Giv (24) is CRV’s new sales consultant for the West Coast and Top Of The South looking after about 100 dairy farms in the region.
“I grew up in Christchurch as a city girl with no agricultural background at all, so farming was completely foreign to me,” says Giv. Then that all changed.
When she finished high school, a chance encounter with a dairy farmer in a pub that she was working in saw Giv offered a job milking on a West Coast farm, where she ended up working for three years.
“I've got horses and I’ve always been really into animals, so I absolutely loved dairy farming. It took a while to adjust, but I love calf rearing, and just being around animals all day,” says Giv.
She lives with her partner Logan at Lake Brunner on a three-hectare property where she has two horses and Logan runs a small beehive business, Back Country Honey.
The couple has about 80 hives and as the business has become busier Giv started looking for work that would allow her to help Logan. She spent time as a sales rep for Coca-Cola and an advertising rep for NZME for two years before joining CRV.
“I didn’t really know anything about advertising. I was a bit more of a duck out of water, but I found my feet a lot quicker at CRV. I am definitely right at home having that farming background,” says Giv.
“I've loved getting to know the farmers and working with the CRV team and being back on dairy farms.”
Giv spends a lot of time on the road covering the vast region and has most recently been delivering AI banks to farmers in preparation for mating, talking to them about the breeding goals for their herds.