Mrs Stalker previously worked in DairyNZ’s environmental team and had seen what good could come out of catchment groups.

With NOSLaM, she had also seen the “positives” of bringing communities together and getting positive outcomes, education and changes on-farm.

With the raft of regulations farmers were facing, along with council plan-changes, it helped if there was a group that could provide feedback and also help farmers through the process, she said.

Originally a “townie” from Christchurch, Mrs Stalker completed both science and business studies degrees, majoring in agriculture and marketing at Massey University.

In her final year, she got a Landcorp scholarship and part of that was a job opportunity with the state-owned farming company, so a shift to Mossburn ensued. While in the South, she met her future husband Callum.

She worked for Landcorp for about a year and then moved to LIC where she spent about three years.

At that stage, she and her husband were leasing some land and he had a mobile sheep crutching operation.

Eventually the couple ended up changing direction and getting involved in the dairy industry.

They worked their way up the sector’s ladder to the Dairy Industry Awards (DIA).

“I had a real passion for genetics from working for LIC and then, having them look into the environmental side of things through DIA, really opened my eyes to what impact we as farmers could have on the environment and the impact we could have to improve it,” she said.

They now do bull beef finishing and Mr Stalker works as a stock agent.

Mrs Stalker was elected to the Otago Catchment Community’s steering committee last year and said she enjoyed seeing what all the different catchment groups were doing.

sally.rae@odt.co.nz