Country-Wide April 2022

BACKING FARMERS

DAMN RULES

Kaipara Flats farm manager Josh Jackson is one of many farmers facing new costly dam regulations, p70

CARBON MINING

Controls on exotic permanents

HE WAKA EKE NOA Farmer feedback and survey results

PREVENT. PROTECT. PERFORM.

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1. Wilkins M, O’Connell E. (1992) Vaccination of sheep against Toxoplasma abortion, Surveillance, 19:4,20-23

2.Anderson, P (2001) The implications of Campylobacter Infections in Ewe Flocks. Proc 31st Annual Seminar, Society of Sheep and Beef Cattle Veterinarians., NZVA p31-40

3.Geldard, H, Scaramuzzi, R.J., & Wilkins, J.F. (1984) Immunization against polyandroalbumin leads to increases in lambing and tailing percentages. New Zealand Veterinary Journal, 32:1-2, 2-5

4.Baron Audit Data, June 2021

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Reality check hits home

ARECENT FARMER SURVEY RECORDED

farmer confidence had plummeted even though farm gate prices are soaring. Initially I thought: so what, everyone is feeling down with the Ukraine war, Omicron, and rising costs. What was notable was that the survey was taken before the war started, fuel costs took off and Omicron exploded. What will the next survey tell us?

With Omicron spreading quickly and most people accepting they will live with it, the fear factor is receding. The focus is increasingly on the economy and the basics.

Kiwis are now waking up to the realisation the country has been poorly managed by the Labour Government. Money had to be spent, but wisely. Printing money and chucking it around was unwise as were many of its policies.

With inflation and costs climbing, crime will rise. Will farms be targets for fuel and stock thefts?

The shortage of agricultural and horticultural workers hit businesses and the economy hard. So too did the nursing shortage.

When New Zealand needed workers it got wokers. Instead of nurses we got spin doctors.

By woke I mean someone who is recently aware of a perceived or real injustice and is painfully trying to outrage everyone around them with their limited knowledge of it. Or they are bending over backwards to treat this group as extra special.

NZ and western countries haven’t had a food crisis for decades. It was always there on the supermarket shelf and affordable.

The closest was the Marmite shortage after the Christchurch earthquakes. The Ukraine war has brought a reality check on what is important - food, not virtue signalling. In Germany, a million hectares set aside as a green zone will now be used to grow food.

The ag sector is keeping the country afloat yet the push for NZ to do its bit with carbon emissions has

seen an estimated $700 million/year of beef and lamb earnings lost from the economy. Subsidised carbon credits have led to trees replacing stock on pastoral land leading to the loss of families and allied industry. Communities are shrinking and will disappear.

Farmers have also been distracted and victimised by the Government’s unnecessary and unworkable laws. There has been a lack of good governance and accountability among some industry levy bodies, local and central government. Staff (who seem to have forgotten who they work for) run the show, not elected officials. Otago Regional Council staff refusing to cooperate with the Environmental Protection Agency is a prime example.

Governments can’t run businesses. Leave it to the markets and good economics. As economist Adam Smith said, profits flow from capital investments, which are directed to where the most profit can be made.

What the Government must do is cut non-essential expenditure and taxes. Ronald Reagan cut taxes in the 1980s and the United States tax take was the same. Taxation stops innovation and productivity.

Unfortunately Regan didn’t stop spending.

To quote Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

NZ will need a Thatcher-type leader to restore its economic fortunes, not someone who will tinker around the edges.

50 IN THE DEEP END OF SUCCESSION

8 BOUNDARIES

HOME BLOCK

11 The big four zero beckons for Charlotte Rietveld

Andrew Steven finds his error rate rises with age

David Walston reflects on the impact of Putin’s war

Micha Johansen inherits a dog named Blue

Mark Chamberlain presents an ode to Joy, his mother-in-law

38

DONE AND DUSTED AT OTUPAE

Garry Mead is on his final weeks at the helm of their iconic sheep and beef farm.

32

NEW RULES REQUIRE GOOD HOMEWORK

Getting the right advice with due diligence on buying a farm is essential.

16 Robert Carter detects a deep malaise

17 Southland’s summer doesn’t disappoint Rachael Hoogenboom

BUSINESS

18 Carbon mining: No place for permanent exotic forests

22 Industry leaders need to listen

25 Roadshow disappointingly unconvincing

26 Proposals hurt extensive farms

A Taihape farmer takes over the reins while her dad is

OUR COVER New council rules governing farm dam safety are another set of regulations facing Kaipara Flats farm manager Joshua Jackson and the

81

SURVEY RESPONDENTS

UNHAPPY

A Country-Wide survey found three quarters of respondents are unhappy with He Waka proposals.

82

WHEN YOU NEED A HELPING HAND

A young couple have developed a website to connect farmers with casual workers.

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ISSN 1179-9854 (Print) ISSN 2253-2307 (Online) @CountryWideNZ

farm’s owner Simon Withers. Photo by Alex Wallace.

And the winners are...

A RAM STUD AND A TOP PASTORAL OPERATION

recently won lower North Island farmer of the year competitions.

Wairere won the Wairarapa Sheep and Beef Farm Business of the Year award and the Strahan Land Company won the inaugural Central Districts Red Meat Farm Business of the Year award.

Wairere is a 1075-hectare hill country farm in the Bideford district near the Wairarapa coast.

Renowned as this country’s largest ram breeding operation, Wairere is owned and operated by the Daniell family, with a management team made up of Derek Daniell, Simon Buckley and Sam O’Fee.

Head judge Rob Thornicroft says Wairere is a profitable, efficient, innovative and sustainable farming system.

The competition is open to all sheep and beef farming businesses including stud operations with both sheep and bull studs having won past competitions.

He says they received a good number of entries for this year’s competition, but would not say how many.

Ian and Steph Strahan’s company farms 496ha split across two properties and finishes 1600 lambs and 1100 cattle. With the addition of dairy and hogget grazing, they generate 600kg CW/ha.

The couple are running a high-performing system in a sustainable manner with excellent knowledge of their environmental footprint. More on both winners in future issues.

ATTENDEE UNIMPRESSED

The He Waka roadshow was a presentation of options to avoid the ETS, and not a consultation about the options, an attendee says.

There was little opportunity to consult on detail, but rather the roadshow was to listen and ask questions about why something was or was not included.

Consultation had happened earlier between agricultural industry partners and Maori. Attendees were told it was unprecedented for them all to agree on something.

Thus, implying consultation was complete.

Feedback questions were leading towards the presented options. There was no option to say whether you disagreed with the proposals. There was an option of clicking on “unsure.”

From the two meetings attended there was no way of knowing how many people were unhappy with the proposals because they were given no option to record their dissatisfaction in the feedback. More on He Waka Eke Noa p22.

COLUMN HARVEST

Soil scientist, Dr Doug Edmeades, has published his second book ’Turning the Sods’, a compilation of columns written since 2014. The 108 columns are presented in several distinct themes including: philosophical considerations, science, and the management of science, the pastoral sector, climate change, water quality, and the dangers of extreme environmentalism such as regenerative agriculture.

Edmeades says he still gets a lot of positive feedback, in some cases about columns several years old. The book can be ordered online through enquiries@agknowledge. co.nz. Cost is $35 + $7p+p.

Joe had suffered from bad headaches for the last 20 years. He eventually decided to go and see his doctor.

The Doctor said, ‘Joe, the good news is I can cure your headaches. The bad news is that it will require castration. You have a very rare condition which causes your testicles to press on your spine and the pressure creates one hell of a headache. The only way to relieve the pressure is to remove the testicles.’

Joe was shocked and depressed but had no choice but to go under the knife. The surgery cost him $15,000.

When he left the hospital, he was without a headache for the first time in 20 years, but he felt like he was missing an important part of himself.

As he walked down the street, he realised that he felt like a different person. He could make a new beginning and live a new life.

He saw a Men’s clothing store and thought, ‘That’s what I need... A new suit.’

The elderly tailor eyed him briefly and said, ‘Let’s see... size 44 long.’

Joe laughed, ‘That’s right, how did you know?’

‘Been in the business 60 years!’ the tailor said.

Joe tried on the suit it fitted perfectly.

As Joe admired himself in the mirror, the tailor asked, ‘How about a new shirt?’

He eyed Joe and said, ‘Let’s see, 34 sleeves and 16-1/2 neck.’

Joe was surprised, ‘That’s right, how did you know?’

‘Been in the business 60 years.’

Joe walked comfortably around the shop and the salesman asked, ‘How about some new underwear? ‘Let’s see... size 36’.

Joe laughed, ‘Ah ha! I got you! I’ve worn a size 32 since I was 18 years old.’

The tailor shook his head, ‘You can’t wear a size 32. A size 32 would press your testicles up against the base of your spine and give you one hell of a headache.’

Steph and Ian Strahan.

HOT DESIGNER

Country-Wide’s designer

Emily Rees is celebrating her second consecutive win of the Best Cover award for a non-newsstand publication at the 2021 Magazine Media Awards. The award was for her design of the 2021 Country-Wide Beef cover.

The judge’s comments were: “I never thought I‘d find a magazine about cattle farming compelling,” noted one judge. “The idea is crisp and clean, beautifully executed and immediately understood, which is no mean feat considering the abstract subject matter. There are no sub-coverlines or clutter to take away from the singular concept – it stands alone.”

WHAT DOES THE JOB PAY?

At a time of labour shortages employees, especially the good ones, have their pick of job vacancies. So, what makes you stand out as an employer?

BakerAg’s biennial remuneration survey provides sheep and beef industry information on salary levels and remuneration packages.

For its 2022 remuneration survey, Country-Wide readers are invited to participate. There is no cost to participate, but BakerAg charges $160 for participants to receive the results in a booklet format. The survey is also available to those who do not participate, at a booklet cost of $350. Those who participate also go in the draw to win one of three AgLetter subscriptions valued at $415.

As well as pay, the survey puts values on benefits, to arrive at a total remuneration package value for each position, and also reports on the employment environment

For more visit: www.bakerag.co.nz/remuneration-survey. The survey closes Monday 2 May, 2022

DID YOU KNOW ?

If you have ever wondered if you should desex your cat, spare a thought for the owners of a Texas tabby named Dusty. Over the 17 years of her breeding life, Dusty produced 420 kittens.

JUSTIFY THIS

The Govt announcement in early March of $16.5 million of new funding for ‘local communities to build up tourism facilities, with a special focus on Matariki commemoration’ went down like a lead balloon with one of Country-Wide’s regular contributors.

The new fund for Maori New Year feel-good, fluffy stuff will have super appeal to the Woke brigade but is a kick in the guts to much of the rural New Zealand. In February the Government dished out a paltry $400,000 to rural support groups to help “keep vital work forces going” much of which was spent enlisting well-meaning people to offer suggestions, tea, sympathy and not a lot else. What a shame that some of the $16.5 million couldn’t have been used to get overseas workers on farms and orchards to harvest crops, milk cows and pick fruit. Surely that would have been the smartest way to keep vital workforces going and reduce stress levels in the rural regions.

US CHALLENGE TO DEERE

Following years of lobbying by United States farming organisations on the ‘right to repair’, the US Federal Trade Commission says it intends to crack down on ag companies, particularly John Deere, that keep diagnostic and repair technology closely guarded.

The Counter, a food supply system news website, reports a complaint was filed against John Deere with the FTC on behalf of the National Farmers Union, six state farmer groups, and a handful of advocacy organisations.

The complaint, detailing exactly how challenging John Deere makes it to fix their equipment, comes in response to plans by the FTC and Biden administration to dismantle corporate consolidation in agriculture.

When a piece of John Deere equipment breaks down on the job, its owner is expressly forbidden from making their own repairs—only authorised, company-employed technicians have those permissions. Deere locks down its proprietary knowledge tightly, and without company-provided diagnostic software and equipment, even getting a sense of what’s broken is virtually out of reach.

Time to fight gravity

AS 2022 ROLLS ON, I FIND MYSELF

on the cusp of turning 40. As a midCanterbury-dwelling multi-generational dryland hill-country back-blocks inhabitant merrily farming the nation’s least trendy sheep, I’m quite sure I’ve been 40 since I was 20.

Possibly the last surviving member of my generation to care where an apostrophe ought to be, I am equally steadfast in considering vegan shoes an abomination, can provide a full rendition of ‘Guide me O Thy Great Redeemer’ should the need arise and a boiled fruit cake remains my go-to baking staple.

Despite polling booth disloyalty and a wavering philosophy, I place adamant faith in the life-enduring abilities of both a woollen singlet and a hot cup of tea. Unfortunately my appearances have been far more modern in their advances, for which I squarely blame the cruel nor’wester. That and gravity have a lot to answer for.

While ‘over the hill’ is surely these days just beginning the ascent, it remains a life-assessing milestone and the 40 I’m seeing is not quite the destination I had in mind.

How can it be that I reach this pinnacle of age and still not tie a bowline with ease? Exactly when does one finally understand the machinations of foreign exchange? And just how did I end up in no-man’s-land of both inelegant hand-writing and the technology skills of your average superannuitant?

I was quite sure by now I’d be au fait cooking with quinoa and know how to make shoesounding jus with ease, but both still evade me.

As it seems to with all of us, age has slyly snuck up on me. The day one acknowledges that ‘smalls’ is no longer an accurate term for one’s undergarments is rather a depressing time. It seems that before you know it, risqué is trumped by practicalité, one clothes peg has morphed into a definite two and you’ve arrived

worshipping the shrine of spandex.

Beguiling of its suburban contents, I’ve realised the ol’ top drawer has become surprisingly corporate when form and function, critical focus and downsizing become guiding principles of the underwear department.

Alas the ravages of time have not stopped at one’s foundation garments. I now find myself thinking purple is a perfectly sensible colour to wear and that ‘fun’ shoes might be just the ticket.

While the stilettos sit gathering dust, underwear is not the only division heading commercial. Contrary to geography, selecting farm jeans these days has become all about the high-rise.

While fashion and town-planning trends may have some part to play, fighting gravity to maintain property rights is quite another. Leaving good enough alone is no longer sufficient, shapewear has become an essential worker.

Yet this is without even mentioning the skincare regime. The ozone layer may be on the road to repair but my Scottish complexion took an alternate route. This detour occurred about a decade ago, the same time my well-intention mother handed me a newspaper cutting entitled ‘Women can freeze their eggs’.

Not only did that up the ante to find a bloke, it also escalated the sunscreen spf-factor. Ten years on the confluence gets nearer - the spf factor has remained at 50, my years have advanced and gravity has too. No doubt one of these days I’ll have to acknowledge that I am weak, but thankfully spf, spandex and high-rise jeans art mighty.

The big four zero beckons for Rietveld as she contemplates where the years have flown.

“The day one acknowledges that ‘smalls’ is no longer an accurate term for one’s undergarments is rather a depressing time. It seems that before you know it, risqué is trumped by practicalité.”

HOME BLOCK Rakaia Gorge

Error rate climbs with age

AFTER BACK-TO-BACK DRY YEARS

we have enjoyed a season of plenty. We have seldom had so much summer growth. What to do with it all?

Early on, we made quality balage, but there is a limit on how much I want to spend. We did make a lot of hay despite the dodgy weather. A couple of paddocks were lost to persistent wet weather.

I had hay ready on Boxing Day and made two bales before driving over a rock and bending the pickup. I knew the rock was there, even though I couldn’t see it and aimed to lift the pickup over the obstacle.

A phone call got the hay baled and I spent the next three days fixing the problem. The bit that hurt is knowing what a stupid thing that was to do, and worse, as you get older and wiser, your error rate goes up. That may be because of a casual attitude to risk and I don’t want to divulge all of my silly mistakes.

We used cattle to eat what they want and trample the rest into the ground. The clover would then grow up through the grass mat. The mower has been busy tidying up paddocks, and we have got some extra stock.

Having plenty is a better situation than the agonies of having to destock and it gives the whole farm a chance to have a rest. After dry years, the pastures and soils will benefit greatly and the earthworms can have a prolonged period of activity. The hard paddocks are softening up.

My harvest finished yesterday (March 6).

The main problem has been lack of harvest opportunities with days of cool, grey and damp weather. This year we had barley, oats and 10ha of mustard seed.

Yields have been very pleasing as I only supply inputs for a yield of about 7t/ha and that has been well exceeded in the barley. Our 50ha is a very modest affair compared to the large-scale cropping enterprises in South Canterbury. For them, the harvest has been a nightmare with partial or complete loss of the grass seed and major quality loss in wheat. A lot of grain will need to be dried.

While driving the combine, I work out the cropping programme for the coming year, while remaining alert for any issues with the machine. The extra variable to consider this year are the horrors happening in Europe. What will happen with our various commodity prices? What crops will we choose and what will happen with input costs?

Our summer on the coast has been horrible, but we only need to go inland to the Mackenzie Basin to enjoy some sunshine. I managed three overnight trips in our local mountains during January.

On one of these excursions I was bivvied on a high ridge, trying to figure what the noise was. Distant thunder? Thar hunters in the next valley? It wasn’t until we got home that we learned of the volcanic explosions in Tonga. It sounded like artillery reverberating around the hills.

Andrew Steven has made the most of an unusually wet summer in South Canterbury.

“I knew the rock was there, even though I couldn’t see it and aimed to lift the pickup over the obstacle.”

Bivvy site, looking towards Mount Sefton.

As Putin’s war rages

DO I REALLY NEED TO TELL YOU THE world has gone mad? Of course not. I’ve got a friend with very strong connections to Russia and Ukraine - both farming and personal - and speaking with him over the last month has been quite an experience.

In only a few weeks he went from “Of course Putin won’t invade, this whole thing is being blown up by the West” to “Well, it’s very complicated, but I don’t think it’s really an invasion” to “OMG, he’s gone crazy!”.

Like the rest of the world we sit here, watch, and hope it doesn’t get too much worse.

It has only been a few years since I visited the Black Sea area - with the friend mentioned above - to see how the farms operated out there. What really struck me were the contradictions in how everything worked.

The fields were huge, rectangular, and incredibly efficient to work, but they were often farmed in a terribly inefficient way. The soil was deep, black, highly fertile, but smashed to pieces with completely unnecessary over-cultivation. Labour was very cheap, but the farms had hugely bloated workforces, at least a third of whom were solely there in order to fill in paperwork for bureaucrats.

Although they have hugely increased production in the last decade or so, it’s obvious that the latent potential is even greater, and what would that do to the viability of our farms in the United Kingdom, Europe, or New Zealand?

For the time being though, their situation has made our wheat prices go through the roof, and I recently sold some basic feed wheat for early harvest movement at £245/tonne, easily the highest price that I’ve ever achieved. At least for the time being, the commodity prices are keeping pace with input cost inflation. 2020/21 was a decent year financially because we sold at high prices having grown with cheap inputs. The worry is that at some point, the opposite will happen - how bad will things be then?

On the farm it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the wheat looks excellent, and some of it is mediocre at best. It turned out that we planted a couple of fields

significantly too deep (at least partly my fault), and so emergence was highly compromised.

In the worst block, we only had about 25% of seeds make it to daylight. Luckily there are still adequate numbers to get a yield; indeed I remember from visiting New Zealand that you guys tend to favour much lower plant populations than we do, so perhaps I should pretend I’m farming on the Canterbury Plains.

One pleasant surprise has been that the price of fungicides seems to have hardly moved since last year. Given that the cost of glyphosate has roughly quadrupled - if you can get it at all - I had feared all the other sprays would be doing similar. Glyphosate is about £150 ($NZ288) per 20L. OSR price is somewhere about £650 ($NZ1248) per tonne plus premiums.

Oilseed rape has been a real headache, with clouds of pigeons attempting to demolish it since well before Christmas. We’ve had a guy working almost full time trying to chase them away, he thinks it is the worst pigeon problem there has ever been.

Unfortunately they aren’t the only pest we have to deal with, as there are large numbers of cabbage stem flea beetle larvae infesting the stems as well. How big a problem this turns out to be will only become apparent as we go through the spring, and pray for rain to help the plants grow through the damage.

The price for oilseed rape is even higher than it is for wheat, so we don’t need a huge yield to make it viable - but how good would 4t/ha be? A pipe dream these days, unfortunately.

The rest of the rotation is looking a bit thin these days, with only winter beans (looking excellent) and two spring crops (oats and peas, still yet to be planted) making up the rest of the farm. This does worry me a bit, and I was always jealous when looking around NZ farms at the wide variety of break crops they could grow, especially for those farmers producing vegetable seed crops.

We have tried quite a few other ideas, but nothing seems to work terribly well. It’s certainly something we need to solve at some point, but who knows when that will be?

David Walston in Hertfordshire, England, reflects on the war devastating Ukraine and its impact.

“The soil was deep, black, highly fertile, but smashed to pieces with completely unnecessary overcultivation.”

HOME BLOCK Cambridgeshire, England

Me and a dog named Blue

WELL HECK, I SPENT WEDNESDAY, March 2, glued to my screen, watching, mostly in horror, the live videos of the parliamentary protest. A protest that I supported at the core, as I abhor the mandates inflicted upon people, for making a choice that was ethical to them.

A protest where the supposed leaders of our country inflamed with their goading, (‘not the biggest protest I’ve seen – PM Ardern) and downright callousness and division with labels of ‘feral’ and ‘river of filth’.

Perhaps if we had some maturity in Parliament, and some accountability from our Labour Government, things would not have escalated as they did.

I think what annoys me the most is that, like the Groundswell protests, the anti-mandate protest involved citizens Ardern appears to have utter disdain for. So, rather than engage, she simply dismisses as ‘fringe’, and ignores, even though both protests have covered the length and breadth of New Zealand.

Ardern famously said ‘no one protested when I was elected’, well they sure as heck are protesting now, while she hides in schools and avoids any scrutiny, by choosing which media she will deem worthy of speaking to.

But even though I am a bit of a political tragic, there is certainly much more to life, including a brand new, big red, Northland pound dog named Blue.

I have always been a bit of an animal rescuer, and I always go for the ‘well no one else is going to re-home that one, so I will take it’, and, much to TJ’s dismay, that is what I went with again.

In my defence he was listed as a Kelpie X, then, when I saw him hop out of the delivery car in Hamilton (six hours away and two days before Christmas) my heart sank to my stomach with the realisation that I probably have more kelpie in me than this fella does.

We have come to the conclusion that he is

definitely Mastiff, with traces of Lab (there always is), maybe Huntaway, maybe German Shepherd, possibly German Pointer. So we simply refer to him as a Northland Special. He is as crazy as Trevor Mallard with Spotify and a speaker, but a lot less mean.

It has taken some time, as he is around two, but we now get to have him off lead whenever we are outside, and I can call him off of the chickens when he thinks he might like to have a little play.

Amazingly we managed to get through without him killing anything, touch wood. He seems quite happy to destroy anything and everything else he can get access to, with clothes pegs being a particular favourite. The best thing is that he makes me laugh every single day, as he is such an utter clown of a dog. So even if he wasn’t what I wanted, I’m sure as heck glad he is what we got.

Dairy wise we are on the home stretch for the season. Our incalf rate for next season is about 91%. A little low for a naturally mated herd, but still acceptable. We managed to sell 110 of 130 calves, leaving the usual hodgepodge for us to rear through until two, when they either go to the works, into the herd as heifers, or into our freezer.

Once again, to make up herd numbers, we will buy 15-20 in-calf cows as replacements. With all of our mating done by Angus bulls this means we don’t rear any replacements ourselves, except for a few of the beefies that TJ has the embarrassment of slotting into the milking herd.

Grass growth has been good. We had a lean few weeks over summer, but then the big rains hit and off it went again. It’s not Taranaki grass, but we do stay green, so swings and roundabouts really.

And finally, after humming and hawing over whether to get myself a riding horse, the trainer of my 5% racehorse offered me the chance to buy into the half brother of my now, big fella. I leapt at the chance. So I am now the proud 5% owner of another wee legend in the making, making me a very happy camper.

Micha Johansen has inherited a dog who is as crazy as Trevor Mallard with Spotify and a speaker, but a lot less mean.

“When I saw him hop out of the delivery car in Hamilton (six hours away and two days before Christmas) my heart sank to my stomach with the realisation that I probably have more kelpie in me than this fella does.”

Ode to Joy

JEEPERS. WE ARE ONLY JUST GETTING warmed up for 2022 and already it has the potential to turn into my annus horribilis.

At the time of writing, Europe is on the brink of war with Russia having invaded Ukraine and the sudden passing of Shane ‘The King’ Warne which had me, figuratively, in a spin. But for me, the sudden illness and passing of my beloved mother-in-law, Joy, is what this year will be remembered for.

Joy - a mother of 10, a Nana and Great-Nana of 33 and counting, a widow for more than 26 years, volunteer for several charities, cancer survivor and with the old-school ability (with knitting needles at the ready) to whip up a lovely matinee jacket in an afternoon. Joy was truly a modern-day icon, the likes of which will hardly be seen again.

A full life lived. It started from very humble beginnings in the Merton hills, north of Dunedin, in what could be best described as hard country. She helped raise her younger siblings due to her family circumstances and quite simply, whatever curve ball life threw at her, she endured.

There are a lot of parallels between Joy’s life and the farming community. Her incredible fertility for starters, surely gets a nod of approval.

You would think that with 10 children and their collective offsiders, there would be some friction; but because of her steady, understated leadership, everyone followed her example. There was no power struggle amongst the family, as Joy treated everyone equally. I am proud to say there was not a cross word between her and me, in 25 years.

Another example that can be followed, is that as there is no vast fortune to squabble over, all that was really left to focus on, was a tonne of values – and of course… love. Lawyers must hate that, I’m sure. It’s a hard asset to divvy up.

Joy’s endurance does resonate with rural communities. Tragedies such as extreme weather events and the odd earthquake are sent to test our

metal. But lately, it is the ad hoc, sneaky stuff coming out of Wellington that is really pushing us to the limit.

But the good news is, farming is going nowhere. We have endured successive Governments and their unpalatable policies for farming. We have seen them come, we have seen them go, and we are still here. I am sure that with this present mob, and their red empress, history will not judge them kindly.

Like farming, it is all cyclic – both the left and the right, producing generations that counter each other. The past has shown that the bat-shit crazy ideas and policies that have evolved out of the Beehive, simply do not endure. And luckily, these politicians along with their ideas, will fade like the stars they wish to have been.

It has been said all politicians are like nappies, eventually both need to be changed and for the same reasons. Successive Governments, be they red, blue or green, all eventually become a shade of brown and stale.

Policies such as He Waka Eke Noa, Three Waters, the forestation of productive farmland, and the printing of money like there’s no tomorrow, are classic examples of policies we will eventually see off. Hurtful inflation and, its nasty friend, high interest rates (cue stories of the interest rates of the 1980s), are on their way. As we have done before, we will batten down the hatches and we will, of course, endure.

I look forward to the bulletproof ambition of the youth to push the boat forward. If only they can lay off those energy drinks. Like the youth, Joy embraced technology, dabbling in Facebook and was a prolific texter. One such text some years ago, informing us of the passing of a relative, ended with a “LOL” –mistakenly thinking it meant ‘lots of love’.

So, here’s to Joy and a life well lived – an example of extreme endurance. We forget sometimes that life is both beautiful and precious. Mine has also been very lucky, as it had Joy in it. LOL.

With the world around us going to hell in a handcart, for Mark Chamberlain the loss of his mother-in-law is the lowest blow.

“You would think that with 10 children and their collective offsiders, there would be some friction; but because of her steady, understated leadership, everyone followed her example.”

Joy and Terry McCabe, married September 1960.

HOME BLOCK Gore HOME BLOCK Gore

Deep malaise creeping in

STATE SANCTIONED

AS I WRITE THIS, PUTIN’S SOLDIERS are invading another country, Ukraine, a sovereign state again since 1991, as part of the dismantling of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Now the Ruskies want it back. Glasnost and perestroika all gone!

It sounds to me like the tragic story of the life of the girl who married the bad boy, wanted out of the relationship but the bastard is still living right next door, still hassling her.

It’s an unfolding tragedy made even more poignant for us as my niece’s partner is a young Ukrainian man making New Zealand his home, working hard as a beekeeper.

We are fed daily smartphone videos, sent over by Ukrainian family members and they are bloody awful to view.

Last year was bad but 2022 is rapidly making 2021 look like a Christmas in the park.

Modern technology has meant we can be virtually anywhere in the world at any time and see things as they unfold.

The Ukraine situation is about as bad as it gets, however, at a more local level there are issues which do cause some considerable anxiety in my mind.

He Waka Eke Noa (primary sector climate action partnership), means ‘we are all in the same waka’.

Normally, I would totally agree with this proverb, but this waka is faulty and would not pass a Maritime NZ audit in any shape or form.

There are leaks and a complete lack of safety equipment!

I have, until this week, read the farming papers and all the comments from the leaders. What I see is a deep malaise creeping into our industry.

It’s particularly noticeable that our leaders are hell-bent on selling us into a system that will not add one iota of advantage to us or the globe.

One of the most galling things about this is that already, without any legislative incentives, farmers are already changing practices to enhance the environment and in so doing, sequestering carbon.

We have been doing this for years with our plantings and land management systems.

Further, we are now assessing our stud sheep for lower enteric emissions using AgResearch and their portable accumulation chamber for sheep.

The emerging NZ models such as He Waka are in direct contravention of the Paris accord which particularly mentions food production not being put at risk.

Lately I’ve become very reticent about reading farming papers as I’ve now identified them as an onfarm hazard!

They are now in our risk register, and we carried out an assessment using the risk matrix.

Before I applied any mitigation strategies to the risk, the assessment was in the very high category.

I thought about the best risk reduction methods I could apply, to transition the risk into the green, acceptable sector of the matrix.

Happily, I can now proceed with my work as I’ve reduced the risk to the green “okay” sector by simply discarding most of them.

I feel that a much greater effort needs to be made to engage with us.

We need a system fit for purpose and based on good peer-reviewed science.

I’m assuming that, (in this hill country farming area), as we’ve already largely gone down the pathway of the state-sanctioned wilding pines, we just don’t matter anymore.

I’ve noted many commentators expressing very similar sentiments, as well as some very wellthought-out better solutions, from the likes of Graeme Gleeson (farmer and farming advocate) and others.

As the rockets rain down on Kyiv, Robert Carter finds a leaky waka back home.

“The emerging NZ models such as He Waka are in direct contravention of the Paris accord which particularly mentions food production not being put at risk.”

Mai mai Southland is hot

WHEN I MOVED TO SOUTHLAND in April 2021 I feared never seeing the sun again. The wet, cold, and miserable winters which I was entering wouldn’t come to a close.

I worried that the firewood would need to be restocked at least four times a year. That at some point I would give in to Steve the pet huntaway sleeping by the warmth of the roaring fire, hoping to defrost his nose after being curled up in his kennel surrounded by snow.

However, September arrived and the big yellow has not disappeared and I’m starting to think as if I had packed the Hawke’s Bay sunshine into my bags. It is slowly growing on me that Northern Southland may just be the ideal summer location.

I’m writing from the comfort of the leather couches at Cam’s (my partner) family mai mai, as the men gather for a working bee; although this May is not looking to be as successful when the normally overflowing duck pond can only provide a mud pit.

Unlike most duck enthusiasts who camp out to be up at dawn for the first sight of wings, this mai mai is like no other. With bunk beds, a big screen TV, fireplace ,and a dishwasher, you can only imagine how tough the foggy and brisk mornings are, as the duck shooters at this mai mai step from the kitchen to the shooting gallery in their slippers.

I’ve come to realise that my assumption of wearing a raincoat every day of the year was very much fuelled by North Islanders who have never stepped foot on to the mainland.

The optimism I hold for future Southland summers has prompted Cam and me to start on our next adventure, buying a pop-top camper. I joke that this is the closest thing we will get to buying our own property and have convinced myself that a mobile home has many more advantages. Advantages such as when it ticks to 5pm on a Friday we are on the road into a location I have most likely spotted on an influencer’s Instagram account.

Spring through to autumn is peak season within my role as a nutrient specialist in Northern Southland due to the range of farm systems in the area, but I’ve found the pop-top is great encouragement to leave work behind for the weekend.

The importance of getting off the farm and disconnecting from work is often something I speak about with farmers I am working with. It is a factor I am now ensuring I follow through with for my own mental wellbeing.

Our February roadie led us to Omarama, a destination we would normally skip through but the MacKenzie Basin did not disappoint with activities to fill in our time. Our next trip is planned a little closer to home, along the Catlins coastline in the hope of spotting some penguins, a lazy seal or, if I’m lucky, maybe even a whale.

It was almost three months before the pop-top was even towed out of the shed to explore, as a few minor repairs needed to be attended to. Then I decided that this old girl needed a bit of a facelift.

Without hesitation I allowed Cam’s dad, Norman, to pick the base colour for the outside shell, however I had one instruction for them that it was not to be New Holland blue. The painting started before I had arrived and their argument was that it was more chilly bin blue. The pop-top has now been transformed and named The Esky.

As winter slowly draws in, I endeavour to hold my optimism that the sun will stay high in the sky and having named our pop-top The Esky, won’t result in all future trips needing to be accompanied by a few extra blankets.

Southland’s summer hasn’t disappointed nutrient specialist Rachael Hoogenboom.

“I’ve come to realise that my assumption of wearing a raincoat every day of the year was very much fuelled by North Islanders who have never stepped foot on to the mainland. ”

The mud pit as seen from the mai mai.

NO PLACE FOR PERMANENT EXOTIC FORESTS

Campaigning against conversion of pastoral land to permanent exotic forest looks to have borne fruit. By Glenys Christian.

Two years of highlighting the amount of pastoral land being planted in forests to offset carbon emissions has seen Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s stark analysis of its effects to be right, chief executive Sam McIvor says.

“It’s satisfying that we’re getting the recognition. The Government does realise there’s real groundswell support for change.”

His comments came days after climate change minister, James Shaw, and forestry minister, Stuart Nash, released a public discussion document suggesting future permanent plantings of exotic forests could be excluded from the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

Nash said the Government wanted to balance the risks created by new permanent exotic forests not intended for harvest. There was a window to build safeguards into the system before a new ETS framework starts at the beginning of next year when, under current rules, a new permanent forest category will allow both exotic and indigenous forests to earn New Zealand Units (NZU).

It’s now proposed to exclude exotic species to balance the need

for afforestation with those of local communities, regional economies and the environment.

McIvor said the NZU price of over $80 was driving a “massive distortion” in land use with neither sheep and beef returns or those from plantation forestry able to compete. B+LNZ calculates $700 million a year is being lost from sheep and beef earnings because of carbon plantings.

“The Government hasn’t been thinking about the long term. [It has been focused on] the next 30 years,” he said.

“They’ve been fiddling while rural communities have been burning.”

There hadn’t been the necessary thoroughness when it came to impact analysis to make sure there weren’t unintended consequences from the planting.

“It’s a wicked problem as to how we get to a low-carbon economy but we do want emitters to look hard at their own businesses.”

Federated Farmers meat and wool chairperson, William Beetham, said it was great to at last see the Government looking at the problem which had been the subject of a lot of advocacy and feedback. ETS settings were very blunt and

didn’t promote good land use or consider the effect on rural communities.

“We need a level playing field for forestry and sheep and beef farming,” he said.

“We’ve done a lot of work around policy options and we’re keen to see the Government move through changes quickly.”

Lobby group 50 Shades of Green spokesperson, Andy Scott, said the Government moves, although well overdue, were a good start.

“But there’s been a huge amount of damage done,”

The Wairarapa real estate agent estimates more than 30,000ha has been sold to be planted into trees in that area alone over the last year.

“And Wairoa has been devastated.”

Carbon prices boost land values

Land prices which sat about $8000/ha have reached from $17,000-$23,000, fuelled by rising carbon prices. And while there was a shortage of seedlings Scott believed land buyers already had them on hand to plant out before any policy changes were made.

“But planting trees is not mitigating the problem.”

The ETS was only penalising large carbon emitters such as those in the transport sector who passed their increased costs on. The ideal situation would be if farmers could be rewarded for the trees they’d already planted.

The discussion document says continuing to plant pines as a permanent forest “is likely to increasingly present issues for New Zealand”. This could result in low long-term economic activity and less job creation in the region directly surrounding that land, affecting economies and social

outcomes in those communities.

With planting being so profitable at present investment in and uptake of lowcarbon technologies could be curtailed. Long-term environmental risks of planting exotics were increases in pests, fire danger and the spread of wilding pines. And fastgrowing, heavy forests planted on steep, erosion-prone land could become unstable through heavy rain and windthrow, which could present risks to downstream communities and landowners.

The present carbon price meant permanent exotic forest could significantly outperform sheep and beef farming with an estimated investment return of $30,000/ ha compared with about $4500. And this would increase as the carbon price rose.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) estimates the ETS could drive more than 645,000ha of exotic afforestation in the next decade with about half of that through to 2030 being permanent. At a carbon price of $110 the return on permanent exotic forestry was comparable with that from low-producing dairying land. Less export revenue and fewer jobs would also result and while planting native forestry carried some of the same risks these were lower because of the lower returns generated.

However the discussion document says permanent forestry is an appropriate land use in some situations, drawing attention to an estimated 840,000ha of North Island land at risk of serious erosion.

Submitters on the proposals are given three options if they believe change is required. The first two would prevent exotic forestry being registered as permanent under the ETS or this could still continue, but with exceptions, to be made after the start of next year.

Large areas of ETS-eligible vegetation on farms could be generating big returns for landowners.

B+LNZ’s environmental policy analyst, Madeline Hall said these areas may have been planted for soil conservation, shelter, riparian management and biodiversity support. But kanuka and manuka, for example, could generate about $700-$900/hectare under the ETS, based on current carbon prices. And the area where they were growing could still be grazed.

Plantings can be mixed species and include shade plantings over streams if they meet the forest land definition. There needs to be 30% canopy cover, with the trees having an average width apart of no more than 30m. Areas need to be at least one hectare in size and established after 1990 but even if there were some gaps between plantings they could still qualify.

If just 10% of the estimated 2.8 million ha of indigenous vegetation on sheep and beef farms was registered in the ETS by the end of this year landowners could claim credits for the past five years, which could be worth $958 million based on a carbon unit price of $72. It was important farmers begin the ETS registration process as soon as possible to qualify and they could claim back to 2018.

Until the end of this year landowners can choose between two accounting options, averaging and stock change, but in 2023 that will shift to the averaging system. Registration can take between six and nine months and farmers should get advice first. Under He Waka Eke Noa’s proposed agricultural emissions pricing frameworks, more vegetation types could be recognised than under the ETS, but they might not generate the same rewards. However no double-dipping is possible.

“They’ve been fiddling while rural communities have been burning.” Cash in eligible vegetation

One of these could be permanent exotic forests established with the aim of transitioning to indigenous. The third option would be a temporary moratorium on exotic forests which could be put in place for between one and five years. While it would buy time, the discussion document acknowledges there are risks. One is that permanent exotic forests might continue to be planted because of a belief they might be able to be registered under the ETS in the future.

Dryland Carbon general manager Colin Jacobs said the company was pleased the Government was looking at the issue.

“The whole industry needs stability because that’s what we don’t have at the moment.”

The company, formed in 2019 as a partnership of Air New Zealand, Contact, Genesis and Z Energy to manage their compliance surrender obligations, has planted 10,500ha of trees on marginal land on farms throughout the country.

He sees there are three challenges to be addressed: the blanket planting of trees, the requirement for a more effective contribution to NZ’s climate change obligations and a method of disincentivising the planting and leaving of trees.

But the Farm Forestry Association believes NZ can’t afford to delay planting more trees to address its climate change obligations so exotics should still be able to be registered under the ETS.

“It would be folly to take that option away,” president Graham West said.

“There’s a lot of misinformation about permanent forestry.”

He estimated about 140,000ha had been planted but the issue of rural decline had been inflamed. Landowners should be able to make decisions about what their farms were used for as a basic property right. Many had taken advantage of the returns from planting exotics on difficult harvesting areas which were not suitable for production forestry because of their distance to the nearest port.

The association has suggested a way to tackle large-scale purchasing of sheep and beef farms for forestry could be Government paying half the guaranteed price of carbon income up front to cover their establishment costs. Then farmers could make their own decisions about what species to plant and whether an understorey of natives could be encouraged, increasing biodiversity.

The Government is also consulting on a proposal to adjust how the new carbon accounting method (averaging accounting) applies to remote and marginal land for harvesting. It puts forward an option to create a “long rotation” category for Pinus radiata which isn’t profitable to harvest at 28 years. Forests in this category could be harvested before they reach 40 by surrendering NZUs down to the existing 16 year age.

Dryland Carbon has suggested this be lifted to 50 years, which aligns with Maori stakeholder suggestions. It’s estimated about 230,000ha of Maori land could be well suited to forests, with146,000ha remote or marginal and so better suited to long rotation or permanent forestry which may be able to be registered under the ETS.

Feedback is also sought on opportunities for improving incentives for native plantings which are much lower than those envisaged by the Climate Change Commission. The discussion document acknowledges if this was widespread there are still risks for land use change, but they are less than with exotics because of the lower financial returns.

The consultation period runs until April 22 with the Government saying it expects to make final decisions in the middle of the year.

It will consult on proposals which could give councils more powers to decide under the Resource Management Act (RMA) where exotic forests are planted later in the year. It will also consider expanding the National Environment Standards for Plantation Forestry (NESPF) to make sure the environmental effects of existing permanent forests are managed.

Exotics wiping out farmland

WAIROA MAYOR, CRAIG

Little estimates up to 15,000ha of sheep and beef land around the area may have been planted in exotic forestry over the last two to three years.

“At that rate it will only take 13 years to wipe out all our farmland.”

He welcomed the Government proposals saying they were great news.

“It’s about time.”

“But people feel not listened to.”

Now the worry was that in the three months until final moves were decided on further land sales into forestry would go ahead as farmers weren’t able to compete.

“It’s the start not the end.”

“The elephant in the room is what happens to that land in 30 to 40 years time. It’s going to be chaos.”

With the lack of light coming through exotics, natives weren’t able to grow underneath, and there was an increased risk of forest fires with climate change.

While he would prefer a moratorium “forever” on more exotic planting, he said what did take place needed to be looked at on a farm-by-farm basis. To that end councils should be given some control which he’d like to see happen by way of changes to the National Environment Standards for Plantation Forestry.

“And the Government should come down like a ton of bricks on polluters.”

“The whole industry needs stability because that’s what we don’t have at the moment.”

INDUSTRY LEADERS NEED TO LISTEN

More than a few farming friends have surprised me recently. People who have led the charge on advocating for fair water, nutrient and biodiversity regulations have buried their heads in the sand over He Waka Eke Noa (He Waka).

This has been for a range of reasons including frustrating experiences putting time into previously futile submissions, pandemic noise and onfarm distractions.

The main reason for apathy appears to be consultation fatigue. Those who have ignored He Waka until now need to switch on quickly and do some reading.

While it might be tempting, studying the five-page executive summary is not enough. Those who have taken the time to become enlightened, might well be feeling alarmed at the direction our industries are heading. From a sheep and beef perspective perhaps the most troubling aspect of the direction of travel is that our sector leaders are marching together holding hands.

Industry leaders might point to belated victories that were achieved on winter grazing rules. It is true improvements were made to draconian, impractical regulations after extensive farmer and industry pushback but

greenhouse gas emissions is a different beast. Sectors largely wanted the same thing with winter grazing rules. A win for the dairy sector in that case was also a win for the person grazing a dairy farmer’s cows. Sharing the pain of reducing emissions will create winners and losers and to attempt to present a united front on this topic is much harder. Taxing emissions stirs up the same demons and difficulties as nutrient allocation and looming biodiversity regulations.

We are reminded by our industry leaders that the ETS is a worse option than He Waka options one and two – but now some informed farmers are wondering if the ETS would be better – at least as a stop-gap. That shows a major disconnect between industry leaders and their farmers.

He Waka schemes are not accounting for our sector histories. The sheep and beef sector has been shrinking while dairy development has boomed. In Country-Wide February, consultant Deane Carson noted that “Industry contraction can represent a climate cooling. Sheep numbers have declined by 53% since the 1990s and lamb production has decreased by 9%. When He Waka proposes a tax rather than a credit, questions will be asked.”

Why are we waiting for farmers to ask these

Sharing the pain of reducing emissions will create winners and losers and to attempt to present a united front on this topic is much harder, James Hoban writes.

“That shows a major disconnect between industry leaders and their farmers.”

In the third of a series, Country-Wide covers farmer feedback on He Waka Eke Noa proposals.

questions? Our leaders and policy people have been involved with He Waka for a long time now – why have they not pushed this reality hard enough to have it adequately recognised?

Somehow the sheep and beef leaders have decided that using a recent line in the sand as a starting point, therefore ignoring historical sheep and beef emissions reductions and dairy growth, is fine. Dairy farms deserve reward for their production efficiency but it is misleading to ignore the growth and development as a sector and the increase in their emissions over time. Starting from a near fully developed point in time heavily favours the dairy sector.

Table 1 shows He Waka’s forecast figures that the ETS, and options one and two would have on economic farm surplus in 2025 and 2030.

The South Island hill country farm modelled is selling 73% of lambs store and all calves except replacements. Because option two is at a processor level these store animals are not directly levied so the impact on EFS is likely to be much greater for SI hill country farms who look to finish more of their own stock.

Will the same lamb traders who drop prices on weaning day or want wet weather liveweight adjustments fail to pass on a new cost to a store lamb seller? To believe so would be greatly underestimating them. The SI deer farm is a version of the SI hill country farm where the sheep and beef aspect is scaled back to 53% of the business

and deer makes up 47%. It is also heavily breeding focused.

The dairy farm is running about 800 cows. The SI hill farm is running nearly 3600 ewes, 1000 hoggets and 280 cows plus replacements. The NI hill country farm is running about 1700 ewes, 400 ewe hoggets and 157 cows as well as finishing all their own cattle and lambs. The NI intensive scenario includes some beef cattle trading and dairy heifers.

When it comes to reducing emissions dairy is still offering the usual solution; ‘we will technology our way out of this.’ Given adequate time and incentives that might be true. In the meantime, to satiate the public appetite for change there is one prominent way emissions will reduce and that is through land use change. Hill country farmers removing animals from the planet will reduce emissions and this is one of the few meaningful levers an extensive farm has to pull.

That means either option one or option two will equal more sheep and beef land being planted in trees. This will impact rural populations and services. If we are

okay with that as a country then we can make that decision with our eyes wide open. It is not pie in the sky and it is not precious or negative speculation – it is logically inevitable that hill country + option one or option two = less livestock + more trees. Under either He Waka option we will ‘share the pain’ with intensive farmers to the point that some extensive farmers make the call to change their land use to trees – whether under their stewardship or that of a prospective buyer. If the material we have received in our mail is anything to go by then roadshow meetings will be slick sales pitches. The opportunity for sector comparison and critical scrutiny at these meetings will be limited. Will disadvantaged hill country farmers be prepared to highlight inequities in front of DairyNZ reps and local dairy farmers who may well be friends, BOT colleagues or side-line company at local weekend sport?

True consultation should not be about persuasion or defending proposals. It should involve industry leaders listening more than they speak and it should result in some changes. Anything less than this is tokenism.

At best, industry leaders are massively overestimating the level of He Waka understanding among farmers. At worst, they know we have not fully understood what we are in for yet so it is a good time to tick a consultation box.

Behind the scenes leading farmers are telling farming leaders the options are not good enough but their pleas are being met with a defence of He Waka and a reluctance to listen. Do those leaders really know better than their levy payers? Or is the desire for political solutions side-lining strong advocacy for hill country futures?

Impact of schemes on EFS

change)

"From a sheep and beef perspective perhaps the most troubling aspect of the direction of travel is that our sector leaders are marching together holding hands.”

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Disappointingly unconvincing

He Waka roadshow feedback, Balcairn, North Canterbury. By

Annabelle Latz.

Winton Dalley, a sheep farmer from Hawarden, read the executive summary and attended the public meeting in February.

Dalley said the presentation of the two He Waka options was disappointingly unconvincing.

The presenters openly acknowledged significant inequities, (pre-2008 vegetation excluded), uncertainties (pricing), and anomalies (exotic versus native vegetation).

He said the presenters could not give any assurances that the cost to the landowner under their options would be any less than the ETS.

“In fact there appeared to be an indication that the cost over time could well be higher.”

The main selling tactic for their options was engendering fear of the ETS, done with plenty of rhetoric but little substance.

“I suggest that farmers should ‘fear’ the fact that this Government is skilled at divide and rule, and manipulation.”

He believes the moment farmers choose one option, no matter how detrimental that He Waka option is with its as-yet unknown detail and implementation for food and fibre production, the Government can claim it was designed and agreed to by the agricultural Industry.

Groundswell spokesperson Jamie McFadden, a former sheep and beef farmer from Cheviot, has thoroughly read the He Waka Eke Noa summary and understands what's involved.

Because of his environmental work with farmers he has a good understanding of the implications for farmers, including how the sequestration criteria don't work.

He said there were so many anomalies and inequities mainly because it is impossible (because of the poorer quality imagery pre-2008) to come up with

sequestration criteria that was administratively cost feasible and fair.

McFadden said the He Waka options were flawed and caused perverse outcomes. Like many other Government environmental policies, they have been developed in a policy silo.

“For example, virtually none of our hundreds of riparian planting projects will be eligible under the criteria.”

The criteria only considered climate change benefits, not others such as water quality (a key driver of riparian plantings) and biodiversity.

He said the additional vegetation credits under He Waka have been massively overstated and it is likely most hill country farmers will find very little of all their native vegetation and exotic plantings will qualify.

He has received a lot more questions from farmers about planting their farms in more trees (mainly pines because the incentives and cost to establish are so much more in favour of pines).

“Disastrous for our environment, disastrous for our rural communities, disastrous for our country.”

He said there was also the cost with millions of dollars being sucked out of farmers’ pockets which would reduce discretionary environmental spend, thus the environment would be worse off.

Scargill sheep and beef farmer Andy Fox is pleased he attended the presentation in person, and has concluded a processor-based levy is a good option.

He went to the meeting feeling annoyed that sheep and beef farmers have been sold down the road to the benefit of the dairy industry. He strongly believes sheep emit substantially less greenhouse gases today than they did in 1990.

But after attending the presentation, grasping an understanding of why exotic trees are excluded from this proposal, and learning about what the proposal means in monetary terms, he admits it's not as scary as he initially thought.

“Hearing the discussion in person, rather than trying to read up on this complex issue, meant I ended up with a much better informed opinion. While on the night I was undecided as to which was the better option, I have now decided a processorbased levy would be the best of the two proposals.”

He is concerned that although farmers can come to a reasonable collective consensus, it will be tweaked in some aspect by central Government to suit an agenda.

“And that in turn will mean a worse outcome for pastoral farming.”

He Waka Eke Noa survey feedback p81.

Jamie McFadden says He Waka options are flawed and caused perverse outcomes.

He Waka hurts extensive farms

BY: REBECCA GREAVES

Tararua sheep and beef farmer Simon Hales has grave concerns He Waka Eke Noa proposals will punitively tax extensive farms relative to more intensive ones. His primary concern is that it fails to recognise early adopters of good environmental practices.

Simon and his wife Trudy run Kereru Farm at Weber and are past winners of the Tararua Sheep and Beef Farmer of the Year and Ballance Farm Environment Award for the Horizons region, attracting plaudits for their commitment to the environment.

He was asked to be part of a farmer reference group on He Waka due to his role on the Beef + Lamb NZ farmer council and environment reference group. It utilised his day-to-day experience of east coast North Island hill country farming.

His preference would be for a farm-level option for pricing agricultural emissions, and says what is proposed misses the mark.

“Both option 1 and 2 as proposed, unnecessarily punishes extensive farming operations with the outcome pushing them to look at afforestation options. This would take out the extensive farms that, per hectare, have lower emissions.”

The Hales have already undertaken significant work on their farm to mitigate their emissions and he would call himself an early adopter in this respect.

“In all I’ve read, those early adopters are not being recognised. I will be paying

for emissions but I won’t have so many options to lower my emissions because we have already done that work. Some of the talk is that even getting a definition of an ‘early adopter’ has been difficult.”

The other issue Hales sees is that both options focus solely on emissions but not the actual warming created by farming systems. “Is it about emissions or is it about the warming you are creating on your farm? They’re not the same thing.”

on the He Waka proposal. He believes the letter is an example of good feedback on consultation. He hopes their concerns about the proposed options will be taken seriously and fears, if nothing changes, there will be serious consequences not just for sheep and beef, but for the wider agricultural sector.

One of the reasons given that the farmlevel option wasn’t good was that the cost of administering it would be high.

He believes there is already an opportunity within the IRD to set up a system to administer this.

“I don’t think we need a new system when there’s already something all farmers use when they file their end-of-year returns. I feel the costs are being overstated and if that is the reason for not considering this approach, it needs to be reconsidered.”

He would like to see everything captured in one place, in the farm plan, rather than siloed into different sections, like freshwater or carbon emissions.

“It seems crazy to set up a whole new system and not look at the whole farm system as one.”

Hales says it appears there is a big opportunity to tie all these things in and give farmers a better understanding of their farming system and where the opportunities are too.

Hales was one of a group of farmers who wrote an open letter giving feedback

Hales says he is not suggesting farmers do nothing because it is imperative we manage climate warming. To do this he is encouraging all farmers to know where they sit and what their emissions are.

“Once you have that information you can form a clear opinion about how it will work for your farm, and what you can do to mitigate your emissions.”

To read the open letter and learn more about the group’s feedback visit: www.abetteroption.org.nz

Simon Hales on Kereru farm, Weber.

“This would take out the extensive farms that, per hectare, have lower emissions.”

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COPPER ― OR THE LACK OF IT. NZ’S COPPER DEFICIENCY IS COSTING NZ AND YOU.

Copper is vital for life and essential for growth, reproduction and immune function. Naturally occurring copper is low in New Zealand agricultural systems and it’s because of this that it’s vitally important to supplement copper in livestock. This is particularly important with your young cattle to ensure they enter the herd in peak condition with strong bones, a strong immune system and ready for a productive life.

Talk to your vet about everything you need to know about NZ’s copper deficiency and the best way to manage it for long term gains.

Dr. Abi Chase

Boehringer Ingelheim

How do you transfer ownership of the family farm to the next generation? It’s actually quite easy. Lock yourself in a room with your lawyer and accountant for a few hours, sign a couple of legal documents, and you will have transferred some or all of the farm to your successor.

The problem is, we have just answered the wrong question.

The real question is not “how do you do it”, but more importantly, how do you make it work for the whole family once it is done. That question is a lot more complex.

The success or otherwise of your succession plan will depend on what has happened before and after ownership transition. I will discuss what should happen before succession in this column, options that may exist in a second column and will discuss what needs to happen after succession in a third and final column.

The first thing that needs to happen before you can implement a successful succession plan is to build a strong business. If you don’t have a strong business and you are thinking about impending succession, your options will be very limited.

What is the definition of a strong

A STRONG BUSINESS IS NEEDED

business? As a minimum it must have scale, profitability, and a balance sheet with an easily sustainable level of debt. It doesn’t have to be debt free, but that would certainly help.

Let’s look at the example in Table 1. A 6000-stock unit property with 10% debt and producing a Return on Equity (ROE) of 2.5% after “wages of management” (drawings) and tax.

In its current state this is a strong, well-performing business. But is it strong enough? Using a land value of $1000/su and $200/su for stock and some plant and machinery we have total assets of about $7.5 million and with 10% debt, ($750,000) this business has equity of $6.75m. Therefore with a 2.5% ROE, it is dropping out cash of $150,000 after principal repayments.

This is a strong business, and the owners have the option of using the “free cash” to invest outside the business and/or repay debt. With a strong balance sheet, there is also potential to take on more debt. But can it meet the needs of the family?

Let’s assume the successor has been home working on the farm for the last five years, and has three other siblings, one of which also has farming ambitions. Another sibling

is a nurse, married to a highly regarded brain surgeon and they are doing very well thank you very much and the fourth is single, overseas and living the dream.

Mum and Dad are in their mid-sixties, and over the next five years hope to move off the farm to their yet-to-be-purchased dream retirement home, overlooking the lake or beach.

What are the considerations? Mum and Dad will need to take some capital out over the next five years to buy their retirement home and will also need to have an income sufficient to comfortably meet their needs.

Does the successor who has been home for five years deserve to be treated differently to the others? If so, what about the other sibling that would desperately love to go farming but hasn’t had the opportunity to come home and work on the farm?

Who is going to replace Mum and Dad within the business when they retire? There may then be room for the other farming sibling to come home or is that just a recipe for disaster?

In summary, do you treat everyone the same or do you treat them based on their own individual needs.

Transferring ownership of the farm to your successors isrelatively - the easy part, Peter Flannery writes.

The key is to treat them fairly which may or may not be equally.

Who decides what is fair? The family does, and defining what is fair is the second thing that needs to be done before any transfer of ownership happens. Also, you need to start with the end in mind.

Don’t start transferring anything before you have defined fairness for your family, and you know how you are going to achieve it. Also, don’t make loose promises you can’t keep… “Come home, work for below market wages and one day it will all be yours”.

Back to our example. Let’s say Mum and Dad decide their successor has done enough to warrant an early inheritance of 25% of the business, and at the same time the successor borrows enough from the bank to buy another 25% which brings the successor up to 50% ownership.

The money borrowed allows Mum and Dad to buy their dream home and on that basis the amount of free cash, after principal repayments looks like in Table 2.

A 25% share of the business requires increased borrowing of $1.687m, bringing total debt to $2.437m, being 36% of total assets. Assuming an interest rate of 5% and a requirement to repay principal of about 2.5% of the total debt, there is only $23,000 of free cash dropping out the bottom after principal repayments. So while it is most probably a bankable deal, $23,000 is not a lot to come and go on to support Mum and Dad in their retirement and still provide something for the other siblings.

So what have we learnt?

It is easy enough to transfer ownership to a successor, but even a seemingly strong business will struggle to support Mum and Dad, allow a successor to get a foot in the door and still treat the remaining siblings equally.

In this family, what does fair look like? Did the successor return home with the expectation of being treated favorably, and what about the other farmer in the family? Is it fair they don’t get a crack at farming just because they were born two years after the successor?

What about the nurse and the surgeon? They are financially secure with a high income. Just because they don’t need financial help, does that mean they “get nothing from the farm”. Then there is the young gadabout, travelling the world, living the dream. What help do they deserve? If there were only two children in the family and one was financially secure and had the view that they would prefer to see the farm stay in the family, and genuinely expected nothing, then happy families. That can happen, but is a rarity.

One thing this does highlight though, is the successor and/or other family members need to bring something to the table. It shouldn’t just be up to Mum and Dad to create opportunities. Certainly, they can help, but the next generation needs to do their bit as well. Having said that, it is difficult for the next generation to create their own wealth, at home working on the farm. So it is not easy.

The third thing that needs to be done is, all of this needs to be discussed, sorted out and agreed to, probably five years ago before the successor came home, but most definitely before any ownership changes hands.

To go halfway down a succession path, only to realise too late that you can’t treat everyone fairly will most probably end in a fractured family. But on the bright side, you will save money on Christmas and birthday cards.

So even a seemingly strong business will have financial constraints. It is imperative everyone understands these constraints.

As I have said in previous columns, you should only treat your children equally if it is fair to do so. Only the family can work out what is fair in their situation, and that can only be achieved by talking, listening, and understanding. These conversations can be difficult, and it is the fear of these conversations that frighten some families, and it is this point that prevents some families from implementing a successful plan. It’s not easy but it can be done.

One thing I have learnt is that if you ignore the problem long enough, it will not go away. It is not easy, but if it is done well, family relationships can be strengthened. It is amazing what can be achieved once everyone sits around the table with full knowledge, understanding and empathy for each other.

• Peter Flannery is a director of Farm Plan Ltd, a company that specialises in facilitating families through succession planning.

Table 1: Example of a "strong business"

Table 2: What a plan might look like

"If you don’t have a strong business and you are thinking about impending succession, your options will be very limited."

First, identify the problem

In my work as a management consultant I endeavour to help farmers achieve better outcomes. Few farmers are formally trained in management, rather they tend to learn on the job and through experience. That can lead to a wide range of outcomes for any situation, some of which give results you can live with and some that can sink the ship. Many farmers are owner operators, so might work alone and feel they answer to few others as regards the outcomes. Saving farmers from themselves can be problematic.

To get better outcomes we first look at what achieves action and outcomes (see diagram).

A lot of our actions are due to habit. If the habit is a good one then we may achieve a good outcome, but that is not always the case. Some of our action is due to reaction, which doesn’t involve much thought, just instant reaction. Again, some of the outcomes may be good but some may not be so good.

As a contemporary example we can look at the anti-vax brigade. Some people are anti-vax as a reaction. They don’t want

to be told what to do, a reaction which they might fight to the death to defend. That doesn’t necessarily make sense to the other 95% of the population who have been vaccinated but it makes total sense to them.

The outcome, being proven around the world, is that the unvaccinated are far more likely to suffer dire consequences from infection but that doesn’t enter into their stance.

Some others are not vaccinated because their habit is to ignore much of what goes on around them, or they just don’t get things done.

Some of our actions are due to actively making decisions, which is a whole process of thought and action. There is a well-defined process to decision making with seven steps to it, Google it if you are interested.

I will not discuss the whole process here but know that good decision making using a formal process invariably leads to better outcomes. If you lock the process into your heads and systems it can also become a habit or reaction that leads to better outcomes.

Information gathering is a constant part of decisionmaking and involves listening and seeing more than speaking and doing, Kerry Dwyer writes.

So many times I have come across farmers who have had bad outcomes, some consistently, who have not made good decisions because they don’t really follow any process in decision-making.

Follow the process

The first step to formal decision-making is to identify the problem. That sounds easy but many times I have farmers tell me what they think their problem is. Further questioning and discussion finds that is not the problem. If you get this part wrong then you will have major issues.

For example, the anti-vaxers might state the problem to be the vaccine. Logic would state the problem is the disease itself and the vaccine is one of the alternatives that can be used to handle that problem. Spend enough time and thought to get the problem well-defined before moving forward.

The next step is to gather information relating to the defined problem. That step is the largest part of good decision-making. We will never get perfect information because we do not have knowledge of the future, only the past. Good managers in any business spend much of their time gathering information, either actively or inactively.

Information relating to the problem may not always be what you want to hear. The term “confirmation bias” has come into my vocabulary in the past two years, because anti-vaxers will search out what information confirms their stance and ignore the rest. How does that relate to any other actions, reactions, decisions or beliefs you have?

As a manager it is very easy to find only information that supports your beliefs, but does that lead to a good outcome? Good advice is not always comfortable to deal with but it is always good advice. I recently had a former client tell me he accepted that he was poor at staff management; I just nodded because I had been telling him that for 10 years.

Information gathering is a constant part of decisionmaking and involves listening and seeing more than speaking and doing. I like reading the newspaper every day because I get exposed to facts, ideas and opinions that may not seem relevant today, but might just be useful tomorrow. Google searching is far more focused and offers less range of information. The best decision-makers are sponges for information on a wide range of topics.

• Kerry Dwyer is a North Otago farm consultant and farmer.

For example, the anti-vaxers might state the problem to be the vaccine. Logic would state the problem is the disease itself and the vaccine is one of the alternatives that can be used to handle that problem.

REQUIREGOOD

may be required to ascertain nutrient losses and agronomical feasibility of any new system.

If the existing system will be continued, understanding compliance with the relevant regional plan and any liabilities will also be important, for greenhouse gas (GHG) cost, nitrogen loading, annual consent to farm, etc.

Knowing the status of any potential property has become imperative since September 2, 2020, when the NESFM came into law. It may be unpalatable to certain farmers and restrictive on certain farms but activities such as winter grazing on crops, dairy support, dairy platform and irrigation on dairy properties all have regulations imposed with grand-parented areas from September 2020.

If the vendor or agent can’t provide you with good information on 2019-20 then the bottom line is you may be restricted to farming in line with the vendor’s operation, or less intensively.

GHG liabilities and any participation in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) also create another area of consideration. What are the liabilities of the farm, how does your proposed system compare with the 2019-20 year?

arm sales are more complex than they have ever been with new regulations at regional and national levels. Even in areas with little impact from their regional council, the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater Management

In those areas where you have regional plans in place, any activity or land use change must comply with both and if there are two similar regulations, the most

Due diligence has always been carried out by buyers to varying degrees – from talking to stock agents about the quality of animals on the farm, right up to full scale financial and agronomic modelling.

The latter is pretty challenging with most farms due for sale within a month of offering. Existing and future legislation will have an impact on any farm and what were once accepted as inalienable rights (to subdivide, winter crop, etc) are no longer guaranteed, as new activities. It will also be likely that Farmax and Overseer modelling

New legislation on highly productive land is also earmarked for the first half of 2022 – this will create an obligation on regional councils to preserve the best land in their region as production land (land use capability class 1-3). So, any plan for subdivision to offset a buying price could be scuppered.

In addition, an exposure draft of the National Policy Statement for Biodiversity is also in the pipeline for later in 2022. After an outcry around the identification and treatment of significant natural areas (SNAs), there has been further consultation. However, phrases such as ‘maintain and increase biodiversity’ are likely to remain in the documentation.

Definitions of wetlands – 50 square metres which is only 5m by 10m may still be in place and on some farms with lots of springs this could create quite a fencing headache – not to mention the weed control that is likely to be required in the stock-excluded areas.

On an existing farm, you have to mitigate these restrictions and make

Getting the right advice with due diligence on buying a farm is essential, Michael Matthews writes.

your system work within the regulations. However, when buying a new property, you need to look closely at the regulatory limitations, and evaluate not just how great the farm might look but how you would be able to farm it within two or five years, let alone 10.

Due diligence done properly doesn’t come cheaply – usually starting at about $5000 for any basic work – farm visit, researching the legislative restrictions on the farm, modelling your planned future system and reporting. However, when farms are usually in the seven figure bracket, this is a small price to pay for not buying a farm which won’t be fit for purpose for your operation. Additionally, you should be able to learn from the

consultant as you go through the process, making you more able to begin evaluating future properties yourself, if the first one doesn’t work out.

There has never been a more important time when keeping up with the regulations, or engaging someone who can bring you up to speed. Real estate agents are caught up in the middle of this, they are engaged by the vendor to sell their property at the best possible price.

They are also left holding the can on making sure the potential buyers are sufficiently informed about the farm to be making an informed decision without scaring everyone off! Due diligence is your personal responsibility. Better to know beforehand that the ideal property might

not be so perfect than to have bought it and then not be able to farm it as you had wished.

It is not all doom and gloom, there is good buying out there to be had by informed and engaged buyers. Due diligence done well should be able to give you the surety you need to buy with confidence. Planning for future planting, fencing or retirement can all be incorporated into the initial budget to the bank. Knowing these expenses are in the pipeline and having a plan to pay for them will make for a much less stressful time as all of the new regulations kick in.

• Michael Matthews is a business manager with Perrin Ag, Rotorua.

“If the vendor or agent can’t provide you with good information on 2019-20 then the bottom line is you may be restricted to farming in line with the vendor’s operation, or less intensively.”

There is good buying for informed farm buyers aware of the new environmental rules and regulations.

SHEARING FEEL THE PINCH CONTRACTORS

Piopio-based shearing contractors

Mark and Brenda Barrowcliffe understand the difficulties clients are facing due to the high cost of shearing and the low price of wool. They are under similar pressure with the cost of operating their business. The cost of recruiting and retaining staff has skyrocketed during recent years.

This season’s main shear, shearing strongwooled sheep on their King Country run, produced a poor net wool return for their clients, regardless of the age of sheep shorn and the type of wool produced:

Harvesting second-shear wool cost the Barrowcliffes’ farmers between $1/ewe and $2/ewe after selling the wool and paying the shearing bill. There are sheep production benefits associated with the previous winter’s shearing which is part of this policy, but this season’s result was still hard to stomach.

Lambs cost farmers $2 to $3/lamb after shearing and wool selling, depending on fibre diameter. Twenty-eight micron lambs’ wool sold for about 60c/kg greasy more than 31 micron wool, but a lot of the King Country lambs’ wool is at the stronger end of the scale.

Like most service providers, the

Barrowcliffes’ margins have also been squeezed, with fuel and food expenses reaching record levels early in 2022. The ever-increasing cost of business compliance is also hitting hard. This, combined with the problem of sourcing good shed staff and the relentless, pressure-cooker nature of the job, has shearing contractors across the country feeling the heat.

“We don’t tend to complain much – I guess it’s in our psyche to just get on with the job and get the sheep shorn,” he says.

Barrowcliffe is president of the New Zealand Shearing Contractors Association.

“But it’s not easy out there at the moment.”

Biggest costs compliance-related

Barrowcliffe has 100 farmer clients, operates seven shearing teams during the summer, four during the winter (70 staff during the peak of the summer season), and shears about 800,000 sheep in a year. He calculates his most significant business costs are compliance-related and have increased more than tenfold during the past five to 10 years.

He says having to move from a position where staff were casual employees to one where they are considered fixed-term

or permanent has been a shock to the shearing industry. It is something that some contractors are still struggling with.

It’s important that all employees are treated fairly and receive all the workrelated benefits they are entitled to, However, the difficulty in calculating and the cost of paying entitlements like statutory holidays, sick leave and bereavement leave, particularly to a workforce that can be quite transient, has hit the industry hard. It’s one of the main reasons why the contract shearing rate has risen to where it is now.

While they consider the shearing industry to have a fairly moderate carbon footprint by virtue of being able to carry up to 12 workers in a single van to a decent day’s work, vehicle expenses are still a significant component of annual expenditure. Inflationary pressure on the cost of food has also impacted their bottom line as they feed up to 80% of their staff on a daily basis.

Barrowcliffe says developing and implementing an effective health and safety programme has been a big project and is one that requires a lot of time spent working with staff and farmers. He says the shearing industry has made good progress in this area, but the nature of the job and the work environment dictate that ACC levies will remain a major component of shearing prices.

Like all shearing contractors,

While returns for strong wool don’t cover shearing costs, contractors also face challenges.

By Richard Gavigan.

Barrowcliffe’s biggest challenge is sourcing and retaining good shearers and woolshed staff.

“The pool of local staff just isn’t there anymore and not being able to employ overseas workers has made it really tough nationally,” he says.

“There’s a potential bidding war coming for good shearers and woolhandlers and it’s a worry because, like with rugby players going overseas, we just can’t compete on that basis.”

Barrowcliffe believes contractors can’t just keep throwing more money in the form of higher pay rates at the staff shortage. It hasn’t necessarily increased shearer availability in the past and crossbred wool returns simply won’t allow it. He is adamant the NZ shearing industry must have more overseas workers travelling here to work during the peak season, and that the Kiwi workforce needs to be able to travel overseas to help out other countries during their busy times.

More importantly, NZ needs to train its way out of the staff shortage. In Barrowcliffe’s view, more people and more competition within the workforce will help

to improve individual work standards and stabilise shearing costs while the wool price improves.

“The entire wool industry needs to work together to drive wool returns up and make producing wool profitable again. We’ve got to increase demand for wool, and training new and existing staff is going to be key to producing a quality product that will be sought after in the marketplace.”

Barrowcliffe recalls how shed staff used to be immersed in training, with shearing and woolhandling courses run throughout the country on a regular basis. He would like to see government and industry organisations providing more support to training initiatives and promoting the industry as a career choice in schools.

“Despite the challenges we’re facing it’s still a great industry,” he says. “Sure it’s hard physical work, but you can make really good money while working with your mates in a beautiful rural environment as part of a highly productive team. It’s got to be better than sitting in an office all day and having to go to the gym after work just to stay alive.”

Course numbers high

INTEREST IN A NATIONAL wool diploma has turned into high enrolments.

Telford’s New Zealand Certificate in Wool Technology and Classing course has 59 students studying wool for the first semester of 2022 and another group starting in July.

Telford Wool Tutor Laurie Boniface says it’s years since a wool course has been so well supported.

He studied wool technology and classing at Massey University in 1967 in a class of 66 students.

“I think the record was about 70 students some years earlier, driven by the fact that prices were good and interest in wool was high as a result.”

Fine wool prices are strong at the moment but prices for crossbred wool are still not covering the cost of second shearing ewes or shearing lambs. Despite this, young people, and some that have been involved in the industry for a number of years, are switching on to study wool again.

Boniface thinks it is vital the NZ wool industry builds its skill and knowledge base . He considers shearing and woolhandling courses, and Telford’s courses, are key to achieving this. He is confident demand and prices for crossbred wool will improve. He is concerned the wool industry has let its skill base slip during the past 10 years, particularly in the crossbred sector.

“As the demand for wool improves we must be able to produce, prepare and supply quality fibre, and that requires having trained people at every point along the value chain.”

He says there’s nothing worse than promoting something but not being able to supply it.

“These students are going to be critical to the NZ wool industry’s success in the future.”

• Richard Gavigan is a tutor of the course.

“We don’t tend to complain much – I guess it’s in our psyche to just get on with the job and get the sheep shorn.”

Turn headwinds into tailwinds

BY: PETER ANDREW

Farming is a little like cycling. Headwinds and climbing hills can certainly test one’s tolerance and build character. There seems to be a lot of strong wind coming out of Wellington right now that seems to be heading straight for farmers.

Throw in Ukraine and Covid-19 and I don’t think I have ever seen a time when there have been so many different potential influences on our farming environment. It’s a stormy world of change out there.

Sadly, amongst the turmoil, one of the few certainties we can rely on are increased costs. Not just small increases but a wave of increases powered by inflation running at a 30-year high.

It is going to get tough out there, higher costs are a reality. It is timely to reset the sail into this stormy new world. It is timely to learn from what has worked in the past and learn from the best.

Pooled experience of survivors is critical in these times with discussion groups being a trusted environment to exchange ideas.

Pushing hard to increase gross income is still critical, I loved the saying “Cash is not the most important thing, but it comes a close second to oxygen”.

Top farmers are not only great at pushing gross income, but they are also great at keeping costs under control.

Over the past five years on our AgFirst accounts analysis database our top 10 farmers have spent only 49 % of their gross income on expenditure.

That is for every dollar that comes in from sales 51 cents goes straight to profit and 49 cents to expenditure. Where they spend it is critical, they never underspend in key areas such as animal health, fertiliser, fencing etc. They are frugal and will work hard to save a few cents when making purchases.

The times are telling us we have to move away from petrol, diesel and mains electricity and head down the low-cost sustainable route.

We need to look at sustainable solutions at every opportunity such as solar and electric battery solutions. Just look at the

innovation that has been achieved with electric bikes, imagine if it had been applied to farm ATVs.

I have never been more convinced of the future of clover-based pastures and the farms they drive.

Nitrogen in a bag, truck or plane has made us lazy.

We have known for decades, almost centuries, that the cheapest way to create nitrogen is through clover fixation. Putting on adequate levels of nutrients are crucial to drive clover content.

However, we have become besotted with high covers (grazing residuals), Kg drymatter/ha. This being driven by optimising the grazing animal intake and animal performance. High covers mean low clover content in the sward.

In the Gisborne and Wairoa districts we are blessed with lots of breeding cows and ewes.

Cows tidy up the rank pasture and weeds, and sheep graze a little lower so the clover

Over the past five years on our AgFirst accounts analysis database our top 10 farmers have spent only 49% of their gross income on expenditure.

can have a decent peek of the sun. This normal grazing practice on our sheep and beef farms allows the clover to flourish in our sward.

Many have become lazy in our thoughts around clover and nitrogen fixing. The high price of nitrogen is a timely reminder to get the balance right.

Sheep and cattle are the perfect team to maximise the clover we have to take us into the future.

What is your or your farm’s weak point? Now is a good time to either learn the necessary skills and improve or cull it.

Now is a good time to do a breakdown on costs for running the farm. What is the real cost/benefit of putting in a feed crop? What is the real cost/benefit of putting on nitrogen?

We must chase innovation such as precision fertiliser as it will save costs.

The cream in farming comes to the surface during these tough times. Our sheep and beef industry is well positioned to learn from this wave of costs and build an even stronger model for our future farmers.

Getting the measure of poor fibres

WE CAN DO BETTER” IS THE MESSAGE PROFESSOR

Jon Hickford of Lincoln University wants sheep farmers to get about their wool.

Two recently completed BAgrSc honours students at Lincoln, Emma Owen and Laura McQuillan-Reese, can attest to that too.

The students measured the wool from hundreds of rising two-tooth ewes on farms across Canterbury and Otago, and their findings were surprising. Owen studied Corriedales and McQuillan Romneys. They found a lot of poor quality in the commercial flocks.

Often individual fleeces were highly medullated, excessively strong (very high fibre diameter), highly variable in fibre diameter, or lacking in fibre curvature. If those fleeces end up in bales with good wool, the value of the bale can be reduced.

Hickford understands medium and strong wool returns are poor.

“It certainly explains the shift to shedding sheep breeds, but as I teach the students, if you are going to do wool, then do it well.”

Poor wool would ultimately lead to poor quality products, and that started on farms.

Farmers should be proud of what they produce, try to improve it to where wool buyers offer a good price.

“Be a price-maker, not a price-taker...”

While focused on commercial farms the student projects also tested the sheep of selected stud breeders.

Hickford says some breeders are getting serious about improving wool quality and understand many of the key wool traits are highly heritable.

Buying superior maternal wool rams would not set farmers backwards in terms of key maternal lamb production traits like fertility, lamb survival and growth to weaning.

The research is ongoing, with Hickford having an interest in what improves wool handle, or its tactile properties, and what underpins the traits genetically.

“We are slowly but surely unpicking the 100-plus genes that underpin the structure of wool fibres.”

• Peter Andrew is an AgFirst farm consultant based in Gisborne.

Above: Fine wool under an electron microscope as researchers study the relationship between measure, feel and what can be seen. There is a strong link between uniformity of fibres and the handle of wool.

DONE AND DUSTED

Lying roughly half-way between Napier and Taihape, Otupae Station has been home to Garry and Mary Mead for 40 years. Sandra Taylor speaks to Garry during his final weeks at the helm of this iconic sheep and beef farm.

Photos by Brad Hanson.

Forty years after Garry Mead (68) stepped into the manager’s role on Otupae Station, his enthusiasm for the 8632ha farm and its future potential has not waned in the slightest.

Rather than retiring, Garry would love to be starting again, although this time he would be starting from a place that better fits his values and farming style, unlike when he first took up the reins in 1982.

In those days of Muldoon-era subsidies, it was a numbers game and the most important figure was the number of stock on hand, July 1. With a focus on wool production, fertility and carcase attributes were of little or no consequence. For Garry who insists on feeding stock as well as possible all year round, it wasn’t a way of farming he particularly enjoyed.

There was also the uncertainty of getting lambs processed due to ongoing industrial action and often lambs were either unable to leave the farm or were returned.

“It was a period I didn’t enjoy, it wasn’t my way of farming.”

Incentives allowed the development of some of Otupae’s hill country and strong wool returns were the only upsides of that era.

“I remember selling lambs at the works and getting $7 for the pelt and $3 for the carcase.”

Stock numbers have dropped back under Garry’s watch, but stock performance has leapt ahead. Ewes were lambing 98% when he first started working on Otupae, last year they lambed 144%.

Lambs used to be finished to 11kg-12kg, now they are averaging 1819kg carcaseweight. This year with uncertainty around supply chain disruptions due to Covid-19, they have drafted slightly lighter just to fill any processor space available.

Garry and Mary Mead have made Otupae their home for nearly 40 years.

While they finish the majority of their lamb crop, they will sell a proportion store depending on climate and markets. All lambs must be gone by April 1.

Garry says the difference in livestock performance is a result of a combination of genetics and feeding. Both have been a focus throughout his career, although farm supervisor James Williams has been the main driver behind changes in genetics.

“We used to just judge a sheep on how it looked, now the data and genetics we have available are marvellous.”

It’s in the genes

To get the genetics they need to perform in their environment and produce the meaty carcase they are looking for, Garry and his team breed their own Romney Texel-type rams, buying two very high genetic merit rams (based on SIL figures) every year as their seed stock. Recently these have been sourced from Nithdale and Wairere.

Three sires (two new and one retained from the previous year) are put to their “stud” flock of 500 ewes. They typically have about 300 ram lambs which are gradually culled to 150 ram hoggets. These

are DNA tested and from there, 50 are selected to be used across the commercial flock of 20,000 ewes.

Stud ewe hoggets are run with the commercial ewe hoggets just to test their constitution and their ability to foot-it in Otupae’s challenging climate.

“We want her to survive through the winter and produce and feed a lamb.”

Garry describes Otupae’s 20,500 ewes as the engine room of the business, although he credits the relatively high cattle ratio to driving this engine.

“The cows are the most important driver of the business, the sheep only perform well because of the cows.”

The Station winters 2000 mixed-age Angus and Angus cross cows, 440 R2 in-calf

heifers, 143 dry R2 heifers and 80 bulls. All weaners are carried through winter on forage crops.

All adult sheep and cattle are wintered on grass and while Garry is staunch about maintaining the ewes at an optimum body condition all year round, he uses the elasticity of his cows over winter and values their ability to harvest the spring flush to regain body condition and groom pastures for ewes and lambs.

“The cows have a job to do, but the sheep are fed well all the time.”

Grass comes away at the end of October and Garry says the spring flush on Otupae can be explosive which results in a surplus over summer, hence the value of the cows in controlling that standing hay.

The cows will go through every paddock over winter so that come spring, the paddocks are growing high-quality grass for lambing and lactating ewes.

The bulls don’t go out until January 18 so they are not calving until November. Because they retain all the weaners, weaning weights are of no consequence, rather the focus is on feeding the cow and her weaned progeny as well as possible.

One of the strengths of Otupae is the excellent infrastructure including five sets of sheep yards.

“I remember selling lambs at the works and getting $7 for the pelt and $3 for the carcase.”

Farm facts

• Total of 8632ha with 5200ha grass, 500ha trees, rest tussock or Ruahine Range

• Easy contour and access, good infrastructure

• Breed own rams for 20,000 commercial flock

• Ewes lambed 98% in 1982, now 144%

• 2000 cows, 440 R2 in-calf heifers, 143 dry R2 heifers and 80 bulls.

The weaners and the hoggets are wintered on 120ha of crop; the first year of the rotation is swedes, the second year it’s kale and the third year it’s new grass. Surplus cattle are sold in spring and autumn.

Strengths and challenges

One of Otupae’s strengths is its easy contour and access. The main hub of the station is in the middle of the farm with main road access through it.

Thanks to its multi-generational owners, the Williams family, infrastructure is excellent on Otupae, with permanent fencers continually maintaining and renewing fences. All houses, buildings and yards, which include five sets of sheep yards and three sets of cattle yards, are well maintained.

The station’s greatest challenge is winter.

It is high and cold – the lambing country is 900 metres above sea level – and Garry says some of their biggest snow storms have been in April and October.

This climate highlights the importance of having stock in good condition year round because, as Garry points out, it is just too expensive to try and put condition back on ewes once they have lost it.

Over recent years they have planted two to three kilometres of shelter belts every year and Garry says although still quite small, these trees are already offering some protection on a cold, windy day.

A team effort

Garry leads a team of two general hands and their partners, a cook, 2IC and four single shepherds.

The farm team is really important to Garry and is the one aspect of his tenure of

Above: A main road runs through the hub of Otupae allowing good access. The station sits roughly halfway between Napier and Taihape. Opposite page, far left: Sheep are the engine room of the business. Left: All weaners are retained and surplus sold in spring and autumn.

which he is most proud.

“I might not teach them everything they need to know about farming, but I teach them to be good people and to have good standards.

“I really like staff, you couldn’t do this job if you didn’t like staff.”

He hires shepherds based on their personality, not on their experience and tells them at the outset of the 8 rules he expects them to abide by.

After 15 months, he encourages young staff to move on and further their experience. Often they will come back to take on head shepherd roles once they have more experience.

Garry believes if shepherds leave having had a good experience, there will be less need to advertise for staff. General hands tend to stay in the job a long time.

Garry works alongside James Williams who acts as the farm supervisor and is a regular visitor to Otupae. James worked with Garry on the farm long before Garry took on the manager’s role, when they were both employed as shepherds in the late 1970s early 1980s.

James has been in the supervisor’s role for 22 years and Garry appreciates their ability to make on the spot decisions rather than having to consult with a board or outside entity.

When James first stepped into the job his focus was on improving the soil fertility on Otupae with applications of capital fertiliser. This made a huge difference to productivity, along with ever-improving pasture species, genetics and of course managementalthough Garry is reluctant to admit the latter.

This is reflected in the farm’s financial performance and over the past five years, the gross surplus per sheep stock unit was $103.75, for cattle it was $71.70 while gross farm income/ha was $1043.91. Farm working expenses/ha over the past five years averaged $633.83. The economic farm surplus/ha averaged $410.08 for the same time period.

Technology

Garry has embraced technology as it has become available and is excited about the use of tools such as drones and their role in making management easier in the future.

The team, left to right: Toby Proude, Isaac Roth, David Gellen, Garry Mead, Eric Bloomfield, Sean McNamara. Below: Garry with station cook Sue Davis.

“When I first started, we used horses then we went to quads and now all the shepherds drive around in side-by-sides.

“We use conveyor belts, weighing machines, DNA testing and a number of other modern farming technologies that help with the operation of Otupae.”

Garry’s wife Mary helps with the accounts, computer work and health and safety, but that would be a minor part of her job description.

She is at the heart of the operation, looking after everyone on the farm, particularly Garry.

Garry jokes that he is the high maintenance one in the relationship and he credits Mary for being his rock.

She has spent her entire married life on Otupae and the couple have raised four boys on the farm.

Now it’s time to leave, Garry says Mary is struggling with the thought of leaving her home just as much as he is.

New manager their son

Garry says he decided to retire during a visit to town. He had a coffee, rang Mary to tell her that he thought it was time to move on,

Left: Garry is proud of the farm teams he has led over the years and really enjoys his staff. Below: Garry’s eight rules for new shepherds.

Future opportunities on Otupae include a reticulated stock water system.

then went to the owners and handed in his notice.

The owner said he had someone in mind as a replacement but no names were mentioned.

Garry and Mary went on holiday and returned home to find out the person the owners had in mind was their son James.

While delighted, they also insisted that James and wife remove any emotion or sentiment from the decision. Fortunately, they still accepted the job.

Garry and Mary had already bought a house and some land near Hastings so will be moving there to start a new phase of their life.

They will be close to grandchildren and Garry would love to find a role that would allow him to remain involved in farming in some capacity.

He will also take his dogs with him so he can still compete at dog trials.

With James taking over the reins, Garry jokes that he is hoping to be invited back occasionally.

Too much information

While Garry has embraced technology he feels there is sometimes too much information and not enough emphasis on

old-fashioned stockmanship.

“There is so much information but who is looking at it?”

He lives by his father’s mantra of ‘you can’t tell a paddock by its gateway’.

While he has all the tools that tell him how much drymatter he is growing on a daily basis, he will make the decision to move a mob of sheep by what he sees in the paddock.

Garry’s stockmanship and gut instinct has stood him in good stead over the years and he particularly recalls the crippling drought of 2012/2013.

It was the most pressure he had been under during his time on Otupae and while they cut stock units back by 10,000, he just knew they didn’t need to cut back any further despite the lack of feed.

His knowledge of the farm and its stock meant he was able to protect the performance of their capital stock and they recovered quickly.

He credits James Williams for being very proactive about selling stock when the climate is not favourable.

“That’s why we have such good capital stock, because he’s not afraid to sell stock when we need to.”

“It’s such an important policy.”

Looking back, Garry says there is not much he would have done differently. They farmed to the needs of the market, climate and policies of the day and embraced technologies as they became available.

He believes getting off-farm is very important and they expect all the staff on Otupae to take all of their holidays.

“I think there is a greater awareness of the importance of getting off the property.”

A heart in the high country

As Garry and Mary pass the baton to James and Catherine, they are excited about what the future holds for Otupae.

Garry is particularly enthusiastic about the ongoing environmental protection work with the fencing of waterways and the future installation of a reticulated stock water system.

While Country-Wide couldn’t visit Otupae in person, Garry’s love for the station in such a beautiful part of the country was palpable.

He is immensely proud of the property and his staff. While he and Mary are physically leaving, a large part of their hearts will undoubtedly remain in that high country.

Garry overlooking the main yards area of the station from one of his favourite locations. While leaving Otupae, Garry is as enthusiastic about the farm and its future opportunities as when he first stepped into the manager’s role 40 years ago.

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BRIDGING THE GAP

When seeking advice and information, most farmers are savvy enough to sort the hearsay from fact and the ridiculous from genuine good oil, writes Ken Geenty.

Livestock farming relies very much on science through necessity whether it be the nutritional revelations of feeds or the genetic intricacies which drive animal production. However, there’s often a yawning gap between the highly intellectual and scholarly scientist and the practical hands-on farmer. And this is not denigrating either as both are essential to making innovations and improvements happen onfarm. Fortunately, lots of intermediaries help bridge the gap and ensure the essential underpinning science and technology is not only being produced but properly accessed and applied. Not least among these is a vast farming media including very worthy farming magazines like Country-Wide. Then there’s a host of rural professionals including farm consultants, veterinarians, agricultural banking and accounting experts, and various

SCIENCE

FARMING

farm servicing company reps. Added are snippets of wisdom from inevitable yarns with colleagues and friends across the fence, over a beer or at footy on a Saturday.

For those technologically minded there is unlimited farming-related information on the internet. Whether it be key websites, customised apps, YouTube or Google, search for it and you’ll generally be assured of finding it.

The question often arises about where farmers get their best and most reliable information. A difficult one to answer, the consensus being across the board from the above sources.

The good oil

However, this doesn’t insulate farmers from dodgy or misleading material based on anecdotal beliefs or downright misinformation. Most farmers are savvy enough to sort the hearsay from fact and the ridiculous from genuine good oil.

Results I once saw from a farming survey concluded farmers got a big proportion of their information from vets attending to animal health issues on their farm. As well as a sound background in animal production vets spend a lot of time discussing all sorts of farming issues with their clients. So with vets there’s often the opportunity to get a double bang for your buck!

And speaking of vets, some of the best farm advisers this author has experienced have come from that profession. Two outstanding examples being Trevor Cook in the Manawatu and Chris Mulvaney, formerly from the South Island but now practicing in the Waikato. Undoubtedly there are many others as a lot of vet clubs have their own or associated specialist farm advisers.

One well-reputed adviser friend with a vet background once told me that sound

nutrition was the best recipe for good animal health. A somewhat honest and constructive point of view but with a possible conflict of interest!

Getting back to the scientist working on complex research at the bench, most are passionate about what they do, and are driven by the prospect of their research having useful uptake on the farm. However, the academics in many cases don’t have a great appreciation of the day-to-day running and complexities of farming.

Similarly farmers being hungry, and sometimes impatient for new technology probably often don’t fully appreciate the funding and infrastructure dilemmas faced by the researchers. Though greatly welcoming the fruits of science and technology farmers often get a little disillusioned.

The potential to quell such misunderstandings are the likes of producer organisations such as Beef+Lamb NZ. Generally their field staff have contact with a good cross-section of rural professionals and hence can offer a useful perspective.

There are a range of flavours with rural professionals available to farmers. The serious basic researcher is unlikely to be of practical help to farmers as they are fundamentally different, often speaking with hard-to-follow scientific and technical jargon. But the more applied researcher doing onfarm related work is going to relate more directly.

Applied science

The horses for courses concept applied to this author by graduating from basic science with post-graduate and early career research to much more applied work in sheep milk production, lamb growth and applied genetics. Many researchers follow a similar path by

gravitating to the more applied end, especially if farming-oriented.

Likewise most farm advisers have some form of direct involvement on the land and a practical feel for farming, adding to their knowledge and credibility. Immediately coming to mind are good friends and farm advisers Lochie McGillivray and Phil Tither with Agfirst in Hawke’s Bay and independent Ron Halford in Horowhenua. Recent contact with these professionals has given me a good insight into the great mix of modern ideas combined with sound day-to-day farming nous which seems common among farm advisers.

The modus operandi of rural professionals varies between person-toperson interaction with farmers to group activities such as discussion groups and field days. This allows you to choose the form most effective for you to access new ideas to hone your farming practices. Access to new or revised material may also be obtained through the large network of rural media. In this author’s opinion a mix of available options is good but whatever is going to spin your wheels are the ones to go with.

The generally positive benefits of outside advice towards improvement of your strategic and operational farm plans are well known. An idea of probable cost:benefit is a good indicator of the viability of different options and worth discussing with your trusted financial adviser. A ratio of at least 1:2, or a $2000 return for every $1000 spent, is regarded as a very good investment in productivity increase.

Accurate cost:benefit is difficult to assess as it relies on several assumptions, particularly around productivity increases. But a ballpark estimate can be informative for decision making and well worth the effort.

“A ratio of at least 1:2, or a $2000 return for every $1000 spent, is regarded as a very good investment in productivity increase.”

Letting go of the reins can be hard for many farmers, but Mairi Whittle says her dad was happy to step back and take orders. By

Russell Priest. Photos by Brad Hanson.

IN THE DEEP END OF SUCCESSION

Taihape farmer Mairi Whittle has no regrets her dad, Jim threw her in at the deep end when she returned to the family farm, Makatote, 24km northeast of Taihape four years ago.

The 32-year-old Lincoln graduate and exrural banker has nothing but praise for her father, especially the way he managed the transition and the excellent state of the farm when she took over.

“Dad was happy to take orders but didn’t want the responsibility of running the farm any more,” Mairi says.

“You see so many instances of farmers who just can’t let the reins go - with the result that their successors lose their enthusiasm.”

Makatote has been in the Whittle family for four generations. Jim took over from his father in 1981 and met his Scottish wife Maggie when she came to work on the farm. Mairi grew up on Makatote with her two brothers. It is 607ha (570ha effective), with 37ha of ineffective country comprised of 10ha QEII Trust and the balance steep gullies associated with the Moawhango River.

One-third is easy contour, one-third medium-steep and the rest steep. Rising from 540 metres above sea level at the house to 820m at its highest point, the farm is particularly exposed to weather from the south-west which often brings snow. Unfortunately this higher country is some of the most productive on the farm.

With a B Ag Com, Mairi became a rural banker with the National Bank, working in the Nelson-Blenheim area then on to Taranaki.

Her OE took her to Scotland where she worked on a hunting estate and as a rousie before returning to New Zealand two years later via a remote Australian cattle station.

Prior to returning home, Mairi gained more practical farming experience working for local farmer Rob Stratton for nine months. Rob continues to offer Mairi support in her management with regular visits, for which she is grateful.

Mairi and partner Hayden Tapp have two children Tad (17 months) and Lachie (two months). Hayden (30) grew up on a farm at Mataroa, north-west of Taihape.

Mairi says juggling motherhood and running the farm has been challenging at times.

‘I thought I’d be able to be superwoman after having Tad and still run the farm but I soon realised how demanding children can be,” says Mairi.

Hayden gave up his shearing job to help on Makatote, as well as spending a couple of days a week on his 250ha hill country block at Mataroa, which he leases from his parents.

“We try to maintain a simple farming system to minimise labour requirements but could really do with an extra labour unit,” Mairi says.

Jim helps out on Makatote and Hayden’s parents help him out on his block.

The lease block is farmed extensively, running 1200 ewes and 90 breeding cows over steep country. Cull ewe lambs from Makatote form the basis of the ewe flock with all ewes going to terminal sires and progeny killed.

When Mairi returned to Makatote in 2018, she leased the farm from the Whittle Family Trust and bought 4000 of its ewes and 1800 hoggets. Buoyant livestock prices recently have enabled her to pay off a considerable amount of debt.

Jim had always run sheep and traded cattle but Mairi was keen to farm cows and use them as a management tool for maintaining pasture quality.

“There was a lot of thatch on the farm when I took over and the cows have done a marvellous job cleaning it up.”

Building the herd

Mairi has been prepared to sacrifice some production from her cow herd in aid of pasture management, and is full of admiration for the job they have done. Buying her first 60 cows while she was working for Rob Stratton, she now has a herd of 150.

She’s found it difficult to buy good capital stock but now that her first group of homebred R2 in-calf heifers are entering the herd she will cull some of the foundation animals.

“I’ll be more than happy to cull some of the MA cows ‘cos there are some real witches out there.”

For the first two years all weaners were sold and she wasn’t too concerned about the price achieved because the cows were doing a good job on pasture control. An abundance of Kestrel kale and balage the following year enabled the weaner steers to be wintered and sold on the spring market for $1290 (364kg).

Whether the steer calves are sold as weaners or wintered and sold as yearlings in the spring will depend on how much feed is available at the end of March. This will be determined by a feed budget.

“We also need to do our sums and determine how much it costs to winter them,” says Mairi.

“Being summer dry it’s a wise strategy to sell all trading stock before the summer sets in.”

All weaner heifers were wintered last year with the best 51 kept as replacements and put to a low birthweight EBV bull (Waiterenuibred) on December 1 (for 21 days) at an average weight of 340kg.

They try to grow their heifers as fast as possible by putting them on saved grass after weaning. Then they enter a winter rotation with the ewe lambs before going on to swedes. The two-tooth ewes move onto kale.

Of the 33 bought-in heifers that calved last

Left-to-right: Lachie, Mairi, Tad and Hayden.

Aerial views of Makatote’s Angus cattle.

year, only two were dry and of this year’s 51 homebred heifers only nine were culled.

Heifers are calved with in-lamb hoggets on easier country on the eastern side of the farm and supplemented with balage. As they calve they are moved into adjacent hogget-lambing paddocks containing more feed.

Bull-out date for the MA cows is December 20 using a ratio of one bull to 45 cows. The KayJay Angus bulls are out for 54 days during which time Hayden keeps a close eye on them for any injuries.

Cows are made to work hard over the winter following the ewes in their winter rotation. Single-wire electric fences split up the paddocks to ensure the cows do a thorough job removing roughage. Supplemented with balage, the cows also clean up the kale stalks after the ewes have been taken off the winter crops.

At the end of September the cows are set

stocked for calving on the steeper country among lambed ewes at 0.2-1/ha depending upon the feed availability. Once calved, they are moved between paddocks to even out pasture covers. The first calves arrive about October 1.

Green-feed crops are a vital source of feed for stock over the winter and their budgeted yield determines how long animals remain off pasture. A total of 20ha divided into two areas is sown a year. The cropping rotation involves spraying off 10ha of pasture a

On average over the past three years the farm working expenses have been 46% of gross farm income. They aim to keep them below 50%. The biggest costs are fertiliser at $13/su and animal health, $6/ha.

Hayden and Mairi with winter crops in the background.

Lamb sales

Farm facts

• Makatote farm 24km northeast of Taihape.

• 607ha (570ha effective) summer dry.

• Owner Whittle Family Trust.

• Smooth farm succession.

• Primarily sheep and beef breeding.

• High sheep performance (157% lambing in 2021).

• Breeding cows vital pasture groomers.

• 7320-7600su at 12.8-13.3su/ha.

year and direct drilling with Kestrel kale and swedes. The following year this area is roller-drilled with just Kestrel kale to avoid club root, then returned to pasture in the autumn.

MA ewes are fed on one of the paddocks and two-tooth ewes and weaner cattle the other. Both crops are split into blocks (4-5 days grazing) using three-wire electric fences. Cows are brought in to clean up the blocks after the ewes and weaner cattle have left.

Cows are there to do a job

Once mobbed up for mating the cows are rotated with the weaned ewes to continue their role of controlling pasture growth. Calves are weaned towards the end of March at about 220kg or on a date that coincides with one of the weaner fairs. Mairi admits the average calf weaning weight is not great,

but is the trade-off they’re willing to make when cows are needed for pasture grooming. Calves are drenched at weaning, then sixto-eight weeks later and finally when they come off crop in the spring.

Mairi says their sheep-to-cattle ratio is still too high with ewes having to be set stocked for lambing at 8.5-9.5/ha, due to the shortage of lambing country. She thinks they need more cows to control later spring growth, particularly now they are lambing hoggets. Breeding ewe numbers may be reduced to accommodate.

They place a lot of emphasis on setting the farm up for lamb weaning, particularly on the easier country on the eastern side of the farm where the lambs seem to do best.

“You can’t afford to take your foot off the throttle because pastures can get away very quickly.”

Producing about 7000 lambs in a summerdry environment makes Makatote primarily a store stock producing farm. Mairi admits that in such an unpredictable environment it’s prudent to sell most of their lambs on the store market and concentrate over the summer on growing their ewe hogget replacements and maintaining ewe condition in readiness for mating.

“We’ve got to be flexible and are happy not to mate our hoggets if they’re not up to weight, and wean our calves early if there is a shortage of feed.”

Carrying 3800 ewes, 1250 hoggets (900 in lamb), 150 cows and 140 R1 heifers and steers, 607ha (570ha effective) Makatote is stocked at about 13su/ha.

“Our ewes are big enough now and we don’t want them to get any bigger so we like to buy rams that have a mature weight breeding value below average,” Hayden says.

The ram-out date for the five-year ewes is March 25 (to Paki-iti Suftex rams), the main mob of ewes is April 5 (to Romney rams), and the ewe hoggets is May 5 (to Suftex rams). The mating period for the ewes is two cycles and the hoggets is 21 days.

Whenever possible the golden rule of flushing ewes 10 days before and 10 days after mating starts is adhered to.

The earlier lambing date for the five-year ewes enables them to be weaned earlier and capture early season premiums on both ewes and lambs.. It also reduces feed demand and helps cash flow.

Short rotation lengths

The high-performing Romney ewe flock is the engine room of the business and had been based on Turanganui bloodlines. In recent years Paki-iti rams have been used.

Buying from Paki-iti’s top price bracket ($1350-$1400), Romney rams are selected on soundness and type before the traits of early growth, survival, number of lambs born and mature weight are explored.

Ewes are mated in three groups (twotooths, MA and five-year ewes) while being rotationally grazed. After mating, the three groups are amalgamated (only if the twotooths are in good condition) and enter a 20-day winter rotation with no more than two days in each paddock.

“It’s a bit frustrating rotationally grazing because we’ve only got 30 paddocks, so rotation lengths are too short. Sub-divisional fencing is a high priority,” Mairi says.

All ewes go on to swedes and Kestrel kale crops immediately after scanning on July 1 for a month which allows pasture covers on lambing paddocks to increase in readiness

Left: Makatote from the air.

Above: Mairi and Lachie.

“I thought I’d be able to be superwoman after having Tad and still run the farm but soon realised how demanding children can be.”

for set stocking for lambing.

The average scanning percentage is 181 (only scan for dries, singles and twins) with last year’s lambing percentage hitting 157. Mairi says even after a dry summer their ewes still scan 178%.

“We vaccinated our two-tooths for campo and toxo last year for the first time and we appear to have got a significant response in lambing percentage,” Hayden says.

Scanning data is used as an indicator of potential lambing percentage so single and twin-bearing ewes can be set-stocked accordingly and twin ewe lambs can be identified as potential flock replacements. Only twin ewe lambs are eligible as flock replacements.

Hoggets must be above 42kg to go to the ram. Last year 1250 were eligible with 900 getting in lamb and producing 940 lambs. In-lamb hoggets get preferential treatment through to two-tooth mating and are rotationally wintered over the whole farm. Set stocked at 11/ha they are lambed on the easier country on the eastern side of the farm as are the two-tooth ewes. Dry hoggets are wintered on an area unsuitable for lambing and are mated as two-tooths.

After coming off crops on August 1 ewes are given a Bionic capsule and a 5-in-1 jab before being set stocked for lambing. Singlebearing ewes are lambed on steeper country at 9/ha.

No lambing beat

After set stocking and before lambing starts ewe numbers are manipulated between paddocks to even up pasture covers. Ewes are not subjected to a lambing beat.

The five-year ewes generally produce 160% of lambs and are weaned on December 1 and killed along with a third of

their lambs. Lambs normally average over 17kg.

Mairi’s goal is to sell a third of all killable lambs at weaning either as stores or through the works which was achieved last year. This year only 15% of killable lambs were sold at 16.5kg ($150).

“We aggressively sell store lambs early because of the declining price. This year our lambs have averaged $124 (as at February 8),” Mairi says.

Most male and terminal female lambs are sold woolly with only the replacement ewe lambs (after weaning) and late store lambs being shorn.

MA ewes are shorn as soon as possible after weaning and again in late May.

The main mob of ewes is weaned a week before Christmas after which they go into summer rotation with the cows and

calves. Whenever ewes go past the yards, particularly if they are going on to poorer country, the lighter ones are drafted off and preferentially fed.

Flystrike is ever present so all ewes and lambs are dipped with Cyrazin between lambing and weaning. The ewes are treated again with a lice dip (Cyrazin-ko) in early February.

Lambs get drenched when dipped with Cyrazin then again at weaning and thereafter monthly until the shortest day when they receive an exit drench (Zolvix). A Barbers Pole drench is also administered in mid-February.

Makatote’s soils are of sedimentary origin based on predominantly sandstone and mudstone with a mantle of volcanic ash on the easier country. Fertility levels are excellent with Olsen Ps 23-56, pH 5.9-6.4, sulphate sulphurs 8-17.

“Dad put on super and lime regularly so it’s not surprising the farm has excellent fertility levels,” Mairi says.

Fertiliser applied since Mairi has taken over includes 180kg/ha DAP in the autumn to generate winter pasture covers and 80kg/ ha of N-Protect in the late winter on the easier country to improve lambing covers.

Mairi says future capital expenditure will concentrate on subdivision and a water reticulation system.

The farm has excellent sheep and cattle yards, covered yards and woolshed, two sets of satellite yards and a well-designed laneway system.

“Mum and Dad farmed Makatote by themselves so the infrastructure was designed to make workability easy.”

Two-tooth Romney ewes.

Hayden opening the gate for Angus R2 heifers.

DISEASES AFFECTING PREGNANCY

Idon’t know if they still do, but one of the pamphlets pregnant women used to receive said, after the long list of foods to avoid, “avoid handling sheep”.

I believe this is based on diseases that are not present in New Zealand –particularly Q fever and Enzootic Abortion of Ewes (Chlamydia abortion). So what are the diseases that you should worry about if you’re pregnant and want to keep working on sheep and beef farms?

Miscarriage is very common, seldom talked about, and very distressing. Each woman will have a different tolerance of risk to her pregnancy. With my first pregnancy I felt like all the advice around diet was over the top and didn’t take it seriously. After I lost that pregnancy at 10 weeks I took it all very seriously the next time around.

Some people will read this article and say “I handled mouldy silage and scouring calves every pregnancy and never had a problem!” and that’s fine.

I know people who shore sheep until they were eight months along. Some people choose to avoid any risk and don’t want to help with lambing or calving and that’s fine too – we shouldn’t judge people for their

caution. But I get a lot of questions from women who want to stay active on the farm during pregnancy and want to know what sensible precautions they should take.

The toxoplasmosis threat

The disease I probably get the most questions about is toxo. Toxoplasmosis is probably the most common cause of sheep abortion in NZ. That is because stray cats are everywhere –even if you don’t see them and have a “shoot on sight” policy they are probably on your farm.

The adult form of toxo lives in the cat and toxo eggs (oocysts) are shed in cat poo. These take a week or 10 days to become infectious. Then they hang around in the soil for a long time waiting for a mouse, sheep or any other animal (including human) to pick them up.

Where are you most likely to pick up toxo eggs? Digging in the garden (or any other soft dirt) without gloves – chances are a stray cat has probably pooped there in the past couple of years. Once a mouse, sheep, or a human has picked up the microscopic egg these spread through the body but don’t do any damage because the animal’s immune system clamps down on them.

The immune system can’t kill the developing toxo but it can confine it to little tiny microscopic cysts where the organism stays dormant and doesn’t do any harm (although there is some interesting research on behaviour changes). Once that mouse, or sheep (hopefully not human) is eaten by a cat the organism breaks out of the cyst and finishes developing.

If it is eaten by something that is not a cat, the organism breaks out of the cyst and spreads through the body and gets clamped down by the immune system again. So there is a small risk of getting toxo from eating undercooked meat. You can’t see these cysts so you would never know. If the sheep (or human) is pregnant when they pick up toxo, the organism spreads through the body including the uterus and placenta – but the placenta is safe from the immune system (otherwise our immune system would reject the foetus) so there is nothing to clamp down on the organism and it can spread and kill the foetus.

So if the sheep was already exposed to toxo (by vaccination for example) the immune system is primed to recognise and

Zoonotic diseases, acquired from livestock among other sources, are a risk to women in pregnancy, writes vet Sara Sutherland.

clamp down on the organism and it doesn’t get a chance to get to the uterus. There is no vaccine for humans but you can get a blood test that tells you whether you have been exposed to toxo – if antibodies are high already your risk is much lower. Remember that you can get toxo abortions in ewes in vaccinated flocks – usually this is not due to vaccine failure but because there is so a lot of toxo around that the immune system can’t clamp down on all of them.

In summary – to avoid toxo if you are pregnant, especially if you have low antibodies, you should avoid digging in the dirt without gloves, handling aborted foetuses and afterbirths, avoid eating uncooked meat and avoid eating lamb brains or afterbirths (or eating mice) unless very well cooked.

Avoid aborted foetuses

Other diseases that cause abortions in sheep – campylobacter, salmonella brandenburg in the South Island, and sporadic causes of abortion such as listeriosis – can also cause miscarriage in humans. So in general you should probably avoid handling aborted foetuses.

You hear a lot when pregnant about avoiding raw milk and soft cheeses because of the risk of listeriosis. Listeria is a common organism in soil and most of the cases of listeria contamination of cheese are due to post-harvest contamination (not because of it being in the milk). Listeria can be an issue

in silage, especially silage that is mouldy or poorly fermented. Avoid handling mouldy or badly conserved silage, and perhaps consider wearing gloves each time you handle silage.

Leptospirosis

Leptospirosis is just as serious if you are not pregnant – a good case of lepto you have a bad flu and are off work for four to six weeks, a bad case of lepto you are never able to farm again. This is one disease you should take seriously. This disease can cause deaths or abortions in sheep and cattle (and deer).

Animals that have recovered from lepto can still shed the bacteria. The bacteria lives in the kidneys and spreads by urine. You can catch it from getting in contact with urine (in a race with cows and calves at weaning for example) or afterbirth.

Again avoid handling afterbirths and aborted foetuses without gloves. If you still want to do home butchery, pig hunting, or deer hunting then wear gloves when gutting the carcase to make sure you don’t get urine or kidneys on your skin. I was exposed to lepto when I was six months pregnant by doing a four-hour calving on a down heifer on a farm that was in the midst of a lepto outbreak. When I realised the risk I had taken I had a proper panic. When I went to the GP for prophylactic antibiotics they said “oh leptospirosis is really uncommon in New Zealand” – which is false! I did persuade them to give me antibiotics and baby was fine.

Finally be careful of diarrhoea diseases especially in calves and lambs being reared on milk. Many of these cause diseases in humans as well – Salmonella is a particularly dangerous one. Wear gloves when handling anything with scours, and wash your hands with soap and water frequently.

So in summary – you don’t need to worry about handling healthy sheep and cattle during pregnancy – unlike in North America, Europe and the United Kingdom and most other sheep-producing areas of the world we don’t have the really nasty diseases that can spread from healthy sheep and cause miscarriages. But there are some sensible precautions you should probably consider –don’t handle afterbirths or aborted foetuses, and wear gloves for digging in the garden, touching anything with diarrhoea, handling silage, and doing butchery.

Toxoplasmosis is probably the most common cause of sheep abortion in NZ. That is because stray cats are everywhere – even if you don’t see them and have a “shoot on sight” policy they are probably on your farm.

Salmonella is widespread on New Zealand farms and cases are increasing nationwide1. Striking without warning and spreading quickly, Salmonella can pass from your stock to the ones you care about most.

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All about preventing disease

BY: TREVOR COOK

There has never been so much chatter about vaccine effectiveness, boosters and types. So much emotion has accompanied much of this chatter that you could well imagine that vaccination was something new.

We have been using vaccines as we know them now for well over 200 years. They have been extraordinarily successful in suppressing many diseases. In fact they have been instrumental in exterminating some diseases such as smallpox.

Animal vaccination is only slightly more recent than when human vaccination began. Since then for our livestock we have a multitude of vaccines covering all forms of pathogens. Bacterial and viral are the most common. In general these vaccines are very effective.

Much of the recent vaccine chatter has been about the effectiveness of vaccines to prevent spread. Most of the vaccines used in people and animals are very good at preventing disease.

Minimising spread is a secondary benefit, but an essential one for slowing an outbreak.

No vaccine will totally prevent spread. But for many of the vaccines that we use in livestock minimising the spread is a vital component of their effectiveness.

The Salmonella vaccine that we give to sheep does protect the vaccinated ewe but also dramatically drops the level of bug being excreted by that ewe. For a disease that thrives in a contamination/ exposure cycle, slowing the source slows the outbreak.

The Leptospirosis vaccine used in cattle breaks that infection cycle by almost stopping the excretion of Leptospira in the

urine, even though the animal can still be carrying the bug. The major benefit of the Johnes vaccine used in sheep and cattle is its effectiveness in almost stopping the excretion of Johnes bacteria in the faeces and so breaking the cycle of infecting newborns.

The scour vaccines used for preventing enteric infection outbreaks in calves are very much based on lowering the amount of bug in the environment. As well of course giving protection to the vaccinated calf.

Compare this to Clostridial vaccines. Our standard 5 in 1 vaccine that we have used forever is effective because it prevents disease. Spread of the disease is not in the equation. The reproductive vaccines used in sheep against Toxoplasmosis and Campylobacter give their protection by preventing disease.

Vaccines which can fail

Most of the vaccines we use are very effective. There are two that stand out as giving varying protection. Scabby Mouth vaccine is one, not because the vaccine is lacking in quality but because of administration error. Maybe there is a component of genetic difference between populations of that virus that tests the vaccine.

Toxovax is a vaccine that not uncommonly fails. Sometimes that is because there is an extremely high challenge driven by the huge wild cat populations in some places. But Toxovax is probably the only vaccine, the effectiveness of which can be obliterated if the vaccine is not managed properly.

To be fully effective it must be

administered into the muscle. No other vaccine is so sensitive to that. We generally avoid intramuscular vaccination in our livestock because of the increased risk of vaccine site reactions.

Maybe they all work better into the muscle when we see that all of the vaccines that we get from being babies to now are given into the muscle, but in a much more sterile environment than that in the yards. Toxovax is also very sensitive to how it is mixed up and how long it lasts. So little wonder that it not being fully effective is a consequence of it not being treated well.

Vaccines that rely on protection of the target animal being via colostrum puts a potential barrier to vaccine effectiveness. The protection given by vaccinating ewes with 5 in 1 just before lambing is totally via colostrum. It is a proven pathway for giving protection to lambs that is not there if the lambs get no or little colostrum.

We know that light and/or underfed ewes at lambing produce less colostrum. Yet we do not alter the protection that we give the lambs. Maybe this is why doubling up on 5 in 1 giving it to both ewes pre lamb and lambs at docking is so common. Does it reflect how well ewe flocks are managed? Many of the deaths in orphan lambs have a lack of colostrum cause behind it.

Vaccine policies on farms rarely change. They should be reviewed at least every two years, if not more frequently. The performance of each stock class, the level of losses either as deaths or lost pregnancies and vaccine options would be in that review. As for all inputs into our systems though, reviewing should look at the whole system and all inputs, not one aspect in isolation.

Keeping it simple

Simple is how Mark Ivey describes the deer component of the breeding and finishing system he’s developed from dryland beginnings.

Over the last five years Mark and wife Kate have transformed the former run-off block of the family-owned Glentanner Station creating a standalone partly irrigated lamb breeding and finishing focused system along with deer, cattle, and cropping.

Deer income is from yearlings, 90% of which are finished for the higher paying pre-Christmas market.

Mark’s overall deer feeding approach is about matching feed quality and supply around the seasonal demand of hinds and

Farm facts

weaners. For the hinds, energy and feed levels progressively increase from calving until pre-rut weaning to maintain lactation and body condition.

Hinds calve during November in a 27ha dryland block with plenty of natural cover. In early December, the gate is opened to an adjoining 7ha block where they get the first grazing of raphnobrassica. Mark is a fan of the kale-radish hybrid.

“It’s a reliable summer crop and it’s great for the hinds with fawns.”

Hinds move off the raphno in midDecember to the irrigated pastures vacated by the weaners and are rotated around this area until pre-rut weaning in the second week of March. Stags join the hinds at weaning and go back to the 27ha fawning block which by this stage has a good covering of standing hay for flushing. The goal is to have the hinds at a body condition score of 3.75 when they’re taken off the block on June 1.

The hinds winter on about 2kg/DM/ ha a day, made up from saved pasture and balage.

The weaning process is kept as simple as possible for fawns. Two weeks before

they’re drenched and given a multi-mineral injectable. There’s no Yersinia vaccination, Mark believes it’s not necessary given that the fawns aren’t facing any undue stress, the key trigger of the bacterial disease. The newly weaned fawns go back to the paddock they came from and when settled rotate around the irrigated area. They start grazing kale from the last week of April – before their growth slows down – and stay on it for winter with supplements of balage.

The feed pinch time is in September, when the kale has run out, but spring growth hasn’t started. Any shortfall is plugged with oats fed in Advantage feeders. About 100ha is cultivated each year.

• Sheep, beef cattle and deer breeding/finishing,

• Merino stud and cropping

• Lake Pukaki, near Twizel

• 485ha of flat to gently rolling country including 190ha pivot irrigation

Mark Ivey.

Deer and progeny graze both dryland and irrigated pastures.

Regrassing has focused on replacing the cocksfoot and Timothy mixes which were the mainstay of the dryland system.

Pasture development of the irrigated area is a four to five-year process starting with a kale crop, followed by Moata, clover and oats. The Moata mix is multi-purpose, it produces two cuts of protein-boosted balage and at the end of the season is grazed by lambs. The permanent pasture is a ryegrass, clover, plantain, and prairie grass mix. The prairie grass provides good shoulder season growth.

There’s also 50ha of lucerne which is cut and provides the bulk of the balage fed in winter.

As with most other things on the farm, pasture and crop establishment is kept as simple and straightforward as possible.

“We have two sowing dates, the first week of October for grass and the first week of December for brassica.”

Keen on deer

Mark's original intention was for a lamb trading system based around the grazing of stud Merino, as well as deer which he knew would be well suited to the dryland areas.

He’s always been keen on deer, buying his first 125 hinds when he was 21 and running them at Glentanner. He worked on a few farms with deer and, before moving to Catherine Fields, managed Glentanner’s hind breeding and store weaner operation.

The deer breeding side is simple and straightforward. Peel Forest Estate B11 (terminal) stags were used for the first three years but changed to Forresters two years ago. Every year 20 in-fawn R2s are bought in from nearby Braemar Station.

“It makes sense because we have all terminal sires so are not breeding hind replacements. It also keeps it simple because we have only one mating mob.”

Angus breeding cows have been added to the livestock mix with a breeding herd

of 70 built from bought-in calves from Ben Dhu station near Omarama. Mark plans to increase the herd to about 90 mixedage cows. The cows are helping maintain pasture control and quality. Their progeny, targeted at Alliance Group’s premium beef programmes, provide another income stream.

The Merino ewes are mated to Texels, and the lambs finished for Silere contracts. Also, 1500 lambs from Glentanner are winter grazed until the end of September on saved pastures and lucerne balage in a contract arrangement. Mark and Kate own the Glentanner Merino stud, selling about 70 rams a year.

Wintered stock

• 800 Merino ewes (600 Stud plus 200 terminal ewes)

• 2500 lambs

• 100 rams

• Deer (Red)

• 180 hinds

• 160 R1 (mixed-sex)

• Cattle (Angus)

• 70 mixed-age cows, including in-calf heifers

• 55 R1 (mixed-sex)

Key points

• Income is split 55% sheep; 15% deer, 15% beef and 15% crop.

• Fawning: 92% (hinds to stag)

• Average kill date: midNovember

• Deer gross farm income/ha: $1000/ha.

Cereal crops are another income stream made possible by irrigation. This year 34ha of white oats was sown following the summer crops and harvested for seed.

“The Mackenzie area is well placed for growing it because we get hot weather and can generally grow it without the need for spray.”

The transformation has been intense but very satisfying for Mark. The most frustrating process was getting irrigation consent to pump water directly from Lake Pukaki, under State Highway 8 and up to Catherine Fields, a total distance of about 800 metres.

Mark’s parents Ross and Helen started the consent process in 2000 but by the time the consent was granted Ross had started to step back from the day-to-day running of Glentanner.

“It’s a great credit to Ross and Helen that they persevered and realised their aspiration of irrigating what was marginal run-off land to create a viable farm.”

The green light for irrigation was the perfect opportunity for the family to sort succession and realign the Glentanner Station business which the Iveys have owned since 1957. Mark and Kate who had been managing Glentanner Station for seven years took on Catherine Fields in a share farming arrangement. They initially bought stock and machinery while Glentanner retained ownership of the land. That will change this year with Mark and Kate buying the land creating a standalone farming entity. Mark’s brother George and wife Catherine run Glentanner Station.

“The Mackenzie area is well placed for growing (white oats) because we get hot weather and can generally grow it without the need for spray.”

About 100ha is cultivated every year, including establishment of pasture under the new pivots to replace the dryland Timothy and cocksfoot mixes.

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KEEPING AN EYE ON THE FUTURE

As an almighty scientist Nicola Dennis gets some family guidance on research possibilities.

If you work in science and technology, it is the strict duty of your nearest and dearest to casually suggest impossible things for you to do.

“You could breed plants that sequester extra carbon,” advises a loved one, innocently unaware that they are detailing millions of dollars of research. “How about a cure for diabetes?” asks another as if this belongs under “buy cheese” on my ‘to do’ list.

Like a cat presenting a mangled rodent on the doormat, these inquiries can be horribly indignant unless you try to view yourself through their eyes. You are almighty, apparently, but still in need of some guidance.

It does look fun, though, being the ‘can’t you just’ kitty of the conversation. So, I took it upon myself to visit Iris Data Science and ask Greg Peyroux and Benoit Auvray how come we can’t buy facial recognition systems for our sheep yet.

Facial recognition, why do we want it?

If you can cast your mind back to pre-pandemic times, Iris Data Science was making news in October 2019 with their SheepNN project for facial recognition in our woolly friends.

The NN in SheepNN stands for neural networks, which is a form of machine learning or artificial intelligence. Or in layman's terms, teaching computers to teach themselves stuff.

The idea here was to leapfrog the expensive RFID tags that have yet to gain much traction on sheep farms and jump straight into a camera-based system. In comparison to punching a piece of plastic into a sheep’s ear, mounting a camera up in the yards is a low waste, low labour, high welfare, tamper/idiot proof way of identifying stock. Theoretically, this would be very low cost on a per-sheep basis once the equipment was installed.

When do we want it? Not right now

The good news here is Iris Data Science was able to get sheep facial recognition up and running in New Zealand. The clever computers were able to learn to accurately identify sheep as they were released from a weigh crate.

If you don’t believe me, you can watch their videos on youtube.

Sheep are one of the more challenging animals to identify visually on account of their ever-changing fleeciness. So easier animals like cattle are also fair game for the computers (and their developers), although, NZ cattle and deer come equipped with electronic tags by regulation so there is little need to reinvent the wheel.

Other scientists working in the sheep biometrics space have published papers validating facial recognition in lambs as they grow and in different breeds (mitigating some of the race-based fails seen in human facial recognition development). However, most science papers I found for facial recognition in sheep were actually experiments of sheep recognising human faces. A very confusing corner of the internet, indeed.

The bad news is that the development of a commercial SheepNN product, after a fair run around the block, has stalled at the customer discovery stage. The business case for sheep identification is not quite there yet. Sure, monitoring individual sheep is cool and all, but can it add enough value to the business to open the average sheep farmer’s wallet? Not yet. We must wait for the technology to catch up.

There is a trade-off between the space-age-ness of the camera and how much you must control the environment. Plus, computers have an annoying addiction to electricity and internet access, particularly if you want them to do really grunty work like real time video processing. This kept SheepNN confined to the yards where sheep don’t tend to spend a lot of time.

So, we must wait for technology to become cheaper and more portable, to become faster at data processing and better connected to the internet out in the back of beyond. Because while a yard-based identification system doesn’t quite stack up yet, breaking out into the paddock, up on to a drone or into the cellphone in the back pocket could change the equation considerably for farmers and developers.

“And what is the magic sales number that would tempt you into developing a product?” I cheekily ask Greg and Benoit. The answer is how long is a piece of string or $5 million in annual revenue, whichever is greater. It’s not worth firing up the brains trust for something only 50 farmers want to use for five years. And that probably means you will have to think more globally lest you run out of NZ farmers in the customer base.

“In comparison to punching a piece of plastic into a sheep’s ear, mounting a camera up in the yards is a low waste, low labour, high welfare, tamper/idiot proof way of identifying stock.”

How to develop a product

After going through the development of another brainchild, OmniEye, the folks at Iris Data Science have a good idea of the work involved in bringing a tech product to market. OmniEye is a camerabased system that monitors dairy cows as they leave the milking shed – providing, as they say, an all-seeing ‘intelligent eye’ over a herd.

It learns each cow’s normal walking gait and sends an alert if this changes, meaning farmers can detect lameness earlier before it becomes an issue. With $5000 in upfront costs and a $10/ cow annual subscription, OmniEye is a favourable business proposition for dairy farms playing whack-a-mole with costly lameness problems. The team also have more products in the OmniEye stable in development, plus there’s potential to extend the technology into other markets such as beef feedlots overseas or the monitoring of animal health in transport or meat processing etc.

Greg and Benoit say people are always asking for apps where you point phone cameras at something (the grass, that sheep, that carcase)

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for a high-tech analysis. But, it’s usually not that simple.

Say you have that sure-fire $5 million idea. You need training data and to finance a couple of years of trial-and-error development. It is reassuring to hear the Iris Data Science crew describe NZ as a pretty grown-up place to find this kind of money. OmniEye started off selffunded before securing assistance from Callaghan Innovation and investors. The team has just been through a round of capital raising, the process of which would not sound out of place in Silicon Valley.

You also need patience because the potential applications for using artificial intelligence on farms are abundant, but the people writing the code are not. That being said, if you have an idea there is probably already someone somewhere who is working on it. Benoit says the Ag tech scene is a fairly friendly space to play. Agritech NZ or Callaghan or NZtech should be able to put you in touch with whichever bright Kiwi is already doing the homework on your dream technology. Keep all of this in mind before you demand that your 14-year-old nephew builds you an app.

Potential smart stuff for sheepies

So, we will probably have to hold our horses on the visual identification of sheep. But there are plenty of potential camera-based applications that aren’t playing to the “who are you?” theme song.

Cameras can count sheep without falling asleep. They could also be used to assess breed composition or conformation for breeding applications. There is a “Deep Sheep” project at the University of Otago which is inferring pedigrees by grouping sheep that look like each other.

Researchers in Australia are trialling cameras to monitor heart rate, breathing and skin temperature in sheep during live transport. These things are all reasonably mature, so provided there is a sound market, they are out there on the horizon.

Perhaps the most exciting thing, in these days of unending labour shortages, is the possibility of smart drafting. The Iris Data Science team have managed to get the computer to draft lambs based on the rattle markings sprayed on their backs. There is definitely potential to draft on the sex of the lamb or based on dagginess.

“What about assessing presentation scores for slaughter,” I say. “How about uddering in ewes?” asks Terry, the editor, when I regurgitate all this information to him. “What about training a bot to scout news websites for all the stories about dairy cows that show photos of beef cattle?” Oh no, the ‘‘can’t you just’’ kitties are multiplying!

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“It learns each cow’s normal walking gait and sends an alert if this changes, meaning farmers can detect lameness earlier before it becomes an issue.”

ENVIRONMENT Irrigation

WATER STORAGE BENEFITS ALL

BY: VANESSA WINNING

One of the highlights for the irrigation sector, and for farmers and growers’ futures, that came out last year was the development and publishing of the Water Availability and Security paper. It was led by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and worked on by several people within the productive sector, along with water storage being one of the key areas of focus for the Government’s Fit for a Better World roadmap.

This paper highlighted the need to be ready for the changing climate we are already facing in New Zealand, as well as the need for water as a key resource to decarbonising our existing food and fibre sector. It highlighted areas of most extreme weather fluctuations and most particularly dry spots that we need to work on quickly, as well as emphasising the water conservation elements we could undergo now.

NZ has been underinvesting in new water capture and storage for decades for both productive use, community use and potential hydroelectricity generation. We know that it is getting drier in some parts of the country year on year, and we are experiencing more extreme weather volatility in other parts too.

The best way to mitigate weather is to plan for it – and for our food and fibre sector that means more investment in capturing water when it falls, storing it for when it doesn’t, and conserving and using best irrigation practices when we need it most.

Unfortunately, this has been hit by two major snags – one is that we generally get good rainfall a lot of the time, so we become complacent and don’t save for that non-rainy day; and two there has been a demonisation of irrigation with links to environmental damage or an excess of stocking rate for animal agriculture. Both

of which are untrue. Every plant needs water at the right time in its growing cycle to be the most productive plant it can be – be that grass, avocados, hops, grapes, kiwifruit, or apples. Most animal agriculture in New Zealand does not completely rely on irrigation, though this may change with the weather changes. Every fruit and vegetable or arable crop needs it to survive. Rain doesn’t always fall and even less so, fall at the perfect time in the growing cycle that it once did – a very good example is where the Bay of Plenty kiwifruit growers are now needing to irrigate more than in the past when the weather gods were a bit kinder.

People mistake effluent spreading – the most efficient use of naturally occurring fertiliser you can get, as irrigation, and while we use the same methods, capture, storage, and efficient use of effluent in a dairy system is not the same as capturing and storing water – though they both play an important part in an efficient dairy farm. More and more farmers, and in particular dairy farmers will need to rely less on water from rivers and need to invest more in creating onfarm capture or investing in larger off-farm irrigation schemes as a collective. If we want more mixed production farms, where we use land in multiple ways across a farm’s landscape, we are going to need to invest even more.

The Waikato is a prime example – it is dry, hot, and parched right now, and this is becoming the new norm for late summer – on average we are getting less rain at this time of the year, and that has a big impact on our dairy herd and production.

We are seeing more restrictions on the takes from the Waikato River and other rivers connected to it as the flow needs to

remain to keep the ecology thriving for both the sake of the river as well as our ability to use that water in the future. This means farmers and growers collectively working together to capture and store water when we need it least, i.e., when it’s bucketing down and we can’t use it, so we can use it when we do need it and the rivers are parched.

An excellent example of how important that can be was the two flood events in Canterbury last year where if we hadn’t had dams to fill when we had torrential rain, the impact on the town communities would have been far greater with the water having no other place to go. The Waikato, as our farmers move to planting crops, and vines, recreating wetlands and putting in a few avocados, will require more water not less, and if we want to give farmers more options to go away from monoculture farming systems, we will need to have the one resource available to them that gives options - water.

This leads me to my most important point – water storage, capture and use is not a productive-sector-only issue – the MPI report outlines the importance to our sectors, but it is a whole-of-community solution, and one where we need to continue to work with urban needs and iwi interests and get the best solution for all of us – instead of a biased pushback on muchneeded investment. We are already working in catchments to improve our impact across the country and across sectors, we need to take the same approach to water storage and capture – it’s a lifeforce we all benefit from.

• First published in NZ Dairy Exporter February 2022.

FARM DAM

Farm dam safety is subject to regulations being assembled by government and councils, upsetting farmers.

Story: Glenys Christian Photos: Alex Wallace

Kaipara Flats sheep and beef farmer, Simon Withers, was surprised to get a letter from Auckland Council last year about new dam monitoring regulations. It was the first the retired accountant had heard of the proposals and he was immediately concerned they heralded yet another set of compliance requirements foisted on farmers.

It was also of concern that the council had clearly flown over his farm because included with the letter was a copy of a photo of the dam taken from the air.

“It will set the Groundswell movement off again,” he says.

The dam photographed is one of 15 on his farm north of Auckland, which he believes attention had been drawn to because of a long-reach excavator being used to clean it out.

“That made it more obvious,” he says.

The dam safety regulations, once passed into law, will be monitored by local authorities using a registered engineer whose fees will be payable by farmers around the country.

In the letter he received Simon was asked for details of the capacity of all the dams on his farm as well as a description of what they were used for. But he argues that as they were there before he bought the farms he has no way of knowing when they were built, their height and the amount of water they contain.

Included was a formula of how to calculate capacity and he was also asked if the dams allowed fish passage. But he believes gathering such information would involve costly engineering fees.

He was brought up on a dairy farm out of Paparoa, on the west coast of lower

Northland. “I had a bent for figures but I always liked farming,” he says.

So after completing a Bachelor of Agricultural Science at Massey University he bought into an accountancy practice in Warkworth, only recently retiring after 51 years as a chartered accountant.

In the late 1970s he bought his first farm of 28 hectares in Warkworth where he ran heifers, eventually selling that to become eight lifestyle blocks. With a desire to farm on a larger scale in the 1980s he bought 65ha at Kaipara Flats, west of Warkworth.

“It was good land with a reliable rainfall,” he says.

“But it had had no fertiliser for over 20 years. There were broken buildings and fences and plenty of old trees and weeds.”

He improved it over the next 15 years, while fattening heifers and steers, before “taking the plunge” and buying three

This dam is one of 13 on Simon Withers’ Kaipara Flats likely to be subject to new regulations.

separate blocks and selling the first farm. While one was steep and undeveloped the other had about 50ha of good flat land which needed to be drained and cleared of macrocarpa. So over the past 40 years he’s built up a good-quality fattening farm of 314ha of which 290 is effective, fencing off bush stands on the way through

He now runs 1200 straight Romney ewes, mainly from Wairere, along with 12 Romney and eight Poll Dorset and Southdown rams. Lambing is later than usual for the area in late July or early August with averages of about 140%.

About 270 replacements are kept with the rest going to Affco from late November then

monthly through to June or July at about 18kg.

He also runs 211 head of Angus cattle, including 90 heifers with all progeny fattened. While calving used to be in August, that’s now moved to September. The only stock bought in are 37 two-year-old steers from the Peria Saleyards in Northland as weaners and 13 rising two-year-old heifers.

With kikuyu through all his flats he’s embarked on a pasture improvement programme, spraying out twice then growing short-rotation ryegrass for a couple of years. For the past two years he’s trialed Raphano brassica.

Farm facts

• 314ha (290ha effective)

• Kaipara Flats, north of Warkworth

• 1200 straight Romney ewes, bred to Romney, Poll Dorset or Southdown rams

• 211 head of Angus cattle with all progeny bred and fattened

• 20ha of raphno brassica grown as part of a pasture improvement programme

• 246 big bales of wrapped silage, hay made in good growth years, no supplements bought in.

Right: Simon Withers: ‘It will set the Groundswell movement off again.’

Simon Withers and farm manager Joshua Jackson beside one of the farm’s dams.

“It’s the only thing that’s as green as the kikuyu,” he says.

While the economics might be marginal, the 20ha he’s growing has certainly helped fatten his lambs.

“It doesn’t grow too high and if it’s sown at the end of October or the start of November the lambs can be on it by midJanuary for quite a long period.”

He’s tried chicory but that crop failed through lack of rain, and while plantain did quite well there were issues with weeds such as black nightshade.

Wrapped silage is made with 246 bales being taken off this year. Hay is made in the years where there’s good grass growth for the bulls, but none was made last spring and summer. No supplements are bought in.

About 20 tonnes of nitrogen is applied on the flats where the summer crops will be sown. Maintenance fertiliser of 60t a year of sulphurised super 10 goes on with molybdenum added for the first time last year. Lime goes on every three years and soil testing is carried out every two years. The pH levels range from 5.9 on the hills to 6.4 and Olsen P levels of 35 to 79.

Wrote to the council

Simon initially ignored the letter about dam monitoring but then wrote to the council. Its reply drew his attention yet again to the upcoming safety regulations saying he and other farmers would be given a two-year period during which there would need to be engagement to monitor dams covered by the legislation.

The council wanted information about his dams well ahead of time, saying any dam more than one metre high and

containing 40,000m3 or 4m high and containing 20,000m3 of water would need to be monitored annually, which Simon says would just incur more engineering fees.

“It’s just another regulation they are trying to load on farmers,” he says.

“It’s almost impossible for the farmer to tell what the cubic capacity is, where the dam height is measured and how the water it holds is calculated.

“Water is hugely important to be able to farm properly and animals rely on it.”

While he was told when he bought the farm he would have no worries about water after 10 years he says he noticed the summers getting warmer.

“So I built a good quality dam in the front paddock,” he says.

Water is pumped from there to a header tank, and gravity fed to 24 paddocks.

“It took three months to build and was finished in January. And that summer the stream went dry, meaning I wouldn’t have had water for my stock. There have been a number of years since where I’ve patted myself on the back for that.”

The dams already on the farm have been cleaned and dug out to improve both quantity and quality of the water.

“They’re generally cleaned every few years of weed and rubbish,” he says.

Simon believes farmers are being targeted once again by the proposed regulations.

He knows of one other local farmer who received a letter similar to the one he did, and has passed on his concerns by writing to National Party leader, Christopher Luxon.

“It’s almost impossible for the farmer to tell what the cubic capacity is, where the dam height is measured and how the water it holds is calculated.”

Top: It was good land with a reliable rainfall. Above: Simon Withers runs 1200 straight Romney ewes, mainly from Wairere Romneys along with 12 Romney and eight Poll Dorset and Southdown rams.

“This will add flames to the Groundswell movement.”

He attended the Groundswell Howl of Protest in Orewa last year with his farm manager, Josh Jackson, and his two huntaways.

“All the dogs there were barking furiously when instructed,” he says.

“It was fantastic. Even the dogs were protesting.”

‘It caused some angst’

Federated Farmers’ national policy manager, Nick Clark, says a number of the farmers who received the letters about upcoming dam safety regulations from Auckland Council were not happy.

“They felt they were intrusive,” he says.

“It caused some angst.”

Farmers with a number of dams on their farms believed they would have to supply details for all their dams, rather than just the large ones exceeding the threshold to be set by the new regulations. Auckland Council was the only one so far to write to farmers about the new regulations, which saw the matter referred

Top: A herd of 211 Angus cattle are run on the Kaipara Flats farm. Above: Farm manager Josh Jackson with his team of dogs.

to its rural advisory group which meets regularly to discuss issues impacting the agricultural sector.

Clark, who is the federation’s representative on a technical working group set up to give guidance on the dam regulations, says there is no ballpark figure as to how many dams around the country they might capture. Regional councils would know the number of dams they had consented in recent years but not those predating their establishment. And he says there is no mention of fish traps in the draft regulations.

Auckland Council’s manager, proactive compliance, Adrian Wilson, says it sent letters to 177 properties in July 2021 regarding dams on their land.

“What dam owners will be required to do to comply with the regulations will depend on the dam’s height, capacity, and potential for downstream impacts,” he says.

The new regulations would apply to any dams four metres or higher with a volume of more than 20,000m3 or eight Olympic-sized swimming pools, or greater, or 1m or higher with a volume of more than 40,000m3 or 16

Olympic-sized swimming pools, or greater. Landowners will also be given information on how to measure and calculate the size of their dams.

“It is our opinion that the majority of those who received letters will not have to do anything to comply, as small stock watering ponds and other small farm dams are most common and are unlikely to exceed the above criteria,” he says.

But the council had a duty to ensure property owners were aware of the changes to legislation and so had sent the letter to a small cross-section of members of the federation.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) says in July and August 2019 it consulted the public on a proposed regulatory framework and following feedback policy decisions were agreed in March last year.

It’s drafting the regulations and expects to finalise those in the first half of this year. There’s then a two-year period until they come into force giving dam owners time to check whether their dam is big enough to be included in the regulations. During

that time MBIE says it will support dam owners to check whether their dam will be included and, if they do, how to meet their obligations, with more resources being made available over the rest of this year.

Farmers will have a further three months to classify the potential impact of the dam’s failure on people, property and the environment. That will confirm whether a dam has a medium or high potential impact with owners having one year to complete a dam safety assurance plan for high potential impact dams and two years for medium potential impact dams.

The intent of the regulations is that small or remote dams are either excluded from the regulatory framework or most of the ongoing obligations. Structures such as stock drinking ponds, irrigation races, weirs and small ‘turkey nest’ dams would not be included in the regulations and MBIE expects most agricultural dams would face no or few regulatory requirements. It will produce a tool which should be available by the middle of the year to help dam owners calculate their size and whether it is big enough to be included in the regulations.

Josh Jackson and dogs see to some of the flock of Romney ewes.

Joanna Grigg questions the proposed stock exclusion rule for 15+ year indigenous forest to be eligible for sequestration. He Waka Eke Noa should not have a blanket requirement for stock exclusion when some larger forest/bush, with natural boundaries, can regenerate alongside light grazing. Incentivise pest control instead, she says.

There is one very obvious problem with the proposed sequestration rules in He Waka, the requirement to exclude stock by fencing from pre-2008 forest, to make it count.

Farmers stand to lose thousands of carbon credits if this rule goes through. On many hill and high country farms, forests are a patchwork part of the landscape. Some are fenced, some large forests on large blocks are not.

A desktop study of native vegetation (Norton, Pannell 2018) showed sheep and beef farms contain 25% of the total native vegetation remaining in New Zealand - 2.8 million hectares. Half of this is woody (17% of the total native woody vegetation remaining).

In many cases, sheep graze alongside and on the fringes of large historic stands of bush and forest. This is typically at low stocking rates (under two/ha) and for set times of the year. These forest blocks are often large (25ha or more) and have natural boundaries like creeks and bluffs between established tree areas and tussock grasslands.

Under He Waka proposals none of these areas could be used by farmers to offset stock GHG emissions, simply because they are not fenced. Practically these large bush areas on farms would be hugely expensive to fence. Kilometres of steel fences (made using fossil fuels) would have to be run over some of the hardest country

in NZ. Some fences would struggle to stay sound, with rock falls ripping through fence lines. Far better use of resources would be rewarding farmers for sequestration, with a higher rate for fenced bush and for pest control work. This is a win-win for the environment and farmers and makes the greenhouse gas balance sheet fair. The sequestration management contract, that records blocks, could be audited as part of the NZ Farm Assurance Programme.

More research is required

In their desktop study for Beef + Lamb NZ, researchers Norton and Pannell (2018) concluded research is required to further understand the actual composition of native woody vegetation on sheep and beef farms, and the way it has changed over recent decades.

“This information is important for priority setting and to support work with sheep and beef farmers to better manage the remnants of native vegetation they have on their farms.”

In other words, there is much to learn about farms and their regenerating bush.

To be eligible, He Waka proposes planted or regenerated indigenous/native vegetation to be generally self-sustaining through self-seeding. The effect of stocking rate, timing of grazing, forest size, forest edge versus middle ratio, and forest type on self-seeding is largely unknown. He Waka as it stands makes no distinction.

Anecdotal evidence suggests forest understory, with new seedlings, can recover following goat, pig and deer control. This is even when light stock grazing is happening on neighbouring tussock and pasture grassland faces.

Farmers comment that stock often stay on open faces due to natural boundaries like waterways and bluffs, keeping them out of forests. Farmers intent on stock performance/production are unlikely to set stock a block with bush, and leave stock there beyond when the pasture has been grazed. This would impact on animal production. Many South Island high or hill farms lightly stock Merinos (less than one per hectare) for summer periods, on pasture alongside bush.

An alternative He Waka proposal would be to allow sequestration to be counted in non-fenced indigenous areas if they are large dense blocks (over 25ha), have a high ratio of forest area to forest edge (think square not long and skinny) and a low stocking rate (for example under two/hectare).

WHY THE FENCING REQUIREMENT NEEDS CHANGING

PROPOSAL:

• Indigenous vegetation established before January 1, 2008 only eligible for sequestration if stock excluded.

• Pre-2008 forest is only eligible if baseline forest is improved by ‘businessas-usual management’. This refers to targeted management that recognises specific ecological needs of a planted or regenerating area of indigenous vegetation. The minimum standard to meet this is stock exclusion.

SUGGESTION:

Yes, this takes administration but farmers stand to lose thousands of hectares of regenerating bush from their greenhouse gas balance sheet. Eligible blocks could require annual pest control for possums, goats, deer or pigs (proven by pest control invoice or hunter tally).

There could be a higher sequestration credit rate per hectare if stock were excluded from a forested area, acting as an incentive. But that would be in farmers’ hands. This would all be part of a sequestration management contract, audited as part of the NZFAP.

This policy would still recognise that smaller established blocks of trees, say under 25ha, are vulnerable to stock grazing, and may require fencing to allow regeneration.

Covenants fenced but special, small

Queen Elizabeth II National Trust chief executive Dan Coup doesn’t envy the policy writer's job writing onfarm sequestration rules for an agricultural greenhouse gas pricing scheme.

“There is tension between policy and biological systems.”

He would like to see farmers having better pathways to recognise farm carbon sequestration contributions, since it is very difficult to do under policy settings in the ETS.

Fencing out stock is a requirement of getting forested land into a QEII Trust covenant. The Trust holds almost 5000 covenants and 54% of the covenanted area is on sheep and beef farms - about 100,000ha. Coup says these are the very high biodiversity value forests, wetlands, bluffs or grassland areas. Only a very small number of covenants allow stock grazing as part of grazing management to control weeds – notably herb field/grass covenants.

“We are very black and white in the rules.”

The average size of covenants is very small - 38ha, and the median size just 5.6ha. Each block is special with a bespoke management plan.

Sequestration credits should be awarded if bush was improving in size and regenerating, not if it was in slow decline.

• Remove stock exclusion requirement for pre-2008 forests, if fits certain criteria (over 25ha, a high ratio of forest area to forest edge and a stocking rate maximum of two/effective hectares at any one time).

• Eligible blocks must have annual pest control for possums, goats, deer or pigs (proven by pest control invoice or hunter tally).

• Higher credits/ha if stock excluded from a forested area (incentive).

• Any He Waka Sequestration Management Contract could be audited as part of Farm Assurance Programme (i.e. annual photos of bush stands in the same spot).

REASONS:

• Farmers stand to be excluded from claiming sequestration on 1.4 million ha of woody vegetation on their farms. This is 17% of the total native woody vegetation remaining in New Zealand.

Above: A farmer taking tree age samples from a kanuka block. Farmers stand to lose thousands of hectares of regenerating bush from their greenhouse gas balance sheet.

“Different grazing regimes will give different levels of pressure.

“The challenge is writing policy rules that reflect this.”

QEII doesn’t deal with scrubby regenerating manuka or regeneration via gorse/broom as it is not good enough to covenant, but it could be eligible for sequestration under He Waka. Eligible indigenous species includes manuka and/or kanuka, matagouri, mixed broadleaf/scrub such as swamp maire, five finger, coprosma, wineberry, lemonwood, cabbage trees, totara/ kahikatea, old growth cut-over or beech. It also includes gorse/broom (as a nursery crop for indigenous species if seed is present).

Coup says big trees may survive under stock grazing but new replacement saplings may not. Bush with a long-exposed edge, particularly if smaller in size, is more at risk than a square block.

Hurdles for high country

Eric and Sally Smith, Awapiri Station, Marlborough, would lose sequestration value from about 4000 hectares of indigenous forest if the fencing rule for stock came in with He Waka Eke Noa’s sequestration eligibility rules.

At even a paltry one tonne of carbon/hectare, this is 4000t of carbon sequestration a year to offset GHG emissions from their 5000 Merinos and 100 cows.

“It would be very helpful and probably make us carbon neutral,” Eric says.

Planting pine trees on freehold land to offset, instead of enhancing their existing bush, is a ludicrous option in his opinion.

Another hurdle is that there is no clear pathway for leaseholders to even claim the sequestration from regenerating bush. In November 2021 the High Country Accord Trust (representing 150 high

country leaseholders) submitted to the Ministry of the Environment on the low-emissions and climateresilient future paper.

Covering 17% of South Island rural land, the pastoral lease estate has enormous potential to contribute to reduction of net-carbon emission. But the legislation governing pastoral leases does not provide the flexibility to realise that potential.

Planting and harvesting trees requires the consent of the Commissioner. A limited number of consents have been given in the past to leaseholders for commercial forest activities, with at least one forest registered within the ETS.

Allowances for leaseholders to claim regenerating bush for sequestration under He Waka needs to be written into legislation. Pastoral leases were created as an instrument by which the Crown could continue to influence environmental outcomes. The Accord said these outcomes do not include climate change.

It’s calling for a pause to the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill and changes to the Crown Pastoral Land Act 1998 and Climate Change Response Act 2002 to include climate change objectives and facilitate participation by pastoral leases.

The Smiths’ 7000ha Awatere station is a classic extensive farm with 50% effective area and the balance in bluffs, shingle faces and high-biodiversity-value forest. Only 350ha is freehold.

“It’s a mix of kanuka, manuka, beech, broadleaf and totara – and the totara is really spreading fast, especially up high,” Eric says.

In December the Smiths send about 1300 mixed age Merino wethers to graze one of the most forested blocks, the Swale. They stay there until May, grazing the sunny grass and tussock faces which makes up about 450ha.

Eric says at three stock units per effective hectare,

• Rewards farmers that have maintained pre-2008 indigenous bush, and protected biodiversity.

• Money goes into pest management rather than expensive, impractical fencing of large bush/indigenous blocks.

• Fits with 2050 Pest Free policy.

• Fencing targeted at smaller, vulnerable forest that can’t regenerate with stock grazing.

Right: Eric Smith, Awatere high country farmer, sees no reason why this 4000 hectare pastoral lease bush shouldn’t be counted for carbon sequestration. He Waka Eke Noa proposals and pastoral lease legislation could see it excluded.

“The property used to have far more pasture on it, the bush is encroaching everywhere, and stock makes no effect.”

there is no reduction effect on forest regeneration, Vegetation is covering more area each year.

“Sheep always comfortably have enough pasture and don’t go deep into the bush.”

It would take 20 kilometres of fencing through rocky steep country to even make a start of excluding stock and Eric sees absolutely no purpose with it. From July to October 600 Merinos are set-stocked at the Swale at 0.5su/ha.

“The property used to have far more pasture on it, the bush is encroaching everywhere, and stock makes no effect.”

He says if they had to fence the Swale to get sequestration approved, they couldn’t do it from a practical point of view. The natural boundaries help keep stock in set pasture areas anyway.

“The total area is really rocketing on the highest country – I wouldn’t believe it unless I saw it.”

Eric says they control goats on the fringes of the forest and took about 1000 off this block last year.

“That is what affects the bush health.”

Read more about

He Waka Eke Noa: keithwoodford.wordpress.com/2022/03/11/ he-waka-eke-noa-caught-incrosswinds/#more-2597

Pests don’t respect fences. A win-win would be to reward farmers for increasing carbon sequestration from larger stands of unfenced bush and provide extra rewards for proven pest control.

Survey respondents unhappy with He Waka Eke Noa

BY: JO CUTTANCE

Asurvey by Country-Wide of opinions of He Waka Eke Noa found three quarters of respondents unhappy with the proposals.

Of the 75% who were dissatisfied with He Waka 80% did not support any of the available options, 13% chose farmer levy, 5% processor levy, and the remaining 2% chose a hybrid model or ETS. The survey had 93 respondents.

A respondent wrote, “Whilst both are better than the ETS backstop, neither give certainty on pricing, ensure that it won't inflate hugely in the future, or that administration and bureaucracy will not just blow out and the money will never actually go to the research and development needed.

“Those options are going to lower production in New Zealand which in turn is going to be made up by other, less-efficient farmers, making the global number worse, not better. They also penalise farmers financially, meaning that there's even less money available to make on farm improvements and investments.

“Lastly, we should be applauding our farmers, especially the ones who are

making progress, both of these options are just different levels of punishment.”

Of the 25% who supported the He Waka proposals, 89% supported the farmer levy and the rest the processor levy.

Within the survey respondents expressed frustration and distrust of the Government and asked why they had to pay more tax.

“Why would we sign up to something where a group of government appointees could change the pricing on a whim?” asked one.

“Why are we being taxed to keep people fed and trying to keep our economy going? Ridiculous!” another asked.

Respondents were asked if they would drop stocking rates or plant more trees to reduce emissions.

Most chose to plant more trees, although many had been planting trees for years. Others wrote lowering stocking rates would make their farm uneconomic.

“If you plant trees your stocking rate will reduce. Can't afford to drop stocking rate. Stock pays the bills!” a respondent wrote.

A few asked why farmers who were early adopters were not recognised.

“My number is already so low. Why do I have to do anything!! If I do anything I’ll be going negative, why hasn’t anyone

talked about these farmers!” one asked. The survey asked if people had unanswered questions in regards to He Waka. The questions submitted included:

• How would they ensure costs didn't balloon in the future, when we have zero control, and the issue of leakage to other countries, when our production inevitably drops?

• Why can't I use the many hectares of non ETS trees already planted on my farm simply because they are pre-2008?

• What about the impact different feed profiles have on emissions? Is there an intention to build in an option for this in future?

• Why aren't our farming groups standing up to this Government and unworkable policies?

• What are the options for farmers who already have a low number?

• Why did the industry let DairyNZ away with ‘greasing’ up to the Government and agreeing to a 10% reduction target by 2030?

One also asked why the Paris Agreement, which stated climate change mitigation measures should not affect food production, was not acknowledged.

Groundswell NZ, felt the He Waka proposals had shifted from its founding principle, to incentivise uptake of new technology and management, towards a broad-based tax on farming.

Groundswell offered an alternative proposal. The major difference proposed was to link all environmental issues into one integrated policy framework. Group representatives felt environmental policy needed to be focused on achieving environmental outcomes, rather than making rules.

They wanted a strong focus on achieving positive outcomes and avoiding unintended consequences or perverse outcomes.

Groundswell’s fully integrated environmental policy framework, which was still being developed, would include removing duplication, have cost savings for farmers and ratepayers, and reward rather than penalise environmental effort. It would incentivise nature on farms to treat it as an asset, rather than a liability, empower farmers and respect the privacy and property rights of landowners.

Groundswell also wanted to replace the Significant Natural Areas policy with an approach that worked in partnership with landowners.

WHEN YOU NEED a helping hand

Young farmers Emma and Jason Hynes developed a website to link casual workers with farmers after noticing many struggled to find casual labour at busy times of the year.

The website, Casual Farmers NZ, has been set up to connect casual farm workers with employers around the country.

Emma says the website is a way to help connect casual workers with farmers who need an extra set of hands.

“When Jase started managing we really

noticed there are a lot of farms that employ one person to run the farm but at busy times they’re screaming for casuals.”

The website went fully live in January, after a three month trial period, and is free for workers to subscribe to.

For employers there are two pricing options: $150 per year for an annual subscription, allowing you to list unlimited jobs or $50/job listing for smaller operations or lifestylers. The job is advertised for 30 days.

In a bid to help solve the shortage of shortterm labour, a young couple have developed a website to make the link.

By Rebecca Greaves. Photos by John Cowpland.

Nothing casual about website developers Jason and Emma Hynes who are helping farmers find casual farm staff.

The couple have two young children, Corban, nearly two, and Ava, five months, and rent a house in Patoka, near Emma’s job managing the feed pad at Rissington Station, which works well with her young family.

Heifers are up at the feed pad until they reach their target weights, this ranges from 30-90 days depending on their start weights, and the bulls stay up on the feed pad until September. In September they are sold at the bull sale as yearlings.

Emma looks after the animals and their diet. They were weaned in February and come to the feed pad until September.

“I manage their weight gain and feed volumes as well as a bit of data analysis and forecasting. I love it.”

Jason had been farming 12 years and worked as a stock manager at Rissington too, but has recently started working for AsureQuality as a TB tester. AsureQuality has an office base in town.

“We’re living in Patoka so I can still do my role, and Jase can do his role from wherever.

Neither Emma, 28, nor Jason, 32, grew up on a farm, but both had grandparents who were farming.

Emma grew up in Tauranga and her grandparents had a farm at Omakere in Hawke’s Bay.

“Every school holidays I’d go down and I fell in love with it, I was poppa’s little shadow. I got a horse as well.

“Having that opportunity, and only sometimes, made me appreciate it when I was there and make the most of it.”

Jason grew up in Marton and his grandparents also had a farm. He started out driving diggers before deciding he’d like to go farming.

“We had farming in our families, but didn’t grow up on farms. I just loved animals as a kid and grew to love farming.”

Emma gained a Bachelor of Science, majoring in agriculture. Her first job out of uni was as a farm tech at Lochinvar Station doing data analysis for the farm, anything from liveweight gains to pasture covers and crop yields. She also helped out with general farm work at busy times, like weaning and docking.

It was at Lochinvar she met Jason, who was shepherding there. After a year anda-half, the farm was sold and the couple

moved to Hawke’s Bay. Jason had a job as a training manager on a farm in Elsthorpe. Emma worked for Brownrigg Agriculture as a shepherd and crop monitoring.

She then moved to Rural Directions in a farm advisory, data collection and environmental role. She wrote farm environment plans. When Jason moved to Rissington, the opportunity arose for Emma to run the feed pad too, and she did a season of working in town for Rural Directions as well as running the feed pad.

“That was super busy. When I got pregnant I decided I liked the feed pad job

“When Jase started managing we really noticed there are a lot of farms that employ one person to run the farm but at busy times they’re screaming for casuals.”

Left: Emma Hynes and dog Mick onfarm at Rissington, Hawkes Bay.

Below: Emma feeding out to 7-month-old weaned calves.

Watch for details of a field day later in the year at the Strahans’ Kiwitea farm, 20km north of Feilding.

• Find out how this business is producing more than 700kg/ha of red meat (carcase weight) per year from its finishing country.

• See a diverse and sustainable farming business in action

• Find out about their positive plan for sustainable growth in profits and environment improvements

• Enjoy a day off your own farm

• Support the sponsors who have backed this great farming award

GOLD LEVEL SPONSORS:

Winners of the Wairere Central Districts Red Meat Farm Business of the Year title for 2022, Steph and Ian Strahan, accept the winner’s trophy from Wairere principal Derek Daniell.

more than working in town so we both worked at Rissington together for two anda-half years, and I juggled that with mum life.”

These days, Emma gets up early to feed out before Jason starts work and in the afternoons they have people who help with the kids. Jason picks them up, or they go with Emma to work occasionally. All up she does three to four hours a day between two feeds, and five hours a week of data analysis from home.

“I wouldn’t want to work fulltime, but this gives me a bit of brain stimulation. The Absolom family are amazing with the kids and accommodating about it, as long as I get the work done.”

Long term, Emma says the couple

definitely want to stay in the agriculture industry and they’d love to have an opportunity for something like an equity partnership one day. With no family farms to go home to and the prospect of buying a farm appearing unfeasible, they would like to get some skin in the game, somehow.

She says at the moment, what they’re doing works well.

“Maybe five to 10 years down the track when the kids are older we’d love to get into something.”

Emma says they have 93 casual workers registered with Casual Farmers NZ from all around the country. They aim to capture those people who might not be full-time farming, mums or farmers with a spare weekend who want to earn some money.

They hope to maximise the skilled workers available, from students over summer to people travelling domestically who want to work along the way.

Farmers have been a little slower on the uptake, with 30 employers registered so far. Emma’s main method for promoting the site has been social media, so she’s keen to find other ways to reach farmers.

“We know from our own experience that many farmers don’t take a break and I think it’s important for people to get away from the farm.”

“We know from our own experience that many farmers don’t take a break and I think it’s important for people to get away from the farm.”

Emma and Jason Hynes with Ava (5 months) and Corban (nearly 2).

BIG BROTHER IN YOUR POCKET

It is very easy to just stick with the default settings on your computer, tablet or phone.

In fact, many people might not even realise they can compromise their privacy by not changing them. Some settings can also affect how long your battery lasts for.

The best advice is to get familiar with the settings on whichever device you are using and recheck them every few months. When the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft update their operating systems the default settings often change, and the places you find those settings can move.

Here are some key settings you can check out to get you familiar with how to make changes.

Tracking where you have been (physically not in the cyberworld)

Significant Locations (iPhone) and Google Location History (Android). If this is turned on, you may be surprised your phone has been keeping track of where you have been and when. Apple says this information is encrypted and not read by Apple and that it’s merely used to serve up relevant information to you, such as predicting your route in Apple Maps. If it seems a bit creepy to have this information collected (or you want to preserve battery life because it will use up battery power), you can turn it off.

WHAT TO DO:

iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Location Services > System Services

> Significant Locations

(Note that you need to scroll right to the bottom for “System Services” and near to the bottom for “Significant Locations”). Turn the Significant Locations switch to off and tap the “Clear History” at the bottom of the page, so your previous locations are wiped.

Android: Settings > Location > Google Location History. This is turned off by default. If it is turned on, you can swipe the Location History switch to off and scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Pause”.

Tracking where you have been (in the cyberworld, not physically)

Personalised ads

Have you ever been annoyed when you are researching a product online and then for weeks afterwards ads for that item chase you around the internet, even though you have already bought it? Turning off personalised ads will put an end to that. It will not stop you being served up ads, but they will be more random.

WHAT TO DO:

Computer (Windows 10): Start > Settings > Privacy > General. Change the switches under “Change privacy options” to off.

Android: Settings > Google > Ads > Opt out of Ads

Personalisation > Opt out of interest-based ads and click OK.

iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Apple Advertising (you need to scroll to the bottom of the page to find this). Turn off Personalized Ads.

Diagnostic information

Diagnostic details and performance being transmitted

If this is switched on your device will send information to Apple, Google and app developers to help improve apps and the operating system. But it will also help drain your battery life. Again, you can stop this quite easily.

WHAT TO DO:

iPhone: Settings > Privacy > Analytics & Improvements. Turn off the relevant switches listed as you see fit – I have turned all of these off.

Android: Settings > Google > tap on three dots on top right > tap on “Usage & diagnostics”. Turn the switch off.

Computer (Windows 10): Start> Setting > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback. Select “Required diagnostic data”. Turn off “Tailored experiences”.

Now you have seen how just some of these work, I recommend you go into your device’s settings and have a good look around. Focus particularly on settings which affect privacy and ones that drain battery life – these will be anything that requires your device to upload or download information in the background. While you are at it check out things like Facebook’s privacy and security settings too.

Your gadgets may be tracking your every move by default, Kirstin Mills writes.

Dear Aunty Thistledown,

After a tough drought, then flood, then possibly drought again I have inadvertently taken up mono-cropping. I have the thickest stand of pure organic thistles you have ever seen. Given these damn things are so willing to grow during trying times, I think we should try harder to find a market for them.

Can you eat thistles?

Dear Prickly, In four short words, you have sent me on a collision course with cannibalism.

Yes you can eat thistles. In fact, you probably have already eaten thistles.

Artichokes are simply thistles that have been bred to have big, tasty heads.

Puha, of puha and pork fame, is also a culinary thistle (called milk or sow thistle elsewhere on the planet). And thistles have been a source of rennet for cheesemaking for at least a couple of thousand years.

Sunflowers are also part of the extended thistle family, but those beautiful bastards have risen well above their station.

I expect you are referring to the Californian and Scotch thistles which have a “give an inch, take a mile” approach to farmland. Yes, you can eat them too. In terms of safety, the only thing getting in your way are the thorns. Every part of every species of thistle is edible raw or cooked. The roots, the leaves, the stems and the seed heads are

all considered fair game by the foraging community.

Nettles, dandelions, burdock, gorse and many other prickly things are also edible (note: edible and palatable are two different things), so in the unlikely event that you cannot correctly identify a thistle, you will probably still stay upright. If you need extra help not accidentally poisoning yourself with hemlock or hogweed, then you can download a phone app like Pl@ntNet and point your camera at any plant to identify it.

I went to the Google machine and typed in “thistle recipes” the first hit was for a whisky and sherry based cocktail. That did make the thought of thistle cuisine easier to bear.

The internet said you can consider the thistle roots as a substitute for parsnip, the stems as celery, the leaves as spinach and the flowers as artichoke. So we went out into the garden and pulled up a couple of young Californian thistles, rinsed them off, and started tentatively nibbling.

Yes the roots and stems taste like stringy parsnip and celery. The troops, who have never been keen on the name-brand versions of either of those two vegetables, threatened a mutiny. The leaves were a surprise, they had a very mild and agreeable taste like a fresh baby spinach.

Don’t ask me how, but it is possible to bite a chunk of leaf straight off the plant and chew it up and the thorns don’t hurt your mouth. Prickles hurt the skin, but not the mouth or lips. I guess the same could be said for a hot cup of tea. You wouldn’t pour that on your legs, but your mouth is fine with it.

So now everyone in the family has a new and alarming party trick. Note we are talking about Californian thistles here, raw Scotch thistle leaves are akin to eating crushed velvet that can fight back.

We tried a few spinach-inspired recipes with the Californian thistle leaves. Blitzed in the blender for a smoothie etc and, yes, two thumbs up.

We have briefly considered putting the leaves in salads and sandwiches.but we have to be mindful of the innocent onlookers who view this as a cry for help. The world was barely ready for the thistle lemonade that we made and that was literally just thistle juice with honey and lemon.

“Is there some medicinal benefit to doing this?” they asked. “Do you need us to get you a supermarket voucher?” they ventured.

Taking apart the heads of the Scotch thistles to get to the mini artichokes inside was far too much admin for my liking. I was happy to leave those to the horses and sheep, but was outvoted by the tenacious curiosity of a child who enthusiastically presented me with a bowl of thistle heads decapitated with craft scissors.

They were delicious boiled and then fried in butter. They tasted like fried field mushrooms, or possibly just fried butter on an inoffensive tasting platform. This might be what artichokes taste like. Nobody was certain. We will find out for sure when the child’s new artichoke crop comes to fruition.

Aunty Thistledown.

Cali Thistledown lives on a farm where all the gates are tied together with baling twine and broken dreams. While she rarely knows what day it is, she has a rolodex of experts to call on to get the info you need. She’s Kiwi agriculture’s agony aunt. Contact our editor if you have a question for her terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz

Cheers, Prickly Chomper

Tackling rural skin cancer

A SKIN CANCER INITIATIVE WHICH COULD IMPROVE THE diagnosis of melanoma by almost 50% and help reduce New Zealand’s high mortality rates in rural areas is set to be expanded nationwide.

According to latest figures, males living in rural areas have higher skin cancer mortality rates than those in main urban areas. NZ also has the world’s highest rate of death from skin cancer, with 2700 new registrations annually and one Kiwi dying from this form of cancer every day.

The initiative will help upskill hundreds of Kiwi GPs in the use of specialised diagnostic technology, which could improve early identification of the disease by almost a third.

Diagnosis of the disease can be difficult with NZ lacking a sufficient number of dermatologists and health care providers available to check suspicious skin lesions, particularly in rural areas.

Dermoscopy is a relatively new technique used for examining skin however a lack of training standards has meant there is significant variation in the treatment a patient could receive.

Kiwi doctor Franz Strydom, of the Skin Cancer College Australasia (SCCA), says it’s important that skin cancer is identified early as it provides a significantly improved prognosis for the patient, and if caught in the initial stages, we have the ability to treat it with a minor surgical procedure, at a fraction of the cost of treating metastasised cancers.

He says Kiwis living in rural areas are often disadvantaged as access to medical assistance can be limited.

Patients will visit their GP for regular scripts and check ups, but a skin check should be a separate appointment, requiring more training on the part of the clinician and more time spent with the patient.

Soil fertility booklet out

AGKNOWLEDGE HAS RELEASED

its latest tool for farmers – a booklet that enables them to assess the fertility of soils by looking closely at the pasture quality, vigour, and clover content. Clover is the canary in the soil fertility mine. It is the first pasture component to ‘disappear’ if the soil fertility is not optimal.

The clover content of a pasture is a good proxy for the underlying fertility of the soil. Where it is growing in the pasture, its leaf size, abundance, colour and vigour, and the presence or absence in excreta patches, are all important indicators of the underlying soil fertility.

The Pasture Visual Assessment (PVA) uses these indicators to systematically score pastures on a 1-10 scale. A poor pasture (say 1-2/10 on the PVA scale), contains < 5% clover, the clover has small leaves and is only growing in the nutrient-rich dung and urine patches. Weeds and weed grasses dominate and the excreta patches are obvious. In contrast, a 9-10/10 pastures comprises 30-40% clover and the companion grass is ryegrass. The pasture is uniformly green and excreta patches are not apparent.

The PVA booklet provides a simple technical explanation of the system and contains a series of photographs showing the key features of the different types of pasture on 1 to 10 scale. The farmer simply matches his own pastures against the photographs. Obviously if the pastures are not ‘up-to-scratch’ professional advice should be sought.

The system, Pasture Visual assessment (PVA), has been developed with financial support from DairyNZ and Barenbrug.

The booklet is available at enquiries@ agknowledge.co.nz ($20 plus postage) or from www.barenbrug.co.nz

Organics derails economy

BY: MARK ROSS

The Sri Lankan government is bailing out its farmers and being blamed for a food crisis, due to a ban on agrichemicals and chemical fertilisers.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa introduced the ban in May 2021 to realise his ambitious goal of becoming the world’s first completely organic farming nation.

This failed scheme was part of a wider import ban that plunged the farming sector into crisis and was renounced months later.

As exports of goods and services were hampered by the pandemic last year, Sri Lanka’s trade deficit increased, eroding foreign reserves. The country’s foreign reserves fell to $2.8 billion in July 2021, down from $5.6 billion at the end of 2020, providing the government with a rationale for harsh import restrictions.

In attempts to save foreign exchange reserves, Sri Lanka banned a host

of imported goods, including food. Supermarkets were already rationing milk powder, sugar, lentils and other essentials as commercial banks ran out of dollars to pay for imports.

Food shortages worsened after the government’s ban on agrichemical imports which resulted in widespread crop failures and intense farmer protests. About a third of Sri Lanka’s agricultural land was left dormant because of the import ban.

The government quickly abandoned its quest in November 2021, announcing it would immediately lift an import ban on pesticides and other agricultural inputs. This followed the renouncing of the ban on fertiliser imports in October for teathe country’s main export earner.

Sri Lanka’s Agricultural Ministry Secretary, Udith Jayasinghe was quoted as saying: “We will now allow chemical inputs that are urgently needed.

“Considering the need to ensure food

security, we have taken this decision.”

Shortages worsened in the week before the ban ended, with prices for rice, vegetables and other market staples having doubled.

The devastating effect of the government’s sudden decision to stop importing chemical fertilisers and pesticides is still being felt in tea plantations and paddy fields.

The Sri Lankan government announced compensation for more than a million rice farmers whose crops failed. It will pay 40,000 million rupees (NZ$296m) to farmers whose harvests were affected by the chemical fertiliser ban, agriculture minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage said in late January.

“We are providing compensation to rice farmers whose crops were destroyed.

“The government will spend another $149m on a price subsidy for rice farmers,” he said.

While the government has rolled back many of those policies, the Central Bank has continued to restrict banks from issuing letters of credit to traders seeking to import food and other items, aggravating shortages.

Changing farm systems overnight has had devastating impacts on the people of Sri Lanka, especially farmers. Any change to farming requires careful analysis and consultation with farmers and their representatives, including accounting for individual circumstances and growing conditions. Idealised policy can lead to costly mistakes when the reality of the changes bite and remedial actions are needed to rectify them.

A woman picking tea in the Bogawantalawa Valley, also known as the ‘Golden Valley of Tea’ in Central Sri Lanka.

• Mark Ross is chief executive of Agcarm.

“The devastating effect of the government’s sudden decision to stop importing chemical fertilisers and pesticides is still being felt in tea plantations and paddy fields.”

Top left: Emma Hynes and daughter Ava, connecting farmers with casual labour. Top right: Weaned calves at Rissington. Centre: Ewe flock on the hills of the Whittles’ farm, Makatote. Above: View from the tops with Andrew Steven.

On alert: The four-legged workers at Kaipara Flats. Top right: Joshua Jackson and Simon Withers at Kaipara Flats. Centre right: Otupae Station cook Sue Davis. Above left: Otupae Station general hand Andrew Bury and manager Garry Mead. Above right: Garry with general farmhand Pine King.

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