First woman to take top Feds job in 118 years
In a male-dominated environment, Katie Milne has landed the top job as national Feds chief. Gerald Piddock writes.
In 2012 Katie Milne wrote that she would prefer to get to the top table under her own steam ‘‘rather than because I have mammary glands’’.
This week she managed to make it to the head of the top table when she was elected Federated Farmers national president, the first time a woman was voted into the position in the organisation’s 118-year history.
And she did it under her own steam - albeit it with a lot of home support.
Former president Bruce Wills (2011-14) says he marked her out for higher things when she was West Coast provincial president and he was meat and fibre chairman.
When he became president he welcomed her on to the board because he wanted to see the organisation become more diverse.
‘‘When she came on to the board she contributed particularly well. She’s grounded, competent and capable, she reads the farming mood and issues well. She’s very direct and honest, which are the sort of skills and attributes you like to see.
‘‘I’m absolutely chuffed, it’s fabulous we have a woman at the top after 118 years, we shouldn’t have had to wait this long. She’ll do a great job,’’ Wills says.
Milne sees her election as a vote of confidence in the Feds.
‘‘It shows it’s a good progressive organisation that is willing to move with the times and take people with the right skills to go forward.’’
In fact, she credits the maledominated Feds with placing importance on personality and mana, as well as effort and skill.
‘‘Throughout my time in Federated Farmers, I must say that I have never encountered a farmer who looked down at me as some upstart ‘sheila’,’’ she wrote five years ago.
In 2011, Jeanette Maxwell from Mid Canterbury was the first to break the glass ceiling at the Feds by becoming its first elected female board member.
She describes Milne’s elevation as ‘‘fantastic, she is well capable of doing the job. It shows you can get there on your own merits and not because of your gender’’.
Maxwell credits the advent of a slew of leadership courses for having given women the confidence to move into top positions, including directorships. Milne herself has benefited; last year she took part in the Breakthrough Leaders course.
West Coast MP and Labour spokesman for Primary Industries, Damien O’connor, says hers was ‘‘an outstanding achievement and a proud day for West Coasters’’.
‘‘I’m sure she’s capable of making the wise transition from advocacy to leadership,’’ he says.
Milne grew up on a sheep and beef farm near Greymouth before the family moved to a bigger operation at Aratika near Lake Brunner. In 1991 she and her partner Ian Whitmore bought the 125 hectare Whitmore family dairy farm at Rotomanu, just up the road from Aratika.
But the Milne family farming legacy stretches back to pioneering days in the Paringa Valley, South Westland, where her extended family still runs a beef farm.
‘‘It’s all about driving cattle up river valleys, it’s still like that dogs, horses and stock whips, with the occasional jet boat thrown in,’’ she says.
The climate at Rotomanu is testing, with an average rainfall of 3.5 metres a year - even higher in an El Nino year, but Milne and Whitmore have proven equal to the challenge.
To free themselves up from the day-to-day running of the farm, the couple have taken on a farm manager.
Milne says her key strength is her ability to connect with people.
‘‘I’m able to articulate in a clear way to people who don’t necessarily know anything about farming in a way they can actually ‘get it’.
Among her first priorities is to try and close the rural/urban divide, which some commentators describe as having become a chasm in recent years.
‘‘I want to engage better with younger farmers to get them to see the pathway through to being involved in leadership and advocacy, but also to connect farmers better with urban people.’’
‘‘It goes the other way too, we think we know them [urbanites] but we don’t know what they really think about farming and farmers. One of the keys is to reconnect people with their food. They don’t understand what farmers truly do, they know we work hard and in the rain and we look after animals, but how much