West Otago farmers say work-life balance is the key to success

The five finalists have been decided for the Otago Daily Times and Rural Life Year of the Farmer initiative. Otago Daily Times’ rural editor Sally Rae talks to the fourth of the finalists - Nelson and Fiona Hancox - about keeping positive in West Otago.

When Nelson Hancox was 21, he was nearly killed in a head-on car crash which had an impact speed of about 160kmh.

Waking in hospital, the back-seat passenger thought “I haven’t done much, I better enjoy life”.

Ever since, he has endeavoured to do just that and it has been a motivating factor when it came to work-life balance.

The Hancox family run a large-scale sheep and beef operation across three West Otago properties, comprising 27,000 ewes and 500 beef cows, a landholding which has expanded significantly over the past 40 years.

They have received various farming accolades over the years including Rabobank Lincoln University Foundation South Island Farmer of the Year, Clutha District Farmer of the Year and were winners of the national ewe hogget competition.

Nelson and Fiona’s three sons, Mitchell, Elliot and Tom are all involved in the business while daughter Zoe, who nurses in Gore, will eventually be.

The couple felt proud their children had decided to come home - “for us, that feels like success”- and Fi believed a philosophy around working hard but also having time off had been a contributing factor in their decisions.

She had talked to other farmers who never took time off and some of their children had no interest in following their farming footsteps, whereas their children had seen first-hand that balance.

When their children were growing up, Nelson and Fiona were fortunate to have the support of both their sets of parents and they also enjoyed good family holidays.

But that did not mean they had it easy during a farming career spanning four decades.

Nelson recalled some “fairly dark times” in the 1980s with high-interest rates, lots of debt and wondering, at times, if there was a future in agriculture.

But he kept himself busy, was fortunate to have good mates and sports clubs, and “just trundled on”.

Plenty of people were finding that again now; it was just about working out “another cunning way of trying to make money or save money”.

As a young man, Nelson made money by shearing, crutching and making hay which got him a deposit for an 181ha property in Northern Southland when he was 21.

He had started baling hay in his early teens with a few of the neighbouring children and had about $50,000 in the bank when he finished his studies at Lincoln.

Family support and a vendor mortgage also helped him on the path to farm ownership.

His time at Lincoln was a “wonderful” experience; he made some life-long friendships and it also taught him how to “find the answer to things”.

Back then, it was in books but it was a good grounding.

Time spent working in Central Otago and Canterbury, while also playing rugby, had been enjoyable and he had some good bosses, he said.

After nine years in northern Southland, the opportunity arose to buy Kowai Downs in West Otago, the property owned by Fi’s late father Colin Richardson, a man who started life as a townie before eventually owning a raft of West Otago farms.

They moved there in the winter of 1993 and, from there, they started leasing neighbouring properties and buying family land and neighbouring blocks - Nelson reckoning there were about 14 or 15 land transactions over ensuing years.

Describing her father as wise and visionary, Fi said Richardson was very positive about farming and both he and her mother Bev worked hard to grow their farming portfolio and that was quite motivating for her and Nelson.

Nelson and Fi Hancox, pictured on their Tapanui farm, are delighted the next generation are now involved in the business. Photo / Stephen Jaquiery

He bought a lot of land in the 1980s when others had “written agriculture off - including the government and David Lange” - and did a lot of early equity partnerships in sheep and beef.

He also helped and supported a lot of young people into agriculture, Nelson added.

Agriculture had always been positive for Nelson and Fiona; they had always made a profit - this year might be the first year of non-profit in 40 years - and been sustainable, while the couple also had that good work-life balance and community balance.

Success was “quite addictive” and they liked to be around and surrounded by positive people, Fi said.

For the Hancoxes, their growing operation had always been about being more efficient, rather than necessarily needing more gear or staff.

Former bank manager Brent Irving had played a big part in the growth of their business. They got him on board via Rabobank 20-odd years ago and he could see the big picture and big vision.

“He kicked us along as well,” Nelson recalled.

He also told Nelson - who loved it when he had a team of dogs and was working with livestock - that he needed to get out of the business and work on it.

Over the years, Nelson and Fi had taken over a lot of Richardson family land.

While that came at a big cost, the family gave the couple plenty of time to do it.

For many farming families, that did not happen and Nelson said he often got frustrated seeing succession “not going right”.

“Everyone needs time,” he said.

A trained diesel mechanic, Mitchell Hancox has been doing the agronomy side along with repairs and maintenance.

Elliot and Tom took over managing farms 10 months ago and, within five years, Fi said the family would have taken over the administration.

The siblings - who work for shares and wages - were choosing to “stick together” for another seven to eight years, having worked out there was strength in unity.

It was nice to see them get involved in the community, “starting to do stuff like we did”, Nelson said.

Community involvement has been a hallmark of the family; “I must admit, I’ve always done the community thing because I think growing up in a rural area if you see a gap, you fill it,” Fi said simply.

After the usual child and school-related involvement and, as her children got older and more independent, it was “perfect timing” for Fi - a nurse by trade - to do something different.

She was a founding member of the now-defunct Meat Industry Excellence (MIE) which sought industry reform, and resigned from the group to pursue election to the board of Silver Fern Farms.

In 2015, she was the first female farmer director elected to the board.

Her six-year tenure with Silver Fern was something she “absolutely loved” and she believed it was also good for her children to see it too, having, at that stage, probably just seen her as being at home.

Nelson was “incredibly supportive” and the learnings from the experience had been amazing.

Learnings also came from doing the likes of the Escalator programme and the Fonterra governance programme and had led to other opportunities including being on the board of Co-operative Business New Zealand and a trustee of the Lincoln University Foundation.

At the moment, Fi is on the Clutha Foundation, an organisation that she said fits her values, and a director at West Otago Health. She is also a volunteer ambulance officer.

Nelson is involved with the local Lions Club, A&P committee and the executive of the Pomahaka Water Care Group where he enjoyed the interactions with both the regional council and other farmers in the area in an initiative that had a very positive effect on water quality.

Their staff were also involved within the community and with various organisations and flexibility was provided to allow them to do that.

They had been fortunate to have had some “amazing” staff over the years, including some very long-standing employees.

Paul Slack, who came to work for Colin Richardson as an 18-year-old, had only recently finished, his position at Wohelo being taken over by Elliot Hancox.

Nelson also praised those involved in all the supporting industries whose roles were essential in keeping the farming business ticking over.

The family have hosted three hugely successful shear-a-thons, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars; the first in 2020 to raise money for their stock manager Shaun Bradley to help him fight cancer.

They have also been very supportive of young people keen to enter the agricultural industry, hosting them on-farm, and some have pursued a career in the sector after helping with tailing fundraisers.

Fi said the couple were both driven and knew what they wanted.

When it came to farming, they had “pretty similar” ideals.

They had also been very open to others about their books and finances, while Nelson said they had benefited from being in some “amazing” discussion groups.

Find out more about the Otago Daily Times’ Year of the Farmer here.