Five-year-old Russell Meade and his classmates huddled in sleeping bags as the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake distorted and rocked the earth beneath them, in a paddock on the farm where he and wife Nadine are now award-winning sharemilkers.

Nadine and Russell Meade in the ‘low-tech' highly efficient one-man dairy on the Edgecumbe farm where they are sharemilking.

'It was a bit strange to realise I had that connection with the farm when we got this job,” says Russell.
'We had been playing in the front paddock when our teacher felt the first tremor and called us all back closer to the house. She made us get into our sleeping bags and kept us calm.
'We'd been using a 200 litre drum as a backstop for our game but after the quake no-one was ever able to find it. They think it got swallowed up,” says Russell.
The 6.3 quake which struck on March 2 saw part of the property, owned by Barbara Sullivan, drop along a fault line in the paddock where the children had been playing.
But that past doesn't worry the young couple who won the 2013 Bay of Plenty Sharemilker/Equity Farmers of the Year title in March.
'This farm is ideal for us at this stage in our farming career as it's relatively small,” says Russell, who milks 220 cows on a 50/50 sharemilking basis for Barbara on the 69ha property.
Russell grew up at Waimana, where his father was sharemilking for 17 years, but his parents encouraged him to try another career. He trained as a plasterer and worked in Whakatane before heading overseas to the USA and UK. When he returned, his father was looking for a farm worker.
'I jokingly said I'd go and give him a hand and he said, ‘well, make up your mind, because I'm about to start advertising' so I said yes.”
Russell says working with his father, Albie, taught him a lot.
'These older farmers don't realise how much they know and it's often stuff they can't tell you but by working with them and watching what they do, you learn so much.”
Nadine agrees: 'It's almost instinctive. Both Albie and Russell have the ability to tell when a cow's about to calve, or is not right,” says Nadine, the city girl who never imagined herself living on a farm.
'I never owned gumboots and was the girl on the geography trips who tip-toed round the cow poos.”
Today Nadine, who has a Bachelor of Management Studies with first class honours in supply chain and information systems, works full-time for Carter Holt Harvey and her management skills are pivotal to the couple's business success.
'We believe the greatest strength that our business has is our complementary skill set. This makes it easy to align responsibilities and ensures that all aspects of our business are attended to and are managed by the best person for the job.”
The couple plan to continue to increase their business equity growth and to reach their goal of farm ownership.
Nadine and Russell describe their herd as looking like liquorice allsorts but each cow has been selected for core attributes, including good udder conformation and production. Russell, who does his own AB, is carefully breeding towards a more consistent Kiwi-cross herd as he believes these animals are better suited to sharemilking because they can adapt to flat or steeper pastures, while still yielding high production.
The farm near Edgcumbe is basically flat and, thanks to the earthquake, on two levels. The lower one tends to be wetter in winter and slower to dry out in summer which is an advantage.
It is one of the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Company's whey farms with around half of the pasture irrigated with whey from the plant nearby.
'The advantage is that we need no inputs on that pasture, although the P levels can be quite high, which can lead to metabolic issues for the cows, which we manage by dosing with magnesium.”

Fonterra carries out regular soil tests and manages all the irrigation, having 24-hour access to the property, especially during the factory's peak production periods.
The balance of the farm is irrigated with dairy shed effluent and this season a crop of maize has been planted as supplementary feed for the cows. The young stock are grazed off-farm on a run-off near Ohope.
Despite the whey and dairy shed irrigation, and because of the severity of this summer's drought, the herd went to once a day milking on February 3.
'That was earlier than we had wanted but given the way the weather remained dry, it was a good move,” says Russell.
Nadine says the cows, most of which came from a once-day-herd, took to the change in routine quickly and should be in good condition come calving.
'We took longer to get used to it but it's something we'd definitely consider again, as it takes the pressure off Russell too.”
Russell runs the farm and does all the milking, with the assistance of Denise Caulder, who rears the calves and helps out with milking while Russell takes care of the AB process.
'Denise if fantastic and understands how important to us the calves are. We don't scrimp on their rearing as they are our future,” says Nadine.
The Edgecumbe earthquake is not the only disaster the farm has experienced. In the Whakatane floods of 2004-2005 the stop-bank near the farm was breached and water submerged the cowshed to roof height. Today the original 16-a-side herringbone shed is still standing, and works well as a one-man unit.
'We made a few improvements before we began milking, including installing a string track system,” laughs Russell, demonstrating how pulling a string opens a drafting gate he installed for under $100.
'This might be a low tech shed but we were grade-free last season,” says Nadine.
This year is not the first time the couple have won a major dairy industry award. In 2010 while working for Peter and Barbara Laing on their Otakiri property, they won the Bay of Plenty Farm Manager of the Year title.
It was this experience which encouraged them to enter the sharemilking, equity partnership category.
Both say the awards process offers significant benefits, over and above the generous prize packages. 'For one thing you get fantastic expert advice from the judges for free and you meet so many others in the industry.”
Russell and Nadine hosted a field day on the property in late March and will now represent the Bay
of Plenty at the national awards in May.