Jack Care’s ‘weaponised’ drone is engaged in regular seek and destroy missions - and the primary enemy is gorse growing in hard-to-reach areas on the farm. Jon Rawlinson reports on Care’s plans of action on Page 5 today.
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Jackson back in farmers’ final
Hugh Jackson is back in the running for the FMG Young Farmer of the Year title after securing victory in the Waikato Bay of Plenty Regional Final.
The 27-year-old based in Hamilton claimed the top spot on Saturday after a day of intense competition at Waerenga School, east of Te Kauwhata, tackling a series of practical and theoretical challenges.
The win qualifies him for his second Grand Final appearance – he finished third overall in 2023.
The FMG Young Farmer of the Year competition celebrates top talent in New Zealand’s food and fibre sector. Now in its 57th year, it boasts an overall winner’s prize pool of more than $90,000.
“I’m stoked to get another shot at Grand Final. Getting back there is never guaranteed, and I’m looking forward to giving it everything,” says Jackson.
“The Waikato Bay of Plenty is a tough region to compete in, so I knew I had to put in plenty of prep to give myself a decent shot. I was hoping for the win, but nothing was guaranteed with the strong competition I had.”
“This is probably my last crack at the big dance, so it’s now or never to give it everything. I’m definitely not heading to the Grand Final to come second!”
Participants entered one of three categories based on age, ranging from the AgriKidsNZ competition for primary school pupils, the Junior Young Farmer of the Year for High School
Students, and the Young Farmer of the Year category, where eight contestants battled it out for the top spot.
They included Laura Davis, who grew up on a farm in Piopio, and now works with Beef and Lamb New Zealand as an Extension Manager and is based in Hamilton.
Jackson edged his way to victory by clocking up the most points on the day, defeating fellow Hamilton Young Farmers member Stephen Brunskill. Will Evans from Piarere Young Farmers secured the final spot on the podium.
“There were a few modules where I learned heaps, changing a bearing on a tyre was something I’d never done before and struggled with, but now I know how,” Jackson said.
“The New Holland module was also a challenge for me, getting the settings set up correctly on the tractor was something new to me and I needed some guidance to complete the module.”
The AgriKidsNZ competition was won by Heidi Morris, Angus Gregory, Harrison Gregory from Elstow-Waihou School emerged as the region’s victors. Jacob Bolt, Isaac Wilson, John Woodward, from Otewa School and Homeschooled, placed second, just ahead of Brearna Bolt, Sam Bluett, Jack Woodward, also from Otewa School and Homeschooled.
Ben Ede and Stephen Ede
Council reveals budget plans
in May, before they
Jacob Bolt, John Woodward and Isaac Wilson from Otewa School placed second in the Agrikids section.
from Cambridge High School took out the title of Waikato Bay of Plenty Junior Young Farmers of the Year, ahead of Grace Dawson and Evelyn Ruegger
from Matamata College. Along with Jackson, the top AgriKidsNZ and FMG Junior teams will now compete in July’s Grand Final in Invercargill.
Hugh Jackson back for another shot at the FMG Young Farmer of the Year title.
Another go for Digger
It would be reasonable to assume that any chap named nicknamed ‘Digger’ would be more inclined to value silver spades rather than golden shears. However, this shearing veteran explains to Jon Rawlinson, in competition or in the shed it pays to dig deep.
In addition to his day job, grinding it out in many a shearing shed, Richard ‘Digger’ Balme from Ōtorohanga is gearing up for another crack at competitive shearing’s highest honour.
At 60, he has stocked his trophy cabinet with world championships, world records and more, but one accolade has been elusive.
It could be a case of 10th time’s the charm for Balme at the Golden Shears starting next week but, as he concedes, youth could trump experience.
“I’ve had numerous wins with some of my biggest overseas – I won the Bath and West Golden Shears and the Corwen Shears [Wales], but the New Zealand Golden Shears is the Wimbledon of shearing.
“I think I’m getting too old to be right at the top level, but I’ll give it my best shot.
“I’ve made nine finals with my best coming second to David Fagan. Just making the finals is always big.”
Considering Sir David Fagan has 16 Golden Shears Open titles (a record to rival the All Blacks’), second is pretty impressive.
Southland’s Leon Samuels is the defending champ, and an eight-time winner, Rowland Smith (Hawke’s Bay), will be back after missing the 2024 event through injury. Balme also rates another.
“David Buick (Pongaroa) would have to be right up there. I think Rowley’s not quite where he wants to be at the moment, but he’s more than capable of making the finals again too.”
Beyond the Golden Shears, the NZ Shearing Champs in Te Kūiti (March 27-29) beckons.
However, Balme is also one of 10 top shearers invited to compete at the Rural Games in Feilding (March 7-9) where speed shearing is the name of the game.
Like a cricket test match, the golden Shears is the true test shearing, you want to shear as clean and as fast as you can, Balme says.
“…Speed shearing is more like T20 cricket, it’s real entertainment for the spectators and it’s over in a short time – you might only get to shear one sheep in the heat and then, if you’re lucky enough to make the final, you might get another.
“I made [a Rural Games] final once. If I can make it into the top four again this time, it’d be pretty good.”
Balme says another King Country competitor to watch at the Rural Games is Jack Fagan – he recently nipped across the ditch to claim the Oberon Quickshear title in a blistering 19.78 seconds.
“Jack’s cutting his own path, more in the speed shear, and he’s doing well in competitions.”
Tuakau Flyer recalls those gangs
When it comes to the hard graft of hands-on rural competition, there’s no question which region wears the crown.
“There’s actually not as many shearers down here now, but there was a lot of gangs back in the ‘80s and ‘90s with a number of good shearers in all of them,” Ōtorohanga shearer, Digger Balme, says.
“It was common to have 10-15 shearers from Te Kūiti and Piopio at competitions… the likes of Paul Grainger, Mike Barnett, John Ruki, Alan Macdonald, Colin King, Edsel Forde and John and David Fagan, of course – they were all shearing here in the King Country back then.”
Sir David Fagan is clearly shearing’s undisputed sovereign with a record 16-time Golden Shears Open victories to his credit. However, the list of today’s best ‘upper-cutters’ from the region is hardly spartan; it includes the progeny of some of the shearers Balme mentions, such as Jack Fagan, Mark Grainger and James Ruki, as well as a top gun female shearer, Sacha Bond, to name just a few.
Balme’s sons have had parts to play in the sport. A former Golden Shears Novice winner, Josh Balme is now focused on rugby – a former King Country Ram who now plays for Mooloos – and his brother, Kyle, is never too far from the action. And yet, this does not mean Digger is content to hang up his handpiece.
Retirement?
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to because Kyle, he’s our autistic boy, gets so much enjoyment from the shows. He’s a regular at them and everyone is just so good to him. Jack [Fagan] is one of his favourites; he gets really excited when he sees him. Jack’s been working for me so he spends a lot of time with Kyle.”
Balme is helping to teach one of King Country’s best prospects, ‘Fagan the younger’, after learning from the very best, Fagan ‘senior’. However, he first picked up the clippers in north Waikato.
I’m originally from Tahuna, just north of Morrinsville. We shifted to Tuakau when I was a teenager and I started shearing when I was about 17,” he recalls. “When I hit the open grade, I
Digger’s son Kyle collecting the contractors relay trophy on behalf of his dad at the 2024 NZ Shears.
Paying for public transport Orchard rule change
By Stu Kneebone , Waipa-King Country councillor
Waikato Regional Council recently confirmed its proposed Annual Plan budget.
Thanks to a lot of good work by our chief executive and his staff, careful consideration by councillors and following a series of workshops with councillors last year, we collectively managed to reduce the rates increase proposed in the Long Term Plan from 8.6 percent down to a proposed 5.9 per cent.
The proposals associated with this change will be consulted on in April.
One key issue that I do want to highlight is the changes we are making to the way public transport is managed and funded.
Regional councils are responsible for the planning, management and provision of public transport in the region.
Traditionally this has often meant that district and city councils have collected the rates funding for public transport in their area or district and handed this over to the regional Council to operate the service.
This has invariably meant it was a complicated system with a range of different approaches in terms of how the rates portion to fund public transport was collected.
This also made it challenging to plan transport across the region, and didn’t contribute to providing an ideal network of services throughout the Waikato.
In an effort to improve things, the regional council resolved via the recent Long Term Plan consultation process to take over the rating to fund public transport across the region.
As a reminder, there are essentially three components that make up the public transport funding system.
One is the fare component paid by the actual bus users. The remaining portion (which is effectively the main component) is 51 per cent funded by the government’s National Land Transport Fund (road users) and the remaining 49 per cent is funded by councils (ratepayers).
The rates component has traditionally been
collected differently (for example, general rates, targeted rates or per-property charges) depending on the approach of the particular council.
With the regional council taking over the rating across the region for public transport, a decision has to be made as to how we do this. Last year the council spent some time engaging with other councils across the region to understand their views.
Following this consultation, we are proposing to rate for public transport across the Waikato via a per-property charge applied to all ratepayers across whole region.
There is also an option for a capital value charge to apply for Hamilton City ratepayers.
This per-property charge will be different, depending on which part of the region you are in, given this affects your likelihood and ability to use public transport.
This does mean that areas with no bus services do pay something, recognising that public transport does take cars off the road, and thus does provide some benefits for everyone.
In addition to this, New Zealand Transport Agency has directed that councils are expectedto increase the private share component (bus fares) of public transport funding.
In response to this, the council is proposing to increase public transport fares by 11.4 per cent from July 1 to reflect inflationary increases in public transport operating costs and to meet the government targets.
Fares will then increase by 10 per cent a year in the four subsequent years.
Formal consultation on these options will be undertaken in March or April of this year, providing an opportunity for public feedback to council.
We will be looking to adopt the 2025/26 annual plan budget in May.
By Mary Anne Gill
Waipā District Council is poised to change its District Plan to accommodate the burgeoning kiwifruit and horticulture industry.
The proposed changes include reducing road and internal boundary setbacks for protective structures over fruit from 15 metres to six metres, allowing transparent cloth as a colour option for the structures, and replacing shelterbelt shading rules with new height and road setback measurements.
The changes were prompted by the influx of kiwifruit growers into the district over the past three years, who established unconsented kiwifruit shelter structures.
Ōhaupō life styler Nick Jennings settled with the council last year after mediation when he filed papers with the Environment Court over the council’s decision to let his neighbour in Parallel Road establish a kiwifruit operation.
He argued that the expansion of the kiwifruit orchard around three sides of his rural property blocked his views and ruined his rural outlook. Similar issues have arisen elsewhere in the district on land previously used for farming.
Policy planner Alice Morris presented the
proposed changes at an elected members’ workshop last week.
Work on the plan change began last year and resulted in feedback from more than 70 individuals and groups. Planners reviewed shelterbelt planting rules, rural zone boundary setbacks, building coverage rules, and colour standards for shade cloth structures. They considered the impact of shelterbelts on neighbouring properties, road safety, and road maintenance.
Morris emphasised the importance of enabling the “full use” of rural land for primary production while balancing the need to maintain outlooks, views, appearances, and cultural values.
Deputy mayor Liz Stolwyk said she hoped the suggested changes would be well communicated as after the original publicity two years ago, it had disappeared from people’s radars.
The issue has been tracked during that time by Good Local Media.
Mayor Susan O’Regan said the work had been tricky because it needed to balance all the competing values. Some of the setbacks had been “outrageous” so it was pleasing to see some compromise among submitters. “But (Waipā) is nevertheless a rural food producing zone.”
The plan will now be finalised and sent to iwi authorities before its adoption mid-year by the Strategic Planning and Policy committee.
Submitters argued the protective structures destroyed views and dominated the rural landscape
Just spray… and fly away
By Jon Rawlinson
Slogging up the back paddock of a King Country hill farm with a 16 litre knapsack loaded with herbicide is a tough row to hoe.
Even more likely to give one the ‘pricker’, and add injury to insult, is if a small patch of troublesome irksome gorse is the target. So, who cares? Jake Care does.
Since adding a new service to his family’s business – Ōtorohanga-based AgVice – a few years ago, Access Drone Spraying’s Jake Care has been taking care of a business that really is… taking off.
“A lot of farmers would haul up a 20 kilogram hose as well other gear in the middle of a hot summer. Another option is to get a helicopter in, but that’s not worthwhile for a small patch,” he explains.
“I’m not spraying a whole farm like a helicopter, or a plane would, or gorse on the flats because that can be done with a tractor.
“But, if there’s gorse on the top of a bluff, in weird little spots or on really steep hillsides, my drone [a DJI T16] is ideal.”
Just as the first fighter planes were designed for reconnaissance, Care’s drones were focused on aerial mapping before being weaponised in the war against weeds a few years ago.
Since then, he has been flying numerous sorties, nipping gorse and other pest plants in the bud.
“We don’t just spray gorse, though, any weeds – thistles, ragwort, blackberry – we kill all sorts.”
Established by his mother, Dr Debbie Care, the family business, AgVice, provides advisory services for farmers.
Spraying weeds is just a small aspect of the business, but it is gaining in popularity.
“It’s not a full time thing, just in summer, and I still do farm maps, area measurements and look at plant health, things like that.
“After doing a lot of that, we thought we’d give spraying a crack.”
As such commercial applications of drones require a licence, and should not be tackled by ‘civilians’, Care has been busy with jobs across the Waikato, King Country and beyond.
With farms and lifestyle blocks of all shapes and sizes his crosshairs, he has also been recruited to tackle public parks on occasion.
Small and nimble, drones can deliver with deadly accuracy when rooting out wellentrenched targets while ensuring other plants aren’t hit by ‘friendly fire.’
“A big benefit of drones is they can just spray the target you’re after so plants right next to it will survive.
“I can just spray the gorse whereas a helicopter might have no choice but to hit the natives around it,” Care confirms.
“I have a three-metre swath, so anything within that area is going to be hit, but three metres is the size of your average gorse plant anyway.”
Despite the (relatively) diminutive nature of his aircraft, Care has big plans for his small business enabling him to increase effectiveness with less flight time.
“There are much bigger drones coming out – that’s the goal, to get a new, bigger one,” he adds.
“Mine’s a 16 litre. It depends on exactly what I’m spraying, but I can cover just under
a quarter of a hectare of gorse, just as an example.
With the newer one’s I’m looking at – the T30 or T40 – I could spray more than double the area.”
Jake and his drone – one mission can cover a quarter of a hectare, but he has a bigger drone in his sites.
Straight from the Horse’s Mouth: Your Legal Duties When Selling a Horse in New Zealand
Selling a horse privately might seem simple, but it comes with serious legal obligations. While the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 (CGA) and Fair Trading Act 1986 (FTA) don’t apply to private sales, sellers must still comply with contract law principles to ensure a fair transaction.
Misrepresentation: The Truth Matters
Honesty is non-negotiable. Misleading claims about the horse’s age, health, training, or temperament can lead to disputes, claims for damages, or even cancellation of the sale. If a buyer asks a question, you are legally bound to answer truthfully.
Selling “As-Is”: Cover Your Bases
Selling a horse “as-is” might limit liability for postsale issues, but it’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Misrepresentation during the sales process still carries consequences. Protect yourself by using a clear, written contract that explicitly outlines the “as-is” condition and terms of sale.
Buyer Beware: Good Faith Still Counts While buyers are expected to do their own due diligence, “buyer beware” doesn’t let sellers off the hook. Acting in good faith and providing honest, accurate information remains a legal duty.
Why Honesty is Your Best Policy
Being upfront about your horse’s condition isn’t just about avoiding disputes—it builds trust within the equestrian community. For professional guidance on drafting agreements or navigating the sale process, contact Edmonds Judd. We’re here to help make your sale smooth, transparent, and hassle-free.
Fiona Jack
Farmers wait for plan change ruling
By Chris Gardner
Farmers have only weeks to wait to learn the extent of a Waikato Regional Council water quality plan change on their operations.
As they wait for the final version of Plan Change One to fall out of the Environment Court process, following appeals from key primary industry players, council chair Pamela Storey and Federated Farmers Waikato president Keith Holmes are recommending the industry be prepared for change.
The Environment Court is expected to release its decision on Plan Change One before the end of March after the regional council was challenged by key primary industry players.
Plan Change One proposes a widesweeping set of rules for agricultural land use to improve freshwater quality in the Waikato and Waipā River catchments. It will apply to around 10,000 properties and a land area of 1.1 million hectares within the two catchments.
“Waikato Regional Council has heard from stakeholders that a roadmap is needed for how farmers and growers will be supported to implement Plan Change One,” said Storey.
make sense on-farm,” said Holmes.
Examples of issues Federated Farmers appealed include which waterbodies stock need to be excluded from, setback distances, how critical source areas are identified and managed, and how often fertiliser spreaders need to be calibrated.
“Along with other parties, we’ve been on a long journey of council hearings, mediations and, more recently, Environment Court hearings,” he said.
“This has been an incredibly drawnout, expensive and uncertain process for everyone involved, including Federated Farmers.”
The aim was to reduce the cost to farmers and bureaucracy.
“Time and money are better spent on environmental mitigations than expensive consenting processes,” he said.
“We’re crossing our fingers that the end might now be in sight and that the final wording of Plan Change One works for the environment and is also sensible, practical and affordable for our productive sector.”
‘The outcome will matter for all farmers around New Zealand as what happens here could set a precedent that will impact other regions.’
– Keith Holmes
“It’s impossible to predict what the Environment Court might decide, but farmers and growers in the Waikato and Waipā river catchments have been aware that new rules are coming.”
Storey is married to a fourth generation Waikato dairy farmer Ian. She is also a former member of the Dairy Women’s Network Trust Board.
“While it’s not easy to do when we don’t yet know what Plan Change One will look like, our stakeholders are fully engaged with our Primary Industry Engagement team,” she said.
“As part of this, staff are also looking at systems to support landowners to meet their Plan Change One obligation. Farmers, growers, and regional sector representatives are actively involved to help us ensure these systems meet their needs.
“They’ve been doing a great job already to actively implement good farming practices which are at the heart of farm environment plans.”
Farm environment plans help manage environmental risks and improve profitability and long-term viability.
“They look at the farm and farm system, identify work which have already been completed and plan any environmental work which needs to be undertaken in the future to protect land and water quality.
“They’re designed to be a living document – that means they can be updated as the business or other factors change.”
Holmes said while a lot was still uncertain farmers could start thinking about their record keeping assisting with preparing farm plans and demonstrating all the work, they’re already doing to lighten their environmental footprint.
“The rule making process began in 2012 and Federated Farmers has been involved at every stage, appealing to the Environment Court many proposed policies and rules on the basis they didn’t
unnecessary costs and compliance on dairy farmers through resource consents and reporting requirements,” Burger said.
“DairyNZ’s evidence provided aims to reduce the unnecessary cost on farmers whilst still delivering on the outcomes sought.
“DairyNZ recognises that there are around 2000 dairy farms impacted by Plan Change One and although the decision is not yet made, we are working with dairy companies and Waikato Regional Council to support farmers through the process.”
Once a decision is made, DairyNZ will communicate it to farmers, and support farmers with education, awareness, and technical science support for those impacted.
The Environment Court is working through some technical issues that Holmes hoped would be resolved in the next month or so.
“Federated Farmers’ efforts to propose pragmatic solutions for unworkable parts of the plan have made a significant difference,” Holmes said. “A lot is still uncertain.”
Original proposals included that farmers might not be allowed to cultivate within five metres of a water body, and there were significant limitations on when and how much nitrogen fertiliser could be applied.
“There’s a lot at stake, not just for the viability of local farms and the Waikato economy. The outcome will matter for all farmers around New Zealand as what happens here could set a precedent that will impact other regions.
Other councils are watching on to see the outcome of this, so what happens here could have flow-on effects to other farmers around the country.”
The Environment Court ruling is not the final word on the subject.
The repeal of the Resource Management Act before the next election will have implications for these rules.
“It is still unclear exactly how a new Resource Management Act may affect the Plan Change One rules,” Holmes said.
“Federated Farmers is highly engaged in the process to replace the Resource Management Act, and we will continue to update farmers on implications for local rules as more information comes to light.”
DairyNZ was another organisation to appeal against the plan change.
General Manager of farm solutions and policy David Burger said DairyNZ had invested significant resource into the plan change for more than a decade.
The organisation wishes to achieve workable evidence-based solutions for farmers while delivering on the outcomes sought through the vision and strategy for the Waikato Waipa catchment (Te Ture Whaimana).
“DairyNZ has concerns with the decisions version which places
Waikato Regional Council chair Pamela Storey says council staff will support farmers when the new rules land.
DairyNZ general manager of farm solutions and policy David Burger hopes to achieve workable evidence-based solutions for farmers.
Waikato Federated Farmers provincial president Keith Holmes says famers should be thinking about record keeping as Plan Change One’s ruling is imminent.
The impact of worms – part two
By Michael Catley, Veterinarian, King Country Vets
When we talk about drenching and being ‘wormwise’, we are talking about roundworms of the intestine affecting productivity - liver fluke, lungworm and tapeworm are kept as another topic.
Most species of worms are specific to the species of animal - sheep worms affect sheep (and goats), cattle worms affect cattle. The main problem is the affects they have on the true stomach (abomasum) and the small intestines.
The exception is some Trichostrongylus species that can be found in both cattle and sheep and significantly affect productivity.
The lifecycle of roundworms is not particularly complex. Adult worms live in the animal; worm eggs are deposited on pasture in poo; eggs develop into larvae in poo and migrate to pasture, where they develop to an L3 infective stage.
L3 infective larvae are ingested by livestock and develop into adults inside the animal. The female adult worm then mates inside the animal and produces eggs in about 21 days.
Development from an egg to infective L3 larvae can take from one to 10 weeks depending on environmental conditions; 20-25 degrees Celsius with moisture is required. Variability from these conditions will slow development or cause destruction of eggs/L1/L2 larvae.
L3 infective larvae are the exception and can survive for long periods on pasture. In cool environments, this can be up to a year or longer. In dry environments, this can be
as little as 2-3 months (surviving on their own reserves). Therefore, we sometimes steer away from the 28-day drenching intervals, with delayed development and life cycle in the larvae (but followed up with FEC monitoring). Different grazing patterns also affect the infection cycle, with lax grazing reducing the intake of infective larvae from pasture. Typically, it takes 21 days from when a sheep ingests a worm larvae to when worm eggs appear in dung samples (the prepatent period).
Seasonal patterns of worm burdens generally follow a consistent pattern, with an early peak in spring and a later larger peak in autumn.
Wintering numbers, stocking rates and feed levels at calving/lambing can affect the trends in this curve, with higher counts when nutrition is suboptimal (associated with a pre-partum rise in egg counts) and reaching peak lactation.
Most contamination contribution comes from young stock, particularly those less than 12 months (that season’s lambs or dairy beef mainly).
Understandably, the peak occurs in autumn due to the number of young stock under the age of 12 months, the seasonal conditions, preventative drenching programmes and cross-grazing policies.
A sting in nature’s tail
By Richard Steele
At heart, most of us landowners, set out to be good guardians of the land, and as the old and well-worn cliche goes, we set out to leave the land in better shape than it was in, when we started out our farming journey on it.
I’d say most of us succeed. Speaking for ourselves, conservation of the land rates as highly as making a profit from farming the land, and as we have a lot of country that is really too steep, and or too unstable to farm sustainably, maintaining that innate conservation ethic serves up its own share of troubles.
With the advantage of 100 years of hindsight, I believe in New Zealand, we have broken in, or developed, five per cent too much land, but in our class of country, that figure, could easily be higher. As much as 75 per cent too much.
We have hills with bluffs on them, that we can’t fence out for stock safety.
We have hills that erode at a far greater rate than nearby bush covered national park, a fair bit of our easier land is slowly slumping, with massive deep seated earth movements, that have been going on continuously since the land came out of the sea six million years ago, just before we came here and took up a mortgage.
So we fence off the creeks to keep the stock out where we can, we let the steepest hills revert to Manuka, which has been good for honey production, we have planted thousands of poplar and willow
trees to stabilise hills, and to arrest stream bed erosion, and we have fenced off old wetlands, innocently developed by unknowing previous owners, to let those wetlands do their thing by, cleaning up the water, and by increasing the bio diversity.
All good stuff, so what’s the problem?
Bloody blackberry, that’s what. The very birds we have set out to improve the lives of, have become conspirators against us by spreading something that nothing other than goats eat, and goats and conservation don’t work together either.
There is blackberry now in every area we have ever retired, and what to do with it is the question that’s on everybody’s lips.
There is no natural predator, we can’t blanket spray, without taking out everything we have planted, or has thrived in the reversion process, and the spot spraying we are doing is too little and not yet enough.
An introduced weevil or pathogen could do it, if it killed the blackberry, without taking out all the related plants.
Well beyond my pay grade to understand.
Lastly, this thought.
If God were good, why do his people’s, need lightning rods on top of steeples?
It’s trees, trees and more trees…
By Chris Gardner
Ian Brennan is proud to call himself a “tree pervert”.
Brennan has spent 18 years planting continuous cover native forestry on his hill country farm on Maungakawa Road, Te Miro near Cambridge after he witnessed the impact of soil erosion first hand.
“A big lump of earth came tumbling down past me,” he told fellow farmers at a field day held earlier this month.
“I thought, have we bought a lemon?”
Brennan swapped a 22-year career in software development for farming in December 2005.
“I just wanted my working life to be something I enjoyed,” he said.
Since then, Brennan has planted about 90,000 native trees in about 38 hectares on the 85 hectares farm he owns with his wife Equine Energetics owner Trisha Wren.
His first thought, after seeing soil erosion in action, was to begin planting parts of the farm out in natives.
He turned to kauri, kahikatea, rimu and totara. But where should he stop?
“I have just said anything that’s too steep to drive on can go back to forestry,” he said. “I will just farm what’s left.”
Farm, as in use what’s left for grazing a couple of hundred cattle.
“I went and bought some budget plants. Half of them died including kauri,” he said.
There’s been plenty of trial and error, with Brennan constantly reviewing what species to plant where.
“I replaced the kauri with totara… if I was to start again I would just plant totara.”
“If you just want to plant bush, a nursery crop is a good idea.”
It’s a solitary job. His days consist of either planting new trees or pruning the forest.
“I listen to podcasts all day, or I get into the groove.”
He enjoys The Great Simplification exploring “the systems science underpinning the human predicament” with Nate Hagens, 1980s music and Taylor Swift.
Of the 38 hectares of mostly steep gullies planted on the farm, 33 have been planted since 2016.
“We hit our stride with planting at a time when Waikato Regional Council, Waikato River Authority and Trees That Count all had funding available but there was a dearth of landowners looking to plant permanent forests - especially native forest,” Brennan said.
“When One Billion Trees was announced, we were already geared up to take advantage of that as well.”
He’s benefited from thousands of dollars of grants.
“We are planting entire gullies for catchment protection.”
The farm has six streams flowing into the Waikato catchment and one into the Piako catchment.
“Our point of difference is that we are planting all the main native timber species and managing them silviculturally to create a high-quality timber resource for future generations.”
The majority species is totara, with splashes of rimu, kauri, kahikatea, puriri, tanekaha, matai, rewarewa and taraire. In recent years Brennan has used manuka and
kanuka almost exclusively as nurse species to shade and protect the main crop.
“In the early years we used a wide variety of colonisers as nurse crop including tarata, kohuhu, karamu, lacebark, five finger, ribbonwood and wineberry.
“We found all of these species are too vigorous and quickly overtop the totara, stunting the tree and damaging the growing tips, making them sprout multiple leaders.
“This requires more silvicultural intervention, specifically form pruning to remove duplicate leaders in order to produce a single, straight log.”
Brennan has planted totara with the intention of creating a timber resource for future generations without a nurse crop as he has found that the nurse crop requires a lot of maintenance after five or six years.
“I find totara planted on its own, just like
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Ian Brennan discusses his planting project at a recent field day on his farm.
any other forestry species, is the best option. This is likely to be the case also with kauri and rewarewa.
“Puriri and tanekaha definitely benefit from being planted among an established nurse crop.
“The jury is still out on the other species with regard to using a nurse.
“If you simply want to plant a block of bush, then nurse crops are a potentially cost-effective way to get early canopy closure and thereby foreshorten the period during which you will need to walk through the planting and spray woody weeds like blackberry and inkweed.”
“New Zealanders have got this idea that every native tree is sacred, but the forest is the eco-system.
“As far as I know, we are the first people in New Zealand that has a covenant that allows harvest of a per centage of the trees.”
But Brennan’s goal is to grow a crop that can be sustainably harvested.
“Nobody has all the answers,” he said. “There are no right answers to any of this. We are still in the experimental stage on a lot of things.”
Brennan relies on the hunter community to keep the fallow deer population down forest damage to a minimum.
“My wife is a vegetarian, and I am a de facto vegetarian, and I have never been a hunter,” he said.
Brennan is playing the long game.
He realises that he will never benefit from the harvest, neither will whoever he sells his farm to when the times comes.
“I don’t have to do it all,” he said.
“The forest will continue to grow for hundreds of years.
“The next person can do some, if they want to be a tree pervert like me.”
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Fighting the velvet underground
Any farmer that harvests or buys crops risks inviting one of the world’s most invasive pest plants onto their property – to their detriment.
Velvetleaf seeds can lay dormant in the ground for half a century.
The weed, which is spread by machinery or via contaminated maize, is found on 105 properties in nine regions of the North Island: 61 in the Waikato, 20 in Auckland, 15 in Manawatū-Whanganui, three in Hawke’s Bay, two in Wellington, and one each in Northland, Taranaki, Gisborne and Bay of Plenty.
North Island Velvetleaf Coordinator Sally Linton, who is employed on behalf of the North Island regional councils, Auckland Council and the Foundation for Arable Research, says the issue is that farmers buy maize from all over the country and even internationally, often sight unseen, and contractors who harvest crops often work multiple properties across large areas.
“It’s so invasive that if your neighbour has it and you are sharing equipment then you’re likely to get it if that machine is not cleaned.
“To be honest, no farmer that crops is free from risk – and that is the message we need to get out. Biosecurity starts at the gate. It’ll save you a lot of headaches.”
Velvetleaf was found in New Zealand in the early 2000s. Infestations of the weed were concentrated around Auckland and Waikato. Its prevalence was exacerbated by the fodder beet incursion of 2016-17 and there is now at least one infected property in every region of the North Island.
Overseas, velvetleaf has been reported as causing an up to 70 per cent reduction in crop yields by outcompeting crops for nutrients, space and water.
Linton says velvetleaf is a problem for farmers as it matures as it gets a woody stem that becomes resistant to many herbicides and normal weed management practices. Its seeds - up to 33,000 on each plant er
plant - can lie dormant in the soil for up to 50 years – then spring into life in response to cultivation and movement of soil.
“The discovery of velvetleaf on a property can significantly impact farming businesses as cropping is difficult and more costly,” says Linton.
“So, while there are rules to prevent its spread from properties, we also do everything we can to support landowners who are affected.”
Landowners are responsible for destroying velvetleaf, which is an unwanted organism under the Biosecurity Act, and all machinery leaving an infested property must be cleaned.
“We work closely with the owners and managers to develop a biosecurity farm management plan for them, and we also talk to the cropping industry, in particular, to remind them of the ongoing risk of velvetleaf to our regions and the importance of good hygiene practices.
“Landowners should do themselves a favour when purchasing maize to check the crop in case it is contaminated, and, likewise, contractors should understand the biosecurity risks of the crops they’ve been asked to harvest and have a plan in place for managing weeds such as velvetleaf.”
Linton says a significant amount of work has gone into controlling velvetleaf by regional councils since it was first discovered.
“A big focus is the tracing of machinery and crop movement, so we can establish and mitigate the source of spread.”
Velvetleaf is an annual broad-leaved herb that grows between one and 2.5 metres tall. Seedlings are vigorous and the plant grows rapidly in the first few months after germination.
It has buttery-yellow flowers, about three centimetres across, from spring through to autumn.
Leaves are large, heart-shaped and are velvety to the touch.
Meat Industry announces scholarship winners
Five young New Zealanders have been selected for the Meat Industry Association scholarship programme for 2025.
The new scholars, undergraduate students from Dunedin, Blenheim, Milton, Cambridge and Opotiki, have joined the programme alongside 10 returning scholars. They are Georgia Te Raki, from Dunedin, Riley King, Blenheim, Katie Hollands, Cambridge, Nicole Petersen, Ōpōtiki and Zoe McElrea from Milton.
The association provides scholarships of $5000 a year for undergraduates and $10,000 for post-graduate students. All are tertiary students, studying a subject relevant to the red meat processing industry and planning a
career in the sector beyond the farm gate. Participants in this year’s new scholar intake are pursuing subjects including commerce, environmental science, law, agribusiness and food marketing and international agribusiness.
Association chief executive Sirma Karapeeva said the will be of great value in
future careers in the sector.
“In order to grow the sector, we need to continue to recruit ambitious and highly skilled people,” she said.
The scholars also benefit from the organisation’s mentoring programme and participation in a range of industry events and networking opportunities.
A pest plant officer removes seed heads from velvetleaf at a site in Taupō.
Velvetleaf seedheads and flower.
Young farmer’s plea for stability
Sharefarmer Danielle Hovmand has a request for politicians – could they dial back the political ping-ponging?
The Federated Farmers Waikato sharemilker vice chair wouldn’t be working so hard to achieve her dream of farm ownership if she didn’t have faith in the future of dairy.
But she believes farmers – the younger ones struggling to achieve farm ownership in particular – want some longer-term policy stability on issues like land use restrictions, water quality and biodiversity.
“We’ve just seen a Labour Government leave, and we’ve swung to other extreme in terms of industry regulation.
“Will it just swing back again the next time the balance of power changes?”
Hovmand was recently crowned the New Zealand Young Farmers Contiki Local Legend, winning a $5000 Contiki voucher, in recognition of her work on fundraisers and a Foodbank drive.
She wants to see more effort go into building consensus that’s practical and affordable.
“I’m not a hugely political person but I do think we have to reduce this ping-ponging because it creates so much uncertainty.
“With agriculture being so vital to our economy, and with the ageing population at farm ownership level, the next generation need to be able to see a future in it.
“Even for those already farming, there can be a feeling of ‘I don’t want to do anything because a new regulation might come in that completely turns it around, and it turns out it was the wrong thing to do’.”
Hovmand, 28, was raised in Katikati and grew up on her grandparents’ Hereford stud farm nearby. By the time she finished school, she knew she wanted to be a farmer.
Holiday and summer jobs on a Katikati neighbour’s dairy farm in between gaining an agricultural science degree at Massey kicked off her dairy journey.
She moved to Waikato for better dairying prospects and contract milked for three years.
Last season she and her partner Harry Phipps, a builder in Te Aroha, purchased their first herd.
They’re now 50/50 sharemilkers, milking about 250 cows just north of Morrinsville.
“Our generation tends to think we’ve had it really hard, and with the financial climate it might be a bit harder.
“But it has always been difficult,” Hovmand says.
“Finding a business partner, going in with
parents, equity partnerships and the like are quite common now.
“We all just need to be more open to those different options to make it happen.”
Federated Farmers has a role there too, she says.
“One is education, such as the series of sharefarming workshops we held around the country recently.”
Hovmand is also pleased Federated Farmers’ advocacy spurred MP Suze Redmayne’s member’s bill that would allow someone to withdraw their KiwiSaver funds to buy a first farm.
It would also open the door for those living in service tenancies, such as farm staff, to use their KiwiSaver to buy their first home without having to live in it straight away.
“We just need the legislation to go that step further to allow KiwiSaver funds to be used for purchase of a first herd,” Hovmand says.
“By the time a younger farmer gets to the point of wanting to use their KiwiSaver to buy some land, they’ll probably have been putting money into it for quite a significant time.
“It could easily get them across the line a year or two earlier. I think it could be quite significant.”
Hovmand sees a need to combat negativity with accurate information and looking for solutions.
“I get asked ‘why should younger farmers join Federated Farmers?’.
“I tell them we are the future of the agriculture.
“We need to be sure that we’re involved in creating the kind of industry we want to be in.”
She recommends the Federated Farmers’ free ‘Young Farmers’ membership option.
“I joined the Morrinsville-Ngarua Young Farmers Club when I first moved to the Waikato.
“I lived quite a way of out of town. I didn’t know anyone and it was my way of meeting people.
“Being part of a community is big for me; I think that’s what makes you feel you belong.”
Hovmand met Harry through Young Farmers and it’s still a big part of their lives.
On the Federated Farmers Waikato leadership team, she presents a younger person’s view.
“I also try to gauge from other young farmers what’s concerning them, and what Federated Farmers could do to help them on their journey.
“I like to think it’s working out for both of us.”
Kāinga Ora puts wool back in the frame
While it might not be easy to justify on a balance sheet, installing wool carpets in government buildings would provide invaluable support to New Zealand’s ailing wool industry.
After an earlier move to exclude wool as an option for flooring throughout its homes, Kāinga Ora recently re-opened its tender. This about-face has been welcomed by veteran King Country shearer, Digger Balme.
“It would show farmers that the government’s behind them and trying to help them as much as they can and it might put a little bit more money on the price per kilo for the wool,” he says. “It would be very disappointing if they don’t [choose wool].”
Although the move last year was intended to be ‘fiscally responsible’, it denied wool suppliers the opportunity to ‘put their best foot forward’, Minister of Housing, Chris Bishop, says.
“Although flooring choices for Kāinga Ora properties are operational decisions for the agency, I was disappointed to see woollen carpets ruled out unequivocally.
While it remains essential that Kāinga Ora delivers homes as cost-effectively as possible, it’s only fair that wool products are given the chance to compete for government contracts on an equal footing
with nylon carpet suppliers.” Minister of Agriculture, Mark Patterson, also supports the move.
“This is a great step toward ensuring wool, a sustainable and high-quality product, is given the fair consideration it deserves. It creates a level playing field [and] supports the wool industry,” he says.
“We encourage suppliers of wool carpets to consider participating in Kāinga Ora’s tender process.”
While it’s a little early for sheep farmers to celebrate, they certainly will, should wool be installed in Kāinga Ora homes as well as other government buildings.
Once widely favoured, wool has hit quite the snag, essentially becoming a cost rather than a revenue stream. It is also facing a new threat in recent years due to genetic research.
But this yarn isn’t over just yet, Balme adds.
“[The market] hasn’t been great, but it’s picked up in the last 12 months [at] over $3 a kilo. Hopefully, instead of it being a cost to farmers, they can break even or make a small profit on their wool,” he says.
“If we can sustain that price, at around $3 to $4 a kilo as a minimum, farmers will stay in the game and not so many will go for the shedding sheep.”
Danielle Hovmand wats to see consensus that’s practical and affordable.
