In addition to working as a lower-order sharemilker, milking 900 cows, he owns an orchard and sells raspberries and strawberries.
''For me the orchard is very satisfying,'' Mr Malone said.
While it was easy to milk, growing fruit was more challenging as they had to grow it, market and sell it, and build up the clientele.
He and his former wife Karen, with whom he had three children, were the winners of the first and second Southland regional Sharemilker of the Year competition in 1990 and 1991.
They have since split up and Mr Malone moved to Timaru.
He has married Jo and has two children, Zak (10) and Kyla (8), and he and son Casey milk on a dairy conversion near Timaru.
Mr Malone said they won the first two regional competitions but were unable to compete in the national final the first year, because of the event's timing. When they entered the second time they again won, then competed in the finals and were placed second to Clem and Patricia Captein, of the Waikato.
''It was only .4 of a point in it.
''I wasn't expecting to win but I was pleased to get second.
''We were pleased to be recognised as being from lonely old Southland.
''We were competing against traditional farmers from Waikato and Taranaki and they all thought only penguins were farmed in Southland.''
He said during the two-hour presentation the judges looked at the financial records and toured the farm.
Safety, effluent and staff management were not part of the criteria, but figures from mating, production and costs per hectare and per cow, feed management and off-farm leadership roles were judged.
''Our biggest claim to fame was we used to be able to calve half the herd in 10 days and our production per cow was very high at the time.''
He said the biggest change was being recognised and well-known and appearing in the media for months afterwards.
''That was quite difficult, in some ways, because the focus was on you.
''It opened a lot of doors and created more opportunities but we didn't realise the affect that it would really have.''
Mr Malone also judged the first Otago SMOTY competition and they convened the next couple of Southland competitions.
After the couple split, he went sharemilking and bought a block of land near Timaru and converted it to an orchard, initially planting 5500 cherry trees.
He sold his cows to a man who came up the driveway and offered to buy them, which he said was too good an offer to turn down.
At times, the busy periods on the orchard coincide with
calving and milking and he gets little sleep.
''The orchard is my passion and I like to do as much as I can on it and oversee the dairy side of things.
''I didn't realise the tsunami that was going to hit [when learning about orchard work], and there was so much to take on board.''
He said there was a huge demand for fresh produce and before Christmas he could expect to see a queue of people waiting for the stall to open from 7am.