By Rhonda Bartle

Red Dante: Pride of the Glanton Stud.

No one expects to see George Bush's signature hanging on a wall at Oeo, South Taranaki, but if you visit Jim Thwaites' home, you will find the American President's endorsement displayed next to one from the Queen.

Both are commendations for Jim's magnificent jersey breeding success. One framed certificate marks the OBE (Order of the British Empire) awarded in 1991, while the other names him 2002 World Dairy Expo International Person of the Year.

In 2002, Jim Thwaites' bull, Glanton Red Dante, was proclaimed Bull of the Century by the New Zealand Jersey Breeders Association with a staggering 414,000 artificial inseminations to his credit.

Today, there are between 300 and 400 jersey breeders in New Zealand and Taranaki still has the highest percentage of jersey herds.

More than 90% of the top Jersey sires in this country are directedly descended from Glanton Red Dante.

Jim breeds a big red legend

Glanton Red Dante is a legend in Jersey breeding circles and Jim Thwaites service to the industry has long been recognised by farmers everywhere.

His work to improve the performance of the national dairy herd has spanned nearly 40 years.

"When Red Dante got his widespread proof (certification of being a 'proven' stud) he was the top producing bull in New Zealand," Thwaites says.

"He also became the top producing bull in New Zealand and, I think, England. We've seen his daughters in America, England and Australia, and photos of his daughters in Denmark and France."

Though he speaks quite humbly, Jim Thwaites is naturally very proud of his jersey breeding achievements which all began a very long time ago.

"My father Thompson was in Gallipoli in World War I and then in France. He was wounded there and a very good friend of his, Bob Kirton, who came from the back of Stratford, carried my father out of the trenches after he was wounded."

When Thompson went farming in 1929, Bob Kirton gave him his first bull. Later, when Jim went farming, Bob Kirton did the same thing for him.

"Yes, he gave me my first jersey bull. Then a few years later, the Kirtons sold out their Glanton Stud and I bought quite a few of their cows.

"They had no family and they said they'd be thrilled if I took the name over, so that's how my jersey stud came to be."

World Famous in Oeo

Jim Thwaites and Glanton Stud is widely known as the farm that bred the century's most impressive bull. Even road workers have been known to stop and have a yarn.

"Yes, people still talk about Red Dante," Jim says in his typically lowkey way. "We've just had our road tarsealed and an old guy on the sweeper stopped and had a chat in the shelter of our gateway. He'd been a jersey breeder so he knew all about him."

He feels privileged that being a stud breeder has made him friends all around the world.

"I judged the Royal Show on Jersey Island, which is where all jersey cattle can trace their ancestry back to. And we've had a lot to do with Jersey breeders in America.

"He and his colleagues decided to build their own cheese factory and they now have the biggest single-site cheese factory in the world."

A farm or bust

Jim says he came to jersey breeding the right way round, through experience. His first property was won through the Returned Servicemen's Rehabilitation Scheme and known as a Rehab farm.

He and wife Betty, who lived in Waverley directly after the war, were so determined to go farming they balloted for every piece of land available in the country, not minding if it ran cattle or sheep.

The day they were notified that they had won land at Mokoia, near Hāwera, was a red-letter day that carried pure excitement and fresh hope for a new future.

"Excited? Were we what," Betty says. "We still have the telegram!"

Their first herd began with the Kirton bull, and through all the years spent at Mokoia, Jim built the herd up.

"We originally had this mixed herd that I wintered separately. I was quite convinced that the jerseys were more economical than the black and whites (Friesians).

"Having started with no money at all, I realised animals had to be productive and economic."

He decided jerseys were the animals to put your money on and he developed a competitive streak.

"It was interesting taking the milk to the factory in the old days because we all knew what size farms everybody had, and it was always my intention to out-produce the other farmers around."

When the herd outgrew the farm it was time to move on.

A new farm

"There were two other rehab farms next to ours," Jim says, "about the same size, but they were getting too small, too.

"They weren't economic any longer. And our farm was too small to employ anyone and we had two boys who were keen on farming.

"So, the farmers beside me and I had a chat one day and we decided we could make two farms out of three. If the middle farmer sold half of his farm to the other farmer and bought ours…well, we talked about who would go. And we were the ones who left."

Jim and son Robin, who had worked with his father since he left school, travelled to Oeo to inspect land there.

"We looked at the place and fell in love with it," Jim smiles. "That would be right, Rob, wouldn't it?"

"That would be right," Rob says.

It's a family joke now to remember where their priorities lay. "We went home and Betty said, 'What was the house like?' We knew there was a house, but we couldn't say…"

As it turns out, there were actually two good houses and in 1971 the Thwaites moved onto the Oeo farm.

Rob and wife Alison live in the one closest to the road, while Jim and Betty live further up the driveway. Soon, the Thwaites' jersey herd comprised only registered cattle.

From disaster, a star is born

It's fascinating to hear Jim tell a story of how Glanton Red Dante came about through a bovine disaster.

"It was a time when in-calf cows were drenched with a certain product to prevent milk fever," he says.

"We got a new four gallon tin of what was supposed to be calcium glutamate and I drenched a cow with it - and she was a good cow, too. But it had been labelled wrongly. It was hydrochloric acid, and it burnt her insides out and she had to be destroyed."

After the firm who supplied the drench paid out compensation, (around £60) Jim went to a stud breeder and asked to buy a heifer for the same amount.

"He said I could take the pick of his stock and he had a very good cow that had been champion for four or five years. Her daughter was amongst the heifers and I was able to have her."

Jim still believes it was a very generous offer. And when he bought a Waikato bull called Glenmore Spotless, the two were mated. The result was an above-average milk producer.

He continues with his story. "I was classifying at the time (going around the country and grading cattle on type) and I was down the West Coast at a place called Karamea inspecting a line of cattle.

They were beautiful dairy cows. So when I came home I rang up an agent and asked if the bull that sired that herd was for sale."

It was, and Jim Thwaites got his animal, which he then mated with his top cow and Glanton Red Dante was born.

"He reigned supreme for about five years in the 80s and since then his sons and grandsons have topped New Zealand. He was exceptional," Jim says.

A man who knows his stuff

Jim Thwaites' involvement in all things dairying is historic and impressive. Elected to the board of the Mokoia Dairy Company in 1953, he was elected onto the first Artificial Breeding Committee in Taranaki that same year.

In 1960, he became chairman of the Mokoia Dairy Company, a position he held until it amalgamated with Kiwi Dairies. He was then director of Kiwi Dairies from 1968 until his retirement in 1988.

A Life Member of the New Zealand Jersey Breeders Association, he was a widely respected judge and classifier.

Chairman of the Taranaki Herd Improvement Council for 20 years, he held the position of New Zealand chairman from 1982 to 1984, when it changed its name to New Zealand Livestock Improvement Council.

He has also been a director of many other dairy related organisations such as the National Dairy Association and Farmers Mutual Group.

In 1990, he was awarded the 50th Jubilee Medal by New Zealand Animal Production Society, and is still the only New Zealander to have received the International Dairy Person of the year award. And, of course, there was the OBE in 1991.

The only International Dairy Person of the Year Award certificate in New Zealand, with George Bush's signature in the corner. 

Dairying thrives

Despite the fact that he was always involved, Jim says he relaxed into retiring without too much difficulty.

"People said to me, did I miss it? No. I didn't miss it at all. I kept all the valuable things, like the friends I worked with. They were the most important things.

"No," he says again. "It wasn't hard to give up at all. I was satisfied with my lot, and when I did retire I decided I wasn't going to haunt the halls I used to walk in.

"Instead, I took up bowls and joined a Hāwera genealogy club, and I helped form Senior Net to teach older people computer skills, which I knew nothing about, myself."

Today, he gets a lot of pleasure from his computer, and one day he might be tempted to write his memoirs.

Really, Jim Thwaites should. His knowledge and dairying nous has enhanced the industry for nearly all of his 81 years.

And while it's knowledge that shouldn't be lost, he graciously attributes his career success to his family.

"I kept my wife barefoot and pregnant and that helped," he winks. "But if it wasn't for the support at home I would never have been able to do those things.

"And Betty and I always say we couldn't have had a better relationship with our children."

Footnote: Sadly, Jim Thwaites passed away in May, 2007.