Opening the gate – a new way into farming

What motivated you to apply for the Zanda McDonald Award?  

I know several people who have been finalists in the past and have followed their journeys on social media – the award seemed to create a “family” of support around them and connections to people who could help them get where they’re going. Starting my own business definitely calls for a different kind of support to what I have previously needed, so after a bit of encouragement, I decided to put my hat in the ring and apply. I’m so glad I did – I’ve already met amazing people I admire and have learnt so much from. 

Have you always worked in agriculture?  

I’ve always worked in roles connected to farming. After growing up on a mixed cropping farm and working on farms in New Zealand and overseas for a couple of years, I went to Lincoln University to study a Bachelor of Agriculture. I started my career as an agronomist. I’m fluent in Spanish from being an exchange student at school, and so I had the chance to experience a little of the Latin American export seed market in that role, as well as study a Master of Arts in Spanish while I worked – researching the experience of New Zealand farmers investing in and working in in the dairy industry of Southern Chile. I love that part of the world, and that whole chapter of my life fuelled my fascination for how people, culture and business all intersect.  

From there, my career evolved into more research and development, and I spent five wonderful years at DairyNZ while also starting a family. During my time at DairyNZ, I learned a lot about problem solving and designing products and services to meet farmers’ needs. Because I’m a nerd, I also started studying my MBA at the University of Canterbury while I was still working at Dairy NZ. This has been amazing exposure to how other industries problem-solve and employ new methods and technology to drive productivity and profitability. 

Where did the concept for your startup, Landify, come from? 

What inspired us to found Landify was the fact that the gnarly issues of farm succession and farm ownership pathways are so well debated in the industry, but noone appeared to be really doing anything about them in the way of problem solving. I’m not sure if it is seen as too complex by some, or just outside of what some organisations feel their role is, but I think we can also be guilty of expecting and waiting for others – especially industry bodies and government – to solve these kinds of problems for us. But I’m a firm believer in businesses solving problems –they can be so much more agile and fast-moving. Businesses also focus on creating solutions their customers are willing to pay for. Too often, industry and government fall into the trap of building solutions people may want or may need – but if people are not willing to pay for those solutions, they will forever rely on funding to survive (and often die a natural death).  

What has it taken to get Landify off the ground? 

In short, it has taken several years of thinking about it; the support (and gentle pushing) from many people in my network and MBA family; about $10,000 of savings; a lot of time and mahi; and big dose of grow-a-pair. I’m a big fan of “Lean Startup” approaches – methods that help new businesses quickly and cheaply build, measure, learn and pivot –  so while we thought our idea of a platform to connect people for farming partnerships sounded good to us, we weren’t really sure if people would want to sign up. So to avoid wasting a lot of time and money building something no one wanted, we decided to spend a couple of grand on a launch video and see if anyone would actually sign up. If only a few people appreciated it and engaged, we could just pull the whole thing and act like it never happened! We posted the launch video on social media one night, and within a week it had been shared nearly 100 times and hundreds and hundreds of people had signed up. That’s when we thought okay – people appear to want this, so we’d better build the blimmin’ thing! But again, we’ve taken a lean approach - I built the platform myself from my cupboard of an office, and we have relied on organic marketing to promote our offering. This has allowed us to quickly cover our establishment costs and our revenue is comfortably keeping up with the platform’s costs. We’ve still got a lot of work to do though – to complement the platform, we’re working on an investment product to improve access to capital for farming, specifically aiming to connect high- performing younger farmers with novel sources of capital to support progressive ownership pathways and farmland asset transition.  

How did growing up in a farming family shape your perspective and your career path?  

Growing up on a family farm has shaped my perspective immensely. My grandfather got to go farming due to being a returned serviceman and having access to affordable government loans and land to purchase. His business, like many, prospered during the wool boom in the early fifties, and it was on the back of that (and thanks to his very careful management) that he was able to put all four of his sons (including my dad) on farms in the district. My dad and my uncles survived the eighties by the skin of their teeth – and it is due to all of this that our family takes multi-generational farming very seriously. I still choke up remembering my dad looking me in the eye as a teenager and saying, “if you want to go farming one day, Sarah, we will do everything we can to make that happen“ – and this was at a time when things were pretty tough on the farm, too. In my family, as in the case of many families here and worldwide, the decision to go farming isn’t about return-on-capital, like in other industries, it’s more about culture, lifestyle, legacy, and connection to the land for our families. An appreciation of this –  along with, I guess, an ingrained entrepreneurial streak seen in many farming families –  has led to the creation of Landify. Landify is about giving people more options to go farming, and to stay farming. 

You’re running a new business, studying for an MBA, raising a young family, and involved in the community — how do you get these different hats to sit alongside each other? 

What I’ve learned is that you simply can’t get everything done that you want to. And while what I’m doing is important, it’s not so important that it justifies driving myself crazy or upsetting my own family life. You have to acknowledge that trade-offs will happen every single day. Sometimes that means forcing myself to work on “big rocks” that are of high importance to the business, and not getting time this week for the smaller rocks like responding to emails or doing the reading I’ve been meaning to. Sometimes that means getting a grade in a university project I’m not proud of, as a result of getting eight hours sleep and being a sane person. And sometimes it means staying at home with a sick preschooler, and asking people to reschedule meetings. I’m getting better at all this – slowly! Most importantly, I wouldn’t have entertained attempting all this without the amazing support of my husband, who is an exceptional and very hands-on dad, and without the general support of our wider family – I’m so grateful to them!  

Glossary: mahi, work.

Shepherdess is proud to be a media partner of The Zanda McDonald Award. The award was 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. The award, which has been running since 2014, identifies and supports young leaders in Australia’s and New Zealand’s agricultural industries so they can learn, network, experience and grow. Applications are open between 1–31 October each year. To find out more visit zandamcdonaldaward.com.