Deependra Parajuli has been a sharemilker on a farm in Waitoa since 2020 and this year in the Waikato division of the New Zealand Dairy Industry awards was runner up in the 2026 Waikato Share Milker of the Year. He also received merit awards in the Trelleborg Sustainable Pasture and ASB Business Performance categories.
He came to New Zealand in 2006 from Nepal. He worked on his parents’ farm, although says it was not like the sort of farming that happens here. “It was very manual, we milked ten cows , five buffalos and 20 goats by hand,” said Deependra.
He trained as an accountant in Nepal and later went in to managing the way that the milk was collected from small farm holdings like the one his parents had, its distribution and then collected payment. “We would collect the milk from about 50 other farmers and take it to the city to distribute. Every month we would then collect money from town and pay the farmers.”
When he first arrived in the country and went to work, it was as a farm assistant on a dairy farm on Diagonal Road. The first few months were really hard, Deependra said, and he found it difficult adapting to the way things were done here.
“At one point I thought about quitting and going back to Nepal,” he said, “but everything here, like education and health, is good compared to my country, so I focused on working hard and staying here.”
In 2009 he received permanent residency, and in 2014 he became a New Zealand citizen. He progressed from farm assistant to second in charge on the Diagonal Road property, and in 2020 moved to a farm on No.1 Road with around 200 cows he had purchased.
“The first year was quite hard,” he said, “I was used to working as part of a team, but here (on the new farm) I was on my own. Since then, finances and production have got better and better each year.”
“I’m very happy to have won the awards,” said Deependra, “but they are also a credit to the farm owner as well who has been very supportive and kind and willing to help me.”
To say that he credits much of his success, to say nothing of his happiness, to his family is not to overstate the matter. Deependra arrived in New Zealand married to Hima and with two daughters, Dikshya and Sudikshya. The following year in 2008, a third daughter, Christina, was born and he could not be any prouder of them. Dikshya is a doctor, currently doing her Registrar training in Sydney, but Deependra says she is planning to come home and practice medicine here. “New Zealand has contributed a lot to us so we want to contribute something back,” he said.
Sudikshya was a dux at Morrinsville College in 2019 and is in her fourth year as a medical student at Auckland University.
His youngest, Christina, is head girl at Morrinsville College and tied for first place in NCEA level 2 last year. It will probably surprise no one to learn that she too is considering a career in medicine.
“I’m not only happy with the way the farm is going, but I’m also so proud of my family,” he said.
The owner of the farm he is currently on has purchased a second property in Springdale, so Deependra will be operating on two farms with around 600 cows and is looking to employ three people once the season starts.
