The second chance Jack Raharuhi was given as a troubled teen ignited his remarkable trajectory towards becoming an award-winning leader of a growing farming enterprise portfolio within New Zealand’s largest pastoral business. He says the Zanda McDonald Award unearthed many “gold nuggets” that have helped him on the way.
If you’d have told the 14-year-old Jack Raharuhi that within 15 years he’d be leading a team of 55 people across a growing group of agricultural business units including five dairy farms and a livestock property, he’d have probably laughed.
“I was in the wrong crowd back then, into drugs and alcohol, and was kicked out of school at 14,” says Jack, who grew up in Westport, a small town on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island.
To straighten him out, Jack’s dad got him a job as a farm hand at a local dairy owned by Pāmu Farms (the state-owned enterprise then known as Landcorp), a move which unexpectedly marked the start of a thriving agricultural career.
“That farm where I started as a 15-year-old dairy assistant is actually one of the business units I now oversee,” says Jack, who was crowned the Zanda McDonald Award winner in 2020.
He’d quickly knuckled down under his first manager, who he fondly describes as “a tough bugger” and, as he saw his hard work rewarded with successive promotions at Pāmu, the nation’s largest pastoral farming business, he became hungry to succeed.
“The work ethic was there – it was just a matter of having the right people believe in me,” he recalls.
“I really liked being outdoors, working closely with animals, and being part of a team – we had a tight-knit team with a good dynamic and went through the highs and lows together, and my passion for farming really built from there.”
Over the years, Jack’s remit has grown, his portfolio of businesses now stretching across the Buller region from Westport to Reefton. It includes five dairy farms milking around 5000 cows and two dairy support farms; a 2500-hectare sheep, beef and deer farm; and a machinery contracting business to service those farms.
“I’ve loved seeing the large-scale performance improvements we’ve made,” says Jack, who notes that his dairy farms are performing above district averages. Still, he’s always on the lookout to achieve even more and has quite a few projects ticking along, which will drive shifts in the livestock carried, improve resilience and reduce environmental impact.
Jack also put in the work on the sidelines of his day job to gain several qualifications in dairy farming, production management and lookout to achieve even more and has quite a few projects ticking along, which will drive shifts in the livestock carried, improve resilience and reduce environmental impact. Leadership skills through the primary sector work-based training organisation Primary ITO, for which he was named the West Coast overall Trainee of the Year in 2015
As his role has expanded, Jack’s appreciation for good team dynamics has only deepened. “I learned really quickly in large scale businesses that people play a huge part in success,” he says.
“A huge passion of mine has been recruiting people that I believe in, connecting with them regardless of personality type, and finding out what drives them. I try to create a good family feel in the teams, coming together and having meals often and talking about what’s going well and what’s not going well so we can keep driving up performance.”
The chance he was given as a 15-year-old has also influenced his leadership style – a trait which contributed to him winning the Ahuwhenua Young Māori Farmer of the Year Award in 2016.
“We have some really great examples of people that have come in with no experience and have trained up into farm manager roles within four years here,” he says. “Given their backgrounds, some employers wouldn’t have given them the time of day. It just shows it’s never too late to stop and make a change in your life.”
Ironically, he says people management has also been the source of his biggest challenge, particularly recruitment in a labour-short market, along with the perceptions that come with being promoted into management roles at such a young age.
“When you have a sub-30-year-old making some pretty big business decisions, a lot of older farm managers or people that have probably farmed for longer than I have, get a little bit bolshie,” he chuckles. “But the best way to manage that is by giving proof of performance.” When Jack came across the Zanda McDonald Award aged 27, he says the meaning behind it resonated with him. “I could see how much Zanda gave back to the industry and particularly the younger generation coming through, and I related to that and felt like I had similar values, trying to achieve similar things in a different way,” he says. “I also saw it as a great way to help me learn more about different farming operations in Australasia, which it certainly did.
“Getting around on the mentoring trip gave you an ability to pick out so many gold nuggets. You could take away the lessons on the wins and the losses and think about what to focus on and what to be wary of in your own business. That’s been a huge thing for me.”
Winning the award was also a confidence booster, he says. “Leadership can be quite lonely; you need to be your own cheerleader and often cop a lot of flak along the way. So having a judging panel validate and acknowledge your passion and what you’ve achieved is quite special.
“I also came back thinking about how proud I am of the people aspect of the business that I run.”
While Jack’s immediate focus is to roll out the big projects on his agenda, he can ultimately see himself continuing to “climb the career ladder”, while also balancing time with his children.
“My passion is in people and seeing large scale performance improvement,” he says. “I’m keeping my eyes on doing a good job here at Pāmu.
“As the saying goes, ‘do the mahi and the treats will come’.”