12 October 2024

Living a Legacy

Ngā Manukura. Local Legends.

writer: Elise Cacace
photographer: ELLA TORRIE

A career in agriculture was always on the cards for Nancy Crawshaw. From the cattle yards of Kenhardt Angus in Nūhaka, northern Hawke’s Bay, to university in Waitaha Canterbury and Colorado, and now a trans-Tasman role at Angus Australia, Nancy uses her international perspective to inspire the next generation.

Freedom is the first word that comes to mind when Nancy Crawshaw thinks about her childhood. Kenhardt Angus, a family sheep, beef and Angus stud farm perched on the banks of the Nūhaka River, thirty-four kilometres from Wairoa – which doubled as her playground – sparked a lifelong passion for farming and agriculture.

“A lot of my childhood was spent chasing sheep around incircles and weighing lambs. Any job there was to do, we were there, and especially at the cattle yards. My favourite job growing up was branding the weaners, so the year I went off to Nūhaka School my dad changed all of the jobs around so we could have all the weaning and branding done before I started school and I could still be involved – which was the earliest we’ve ever weaned!” says Nancy, who – along with her sister, Annette, and brother, Patrick – represents the third generation of farmers in her family.

Top Image.  “On the family farm, we lamb down
about 4,000 ewes and calve down over
300 calves each year,” says Nancy, “which
is enough to keep us busy, you could say. Above. When asked what she loves about the
breed, Nancy says, “For me it’s the versatility of the Angus. They
are renowned for their maternal abilities whilst also producing
a quality product which is recognised in the marketplace."
Top Image. “On the family farm, we lamb down about 4,000 ewes and calve down over 300 calves each year,” says Nancy, “which is enough to keep us busy, you could say. Above. When asked what she loves about the breed, Nancy says, “For me it’s the versatility of the Angus. They are renowned for their maternal abilities whilst also producing a quality product which is recognised in the marketplace."

Although her gumboots and overalls are a little bigger now, Nancy still maintains the same enthusiasm for farm work that she had back then, never straying from the road towards a career in agriculture. She says, “It’s always been pretty clear-cut for me. The hardest thing has been working out exactly what career I wanted, because with agriculture there are so many different options and sometimes you don’t know which way you can go.”

The road ultimately led Nancy, 28, through a four-year Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree at Lincoln University, including crossing the Pacific Ocean to study agriculture, genetics and meat science for a study-abroad semester at Colorado State University. It was here she observed how small the Aotearoa New Zealand farming industry is on a global scale, and how our animals compare to their foreign counterparts.

Nancy with her dog, Dawn, gifted by her brother when
she returned to New Zealand. “I’m now looking towards the
World Angus Forum, which is going to be happening around
April or May 2025 in Australia – I’m actually running the Youth
Competition for that.”
Nancy with her dog, Dawn, gifted by her brother when she returned to New Zealand. “I’m now looking towards the World Angus Forum, which is going to be happening around April or May 2025 in Australia – I’m actually running the Youth Competition for that.”

“Our sheep were a bit smaller compared to their American counterparts. I went to the National Western Stock Show in Denver, and some of the lambs they were showing were bigger than our rams!” Nancy laughs. “We do punch above our weight, but we still are a speck in the global scheme of things, and the things that I once thought were so important, I got completely blown away by the realisation that maybe they’re not so important after all.”

One thing that remained at the forefront of her mind is how big the beef processing industry is once cattle leave the farm gate. After returning from America and  completing her university degree, she landed a role on the Teys Australia Graduate Program. This progressed into the Quality Assurance Manager at Teys Naracoorte Abattoir in South Australia, focusing on ensuring all meat is processed and handled correctly.

In this role she was responsible for a team of twelve, made up of people of five different nationalities, who worked together to continuously improve food safety on site, whilst maintaining audit and customer compliance. Nancy says, “This is where I learned that when you work with people and help them achieve their goals, it’s really rewarding. By adding value to their lives and their careers, you’re going to get far more out of it yourself than if you just try and get the best audit results and meet KPIs."

Nancy surveys
the expansive view towards Wai Station, and beyond to Māhia
Peninsula. “From day one, we didn’t do big family holidays. Our
family time was always on the farm, but it was such a cool
childhood being able to go out and play with all that freedom.”
Nancy surveys the expansive view towards Wai Station, and beyond to Māhia Peninsula. “From day one, we didn’t do big family holidays. Our family time was always on the farm, but it was such a cool childhood being able to go out and play with all that freedom.”

The networks Nancy developed as a manager led her to where she is today, dividing her time between different parts of New Zealand and Australia as an Extension Officer for Angus Australia. It’s a “no two days are the same” kind of role that sees her travelling between countries “around once a month,” running youth programmes to inspire younger generations of farmers, presenting strategies to commercial producers about improving stock breeding and genetics, and sitting on panels to teach others about the agricultural industry.

“I was part of a ‘Women in Farming’ panel just a couple of weeks ago, and one of the questions they asked me was, ‘What advice would you give your twelve-year-old self?’ My answer was, ‘Don’t take no for an answer,’ because I remember when I was in school and looking to study agriculture by correspondence, my deputy principal sat me down in his office and lectured me for half an hour about how agriculture is not a career path for women, and that farming is very difficult and I shouldn’t consider it,” Nancy recalls.

This wouldn’t be the first instance where gender was used to try to discourage Nancy from entering the industry, as she remembers attending a farming careers day where a stock agent explained that “women aren’t good at judging stock.” Instead of being disheartened, Nancy worked hard and became the first New Zealander to win the Australian Stud Beef Cattle Young Judges title.

 An old shed on the farm. “At the moment I’m living at
home and I help out on the farm outside of my work hours,”
Nancy says. “I don’t have any official role there or any sort of
capacity at the moment, but I’d eventually like to have a role.”
An old shed on the farm. “At the moment I’m living at home and I help out on the farm outside of my work hours,” Nancy says. “I don’t have any official role there or any sort of capacity at the moment, but I’d eventually like to have a role.”

Since then, Nancy has continued to add to her trophy cabinet, with her latest accolade being the New Zealand winner of the 2024 Zanda McDonald Award, a prestigious award presented to future leaders in agriculture across Australia and New Zealand. In her humble, matter-of-fact manner, Nancy explains she only entered the competition to make connections with other like-minded farmers, never expecting to win.

“It was a major shock. I don’t think you can ever go into an award like that thinking you’re going to win when you look at the calibre of the people you’re standing next to. I was thinking about how I could take advantage of the opportunity by making a list of all the people I wanted to meet. Even just getting to a finalist stage, you’ve already won because you’ve now got a seat at the table and you’re a part of the Zanda McDonald Award family.”

Family and teamwork are some of the strongest themes guiding Nancy’s life. This was emphasised after Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023, where she witnessed her entire community pulling together to support one another, lending a hand to those who needed it. While Nancy’s 3,000 acre family property in Nūhaka sustained some damage – “We had slips, fence lines buried with accumulated silt and forestry debris, along with land loss into the river” – she chooses to focus on the positives, such as being given a new opportunity to improve farming infrastructure in New Zealand so it is more resilient to future weather events.

“I’ve never heard any talk previously about fenceless farms, yet now that so many people have had their fences damaged and they’re looking at the cost of rebuilding, people have started to discuss alternatives, such as fenceless farming. I think a lot of innovations are going to pop up out of this too,” says Nancy, who hopes to one day resume a role on her family farm and keep improving it for future generations.

Nancy with her parents, Grant and Sue. “People in agriculture are our most important asset, and if we don’t look after the people then we are going backwards,” Nancy says. “I’m hoping through the Zanda Award that I can get involved in helping people and addressing some of those skills gaps that we have in agriculture and on the farm. The people I can now get a seat at the table with has been mind-blowing, and also how welcoming everyone is. They talk about the Zanda McDonald Award family, but I had no understanding of what that was until I became a part of it.”

It can be quite common in succession, when the next generation takes over the family farm, for them to go out and make exactly the same mistakes their parents did when they first took it over. So, I’m trying to look at the transition period and figure out how we can ensure our farming business continues moving forward,” says Nancy.

As for the inspiration behind her constant drive for improvement in the agricultural industry, she immediately acknowledges Zanda McDonald, who was only forty-two when he passed away after falling from a windmill on his cattle station. Receiving this award has encouraged Nancy to think about what needs to be done in agriculture to have a positive impact on the wider industry – just as Zanda managed to positively influence agriculture as an industry, along with numerous people lucky enough to cross paths with him. Nancy says, “I can see how much of a legacy he created. It’s all about encouraging the next generation, and without all those youth programmes when I was young, and awards like these, there’s no way I’d be where I am today."

The Zanda McDonald Award, formed in honour of the late Zanda McDonald, a much-loved, influential and innovative beef farmer who was deeply passionate about the industry and the generation who would follow, celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2024. Applications are open between 1–31 October each year. To find out more visit zandamcdonaldaward.com.

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