June 14, 2026 • 5 mins
We ask the chief executive of Growing Future Farmers what GFF actually does. What needs to change to meet the evolving sector needs? And why is GFF moving into dairy?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our next guest is someone I enjoyed meeting at Field Days.
Her name is Wendy Paul. She is the chief executive
of Growing Future Farmers. Now, Wendy, I apologize you were
to be on the show on Friday. You were lined
up and waiting, but unfortunately Winston Peter's kind of stole
you thunder a wee bit and we sort of kept
rolling with him. So apologies on behalf of the Country team.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
No worry, Jamies. As I said, I think that Winston's
quite a bigger fish than me, so no problem at all.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
While he certainly drew a crowd, and I know they
would have stayed if I'd given you the opportunity, but
I am giving you the opportunity today. And the reason
I'm chatting to you, or one of the reasons, is
my old mate Shane mcmanoway, or one of the biggest
contributors to New Zealand agriculture. I reckon in this Country said,
when you're at field Days, you've got to chat to Wendy.
She's doing a great job with Growing Future Farmers. He is,
(00:50):
of course the new chair of this organization. How do
you grow a future farmer?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Wendy, Yeah, thanks, Jamie, and we're very pleased to have
Shane on board of our chair as well. But we
grow fruture farmers through a really unique harbrid model in
the country where we take young students that have school
leavers between sixteen and twenty one, match them up with
some really focused farm trainers who become their mentors. They
(01:15):
commercial farm owners all around the country, and we run
a two year program that gives them three components to
their training. One is the practical skills, progressively teach them
all they need to know on farm are Their second
is the qualifications, so they come out with NVQA level
two and three and the third and for me, the
most important of the life skills that go along with
(01:36):
living and learning on a farm and working in a
rural community. So they come out both as really great
farmers ready to go when they've finished the program, but
more important for me is that they come out as
confident young people that are ready to take their next
step on their journey.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Do they get paid, No, they don't, Amie.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
We're very clear that these young people are students on
the farm there to learn, so there's no employment arrangement.
It is completely a learning environment. There are a number
of parts of the program where they keep weekly allowance
for I guess, all their ancillaries, and to teach them
how to budget as well. In fact, but the farm
(02:17):
tryinger puts up a healthy home farm for their accommodation.
There's meat supplied every week and Wi Far free power,
so it's pretty much that they fully founded. The weekly
allowance is just as I say, for the incidentals, and
also we use that to teach them how to budget
so they don't blow it all on a box of
beer on the end of the first week.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
How many of these young farmers have you got on
the Growing Future Farmers program?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So each year we have a year one and year
two cohort running and across those two is about one
hundred and thirty Every year on average, we graduate fifty
five year twos each year, so we've to date we've
had one hundred and seventy five graduates going into what
we're play from the program.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Do you struggle to get enough farmers to host these
young students, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Jamie, that's particularly one of our biggest constraints. I mean,
we've got an amazing bunch of farm trainers that have
come back repeatedly over the last six years about one hundred,
one hundred and ten farm trainers. You put their hands up.
But on the flip side, we have a huge demand
from young people wanting to get into the sectors that
lost you. We had about one hundred and fifty applicants.
(03:28):
We're only three weeks into our applications for next years
and we've already got over one hundred applicants. So the
constraint really does come on the availability of those farmers.
So I just encourage anybody that's interested to put their
hand up. There's so many benefits of doing this, not
only for the industry, but for your farm and obviously
for the young people that are coming through.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Are you across all the sectors sheep and beef, dairy, horticulture, boris.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Streats not all at this stage. We've started in sheep
and beef, that's where the foundation members Tam and Dan
Jex Blake kicked it off. We've only recently had signed
a partnership with Fontira to get into dairy, so we're
running our first cult wort of dairy pilots that started
off in April of this year, and we've got a
long term agreement with Fontira to keep growing that and
(04:15):
we're definitely keen to consider the transferability of the program
into HALT, another part of the food and fiber sector.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
There's all the accent happening there, Wendy. They're sure is
is that like South African?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It is, yes, bel born and bred in South Africa,
but a key we citizen now, well.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I'm pleased to hear that. Wendy. You're a good catch
for New Zealand. What is your corporate background?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
So in New Zealand I started with Fontierra. I spent
eighteen and a half years with Fontier, which is where
my love of the New Zealand agricultural sectors started. Many
different roles which I won't go into, but the last
couple was very much focused on purpose driven in people
and that's the passion that took me into this role
in GFF to really help that next generation our farmers.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
For us seeker well lovely to catch up in person
at field days. If people want to find out more
about growing future farmers, either as a host farmer or
a student, I presume they just go to your website
or google you.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, that would be amazing. Everything you need to know
is on our website and it was great to meet
you too.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Thanks Jamie, thanks for your time.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Thank you so much.
Our next guest is someone I enjoyed meeting at Field Days.
Her name is Wendy Paul. She is the chief executive
of Growing Future Farmers. Now, Wendy, I apologize you were
to be on the show on Friday. You were lined
up and waiting, but unfortunately Winston Peter's kind of stole
you thunder a wee bit and we sort of kept
rolling with him. So apologies on behalf of the Country team.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
No worry, Jamies. As I said, I think that Winston's
quite a bigger fish than me, so no problem at all.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
While he certainly drew a crowd, and I know they
would have stayed if I'd given you the opportunity, but
I am giving you the opportunity today. And the reason
I'm chatting to you, or one of the reasons, is
my old mate Shane mcmanoway, or one of the biggest
contributors to New Zealand agriculture. I reckon in this Country said,
when you're at field Days, you've got to chat to Wendy.
She's doing a great job with Growing Future Farmers. He is,
(00:50):
of course the new chair of this organization. How do
you grow a future farmer?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Wendy, Yeah, thanks, Jamie, and we're very pleased to have
Shane on board of our chair as well. But we
grow fruture farmers through a really unique harbrid model in
the country where we take young students that have school
leavers between sixteen and twenty one, match them up with
some really focused farm trainers who become their mentors. They
(01:15):
commercial farm owners all around the country, and we run
a two year program that gives them three components to
their training. One is the practical skills, progressively teach them
all they need to know on farm are Their second
is the qualifications, so they come out with NVQA level
two and three and the third and for me, the
most important of the life skills that go along with
(01:36):
living and learning on a farm and working in a
rural community. So they come out both as really great
farmers ready to go when they've finished the program, but
more important for me is that they come out as
confident young people that are ready to take their next
step on their journey.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Do they get paid, No, they don't, Amie.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
We're very clear that these young people are students on
the farm there to learn, so there's no employment arrangement.
It is completely a learning environment. There are a number
of parts of the program where they keep weekly allowance
for I guess, all their ancillaries, and to teach them
how to budget as well. In fact, but the farm
(02:17):
tryinger puts up a healthy home farm for their accommodation.
There's meat supplied every week and Wi Far free power,
so it's pretty much that they fully founded. The weekly
allowance is just as I say, for the incidentals, and
also we use that to teach them how to budget
so they don't blow it all on a box of
beer on the end of the first week.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
How many of these young farmers have you got on
the Growing Future Farmers program?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
So each year we have a year one and year
two cohort running and across those two is about one
hundred and thirty Every year on average, we graduate fifty
five year twos each year, so we've to date we've
had one hundred and seventy five graduates going into what
we're play from the program.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Do you struggle to get enough farmers to host these
young students, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Jamie, that's particularly one of our biggest constraints. I mean,
we've got an amazing bunch of farm trainers that have
come back repeatedly over the last six years about one hundred,
one hundred and ten farm trainers. You put their hands up.
But on the flip side, we have a huge demand
from young people wanting to get into the sectors that
lost you. We had about one hundred and fifty applicants.
(03:28):
We're only three weeks into our applications for next years
and we've already got over one hundred applicants. So the
constraint really does come on the availability of those farmers.
So I just encourage anybody that's interested to put their
hand up. There's so many benefits of doing this, not
only for the industry, but for your farm and obviously
for the young people that are coming through.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Are you across all the sectors sheep and beef, dairy, horticulture, boris.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Streats not all at this stage. We've started in sheep
and beef, that's where the foundation members Tam and Dan
Jex Blake kicked it off. We've only recently had signed
a partnership with Fontira to get into dairy, so we're
running our first cult wort of dairy pilots that started
off in April of this year, and we've got a
long term agreement with Fontira to keep growing that and
(04:15):
we're definitely keen to consider the transferability of the program
into HALT, another part of the food and fiber sector.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
There's all the accent happening there, Wendy. They're sure is
is that like South African?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It is, yes, bel born and bred in South Africa,
but a key we citizen now, well.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
I'm pleased to hear that. Wendy. You're a good catch
for New Zealand. What is your corporate background?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
So in New Zealand I started with Fontierra. I spent
eighteen and a half years with Fontier, which is where
my love of the New Zealand agricultural sectors started. Many
different roles which I won't go into, but the last
couple was very much focused on purpose driven in people
and that's the passion that took me into this role
in GFF to really help that next generation our farmers.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
For us seeker well lovely to catch up in person
at field days. If people want to find out more
about growing future farmers, either as a host farmer or
a student, I presume they just go to your website
or google you.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, that would be amazing. Everything you need to know
is on our website and it was great to meet
you too.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Thanks Jamie, thanks for your time.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Thank you so much.
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