Farming career always a goal

Barbara Stuart

Daniel White was raised on a dairy farm on the north bank of the Wairau River.

From a young age the end goal has always been to go dairy farming and work towards farming his own property.

When he left school the first farming position he took on, as an eighteen-year-old, was working for Kenny Kyle at Canvastown as a lower order worker.

While he was working there here quickly learned the ropes.

Kenny sold that property and Daniel stayed on working for the new owners for a season, but it wasn’t long before he was back working for Kenny on the Havelock farm.

During the four years he worked there he quickly rose to a fifty, fifty share milker over the last two seasons.

“Kenny helped me,” Daniel says.  “It set me on the next part of my career plan.”

Little did he know the next few years would be a real challenge.

At the start of the 2018 season Daniel took on the lease of a dairy farm in the Matiri Valley near Murchison milking three hundred cross bred cows.

The farm hasn’t been without its trials though, including the access road alongside the Matiri River slumping to expose a dangerous, long drop down to the river below, forcing him to dump milk into his effluent pond as the road was too dangerous for the milk tanker to access.

Not one to let problems get on top of him Daniel kept farming, keeping his eye on the end goal.

This season his three hundred cows have produced, 117,000kg of milk solids.

During this time his life was not all bad he met his partner Jess and together they have a newborn son who they have named Archie.

In his spare time Daniel is a keen pig hunter and enjoys relaxing with Jess, Archie and step-children Lukah and Izabella.