The honour was given at the Allflex Dairy Women’s Network’s conference gala awards dinner in Christchurch on Wednesday night.
“What impressed the judges was Rankin’s self-awareness, her preparedness to grow and focus her ‘make it happen’ attitude towards problem solving environmental issues,” head of the judging panel Alison Gibb, Dairy Women’s Network Trustee, said.
Rankin teaches part-time at Opunake Primary School while also farming fulltime with husband Glen and their four boys in South Taranaki. They moved from Northland at the start of the 2017-18 dairy season after winning the Northland Share Farmer of the Year title in 2016.
The Rankins are herd-owning sharemilkers of about 435 cows on 143 hectares.
A passionate environmentalist, Trish Rankin took part in the Kellogg Leadership Programme this year, with the main purpose being a research project focused on ‘how can a circular economy model be developed on a NZ dairy farm’.
Rankin is also one of 15 national climate change ambassadors who promote action on reducing agricultural emissions as part of the Dairy Action for Climate Change.
Rankin said she is both a farm assistant and chief executive of their farming business, having learned over the years to milk, drive tractors, feed stock and do fences as well as sort the Health and Safety and human resources out. She is also Chair of the Taranaki Dairy Enviro Leader group.
In 2018, she was elected onto the National Executive for the NZ Dairy Awards.
The other finalists were Kylie Leonard who farms north of Taupō, Julie Pirie from Ngatea in the Waikato and Southlander Emma Hammond.
Gibbs said the message from this year’s finalists was while each was passionate about their own farming operation, they all had a drive to go beyond and make the dairy industry a better place for all.
Rankin received a scholarship prize of up to $20,000 to undertake a professional business development programme, sponsored by Fonterra.