‘We started with nothing’: Waikato couple climb farming ladder after national award win

Sunday, 31 May 2026

Georgie and Glenn van Heuven have won runner-up Share Farmer of the Year and are stoked to be closing out their sharemilking chapter on a high. Pictured left to right: Max (5), Zara (2), Glenn, Georgie, Harry (6).

People think you have to be loaded to be a dairy farmer, but winning Waikato sharemilkers say they started out with “student loans and no money”.

Georgie and Glenn van Heuven recently took out a national runner-up spot in the Dairy Industry Awards, in the Share Farmer of the Year category.

They took home $15,000 in prizes - and they’re preparing to dive into an equity partnership on the way to their ultimate farming goals.

Georgie van Heuven says the competition challenges farmers to look at business practices. Pictured with her kids Max, right, and Harry.

“There is such a gap in understanding where people can get to in farming,” Georgie said. “There’s a perception that you have to be really rich to be a dairy farmer. We started with nothing when we finished university.

“We had student loans and no money. We’ve got where we are now on our own, but people don’t tell those stories.”

Sharemilking was a stepping stone to farm ownership and the couple said the awards were an important part of making that happen and learning about sustainable farming.

Georgie and Glenn van Heuven have recently entered into an equity partnership after sharemilking for eight years.

“We did enter the awards as contract milkers nine years ago and got some good feedback on how to take the next step. When we knew this position was coming to an end, we thought this was a good opportunity to enter again and finish on the chapter here with Sid and Dellas.

“We weren’t disappointed about runner-up at all. We didn’t think we were going to do that well because we rushed our presentation, so we were really surprised.

“The competition is good because it actually challenges you and makes you look at everything that you’re doing,” Georgie said.

Max, right, and Harry, left, are as keen on farming as their parents and have a particular love for all things machine.

The couple both grew up on farms and met at Massey University. From there, they went contract milking and then started sharemilking at Sid and Dellas Anderton’s Matamata property eight years ago. They milk 450 cows and would be taking half of their herd with them.

Georgie also works part time at Rabobank as a rural manager, supporting their business by keeping their dairy earnings circulating back into the farm while they mostly live on her wage.

Georgie and Glenn van Heuven won the Waikato Share Farmer of the Year award in March, putting them in the running for nationals.

As the first of June fast approaches, the couple and their three young kids are packing up their house to move to their new 50/50 equity partnership farm on Horahora Road.

“Eventually, we hope to maybe own it entirely or buy another bigger operation with our partners. It’s what we’ve always aimed for,” Georgie said.

Georgie and Glenn van Heuven say getting young Kiwis into the dairy industry is a concern. Pictured their kids Max, right, and Harry, left.

For Glenn, there had never been a question about pursuing farming. He loved working outside, the flexibility of the job and breeding good cows. He reckoned farming “could be hard, but it’s pretty rewarding climbing the ladder”.

Georgie reckoned one of the biggest challenges in the farming industry was getting staff and succession planning.

Alongside over $15,000 of prizes, they also have the use of a Kioti HX 130-140hp tractor for a whole year.

“There’s plenty of staff out there, but it’s getting the right skills and when you see people leaving the industry, it’s because they’ve either been burnt out or they just haven’t had the right people around. There’s just not the pool of people to choose from.

“There’s so many farms that are going to come up for sale and who’s going to run them? We used to be able to get like five college gateway kids and now there is often none.”

In the past, they’ve had three Matamata College students work with them and now had a Growing Future Farmers student on farm. Their goal was to support more youngsters into owning their own herd.

Their commitment to aiding the farming and local communities was an area they excelled in and was noted by the judges. Among other things, they are involved in Meat the Need, calf donations to local schools, coaching rugby, the Toy Library and giving business talks at schools and universities.

In addition, they gained the ASB Business Performance Award at nationals and received merit awards at the regionals for leadership, health and safety, innovation and environmental sustainability.

The competition takes months of work preparing paperwork, a two-hour presentation and getting ready for interviews. But they reckoned taking the time to actually think through their practices was one of the most useful aspects.

“We’ve worked really hard to put in a simple system. We want to be good employers. We want to be leaving the farm in a better state, so we’ve done a lot around sustainability, and financially, we’ve tried to repay a lot of debt,” Georgie said.

On their current farm, they have planted trees, carried out eDNA tests on the streams and improved their herd efficiency to maximise production and reduce numbers.

“We’re just trying to leave it in a good sustainable state, especially for the kids and they will start to have more questions in like ten years about what we’re doing.”