Myfanwy Alexandra

Myfanwy, born in Wales to a non farming family, has spent the past 17 years in New Zealand working her way through the Dairy Industry. She currently farms 950 cows up the Waitaki Valley. Her love of her work, future focus and her positive outlook has carried her through some tough times and helped her build resilience in both her personal and professional worlds. She now strives to lead with a style that brings everyone together in a productive but enjoyable environment.

She is mother to two teenage daughters and wishes to see the agricultural sector thrive for them and the generations that follow. Myfanwy is also highly motivated to give back to her own community, feeling eternally grateful for what that community did for her in her hour of need.

Myfanwy currently holds a number of roles in the sector, with Federated Farmers and DWN amongst others. She is a podcast co-host on ‘Ag in Conversation’, a podcast aiming to demystify the topics front of mind in Ag for both rural and urban people, in NZ and around the world. Myfanwy is also a Co-founder of ‘The Sharefarming Consultants’, a company to provide a consultancy based on building strong resilient relationships between sharemilkers and farm owners to ensure mutual success. Myfanwy is deeply passionate about the New Zealand Dairy sector’s future, especially the sustainability of its people and their ability to thrive. Myfanwy loves the fun and excitement these challenges offer and looks forward to the future and being a part of the solution to the next set of challenges that agriculture must face.

The decision to become a member of Future Farmers was a no brainer for Myfanwy. The moment the news was out that the ‘oldies’ could join she joined straight up. For her the alignment is simply common sense. Myfanwy believes strongly in a Agri sector that is strong and resilient and able to survive and thrive into the future, but in order to create that we need to have some courageous, respectful conversations and be prepared to put in a huge amount of work. For Myfanwy Future Farmers ticks exactly those boxes, with them in the advocacy space we can really start to move forward bringing all of New Zealand with us.

One policy change I’d like to see: It might be greedy, but I would love to see a food and fiber strategy for NZ. If we produced this with cross-party buy-in and input from the rural advocacy groups as well as the NZ general public, we would have clear guidance for all future policy direction, removing the need to constantly input on the many individual policies as they pop up. It would remove the swing in policy resulting from government changes. It would also be a huge win for all businesses, giving them a high level of certainty when making strategic choices in their own business.

If I could choose one superpower: I wish people could see each other's points of view. I don't expect everyone to always agree, but if we take the time to see each other's points of view, it can be such an amazing tool to grow and develop as a group. Finding a middle ground where all can flourish and grow.