the completion of renovations on their Napier home, and a discussion about what next?

Mr Arnold, who left school in Napier at 16, to work in a tannery and later spent 12 years in logging crews, suggested dairying.

Farmer's daughter Jaime, who had trained as a teacher in Palmerston North and taught at Onekawa School in Napier, reckoned it was a goer, so they sold up and headed for a break in the US where they spent six weeks looking after 4000ha beef ranch, using spare time to search the internet for dairy farming prospects back home.

They returned and started milking 1200 cows near Takapau in 2008, and later in the year started working for Russell and Karen Phillips on a 750-cow farm near Dannevirke.

After three years they took up a "lower order" sharemilking position with Glengarry Farming, and two years later with the owners formed a business partnership, of which they bought out the partners last year.

Major results from the 2016 New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards:

Share Farmer of the Year: Mark and Jaime Arnold (Hawkes Bay/Wairarapa) 1, Michael and Susie Woodward, (Canterbury) 2, Callum and Hanna Stalker (Southland/Otago) 3.

Manager of the Year: Thomas Chatfield (Bay of Plenty) 1, Hamish Kilpatrick (Canterbury) 2, Lance Graves (Hawkes Bay/Wairarapa) 3.

Trainee of the Year: Nicholas Bailey (Hawkes Bay/Wairarapa) 1, Karl Wood (Manawatu) 2, Olivia Wade (Central Plateau) 3.