This month we get to know Debra Kells, Regional Head for the Upper North Island covering Waikato, Auckland and Northland
Whether it’s managing herd health and productivity, improving environmental sustainability or navigating on farm requirements, our Regional Managers and their teams are committed to supporting our farmers every step of the way.
Debra is the Regional Head for the Upper North Island leading a team of 220 staff from Northland down to the Waikato.
From Debra
I've been working with the Co-op for over 20 years and have been fortunate to work in different parts of the Co-op including shared services, HR, change management, and of course Farm Source for the last eight years.
I’m not actually from a farming background but I have amazing people around me who are. I love being in this privileged position where I can actually interact and work with our farmer shareholders. They’re a pretty passionate bunch of people. You certainly won’t die wondering where their heads are at and I really appreciate that about them.
I’ve got a total of around 220 staff in my team as I look after the upper North Island. Within that group I have seven Regional Managers who report directly to me.
I also represent Farm Source in our partnership with Rural Support Trust, which has been fantastic. It’s a natural synergy and the work they do is just phenomenal. It means we’ve got trusted people that we can refer our farmers to, which is completely confidential and separate to us, and they’re the experts on a range of things from budget, staffing issues, health. We’ve had some pretty challenging farming conditions in the past year and with higher cost structures on farm there’s been a lot of challenges to navigate. The Rural Support Trust team really understands the pressures of farming and can drive to the farm and meet farmers at their place and chat.
Each region has different conditions and challenges but fundamentally there are similarities. We have around 2500 farms in the Waikato and a further 700 in Northland and these are predominantly owner-operator type and family farms. Often they have been through generations and have a lot of history.
The beauty of the regional role and the regional structure is that our teams both work and live in those local communities and have a really strong sense of some of the challenges in that particular area. Even in the Waikato, from one side to the other, it’s very different farming. Having people on the ground in those areas really helps us to service the particular needs of farmers as well as the bigger issues facing Co-op farmers overall.
For example, last year our team met with farmers to talk through the Co-op emissions targets and what these meant for them. It was a great chance to discuss how, as a Co-op, we really needed to start thinking ahead and looking at our customer demands in this area. Our customers want to partner with organisations and food producers like ours to help drive down their own emissions footprints. Our discussions with our farmers have been really positive because it’s not us saying “we now need you to farm differently”
We’re actually saying we want you to keep doing the stuff you’re doing and we want to be there to support and help you really focus on efficiency, because 1) you’ll extract more value from your farm through even better efficiency and 2) we’ll get a reduction in our overall onfarm emissions, which is what our big customers want to see us doing (and in turn this drives up the milk price for farmers).
Farm Source has such a wealth of knowledge to help farmers with the business of farming and they just need to reach out to their local team and make use of us. Whether it’s through our stores, our technical sales reps who can help with cropping advice and a whole range of technical on farm issues, our sustainability team who can help with Farm Environment Plans and on farm efficiencies and emissions discussions, or our co-operative services area managers who can talk about shares and milk and support around this, there is a tonne of support and we all work together to make life easier for our farmers.
Get in touch to find out more.
Debra is just one of the many experts in the network, so don’t hesitate to get in touch with your local store or contact the farmer support team to find your best point of contact 0800 65 65 68.