Two weeks after winning the Emerging Rural Professional of the Year Award for 2024, Louis Batley said it still felt a bit surreal.
“It's been pretty awesome actually. A lot of people have reached out and said congratulations, just a lot of people I wouldn't have expected, so there's been pretty awesome support.”
It seems predestined that Louis would end up working in agriculture. He grew up on a fifth-generation hill country sheep and beef farm near Taihape and then studied agricultural science at Massey before getting what he called “heavy metal disease” and going off to drive tractors in Australia and Canada.
When he returned to New Zealand, the family farm was part of a RMPP group looking at alternate proteins, and this inspired Louis to head back to Massey and complete a Master of Agribusiness which looked at converting hill country farms to manuka.
After his Masters he was lucky enough to get a role as a consultant with AgFirst straight out of uni, and he’s been with the Manawatu team for the last four years.
“We do general consultancy with farm systems optimisation, but predominantly environmental stuff – small farms all the way up to large corporates and then sort of everything in between,” explains Louis.
“For a lot of farm environment plans that's been FarmIQ, and then FARMAX is great with system optimisation but also greenhouse gas modelling because it's the only tool which has finances as well.”
Louis appreciates the challenges that farmers are facing currently and knows it’s pretty tough out there – particularly for sheep and beef farmers.
“Regulations have been substantial, but then on top of that we've had massive on farm inflation, which is eating into the profit margins. Then on top of that, you've got problems actually exporting stuff which is just completely outside of your control,” says Louis.
“We're good at what we do, so we sort of just have to keep doing it and know that it's hopefully part of a commodity cycle and eventually things will bounce back.
“Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of the regulation isn't going to go away. If you were trying to reduce emissions or something like that, you can't just do it overnight…you need to take a long-term view, try and start early.”
"Those sorts of things are pretty amazing because they expose you to people who you don't really meet otherwise. One thing to take away is certainly the opportunities within the primary sector."
Louis’ award win comes with prize money that can be used for research, personal development or overseas study tours, and Louis wants to use his award prize money to travel to the IFAMA Conference next year in Brazil – and to visit his uncle’s dairy farm while there.
“It was one of the first farms to be part of the Nestlé regional regenerative trials in South America,” Louis explains.
“The farm was very basic when they bought it and now it's all pretty much state of the art. He’s installed a bunch of solar panels and is sowing all sorts of wacky crops, so it'll be quite interesting just to see what they're doing, see the farm system and then what the premiums are.”
Louis is a big believer in taking up opportunities and has experienced a lot in his short career already, including completing the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme, tripping around New Zealand looking at the rural value chain, attending (and winning) the IFAMA Global Student Case Study in Costa Rica, and participating in the China Sustainability Food Tour.
“Those sorts of things are pretty amazing because they expose you to people who you don't really meet otherwise. One thing to take away is certainly the opportunities within the primary sector.
“Thanks to NZIPIM and FARMAX/FarmIQ for this opportunity as well because it's pretty awesome – I really wasn't expecting it, but the work which you guys do to encourage people and support people is pretty valuable in the industry.
“To the younger people: be willing to give it a go, definitely give it a crack.”
