Lessons along the way to landing the dream

It wasn’t an easy journey. With no family farm to step into, the pair relied on disciplined saving and building strong relationships with people and organisations whose advice helped them along the way.

Gareth always wanted to go farming. Although he didn’t grow up on a farm, he spent much of his early years living in Dunsandel, where dairy farming was integral to the rural community.

“Mum and Dad instilled the value of hard work into me, and I saw dairy farming as a place where that work ethic was valued and rewarded,” Gareth says.

After doing work experience on a local dairy farm, he got a full-time job as a dairy assistant with Kieran and Karen Stone, and left school at 15.

It was the start of a long relationship, and the Stones have been key mentors for the Lewises over the years.

After two years of farming, Gareth kept a promise to his dad to get a trade, and took an apprenticeship as a diesel mechanic with Claas Harvest, where he worked for five years and became qualified.

He kept in touch with the Stones, working every second weekend and on holidays as a relief milker on their farm to retain and grow his farming skills and further his relationship with them.

Soon after qualifying as a mechanic, Gareth resigned and returned to farming as a variable order sharemilker for the Stones in 2008.

He had met Hayley the year before. She grew up in Otago on a sheep and beef farm and has a background in graphic design.

They pooled their wages, lived on a fraction of one and used the rest to grow their equity and business. They stayed disciplined with spending, and focused on cash flow throughout their farm ownership journey.

Gareth did a season alone, milking 500 cows before Hayley joined him.

“I convinced Hayley to come and milk cows. We had an opportunity to run a neighbouring farm, so I ran one and she ran the other,” Gareth says.

They continued to save their cash and work for the Stones, but after five years, the Stones’ son was keen to sharemilk the family farm.

Kieran was a supervisor for Dairy Holdings and helped the Lewises secure a contract milking role with the company in 2013. After two seasons, they moved into variable order sharemilking on Somerton – a 1,400- cow farm at Seafield near Ashburton.

Unfortunately, this coincided with the payout crash, which hit them hard.

They had no other investments at the time, just saved cash and livestock they’d purchased.

“We’d based our budgeting on the five-year average to make the step from contract milking to variable order sharemilking, so when the payout crashed, so did our income,” says Gareth.

Dairy Holdings provided significant support, enabling them to step back into contract milking to weather the storm. By then, the couple had built up a number of their own cows, which Dairy Holdings leased while they were contract milking.

“Dairy Holdings effectively underwrote our business. They put a safety net under us,” Gareth says.

“If they hadn’t done that, we would’ve been out of business.”

They also leaned on senior staff within Dairy Holdings for advice and support.

Kieran, their supervisor and mentor, helped them stay focused on the bigger picture: farm ownership. As a farm owner himself, he’d walked the same path and reinforced the importance of budgeting and financial planning.