Nicole Cochrane

Nicole loves working alongside bright and passionate people – whether that’s colleagues, experts or farmers – who want to contribute positively to the dairy sector.

“I live rurally, so I interact with farmers through my work and my community,” says Nicole. “I also love seeing how agriculture flows into our community and its unity and contribution.”

Nicole provides expertise to projects and work programmes, collaborating closely with DairyNZ’s scientists, regional team members, solutions and development people.

“We can supply, and link together, a constant flow of information, from new research that the regional team then passes on to farmers, to exciting projects showing farmers’ levy in action,” says Nicole. “Our regional teams also hear what drives farmers and what their concerns are, so we can create focus areas that address them.”

Originally raised on a dairy farm in Whakatāne, Bay of Plenty, Nicole completed a Bachelor of Agriscience with first class honours in Dairy Production. She worked on DairyNZ’s Scott Research Farm and spent two years as a manager’s assistant on large-scale Australian cattle stations before joining DairyNZ in 2016.

The range of skills and considering all farm systems implications is what makes her job so interesting, says Nicole. “I get a great mixture of office work and farmer interaction. My Monday Invercargill office days help me get up to speed with our regional teams’ activities and where I can offer my expertise.

“Otherwise, I’m working on various projects and work programmes. At the moment I’m interviewing high-performing farmers from each system type to understand what drives their business to succeed, and how we can share those learnings with others in similar systems.

“The more tools, resources and expertise we can offer farmers, the better for all of the New Zealand dairy sector. We want farmers to know they can come to us to get informative and scientifically sound information to help support them and their business to perform at its best.”