With three boys under the age of five, Stacey Lepper and Thomas Blackett are pretty busy – but increasingly they're sharing both farming and parenting roles.

'The plan is for me to catch up to where Thomas is with his farming qualifications and knowledge, so we can share more fully in both family and the farming business,” says 27-year-old Stacey.

Thomas Blackett and Stacey Lepper and their sons Jude, four, Willem, three, and Theo, one, have found dairy farming offers the ideal blend of family life and career.

It's a formula which works. The couple, who won the NZ Dairy Industry 2014 Bay of Plenty Farm Manager of the Year Award, have a strong partnership focus on parenting and their farming careers – but it wasn't the paths they initially planned.

Thomas, 28, son of Rob and Mary Blackett of Te Puke, left school to complete an engineering degree and went to work as a design engineer for Fisher & Paykel in Dunedin.

Stacey, who also attended college in Te Puke, is the daughter of David and Maria Lepper, now sharemilking on the East Coast. She completed a bachelor of science in animal sciences and worked for the Poultry Industry Association and later as a lab technician for AgResearch in Dunedin.

When Jude was born in 2009, the couple re-assessed their lives and decided farming would give them the flexibility to combine a happy family life with a sound career path.

'We love the lifestyle. Nearly every day we sit down together with the boys for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We can also inter-change our roles. I'm just as likely to be out doing tractor work while Thomas is with the boys. It's great,” says Stacey.

Jude, age four, and brothers Willem, three, and Theo, one, are thriving on the close relationship they have with both parents and their outdoor lifestyle.

Since the couple went farming, Thomas has concentrated on learning as much as he can about the industry and business, attending courses and field days, gaining qualifications.
'Now the time's coming when Stacey can do the same.”

'We want to reach a point where our roles are completely interchangeable and either one of us can run the business, or the home.”

Currently they contract-milk 409 cows for 2GR Ltd, a sharemilking company comprised of three of Clark brothers, on 187 hectares (on 180ha effective) owned by Malcolm Clark.

The contour is steep to rolling to flat on the farm at Nukuhou North, near Whakatane, and the soil ranges from kaharoa ash to peat. Being close to the hills, the farm generally enjoys good rainfall.

Thomas and Stacey are assisted by Josh Hedley in managing the farm and milking in the 30-aside herringbone shed.

'Josh is a fantastic young farmer and we're very lucky to have him work for us,” says Thomas.

'We feel our employees are the biggest asset of our business and we treat them as valued contributors.”

'We also communicate clearly and effectively with the farm's shareholders to ensure we are all on the same page with how the farm is going, and the future aims and goals for the farm.”

The outside skills the couple bring to farming are proving very useful.

Stacey has a strong understanding of animal health – and Thomas hasn't lost the art of looking at problems with an engineer's eye.

'Wash-down time in the shed is ideal for figuring out new solutions.”

Thomas and Stacey know their future lies in dairy farming, but not necessarily farm ownership.

'We want to have $1.5 million in equity by the time we're 50.” Herd ownership and sharemilking are realistic pathways to achieving that goal – and educating their three sons, they say.