30,287 copies distributed monthly – to every rural mailbox in Canterbury and the West Coast
February 2022 Edition
INSIDE
THIS EDITION Pickers needed
p5 A regional future
p12 Ag spraying
p29 Venison uptick
p43
Top team: Mark Stewart (left) with his wife Stacey and brother TJ Stewart in the barn which they say has allowed them to maintain their milk production despite the crippling floods in May 2021.
Barnstorming bounce back from flooding As farmers look ahead to the coming year many in Mid Canterbury are still recovering from last year’s May floods and taking on the lessons learned.
❚ by Dianna Malcolm One Mid Canterbury dairy farming family, who lost 14.5ha of their farm to riverbed rubble, is giving thanks to a decision made almost a decade ago to being able to rebound from the loss. A free-stall barn helped the Stewart family sustain production through some of the worst flooding the region had been exposed to in 200 years.
When the family first invested in their imposing 140m x 75m barn back in 2013, the subsequent fall in milk prices raised some eyebrows but it turned out to be a bold move. The family, anchored by David and Maree Stewart, weathered the challenge by switching up the business and including some bright minds with different thinking to make it work. David and Maree’s sons TJ and Mark, together with his wife Stacey, have recently
taken over leasing the operation. The barn has now become a central part of the family’s ability to harness premium winter milk contracts, as they move towards 70% autumn-calving pattern on their 550-cow herd. It also helped them traverse the region’s flood disaster late in May, which forever buried 14.5ha of their farm under riverbed rubble.
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