Family support crucial for Young Farmer of the Year attempt
Pirongia dairy farmer Emma Poole will tick off a number of firsts if she can win the FMG Young Farmer of the Year in Timaru in July.
A set of identical twins has won the title, but there has been no female winner. Some fathers and sons, brothers, and even brothersin-law have given it a good nudge, but a win for Emma would see the first brother-sister pairing.
The 28-year-old Te Kawa West Young Farmers member won the Waikato Bay of Plenty regional final in Morrinsville last month.
Her brother, Tim Dangen, is the 2022 FMG Young Farmer of the Year.
‘‘It’s safe to say we’re pretty competitive in our family,’’ she says, laughing. She came third in the 2019 grand final, and her husband Chris came runner up to Tim last year. Young Farmers can only compete twice at that level, and there’s also a 31-year age cut off.
For now, it’s Emma’s turn. She was announced as the winner of the Waikato Bay of Plenty FMG Young Farmer of the Year after spending the weekend competing in a range of activities at the
Morrinsville A&P Show. The twoday event was the first of its kind in the contest’s 55-year history. Usually, district contests are held months in advance of the regional final, but the new format aims to streamline the process by running a district final on day one and then hitting with a regional final on day two.
Emma was one of eight to make it through to the second day of competition before being crowned the overall winner. Saturday’s challenges were the weekend’s highlight – competitors went headto-head with two fast-paced challenges, as well as having to complete a farmlet, which included riparian planting, fencing and building a feeder out of pallets.
‘‘The challenges were quite physical, so being a female, you wonder if you have what it takes when you’re competing against men who have an advantage in that area, but I pushed through, and I’m so stoked with the result. I feel like it shows women can do anything.’’
She says she doesn’t mind the attention as a female competitor. The first female grand finalist was
South Island farm consultant Denise Brown in 1981, with a big gap to Waikato’s Louise Collingwood, from Waikato, who came second and third in 2003 and 2004 respectively. There have only been a handful of women at grand final level since, including Emma and Georgie Lindsay in 2019.
‘‘It would be really cool to come away with a win. A young woman just starting her farming career approached me at a wedding the other weekend and said what I was doing on the national stage was inspirational to other young women wanting to compete. That was pretty special. If I can inspire one other young woman to get into agriculture, that’s a win.’’
Emma and Chris farm together on Chris’s family dairy farm they bought into several years ago. Emma also works a few hours when needed as a vet in Te Awamutu, but her favourite job is ‘‘mumming’’ 14-monthold son Beau.
As well as calling on her family’s wisdom, Poole says she’ll incorporate preparation into day-to-day on-farm tasks. She explains her focus will be building up physical strength and fitness.
‘‘Between Chris, Tim and I, we all have different strengths, so I will be able to pick their brains on some things that I’m not so good at. At the end of the day, winning or not winning, being able to put on a quality display will be my priority.’’
She even spent time fencing over Easter with Tim, who was able to give her some pointers, especially where she needs to work faster. She knows she has to work smarter in the contest.
‘‘Tim has a lot of strength. And he’s quick and fast, and he can do things well, but I’m going to have to be a little bit more tactical about how I compete because I’m not as strong and not as fast. So I’m going to have to collect points somewhere else.
‘‘But also with this contest, you can’t really afford to drop points in any one place. If you look at the people who have won in the past, they’re always first, second, or third in every category. So I’m just really going to have a focus on everything, which seems like an ominous task, but the way of this contest, you can’t afford to not be competitive in any one area, while making sure you capitalise on the things you’re good at.’’
Chris had to deal with calving embryo cows in the lead-up to last year’s grand final so Emma says she’s pleased that has moved to February (the main herd still calves in March and July). But in the next breath, she talks about taking over a neighbouring dairy farm in June, adding another 450 cows to the business.
She says she doesn’t feel pressure from family or friends to follow in Tim’s footsteps to the podium, or improve her own third placing to Chris’s second, but she plans to give it her best nudge.
‘‘You can only do this contest for your own reasons. It’s too much to do it for any reason other than for yourself and wanting to better your skills and become a leader in the industry, so yeah, I’m not really feeling the pressure as in they’ve done it and I have to beat them, or anything like that. It’s just we’ve all been on the journey together through it; it’s been an awesome experience and we’ve met really cool people. So win or lose out there, it’s going to be a good outcome regardless, isn’t it?’’
In the regional final, Edward Roskam, also from Te Kawa West YF, placed second, and Cameron Wratt from Morrinsville Ngarua YF was third.
The next generation of young farmers also took part in Saturday’s competition, with Trav Miers and Caleb Van Der Bijl from St Peter’s Cambridge taking out the title of Waikato Bay of Plenty FMG Junior Young Farmers of the Year. Ben Morris and Jack Ramsey from Hamilton Boys’ High School placed second. They will compete in July’s grand final.
The AgriKidsNZ teams going to Timaru are winners Team Pukeatua Proud, made up of Regan Hemingway, Chloe Bowers and Quintin Stockholmes, alongside Ben Barbour, Josh Barbour, Jackie Sneddon from Te Waotu School, and Tobias Farrell, Korben van der Heyden and Liam McGuire from St Mary’s Putaruru.