Canterbury farmer fast-tracked to chairmanship

Campbell (27) was elected chair in August, just one month after being appointed to the eight-member board at the annual meeting held during this year’s Young Farmer of the Year competition in Invercargill in early July.  She agrees it’s been “really quick”.

Campbell is a busy woman: she’s just got a new role as technical farm manager on eight dairy farms in Ngāi Tahu Farming’s Whenua Hou (formerly Eyrewell Forest) development. She was previously Whenua Hou’s sustainability co-ordinator. 

“If someone had asked me five years ago if this is what I’d be doing I probably wouldn’t have had a clue,” she said.

Although she is based at the Ngāi Tahu headquarters in Christchurch, Campbell still keeps gumboots in the truck “and they get pulled out once or twice a week”.

“I’m in a lovely position with a foot in the door in agribusiness and a foot in the door being out on the farm. I’m fortunate and happy with my current role.

“Tuesday Wednesday Thursday I can be out on the farm and Mondays and Fridays in the office doing paperwork. I can be tagging heifers one day or helping draft springers. If they need an extra pair of hands I can get in there and help.”

Campbell was raised on a small lifestyle property at Greenpark, near Lincoln, which she now helps run as a Texel sheep stud with her parents. 

Her career in agriculture started with part-time relief milking while still at Lincoln High School. She went on to become a herd manager on a Dunsandel dairy farm at age 21 and has managed a drystock farm inland.

Meanwhile, she has gained diplomas in agriculture and farm management and is now studying towards bachelor of commerce in agriculture at Lincoln University.

“I’m a sucker for punishment: I signed up for one year of university and here I am in my fourth year. It’ll be five years by the time I’m finished.”

Campbell joined Young Farmers in 2011 while working on the Dunsandel dairy farm and a friend took her along to a local club meeting.

“As a fresh-eyed 21-year-old I didn’t really know what I was walking into.” 

However, Campbell recognised the opportunity to get involved and soon became the treasurer of the Dunsandel club, a position she held for four years. 

“Over that four year period I really got the bug for Young Farmers and I haven’t looked back since,” she said.

Subsequently she became the vice-chair, then chair, of the Tasman region.

She was one of three inaugural winners of the NZ Young Farmers Excellence Awards in late 2016, and was a finalist in the Ahuwhenua Young Māori Dairy Farmer of the Year awards and a Whenua Kura Māori Scholarship winner.

She said that as national chair of Young Farmers she did not intend to emphasise her Māori heritage. “It’s just who I am. We need more than just Māori in agriculture in New Zealand. We need a lot more people in the industry in the next 10, 15, 20 years, from different walks of life and with different strengths, whether it’s engineering or actually working on the land or in a scientific role.”