05-08-2025
Goals big enough to be laughed at
Rural professional;, sheep farmer, mother and endurance race competitor — life is just busy enough for Southlander Keely Buckingham. She talks to Shawn McAvinue about her involvement in the sheep, beef and dairy industries and why she tells people about her big goals.
Southland rural professional, sheep farmer and mother Keely Buckingham's main motivation is to enjoy whatever she sets out to do.
Although she does set big goals and tells people about them.
"If people don't laugh at your goals, they're not big enough. I tell that to farmers all the time," Mrs Buckingham said, talking to Southern Rural Life from Wellington Airport, waiting to fly home after attending a Beef + Lamb conference in the Capital last week.
She has been a Beef + Lamb Southern South Island farmer councillor for about two years.
Her role on the council was as a sheep farmer and a dairy farmer representative.
She works part-time as the DairyNZ Eastern Southland area manager and was raised on dairy farms across New Zealand.
Mrs Buckingham (nee Sullivan) was age 3 when her father began working on dairy farms.
He progressed from a farm assistant in Hamilton, to lower order sharemilking in Rotorua and then 50:50 sharemilking about 300 cows near Te Awamutu.
She was age 12 when her family moved south to 50:50 sharemilk 600 cows in Winton for 12 years from 2008.
"They wanted to scale up and the jobs were in Southland."
She holds great memories of moving to Southland.
"My best friend at the time was sad I was leaving, but I was pretty excited to go somewhere else and meet some new people."
There was no other place she would rather live than Southland.
"We have an amazing community. We couldn't come from a better place."
As a fundraiser, her husband, Henry Buckingham, will attempt to play 200 holes of golf in 12 hours this Friday.
The funds will help pay for their only child, son Hudson, 1, to get physical therapy in Rotorua next month.
A Givealittle page has raised more than $34,000.
Mrs Buckingham's education includes five years at Southland Girls' High School and obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce in agriculture from Lincoln University.
After graduating, she and Mr Buckingham went on a 19-month OE, doing a repeat cycle of working for two months, including harvesting crops in the United Kingdom, and then travelling for a month.
The pair returned to New Zealand in December 2018.
Before returning home, she had a phone interview for a job in a team working on the Mycoplasma Bovis response in New Zealand.
She got the job in the DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb NZ compensation assistance team and started in the role three days after returning to New Zealand.
The cattle disease was first detected in New Zealand a year earlier.
Farmers who had cattle euthanised as part of the response could call the team for assistance with the compensation process.
"When people wanted to join the service, I was the first person they spoke to. It was a baptism by fire for my first proper career job, just out of uni."
The role of the team was to help farmers, which made it a nice part of the response to be involved with.
She finished up in the team in April 2020 to start working in her current role at DairyNZ.
She enjoyed her current role as she was working with dairy farmers who love their jobs, and helps them be sustainable and profitable.
"My why is being able to help farmers keep farming."
After returning home, Mr Buckingham got work as a stock manager on a sheep farm in Fortrose, on the far western edge of the Catlins, from May 2019.
The Buckinghams have since entered an equity partnership with the farm owner and own half of the livestock and plant.
An idea of one day entering an equity partnership in a dairy farm had never been discussed, she said.
"Henry is passionate about sheep farming. He would never jump the fence into dairy."
The 290ha-effective sheep farm, with 2800 ewes and 700 hoggets, was intensive, low-cost and profitable, even when sheep prices were down.
Changes her husband had made on the farm include introducing a Wiltshire ram to put over the composite Tefrom ewes.
As the farm employed no permanent staff, the aim was for the wool shedding genetics to make their farm system simpler by reducing duties, such as crutching, while remaining productive.
"We aren't sending away too many lambs that aren't under 19kg on the hook."
She felt privileged to have a career as a rural professional, off farm and different to her husband.
"I love that it brings a different conversation home."
Hudson was born in November 2023.
On maternity leave, she found time, thanks to family support, to train and complete her second Coast to Coast in February this year.
Both times she competed in the event's two-day individual category.
The first time in 2020, the run section did not go as planned, so she entered again for redemption.
She did not set a new personal best this year due to a rudder snapping on her kayak.
Her training for the Coast to Coast included swimming at Challenge Wānaka, less than three months after giving birth to Hudson.
"I needed something for me, to keep cracking on."
During the past summer, Mr Buckingham completed an Ironman triathlon.
Both of them training and completing at endurance events around the same time was hectic and would not be repeated.
She had signed up for a half marathon in Auckland in November this year.
The plan was to beat her personal best time for the distance of 1hr 43min, which she set seven years ago.
"That will keep me busy."
