Morgan Easton

Morgan was the 2017 winner of the Zanda McDonald Award, hailing from NZs Waitaki Valley, where both his father and grandfather were livestock and cropping farmers. The original property was converted to dairy in the early 1990s and sold, after which the family bought another sheep and beef farm on the northern side of the Waitaki River and also converted it to dairy. Morgan and his family live on one of their properties Twin Terraces, a dairy farm in Papakaio.

Morgan completed a Bachelor of Agricultural Science Degree at Lincoln University, spending his last year at Cornell University in upstate New York.

On his return to New Zealand, he worked for Dexcel (now DairyNZ) for 18 months, based out of Dunedin. He was then awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and obtained a Master of Science Degree in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University, in Indiana.

Morgan returned home to NZ in 2008 to assist in the development and to sharemilk Twin Terraces.
In 2013, Easton and his wife Hayley won the Canterbury-North Otago Sharemilker-Equity Farmer of the Year title, and went on to be runners-up in the national competition. That year, he also attended the US-NZ Pacific Partnership Forum in Washington DC.

Morgan, Hayley and Morgan’s parents have subsequently bought a neighbouring farm which they have redeveloped. The couple, who have three young children, are now overseeing the three dairy farms that they own with his parents - milking a total of 2500 cows, the synergies between the three - including sharing staff and machinery - worked well, he said.