Farmer graduates to top table
Fonterra’s newest director, Nicola Shadbolt, and her husband
Shane Carroll had their timing right when they put together an equity
partnership in April 1987, just before the sharemarket crash.
The four equal partners in the dairy, sheep and beef, deer
and forestry operation at Pohangina have stayed together, extended their
holdings and remained successful.
Timing, too, was behind the Massey University associate
professor’s decision to stand for the Fonterra board. With the last of her
three sons nearing the end of his secondary education, she was looking to get
back into a governance role of some kind.
She has worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
(MAF), PGG Wrightson, and AgricultureNZ as a farm consultant, and in research
at Lincoln University on the way to collecting a masters of agricultural
science with honours in farm management.
Since then, she was for seven years on the board of Transit
New Zealand, and was an appointed member on the Manawatu-Wanganui Regional
Council (now Horizons) for two years (Dairy
Exporter, November 2009, page 27). She also spent nine years as a trustee
of Huntley School in Marton. Sons James, 22, Matthew, 19 and Christopher,
16, all attended the school.
Common goal
When it became known that she was considering a return to a
governance role, she was approached by a number of parties interested in
supporting her as a Fonterra board candidate. While she won’t identify the groups, she said they all had a
common goal – to see the cooperative spirit of Fonterra protected.
Having started out as sharefarmers, Nicola and Shane feel it
has helped them make a success of the equity partnerships and other ventures in
which they have been involved.
Their Pohangina operation, to which a dairying business was
added two years after the partnership was set up, won the Horizons Ballance
Farm Environment supreme award in 2006 (Dairy
Exporter, July 2006, page 55).
They started dairying by buying a 40ha farm on the
flood-prone flats beside the Pohangina River, eventually building it up to
158ha. Three staff milk 430 Friesian Jersey crossbred cows , a third of which
are autumn calved and winter milked once-a-day (OAD). Production is around
145,000kg milksolids (MS)/year or 337kg MS/cow.
Dairying ‘passion’
The partnership is also involved in another property near
Ashhurst, carrying 530 cows.
“Dairy farming is a passion for our family,” she said.
Her sons have all earned pocket money by relief milking for
the partnership.
“I have a strong understanding of the issues facing farmers
and I am committed to delivering sustainable solutions to the challenges.”
She will integrate her Fonterra board duties with her other
principal role in farm and agribusiness management at Massey. While she will
have slightly less contact with students, she said teaching is what she most
enjoys and will not give up the role easily.
She campaigned on her skill set of agribusiness, academic
and practical farming experience, coupled with an international
perspective as the New Zealand
representative since 2000 on the International Farm Comparison Network (IFCN)
in dairying. This is where 46 countries’ representatives compare the cost of
production of milk and other aspects of dairying.
“Every time I meet with dairy farmers and industry people
overseas they tell me how envious they are of New Zealand farmers,” she said.
“They wish their countries had something with the scale and
ability that we have with Fonterra.
“There are other cooperatives with similar scale, but few
that have the flexibility of structure to respond, as Fonterra does, to global
opportunities. Fonterra should be the company that people aspire to join. We
should attract, develop and retain the best but we should also ensure our staff
understand how and why cooperatives differ from corporates.
Privilege
“Being a farmer shareholder of this cooperative is a
privilege that we should be able to enjoy and never lose.”
She believes Fonterra has a healthy tension between
management and shareholders.
“The executive is instructed to pay as much as it can to
shareholders [both in milk price and dividends] but at the same time not
diminish the value of the shares,” she said.
“To deliver to this double-edged sword we must be the
provider of choice of dairy products to our global markets and then focus on
efficiency through the supply chain.
“Innovation is key, whether it be how to improve efficiency
to ensure the carbon footprint is minimised, or how to respond with product to
better meet changing consumer needs or perceptions. Farmers will always play a
critical role in delivering the Fonterra strategy.”
However, she had stressed during her contact with
shareholders during the election roadshow that, despite the opportunities,
distractions were taking people off course.
“My concern, especially in recent years when milk prices
were high, has been the low retention in Fonterra,” she said.
“This is unusual and unsustainable. It would appear that one
reason for this is to minimise the increase in share value and thus decrease
redemption risk.
“If Fonterra dairy farmers are to benefit from a successful
cooperative now and in the future, it must be through a sustainable milk price,
a strong dividend and an improving share value.”
As the first woman elected to the board – the
only other, Marise James, was appointed – Shadbolt recognises the uniqueness of
the position. But she believes the issue is about contribution, not gender, and
that her background will enable her to fully contribute to Fonterra’s
governance
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