Year of the Farmer finalists Ross and Jo Hay speak about juggling farming, family and community.
Video / Otago Daily Times
The five finalists have been decided for the Otago Daily Times and Rural Life Year of the Farmer initiative. This week, rural editor Sally Rae talks to the second of the finalists - Herbert-based Rural Champions Ross and Jo Hay - about farming in North Otago.
“It’s a travelling circus.”
That is how Jo Hay describes farming and family life on the Hay family’s inter-generational farming operation based at Herbert, south of Ōamaru.
It is a juggle common with many farming families; that ever-challenging balance between farm work, ferrying offspring to various school and sporting commitments and community and wider industry involvement.
Ask her husband Ross what a typical week looks like, and he laconically answers - “It depends which week you strike us on, whether it’s a good week or a bad week.”
Ross and Jo, with their children Charlie, 14, Phoebe, 12, and Archie, 9, live on their 260-hectare home farm at Herbert. They also lease a 410ha property at Moeraki that surrounds the Moeraki lighthouse, which had given their business scale.
They run a breeding flock of ewes and trading cattle at Moeraki, under the watch of a stock manager, while the home farm, which has 85ha of irrigation, is a finishing property for bulls, steers and lambs.
There is also a mob of 24 much-loved pet sheep, including the elder stateswoman Coco, who had a trouble-free lambing last week, much to everyone’s relief.
Originally put on the map by legendary restaurateur Fleur Sullivan, Moeraki has become a popular destination, and the landmark lighthouse - also home to a yellow-eyed penguin sanctuary - is a drawcard, particularly for tourists.
Ross described Covid-19, with the subsequent reduction in tourist numbers, as a “godsend”, given they were “forever pulling people out of fences” as they drove off the road while admiring the view.
On the day the ODT visited the Hays’ home, Jo was busy cracking eggs into a bacon and egg pie destined for a Food Fairies gift; a few years ago, she started the Maheno-Herbert Food Fairies group, which cooks meals for families with new babies and those with other extenuating circumstances.
That was something that had been well-received and, in reality, the couple said it was just what happened in rural communities when they were growing up - it just didn’t have a label.
It was also a way of connecting people. People were less connected than they used to be - “Not everyone does the same stuff or moves in the same circles” - and it showed that you cared, Jo said.
Hoggets were being shorn and Jo had supplied the morning smoko. Prior to that, she had done a quick lambing beat and fed the pet lambs while the children fed the calves.
As with many farming families, spring was a particularly busy time and there was a “constant struggle” to navigate the days, particularly with after-school sports, which usually necessitated a 30-minute drive each way.
Ross and Jo Hay run an inter-generational farming operation based at Herbert, south of Ōamaru. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery
But the three children were great, and whoever was not engaged in sporting activities on a particular day knew there were chores to do, whether that was feeding animals, lighting the fire, making a start on dinner or bringing the washing in, their mother said.
All three embraced their rural upbringing and the lifestyle that it afforded.
Phoebe, noticing that her mother was up early in the morning dealing with lambs, would appear in the lamb shed before breakfast.
The children were all good cooks, and it was not uncommon to have French toast or pancakes served up by them.
Asked how they fitted everything in, Ross said simply: “You make it work.”
A shared colour-coded Google calendar aided with planning and discussions were held every evening about what the next day would bring.
After leaving school, Ross did some casual farm work and then went shearing for seven years - a physical occupation that helped keep him fit for rugby - before coming back to the farm.
Ross - not that he would admit it - is one of North Otago rugby’s favourite sons and one of its younger life members; in his words, he was “average enough”.
Known as ‘Bones’, he played representative under-14, under-16 and under-18 rugby for North Otago, and made the New Zealand under-16 secondary schools’ side in 1995 and the South Island secondary schools’ side from 1995-1997.
He went on to make the Dunedin premier Colts and North Otago development teams in 1998, and the following year debuted for Maheno and North Otago.
He played 114 first-class games for the Old Golds from 1999-2010, was named Heartland Player of the Year in 2007, made the Heartland XV in 2007-2008 and captained the side from 2008-2009.
He and Jo were heavily involved with Maheno junior rugby, which saw a healthy increase in participants under their stewardship, and he now coaches at Waitaki Boys’ High School.
Asked whether he had any regrets about not pursuing rugby more, he said while he potentially could have possibly gone to play rugby in places such as Japan, it was a funny time in the sport.
“I think probably, lower-tier players are getting recognised more than what they used to.”
He went to the United Kingdom for a stint of shearing, and could have probably stayed there and played rugby. But regrets were few; it was a good group of guys and it was enjoyable, he said.
And shearing, prior to undertaking fulltime farming, gave him the flexibility to do other things.
He could help his father Alan on the farm, or play rugby and go to practices, and it helped keep him fit.
“Life carried on and it was great fun.”
Jo also grew up on a North Otago farm where her father used to call her his “bad smell”, as she followed him everywhere. She now sees the same in Phoebe, who can be found following Ross around.
After leaving school, a teaching career beckoned, and it was something that she loved.
She still does the odd day relieving, although there was not much time for that these days.
Jo has an Instagram account where she shares daily life on the farm, although she felt somewhat conflicted by that given she was encouraging her own children to not spend time on phones.
Ross’ farming philosophy is unsurprisingly simple: “Survive.”
“At the end of the day, [the goal is] to leave the place in a better position than when we came in.”
And, if that occurred, then that meant they were doing the right thing with regard to environmental sustainability.
He enjoyed all aspects of farming, particularly the constant challenges involved.
He had always been up for a challenge and he also enjoyed a project.
Ross’ father lives around the corner and was still on the farm every day, an integral part of Team Hay.
For Jo, it was a pleasure to see her children “learning from Pop and doing things with Pop”, an example of inter-generational farming.
“How lucky are our kids to get to grow up with their granddad right there?”
Both Ross and Jo were involved at the industry level; Ross is involved with Federated Farmers, while Jo is on the board of the North Otago Irrigation Company and Meat the Need and involved with North Otago Sustainable Land Management and the Beef + Lamb New Zealand Central South Island Farmer Council.
That led to some good discussions between the two, also because there was a level of insight into the industry that not everybody had.
Often they were hearing about stuff before it got to policy, stuff that might not necessarily come to fruition.
“Within that too, you really do learn the importance of having to be involved in the process to get the outcomes that best fit farming.
“We’ve really got to have a say.
“It’s so important that farmers’ voices are heard,” Jo said.
Ross enjoyed the Federated Farmers involvement, saying it was keeping up with what was happening in the agricultural sector, while Jo reckoned she had a good balance between governance and hands-on farming.
“There’s no place I’d rather be than out on the farm, and I absolutely love that.
“I also really like to use my brain. For me, it’s a really good balance of being able to do both.
“We’re lucky we can be flexible enough on-farm that I can do this as well.”
Meat the Need had been a “really cool” initiative that had grown very quickly. Now it was about putting systems in place, continuing to grow at a sustainable rate and getting farmers on board to donate stock.
Irrigation in North Otago had been a “game-changer”.
“We’ve got a considerable asset we have to make sure is maintained.”
Prior to doing the Agri-Women’s Development Trust’s Escalator programme, Jo had always been interested in governance, but did not know much about it and what a pathway could be.
Escalator really shaped her vision around what she could do and also provided her with a network of amazing women who were “like sisters”.
While Jo acknowledged she had some aspirations, family came first. And on the farming front, they planned to continue to grow their business to give their children opportunities in the future.
Asked what she loved about the rural sector, Jo said she loved how people worked out solutions to problems, how people in the industry thought about the future, how they looked after the environment, “and I love how people look after their communities in our rural sector”.
The surrounding Maheno-Herbert communities were diverse; while it was clearly a rural community, there were also two townships there.
She loved how so many young people were coming into the community and giving back to it.
When it came to their community involvement, Jo said: “At the end of the day, it’s just about giving back, isn’t it? I get a heap out of giving back and contributing.”
“The biggest thing [is] we aren’t the only ones doing stuff,” Ross added.
