John Kemp

Leading a 25,000-head dairy with full responsibility for herd performance, feeding operations, parlours, youngstock, composting, and infrastructure. Managing 200+ staff and a fleet of 100+ machines, driving operational standards, accountability, and system discipline across departments. Developed and executing 1-, 3-, and 5-year farm strategies aligned with production, efficiency, and sustainability targets. Reporting progress to company executives and selected to undertake multiple international trips to support the company and benchmark global best practices.

Promoted to manage a 120-person team across herd operations, composting, and support functions, with oversight of 50+ machines and daily operational logistics. Implemented a full vehicle and fleet management system across the farm to improve accountability, maintenance control, and utilisation efficiency. Coordinated directly with external health and nutrition consultants across mastitis control, feeding strategy, youngstock development, and vaccination programs to shape forward herd strategy and improve long-term performance stability.

Stepped up from Youngstock Manager to oversee partial adult cow operations, managing a team of 60 staff across health, feeding, and daily herd performance. Took responsibility for lactating herd execution. Regularly communicated performance to farm leadership.

Managing 12000 Youngstock on 25000 cow farm. Responsible for all daily operations. Managing team of 30+. Achieving maximum efficiency in extreme weather conditions. Responsible for hitting ADG targets, mortality rate, treatments, vaccination schedules, inventory, herd projection planning, disease control, providing training, relaying information to management, monitoring feeding.

At the age of 21, I was lucky enough to get the chance to run the daily operations of a 7000 animal dairy farm for a few months during a change of top management. This was a demanding yet extremely rewarding responsibility at such a young age. This role vastly improved my communication skills, accountability and strategic approach to management. Taking responsibility for operational and financial decisions was a huge stepping stone in my managerial career. This wouldn’t have been possible without the trust and support from great bosses and executives.

Blessed with this opportunity and gained invaluable knowledge of the dairy industry from highly experienced peers. Herd: Making key health decisions that impact the current and future herd, setting up an easy-to-follow colostrum management programme, dry cow and close up monitoring and management, mastitis control, lame cow treatment and prevention programme, breeding protocols with an ov sync programme, TMR management (quality of ingredients, timings of feeding, ingredient analysis, cost control, alfalfa grading, stock management), full computer proficiency being able to go deep into the herd management system to generate complex reports and graphs using variable factors, full knowledge of CowConnect feed software. Team: Managing the roles and responsibilities of 120 members of staff, holding regular team meetings, generating easy to follow SOPs, following up maintenance, checking CVs for new applicants, providing training where necessary, budget meetings, deciding appropriate disciplinaries and team motivation methods.

A job representing myself where reputation is key. Quality of work and organisation is a must to succeed. Good insight to self employment. Skills: - Capable of working in tough conditions - Regularly working unsociable hours - Maintaining a high quality of work ensuring the customer is happy at all times - Keeping an organised filing system for sending/receiving invoices and receipts Work: - Relief milking - General farm work - Hoof trimming - Concrete and ground works - Tractor and trailer work - Calf Rearing

A job that required communication skills to succeed. Learning how to deal with different nationalities and cultures is essential. - Communicating with a wide range of customers - Handling complaints effectively and efficiently - Entrusted to handle large amounts of cash - Promoting and managing tours, sales and events - Ensuring the health and safety of all guests - Managing the roles and responsibilities of 6 customer experience representatives

Another backpacking job. Hard physical work, in challenging weather conditions. Great experience. - Deleafing, spading and injecting banana trees - Hard physical work in tough weather conditions - Responsible for supervising staff during overtime hours - Ensuring the health and safety of myself and those around me - Making sure all targets and deadlines were reached - Using different techniques to improve productivity and efficiency

My first job backpacking in Australia. First experience of dealing with high net worth clients in high pressure situations. Quickly promoted from lead labourer to assistant site foreman. - Completing work to a very high standard for high net worth clients - Managing the contractors of different trades to ensure that time was managed efficiently - Leading health and safety inductions on site - Entrusted to open and close the site - Responsible for transporting valuable goods - Ensuring that deadlines were met on short notice - Managing all deliveries

Where my passion for dairy farming began. Grateful for all the opportunities presented to me at a young age by very open minded employers. Milking: - Sound working knowledge of different milking parlours and feeding systems - Quality control of milk e.g disease, medication, hygiene - Experience in infection control and prevention - Able to identify early stage symptoms of illness and treat accordingly - Selecting and drying off cows - Detecting subtle signs of cows in heat Livestock: - Competent in all areas of livestock management - Special interest in calf rearing - Qualified and confident in foot trimming - Qualified and able to transport livestock - Experience in animal husbandry skills e.g disbudding, dehorning, castration, dosing and injecting Machinery: - Experience in tractors, tele handlers, forklifts, trailers, muck spreaders and slurry spreaders

First job at 14, first taste of agriculture. Great weekend job; the root of my passion for farming!