Latest / Talking Dairy / Ahuwhenua Trophy: Are you more ready than you think? | Ep. 133

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Ahuwhenua Trophy: Are you more ready than you think? | Ep. 133 · Talking Dairy

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Kyoto and welcome to Talking Dairy.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Julian Risikoko from DairyNZ.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's great to have you with us.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: For nearly a century, the Ahufenua Trophy Competition has celebrated excellence in Mori agri and horticulture.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: But these awards are much more than production and profit.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: They recognize leadership, ancestral connection to Fenua, developing people, and creating opportunities for future generations.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're joined by Rito Tapuke and Peter Ederma to talk about the Ahufenua Trophy Competition, why they matter, what farm businesses and farm managers gain from taking part, and why now might be the perfect time to consider entering the 2027 Dairy Competition.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_02: Let's get into it.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: I work for the Ministry for Prime Industries based in Wellington, working in our Maori Partnerships and Investment Business Unit.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: My background, I was brought up on a dairy farm in a manual two, and actually spent three or four years as a consulting officer after I finished university and working on development projects, agricultural development projects overseas, and been working with the Mahori agribusiness teams at MPI for the last uh 10 or 15 years.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of experience or how long you've been judging the competition, uh Rito, how long have you been a judge at the Ahufenu competition?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: 2014 was uh my first direct interaction with Ahufenua.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: I was working for Tutumu Paidu at that stage.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: And so we were one of the sponsors, so I was helping to project manage the competition.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then in 2019, they asked me to be a judge.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: I've continued on until this day.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And yourself, Peter?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I started as a judge in 2013 and do both the judging for dairy and sheep and beef.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And for the last few years, I've been the lead judge for the first round judging team.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to acknowledge the support that I've had while I've been on this journey with the likes of Peter McGregor, the late um Arapu, Abe C.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Moore, and Kingy Smiler, who have been a huge important part of my journey in learning about Ahu Fenewa and my role as a judge.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: So for those who may not be familiar with the Ahu Fenoa competition, Rito, what is the history of the Ahu Fenewa Trophy Competition and why has this competition remained so important over the years?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: So for me, it all starts with our ancestors.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: So our Tupuna, who arrived here in Oldia Urua, New Zealand, and they were experts.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Experts at gathering chi, growing chi, hunting for kai in the different environments, whether it was at sea, in fresh water, in the rivers, or whether it was on land in the forests.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: So they were gathering kai, obviously for themselves, but also for their communities, for their tribes, for their sustenance.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then as time went along, our Pakia friends came along and they joined us here in this country.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_03: And it'd be fair to say that there were some ups and downs.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: We had our battles.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the things weren't so great, but we managed to go along.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: But what was happening was that in terms of Moldism, if I could sort of like describe it, it was sort of getting to the edge of the cliff, you know, in terms of our culture and uh tikanga and things like that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: So around about 1930s, one man stood up with a lot of other uh Mori leaders.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: His name was Apidanangutta.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_03: He was part of what's called the Māori Renaissance.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: There was a few Mori leaders that stood up and said, okay, we've got to do something about this.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: And so one of the things that happened was the Ahu Fenua trophy.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: So it was Apiranangata and Lord Bledisloe, who was the governor general at that time.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: He's an interesting man as well.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: He had a lot to do with the Treaty of Waitangi settlement grounds at Waitangi in terms of securing the land and renovating the buildings.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, there's the Bledisloe Cup.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody knows about that.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: They with our Aussie neighbors.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: He was a sort of man, he did other things within the community as well.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: He had a great connection, I think, with the Kingitana and Waikattul.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_03: So these two gentlemen decided that they would start the Ahufenwa Trophy competition as a way of inspiring excellence in agribusiness.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_03: Lynn Harrison, he's one of our communications managers, has got this great photo of Apudonanyutta and Lord Bledis, so just walking through a paddock.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_03: They've got their raincoats on, got their gun boots on, they look a bit disheveled.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: They don't look like politicians or anything like that.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I just imagine them kind of like checking the stock or checking the waterways or maybe going to have a cup of tea in the farmhouse with the far now or with the community, whoever was around the farm at the same time.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: And that's how I see the trophy.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's the way.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: That's the spirit to me.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's not something up here.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's something that's kind of walking along in the paddocks with us, sharing our stories and sharing our wins and sharing our losses together.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: So that's how I kind of see the spirit of the trophy.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: It is very important.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's an auspicious trophy, but that's how I sort of see it.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: So if you can just sort of say that it's gone through 1933, the first winner was uh William Swinton from Lo Korkord.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: And Tefano Wapanui, he was the first winner.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: There was another winner from around that area in Tiki Tiki.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: His name was Henry Jews, he was a sheep farmer in 1936.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: The trophy sort of decided that it would go on its own, Tippi Hide.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_03: It got lost, but then it got found again.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: So in the 1940s, the competition continued on.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_03: It was divided into two separate awards, the dairy category and then the sheep and beef.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: So time goes on, fast forward 1980s, round about then.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_03: It sort of goes on a bit of a hiatus, a bit of a holiday.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: But it wasn't until around about the 1990s.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: There were three individuals, Gina Rudlin, Wayne Walden, and John Ackland.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: John Aklund was the chair of New Zealand Meat at the time, and they were instrumental in restarting, reinvigorating the competition.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: So it goes along, 2005.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Sheep and beef are separated into alternate years.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: So the sheep and beef year and the dairy year.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: So we're in dairy year coming up.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: So that's where that sort of happened in 2020?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Horticulture was added to the competition because a lot of Maldiv is, well, especially in the Bay of Plenty, Northland, and throughout.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: Those are the sort of the main regions where a lot of Mori land was being changed into horticulture.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: So horticulture was added to dairy, sheep and beef, and to the trophy.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: And there's just one other main trophy, and that's the um Young Mori Farmers Award.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_03: So that's to encourage the next generation of farmers, orchardists, and the like to be leaders in their respective sectors.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: So this year will be the Young Māori Farmer and the Dairy Sector Award.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: That started about 2012.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_03: So it's sort of like how I sort of see the history of Ahu Fenua.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's nested or it's located or it's placed, you know, really in our relations between Mori and Pakia and the land, the Fenua of Old Teodore.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_02: You raise a great point there, Dito, you know, around the commonality which solidifies good relationships between Mori Agri businesses and Pakia New Zealand farmers.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's our love for the Fenua, our love for the animals, and our love for horticulture and farming and agriculture.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: I have one little thing.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now I've heard through the grapevine that the Ahu Fenua trophy is actually the older brother to the Pedaso Cup.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: True, false?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not actually sure about that actually, Julian.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure who's the Tuekana and who's the Tana or who's the older sibling.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_03: He had a lot of cups.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like he had a cup for like, I think it was chess or something, to encourage people to play chess in New Zealand.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not actually sure about that one there, Julian.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: But suffice to say, when you see the cups, there's something about the cup.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why I sort of like think about Lord Bledaslo and Hapu Dana Nata.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I kind of like think that's their legacy, their spirit is imbued in the in the cup.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_03: Since we always win, we always see the Bledisloe Cup, so that's cool too.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, cool.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, the awards have been running since 1933.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think is the legacy of the Ahifenua and why does it stall matter for Mori farming today?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Julian, and um thanks, Rido.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: That was really great to hear the hear the history again.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things that really stands out for me is that even though we're in our in in the mid-2020s, the TikTok, the cowpapa that that Sarparana and L Bedaslo talked about in 1933 still is very live today.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's referenced every time we visit farms during the competition as part of the Wayata or the song for the competition.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about Sarparana.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so the base understanding of the competition around highlighted excellence and what that means, not just from Maori farming, but also farming in general.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do you maintain a highly profitable, productive business or having strong focus around environment, around people, is foundational for all good farmers.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose why it's still important is that if we MPI did some work with Bill, we released a report earlier this year which showed that there's over 1.4 million hectares of federal Maori and primary production.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Given that we've got dairy coming up, there's around 70,000 hectares of dairying that's in Maori land,$5.3 billion in gross domestic product earnings, employing 33,000 full-time equivalents.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the work we did during that report showed that if we can continue to optimize primary production on the Maori land, there's over a billion dollars to be had in terms of additional earnings and additional unemployment.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So really reinforcing the opportunities around what excellence means, what balancing those profitability, production, environmental, people, animal side of things remains as important today as it was back in 1933.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Different drivers, but one of the things that I hear whenever I visit farms is around the importance of the land to the people.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's still the fundamental driver.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: The reason for the trophy remains key.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just, as I said, not just for Maori farming, it's about the messages that are for all farmers.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I'm constantly surprised about is how well known the Ahu Fenua trophy is in the Māori primary sector, but how unknown it's across the border primary sector.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I see the trophy as a real connector about building those key messages and also understanding the Maori primary sector economy.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: The trophy, by all sounds of it, seems like a great kickstarter for relationships, for new relationships, and basing those relationships from a mutual place of likeness, agriculture, horticulture.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Just on excellence, uh Rito, sometimes people assume these awards are only for the biggest and highest performing farming businesses.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now, what's the biggest misconception Modern Agribusin's Ahufeno Trust and farmers have about entering the Ahufenhua competition?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I've heard that a lot in my travels, but I can say that it doesn't matter how big you are.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: It matters how great you are.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's the most important thing.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: So it doesn't matter whether you're small or medium or large farm.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: What actually matters is that you are excellent or that you are great.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's the most important criteria.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: And um, what does great mean?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: The way the trophy and the competition looks at it, what's great is determined by our criteria.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: And you can get the criteria from our website, dub dub dub, a whofenword trophy, dot moldy.nz.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's kind of a little bit more defined, you know, about what that great looks like.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: And if I look at the competition as a whole, we've had some husband and wife competition winners, Eugene and Panya King from Kiri Rua and Station of Matawai.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: They won in 2019, the sheep and beef competition.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: And even 2025, Fango Rua, Ngayo Tonga, also another sheep and beef farm just outside of Fangoe.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now it's quite a small operation, you know, when you compare it to a lot of other big stations, but they were really focused on what they wanted to achieve, and they were achieving it.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: What they said, you could actually see it on farm.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, that they'd done all the fencing of their waterways, and you know, it was all complete.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it wasn't something that was a work in progress.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_03: Those sort of smaller type enterprises also are just as were there and valid coming into the competition.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously there's the connect with their communities as well.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: So I can say though, it doesn't matter how big you are, it just matters how good you are.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's the main thing.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: On that, um, you've both walked onto a lot of properties, you know, throughout your times as Ahufenua judges.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, what separates a good farming business from an exceptional one?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's about the whole package.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think if we go back to the judging criteria, and also just acknowledging that Nuku here and Bart Hadfield also will in as a family-run business as well, and Nuku's now the the chair of the Ahufena Management Committee.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at the judging criteria, it's very much a holistic conversation.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not looking at purely profit or purely health and safety or purely environment.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's about how the whole business runs.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, one of the things that I've sort of learned over the years is that a lot of places have visions and strategies and whatnot, but they don't necessarily connect with what's actually happening on the ground, or they don't connect with the economics, or maybe there's things happening on the ground that don't reflect the vision of the owners.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And where I see with winners and the finalists, that connection is really strong.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the vision and the strategy from the trustees and from the owners is reflected about what's happened on the actually on the farm.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone understands what good looks like.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's clear communication between governance and management, the environment, the animals that the pasture are all looked after well.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it becomes a whole picture rather than just focusing on one thing.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, you want to be profitable.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's no point being not profitable, but also it's a conversation around how people are using that money, whether it's around dividends, but it's also about how they're supporting their wider community, whether they're providing scholarships for their Rangatahi or young members of the landowners.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's all thinking about those types of connections as well.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was reflecting this morning on the various winners over the years, and there's no one thing that stands out in terms of like they're all doing those things well, but if I think about past winners, um, like Tehan Ornal Forest Trust up in the Napier Taupo, they had a particular trust process.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So they, when they had trustees leaving the governance, they weren't leaving and just isolating them.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Those older members of the governance were still providing mentorship and guidance for the new trustees and associates.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Others were they brought Landox together to build scale and the facilitation process they've gone to help drive that, and then that they've all got a common vision and common understanding.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: If I think of farms like WePari, where you've got like a really detailed understanding of the farm.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So they've got not just farm maps, but they've got it at paddock scale or even sub-paddock scale, and so they're managing economics and managing their animals well, but they're also managing their land really well, and that's connected back to the ancestors who are also driving these, and so it's not an isolated conversation about the farm.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's again it's connected back into that land fuck a conversation.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's all of those various aspects that makes the really good farms excellent farms.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Rita talked about the farm in Northland with Faytonga No Tonga, who won recently, using livestock as a capital to better drive expansion, given that it's difficult for minor land to access capital from the land.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're looking at innovative ways of progressing and developing the land.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just those little extra things that make the difference between good and excellent.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: What I'm hearing is that combination of having guided principles that may come from those that have set the course before the current governors or the governance or trustee board, embedded with visionary action-oriented leadership.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's an acquired skill.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Some have that charisma, some have that uh experience, and some have that type of leadership.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Some don't.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: For those that don't have their skill set around a trust board, do you have any advice for them to be able to acquire those skill sets or where to look or how to develop that internally?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we see with every finalist is they have a really, really good group of people around them.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: They're accountants, their farm consultants, their advisors, other good farmers.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: No one's doing this in isolation.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things that that we do as a judging panel with the first-round judges is we provide um written reports for all the entrants, regardless of if they make the finalists or not.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so effectively becomes an independent assessment or review of what's happening on your farm based on your aspirations and the histories of your blocks and what you want to achieve.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a very neutral thing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, following the cop-upper of Sopper Owner Luple's lows around how do we improve the capacity and capability of all Māori land.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just we're not saying we don't believe you're right, we're saying based on what we've heard, these are the things that we think that could help things progress.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then part of what I've been doing with my first round team is really identifying people that can support that progression.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not an isolated piece of paper either.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Previously, Rito and I, and part of that, Abe and I used to go and talk to the boards or trustees, work through the report, and I can use my connections and others and things to bring support into the farm and help further those conversations and then hopefully drive action as the landowners require.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's very much a landowner-driven space.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about me telling them what to do, it's about me hearing what their aspirations are and how best I can and the Henoua far now can support those aspirations.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: I just really want to sort of extrapolate and just stick Dev on that question just for a little bit longer.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Lorito, uh, can you, from your experience, tell us around some of the key things as a judge you look for in the entrant?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I agree with Peter, what he's previously said in terms of what you look for in terms of an entrance.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: So it's more of a total and comprehensive sort of look at the farm in terms of governance, your financial performance and the processes that underlie that, how you're you're taking your environmental responsibilities, how you're undertaking those, how you're connecting to your communities.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I I just want to stick on the connection to the communities part.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is quite a unique part of a Moldy farm.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: Usually there's a community involved, like it might be a trust that's got a quite a large far no, it might be a Hapoo, it might even be an Ewi or combination of Iwi that invested.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: So there's there's quite a large community there.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that I think about, and I think this is both true for Mori agribusiness and New Zealand agribusiness or New Zealand dairy, is that we want to encourage the sector to succeed.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we want to do.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: And through the competition, it provides a platform for success.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_03: It'd be seen by everybody, really.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's what the platform is about.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_03: So you enter into the competition, you go through the various rounds, the finalists, the field days where the community is invited into your farm to see what happens.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: And my hope is that by people seeing that, they feel as though they're inspired to do it on their own farm.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: But more importantly, those farms that enter ask questions of themselves about how can we help?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_03: How can we help, say, like our neighboring farms, or maybe farms in our catchment, or you know, farms nationally, whoever it is, what can be our contribution to ensuring that everybody is successful?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's what I would sort of add to what Peter's saying, that leadership part.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's something I think that's really important, both for the Mori sector and for the New Zealand sector, New Zealand Act as well.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is about excellence in Maori farming.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think if we took the Maori out of it, it is about excellence in farming more generally.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it is around lessons that are learnt and that they're transferable.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: When it comes to excellence, do you two ever disagree about what excellence looks like in in terms of that criteria?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not the criteria, but like there have been some rigorous conversations around where one might be excellence in one area and someone else might be excellence in another other area.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so just really teasing out that how that fits into the bigger picture.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's any been any total disagreements, but we have a certainly as part of the first round judging team.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And our role as first round judges is to visit all the entrants and to find the three finalists or the two finalists, and we treat that as a in the respect that it deserves.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so the conversations are are really rigorous and we test it out within our panel to make sure that we have the two or three farms that best reflect the Kulpapa, the Tikanga of the competition and what Sarah Puranal Bedas though thought about 1933.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to make sure we do justice to the competition.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: So just with the judging criteria, and feel free to elaborate.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just trying to clarify and help our listeners understand what excellence means when you mention excellence.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: In the judging criteria, does it sort of have a breakdown?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, for example, you're at high school, you know what A, you know what a B, you know what a C looks like.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um is that the same for the Ahu Fenor competition?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Or is that something one-on-one?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's same thing.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: So the weightings are in there.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it gives you separated out into what the categories are.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: It gives you a few pointers within each category, and then also about what the weighting is.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_03: So it is a little bit like out of a hundred percent, if I can put it for it like that, you know, 100% would be perfect.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: But I was just sort of add to what Peter was saying is that I'm lucky enough to do the first round and the final round.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not until you actually get on the farm that I think that everything sort of like comes together.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so you can read as much as you we get provided with information, which I really acknowledge all the work that's been put in by the different farms to enter into the there's a lot of information there.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: And you do your homework, but it's not actually until you get onto the farm that you get a real kind of like a sense about what the farm is all about, you know?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like that's what I'd I'd say as well, it's also part of the judging criteria.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of the weighting, I'm guessing across people, farm systems, profitability, environment, are they all measured equally or does one outweigh the other?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: So governance, financial, and environment are the top three in terms of the points.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly governance and and financials are critical.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: It needs to be a profitable business, but the driving around, the vision, the strategies, how the governance, management, interaction works, and the strong focus around environment.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So connecting that productive part of the business to the environment that the farm's either connected to or has within it is probably the key areas.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that the other areas around health and safety, about animal and partial production, aren't important because they are key aspects and have been on a number of farms where health and safety is hardly even mentioned.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that becomes part of the conversation we have around how governance is working.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because if governance who have that leadership role around health and safety aren't aware of what's happening on the farm, then there's that there's a disconnect there.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's that's something that I might raise during the at the wrap-up of the first round visit, or we might write down as a part of the report, and then we talk about it with the trustees or the governors when we get invited back to follow up.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: What we have talked and discussed and shared with the listeners so far.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it seems like there's a a lot of work involved in entering Dalhoof Energy Awards.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: And as a entrant, I'm wondering what are the benefits of actually entering the award and just going through the process itself without the intention of winning or becoming a vinylist.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: What are some of the unexpected benefits that um entrants often talk about afterwards when you bump into them at events later on down the track?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's kind of like anything, um, Julian, if you take it in with an open and learning mind frame, you know, your mindset is I'm into this to learn.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think you can lose because you're going to learn things about what you do well and those things that you don't do well as well.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: So and then more importantly, how do you improve from that?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's the key part.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that learning is a really important benefit.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: Secondly, the other thing that the trophy does is that usually you're so busy in your day-to-day, you know, you're just milking your cows and fixing your fences or whatever it is.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're busy doing your books and all of those things, managing staff and things like that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: The trophy allows you a little bit of time and space to lift your head up and like say, okay, where are we going?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Is it the right place?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: Should we be going over here?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_03: You know, sort of thing.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_03: You can have a bit more of a think about your long term and your more of your strategic vision about what where you want to go as a farm.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: That's a couple of the benefits.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: For every farm that enters, um, they will get benchmarked.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it's shim and beef, dairy, horticulture.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's dairy coming up, and so running the all of the farms through dairy base and getting a a three-year financial assessment done.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of farms that are visited, they've never had benchmarking done before.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or they might have done some but have a maybe have an unrealistic understanding of what their actual business is doing or what's driving profitability.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so that benchmarking becomes a really important mechanism, as we just saying, to actually for the governor's management to actually stop for a minute, have a look at that, try to build understanding of what their financial aspects of their business are, what's changed over those three years, and then using that as a as a foundation for moving forward.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it becomes all part of that wider conversation.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose just reinforcing that it that the competition is an isolated and just the judging, that we'd have that report that we write, we pride the opportunity to go for myself and Rita or others to go and visit the board or the trustees and have an ongoing conversation, and then wrapping experts around depending on what the landowners want to do.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not seen as just a linear thing.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just wandering on for a few hours having a bit of a chat and then going away.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I see my role as a judge and as a first-round lead judge is helping landowners continue on that process around building productivity, building understanding, and that shift move from good to excellent.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's very much driven by the aspirations of the landowners.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: The key word that um I'm pulling out of the recent Cordital and Rito, you mentioned it a number of times, is the worst strategy.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: And as with any competition, and more specifically for Maori agribusinesses, Maori farmers entering the Hafenua competition, it's an opportunity to get a really good strategic take up if you if you want to call it that.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because you're right, you if you've never had the opportunity to have a full-scale look into your farm business, you really don't know what's going on outside of your farm gate.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Hence one of the the big benefits I can see around entering the competition.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: So for elaborating on that.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Rito, this question's for you.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: There can only be one Ahu Fenua trophy winner, but as you know, success surely isn't just about taking home the trophy.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, for other finalists, what do they actually gain other than what you've already mentioned from going through the competition?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: I sort of like look at it like this.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_03: Your final are proud of you.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_03: I think that would be the main thing that I would say.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: If you're fortunate enough to come to the dinner, 800, 900 or people come to the dinner.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the biggest dinners or celebrations.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think yeah, it's huge.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: It actually has to be there's a whole team of people that put the dinner together, which uh we're very fortunate to the team.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's planned out two years in advance.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: So there's a lot of people that come to that dinner and they see their farm up there on stage, and they're very proud.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: Not only that, that is something we hope that will help the future generations that you can see your farm up there.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: You can see it, you know.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_03: I just thought it was this farm down the road, you know, sort of thing.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, but when you actually see it, it's gone through the process that Peter's already outlined.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's a rigorous process.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: And they come out on top, and all there are finalists, all it's the young Māori Farmer Award.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_03: There's also a great pride in seeing their people up on stage putting their best foot forward.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: There's sponsorship, there's prize money, and you know, the kudos that comes with it.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: But that's what I would say is the biggest um return, I suppose.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you see that at the Wards Dinner that um yes, it's a trophy and things, but every entrant acknowledges the other entrants.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: They go to each other's field days, very much a far now aspect, a feel to the thing.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're sitting in that dinner and the and the winners are announced, or or people are finished speaking, and suddenly the room's filled with Wyata and Song or Hakka, and you get the sense of how important the whole cow pop bottom of the competition is to Mori landowners.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: And also as as MPI as a platinum sponsor, the the importance of recognition from the sponsors around the importance of the Māori food and fibre sector to New Zealand's economy.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because a strong Māori economy is a strong food and fibre sector from Maori perspective is a strong driver for New Zealand's economy as well.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: I've watched a number of letters soap matches in my lifetime, and you know, at the start of the game, that there's the hucker, you've got the Aussies on the other side, fiercely staring down the all blacks.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: A game is played, and sometimes that game is you know is not an inch drawn and not a portal given type of scenario.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: But after the game, you know, handshakes on, embraces, and then you know, off to the aftermatch.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I sense the same sort of ahua within the Ahufenuwa competition, you know, though that the coveted uh award is the trophy and the mana that comes with it, the effort that our farm businesses and farmers put into preparing themselves for the competition is equally matched as if an all-black was running on the field against the Australians.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very, very, very exciting that you sort of mentioned, you know, that aspect, Peter, Editor, you know, around the competition.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for some of our listeners, you know, especially some of the farm businesses or farmers that have never entered or have just only found out about the IFENO competition through this podcast.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit fucking, a little bit unsure whether they're ready or thinking about entering.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say to encourage them to take their first step?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's a lot of support that you can access around.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_03: Obviously, it's Dairy New Zealand, the multi-acribusiness team that will be able to help them.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Dairy-based support.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, what Peter was talking about in terms of the benchmarking, there's also another place to draw support.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: And the Ahufenwa trophy team.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: So these are the people that really make it happen.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's Martma Steele, uh, Gene, and Cedric.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: They're the glue in the organization.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: So they're part of the management, part of the operations team for Ahufenwa.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: And um, they will be able to help you.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: There's a website, it's got a lot of information on there.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_03: You might want to have a look at some of the other farms that have entered in your region.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: So you could maybe like, can we have a chat or something like that?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: Or what was your experiences?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: What did you learn?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm thinking of putting our farm in.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: And also, there's a big network within your community.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: So within your farm, might be in your happu, might be just in your town, people will know about the Ahu Feneway trophy and they'll say, Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: My grandfather won or something.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: You find out, fire out.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, so there are multiple sources of support for people wishing to enter the competition.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing, Julian, is that the entries are confidential.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are feeling a little bit fucking uh obviously, as a judging team, we know who all the entries are, especially for the first-round judges.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: But the information, the relationship we have is between the judging team and the farm and the committee.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the reports don't go any further than within that core either.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously the two, three finalists become public because they've got the public field days.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're not a finalist, that shouldn't be a reflection of how you're running your business.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: It should be part of that conversation around how I can grow my business and strengthen that those relationships.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So part of it is treating it as that sort of journey.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: But that is if you don't make the final or become one of the finalists, that information stays with you.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you can share it with others if you want or you or not.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: But we don't tell anybody else who were the if we have 10 entries, three finalists, we don't go talk about who the other seven were.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And just on that, you know, as you both know, Darian Z has been a long-standing supporter and sponsor of the Ahu Fenwa Trophy Competition.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: And over the years, we've contributed our people, our expertise, time, resources to support the competition.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: And we also provide a small koha to support the Young Māori Farmer Award.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: But DairyNZ is only one part of the wider support uh network around Ahu Fenua.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: As you mentioned, there's a bit of a wider support network who potential entrants can go and talk to.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_02: But is there anyone specifically they should be talking to now?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_02: Accountants, farm consultants, farm staff, owners to start building that team around them?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: As a first-round judge, the thing that I find the trickiest is when we go onto a farm, there's been no preparation or there's sort of no one really understands what's meant to happen.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as we're going to talk about, look at the judging criteria, because that's what we went to, and start thinking about what that looks like in your business, and then use your expertise to help frame those up.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: So when we're asking questions, some of those answers are sitting there.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: We'll dive into various little pieces of those conversations if we feel there's something else to be discussed or investigated.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: But do some of that preparation early as much as you can, given the resources you might you might have or not.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we're not saying you need to have a whole folder of stuff that to give to us because we don't have time to read that probably anyway.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: But just think about some of the conversations that we might have and get the support that you need from your accountant or your consultant or your farmer mentor that you might be using.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, some of the information that farms will get through the benchmarking might be the first time they've seen that.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that's okay, because we can have a conversation about that and what I'm and what we've seen from the information.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: So they don't have to have all the answers.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why for us as judging, it's a two-way conversation that we have a job to do, but it's about helping us support their learning, but also it's also the landowners helping me learn as well.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Every farm that I go to has something unique about it that I can then share more broadly with others.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Before I let you both go, I've got to do a quick fire round.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: One sentence answers.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we're gonna start with you, let's all be in a one for one.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh toughest part of being a who fenoma judge.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's encouraging people that they are excellent.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think our people undervalue themselves.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_03: Be courageous, put your best foot forward.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: Killed up.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: Pete, uh, what's the first thing you notice when you arrive on farm?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: The people.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if we're meeting in a in a someone's lounge or a little shed or in a boardroom, it's the people is the first name we see.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let's all uh what's something you've seen on farm that's made you think, man, I wish more farmers around our country w were doing this.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: We have to talk about the next generation of farmers.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: But how do you practically and actually give meaning to that?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, what's one common trait you see among amongst the finalists?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: Shared understanding of the vision.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone's on the same market, on the same boat, and everyone has a clear understanding what good looks like.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: And good will be different for every every farm, but they know what good looks like, and and if they feel that there's a weakness, then they know who to go to and and how to respond to it.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: All the really nice things you could have.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of stuff out there.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_03: What is the thing that's gonna make your walker go faster or your farm better?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's actually going to make a real difference.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_03: I think that would be the thing that I'd concentrate on.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, what matters more?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: The farm system or the people running it?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: The people running it.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's the old Tokatoki or the saying around Hatangata Tungata, Hatangata, it's the people.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: The land will always be there, but it's the people's understanding of that and how they how they manage it and look after the land for not just themselves but obviously future generations.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: Leto numbers or culture?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Both.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: Peter, one thing entrants underestimate themselves.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Leto, last one, best piece of advice you've heard from an entrant.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: Always keep in mind who you're serving.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: Now these are two different parts though, but uh Peter, I'll start with one thing you'll change about the dairy sector.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Or one thing you would like to see from the competition that will influence the dairy sector more precisely.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think again, it's just thinking about what excellence means.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't come back to what I said right at the start about how do we continue to build profitable and productive businesses that are environmentally, socially sound.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's finding that balance.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't have to necessarily try to maximize profitability at the cost of some other things.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's just thinking about balance.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: And Rito, finally, why should someone enter the Ahufenua in one sentence?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Because you want to make your Fino proud.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: Kiara, Kiora.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: And on that, if you're listening today and thinking Ahufenua might be something your farm or agribusiness could explore, I'd like to encourage you to take the first step.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Have a quarter with your Fino, trustees, farm team, your support network.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Reach out and find out what's involved.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's plenty of support available as you've heard in this podcast today.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: And as we've wrapping up, I'd like you to sort of think about and remember the value about the Ahu Fennua Trophy is more than just winning, it's the experiences, the network and relationships, and making your Fano proud.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: So why not give it a go?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Hold up.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: And thanks to Rito and Peter for joining us, and thanks for listening.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: The Ahu Fenoa Awards are about more than recognizing excellence, they're about celebrating in many ways Maori farming businesses, creating value for the Fano and people, the Fenua, and most importantly, the communities.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: As we have heard, entering can be a valuable opportunity to reflect on your business, build new connections, and identify opportunities for future growth.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to learn more or enter the awards, we'll include all the links in the show notes.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: Also visit ohfenua.mori.nz or contact the DairyNZ Māori Engagement and Partnerships team at MaoriAgrobusiness at dairynz.co.nz for support.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Matewa.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to get connected with DairyNZ's latest advice, research, tools, and resources, whether it's reading, scrolling, listening, or in person, you can visit DariNZ.co.nz forward slash get connected, and don't forget to hit follow to keep up to date with our latest episodes.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: As always, if you have any feedback on this podcast or have some ideas for future topics or guests, please email us at talkingdairy at DariNz.co.nz.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you next time on Talking Dairy.