Country-Wide December 2022 by CountryWide Media

BACKING FARMERS

WOOL AWAY

Northland’s Danielle Boyd is a shearer, shearing contractor, woolbroker and farmer p76

REGEN AG FAILS Couple return to sustainable farming

AG EMISSIONS What is likely to happen next

STILL FARMING A 15-year equity partnership ends and a new one begins

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DECEMBER 2022

Country-Wide

December 2022

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December 2022

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December 2022

EDITOR’S NOTE Opinion

Time for advocacy over?

HE GOVERNMENT SEEMS TO BE pushing as much controversial legislation through as possible before next year’s election. Three Waters is now Five Waters, with coastal water and geothermal added, the RMA changes appear worse and the ag greenhouse gas emissions pricing proposal is unpalatable. Federated Farmers, Beef + Lamb New Zealand and DairyNZ have called foul over the proposal. They now actively oppose the targets and the loss of hill country sheep and beef farms. An 18% drop in lamb production is forecasted to be devastating. Was it a surprise? As we report in this issue, critics of He Waka Eke Noa say no. He Waka and the Government’s proposals are similar, except the latter is more transparent. They say He Waka was always going to hurt sheep, beef and deer farmers because half of He Waka emissions’ reduction was from farms going into forestry. He Waka didn’t include the conversion numbers in its modelling, the Government did. Under both proposals, many hill country farmers will be forced out of business. The debate over counting existing farm trees for sequestration is seen as a red herring by critics. As the Climate Change Commission said, it would be too expensive to administer and will not give farmers a lot in return. Sorting out the additionality clause would. Credits will only go to the additional management of a native bush block (see p20), not all of it.

Farmers are angry at both schemes. Based on the warming effect, NZ farmers have done well to reduce emissions by 30% since 1990 and are sustainable. In this year’s January Country-Wide, critics said the main issue was the reduction targets. They were angry that the levy groups had not fought the targets but instead went down a rabbit hole with He Waka. If levy groups have screwed up, will they feel their members’ anger, and how? Is it no longer a case of advocacy because the Government won’t listen? That it will push its ideologically driven legislation anyway. So is it the end of advocacy and now it is down to a political solution? The National Party is still backing He Waka. ACT says it will match agricultural emission reduction goals with NZ’s five closest trading partners. Whether it is ag emissions, health, education or whatever, a fundamental change similar to 1984 is needed at the next election. NZ can not afford the next government to just tinker around the edges.

Terry Brosnahan

Got any feedback? Contact the editor: terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz or call 03 471 5272 @CountryWideEd

Next issue: January 2023

Mycoplasma bovis: The series

Top managers: Their career paths,

Diverse business: A coastal farm with

Winter crop success: Bring the

continues with a look at the social impact on farmers. cattle, sheep, thousands of goats, wind turbines and tourism.

Country-Wide

December 2022

challenges and rewards from running a large-scale sheep and beef business. soil nutrient levels up to the requirements of clover

Contents

A DURABLE FARMING PARTNERSHIP An equity partnership that allowed a father and son to farm has finished, but the Wairarapa pair are still farming.

GUILT FORESTS INVADE Emissions offsets allow polluters to harm the planet, as long as they plant a tree to remove the guilt.

8 BOUNDARIES HOME BLOCK 10 Paul Burt shares his thoughts on a man of the bush 11 Blair Drysdale has an encounter with the Ag minister 13 Roger Barton finds himself overlooked by statisticians

15 New barns mean Gaye Coates could visit Hanmer

BUSINESS 16 He Waka - Climate Commission picks the course

MAIZE CHAMPION

18 Ag emissions: How we got here

Award-winning maize grower in Waikato.

20 Farmers would be ripped off

DOG FOOD GUIDE 2022

22 When regen promise failed 25 Regen ag - Approach with caution

Country-Wide

December 2022

Country-Wide is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740

BUSINESS 28

Lambs - To finish or not to finish

Guilt forests invade

General enquiries: Toll free 0800 2AG SUB (0800 224 782) www.nzfarmlife.co.nz

SERIES 32

Mycoplasma bovis (and the lessons we have yet to learn)

LIVESTOCK 36

A durable farming partnership

Ewes: The breed or buy-in question

Drought prompts rethink

Broken down wool gets new use

Beefing up the calf crop

Big call downsizing NZ ag

REVIEW: M BOVIS

Nicola Dennis traces the history of New Zealand’s M bovis outbreak and some of the lessons.

DOG FOOD GUIDE 58

Top diet and sleep means more bark

It’s a dog’s life

Petfood industry booms

ENVIRONMENT Trees - Hearts of oak

YOUNG COUNTRY 76

On a roll with wool

Delivering delectable lamb

COMMUNITY 81

WHEN REGEN PROMISE FAILED

Advice: Aunty Thistledown

82 FARMING IN FOCUS

BACKING FARMERS

WOOL AWAY

Northland’s Danielle Boyd is a shearer, shearing contractor, woolbroker and farmer p76

REGEN AG FAILS Couple return to sustainable farming

AG EMISSIONS What is likely to happen next

STILL FARMING A 15-year equity partnership ends and a new one begins

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DECEMBER 2022

Country-Wide

December 2022

Sub editor Andy Maciver 06 280 3166 andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz Designer Emily Rees 06 280 3167 emily.rees@nzfarmlife.co.nz

Writers Anne Hardie 03 540 3635 Lynda Gray 027 465 3726 Sandra Taylor 021 151 8685 James Hoban 027 251 1986 Russell Priest 06 328 9852 Jo Cuttance 03 976 5599 Joanna Grigg 027 275 4031

Maize champion

Publisher Tony Leggett 06 280 3162 | 0274 746 093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz

Production Jo Hannam 06 280 3168

CROP AND FORAGE 70

Editor Terry Brosnahan 03 471 5272 | 027 249 0200 terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz

A Southland couple share their experience of regenerative agriculture as a warning.

OUR COVER Shearing won - After school, it was a choice of working in a bank or picking up the shearing handpiece for Danielle Boyd. Photo: Malcolm Pullman.

Partnership Managers Janine Aish | Auckland, Waikato, BOP 027 890 0015 janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz Angus Kebbell South Island, Lower North Island, Livestock 022 052 3268 angus.kebbell@nzfarmlife.co.nz Tony Leggett | International 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz Subscriptions nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop | 0800 224 782 subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz Printed by Blue Star, Petone ISSN 1179-9854 (Print) ISSN 2253-2307 (Online) @CountryWideNZ

AG EMISSIONS: HOW WE GOT HERE Country-Wide

December 2022

BOUNDARIES

An 80-year-old man went to the doctor for a checkup and the doctor was amazed at what good shape the guy was in. The doctor asked, “To what do you attribute your good health?” The old timer said, “I’m a golfer and that’s why I’m in such good shape. I’m up well before daylight and out golfing up and down the fairways.” The doctor said, “I’m sure that helps, but there’s got to be more to it. How old was your father when he died?” The old timer said, “Who said my father’s dead?” The doctor said, “You mean you’re 80 years old and your father is still alive? How old is he?” “He’s 100 years old and, in fact, he golfed with me this morning. That’s why he’s still alive, he’s a golfer.” The doctor said, “Well, that’s great, but I’m sure there’s more to it. How about your grandfather? How old was he when he died?” “Who said my grandpa’s dead?” The doctor said, “You mean you’re 80 years old and your grandfather’s still living! How old is he?” “He’s 118 years old.” The doctor was getting frustrated at this point and said, “I guess he went golfing with you this morning too?” “No...Grandpa couldn’t go this morning because he got married.” The doctor said in amazement, “Got married!! Why would a 118-year-old man want to get married?” The old timer shot back, “Who said he wanted to? His parents made him.”

Bid to buy iconic station gathers momentum

farmer from Hawke’s Bay with a large farming and private investment portfolio. Barham says seeing Mangaohane Station sold to an overseas person or company and planted entirely in trees would be a tragedy for New Zealand. “We’ve seen a sharp rise in the number of grazing properties being sold and planted for carbon credits so it’s time to make a stand against it,” he says. Forever Farming NZ has produced an Information Memorandum and Expression of Interest document for potential investors to view and consider. “Buying Mangaohane Station would mean we keep it farming livestock, and we keep the towns and businesses that surround it strong and vibrant. Farming is the backbone of the country and we need strong livestock farms to earn those export dollars to feed the nation,” he says. Anyone interested in investing can email foreverfarmingnz@gmail. com to request a copy of the investor information.

THREE TIMES

MAY 2022

SHOWTIME

Make your farm business good perform by maximising and profit science, best practice $12.00 incl gst

A GROUP OF NEW ZEALAND farming and agribusiness people is bidding to buy an iconic central North Island station to stop it being planted in permanent exotic forest. Mangaohane Station, nearly 5000ha just off the Napier-Taihape Road in central North Island, is for sale by international tender through real estate firm Bayleys. Bids close on December 7 and its scale, location and clear, easy contour is expected to draw strong overseas interest, particularly from companies seeking to find a source of carbon credits to offset their own fossil fuel emissions. The group, called Forever Farming NZ, plans to buy the Station by raising the estimated $45 millionplus required using a syndicated ownership structure where individuals are invited to invest a minimum of $250,000 per share. Forever Farming NZ’s primary intentions are to keep Mangaohane Station in New Zealand hands and farming livestock on the property. Leading the Forever Farming NZ group is Mike Barham, a successful

Country-Wide Beef

1 May 2022

Country-Wide’s designer Emily Rees is celebrating her third consecutive win of the Best Cover award for a non-newsstand publication at the 2022 Magazine Media Awards. The award was for her design of the 2022 Country-Wide Beef cover. The judges said the cover is intriguing, graphically striking and underpinned by a strong idea.

Country-Wide

December 2022

SCIENTIST QUERIES TARGET SUITABILITY The Climate Change Commission gives independent, evidence-based advice to the Government. In April, the commission organised scientists to present to the eight members of the Parliamentary Primary Production Committee, on biogenic methane. At this presentation, the reduction targets which have been adopted by the Government were noted as originating as global scenarios in 2017, and were never designed to be national targets. “They were all designed as global simulations, never designed to be targets,” principal scientist, carbon chemistry and modelling at NIWA Dr Sara MikaloffFletcher said. “They don’t take into account special challenges we might face as New Zealanders or the opportunities, or differentiated responsibilities.” As an example, she listed a country's financial position or historic position. Mikaloff-Fletcher also said the desired slowing of warming was possible to be achieved with smaller methane reductions than modelled. However, NZ would have to go harder on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Methane cuts were the quicker fix. The committee is chaired by Labour MP Jo Luxton and has members from National and ACT. To view the Biogenic methane presentation from scientists, see vimeo. com/694206418 • More on GHG p16.

ON THE ROCKS The waka has hit the rocks. After much, ‘We are all in this together’, suddenly we have a bunch of waka jumpers crying foul. If you go to bed with the Government don’t be surprised if you get stuffed. But there is good news for the jumpers. Science is on its way. Scientists, Dr Jock Allison and colleagues have done the maths. About 14% of total world emissions of methane come from ruminants and the contribution this makes to the overall GHG effect is about 0.09%. New Zealand has about 1% of the world’s ruminants and hence as a rough estimate NZ’s ruminants contribute about 0.001% to the overall GHG effect. Some may quibble about the numbers but the fact is NZ contribution via ruminants to the global GHG effect is tiny. This qualitative conclusion has now been confirmed by experimentation. Two highly qualified physicists from North America (Wijngaarden and Happer) have proven - and that is the right word – that globally methane has an almost negligible effect as a GHG (for a layman’s understanding of this important science see, https://binged. it/3txbKOw

PLANT-BASED LOSES APPEAL IN USA The plant-based meat market in the US appears to have stalled. Maple Leaf Foods Inc, the company that owns plant-based food maker Lightlife Foods, carried out an internal company review that showed after years of rapid growth, the plant-based meat sector had slowed right down. In August, McDonald’s ended its 600-restaurant meat-free burger pilot. Dubbed the ‘McPlant’ burger, it was made using Beyond Meat patties. Analyst research reported lacklustre demand in the US for the burger, and it was unlikely to be continued. This had a negative impact for Beyond shareholders, as stocks fell 6% the morning after McDonalds announced it had ended the trial. The Wall Street Journal reported Beyond Meat shares had peaked above $234 in mid-2019 after the company’s initial public offering of $25 earlier that year. Since then, shares had fallen as meat alternative makers dealt with pandemicrelated challenges and uncertainty around the products’ growth prospects. At the beginning of November Beyond Meat shares were trading at about US$15.

D I D YO U

KNOW? Ever wonder why most staircases in medieval castles were built to be extremely narrow and spiraling in a clockwise direction? Since medieval castles were built mainly as fortifications, staircases were designed to make it extremely difficult for enemy combatants to fight their way up. Since most soldiers were right-handed, they would need to round each curve of the inner wall before attempting to strike, inevitably exposing themselves in the process. The clockwise spiral staircase also allowed the defenders to use the inner wall as a partial shield and easily allow them to swing their weapon without being hindered by the curvature of the outer wall.

Country-Wide

December 2022

Photo: www.doc.govt.nz

HOME BLOCK Matata

Regrets - we have a few Paul Burt shares his thoughts on a man of Te Urewera bush, who spent his life combating the region’s introduced pest species with economic opportunity.

’M PROBABLY NOT ALONE IN HAVING regretfully lost the chance to get to know someone better. It’s not that they’ve moved away and it’s possible to rekindle the relationship at a later date. Sadly this is final, Bruce died last month. His heart gave up but despite cheating him of many more good years, it chose its moment well. He was in the bush, near the place where he had built his dream home. I imagine he was simply enjoying the solitude and the connection to the wild that was as natural to him as breathing. I got to know Bruce over a number of years as a result of my possum control work on the farm. It is sensible there is an economic opportunity in these pest animals and Bruce had built a life and business around their harvest. His mother wanted him to be a teacher but the lure of the bush and an independent spirit won out. He was never going to settle for a conventional life. Te Urewera, especially the Whakatane River catchment became his home. He started work as a contract hunter for the NZ Forest Service controlling deer and wild pigs. It was a tough game but being wet, bruised, battered and shattered was taken in his stride and the skill and endurance of this 70kg dynamo earned widespread respect. When the price of venison skyrocketed in the mid1970s, Bruce and his mates went into business on their own. Buller boots and strong backs aided by pack horses, jet boats and helicopters saw thousands of venison carcases make their way to export markets. Any man with a jet boat in those remote river valleys is a valuable asset to the local community and Bruce's interaction with the northern Tuhoe people created such a lasting bond they called him one of their own. I’m sure they recognised and admired in Bruce their own spiritual attachment to this wild place and his good nature and generosity sealed the pact. As venison prices waned, attention was turned to possums. Bruce not only set up and serviced a small army of trappers, he built a factory and found export

"Bruce’s interaction with the northern Tuhoe people created such a lasting bond they called him one of their own.”

markets for skins and later fur. Ever the entrepreneur and with an ethic that abhorred waste, Bruce later expanded into wild animal pet food. It was all just so logical to him. He was turning a serious pest problem into an economically and environmentally positive product. He was creating local employment and earning export dollars. On the face of it he should have been given a medal or at least a tax break and a Green Party life membership. Ironically he had to do it on his own with more hindrance than help from the authorities. In New Zealand we have environmentalists and conservationists, some with degrees and all with opinions. Most have wish lists but expect others to carry them out. Bruce was an environmentalist in the true sense of the word. He spent his whole life building knowledge of how our human-modified native forest ecosystems work. He was responsible for the demise of millions of animal pests. He knew what worked, what was a waste of money and how to strike a balance. His life story was one of recognising opportunities where a less-astute bureaucracy saw liability. We have at present a bitter dispute over Te Urewera infrastructure, namely the fate of 50-odd huts linked by hundreds of kilometres of cut tracks that are a legacy of the taxpayer-funded National Park system. The official line that these huts (once destroyed) will be replaced with more appropriate (?) purpose-built structures is a joke. There is not enough money for the immediate problem of pest control to maintain forest health let alone new infrastructure. The red tape and cost to re-establish even one small public building in a remote site would be eye-watering. These iconic buildings allowed men like Bruce to carry out their essential work more safely and on occasion even saved their lives. It is a sad time for Bruce's family and friends but a lesser tragedy is the loss of the knowledge he has taken with him. Why is it so difficult for authorities and policymakers to seek out and employ the freely given intellectual resource that practical hardworking Kiwis have created in many varied fields.

Country-Wide

December 2022

HOME BLOCK Balfour

Ag minister loses his cool After an encounter at Greymouth’s AgFest, Blair Drysdale has lost all respect for Damien O’Connor.

I “...I was gobsmacked with his initial response, an explosion of F-bombs in a petulant childlike and very unprofessional manner.”

Country-Wide

December 2022

T'S SPRING, THAT TIME OF YEAR when everything is flourishing, paddocks full of young animals and rapidly growing crops, a time where things are generally very positive. So, I’ll run with that vibe, for now, albeit somewhat briefly. In early October Jody found out she’d won the Innovation category of the NZI Rural Women NZ Business Awards for her efforts and achievements with our Hopefield Hemp business, after two rigorous rounds of submitting information, an online interview and waiting for the judges’ results. It is indeed a credit to her, as once we’ve come up with the idea for something, I have a great habit of leaving my extremely capable wife to implement it. Indeed, our farm has a very vibrant and colourful look about it as it does every year, but this year as the crop rotation has it, the 25 hectares of flowering tulips are right out in front of the house, and it’s been an absolutely stunning view as the curtains are drawn every morning. Most of the spring-sown crops are in the ground and looking good, with only the hemp and swedes left to go in the ground late November. Back in mid-October, I was well and truly up to date with the work on farm so I took the opportunity to nip over to Greymouth for Agfest, a very successful field day run over two consecutive days that has the vibe of A&P shows of old and is owned and run by a mate of mine, his wife and another couple. We were meant to be over there with the hemp business, but a clash of dates for Jody spelled the end of that and let’s just say it was a very social event for me. But that’s about where my positivity comes to a screaming halt, much like parts of our food production sector are about to. On the Friday of Agfest just before lunch, I came across NZ Ag’s greatest proponent, poster boy and second row minister, Damien O’Connor. I’ve had a little bit to do with Damien over the years and once the formalities of the trusty handshake were done, I got on with taking the opportunity to hit him with some questions about what the Government had

decided about the He Waka Eke Noa proposal. And it was at this point in which I was gobsmacked with his initial response, an explosion of F-bombs in a petulant childlike and very unprofessional manner. At this point I lost all respect for our so-called Minister of Agriculture and my personal opinion of a man I had always liked, dropped like a bucket load of coal from an Indonesian ship to the dock. Once he finally calmed down and was able to be reasoned with, I got my questions and points across about not being able to account for the sequestration of carbon at farm level and the inequities of what food producers are facing at a global level. The absolute farcical ETS, whereby global companies essentially buy our hard work so they can carry on polluting unimpeded. If anyone can explain to me how this helps emissions at any level on a global scale, I’m all ears. The loss of prime New Zealand sheep and beef land is going to be an embarrassment to us as a nation. Cutting our food production, which is against the Kyoto protocol, will be an ecological disaster. It will allow pests to reach places they haven’t before and the fires that await us we are completely unprepared for at a national level. But worst of all, once whole tracts of prime land are planted out in pines, there is going to be the destruction and loss of small rural communities through the loss of jobs, which in turn will have a flow-on effect to our larger service towns. But we must remember to play the ball on this issue and not the player. It’s not the fault of landowners whatsoever, they’re just following the financial signals and economic benefits coming from our idealistic and virtue-signalling Government. – Ag minister Damian O’Connor was asked by Country-Wide about his comments and he replied: “I face robust comments from time to time and respond robustly. Having said that, I hope that my language didn’t distract from the substance of the debate and would be sorry if it troubled anyone.”

WARNING ALL CARBON FARMERS Can you afford a sub $20/ton carbon price? DemocracyNZ believes that two policy changes are required to stop more stations like Mangaohane being destroyed by carbon farming.

The carbon farming industry is not part of the productive economy, it is a house of cards that relies entirely on government policy settings to sustain itself.

Link the New Zealand carbon price to our top five trading partners All land planted for carbon farming purposes from the 1 December 2022 must be registered in the New Zealand carbon market.

Change those settings and the business model is no longer viable. Real estate agents are being warned about the risks of further investment into this destructive industry. The potential sale of the magnificent Mangaohane Station to carbon farming interests is confirmation that New Zealand’s climate policy that has lost its way and must be urgently revised. DemocracyNZ will stand up for farmers against this out-of-control carbon farming before it ends rural New Zealand. We invite other political parties to join us in protecting our farming and rural communities. Our other policy positions: • Ban pine trees from carbon farming. • Productive pine plantations can receive credits for carbon stored in wood products, if processed in New Zealand. • Promote the use of native trees for carbon storage with changes to ETS settings.

Our farmers

WE STAND WITH

Matt King Party Leader

Steve Cranston Candidate for Waikato

Authorised by M. King 1/2048 SH10 Waipapa, Northland 0246

Country-Wide

December 2022

HOME BLOCK Greytown

Beaten by statistics Roger Barton is taking exception to being overlooked by statisticians.

’VE TURNED INTO A CONSCIENTIOUS objector. Others might just call me objectionable. One of the “others” is likely to be Statistics NZ. I’m not filling out my annual Ag stats. I’ve based this on two planks. One that I believe they use them against us and not for us and secondly about two years ago Barbie and I were asked if we would meet with their leadership team to look at ways of increasing the value of the exercise to farmers. We also helped set up other similar meetings. As part of the exercise, we were promised a written summary of the discussion. This summary never arrived. I have solid grounds for being objectionable. One thing we don’t need is a statistician to tell us that cost of inputs has risen enormously in recent times. In Prime Minister Rob Muldoon’s darkest hour the cost of farm inputs went up 22% in the 1982/83 year. He meddled with the system trying to force hands but it failed and the nation paid the consequences. It’s history repeating itself. While the general populous do their best to get by, we have a Government that points its finger at everyone and everything except itself. The grocery industry is getting a fair bit of attention over what is seen as excess profits but for whatever insane reason a maximum tax intake is seen as positive (by some anyway) and then they go on their merry way blowing the advantage extra revenue should offer. When will government, of any hue, subject their own expenditure to the rigours they like others to observe? Answer - never. There is a maxim I struck years ago which says “expenses rising to meet income”. In good times people get lax about value and easily let the spoils of better returns get eroded. Farmers are now coming to the end of one such period. Inside the farm gate we have had an extremely wet winter and spring like most. Three weeks after it

Country-Wide

December 2022

"Three weeks after it stopped raining, I remarked to Barbie that the next rain we got would be the best one in eight months. Kapow, we got 40mm.”

stopped raining, I remarked to Barbie that the next rain we got would be the best one in eight months. Kapow, we got 40mm and a follow up of 6mm. Great for crop germination and establishment. To divert slightly about our wet winter locally I see that a local farmer with energy and nous has been key to solving a major access problem to Hinakura. A slip that had been threatening finally unleashed its fury and cut the easy access to Martinborough necessitating a long drive to do everyday tasks. Initial budget was circa $125k and it finally cost $165k. Costs were exacerbated by appalling conditions. What really got me was the Greater Wellington Regional Council saying it couldn’t be done unless millions were spent. If there was a nomination for “Doer of the Year” this man should be the recipient. A while ago we hired a professional to assess our liabilities under the emissions tax regime. We use a bit of N around here so that adds to the sum payable. We are also an oddity with the amount of native bush we have. Including 243 hectares of our total of 500ha being in QE2 covenants. Alas it would appear that any additional retirement areas and plantings we have done will have no value to us. I could be really bloody minded and open the gates again. Immoral yes but not illegal. Do the relevant ministers' advisers really think they have landed on an acceptable solution with the inability to claim this good work as part of sequestration? Or have the ministers been “cunning” and they will flip-flop on this measure and look like our friends after all. Either way they should hang their heads in shame. This season will be a season of “lasts.” The last time I will brand a bale AAH, the last time I will yard our lambs for docking, I hope to be useful for that task with our son at least. The last time getting what I refer to as “winders elbow’ from doing break feeding.

KEEP THEM WATCH THEM

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Helping grow the country

Country-Wide

December 2022

HOME BLOCK Haupiri

One year in and the barns are working Composting shelters have allowed the family to escape for a soak at Hanmer Springs, despite a severe weather warning, Gaye Coates writes.

U “Removing our traditional reliance on annual forage crops to meet feed demand in winter has been the major change in our farming practices.”

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NINTENTIONALLY, INCORPORATING composting shelters into our farming system has created something of a talking point. Building these shelters has not been a small project; there is no stepping away from them being an upfront response to improving our farm’s winter grazing practices. Unsurprisingly the direct questioning, mixed with some evasive scepticism all share the same purpose. Ultimately, people want to know if this is a solution that is going to work or, conversely, not work. Looking for a solution to improve our winter grazing and environmental compliance, we wanted a focus on resilience. We wanted to respect not only our land and the wider environment, but also safeguard the wellbeing of our pastures, our cows and our people. Introducing our herd to the barns this winter for shelter and feeding noticeably reduced stress and fatigue across all of those three important areas – pasture, cows and people. During spring, the cows calved in the barns and following this, the barns have been “on call”, providing us with flexibility to respond to climate and weather events and to cow demands. After 12 months using the barns, cows are in good condition and definitely damage to pasture because of inclement weather has been averted. While we haven’t achieved quite the peak milk production we had aimed for, the usual phenomenon of that high point dropping rapidly away has not happened, and production has remained stable. Lameness is significantly less, the result we believe of the extra space and kinder surface of the feed area. There has been no acceleration of mastitis and the somatic cell count remains at 100,000. Inadvertently, there is a personal sense of security in having these dominant structures onfarm. Usually a forecast hinting at significant rain would quash any thoughts of snatching some time away. Last week a dumping of 300mm was forecast, the barns were scheduled into the grazing plan and we escaped worryfree for some “soak and hold” in Hanmer. So, while there is a sense of realism that these are early days, the barns are absolutely working in our farming system.

December 2022

Have our farming priorities changed? One of the first concerns was whether our milk could still be marketed within the framework of grass-fed? We have always been, and continue to be, a pasture-based farm with an emphasis on cow condition, production second. Our farming system has not shifted from those priorities. The barns are a resource that allows us to better use both the pasture grown onfarm and the supplements required to fill the deficits. We are in a position with the barns to balance without compromise both pasture and cow health. Have our farming practices changed? Again we were challenged by suggestions that introducing a barn into our farming system would result in us indiscriminately and excessively feeding our cows. Removing our traditional reliance on annual forage crops to meet feed demand in winter has been the major change in our farming practices. Being precise with our feed budgeting and understanding cow feed demands remains unchanged. Have there been challenges? The timing of a one in 100-year storm just before calving saw the roofs damaged on both sheds, allowing significant rain into the barns. The success or not of the composting bed pack is reliant on a few crucial factors, one being the elimination of water from the stack. At the time, it was demoralising to watch a dry, warm bed transform to a less than optimal, cool quagmire. But with adversity, there is inevitably learning and we now have confidence in what it takes to reasonably quickly re-establish the composting action. We also have some assurance in knowing from experience that lack of perfection does not compromise the overall benefits. One year in and there is still a lot to learn; 12 months really only amounts to novice experience. However, the barns definitely are feeling like the right fit for our farm. But, we are calf-length 4x4 gumboot wearers, while many others out there are ankle-high Red Band enthusiasts. And, just like any good gumboot, it’s what fits for purpose for the individual and is comfortable to wear that is most important in the consideration of whether a solution is working or not.

BUSINESS Ag emissions

Climate Commission picks it The Government’s proposals for an agricultural emissions scheme have largely followed the independent Climate Change Commission’s suggestions. By Joanna Grigg.

f farmers want a crystal ball on the Government’s decision as to the shape of the proposed emissions scheme, they had best listen to the Climate Change Commission. When it talks, the Government usually listens. In July, the independent commission suggested a more restricted (simpler) sequestration list for the ag scheme. It said the sequestration approach by He Waka Eke Noa (He Waka) would “likely be expensive, complex, inequitable, and difficult to audit and enforce – without significantly improving emissions reduction outcomes”. It said farmers should look to the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to get recognition for trees. This pruned sequestration list was duly adopted in the October Government proposal (e.g. exclusion of shelter belts). The Government also followed the commission’s suggestion to align freshwater goals with sequestration – rewarding

riparian plantings but not similar-style plantings away from waterways. The commission made it clear that pricing policy must not “disproportionately disadvantage or compound historical grievances for Iwi/Maori and must factor in the unique characteristics of Maori collectively owned land and Maori collectives”. The Government has, once again, adopted this approach, with the proposal to ring-fence sequestration income for Maori and to top it up. In May 2022 the commission advised on why financial assistance to agriculture might be needed and how it could be done. It said assistance should be given to all farmers, if the Government expects “material financial hardship to be widespread”. They couldn’t come up with any concrete numbers or plans here, as the scheme hadn’t been designed. The resulting Government proposal was

also wishy-washy; an aspirin for a broken leg. It suggests farm support of $55 million to help farmers and growers “navigate requirements around biosecurity, climate, water, and the environment”. This is just consultancy advice, not alleviation of the levy cost. Discretionary relief in case of adverse events was suggested, but would only help a few farms short term.

National MP beats drum Farmers feel abandoned by the Government on the proposed agricultural pricing scheme, National Party associate agriculture spokesperson Nicola Grigg says. The Selwyn MP says the two big issues for farmers in her electorate are feeling abandoned after the floods, and the pricing scheme. Grigg’s speech to Parliament on the agricultural greenhouse gas scheme in October, circulated on social media, has become one of her most-watched speeches, with 26,000 views. In November, she rolled out a social media campaign on the topic to rally submissions from farmers. She said National leader Christopher Luxon and the party’s primary production spokesman Todd Muller have made it clear that the National Party will support an emissions pricing scheme for agriculture, like for other sectors. “I’m working closely with the leadership to push for a slow down, to wait until the mitigation technology has arrived, and to include all reasonable on-farm sequestration,” Grigg said. “The National Party wants a wider sequestration model and the bottom line is we won’t support a model that sees 20% of sheep and beef farms and 5% of dairy impacted.” Grigg said she opposed methane pricing being set by Ministers, rather than the He Waka proposal of a committee including agricultural representatives. When asked whether collecting and

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It said the sequestration approach by He Waka Eke Noa (He Waka) would “likely be expensive, complex, inequitable, and difficult to audit and enforce – without significantly improving emissions reduction outcomes. measuring smaller areas of on-farm sequestration will be difficult, costly and not worth it, Grigg said this is where farmers should submit and put their opinions across. “What alternatives are there?” Grigg sits on the Primary Production Committee and fears it is a done deal. “But the Government bowed to public pressure on Kiwisaver and did a U-turn – the strength of numbers can do it.”

Editor note: Joanna Grigg and Nicola Grigg are related (by marriage) through a shared ancestor John Grigg of Longbeach, Ashburton, who was great-great grandfather of Joanna’s husband David, and Nicola.

Meat industry already using climate drivers While Government cooks up an agriculture emissions scheme and farmers anticipate a belly ache, the meat industry carries on. The industry already has marketing programmes built around emission reductions. Signals are being sent back to farmers. An example is Silver Fern Farms’ Net Carbon Zero Certified Beef. In July, a joint venture was announced between MPI and ANZCO Foods, Fonterra, Ngai Tahu Holdings, Ravensdown, Silver Fern Farms (SFF) and Synlait. It will include funding on-farm mitigation research. This will be run within the Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Emissions, set up by the Government in 2022. Initial commitments

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are for $172 million invested over four years by industry and Government to develop and commercialise practical tools and technologies for farmers. It includes $7.75m by industry in year one. As well as on-farm mitigation research, plants are cutting factory emissions. In July 2021, SFF announced a plan to eliminate coal in its plants by 2030. SFF is co-funding projects, with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, to halve SFF coal consumption by 2023 and reduce by two-thirds by 2025. In August 2022, SFF officially opened a project in Belfast, Canterbury, to build a high-temperature heat pump. This is expected to significantly reduce coal use at the site. Alliance Group general manager manufacturing Willie Wiese said they have a goal of ending the use of coal at their plants within 10 years. A high-temperature heat pump has been installed at the Pukeuri plant near Oamaru. It provides about five megawatts of hot water heating, which is nearly 50% of the plant’s requirement. A heat pump has also been installed at the Lorneville plant. In 2024, an electrode boiler will be commissioned at Lorneville. This will reduce the use of existing coal-fired boilers, saving almost 12,000 tonnes of carbon a year. The existing main coal-fired boiler at Mataura will be replaced with a hightemperature heat pump system, and a small diesel-boiler used only for peaking. This will save 6400t of carbon each year and significantly improve air quality for local residents, Wiese said.

In a third project, Alliance will capture waste heat from the refrigeration plant at Smithfield to replace coal use for process heat. This will save almost 4000t of carbon a year.

Meat industry weighs in When a meat industry worth $12 billion submits on proposed greenhouse gas emissions pricing, hopefully the Government will listen. In November,the Meat Industry Association (MIA) as a collective voice made a submission on the Government proposal. Chief concerns were the single-minded focus on a methane target to set the levy price (not socio-economic aspects) and the possible impact on rural New Zealand, and food prices. A deep-seated fear is haemorrhaging livestock numbers affecting plant viability. MIA chief executive Sirma Karapeeva said the organisation was keen to look at how a mechanism could be developed to broaden the pricing criteria, and how the sector could contribute to price-setting. There’s a concern that a processor levy, once in, will be here to stay. “We are deeply concerned about the proposed interim processor-level levy. While it was an option considered as part of the development of the He Waka proposal, it didn’t meet the requirements for equity, effectiveness and practicality.” The concern is this back-stop will be used as an excuse to slow or delay implementation of a farm-level system. “We do not consider there to be a genuine incentive to move to a farm-level system,” Karapeeva said. The MIA also predicted there’d be severe disruption and uncertainty caused by moving from one system to another within a short time. Alliance Group chief executive David Surveyor said they would be pressing the Government for changes to the proposal.

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Ag emissions: How we got here The goal posts

The ag engineers

PARIS AGREEMENT 2016 To keep the global average temperature well below 2deg C above preindustrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5deg C.

2019 He Waka Eke Noa (He Waka) partnership established (Ag sector and Maori) and they started work on a scheme blue-print. This was as an alternative to bringing agriculture into the NZ ETS.

New Zealand commits to a 10% reduction below 2017 levels, in biogenic methane emissions, by 2030. A 24%47% reduction by 2050. Big effort required to score this. Will it be an own-goal?

He Waka recommends a split-gas approach.

Government softer on long-lived gases like carbon dioxide, as targeting netzero increase in emissions (i.e. keeping it static, not dropping).

FEBRUARY 2022 He Waka ag emissions pricing scheme proposals put to farmers. Main focus was choosing whether to favour a farm-levy, processor levy or hybrid pricing system. Farmers favour on-farm level scheme. Number of submissions on He Waka first round: 7000. Number of farmers that know their greenhouse gas numbers 60% – (He Waka milestone target was 25%). Available GHG calculators is now 11 – Alltech, B+LNZ GHG Calculator, E2M, Farmax, Farm emanage (Toitu), Fonterra, Hort NZ, MyImprint Farm, MfE, Overseer and ProductionWise (FAR).

Climate Change Commission feedback

Government trims He Waka, sole focus on methane reduction

MAY 2022 The Climate Change Commission Report on advice on agriculture assistance to farmers. Lacking information on the scheme.

OCTOBER 2022 Government releases its response to the He Waka Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership proposal.

JUNE 2022 Another report: How ready are farmers for emissions pricing? Climate Change Commissioner queries practicality of measuring some types of sequestration. This hints at where the Government might land. Suggests NZ won’t be ready for the detailed farm-level system by 2025 as proposed by He Waka, and that a basic farm-level system should be used as an interim step.

He Waka proposal is reworked, with some things in, some things out. Some of the key He Waka design features in the proposal; *Farm-level split gas, having a single centralised calculator to calculate emissions, transitional support (in some form), and incentive payments for mitigation. CHANGES; • Suggests an interim processor level levy if can’t build a farmlevel scheme in time (levy/kg of meat sold) • Levy/tax all focused on methane reduction targets. • Can’t count sequestration for pre-2008 plantings (exotics, riparian) • More sequestration to move into ETS

MAY 2022 He Waka report went to Government ministers.

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Farmer reaction Farmers are asked for feedback and they give it. Beef + Lamb NZ go on tour and are vocal. “One area of immediate and significant concern is the proposed changes to sequestration, which we know is of real importance to many sheep and beef farmers.” B+LNZ are not happy with these changes and will push for better outcomes. Federated Farmers hold regional meetings. About 800 attended Southland’s meeting on farming emissions and winter grazing. Feds come out with three bottom lines before they get on board for a scheme (review methane target and make it related to no additional warming – not going harder than other gas targets, no emissions leakage, wait for viable mitigation to be available). Leakage is when NZ farmers drop stock numbers, production shifts overseas. Overseas production is less efficient and nothing is gained in global emissions reduction. URBAN MEDIA GET INTERESTED Feds president Andrew Hoggard does 50 interviews in two weeks regarding the Government’s take on the He Waka policy. “We can’t be agreeing on any

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mechanism until we get them to conduct a review on the targets that scientifically arrives at the number required to ensure either no more additional warming is being caused by New Zealand Ag, or a figure that is the additional warming equivalent of net zero long-lived gases in 2050.” Survey of 500 Kiwi voters (Curia Research) showed only 26% of respondents believe NZ should price agricultural emissions before other countries do. The majority, 57%, opposed the move entirely (funded Federated Farmers). Groundswell demonstrations. Waka Adrift (a group of more than 140 concerned sheep and beef farmers) continue to say design is not fit for purpose. Suite of environmental policies need to work together. Zoom sessions rolled out by MfE and MPI. NOVEMBER 18 Consultation closes. 2023 Election

Job loss, inequity and the fact that the meat industry was already making positive progress on improving its environmental footprint were the key reasons. “We employ almost 5000 people, the vast majority in rural communities in New Zealand where we are often the largest employer.” In terms of reducing sequestration options, Surveyor said it was baffling that while the Government’s own modelling showed that the sheep and beef sector was most heavily impacted by a price on emissions, it diminished the value of the one tool many farmers could use to mitigate. In the October Market report, Silver Fern Farms’ Simon Limmer said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern signalled she wanted to hear directly from red-meat processors, and SFF will take up this opportunity. “We do see some positive signals that the consultation period will be a genuine opportunity to reshape some elements of the proposals and Silver Fern Farms will be working hard to secure a better outcome for our farmers. “Our position through the consultation will be the same as the one we’ve had throughout the He Waka process: Silver Fern Farms supports a fair and equitable farm-level system for emissions pricing and we’ll continue to bring a firmly market-led perspective to the issue. What’s on the table currently is clearly not equitable for sheep and beef farmers, so let’s work together to change that.” Limmer noted some global headlines heralded He Waka as a positive ‘worldfirst’ and this did illustrate the role that sensible emissions pricing could play in supporting positive customer sentiment. “While there’s much more work to do to land a workable farm-level system, the world and our consumers continue to look to New Zealand Inc to lead the way in low emissions food production.”

BUSINESS Ag emissions

Farmers would be ripped off nvironment consultant and farmer Steve Cranston said forget about the riparian plantings and shelterbelts, focus on the additionality clause. It has been missing from the discussion. “That is where farmers are getting absolutely hammered.” Cranston said He Waka Eke Noa (Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership) and the Government’s ag emission plan weren’t that different. “When it all boils down they are the same.” He agreed with the Climate Change Commission that little bits of sequestration would be more costly to administer than provide value to farmers.

“Nobody is talking about the additionality clause.” If a farmer has a big 200ha block of regenerating native bush, to get credits it would have to be fully fenced and carry out pest control work. The credits are for only the additional management. If there was 6 tonnes/ha of carbon sequestered and it goes to 6.5t/ha, the farmer only gets paid for the half tonne. “A lot of people haven’t worked that out yet and farmers are going to be ripped off.” All of the regenerating bush can be included under Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidelines, he said. Farmers are missing out because of the Government’s strict interpretation of the

additionality clause. Cranston also agreed with the commission that farm sequestration should be in the emissions trading scheme (ETS). It brings outside funds into agriculture. The joint sector statement on ag emissions changes everything, he said. The sectors were saying the targets were wrong but had accepted them. Now farmers are not letting them accept them. Industry groups are now actively advocating for a change in targets. Cranston has been saying for some time putting pressure on the Government to change the targets should mean no price on methane. All the industry groups are accepting a science-based target using the GWP* which would form the targets, 80% of farm emissions which farmers are on target with. It could make a reduction target of 3% a decade, not 10%. That means there probably wouldn’t be a price on methane. “If methane is not adding to warming then there probably wouldn’t be a price.” Cranston said that would only leave nitrous oxide in either He Waka or the Government’s scheme. With methane and 80% of the revenue gone, he asked how would either scheme be funded? “How are we going to fund this big, convoluted scheme with only 20% of the emissions?”

Opinion

POOR POLICY THAT THREATENS OUR future is hard to swallow at the best of times. We are being asked to submit (again) on greenhouse gas emissions pricing at a time when after several years riding high the gloss is wearing off. Our meat companies are concocting their annual routine warnings around doom, gloom and volatility ahead. The weather is doing what it predictably does heading into summer and the lamb schedule is starting its annual slide – designed to bottom out just when most of us are selling the bulk of our lambs. Policies that threaten our existence are easier to ignore when prices are high and we have an abundance of feed. The current farm challenges magnify the stress caused by the

Government’s emissions pricing proposal. Since the Government announced its plan in October we have endured a spike in farm-related media coverage on all fronts, a nationwide protest (again) and pithy lines from a minister who, while being charged with our sector, seems comfortable creating a future where many of us could be forced out of business. To the untrained eye, industry groups have made a reasonably convincing attempt to blame the Government for all issues with looming emissions policy. Messrs Morrison and Van der Poel have opted for the disingenuous approach of appearing publicly outraged at the Government’s plan. The reality is that He Waka Eke Noa was already going to crucify hill country

New Zealand farmers need to focus on the big prize of agricultural emissions sequestration, not the crumbs, Terry Brosnahan writes.

HILL COUNTRY HORRORS

Hill country sheep and beef farmers are caught between Government and industry emissions proposals that have the same result, James Hoban writes.

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That’s why sequestration should be in the ETS otherwise a price would be set to pay for the sequestration, he said. The biggest issue for Cranston now is not the difference between the two schemes but how they would be funded if the sector groups are successful in advocating for the targets to be changed. There was $60 million in administration costs, $70m for sequestration and there was research to pay for. It would all have to come from a nitrous oxide levy. The question would be why it was so costly with only nitrous oxide to fund it. “The whole thing will have to be ripped up and they will have to start again.” Cranston said He Waka excluded carbon forestry conversions from their modelling, but the Government included them and told farmers. “It was very transparent with its modelling.” That’s why the Government modelling looked terrible. “Half of He Waka’s emissions reduction was from conversions to carbon forestry which wasn’t counted in their economic

modelling.” Cranston said it was the conversion that dropped the emissions as farms were destocked. Most carbon forestry would be used to offset other industries, not farming. He said the Government acknowledged that conversions are influenced by the emissions price. The pull of high land prices due to the carbon emissions price and the legislation making it unprofitable to farm would force farmers to sell.

The National Party hadn’t worked that out yet and were still backing the original He Waka proposal. Add the carbon forestry back into He Waka and it was the same damage as the Government’s proposal. Cranston has recently decided to stand as the Waikato candidate for Matt King’s Democracy NZ party to fight carbon forestry. He doesn’t believe it will be solved through advocacy but by putting pressure on political parties.

“Add the carbon forestry back into He Waka and it was the same damage as the Government’s proposal.”

farmers. Sheep, beef and deer farmers are disproportionately impacted under both the Government’s proposal and He Waka. While the Government has made a bad situation worse – even under He Waka many hill country farmers were going to leave the industry. Since the October announcement I have been amazed to hear the closest thing to a sheep and beef saviour, strongly advocating on behalf of families running sheep and beef cattle. Andrew Hoggard has been outstanding and to be honest he is not the first person expected to be sticking up for us. In taking a tougher stance and recognising the unacceptable impact on our sector, Hoggard has admirably fulfilled a

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role that Beef + Lamb’s leaders should have taken on by now. Beef + Lamb has at times walked a politically safe middle line which avoids upsetting its dairy levy payers. Federated Farmers has always had the challenge of representing a diverse membership yet it is now fighting for the future of sheep and beef farming in New Zealand. Led by Hoggard, it is doing the job our own sector leadership should have been doing. The Waka Adrift group is well in tune with the unfairness of both schemes (industry and Government versions). If policy proceeds as drafted it is hard to see a buoyant future for hill country sheep and beef. This is hard to swallow when we care for our environment the way we do.

Generally, hill country sheep and beef farmers run their business with a light footprint. The impact of emissions policy will be far reaching and permanent – it trumps biodiversity, water quality and winter grazing regulations. Unfortunately, it has come at a time when most of us are suffering more than a touch of submission fatigue. Groundswell’s efforts are immense and making an impact. Between Federated Farmers, Groundswell and Waka Adrift there is hope. Unfortunately, they are swimming against the tides of a rabid Government and ineffective farming sector leadership. • James Hoban is a North Canterbury farmer and environmental consultant.

BUSINESS Unsustainable

Jeff and Linzi Keen with son Syd (9) on the Northern Southland farm.

When regen promise failed A multi-award-winning Southland couple share their harrowing experience of regenerative land practices as a warning of what can go wrong. By Jill Horren. 22

inzi and Jeff Keen were fencing off waterways and planting natives well before it was fashionable. In what is a fairly traditional farming landscape near Lumsden in Northern Southland, the innovative couple continue to be the greenies of the hood. Rolling hills lead the way to their 870-hectare Tomogalak Gorge farm, which backs on to the tussock country of the Mataura Range. The property has been in Jeff’s family for 43 years. He took it over in the early 2000s with Linzi later joining him. Both educated at Lincoln University (then College), they consider “good biology” a key to farm practice. It was a desire to create the ultimate “green” farming system for whoever comes next that partly led them to regenerative practices. The promises of premium prices for the resulting produce from discerning overseas buyers was another carrot.

The system aims to build soil health, increase plant and animal nutritive quality, reduce stock stress and lessen the need for chemicals. Linzi, a self-confessed “hippie-type” who grew up on a lifestyle block, says the couple were readily caught up in the ideology. Fertiliser use and stocking rates were already fairly low and no drenching of adult stock had been done for 15 years. That and the ongoing native planting contributed to the farm receiving a Ballance Farm Environment Award in 2005. “At that time we were probably considered greenies and alternative farmers,” Jeff says. In 2019, when the couple won an Environment Southland community award for environmental leadership in farming and land management, they had just begun shifting to the regenerative system. Jeff had joined a local “red meat profit partnership” group that aimed to show how to apply the practice to livestock farming,

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“Here, it’s not in the bank to pull out for a start. With livestock, regen is all about long-grass farming with big mobs, short grazing times and longer spell periods. Eat a third, trample a third and leave a third.” with the government putting in money to get speakers in. “I’ve never really wanted to farm intensively. We’d looked at what fineparticle lime could do for worm populations and had strong interest and background in soil biology. We’d got things going pretty well at that time,” he says. Stock health was good with a consistent pregnancy rate in their breeding ewes of about 170% and lambing percentage of 135% without doing a lambing beat. Typically a third of the lambs were heavy enough to sell at weaning. “The regen thing seemed like the holy grail. We could do it on our own with lower inputs,” Jeff says. The concept, Linzi says, was sold to them with a fair bit of marketing spin but they wanted nothing more than for it to work.

“It was being sold as a panacea for low emissions and the way to save the planet - the be-all and end-all of great sustainable farming.” With the expert advice and plenty of research on board, paddocks were reduced in size, test plots put in and mixed-species seed sown, including sunflowers, linseed, radish, rye corn, buckwheat and plantain. In what proved to be something of a honeymoon period, the plantings thrived and visitors came to field days to admire the scene. Linzi recalled being out among the sunflowers, bugs and bees excited by what seemed a dream result. The couple put another trophy on the shelf in 2020 - a Landcare Trust Award for Innovation in Sustainable Farm Forestry, and things were looking good.

Nothing in the bank There was, however, a disconnect right under their feet that was to spell disaster. “All the previous work on regen has been done on brittle farming systems in the likes of South Africa and the dust bowl in the United States - on soils and land that had already been degraded to a degree,” Jeff says. Successes in these areas, based solely on cattle grazing, were used as examples of what could be achieved here and was an attractive proposition. Those soils, however, were much deeper and richer in trace minerals. By improving the biology, the farmers were able to extract existing nutrients and see good results, Jeff says. However, New Zealand’s - especially the South Island’s - younger soils lack the base nutrients. Continues

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Where the pukekos roam... a 3.2ha Landcare Trust tussock reserve on the lower reaches of the Keens’ 870ha sheep and beef farm near Lumsden.

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Two years on, regenerative farming had badly depleted the Northern Southland property’s soil.

“Here, it’s not in the bank to pull out for a start. With livestock, regen is all about longgrass farming with big mobs, short grazing times and longer spell periods. Eat a third, trample a third and leave a third.” The practice rapidly depleted Tomogalak’s soils, and as well as that, stock were unsettled at the tighter confinement and twice-daily shifting. The tight mobbing started to feel like a feedlot - when the cattle were approached they would bellow, jostle and want to be moved. It wasn’t until the second growth season, Jeff says, that it became apparent that both plants and animals were going downhill and the workload felt greater. “We were early adopters and probably went in boots and all,” Jeff says, “But we hit the wall because with the rotation you’d come around again to a paddock and the quality was not there. You can’t finish lambs on such poor pasture. It doesn’t work.” Pregnancy scanning results dropped by

20% and only 90 lambs from 2800 ewes weighed enough to sell at weaning. With crops failing from poor soil, feed short and extra stock to carry, expenses went up and income down. Covid disruption meant some stock destined for the freezing works was turned away and as the winter of 2021 loomed the couple quietly panicked. “At that point we were going to go broke very quick. We were probably semi-organic before and we’d tried to tweak it with the regen. We went to using expensive fish products for natural fertiliser, which didn’t do much, but what we’d done was raped and mined our soils completely.” Unpaid bills piled up as the couple scrambled to improve stock health and keep everything fed - buying in sheep nuts alone cost upwards of $20,000. “The sheep were literally dying on the hill. They were so bad they could barely walk up it. They were falling over. It was absolutely desperate - there’s no point glossing over it,” Linzi says.

Cautionary tale Although the couple say it’s hard to talk about how bad things got, especially with stock health, they want others to learn from their experience. They pulled the pin on the system, and when they spread solid nutrient on the paddocks, the change was like “going from dark to daylight”, Jeff says. Sheep were for the first time given a slow-release mineral capsule and hoggets were sent off-farm to paid grazing. This season scanning is back to 165%, stock health is good and aside from some thistles that invaded with the mixed-species, regrassed pastures look a picture. They liken their experience to a fit athlete getting a serious injury: you’re knocked to your knees but come back stronger after a thorough reassessment. The couple say they’ve learnt how to minimise machinery costs and how to better manage crops and water. “There’s a feel-good vibe and a whole biology thing going on with regen and we

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Regenerative ag: approach with don’t deny that. And there are probably places it will work, maybe with less variation across topography, farming and soil types and in a more temperate climate. But it’s easy to get stuck on that feel-good factor.” Jeff believes farmers who had previously used larger amounts of fertiliser would initially get longer-lived results from regenerative systems, having more in the nutrient bank to draw on. “In time, though, those farms are going to mine those soils. It just might take a little bit longer than it did for us.” Ministry for Primary Industries chief science adviser John Roche says it will take time to learn what works in New Zealand and anecdotal evidence isn’t enough on which to base decisions about farm practices. The ministry and industry partners are investing more than $54 million in 11 research projects as part of a “regenerating Aotearoa” investigation. The aim is to find out what practices lead to better results for the environment, food quality and potentially product value in different scenarios. Findings are being released as the work progresses and already one study has found that although consumers in key markets are interested in food produced using regenerative practices, their understanding of exactly what that means is low. Roche, who is also the director of onfarm support and chair of a regenerative agriculture technical advisory group, says NZ’s geology and latitude in the South Pacific mean the country’s farming systems are very different to practices elsewhere. “We need our own research rather than following recommendations from other countries. “We are not following a fad,” he says.

Courtesy of Newsroom Newsroom.co.nz Made with the support of the Public Interest Journalism Fund.

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December 2022

Scientists have been trying to cut through the hype of regenerative agriculture, writes Professor Jacequeline Rowarth.

t takes courage to tell people that you were wrong. Linzi and Jeff Keen, the Southland couple whose move to regenerative agriculture ended badly, have been particularly brave in telling their story, given the hype that surrounds the concept of regenerative agriculture. More than $54 million has been invested by the Ministry for Primary Industries and industry partners in research projects as part of a “regenerating Aotearoa” investigation. What the Keens found is that the hype obscures the reality. For them, despite the advice from ‘experts’, the results were decreased production and decreased income, rapidly. They have shared their story with journalist Jill Herron. In brief, the Keens were told that regenerative agriculture would be the path to lowering emissions and saving the planet – farming with lower inputs and a premium for the product. The reality was that by the second growth season, their plants and animals were going downhill “and the workload felt greater”. The Keens know that they were mining the soil of nutrients and have acknowledged that their ‘green’ approach to farming meant that the starting point did not involve capital topdressing, as has been involved in some transitions. Scientists are sad for the Keens because they had been trying to cut through the hype (what the Keens referred to as marketing) with the results from research that already exists The withholding of superphosphate trials started in 1984. The timing was

aligned with the removal of farm subsidies, some of which had been supporting farm development with phosphate fertilisers. In a series of research papers (published on the New Zealand Grassland Association website) scientists reported that no production drop was observed initially, but that with time, the drop was clear. Higher Olsen P soils were buffered from change for longer than low Olsen P soils. The conclusion from economic analysis (published in 1990) was that “fertiliser cessation is a sound strategy to survive periods of low product price to fertiliser cost ratio. However, it will decrease sustainable productivity and hence farm resale value”. A further paper on the trials, published in 1999, reported that changes in dry matter production and botanical composition were continuing to occur. Over the 15 years, the impacts of no superphosphate (i.e. phosphate inputs) included a decrease in Olsen P, decreases in annual pasture production of 10–17% (Whatawhata) and 22–42% (Te Kuiti), decreases in the abundance of productive and desirable species (15–20% for ryegrass and white clover), and increases in the abundance of undesirable species (browntop and other low-fertility grasses). The authors warned that these systems might not yet have reached a new equilibrium. Although it is believed that organic production systems pick up on yield after a period of adjustment, overseas research does not support the statements, and nor does the New Zealand phosphate research. Why would it? If nutrients are being exported, they must be replaced from somewhere – and the Southland experience

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December 2022

exemplifies the difficulties. The Keens addressed the depletion by increasing the inputs to allow for the outputs – the latter providing the income for redevelopment of their property. The premium they hoped for is still elusive – for everybody. On a webinar in September, Fonterra executives were asked whether there would be a premium if agriculture was brought into a carbon programme (e.g. the Emissions Trading Scheme or He Waka Eke Noa). The answer was that although Fonterra had been on the sustainability path for at least five years, “it would be fair to say that progress had been slower than anticipated”. Similarly, Silver Fern Farms has Toitu accreditation and is assessing farmers through the Savory regenerative assessment but has yet to achieve a premium. The big concern for productive agriculture in the future is that when costs of production increase and prices paid for products don’t, there is a natural temptation to look for cheaper options. Couple that with the societal pressure to be more sustainable, whatever people think that means, and it isn’t surprising that farmers are looking for ‘a better way’. Everybody is open to persuasion by clever marketers, leveraging on a desire – witness the advertisements for “just three minutes a day to lose weight and get fit using the miracle machine…” The Keens story is not unusual except that they have been prepared to talk about it. In all the ‘better way’ promotions, the first question to ask is: “Does the expert doing the marketing have qualifications and a track record of success in professional work that is relevant to NZ?” Ask for facts, evidence and data – testimonials are not the same thing. David Connor, Emeritus Professor of Agronomy at the University of Melbourne, stated last year that “the ‘transformationists’ avoid scientific scrutiny by publishing in colourful promotional literature rather

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December 2022

Linzi and Jeff Keen beside one of the many waterways fenced and planted on their Tomogalak Gorge farm over the past 25 years. Photo: Jill Herron.

than in peer-reviewed journals”. His paper is published in the peer reviewed journal Outlook on Agriculture, which has an impact factor of 3.3. (For comparison, the NZ Journal of Agricultural Research is 2.2.)

Context is everything Ask for context. Earlier this year, researchers from European universities stated (in Global Food Security – a journal with Impact Factor 7.8) that “the term ‘conventional agriculture’ has been weaponised”. By comparing the virtues of ‘regenerative’ agriculture with the negative aspects of ‘conventional’ agriculture, regenerative advocates ‘prove’ that their system is better. Context is everything, and cherry picking can end sadly, as the Keens have found. For New Zealand, much of the research for least impact food production has been done and research continues to build on that strong foundation. The results are publicly available – search the NZ Grassland Association website or ask a scientist.

And ask, “If this new system is that good, how come we aren’t already doing it?” It applies to farming just as it does to fitness in three minutes a day. New Zealand has the most innovative, adaptive and resourceful farmers in the world – there’s a paper about that on the Grassland website, published 2013. Funding research to help farmers do even better would seem a more productive investment than a ‘do-over’ of agricultural systems to fit the New Zealand context. And, yes, there are papers available on that as well. A bit of research on the web, and some simple questions, will help sort hype from reality. So will the Keen’s story.

Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, Adjunct Professor Lincoln University, has a PhD in Soil Science (nutrient cycling) and is a director of Ravensdown, DairyNZ and Deer Industry NZ. The analysis and conclusions above are her own. jsrowarth@gmail.com

BUSINESS Lambs

To finish or not to finish Kerry Dwyer considers the options for sheep farmers with this summer’s lamb trade.

ou are sitting reading this early in December pondering where the lamb market has gone since I wrote this in early November, and where it might go in the next few months. Has the tide of pessimism continued to subdue both store and prime markets? Sheep farmers have some choices to make. Sell store lambs or finish them yourselves? Buy store lambs or use the feed for other stock or supplement? If you’re a pessimistic breeder the best option might look to be selling store

Table 1: Net margin per head for trade lambs: Bought December 1 at 30kg liveweight at $4/kg liveweight, sold prime February 1. Budget period

Finished price $8.50/kg

Finished price $7.50/kg

Growing @ 150g/head/day

$12.50

- $4.50

Growing @ 250g/head/day

$34.50

$15.00

Growing @ 350g/head/day

$56.50

$34.50

lambs before prices go into freefall and the drought impacts on pasture growth. If you’re an optimistic finisher then buying might look to be a good option because there is plenty of feed and prices will be similar to last year through the summer. In between these extremes is a world of possibilities. I have run some figures through my computer to see how a summer lamb option might look. Note that with any finishing option there are three key parts to the deal: the start price; how well you grow the stock; and the end price. You can access computing power that will give a myriad of these three factors and weigh up the likely options. The reality is we do not know the future and will rely heavily on judgement to make the final decision – to finish lambs or not? In Table 1 I have the results for a simple store lamb trade, taking them from 30kg liveweight at the start of December and selling February 1, at two different sale prices and three different growth rates.

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December 2022

Where might the lamb market go this summer?

With any finishing option there are three key parts to the deal: the start price; how well you grow the stock; and the end price. Costs taken off are for transport, animal health, drench, and interest on capital. The figures show that if the sale price stays at $8.50/kg carcaseweight you will make a fair margin, and very good if they grow well. If the sale price drops you will need to grow them very well to counter the decline. A low growth rate will give a negative margin when combined with a price drop. Note that I have not taken the cost of feed into account here. How fast you can grow the lambs will reflect feed quality

and quantity offered to them, along with genetics and animal health. The cost of offering a chicory/plantain/ clover mix to lambs is higher than a permanent pasture mix, but that is another story and has a myriad of possibilities depending on your own individual farm and cost structure. In Table 2 I have taken the net margin and calculated the return per kg drymatter (DM) eaten for the same options as Table 1. The figures show that fast growing lambs give a good return even in the event of

Table 2: Return per kg DM for trade lambs: Bought December 1 at 30kg LW at $4/kg LW, sold prime February 1. Budget period

Finished price $8.50/kg

Finished price $7.50/kg

Growing @ 150g/head/day

15c

-5c

Growing @ 250g/head/day

37c

16c

Growing @ 350g/head/day

50c

31c

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some sale price drop. If you think about the opportunity cost of the feed, which could be used for other purposes, then relate it to selling balage at 30c/kg DM, with a removal of fertility offfarm. Or dairy heifer grazing at about 20c/ kg DM. Another option I ran through the computer was buying 100kg Friesian bull calves at the same time, December 1, at $500/head (or $5/kg liveweight). If they grow 1kg LW for the same 60-day period and you sell at $4/kg LW the margin is more than $110/head and 40c/kg DM. You are sitting reading this early in December pondering where the lamb market is at and where it might go. The factors you can control are at least as important as those that you cannot.

Kerry Dwyer is a North Otago farm consultant and farmer.

BUSINESS Carbon forests

Guilt forests invade Emissions offsets allow polluters to do bad things to the planet, as long as they plant a tree to remove the guilt. By Peter Andrew.

hat’s happening? The agricultural emissions programme is going to see huge areas of Gisborne and Wairoa farmland planted in pines for permanent carbon. Sadly, our remaining hill country in this district is in the firing line and our productive sustainable farmland is being gobbled up by rich overseas buyers. Carbon is a get-rich-quick game mainly played by the rich and the very rich. As Kiwis, we must be brain dead to allow our top farmland and hill country land to go into permanent pines. A decision driven by a social experiment rather than the best land use. We have been blessed with some of the most productive soils in the world, and the best we can do is plant them in trees! Overseas visitors have been in awe of our yield, our stock carrying capacity, our ability to sustainably farm this land. I have closely monitored the hill properties in this district being farmed for more than 30 years. Soil health continues to improve with beautiful, black, organic topsoil continuing to build. Isn’t this what sustainability is all about?

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December 2022

“Every hectare of our soil should be treated with the conservation respect it deserves.” People say we need to plant our hills in trees to prevent erosion. Most people I hear talking about changing land use tend to be selling trees or are part of the social experiment. Erosion is a natural process where geology and gravity meet rainfall. Just about every landform we live and farm in New Zealand has been created or impacted by erosion. We need to live and farm with erosion and not try to stop it, rather than use it as an excuse to plant trees. Our native bush is great at colonising post-erosion – it’s what it does for a living. If we are going to plant any permanent carbon it should only be natives. If the people driving this programme were really committed to saving the planet, to saving our soils, why allow offset? Offset allows you to do bad things to the planet as long you plant a tree to remove the guilt. Why are we the only country in the world that allows 100% offset? Every hectare of our soil should be treated with the conservation respect it deserves. If we look 40 years into the future, carbon sequestration rates will drop, carbon traders and the politicians will be well gone, and what are we going to be leaving for our children? How hard have we fought to protect their futures? Our land will be unproductive and loaded up with carbon liability. Under Government direction, we are rapidly heading to a modern-day Bridge to Nowhere. Sadly, this bridge will head straight into a wall of Pinus radiata on easycontoured land, not the lush bush of our steep Whanganui River example. Gisborne/Wairoa is probably the most favourable hill country to farm in New Zealand, where grass grows all year on its own with no need for feeding supplements in winter or irrigation in summer. Ask anyone who has shifted here from farming other parts of the country or the world. These are productive hills with many of the top 10 farms on our AgFirst account analysis database being hill country farms with no flats. This year’s Farmer of the Year winners Mount Florida being a great example. These days we are often making more production off our hills than our flats. Our hills are also loaded with aspects

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December 2022

perfect to survive winter weather events. Our top sheep farmers are now lambing 170–180% off these hills with the ewes’ light footprint being an environmental solution. The decision makers must be hard bastards, because I could not sleep at night if I knew decisions I was making were permanently destroying sustainable land use and caring communities. These are real people with passion – the passion that was so evident at Ruatoria’s Whakarua Park a few weeks back when the Hearty Ngatis rugby team took out the Lochore Cup. There was no need for co-governance as everyone was enjoying the moment. Isn’t this the world we are trying to create, not destroy? There are no gangs, no ram raids, just a rugby team, a passionate community, and a whole lot of big and small kids on horses. The only sniff of the need for cogovernance was making sure we all got a crack at a hot paua pie at Tokomaru Bay. So what are the financial returns from heading down the permanent carbon pathway? The price of carbon is just over $80 a tonne and predicted to go to $100 or more. As the pine forest grows, there is carbon sequestration that starts low but quite quickly in this region gets up to 30 tonnes a year. When sold at, say, $80, it will generate $2400 a year in carbon income as demonstrated in the following table. In the following example at $80/t you can see the carbon farmers have gross income of almost double regular farmers.

running. Annual running costs will depend on forest size, silviculture, etc, but at, say, $400/ha would allow a $2000/ha net at the $80 rate. However, there is no free lunch. If you sell carbon, the market value of your land will drop. Land with a significant carbon liability could potentially have a negative market value. The person who thinks he is going to stop erosion should go for a walk in the deep bush behind Ruatoria sometime. Thanks to natural tectonic uplift, these are some of the youngest soils. If you want to try to stop some serious erosion, why not look to plant the shingle screes of the South Island? Where did all the fertile plains of NZ come from? Erosion from the hills that spread across the flats: it is nature doing what it does best.

Where to from here? Everyone passionate about this place needs to make that phone call, text or send that email that we don’t want to destroy our wonderful region. Enough damage has already been done. Under the current proposal, there is little recognition of the hard work done in getting tree cover on farmers' properties. We need to continue to champion wise land use with sustainable production. If we are true kaitiaki (guardian) of this planet, we need to preserve the land for future generations.

What is the financial equation? Carbon price per tonne

$80

$100

$120

Carbon income at 30 tonne/ha/yr

2400

3000

3600

Farm gross income/ha – District average

1018

Farm gross income/ha – Top 10

1309

Economic farm surplus/ha – District average

310

Economic farm surplus/ha – Top 10

663

Sure, there are establishment, management and planting costs of up to $3000/ha. However, you can see these costs are easily covered once the forest gets up and

Peter Andrew is a consultant director with AgFirst, Gisborne.

SERIES

•

Bovis

Mycoplasma Bovis O

(and the lessons we have yet to learn)

In the first in a series on Mycoplasma bovis (M bovis), ag scientist Nicola Dennis traces the history of New Zealand’s outbreak and some of the lessons.

nce upon a time there was (probably) a seedy underbelly in the dairy industry that accidentally imported a cattle disease into NZ. The disease spreads silently through the country’s cattle until it meets a tenacious vet forlornly treating sick beasts on her client’s farm. It’s South Canterbury, 2017. The usual treatments aren’t working, there has to be something else at play. Wait a minute, this looks like a disease that’s common in the rest of the world, but it can’t be. Maybe there is some drama here; surely not everyone is instantly onboard in accepting that NZ’s world-renowned biosecurity measures have failed. We confiscate oranges at the airport for goodness sake. But eventually, or possibly immediately, the diagnosis is confirmed. It’s Mycoplasma bovis, the disease we shouldn’t have! Enter the ambitious but agriculturally tone-deaf Government that has to decide what happens next. The export markets would usually weigh in at this point, swiftly banning NZ products until the disease is under control. But in this case they aren’t bothered. They’re already drinking milk and eating meat from infected animals because every cattle-producing country except NZ and Norway has fallen to the disease. The Aussies have had the disease since 1970 and their cattle exports remain regrettably competitive. The Government and its growing panel of advisers have a big decision to make. On one hand, the farmers will be livid, and frightened, if they miss the one chance to get rid of the disease. Many cattle could suffer. On the other hand, they are already years

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will surely be a next disease. It has all the elements of a good story, but ultimately I didn’t understand what I was watching. I feel like the cinema lights have come on at the end of one of the Lord of Rings movies and I will have to ask everyone why the trees were walking. Why did we get so excited about a disease that the rest of the world lives with? What did we learn for the next disease? Why are the vets getting a Government apology? So, off I go to find out what I don’t know. It’s a long list, but I will start with the vets – the know-it-alls of the farming world.

THE VETS

behind the spread of the disease.They are going to have to break a lot of eggs to save this omelette. That’s all well and good, until you have to drive to the eggs’ home and forcibly slaughter all their cattle. And most of those cattle are not sick. Remember how we said the rest of the world wasn’t bothered about the disease? Yeah, there’s no reliable test for the disease, so it falls to a few plucky NZ scientists to build the plane while flying. The disease is largely asymptomatic (until it’s not), so all cattle that have contact with an animal that has the disease must be slaughtered. On one side, we have the strained Government doing its best. This is a rag-tag team of nationalist, populists, unionists and hippies cobbled together by a wizened old troll after the indecisive 2017 election. But they have a whole Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to guide them, and the ministry has been training for this, haven’t they? They also have the governmentowned state-owned enterprise AsureQuality – a wall of fire inexplicably bellowing behind these cool dudes – as they walk in slow motion down the driveway in their boiler suits. The team’s only clues are within a shonky animal-tracing software that looks like it laments the demise of the floppy disk. On the other side we have the tear-stained farmers trying to find meaning in the face of death and bureaucracy. This is a disparate group of hundreds, if not thousands, of family businesses who will suffer some combination of cattle lockdown, cattle destruction, or cattle-related interrogation. They are suspicious of all governments, but

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are especially wary of one that is coming down on them about a invisible disease, one whose supporters chant loudly about #TooManyCows. The authorities cast a wide net. Unleashing the boiler suits on anyone who has ever sent an animal to an infected farm – even if it was beef steaks before M bovis was a glint in the director general’s eye. Things get off to a rocky start and stay on the rocks for five or so years. Farmers are furious, but not wanting to jeopardise their compensation claims, usually limit themselves to ranting to whoever is standing in front of them. A few brave souls weep on national television. In the background, the stock agents devote large chunks of their working week to making compensation valuations for the 170,000-odd cattle to be destroyed. The meat processors, finding themselves awkwardly placed between their seething suppliers and the authorities, reluctantly turn thousands of half-grown beef cattle and pedigree dairy cows into low-value grinding beef. On all sides there are shady characters trying to game the crisis to further their own agenda. Greed, ideology and power collide. There are also good honest folk putting thankless hours to help others navigate rough seas. And there are folk, with no idea what they have stepped into, trying to find how many “boy cows” and “girl cows” need blood tests. There is heartache, there is trauma and there are probably suicides. In the end, the authorities issue apologies and promise to do better for the next disease – because there

Helen Beattie, was the chief veterinary officer for the NZ Veterinary Association. Helen is well placed to fill in some plot points in this story. When the Government came calling for advice, Helen was in favour of pursuing the eradication approach. She believed it was the best outcome, long term, for animal welfare, farmer wellbeing and to minimise the need for antibiotics on farm. Helen belabours that there were great people involved in the M bovis response, slogging their guts out to make it work. Really, really, good people – though she also noted, they fell within the proverbial bell curve. Helen minces no words when it comes to the failings of the programme and the stress it caused farmers. In fact, she warns me that across the three disease incursions she’s had to deal with (Foot and Mouth, M bovis and Covid-19), she sees a recurring theme of lessons that are supposed to stay learned.

LESSON 1: CHAOS WILL REIGN There is always a time during the early stages of any response when authorities will have to make decisions based on imperfect information. A certain degree of hectic overreaction and chaotic contradictions can’t be excised from the anatomy of the early response. Neither can the anxiety. The key here is to build a good group of knowledgeable people during peace time so you have good people on hand to make the most educated guesses. If you are dealing with an animal disease, then vets are a very important part of the team. “And no,” Helen says, seeing me lean forward to sing the praises of my fellow scientists, “ag scientists and veterinarians are not interchangeable.” You will need a long list of expertise on the team to predict

acquired with a few days of training. That training/mentorship – either teaching human skills to ag people or ag skills to human people – is doable, but so hard to prioritise between crises.

LESSON 2: VETS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOU MIGHT THINK

and manage the biological, economic and psychological impacts of a biosecurity threat. By Helen’s assessment, MPI actually got off to a very strong start in this area. The governance group would funnel information and documents down to the industry working group (composed of rural representatives from across the industry, of which Helen was one) for industry feedback. The working group weighed in on topics such as Notice of Direction documentation, the risk of mud as a source of contamination; how to treat milk, etc, while we were firmly in the educated guesses stage. But at some point, possibly around the time the eradication strategy was announced, the feeling was that the working group had run its course and it was disbanded. Fair enough, I suppose. The “educated guess stage” doesn’t last forever and these industry leaders can’t do MPI’s homework for the whole 10 years of the programme. But, this seems to be where we pick some issues with veterinary oversight (see Lesson 2) and communication (Lesson 3). So the initial response was reassuring. I’m reassured, are you? Helen isn’t. She says the real challenge is maintaining that expertise and trusted relationships during times when you don’t think it’s needed. The M bovis programme has burned bridges throughout the industry. Even if that weren’t the case, having the right people around is no small task. These people need to be very good with people and know the industry well enough to manage during disruption. Those are two very critical “soft skills” that can’t be

At the time of the M bovis incursion, the Government did not have a chief veterinary officer (CVO). As far I can glean, and Helen can remember, MPI had been going without a CVO since about 1999. This was a source of irritation for the NZ Veterinary Association because, among other things, a government CVO would act as a liaison between the clinical vets out in the industry and the government vets/officials. As a kind of work around, and possibly a form of protest, the NZ Veterinary Association established its own CVO (i.e. Helen). Vets appointing their own (NZVA) CVO worked to a degree. When the Government elected to include them, as it did earlier on in the industry working group days, then the clinical vets had a spokesperson in the room who could report what was going on to the group. But there was no one from the Veterinary Association at the governance level… possibly because the association was between chiefs executives at the time.

a service through the already overworked exotic disease lab at Wallaceville and so worked with commercial laboratories to develop and validate a commercial test for M bovis with a mind to rolling it out to a veterinary practice near you. Having worked in a commercial laboratory in the past, I can attest that this is no simple task. You have to get the recipe right, price up reagents and programme robots, etc. Then you have to impress scary clipboard people to accredit you. Imagine their despair when private testing was rejected by the Veterinary Association at the final hour. The final hour being when the “let’s go” media announcement was being drafted. The rejection came down to three issues: existing law, legal liability, and ethics. The Biosecurity Act precludes vets from transporting exotic disease samples around the country. Sampling must be done by approved people at approved places (Wallaceville, basically). The Government gets to make new laws so this problem is not insurmountable. The liability and ethics are a whole different kettle of fish. Due to the nature of the disease, the tests were never going to be definitive. An infected animal only sheds the disease some of the time – usually under some kind of biological stress.

The authorities cast a wide net. Unleashing the boiler suits on anyone who has ever sent an animal to an infected farm - even if it was beef steaks before M bovis was a glint in the director-general’s eye. The lines of communication between the authorities and the vets on the ground were cut when the working group disbanded. This left MPI tripping over some of the nuances of the private veterinary profession. A good example was the idea of allowing veterinary practices to undertake M bovis testing. Farmers and their vets wanted to be able to privately test trade animals during these uncertain times. I remember advocating for this at the time. It seems that the Government was not opposed to the idea. It couldn’t offer such

Many entirely healthy animals could be carrying the disease and test negative. How do you ensure enough animals were tested to give a significant result? • Who interprets the results? • What do you do with a weak positive result – release the boiler suit bunnies on your client even if there is no plausible infection route? • What happens if a false negative call results in a string of farms getting depopulated? • Who is liable? The lab? Or the vet who gave the advice?

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Keep the private vets out of it, Helen and the NZVA said. MPI eventually issued a public apology to the NZVA for kicking them out of the party and has now established its own CVO. Fingers crossed that solves the problem, but I imagine that this lack of oversight was repeated in other areas.

LESSON 3: COMMUNICATION IS NOT OPTIONAL

Vets, if they stop and think about it, don’t actually want to be in charge of a steaming pile of bureaucracy. It is better for them to be on the farmer’s side – making sure they have all the information they need, advocating for their clients, feeding the disgruntled concerns back up the chain for the higher-ups to address, and acting as science communicators. After all, farmers usually trust their chosen vets more than MPI. Communication was the greatest weakness in the M bovis saga. That much is well established. If we revisit Lesson 1, then we can see the rot sets in pretty quickly. There needs to be honest and timely communication about what is known, what needs to be worked out and which bits will just have to be winged… especially in the “educated guess stage”. It is here that MPI kept its cards close to its chest. The documents vets (and other professionals) were receiving were too basic. There’s nothing wrong with accommodating the layperson who only needs to know what the latest rules are, but outside experts can’t help others if everything is pitched at “Baby’s first biosecurity breach” reading level. Feed the nerds! Sure, things are tense. Sure, stopping to explain things takes up precious time. Sure, the majority of voters (largely urban dwelling) will never take more than a passing interest in M bovis. But, it is important to allocate time and budget to keep things as transparent as possible. If you rely on drop-kicking press releases, operating guidelines and statistics (in god-awful PDF format) in NZ agriculture’s general direction, then it creates a distrustful void that gossip will fill with horror stories.

LESSON 4: STRONG-ARMING FARMERS IS SHORT-TERM GAIN AND LONG-TERM PAIN

Perhaps you have got into bureaucracy because the phrase “herding cats” sounds more like a quest than a cautionary tale.

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“Why did we get so excited about a disease that the rest of the world lives with? What did we learn for the next disease? Why are the vets getting a Government apology?” But farmers are a step up from cats on the herding scale. Chase them up the race and slam them in the head bail at your peril. If you surround them with enough paperwork and threaten their sanity and livelihood, then you will get into their house, on their computer, disassemble their farm equipment and keep them hushed up. But it’s not all about what you need to get done today. We have enough harrowing academic papers to know that farmers felt ensnared rather than engaged during the M Bovis outbreak. After a bit of time had passed and the community rumour mills were purring, it seems to me farmers were more frightened of the authorities than the disease being eradicated. This isn’t a great situation, particularly when the success of the nation’s biosecurity relies on farmers being forthcoming with information. There needs to be some advocacy and support baked into the system. Vets would argue they need to be notified when one of their clients is affected. Farm consultants, accountants, bank managers and solicitors probably feel the same. Helen points out that everybody’s ideal support system looks different: for instance some people would rather have a church

leader and their neighbour. For others, that duo would be their worst nightmare. Perhaps MPI needs to front the costs of assembling each farmer’s support squad for a hui. Back in the thick of M bovis, having all these people visiting the farm was deemed a biosecurity risk. Three cheers for the covid zoom boom – they can meet on the computer now. I ask Helen how much of the pain was due to the protracted, wishy-washy nature of the M bovis disease. She says it doesn’t help that M bovis was spreading silently and farmers were being asked to surrender healthy looking animals at some undefined time in the future. In some ways it is much easier for farmers to get on board with culling a herd during a Foot and Mouth outbreak, when obvious symptoms and welfare issues are there for all to see. On the other hand Foot and Mouth spreads with such frightening speed that some UK farmers did not know they were at risk until the slaughter team knocked on the door.

LESSON 5: EVERYONE GETS SICK OF BIOSECURITY EVENTUALLY, BUT IT’S STILL WORTH IT

If a disease response goes well, then people won’t see a lot of disease and it will look like the authorities are overreacting. If it drags on, then people will become fatigued and resentful towards regulations and incursion fatigue sets in. When it all goes back to normal, then people will start to let their guard down … sowing the seeds for the next time. “I wish we didn’t have to say next time,” Helen says, reminding me that nationwide eradication programmes are avoidable with decent biosecurity measures and everyone doing the right thing – at the border and within your farm.

LIVESTOCK

A DURABLE FARMING PARTNERSHIP An equity partnership that allowed a father and son to farm has finished, but the winning Wairarapa pair are still farming. By Terry Brosnahan. Photos by Mark Coote.

im Varty and his son Brendan appeared in CountryWide in 2011 and 2016. By 2016 they had made a 5.9% return on capital over four years, three times the national average for sheep and beef farms. In that time, the pair paid off $330,000 in principal debt and bought $63,000 worth of ewes in two years. They won the Wairarapa sheep and beef farm business of the year in 2016. The Vartys were on a salary and had the dividend from their 42% shareholding. Their Concordia Farms equity partnership ended in July 2020 when the farm at Alfredton, Wai-iti, was sold. Jim says unfortunately a member of the Concordia partnership “wasn’t on the same page” so they tried to buy him out, but they couldn’t make it work. They put it on the market but it didn’t sell. They carried on for another two years until a South Island couple, dairy farmers who wanted to go sheep farming, made an offer. The other shareholders accepted and Brendan stayed on to help the new owners for eight months. The Vartys formed another partnership in late December 2020, bought a 725ha farm and took possession in March 2021. The new farm, Taki Taki, is 27km northeast of Masterton and was owned by Derek Neal and featured in

Country-Wide November 2016. Brendan says they are running the same system on Taki Taki as they did on Wai-iti, breeding ewes, breeding cows and trading cattle and feeding stock well to get good weaning weights so they have options for selling store or finishing. The Varty’s total farm income on Taki Taki was $1450/ha for their first full year, ending June 2022. The economic farm surplus (EFS) was $400/ha, distorted by a one-off cost for removing the old cattle yards and building new ones. Without the cost of yards the EFS was $500/ha. Brendan says they didn’t get the 32–34kg lamb weaning weight like they did on Wai-iti, but that is put down to the season, not the farm. Media reports and locals say weaning weights were back three kilograms on average. “We’re expecting better weights [this year] because the ewes are in such better condition, though it’s another tough spring – it hasn’t sprung.” After two tough springs in a row, dairy farming production in the Wairarapa has been reported to be back 20%, the worst since 1994. The lambing was 147% in the Varty’s first year. This year it was 142% across the whole flock. The recorded ewes hit 155%.

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December 2022

Jim Varty and his son Brendan’s farm Taki Taki, 27km north east of Masterton.

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December 2022

Back in 2011 Jim told Country-Wide that making a high-performing farm is what gets him out of bed in the morning. He still enjoys the challenge, though he gets out of bed perhaps a bit more slowly. Jim’s now 68 and says he is the boy and Brendan (35) is the boss. They’ve been a good team over the years and each has a 21.5% share in the new partnership. In Concordia, Jim had 39%, Brendan, 3%. Derek Daniell and Andy Falloon each have a 28.5% share.

Beginning of partnership Jim has known Derek Daniell since 1987 when, as a shepherd working for another farm, he bought some rams from him. Derek was part of Concordia equity partnership too. The first partnership was needed because Jim didn’t have the capital to buy a farm on his own. At the time, National Bank rural banker George Murdoch put Jim on to the equity partnership option and he never looked back. Wai-iti, 683ha (620ha effective) was bought in 2005 and the Vartys ran a Wairere stud satellite flock. Wairere-supplied rams were put over the recorded and commercial ewes. When Concordia ended, Derek was happy to take a share in a new partnership if the right farm came up. Jim says they couldn’t

Above: At 68, Jim still thrives on farming though he is no longer the boss. Below: The focus is on feeding stock well.

ask for better partners; they have similar goals and understand farming. “A biggie with an equity partnership is getting the right mix of people.” The four shareholders are directors, and there is an independent board member Sean Stafford from MCI & Associates who set the equity partnership up. When they sold Wai-iti, they needed a home for the satellite flock. Derek Daniell gave them 12 months to find a new home and the new owners agreed to have them for about seven months. Jim and his wife Ellen also had to find a new home, so Derek offered them a house for nine months. The break was a good opportunity for Jim to get a foot operated on, which laid him up for three months. He did some casual work and worked on the equity partnership when Taki Taki came on the market.

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December 2022

Above: The Vartys are running the same system on Taki Taki as they did on Wai-iti, breeding ewes, breeding cows, trading cattle and feeding stock well.

They were without a farm for six months and it looked like they would run out of time before it all came together. “We managed to stitch the deal together in the nick of time,” Jim says. The new owners of Wai-iti bought most of the ewes off Derek Neal. So trucks were taking ewes from Wai-iti to Taki Taki and vice-versa.

Focused on feeding The Varty’s ran a simple system on Wai-iti with a focus on feeding. “If you look after them they will look after you,” Jim says. Derek Neal had run a bull beef and sheep operation over Taki Taki and had two finishing farms. The sheep focus was on rearing as many lambs as possible on Taki Taki and finishing them on the farms. Weaning weights weren’t as important as

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December 2022

they were to the Vartys. They also wanted as many lambs as possible but needed good weaning weights to get them away early if need be. They are carrying on at Taki Taki what they did at Wai-iti. After Wairere selects its ram lambs, the singles and B flock lambs are killed off. If the season allowed, more would be finished, otherwise they were sold store. Surplus ewe lambs are sold to other farms for breeding. On Wai-iti they went out of cows for about three years. The thinking was that trading cattle would give them more options for buying or selling stock and be lighter on the soils in winter. They started to notice the sheep flock’s performance changed, the weaning weights started dropping. Brendan says they put it down to the lack of cows so back they came and weaning

i FARM FACTS Equity partnership finishes after 15 years. Four shareholders sell the farm Wai-iti in July 2020. New partnership formed in late 2020. 725ha farm bought December 2020. Taki Taki taken over in March 2021. Similar to Wai-iti, higher and steeper. Made a 5.9% return on capital on Wai-iti.

weights rose again. “It shows the hidden value of beef cows on hill country farms.” The Vartys are big fans of Massey’s University’s Paul Kenyon and lambing hoggets but they never hit their goal of 100% lambing. Jim says they had more joy with weaning weights. “We’ve had some bloody great results.” He says it is a battle to get a fantastic hogget lambing result on the Wairarapa hills and he is not alone. Other farmers he talked to have battled too, but he says the hoggets still do alright. “The key to mating hoggets is to have them grown out well by the time they come to lamb.” Jim says they don’t give them any more grief at lambing time than the ewes. For the first time in 12 years they drenched a mob of ewes on Taki Taki. “We took over March 17, the ram went out on April 5 and we gave everything a flush out,” Brendan says. Farm-wise there is not a lot of difference between the two farms. A similar climate and both have good fertility. Paddock sizes on average are about the same. Taki Taki’s highest point is more than 80 metres higher than Wai-iti’s.

Above: Some of the 100 breeding cattle with calves run on Taki Taki. Below: Brendan checking the calving numbers

“It’s not a case of what’s in it for me, but a case of what’s in it for the whole group.”

“Some of the hills put the wind up you,” Jim says. Like Wai-iti it can grow grass and is a “grunty” farm. By the end of June the stocking rate drops from 9.5–10/ha to 9su/ha, so hopefully the ewes are set-stocked on to good covers and are milking well when they lamb. They are running 2200 commercial ewes, 1200 recorded, 1080 hoggets, 100 breeding cows and wintered 160 trade cattle. In the 15 years the Vartys ran Wai-iti it was always an all-grass operation. Some spraying out of paddocks took place and sowing back into grass. Jim says the partnership never held back on spending on capital development because everyone wanted a farm that performed and to be proud of. The Vartys couldn’t think of what more they could’ve done on Wai-iti, except perhaps some more pasture renewal. One piece of advice from Brendan is to take the opportunities when they come up, like buying more land next door.

Equity partnership advice Jim says there is a lot of work that goes into setting up an equity partnership. The most important thing is to find the right mix of people. Like-minded people with a good understanding of the business and who have the same vision and objectives.

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December 2022

Brendan and Aleksei Varty’s two children, Levi, 7 and Leala, 4 (nearly 5).

“They all have to be on the same page.” Brendan advises getting the people and partnership before looking for a farm and also says there needs to be a good solid shareholder agreement to protect all parties. “So it doesn’t leave anyone exposed.” Jim says ideally a partner needs to be a team player. Partners go into it together with the aim to benefit everyone. “It’s not a case of what’s in it for me, but a case of what’s in it for the whole group.” An equity partner used to handle the books with Wai-iti, but now it is Brendan, and Andy Falloon’s partner Gwyn Jones. Taki Taki is half the distance to Masterton than Wai-iti, which suits Brendon and his family. Brendon is married to Aleksei and they have two children, Leala, 4 (nearly 5), and Levi, 7. Jim says Levi is a farmer in the making. He is always out on the farm and telling his father and grandfather what to do and how to do it. Aleksei is a registered nurse and works in town, handier for their children’s sport and Brendan’s gym. The former NZ muay thai kickboxing champion has given up the competitive side but he is still part of a gym and keeping fit. Jim wishes he had kept up his fitness after doing karate until about 20 years ago. He tried to keep fit on the farm but got slack. So about three months ago he signed up to a Crossfit gym and goes three times a week. This will be good for Jim because he doesn’t have any plans to retire anytime soon. Just keep doing what he and Brendan do best, working together.

Links to previous stories on Wai-iti and Taki Taki: November 2013: bit.ly/3UMCWoi June 2016: bit.ly/3GfROr6 November 2016: bit.ly/3Ew7Z2g

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December 2022

LIVESTOCK Analysis

The ‘breed or buy-in ewes’ question More profitable alternative enterprises may be accommodated if replacement stock are bought or grazed off farm, Tom Ward writes.

he question of whether or not to buy or breed replacement female livestock gets more complex the more one looks into it. I found myself considering the option of grazing off in tandem with buying replacements. Replacement livestock often do not reach their potential, despite having plenty of time to do so, or other livestock classes may be pinched when the replacements are being favoured by the farmer. Where seasons can be very dry, or just very variable, buying replacements (or grazing off) can reduce risk. Furthermore, more profitable enterprises may be accommodated if replacements are bought or grazed off farm. Dan Jex-Blake from Wairoa-Gisborne has planted apples on the flats of his hill country farm. Not rearing replacements on farm can guarantee a well-grown replacement, and buying replacements can improve a farm’s genetics and simplify a breeding

programme. A downturn in any sector can be taken advantage of to accumulate superior livestock at a good price. However, the availability of good quality replacement female livestock can be a risk where an industry is in relative decline. Buying in animals can expose the farm to foot problems, and possibly intestinal parasites, although the latter should be managed. Feeding young, growing livestock creates no immediate income. In fact, breeding stock of all types are only really profitable between parturition and weaning. The analysis later in this article will illustrate that. Buying females can facilitate the use of hybrid vigour, for example where composite rams are used over Romney ewes, to produce a larger, more fecund, better milking ewe with lambs larger at birth. Breeding the Romney ewes would complicate management and reduce the number of sheep available for hybrid vigour.

It is not just other enterprises that can utilise additional feed. Some parts of a breeding animal’s annual cycle are very responsive to feeding. A ewe maintaining a body condition score (BCS) of three or more in winter will improve at lambing, ewe survival, ewe milking, lamb survival, lamb birth weight and lamb growth rate, It will bring forward lamb slaughter date and lamb sale size. The net benefit can exceed $1/kg DM eaten. An example of better feeding with breeding hinds is to reduce summer feed demand by selling wether lambs, and/or all female lambs store in December. If that extra available feed went to the breeding hinds, the hinds would mate earlier and show other benefits similar to the ewes in the paragraph above. Just lowering the stocking rate reduces feed pressure and makes livestock performances more reliable. Buying replacements could be used as a temporary

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December 2022

Table 1: Breeding ewe gross margins, July 22 - June 23

Diagnostic

Jul 22 - Jun 23

Ewe flock-

Ewe flock-breed Ewe flock-breed Ewe flock-buy Ewe flock-buy Ewe flock-buy MA Ewe flock-buy 2 yr

breed reps

reps (mate hogggets)

reps 2(grazed off)

Ewe lamb reps

2th Ewe reps

GM / DM (c/kg)

19.3

20.8

19.0

23.9

18.1

28.1

19.6

GM / Product (c/kg)

508.5

547.3

463.8

559.6

428.4

650.1

544.1

kgDM / kg Product

26.3

26.4

24.4

23.4

23.6

23.2

27.8

% of Feed Eaten

16.3

19.1

13.5

17.1

11.8

10.5

11.6

Gross Margin

118,526

149,594

97,019

154,297

80,487

111,300

85,573

kg DM Eaten

612,770

720,880

509,694

645,901

444,036

396,679

437,441

kg Product

23,308

27,332

20,919

27,572

18,787

17,121

15,727

ewe reps( In-lamb) ewe reps(5yr olds)

Farmax Red Meat 8.2.0.16

measure coming out of a drought. Especially with a two-year flock (buy five year olds), there is the opportunity to heavily de-stock over summer and buy in-lamb ewes in July. Very valuable in a summer-dry area, especially on a small farm. The Farmax gross margins tables attempt to give a snapshot of various buying replacements’ options compared to breeding replacements in breeding ewes, breeding cows and breeding hinds. The final two groups of gross margins show alternative enterprises that could be inserted into a farm in place of a replacement breeding policy. What needs to be stressed is the danger in relying on gross margins to assess the profitability of an enterprise. A full-farm budget needs to be prepared to compare the new total operation with the existing full programme. Wintering breeding cows off farm allows drought relief, and possibly the shutting up of paddocks for calving feed (better calving, better mating, bigger calves). Winter beef cow grazing can be cheap if feed is rough or plentiful, which can occur if in a different province. Grazing can be free, if for a short time, or between 10 and 20 cents/kg DM, at 8kg DM/day consumption, that is $6

to $12/head a week. If you wanted better quality feed, such as Italian ryegrass or fodder beet, 30kg DM is still only $18/head/ week. Pasture feed can increase in value when pushed forward to spring, and cows, if in very good order, can be wintered on 7kg DM /head/day.

Breeding ewe gross margins These are all based on 700 ewes. The various sheep gross margins show little variation, all except one falling within a 18–23 cents/kg DM range. That exception, buying in-lamb mixed-age ewes, has a 25% better gross margin/kg DM eaten efficiency. This result is primarily due to the bought ewes arriving on farm only just before lambing, and the sale ewes leaving very soon after weaning. It is essentially a two-year flock, with the time the ewes are dry, minimised. While it shows a relatively low total gross margin (from 700 ewes), about 263,000kg DM less of onfarm dry matter is needed. Depending on the quality and timing of this drymatter, there is the opportunity to put this feed into a higher yielding enterprise. Or if the farm is located in a summer-dry region, this feed saving could

be used to improve farm systems’ flexibility. The most profitable option in this group of gross margins which is efficient and not using too much extra feed is buying ewe lambs for replacements. The variations of mating hoggets, and grazing hoggets off are included as these are popular options. The former increases profit and maintains efficiency with the latter saving a reasonable amount of feed. The two variations of buying two-tooth ewes and five-year-old ewes save a lot of feed and drop the profit substantially. There is quite a lot to consider here. The right hand column is an example of the benefit to a farmer buying ewe lambs, mating them (as lambs), lambing them, then selling as two-tooth ewes. It is quite profitable.

Deer gross margins Gross margins make sobering reading and reflect sector concern about the future of venison farming in New Zealand. Breeding, particularly where replacements are bought, is not going to get much support on high-quality country, particularly where irrigation gives farmers other options. However, where farmers can afford to, they

Annual Report Ent.Summ for Cranleigh Table 2: Deer gross margins, July 22 - June 23 Jul 22 - Jun 23

Diagnostic

Breeding/sell weaner

Breeding/sell

Finishing

deer-breed reps

weaner deer-buy reps

deer

deer-breed reps

GM / DM (c/kg)

9.2

2.6

23.6

14.9

15.2

GM / Product (c/kg)

414.7

138.6

554.0

621.9

609.0

kgDM / kg Product

45.0

52.6

23.5

41.8

40.0

% of Feed Eaten

18.7

15.2

22.3

22.5

21.3

Gross Margin

85,120

19,822

260,267

165,568

160,386

kg DM Eaten

923,907

751,810

1,104,327

1,113,825

1,053,283

kg Product

20,525

14,297

46,978

26,623

26,338

Breeding/finishing Breeding/finishing

deer- buy reps

Farmax Red Meat 8.2.0.16

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December 2022

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December 2022

may continue to breed due to concerns over availability of quality weaners or environmental restrictions. Trading to finish at 11 months is a little better, but does not yet stack up against lambs, dairy heifers, wintering dairy cows, or bull-beef systems. Buying replacements does not help, and it looks like the place for breeding hinds for venison is on the hills and rough feed. In addition to simplifying the breeding programme, buying replacements reduces the need for breeding stags.

Breeding cow gross margins The breeding herd (beef) group of gross margins shows three options for selling weaners, i.e. breeding own replacements, buying in-calf heifers or buying mixed-age cows. There is little variation in the four gross margins/kg DM results, however, there is a significant reduction in feed consumed where replacements are bought

in. The right-hand column illustrates the effect of wintering breeding cows off with the efficiency per kg DM eaten the same, and a saving of 200,000kg DM of feed.

Bull trading gross margins Trading margins steers, lambs, heifers and dairy cows The final two tables illustrate gross margins from more profitable enterprises, which could be substituted for the livestock removed when replacements are either bought or grazing off is used (replacements and/or capital stock). In summary, the numbers presented here are obviously subjective and each farm will have its own set of relevant performance parameters and costs. What is important is the approach and the discussion, culminating in a whole farm budget. The benefits from buying replacements are not always immediately obvious, or understood.

Annual Report Table 3: Breeding cow gross margins, July 22 - June 23 Ent.Summ for Cranleigh Jul 22 - Jun 23

Breeding herd-sell

Diagnostic

Breeding herd -sell

Breeding herd-sell weaners

weaners (rear reps) weaners(buy MA reps) weaners (buy IC heifer)

Breeding herd -sell

(rear reps) Winter cows off

GM / DM (c/kg)

8.3

10.4

9.3

9.6

GM / Product (c/kg)

383.3

579.3

467.5

306.7

kgDM / kg Product

46.4

55.7

50.5

32.0

% of Feed Eaten

33.4

22.2

22.3

22.1

Gross Margin

Annual Report Ent.Summ for Cranleigh 51,096 42,646

38,136

39,272

kg DM Eaten

618,432

410,145

411,831

13,330

7,362

409,594 18mth 12,807 bulls

Jul 22 - Jun 23

kg Product Farmax Red Meat 8.2.0.16

GM / DM (c/kg)

Bulls

8,157

35.1

24.9

Annual Ent.Summ for Cranleigh536.3 GM / ProductReport (c/kg)

Table 4: Bull trading gross margins, July 22 - June 23 kgDM / kg Product

Diagnostic Farmax Red Meat 8.2.0.16

Diagnostic

Jul 22 - Jun 23

% of Feed Eaten

15.3 Bulls 75.8

Gross Margin GM / DM (c/kg) kg DM Eaten GM / Product (c/kg) kg Product kgDM / kg Product

273,434 35.1 779,194 536.3 50,984 15.3

Above: Wintering cows is a profitable option when breeding ewe numbers are reduced.

485.4 19.5 18mth 24.2 bulls 61,833 24.9 248,321 485.4 12,739 19.5

% of Feed Eaten

75.8

24.2

Gross Margin

273,434

61,833

kg DM Eaten

779,194

248,321

kg Product

50,984

12,739

Farmax Red Meat 8.2.0.16

Annual Ent.Summ for Cranleigh grazing Table 5: Trading margins steers, lambs,Report heifers and dairycows, July 22 - June winter 23 Jul 22 - Jun 23

GM / DM (c/kg)

Wintering

Summer

Weaner steers

dairy cows

lambs

fattened

34.0

38.9

35.2

29.6

36.0

411.0

635.0

13.9 Weaner steers 6.6 fattened 62,930 29.6 212,898 411.0 15,312 13.9

17.6 Dary heferr 9.4 grazing 110,029 36.0 305,779 635.0 17,329 17.6

Annual Report Ent.Summ for Cranleigh winter grazing GM / Product (c/kg) 861.0 803.7 527.4 kgDM / kg Product % of Feed Eaten Diagnostic Farmax Red Meat 8.2.0.16

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Gross Margin GM / DM (c/kg) kg DM Eaten GM / Product (c/kg) kg Product kgDM / kg Product

20.7 Wintering 0.1 lambs 726 38.9 1,866 803.7 90 20.7

15.0 Summer 27.2 lambs 310,451 35.2 882,658 527.4 58,862 15.0

grazing grazing

% of Feed Eaten

56.7

0.1

27.2

6.6

9.4

Gross Margin

624,551

726

310,451

62,930

110,029

kg DM Eaten

1,836,914

1,866

882,658

212,898

305,779

December 2022

Diagnostic

Jul 22 - Jun 23

25.3 Wintering 56.7 dairy cows 624,551 34.0 1,836,914 861.0 72,538 25.3

Dary heferr Dairy heifer

Tom Ward is an Ashburton-based farm consultant.

LIVESTOCK Onfarm

Drought prompts rethink Drought alternating with extreme wet weather has prompted a Golden Bay couple to adopt a mixed pasture regime on their lease blocks. By Anne Hardie.

our years ago, high numbers of triplet lambs and Italian ryegrass formed the basis for Ben Lovell and Jen Cooper’s farming operation in Golden Bay. Now they don’t flush ewes, they use teasers before putting rams out for just 12 days, and they’ve replaced ryegrass with a diverse pasture mix for their dry soils. The couple has also expanded the business from the leased 150-hectare flat block on the south side of Takaka to include a 30ha leased block in Wainui Bay and have leased a further 300 effective hectares high up on Takaka Hill. The first two blocks are leased from Ben’s family, based on a lease of about 22.5% of estimated turnover. The hill block is leased on a similar basis, but in their first year it was paid by investing in capital expenditure on the property, enabling them to improve aspects such as fencing. Since then, a portion of the lease is paid in cash and the remainder spent on capital expenditure.

The leases for all three blocks are three-year terms with the right of renewal, with rents reviewed every three years. It is just six years since Ben lured Jen from the United Kingdom to Golden Bay after his big OE turned into a seven-year stint that included lambing, shearing and harvesting. Jen was an accountant and Ben spent time working on her family’s farm in England’s Peak District. At the same time the couple bought a couple of rundown houses in their local town of Macclesfield, used their DIY skills to make improvements and sold them for a profit. It made better sense than paying rent and it helped build equity. Leasing Ben’s family farm in Golden Bay gave them the opportunity to try out ideas, and they also needed to run an intensive operation on the small farm to make it profitable. It led to high numbers of triplets and intense lambing, raising four-day-old calves and regrassing with Italian ryegrass

as well as summer chicory crops to crank up production. The policy back then was to direct drill 10ha of chicory in October and then drill the Italian ryegrass into the mix in autumn. It went well until their first hard drought hit and Ben says the ryegrass dried and died. “It burnt right off and we became a dust bowl. We lost a massive area that year and people couldn’t offload stock, and we were buying in balage and competing with dairy farmers.” It prompted a rethink. The ryegrass was not coping with the wet either, and Ben says during the six years they’ve now been farming in the region they’ve encountered one of the worst dry years on record and two of the wettest winters. The light stony soil is ideal through winter but cannot hold moisture through summer. The rethink has led to a tougher mix that includes 3kg chicory per hectare, 2kg plantain, 5kg clover, 2kg cocksfoot, 3kg brome and 3kg prairie grass. The grass is kept at a low drilling rate to keep the legume content high. Instead of two to three drillings a year, which was expensive, they now drill 10 to 15ha in September each year. Three years after switching to the mix, the pasture is working well. Those paddocks are grazed four times through winter and the tougher grasses love the 30C summer heat. The high clover content has worked well to finish lambs and last year they finished 2100 lambs and averaged $148. That was up from 1100 lambs in 2019 without the hill block. On the flat block, Ben and Jen lamb 900 ewes from August 20 and on the hill block they lamb another 900 ewes from September 5. Through September they also calve 45 mixed-age cows and 30 heifers on the flats, with a further 25 mixed-age cows calving on the hills. In the past, up to 20% of their flock produced triplets and they often remove one of the triplet lambs to mother-on to

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Ben Lovell at the hilltop on his Golden Bay farm. Country-Wide

December 2022

ewes with fewer lambs and plenty of milk. After leasing the hill block, Ben and Jen found they couldn’t keep that pace up by themselves. They now have two small children, Sam, 4, and Ava, 1, and Jen has taken up full-time work in Takaka as a finance manager for a large local freight company. It leaves Ben single-handedly running the three blocks, including looking after the children two days a week. To employ a full-time labour unit, Ben says they would have to increase the scale of the business considerably to make it worthwhile. Between time constraints, climate challenges and the uncertainty of offloading stock when needed, they decided they would rather do 80% of their potential production on a larger-scale operation and do it well rather than aim for 100% on a smaller operation with no wriggle room. Now they don’t flush ewes and instead run teasers for 14 days before the rams go out on both the flat and hill blocks to ensure a tight lambing time frame, with about 90% of the ewes lambing within 10 to 14 days. They are now scanning 185% to 190% in the mixed-age ewes compared with higher than 200% when flushing. The ratio has changed to 70% twins and 7% triplets, while two-tooths scan 175% with a similar triplet rate. Survival rates end up at about 155% on the flats and 145% on the hill, even though the hill block is four to five

Ben has planted a diverse pasture mix to handle the dry soils. Below: Highlander hoggets on the hills.

degrees cooler than down on the flats. “We’re doing it with more twins and fewer triplets and hardly any dries.”

Lambing in the rain The condensed lambing makes it intense for a short period, and this year the first few days of lambing coincided with 800mm of rain pouring onto the farm in four days. On the first day of lambing they took 50 lambs off their mothers because the rain was so intense and ewes were lambing in puddles of water. Those lambs were then mothered on to ewes with singles in the days after the rain. On the flat country with a good pasture mix, they aim to finish all the terminal lambs from Texel rams before Christmas at 18kg off mum and get them off the property. That creates room to bring the 1500 or so lambs from the hill block down to finish, with the ewes on the flat country

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December 2022

In the dog box.

heading to the hills for summer. Only lambs and cattle remain on the flat block and they can finish all their terminal lambs over summer, autumn and through winter by moving them every three days on a 25–30day round. They are achieving an average of 20kg, with the last of the 2021-season lambs leaving the farm in September. In the meantime, grass growth on the hill might not kick in until November, but it becomes good summer country for the ewes and 450 ewe hoggets. It sits high above Pohara Beach at about 500m and at the end of a narrow shingle road that passes through regenerating bush blocks with a mix of house trucks and buses and a yoga retreat. When Ben and Jen took on the farm lease four years ago, the four-wire electric fence system was in disarray and the largely native pasture was sour on the southern slopes and not producing much. In that

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first year they ran low stocking numbers with the existing Perendale flock they had bought. Initially, they worked on the fences which, though dilapidated and not stock proof, had the framework to subdivide the farm well into four- and five-hectare paddocks. “The second year we loaded it up with stock, which went wrong spectacularly. We put a lot of stock on, the feed was terrible quality and I underestimated the impact this would have on the livestock. There was no clover and the only way to chew off the old native pasture was with stock – and we did that. But probably should have done it over a couple of years. “Now it’s a sea of clover and it has come back by itself. We had one bad year and then went forward.” Since then, they have lifted ewe numbers from 600 on the hill block to 900, with those bearing triplets trucked down to the

i FARM FACTS Three leased blocks. 150ha flat finishing block near Takaka. 300 effective hectare block on Takaka Hill. 30ha finishing block Wainui Bay. 1,800 ewes bred with Highlander replacements. Finished 2,100 lambs in 2021 and averaged 20kg. 70 mixed-age cows and further 70 R1 steers bought in.

Ben and Jen with Sam, 4, and Ava, 1. Photo by Rina Sjardin-Thompson.

flat country for lambing. They happily truck stock between the three properties to make the most of the feed and climate. In winter, the hill grazes just 5su/ha, but doubles that in summer, whereas the flats graze about 25su/ha in winter and half that in summer. Climate is a problem for subclinical facial eczema on the flat country, revealing itself too late to do anything about it. Ben says they can only do so much with zinc and pasture, and subclinical facial eczema is often a guessing game. Putting the ewes up on the hill evades the problem and there is also less of a fly problem up there. To overcome the facial eczema on the lower, flat country, they have introduced Highlander genetics into the flock that have come through the spore counting programme. So far Ben has been impressed, with lamb weights increasing on average by 2kg. The Perendales are slowly being phased

out of the ewes and in two to three years the flock will be entirely Highlanders. Texel rams are being used as the main terminal sires over the 900 ewes on the flats, while Highlander rams are put over 600 ewes on the hill country, with Suffolk terminal sires over the remainder. Ben finds the Highlander flightier than their past TexelFinn-Romney composite, but he likes the way the lambs “just get up, shake it off and go”. Leading up to lambing, he has replaced the break feeding of the past with a simpler regime of putting the ewes on to a good paddock for four hours a day and then off again. The main reason for the change is the family now lives on the Wainui Bay block and it is simply easier to open the gate and chase the sheep on to a paddock of feed and then chase them out again. It avoids the risk of sheep breaking through the electric fence when no-one is there

to put them back. Plus, Ben says, pushing electric fence standards into stony soils is never fun. While Ben is enthusiastic about the sheep side of the business, he is less impressed with the cattle industry and plans to reduce numbers. “The cattle industry is soul destroying. It’s driven by getting space at the works, with space being dictated by the dairy industry kill of bony old cows and bobby calves.” Besides their own calves, he and Jen buy 25 to 30 rising one-year-old steers which are usually Hereford-Friesian-cross. They join their own rising one-year-olds to graze at Wainui Bay in September before heading to the works the following September. Ben says it’s particularly hard getting cattle to the works from Golden Bay where the animals are sent to Wanganui, Feilding or Canterbury, and roads can sometimes be closed due to slips. When they need to quit

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cattle, they often cannot get killing space, meaning they have to carry cattle longer and it’s expensive to buy in extra feed if they are running short. On the other hand, he can secure killing space for lambs, often within a few days, at the local works two hours away in Nelson. He intends to drop cattle numbers to a bare minimum to clean up pasture and this coming autumn lift sheep numbers by up to 300 ewes. Looking ahead, Ben and Jen want farm ownership and time will tell whether it is possible to buy the family farm. They would need to buy it at market rate and it’s in an area that competes with the dairy industry and a scarcity of productive farmland. In the meantime, they use the leases to generate income to buy property and build equity. So far, they own a commercial property in the bay and a house at Ligar Bay that they use for Airbnb. The latter has generated good income for them, even through Covid times, with Kiwis holidaying in New Zealand and prepared to pay several hundred dollars for a night’s accommodation in Golden Bay. “We’re here to make money to buy a farm – not just to turn over cash,” Ben says.

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December 2022

Four-year-old Sam in the wool press. Photo by Rina SjardinThompson.

Boost your lamb numbers and overall flock performance2. Androvax® plus increases lambing percentages by an average of 20%. Ask your vet about how Androvax plus can help you lift your lambing percentages. AVAILABLE ONLY UNDER VETERINARY AUTHORISATION ACVM No: A9927. Schering-Plough Animal Health Ltd. Phone: 0800 800 543. www.msd-animal-health.co.nz NZ-AND-220900001 © 2022 Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 1. 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 2.Beef and Lamb NZ, Making every mating count June 2013 p15

LIVESTOCK Strong wool

Andy Fox in the woolshed with his coarse wool, which at the moment is not worth a lot.

Broken down O wool gets new use Flooring is not the only future use for New Zealand’s coarse wools. Annabelle Latz writes.

ut on Foxdown Farm in North Canterbury’s Scargill Valley, Andy Fox is shearing his sheep at a net loss and as an animal health expense. He believes coarse wool is a tough subject in the sheep industry and it needs global consumers and supporting businesses to see its true value before anything will change. The 1600ha rolling hill farm is home to 6000 Wairarapa Romney ewes with wool of about 34–36 microns, and 250 Hereford Angus-cross cows. Fox is operating a breeding, finishing, and store programme, just like his father, grandfather and great grandfather have done. Foxdown Farm has been in the family for 145 years. Fox says the NZ Wool Board did a good job marketing coarse wool from the 1960s to 1990s when the product was doing well. It was before crossbred wool became

regarded as too scratchy for woollen blankets and fashion items. Coarse wool then transitioned successfully into the market of floor coverings such as carpets. Seeing products like yoga mats made from coarse wool on the market today is encouraging. Fox is positive that woollen carpet will have a comeback despite the number of options people now have for flooring products. He uses crutchings for mulching his lemon trees after shearing. Fox is chair of Wool Research Organisation of NZ (WRONZ), which 10 years ago identified challenges for the wool industry. It pivoted to focus on identifying “new uses for strong wool” via groundbreaking research on deconstructing wool down to cellular and particle levels. It developed to a point where WRONZ established Wool Source, an entity focused

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What goes on in the lab in Lincoln, these products should one day be picked up by businesses for use in areas like cosmetics and skin care.

on creating the commercial pathway for the products ready for release into the world. Wool Source is jointly funded by WRONZ and the Ministry of Primary Industries via the Sustainable Food and Fibre Fund. Fox says a decision was made a decade ago to focus on the New Uses programme. It’s about converting coarse wool (32–38 micron) into new uses, post farmgate. “Wool but not as we know it,” he says, while looking at the bright coloured powders before him on his kitchen table. He has been involved in the programme for five years, and sits on the board of both Wool Source and Wool Research Limited (the science programme subsidiary). WRONZ is working on a joint venture with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which finishes in February 2023. The result has been laboratory work undertaken at Lincoln University to break down strong wool to find new uses for it. Fox acknowledges Wool Source chief executive Tom Hooper, lead scientist of Lincoln Agritech Dr Rob Kelly, and senior adviser of WRONZ and Wool Source Garth Carnaby for their work. The research is getting closer to the commercial markets but still has elements

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to overcome, Fox says. “It’s important we get there.” He says driving traditional markets, such as woollen carpets, encouraging new businesses and developing disruptive new products like the programme can drive up demand for wool and help the sector recover.

“I don’t think we can blame a generation in hindsight, but it’s vital we embrace sustainability, not live beyond our means.’” For the programme in the laboratory, the wool is broken down mechanically, chemically, or with enzymes, or a mix of the three. The five new uses for the programme at a research level involve working with particles, the four-step process of powders and pigments, carrying out scalability testing, separating cells to create natural filters, and producing fibres. Because wool is made up of 98% of the protein keratin, a tough fibre that sits on hair and nails in humans, it also bonds well

with another natural fibre, cotton.But It is harder to work with and break down as the scale of wool in the laboratory increases. Fox says part of the challenge in the research is trying to increase volumes while accommodating the changes caused when heat is applied to the product. At the moment they’re scalability testing, working with batches of up to 200kg of wool a day. Research is specifically focused on products and markets that can support higher prices for wool and benefit the growers, rather than manufacturers looking for a low-cost input. The role of Wool Source is to pass a product on to a company that must promise to use New Zealand wool. It will use the IP of WRONZ, which will be licensed to Wool Source. The combination of all the programme’s work has targeted creating demand for 20,000 tonnes. Fox says wool products tick many boxes for modern businesses, such as the sustainability and traceability factors and the environmental credentials they offer. It’s a big plus for wool that the animal doesn’t have to die to produce the product, and the sheep farming footprint is a lot lighter than other farming activities. “I don’t think we can blame a generation in hindsight, but it’s vital we embrace sustainability, not live beyond your means.” He says the human race has been living beyond its means for some time now. From a traceability aspect, the wool for the programme will be sourced from suppliers who are sustainable, similar to a farm assurance programme. Coarse wool producers will also be offered a higher price if their wool is pesticide free. Fox says being able to travel again has helped a lot too, and there is no substitute for face-to-face contact especially when trying to launch a new product. “This has certainly helped with momentum and progress.” He says companies want to engage with them and become more sustainable. People are beginning to ask questions. There is a greater drive for sustainable and renewable resources. “It’s started with energy, but is getting wider.” Fox knows not all the products in the New Uses programme will be a success, but overall it’s looking promising, so he won’t stop trying.

LIVESTOCK Dairy beef

Beefing up A the calf crop Genetics specialist Jason Archer believes enhancing the quality of this country’s dairy beef has the potential to create greater value right along the value chain.

s a dairy farmer, why would you take the time to select beef genetics to produce calves with growth and carcase traits that someone else will benefit from? It’s a good question, but enhancing the quality of this country’s dairy beef has the potential to create greater value right along the value chain and importantly, using superior beef genetics will also reduce the number of bobby calves being processed in line with public sentiment. I agree that our systems do not always reward the breeder (dairy farmer) for breeding genetically superior dairy beef calves, but we need to make a start. Producing calves that generate greater value for the finisher will

have finishers seeking out calves that they are prepared to pay a premium for. A closer connection between dairy farmers and finishers would certainly help create this value. The advent of sexed semen has created an opportunity for using quality beef sires, a trend we are seeing around the world, for example in Ireland, Europe and the United States. In the latter, I’ve been involved in creating breeding indexes to identify Angus bulls for use in their dairy systems. Many myths about using beef bulls over dairy cows have been dispelled and dairy farmers can now use the appropriate beef genetics with confidence that they will not create calving problems or longer gestation periods.

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What traits and EBVs should dairy farmers be looking for?

The calf to be born without assistance or damaging the heifer or cow. Select the EBV for calving ease - direct. This incorporates birthweight and gestation length into its prediction. You don’t need to look for calving ease maternal EBV unless the female calves are being retained as beef breeding cows.

The calf to be born early to increase the days in milk and when born at the end of the season, to shorten the calving span. Select on gestation length, a negative EBV is better (shorter gestation).

A calf that is resilient, gets up and going quickly and achieves weaning weight as quickly as possible. Don’t go too low in birth weight EBV, while still maintaining calving ease. While there are no real tools to select for resilience to disease or vigour, a moderate birth weight gives the calf a head-start to achieving a weaning weight in a shorter time frame.

Dr Jason Archer is Genetics Specialist with Beef + Lamb New Zealand Genetics.

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A calf that grows well in the growing and finishing phase. Look for good 400 and 600-day weight EBVs. A calf that expresses muscle well and has a good dressing-out percentage. Ultimately, a calf that yields the maximum amount of saleable meat. Look for eye muscle area EBV. This is expressed at a standard carcase weight so gives an indication of overall muscling.

A calf that has adequate finish (fat cover) and finishes quickly. Look at EBVs for fat (rib and rump). It’s difficult to set a target unless you know how the calves are performing in a finishing system relative to the breed and genetics being used. Finishing animals require a minimum 3mm of subcutaneous fat cover and preferably 6mm at slaughter for optimal meat quality. Bear in mind, dairy genetics tend to deposit more fat internally rather than externally, but beef cross animals need to have a decent fat cover. Start by selecting bulls having fat depth EBVs which are slightly above average for the breed being considered and adjust from there based on experience.

Carcase quality (the ability to target premiums is often based on marbling). Consider a high value IMF% (intramuscular fat) EBV when targeting a high-value markets paying a premium for eating quality. The pH of the carcase is also important and this can be influenced by temperament in beef cattle (with EBVs for docility). This is not usually a problem in dairy cross beef animals due to the influence of their rearing systems.

Comparing apples with apples. It is important to remember that unlike dairy EBVs which are compared across breeds, beef EBVs are within their breed only. This means Angus bulls can only be compared with other Angus bulls and not Hereford or Charolais, for example. This means the emphasis on the traits listed above might change depending on the beef breed being considered. This is why it is not possible to give ranges of numbers to look for, as they differ between different breeds.

Consider the cow. Does the bull selection matter depending on the breed of cow? In the US, the American Angus Association created different indexes to use over a Holstein versus a Jersey cow. For Holstein, the emphasis was on marbling and less on growth and avoided the very tall bulls as processing plants were reporting issues with the very large frame US Holsteins. We don’t have a height EBV available in NZ for beef bulls, but because cows are a more moderate size with smaller carcase weights there is not the same need. For Jersey, the emphasis was more on muscling (eye muscle area) and growth, as these were the two attributes that needed enhancing when producing beef cross calves. Similar principles would apply in NZ depending on cow type and breed mix. But both major dairy breeds have a natural tendency to produce good levels of marbling, so the potential to produce high eating quality in the beef dairy cross carcase is already there. • First published in NZ Dairy Exporter August 2022.

LIVESTOCK Stock Check

Big call downsizing NZ ag Vet Trevor Cook has been visiting Scotland and Denmark, catching up on changes to farm practices.

three-year gap since visiting farms in Scotland and beyond is enough for change to be obvious. The most dramatic change was how much children had grown. Obviously those who had doubled their age in that time were most dramatic, but even adding a quarter to their age had turned them into very different people. Just as I had not gotten any older, neither had the farmers. Much more expensive travel, disrupted flights and train strikes were changes triggered by the events of the last three years, but changes on farms were not as much as I’d expected. The initiatives that I had been part of putting in place in general had continued. Rotational grazing systems were still well ingrained and as happens here, excuses for why there were no back fences were given before I had a chance to comment. The late weaning of ewes and cows has

for a long time been something I have struggled with. When applying the concept of using the minimal amount of feed to achieve the desired outcome, that late weaning does not fit. Especially when the lambs and calves are being supplemented while still with their mothers. A week in Denmark brought me in contact with a sheep farmer who’d been at a workshop I’d presented at four years ago. At that workshop he had told me about his flock lambing on very poor pasture with light lambs and ewes at weaning. I had suggested he wean much earlier because he had very good pastures closer to home. He was eager to tell me that he now weans at 70 days and puts the lambs onto the good pasture. He has heavier lambs and better conditioned ewes. So simple. Farming under solar panels is standard in Denmark. Hundreds of hectares are farmed this way. One of the farms I’ve

been working with has electric fences set up among the panels to set up rotations. The grazing is free, the pasture production is 60% of what grew there before, lamb survival is extremely high and the shade under the panels in summer is seen as a positive welfare factor.

Drench resistance rife Finding significant drench resistance was a big change from my last visit to Scotland. On three farms that I visited where they had identified this problem, it came from investigations into poor lamb-growth rates. I suspect that as for New Zealand, routine testing on farms will find widespread resistance. To identify this problem through poor lamb growth means that the drench is failing badly. The way to tackle this is new territory for them. I spent time with one vet who soaked

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“The grazing is free, the pasture production is 60% of what grew there before, lamb survival is extremely high and the shade under the panels in summer is seen as a positive welfare factor”

up learning how. But on a western Scottish farm, the advice being given to the farmer by his vet about introducing lambs to fresh grazing was absolutely wrong. These lambs were to be drenched, held off pasture for 24 hours and then shifted on to cattle blocks that had not grazed sheep for over a year. So the only worms that were getting on to that pasture were ones that survived the drench. Advice on best practice and how to avoid drench resistance becoming more of a problem was listened to with some scepticism. I felt that knowledge on farms about the threat and how to avoid it was limited. Having said that, it might not be as limited here, but that has not resulted in us being in a particularly good position. But the Scots have options open to them that we do not have. They have yet to exploit combination drenches. So while their single actives are failing, the combinations will probably give them

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effective options. But not for long, because when moving into combinations, if the individual components are failing badly then supporting an effective combination is very compromised. When NZ farmers moved into combinations, the failing of the single actives was common, but in general not that bad. This gave us many years of effective products. Just as we are seeing almost total failure of combinations on some NZ farms, it is the same case with single actives on farms that I visited in Scotland. The same applies to Denmark, driven by a long history of drenching directly on to worm-free pasture. But for the three sheep farming businesses I visited in Denmark, most of the grazing was on worm-free feed, being cover crops, pasture grown for grass-seed harvest, temporary grass, or excess dairy pasture.

This was all free and the cost was putting up three-wire sticks and strings around huge paddocks and moving sheep on to them. The impact of drench resistance was massively minimised by sheep being largely on worm- free forage. The level of production was very high. High lambing percentages, huge lamb- weaning weights and impressive post-wean lamb growth rates. There is no store lamb market so all of the lambs need to be finished, and that was targeted for when prices were high. A most remarkable sheep production system. NZ sheep genetics played a big part in this.

NZ’s ill-conceived policy There was a lot of chat about methane, and some farmers had a greenhouse gas number for their farms. I was asked several times what a good number was. They were bemused when I said “as high as it possibly could be”. To some extent it is a meaningless number and if the game is to reduce it, a high starting point is the best place to be. While they did not feel a methane tax was imminent, they were definitely aware of what was happening in NZ. Are we exposing farmers elsewhere to an ill-conceived policy in NZ that justifies other countries doing the same? They very often expressed their disbelief that the farming they respected and copied was being downsized to save the world. The environmental compliance over there is not as scary as in NZ. Farmers are likely to get a subsidy for complying. There is a feeling that much of the standard subsidy will be exchanged for environmental actions. There is so much common land, absentee ownership, rented land and protected land that there seems to be endless options for some sort of environmental action. On one farm, my client had restricted grazing of some protected land. The trust taking care of that land paid for the breeding cows to wear location collars. The farmer could control where stock grazed from his phone. The cost of those collars was beyond him, but he had this grazing for free, and now without having to put sticks and strings amongst the trees – a technology that could revolutionise our hill country grazing.

ep mea e l s ns d n a t

rk e ba or m

Top die

DOG FOOD GUIDE

A nearly five-year study of farm dogs in the South Island has given owners and vets a lot to chew on. Annabelle Latz reports.

he highlighted benefits of a sound night’s sleep and a good diet has put a spotlight on the health and wellbeing of working dogs, just as it has on their human counterparts. Working hands-on with working dogs across two of the South Island’s regions was the success of TeamMate, a study observing the daily patterns and health of some of the country’s hardest and most loyal workers. The four-and-a-half year study took place from 2014–2018, a voluntary observational study initiated by Vetlife in collaboration with Massey University, involving 126 owners and 641 full-time working dogs aged 18 months or older.

Taking place in Canterbury and Otago, it has armed both vets and owners with quality information about how to achieve the healthiest team possible. Vetlife veterinary surgeon Lori Linney, based in Central Otago’s Alexandra, was involved in the study, observing dog health and on-farm management, and in turn collating information for owners to achieve optimal health and performance of what is a major part of a farm's workforce. “This study meant we have been able to identify things that would contribute to wellbeing, and what the reasons for retirement are.” Kenneling methods were part of the

TeamMate questionnaire, with working dogs being fitted with activity monitors for 12 months. These tracked scratching, turning and movement within the kennels, and temperature at the body surface. Linney says there has been a big shift in trends around kenneling since the study, with a lot more insulated kennels, good bedding and the increased use of dog coats. She says the correlation between body temperature, rest, injury and overall performance has become more realised. “Once farmers start seeing the good effects of these areas, more get on board. They also realise warm kennels mean less feed cost.”

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“During lambing dogs may scavenge dead lambs and then their stomach dilates and the gut twists. Gastric torsion can cause death in only a couple of hours.” Observing feeding habits highlighted the need to remind owners of the basic rule for the best working dog health: that sticking to a reputable food brand with high protein and high fat is best, also remembering that dogs are individual animals that can require different diets and quantities. Linney said keeping an eye on dogs’ condition is essential, and not difficult. It’s about subjectively assessing your dog, running your hands over them and making sure they have good muscle cover. “Once a day feeding is okay but feeding more often and allowing enough time

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between feeding and working can be very important.” She said that gastric trouble is a risk if dogs are run too hard too soon after being fed. “During lambing dogs may scavenge dead lambs and then their stomach dilates and the gut twists. Gastric torsion can cause death in only a couple of hours.” Linney said high density foods, like gels for endurance sports for people, would be great for working dogs who are on the hills all day, and this development may not be too far away.

“It’s an area we need to look into.” The low vaccination rate against common diseases such as parvo and distemper viruses for working dogs was another area TeamMate highlighted. The low rate was simply the result of farmers being busy on the land, and with the huge raft of paperwork and compliance they now deal with daily. She says basically, working dogs work in closed populations and they’re relatively static, but all it takes is one infected dog and it can run through the whole team. “Vaccination is not expensive and it’s cheap insurance.” In addition, the study exposed how misunderstood sheep measles were, despite the information being out there. The rule of thumb is to work with a three-month cycle, using a broad-spectrum

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wormer in the first month, then for the next two months treatment for tapeworm only is required. Correct treatment of meat and offal fed to dogs is also essential. Good feeding habits and kenneling conditions lessen the likelihood of injury. So does becoming familiar with each working dog’s skeletal structure, and being aware of restricted ranges of motion and degenerative joint change. “You need to know what normal feels like before you know what abnormal feels like; for example, picking up arthritic change in a two-year-old dog.” TeamMate picked up that the most common abnormalities were in the teeth and musculoskeletal categories, specifically knees, wrists and hips, which Lori said links to lifestyle and also breeding. “Most working dogs are bred on ability, but think long and hard when breeding from a dog that has bad hip conformation.” Bad teeth can be linked to diet and behaviour, with the suggestion to owners to line the kennel if wire chewing is a habit, or putting these dogs on a chain rather than in a dog motel. Vets usually only see sick animals, so a highlight of the TeamMate study for Linney was getting to work with an essentially healthy group of animals for a significant period of time. “It was pretty cool to see them and their data every six months, see how any injuries were addressed, how they recovered and how it affected their time in the working team. She says dogs with restricted range of motion of a joint were three times more likely to be lost to the team at the next visit. PhD students at Massey University will continue to assess the observations of TeamMate, which over the years will mean more valuable information for medical professionals and owners, and likely lead to more studies. “The more that people are aware and the more they want to look after their working dogs the better,” Linney says. “Working dogs are important to their owners, and the more we know about factors that affect their health, well being and longevity the better.”

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It’s a dog’s life By Keara Brownlie

orking dogs are often a critical part of a successful farming operation. They’re always eager to work and never complain about the long hours. But this enthusiasm can make it easy to forget that, like any elite athlete, they need and deserve the best possible care to keep them working at their best. A little prevention can go a long way to keep your team working at the top of their game. Contact your vet and arrange for your dogs to have a spring WOF before they head into the busy summer months.

Worming A regular worming programme is fundamental for your dog’s health, and a critical part of a sheep measles prevention programme to prevent downgrading of sheep carcases at the works. Head to sheepmeasles.co.nz for more information, but in summary, the ingredient praziquantel should be given monthly, and an ‘all wormer’ every three months. Most rural vet clinics offer monthly delivery of working dog wormers, so give them a call to see how they can help.

Flea and mite treatment The TeamMate study of more than 600 working dogs in the lower South Island found that 25% of these dogs had a skin issue when examined by a vet. Tasty monthly chewable tablets effectively kill fleas fast and prevent reinfestations. They will also kill ticks, itchy ear and mange mites that can all cause skin issues and keep your dogs from performing at their best.

Vaccination An outbreak of canine cough at mustering can slow your dogs down and may mean you have to get the job done without your full team. Every summer we hear of farmers affected by outbreaks at the worst possible time, who wished they’d vaccinated to reduce the risk of infection and serious illness. You might think your dogs can’t be infected as they never leave the farm, but

other dogs coming on to the farm present a risk for canine cough – like the mother in law’s dog who visits regularly, contract shepherds, visiting hunters, the list goes on! Call your vet to discuss annual canine cough vaccination for your dogs. Your vet will likely recommend vaccination against potentially fatal diseases such as parvovirus (parvo), distemper, hepatitis and leptospirosis.

Arthritis Working dogs are your farm’s endurance athletes, travelling an average of 20km a day. Many farmers are familiar with the discomfort of stiff, sore, arthritic joints in their own bodies. Arthritis is very common in working dogs; the TeamMate study showed 42% of working dogs had a problem with their musculoskeletal system, mostly the hip and knee joints. Dogs with an abnormal range of motion in their joints are 3.3 times more likely to be dead or retired the next year than those with no problems. It’s easy to think working dogs with arthritis are just getting cheeky as they age. Some may limp, but many will simply change their behaviour to cope with the pain. You might notice they are more reluctant to work, don’t want to jump on or off the ute like they used to or refuse to go under/over fences. Talk to your vet about managing their pain and getting them back to their top-dog performance. • Keara Brownlie is a vet with Zoetis.

DOG FOOD GUIDE

Summary of general information provided by dog food suppliers Refrigeration needed?

Product name

Type

AAFCO status

Acana Sport & Agility

Kibble

FEDIAF

Fresh chicken (20%), chicken meal (20%), whole red lentils

BlackHawk Working Dog Adult Formula

Kibble

Approved

Lamb meat meal, beef meat meal, oats

Champ Max Biscuits

Biscuit

Formulated

Wheat, meal and bone derived from beef and lamb, animal fat

Cobber Complete Puppy

Kibble

Approved

Meat and meat by-products (chicken, beef, lamb and/or pork), legumes, wholegrain barley

Cobber Complete Puppy

Kibble

Approved

Meat and meat by-products (chicken, beef, lamb and/or pork), legumes, wholegrain barley

Cobber Working Dog

Kibble

Approved

Meat and meat by-products (chicken, beef, lamb and/or pork), legumes, wholegrain barley

Cobber Active Dog

Kibble

Approved

Meat and meat by-products (chicken, beef, lamb and/or pork) and fish and fish by-products, legumes, wholegrain barley

Cobber Senior Dog

Kibble

Approved

Meat and meat by-products (chicken, beef, lamb and/or pork) and fish and fish by-products, wholegrain wheat, wholegrain barley

CopRice Working Dog Adult Beef

Kibble

Formulated

Beef & chicken meat with by products, rice, cereals

CopRice Working Dog Adult Chicken

Kibble

Formulated

Chicken meat with by-products, rice, cereals

CopRice Working Dog Puppy

Kibble

Formulated

Chicken & beef meat with by-products, rice, cereals

CopRice Working Dog Senior

Kibble

Formulated

Chicken meat with by-products, rice, cereals

Eukanuba Premium Performance Sport 30/20

Kibble

FEDIAF)

Dehydrated poultry protein, brewers rice, chicken fat

Hills Science Diet Adult Active

Kibble

Formulated

Wholegrain corn, chicken by-product meal, pork fat

K9 Natural Frozen Beef Feast

Frozen raw

Beef, beef liver, beef tripe

Mighty Mix Frozen Concentrate

Frozen concentrate

Fats, meats & products derived from meat (beef, mutton, pork) salmon, cereal

Mighty Mix Large Dog Formula

Biscuit

Formulated

Cereal; meat products and fats (beef & mutton); honey

Nutrience Performance 30/20 Formula

Kibble

formulated

Chicken meal, oatmeal, chicken fat

Pedigree Working Dog Formula

Kibble

Formulated

Meat & meat by-products (poultry, beef &/or lamb), wheat, wheat bran

Possyum Supreme

Dog roll

Formulated

NZ possum meat, lamb & beef, semolina

PRO PLAN Performance All Sizes/Ages

Kibble

Approved

Chicken, animal fat, brewers rice

PRO PLAN Performance Extreme 32/30

Kibble

Approved

Chicken and fish, animal fat, oats & wheat protein

Royal Canin Energy 4800

Kibble

FEDIAF)

Dehydrated poultry protein, animal fats, rice

Superior Chunky Original

Dog roll

Formulated

NZ beef & lamb, semolina

Tux Energy

Biscuit

Approved

Cereals and cereal products; chicken and beef products and fats

TUX Energy Extra

Kibble

Approved

Chicken and beef products and fats

Ultra Active Working Dog

Kibble

Exceeds

Beef meal, ground corn, dried blood

Wag Garlic & Rice

Dog roll

Formulated

Chicken, lamb, rice

Wag Original

Dog roll

Formulated

Chicken, beef, lamb

Yes

Australia

Once opened

France Canada USA

Ingredients list

Made in

NOTES • AAFCO status: Approved-has passed independent AAFCO testing, considered non-toxic, a complete and balanced diet. Formulated-good intent to meet AAFCO standards but not AAFCO tested. • FEDIAF:- indicates the product complies with the European Federation of Pet Food Manufacturers’ (FEDIAF) standards. AAFCO standards. • Ingredients are listed in order of proportion, highest listed first. Only first three are listed in this table. In general, where the first is a high-quality ingredient, the shorter the full list, the higher the food quality. • Mighty Mix recommends feeding their frozen concentrate with Mighty Mix large dog formula, either together or alternately. • All products listed are claimed to be complete and balanced diets

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Pet fo

ms oo

dustry n i b od

Petfood has joined infant formula in the emotional marketing of products. By Glenys Christian.

he best performing primary industry product with the least amount of publicity might well be petfood. Sales have grown strongly as more pets have been acquired both here and overseas during Covid-19 lockdowns. And New Zealand has been able to direct more of its production to the higher end of the market where demand is still strongly increasing for “meaty treaty things”. “The market is absolutely booming at the moment,” New Zealand Petfood Manufacturers’ Association chief executive Richard Brake says. Some of the high-value, high-margin brands are reaching “extraordinary prices” in the hundreds of dollars per kilogram in countries such as China and the United States. “New Zealand is very good at capitalising

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December 2022

on its clean, green image,” he says. “And there’s also a lot of skill in emotional branding which has come more into play over recent years.” The closest product to petfood in this regard is infant formula with some large companies having one marketing person dealing with both categories, such are the similarities. While the local petfood market is estimated to be worth about $700 million annually, about one third of those products, mainly at the middle and lower end of the market are imported. These tend to be extruded kibble products used as pets’ maintenance diet which are mainly manufactured in Australia and the US by multinationals such as Nestle and Mars. Supermarkets sell about 75% of all petfood with vets and pet shops making

up most of the remainder. Overseas there’s growing online sales, particularly in China and also in the US thanks to the recent rise of auto-ship services sending shoppers the same product on a monthly basis. The big growth has come in value-add, innovative, retail-ready products such as freeze-dried and air-dried products. They’re made from a variety of different meats and are given as a treat. And increasingly offal which would otherwise go on supermarkets’ shelves or be exported is finding a willing and lucrative market as petfood ingredients. “It’s no longer an industry involved in buying product people don’t want to eat,” Richard says. “The distinction between petfood and edible products for human consumption has largely gone.” This has allowed petfood manufacturers

DOG FOOD GUIDE

to chase overseas markets with exports now worth $317.3m free on board (FOB) in the year to September 30, 2022. This compares with just one third of that amount five years ago, meaning a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20%. If Australia is removed, a market where the value of petfood exports has dropped since late 2020, the five-year CAGR jumps up to 31.5 %. Strong export growth flattened temporarily in 2020 with the closure of the Mars petfood plant in Wanganui. But since then it has been onwards and upwards again with exports to Asian countries, now worth $175m showing a five-year CAGR of almost 38%, despite shipping disruptions caused by Covid. China, which takes close to $120m of those exports, has a 63.5% CAGR. They jumped from just over $20m in the quarter to the end of June this year to close to double that amount in the September quarter. And NZ exports have consistently earned more per kg than petfood sent to the market by rival exporters from Canada, the US and Thailand, at about $20/kg. While the average value of all petfood exports is just under $16/kg FOB, exports to Canada, which totalled $9.3m in the last

Total petfood exports - All countries NZD FOB

350 300

Millions

250 200 150

NZ petfood exports country split %

100

All others 5.5

Singapore 2.5

China 37.6

Canada 2.9 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Taiwan 3.6 Hong Kong 3.7

Petfood exports value per kg – all exports

Japan 5.5

$/kg FOB

18.00 16.00

Australia 13.2

14.00 12.00 10.00 8.00 6.00 4.00 2.00

USA 25.5

0.00 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Source: Statistics NZ data

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December 2022

year have the top average price of $27/kg. The US which accounts for $80m of exports sits about the $20/kg mark, Korea with $11.6m comes next at $17 then Australia at almost $42m averages close to $15/kg. Smaller market shares are taken by Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan taking between $8 and $11m of exports with the average value between $6 and $12/kg. Petfood was named besides such stars as cherries and honey as export growth opportunities by the Food and Beverage Taskforce. A Coriolis research report in 2014, looking into investment opportunities in the NZ petfood industry, found it had a strong comparative advantage due to innovation with retailready products as well feeding into a large category globally. It gave an example of petfood products in the US markets retailing from US88 cents/kilogram right up to US$45.74/kg.

“NZ exports have consistently earned more per kg than petfood sent to the market by rival exporters from Canada, the US and Thailand, at about $20/kg.” Producers were able to leverage NZ’s position as a producer of high-quality protein with a choice of a wide range of suppliers and good research and development capabilities. They could introduce ingredients to differentiate their products such as green-lipped mussels, deer velvet, manuka honey and flaxseed oil. They are well-positioned to push the “Prey Diet”, replicating a wild animal’s natural diet and right on trend with products catering to pet owners looking for weight management, natural, organic, gluten-free or raw choices. The Petfood Manufacturers’ Association, a not-for-profit body funded by subscription from its almost 200 members, of which 120 are manufacturing members, was formed in

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Summary of nutritional information provided by dog food suppliers Product name

Fat (%)

Protein (%)

Fibre (%)

Carbs

(%)

Moisture (%)

M Energy (k/cal kg)

Acana Sport & Agility

3725

BlackHawk Working Dog Adult Formula

4090

Champ Max Biscuits

2.5 max

3200

Cobber Complete Puppy

3500

Cobber Complete Puppy

3500

Cobber Working Dog

3600

Cobber Active Dog

4.5

3300

Cobber Senior Dog

4.5

3100

CopRice Working Dog Adult Beef

3.8

3850

CopRice Working Dog Adult Chicken

3.8

3850

CopRice Working Dog Puppy

3.8

3550

CopRice Working Dog Senior

4.5

3200

Eukanuba Premium Performance Sport 30/20

7.2

23.1

4249

Hills Science Diet Adult Active

27.2 DM%

31.7 DM%

1.8 DM%

33.2 DM%

4211

K9 Natural Frozen Beef Feast

37 min

35 min

2.6

3.7

8 max

5269

Mighty Mix Frozen Concentrate

5.1

11.7

31.1

5800

Mighty Mix Large Dog Formula

1.9

42.3

3729

20 min

30 min

3.0 max

10 max

3933

2.5

3600

Nutrience Performance 30/20 Formula Pedigree Working Dog Formula Possyum Supreme

8 min

21.5 min

1.09 max

No data

4000

PRO PLAN Performance All Sizes/Ages

3 max

31.1

8.5

3900

PRO PLAN Performance Extreme 32/30

2 max

22.6

4640

Royal Canin Energy 4800

15.8

4670

Superior Chunky Original

10 min

21 min

1.1 max

No data

4000

Tux Energy

4 max

46.4

8.7

3750

TUX Energy Extra

4 max

8.5

3840

Ultra Active Working Dog

15 min

30 min

4 max

No data

10 max

3187

Wag Garlic & Rice

3.7

Dry basis

4400

Wag Original

3.7

Dry basis

4350

NOTES

• Content of fat, protein and other ingredients may be specific i.e 20%; or vague i.e at least 20% or up to 20%. • Fat provides the energy for endurance work. Veterinary Enterprises Group (VetEnt) guidelines say hardworking farm dogs should have at least 20% animal fat. • Good-quality protein is needed for repair and recovery. VetEnt’s recommends a minimum of 30% animal protein. • Fibre is the indigestible carbohydrate portion and as a general rule should not be more than 10%. • Carbohydrates are needed for sprint type energy.

• Energy: Farm dogs get most of their energy from fat. Energy may be quoted as “energy”, “gross energy”, “digestible energy” or the most relevant, “metabolisable energy (ME)” which is the energy available to the dog. Energy requirements should consider the intensity, frequency and duration of work. • The consensus of most veterinarians is that a working dog’s diet should be based on high fat and protein and “low” or “low to moderate” carbohydrate. • Nutritional data is presented on a drymatter basis.

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FUELS PERFORMANCE ROYAL CANIN® ENERGY 4800 Give them the fuel they need to do their job well. With a protein content of 32%, Energy 4800 contributes to maintaining muscle mass as well as blood capacity, to deliver oxygen to muscles and help sustain activity over long periods of time. Speak to your vet clinic about ROYAL CANIN® Energy 4800.

royalcanin.com/nz TEAM 8358

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December 2022

1998. Chief executive Richard Brake, who is a microbiologist by training, worked at Watties until he was made redundant with the Heinz take-over. Looking after the association’s affairs takes up almost all his time now and he also sits on the board of the Global Alliance of Petfood Associations (GAPA), based in Brussels. Members take a united approach on issues which affect them all, such as market access. “Around the world the petfood industry is very collaborative,” he says.

“The technical people are in touch all the time.” With petfood demand strongly growing Richard says there’s a lot of new building going on locally as production facilities have become stretched. “We would be exporting more petfood if we had the capacity.” There are large markets in European Union, India and South America which could be exploited in the future. “But we haven’t spent much time on them because we’ve been too busy satisfying

our present customers.” There have also been the same labour shortages as felt in the meat industry, which a relaxation of immigration restrictions might help. The prospect of hitting $1 billion of exports at some stage is a real prospect. “It’s an easy number to roll off the tongue,” he says. “And the association is doing whatever it can to encourage its members towards that goal.”

Summary of daily rations recommended by dog food suppliers Product name

25kg highly active dog required/day

Pack/price details

Grams of food/day

$/day

Pack size (kg)

RRP ($)

Acana Sport & Agility

455

5.74

$214.50

BlackHawk Working Dog Adult Formula

465

3.86

$166.00

Champ Max Biscuits

510

1.33

$54.99

Cobber Complete Puppy

Puppy food/ Age Dependent

$59.99

Cobber Complete Puppy

Puppy food/ Age Dependent

$119.99

Cobber Working Dog

295

1.47

$99.99

Cobber Active Dog

320

1.60

$99.99

Cobber Senior Dog

270

1.35

$99.99

CopRice Working Dog Adult Beef

400

1.59

$79.99

CopRice Working Dog Adult Chicken

400

1.59

$79.99

CopRice Working Dog Puppy

Puppy food/ Age Dependant

$62.59

CopRice Working Dog Senior

400

1.59

$79.99

Eukanuba Premium Performance Sport 30/20

534

4.54

$170.00

Hills Science Diet Adult Active

297

2.75

20.4

$188.99

K9 Natural Frozen Beef Feast

500

4.87

$194.99

Mighty Mix Frozen + Large Dog

288.5

1.36

25 + 20

101+103

Mighty Mix Frozen Concentrate

225

0.94

$116.00

Mighty Mix Large Dog Formula

352

1.85

$113.00

Nutrience Performance 30/20 Formula

347

3.3

$142.99

Pedigree Working Dog Formula

500

2.38

$95.53

Possyum Supreme

400

2.45

$13.50

PRO PLAN Performance All Sizes/Ages

508

4.69

$184.99

PRO PLAN Performance Extreme 32/30

543

5.58

$184.99

Royal Canin Energy 4800

550

5.36

$195.00

Superior Chunky Original

400

2.10

2.0

$10.00

Tux Energy

490

2.05

$104.90

TUX Energy Extra

410

2.15

$104.90

Ultra Active Working Dog

200

1.35

$135.00

Wag Garlic & Rice

1200

3.20

$9.50

Wag Original

1200

3.20

$9.50

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December 2022

NOTES • A dog’s nutritional requirements vary with size, age, workload, reproductive status and climatic conditions. • Daily rations quoted are those recommended by suppliers and may be based on different nutritional assumptions. • Monitoring body condition is the best way to fine-tune ration sizes for a particular food. • Farm dogs should ideally have a condition score of four on the Nestle Purina Body Condition System: • Ribs easily palpable, with minimal fat covering. • Waist easily noted, viewed from above. • Abdominal tuck evident. • Recommended retail prices from suppliers may vary from those seen at retailers, and bulk purchasing and specials reduce costs. Prices may vary from those in this table. • Prices include GST. PRICES CAN BE MISLEADING • Different bag sizes make the price for each bag irrelevant. Price per kilogram also has little relevance because daily rations vary widely between products. The calculated cost for each dog per day must be balanced against food quality, which should be the major consideration for working dogs. • For hard-working farm dogs, energy is an important factor in assessing rations. A 25kg dog has a resting energy requirement (RER) of about 820kcal per day. For dogs’ mustering, it’s more likely to be three to five times their RER, equating to about 2500kcal4000kcal. • This is a wide range but then so is their workload. Knowing the ME of a specific food means a daily energy requirement (DER) can be used to determine the daily ration of a food needed to provide this energy. • Daily ration (kg) = DER (kcal) /ME (kcal/kg) • For example, the daily ration of 4000kcal/kg to provide 2500kcal: DER = 2500 / 4000 = 0.625kg or 625g.

Grant McMaster General Manager, Closeburn Station Central Otago

Farm life is unpredictable. 68

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December 2022

With the right food, you can rely on your dogs every day. Grant McMaster has been a farmer for over 40 years. He knows only too well how uncertain farm life can be. Black Hawk Working Dog has been developed specifically for New Zealand working dogs. Packed with 32% real meat proteins and 22% high quality fats, the formula promotes strong, lean muscles and provides sustainable energy throughout the day. ®

® Black Hawk and other associated trademarks are registered trademarks of Masterpet Australia Pty Ltd.

Since Grant has been feeding Black Hawk Working Dog to his dogs, he’s noticed a real difference – “you can see them improving in their muscling, their coats are shinier and they have more energy.”

Available at your rural vet clinic.

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December 2022

workingfarmdogs.co.nz

Chris Pellow, South Auckland maize grower. Photo: Pioneer Seeds. 70

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December 2022

CROP & FORAGE

MAIZE CHAMPION Precision agriculture and direct drilling are among the tools award-winning maize grower Chris Pellow uses in his Waikato one-man operation. By Glenys Christian. Photos: Supplied.

orthern Waikato maize grower, Chris Pellow, describes himself as being “out on a bit of a limb”. “I’m not getting the record-breaking yields of other growers, but I’m not cropping highly fertile Waikato soils,” he says. He’s also up to 100 metres higher in altitude on his home farm at Onwhero, but it’s his attention to detail and careful planning that recently saw him take out the title of Maize Grower of the Year at the Federated Farmers annual arable awards this year. He’s the fourth generation of his family to farm at Onewhero, above the Waikato River, following on from his great-grandfather settling there in 1900 on almost 90ha. Bush was cleared, livestock run and over the years half of the land was sold to a brother and another area to a cousin. A 2ha bush remnant remains. Chris’s father switched from milking dairy cows to rearing calves and ran sheep on a neighbouring property when he found the workload too great. Chris set off in yet another direction when he signed up for a three-year horticultural cadetship which saw him work for specialised vegetable growers at nearby Bombay. This led him to start growing his own vegetables on part of the 34ha home farm in 1989. “I was more interested in plants than livestock and I enjoy working with machinery,” he says.

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December 2022

“I started off growing greens for four or five years, then sweetcorn which went into pouches to be sent to Japan.” A small initial area expanded to 20ha with about 4ha of pumpkins for the local market grown to provide winter income. But the strength of New Zealand dollar started to work against export returns and labour issues became a problem. “I was relying on part-time seasonal workers which was difficult because I was out of town and off the beaten track.” Next came maize. “The industry was growing rapidly at the time and I was interested in what was happening in the United States,” he says. “I read widely because the internet was just getting going. There were a lot of things which fed into it.” In 2000 he decided just to grow maize. “That got rid of staff hassles and I could just simplify things.” He started off growing maize for grain, using the same machinery as he had for sweetcorn, then found demand for maize silage from local farmers in the traditionally dairying area. Now 28ha of the home farm is used for cropping. He then expanded his operation to a 14ha leased block of land at Churchill 25km away. And in 2013 he bought 107ha at Mercer, again by the Waikato River, where 66ha is cropped. There are 7ha in pine trees and the rest is leased to a sheep and beef farmer for grazing. Chris now crops a total of 122ha, running it as a one-man operation.

“There’s not a lot of spare time,” he says. “It’s a big juggling exercise.” No time of year is this more the case when he is trying to sow crops and avoid spring and early summer rainfall which ranges from 1200mm on the river flats to 1450mm at Onwhero, 120m above sea level. “The Mercer block has been well developed with more pumps and drains put in so I can control the water,” he says. “But at Churchill the land is prone to the variability of the river height. In October there wasn’t one dry paddock and when I was soil testing I had to pick the spots to test.” There are also “vastly different soil types” to deal with, from clay to clay loam on the higher land to sand, silt “and whatever the river’s brought down” on the two other blocks. The pH levels range from 5.4 up to a high of 6.5 on the home farm where there’s been a longer history of lime application. With Olsen P levels he’s aiming to bring these up to 20-30 on the Churchill block, which has the lowest. “That’s not high but it’s adequate.” Chris is rigorous about soil sampling one third of each farm on a grid pattern every year, after starting on the home farm about 15 years ago to provide a fertility snapshot. “I’ve been interested in and have been using precision agriculture for some years,” he says. All his fertiliser inputs are applied at variable rates, meaning he can’t use standard fertiliser mixes and the time taken

is increased because of multiple applications needed. He modified his existing machinery to carry out such applications – “but now you can go and order it”. “You’re targeting nutrients to the area of the field that needs it, but you might use the same quantity,” he says. “I’m trying to be smarter about where nutrient are applied, especially in today’s nutrient environment.” There’s also the considerable cost saving in diesel. “You can always tweak things and move to finer grid sampling to improve accuracy, but that would push costs up. I’m trying to find a happy medium.”

Harvesting contractors use yield mapping The only contractors he uses, for harvesting, use yield mapping technology which feeds into his fertiliser application decisions for the next crop. He’s also used deep N testing,

Watching over your pastures so you don’t have to.

sampling at a depth of 600mm for more than 10 years. This, as well as the use of winter cover crops, has seen a 200-300kg/ha reduction in N applied over this time. While he used to grow grass in winter to be grazed off by stock he could see the damage that was resulting with pugging and soil compaction. So now he’s settled on a legume mix after experimenting for the last 13 years with blends including faba beans, lupins, brassicas including mustard and tillage radish, phacelia, buckwheat and clover. “They’re recycling nutrients and producing nitrogen for me for the next grain crop.” He direct drills the cover crops after the maize is harvested and they’re left to grow without added fertiliser until spring. More recently he’s experimented with different clovers as a living cover crop. “It’s very much a work in progress but I’ve had some good results with a couple

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Paddocks of maize on Chris Pellow’s Mercer farm. Photo: Pioneer Seeds.

of whole-field trials rather than just a few strips. It’s information overload at some times.” Chris was also drawn to the work carried out by LandWISE in Hawke’s Bay as a way to minimise wastage, starting with lowhanging fruit. This led him to look at striptill and then no-till cultivation in 2000, choosing the latter from 2005 after the first of two visits to the US corn belt. “It’s very much a mindset change to move down that path but I really saw the benefit of it,” he says. “Strip-till was to be my fallback position when I moved to no-till had it not worked, but I haven’t had to take that backwards step.” He admits it’s been a challenge but says he’s always been interested in machinery. “I had to modify a lot of my machinery to make it fit for purpose. You end up with a lot of very specialised machinery but you’ve got to look at the long term.” He’s able to carry out a lot of his own repairs and maintenance. “I only call in a specialist when a

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December 2022

“I didn’t hide what I was doing but there were people who said it wouldn’t work and I’d be pulling my plough out in a few years’ time.” computer needs to be plugged in.” He had plenty of naysayers at the beginning. “I didn’t hide what I was doing but there were people who said it wouldn’t work and I’d be pulling my plough out in a few years’ time.” He’s now pleased that a couple who’ve seen the results on his farm have followed him and made the switch. “I don’t miss the compaction and it’s made a huge change to how the soils have responded.” There have been improvements in soil structure, health and organic matter as well as carbon storage – “but we’re not allowed to benefit from that”. He’s part of a group of 15 maize growers who are all using reduced tillage with their crops. They’re spread from Dargaville through the Waikato and into the Bay of

Plenty and meet up four times a year. “We’ve known each other a long time and because we’re doing similar things we like to bounce ideas off each other,” he says. They share all their data and are now extending that to financial benchmarking, based on the dairy industry discussion group model. For the future and looming further environmental constraints from local and national governments, Chris says he doesn’t believe he can reduce N use much more without reducing yields. No-till cultivation does have a big advantage of being able to plant within one metre of a water course rather than the 5m setback required for traditional cultivation. “So I can crop the full area especially at Mercer. But it would be nice to see some financial reward for those who have been the early adopters.”

ENVIRONMENT Trees

Hearts of oak East Coast farmer Peter Arthur loves his oaks, and he’s planted many over the years.

aks are my favourite trees for farm planting, they are tough, can be colourful and can eventually make for good timber. Of the 500 different species, all from the northern hemisphere, I have about 80 different ones, and probably several thousand in total. My most successful one, for its nice straight form and speed of growth is the Hungarian oak, Quercus frainetto. I only have about 20, 10 planted in a nice sheltered spot, and another 10 on a rather nasty wind-blown hilltop. They are thriving equally well on both sites. In 2014 I logged a gully of pines. Part of it was so steep it should never have been planted with pines in the first place, and heavy rain, soon after logging, caused about a third of the gully to slip. I collected about half a tonne of acorns from parks and roadsides and threw them by the handful into the gully. I also used a shanghai to fire acorns into hard-toreach spots but this was rather slow but it’s amazing how far they would go. It was a powerful shanghai I bought from a fishing and hunting shop. They had quite a range and, when I asked, I was told most of them were sold “for the next door neighbour’s cat”. Today the gully is a developing forest of oaks, the best probably four metres tall. Survival has been poor on areas of easy access for goats and deer but good where there were pine slash heaps or small blackberry bushes. In about another 12 years time these eight-year-old trees should start dropping acorns which I hope will fill up any gaps.

I have about 20 different species of Mexican oaks which I have been trialling in shelter belt situations. The late Bob Berry, of Hackfalls Arboretum at Tiniroto, on the back road between Wairoa and Gisborne made eight trips to Mexico to collect acorns. Mexico has 160 different species, basically all of them being evergreen. No idea what the timber quality will be. The English oaks, Quercus robur and Q. petraea are famed for their timber, for building, furniture, and - before the days of iron for ship building - it was used for the making of the Royal Navy which led to establishment of the British Empire. The timber is strong and hard and due to the high tannin content resistant to insect and fungal attack. The timber of these two, and the American white oak Quercus

alba are used for making wine and whisky barrels. I thought the advent of screw top wine bottles would lead to the demise of the cork oak industry of Spain and Portugal, but it hasn’t. Posh eateries and wine connoisseurs still like to pull corks and are pulling more than ever before. I have several cork oak trees (Quercus suber) on a fairly sheltered but dry hilltop site but one of them has badly fallen to bits, two big branches falling out. The most colourful of the oaks come from the United States. The best is Q coccinea which turns a very deep red in the autumn. Most-commonly planted is the pin oak Q. palustris. Good colour but an absolute bird's nest of small side branches. Appletons Nursery at Richmond sells a much superior

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“Acorns were an important part of the American Indian diet, who leached out the tannins by putting them in slow moving water before grinding them into flour.” form grown from seed collected at the Eastwoodhill Arboretum, Gisborne. With similar good form and colour is Q. ellipsoidalis, the northern pin oak. The pin oaks and the swamp oak Q, bicolor will tolerate wet sites. Q. rubra colours but is not a strong red here. It likes acid soil. Quercus alba, the very slow growing American white oak can turn some nice orangey colours, but here, not every year. Oaks are remarkably tough once they have developed a lignotuber, a starchy swelling at the top of the root plate. It enables the young tree to come again if it has been eaten off or burnt off. I have a big belt of several hundred Quercus candicans, a big-leafed evergreen from Mexico, planted in 2016. The belt has been hammered by goats and deer, and has only just got away this year due to lots of shooting of the pests. The best are two to three metres tall. Last winter I had six spare plants in my nursery and went to fill up gaps. In gap after gap there was a tiny 15cm tall sprout, lost in the long grass. They are now almost a metre high. Acorns are loved by cattle, sheep, goats, ducks and pigs but a surfeit with nothing else to eat can be fatal to all except the

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ducks and pigs. Most fatalities have occurred in fenced off, oak-lined driveways where sheep have been put in to clean it up. Nothing much to eat but acorns. I have watched sheep waiting for an acorn to fall, and when one does, there is a mad rush for it. The best Portuguese and Spanish hams come from pigs finished on Q. faginea acorns. Acorns were an important part of the American Indian diet, who leached out the tannins by putting them in slow moving water before grinding them into flour. A New Yorker, who was messing about trying to make flour couldn’t work out how to leach them and finished up putting them in a muslin bag and then into the lavatory cistern. Under the wings of the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association is the Oak Action Group with about 120 members, led by Eric Cairns of the Hutt Valley. They are doing trial plantings and measuring growth rates, plus a few members are experimenting, using acorns for making cakes and biscuits. Basically the group is interested in finding the best trees for timber production. Long term thinking as it will be at least 80 years before harvesting.

There are many oak trees planted throughout NZ as memorials to those soldiers killed in the two world wars and to visits by royalty. Oaks and hazels are used as the host plants for growing truffles and I have scattered spores of the rather expensive porcini mushroom, Boletus edulis around many of my trees. No results so far. Havelock North orchardist, Dave Cranwell has been raising funds for a small north Indian village by selling seedlings of the evergreen Himalayan oak Q. leucotricophora. It can be trimmed into a useful horticultural shelter belt. One of its joys is that the roots go straight down and don’t spread out, so root pruning is not required. My planting days are almost over, but if I was starting again I would mark out a fenced off area, spot spray, wait for the grass to die off properly, then bore shallow holes with a 75mm auger attached to a cordless electric drill, dropping an acorn into each hole and covering it over. Bob Berry always said an acorn planted in its final spot always did better than a seedling transplanted from a pot, and he was the expert.

Danielle Boyd shearing on the family farm.

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ON A ROLL WITH WOOL After school, it was a choice of working in a bank or picking up the shearing handpiece for a young Northland woman. Shearing won. By Glenys Christian. Photos: Malcolm Pullman.

anielle Boyd is only 28 but she runs a shearing gang of up to two crews with anywhere between six to 16 workers. Three of them are women and the average age across the gang is in the mid20s. She’s also PGG Wrightson’s Northland wool rep three days a week, and in her “spare” time works on her parents’ 520-hectare sheep and beef farm. But it all could have turned out very differently after she was offered a full-time job in a Dargaville bank where she’d been doing work experience. Despite some of her friends telling her she was stupid not to accept, she decided against it. “I couldn’t handle sitting inside,” Danielle says. “And my uncle had already got me a job with a shearing contractor. It’s all about grabbing the opportunities presented to you. Just do it because you won’t know unless you try. You’ve got to have a can-do attitude.” That certainly runs in the Boyd family. Her parents, Kevin and Annette, bought their first farm of 230 hectares at Arapohue 30 years ago, after shearing and wool handling around the country as well as stints overseas. They were then able to add a further two blocks over the years to make up the farm where they now run sheep and bulls. “I’ve always loved sheep and sheep farming,” Danielle says. “I always used to say I would be a shearer or a farmer in the South Island. As soon as I could, I started to help out and when I was 15 I started to earn money working in the shed.” At 16 her father taught her and her younger brother, Michael, how to shear. He’s now shearing for her. “It suits me bloody well,” she says. “As long as he’s working he is happy.” Back in the South Island she worked as a rousie for a

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couple of months then as a shepherd general on The Rocks station in Middlemarch, owned by Andrew and Lynnore Templeton. It was 3200ha running 9000 stock units at that stage, but that’s now been boosted to 5300ha carrying 16,000su. “I enjoyed all of it,” she says.“I was useless at first being off a little Northland farm, which was a lot different. In the first couple of months I was surprised they didn’t fire me to be honest. But they were amazing teachers and I started to get the hang of things.” She didn’t have any dogs of her own when she arrived but the Templetons helped her build a team of four by the time she left after three years, feeling it was time to move on.

Rolling fleeces at Yeovil She spent a few months penning up for crutching with Peter Lyons’ shearing gang working on a range of different Central Otago farms. Then a Northland friend messaged her about going to the United Kingdom, so they set off together, picking up work wool handling, or rolling, as it’s called there, for a contractor based out of Yeovil, Somerset, in the south of England. “They roll up the fleeces, put them in a bag, stitch them up with a needle, then they’re sent to the wool store,” she says. “It was all more experience.” Back in New Zealand she again worked with Peter Lyons’ shearing gang as they tackled pre-lamb shearing. That led to working in a tailing gang in Southland, then back home in Northland once again she worked for a contractor based out of Paparoa. “I was mainly rousing and then did the odd day’s pressing,” she says.

Danielle and full time friend Sam the Beardie yarding in the family shearing shed. Below: The Boyd family at work. From left, father Kevin, brother Michael, Mother Annette and Danielle.

She also got her big break doing her first few days of shearing. “The gang was off to a shed in Gisborne but the contractor said there were too many rousies to take. He had a shed back home that needed doing but he only had one shearer.” Nervous but excited, she told him she knew how to shear and completed not one but three full days of shearing. “I was pretty sore but pretty happy,” she says. She shore 100 on that first day. “I was hooked. It was all about just getting that start.” She returned to the UK for six months, working in Wales, Scotland and Somerset, joined by her brother Michael who’d finished uni. “He loves shearing,” Danielle says. “It’s all he thinks about.” Back in NZ her plan was to head back shepherding again as she missed working her dogs and farming, but her parents had just bought their third block of land when her father hurt his shoulder. So as well as working for them she started working for a local Dargaville contractor, rousing, pressing and doing a bit of shearing too. “It worked well for me though. It meant I got the best of both worlds, being able to work on the farm and also in the shearing sheds at the same time.”

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Australia called and she spent two months there wool handling around Hay in New South Wales. “I wanted to see what it was like and it was a good experience,” she says. She picked up more skill working down South again before returning to Northland to work for local contractor Austin Stephens. It was after Austin died suddenly from a heart attack that the opportunity came to pick up a shearing run. “It was always something I thought of doing, to have a shearing run and do a good job of it,” she says.“But I knew the pitfalls.” Now she runs one or two crews made up of from six to 16 people, who’re mostly also local farmers. “Farmers are happy – we do a good job.” Danielle says she gets on well with other shearing contractors meaning they help each other out where they can if they’re a shearer short for a particular job. Her gangs work from Paparoa up to Taupo Bay but mainly around Dargaville. A lot of changes are happening in the north just as a lot of other areas around the country. “A lot of farms are being sold for forestry and there’s a few farmers looking into getting non-wool-producing sheep,” she says. “There’s a generation of farmers getting out of sheep. There’s a lot of work with them, especially in the Northland climate and more people these days don’t want to work. You’ve got to be a special person to enjoy sheep. You either love them or you don’t.”

And now, the company rep Last year after working in Hawke’s Bay for a month for Rowland Smith’s shearing gang, Danielle went south again, shearing for Peter Lyons. After completing the second shear in Northland she had the opportunity to take on the role of PGG Wrightsons’ Northland wool rep, handling the company’s business north of Auckland, at the same time as taking on the shearing run. “I don’t do things by halves,” she says. “But you’re always learning how to manage things and work out a way of how you can make things easier and more efficient. I have an awesome network of people within the company to help with the wool job and my parents are good at helping out if I’m really struggling to find extra workers for the shearing run. “I always say where there’s a will there’s a way and every problem has a solution. You’ve just got to keep calm and get on with it.” Sometimes she finds it hard organising workers. “But communication is the biggest thing,” she says. “It’s all about giving as much notice as possible if they can’t work on a particular day. But I’m really lucky to have such an awesome group of workers.” She doesn’t regard herself as a spare wheel, and will jump in herself if necessary. Danielle also cooks for her crews on stay-out and tries to do so for some other contract sheds where workers have to travel more than an hour. She tries to be reasonably prepared beforehand and makes meals for the freezer

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like lasagne, cottage pies and baking to try and cut the workload back during the peak of the season. “I always wanted to live in the South Island but I’ve realised that Northland’s not a bad place,” she says. “Shearing is very physically and mentally challenging and I think that’s why I like it so much.” Her best daily tally was 302 lambs shorn in one day the summer before last when she was on the stand full time. “I rarely do more than two weeks in a row now,” she says. And she finds her tallies have dropped. “I’ve got a lot more on my mind.” But she does take part in some competition shearing at local A&P shows. She still has some dogs including Sammy, “a good shed dog”, who has been with her for the last 10 years. She also reared 69 Friesian bull calves with a few beefies in the mix this spring, which fitted in well with the shearing season. “Hands down, the shearing industry is the best for work and travel,” she says. “There are so many opportunities, it’s a good characterbuilding job and you will without a doubt meet some of the best people. “Wool is such an incredible fibre and I’m lucky to be able to deal with it on a daily basis.”

Above: When not shearing or working on the family farm Danielle is PGG Wrightson’s Northland wool rep.

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Delivering delectable lamb The daughters of a Marlborough high country farming couple have created a sustainable family business offering Merino lamb direct to consumers. Rebecca Greaves reports.

he daughters of a Marlborough high country farming couple have created a sustainable family business offering Merino lamb direct to consumers. Their story is told in the latest episode of From the Ground Up podcasts, Rebecca Greaves writes. Merino lamb raised in the Marlborough high country and delivered direct to your door, Middlehurst Delivered is a family business with a focus on sustainability. Middlehurst Station owners Willie and Susan Macdonald have created a diverse business at Middlehurst, including a lodge, that has allowed opportunities for all four of their children to be involved, creating a sustainable, inter-generational business. The couple had long had a dream to offer their lamb direct to consumers, and now their daughters Lucy and Sophie have taken the idea and run with it. The result is Middlehurst Delivered, 100% Merino lamb direct from the station to the consumer. They process the lambs and dispatch the meat to consumers around the country through their online store, and supply a select-few restaurants. Half- and whole-lamb box options are available, as well as individual cuts. Lambs born at Middlehurst, located up the Awatere Valley, come down to the finishing farm at Cheviot in North Canterbury, which has a more temperate climate. Brother Henry, who manages the finishing farm at Cheviot, is a vital cog in the operation and handpicks the lambs for Middlehurst Delivered and delivers them to Harris Meats, a small abattoir just 10 kilometres down the road. Once processed and vacuum packed, the meat is delivered back to the farm in Cheviot where they have a certified chiller. It is weighed, labelled and dispatched to customers.

Sisters Sophie Johnson (L) and Lucy Macdonald oversee the dayto-day running of Middlehurst Delivered.

Lucy oversees the day-to-day running of the business, including dispatch, which she loves. She says the idea for Middlehurst Delivered came to them during the Covid lockdown. “We thought, let’s just do it, so naively we just did it. We had a lot of time to think, and family chats, and we just had to start somewhere, so we started with the half and whole boxes of lamb.” Having Harris Meats on board has been key. “We have a great relationship with them and it just makes the business work really well that it’s so close, it’s stress-free and the animals are happier.” The tourist lodge at Middlehurst is another important part of the business, as any surplus cuts can be sent up there to be used in the restaurant. The chef at the lodge has also been instrumental in helping develop recipes using the lamb. Educating consumers and showing them what can be done with lamb is equally important. “A lot of people have had an experience with lamb where they haven’t enjoyed it, or it hasn’t been cooked correctly. We have a recipes’ page and also tips and tricks we’ve learned, like the right cooking temperatures, that make the whole experience more enjoyable.” Middlehurst Delivered recently picked up six golds at the New Zealand Outstanding Food Producers Awards, a great confidence boost to validate the quality of Middlehurst lamb. Lucy and Sophie are constantly working to grow the business, researching and looking at what’s working, what’s not, and where they can add value. Lucy says this is a work in progress and they’re in a growth phase. “We’ve got so much to do in our marketing space and it’s about creating that brand story that is Middlehurst Station and the lodge as well, so the customer gets the sense of how special and unique our business is.”

To hear more about the Middlehurst Delivered story and how the Macdonald family has approached farm succession and on-farm diversification, head over and listen to the latest episode of Young Country’s From the Ground Up podcast.

FROM THE GROUND

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COMMUNITY Advice

Dear Aunty Thistledown, I have looked into what He Waka Eke Noa is going to cost me and, no thank you, I’d really rather not. I know we are all supposed to be in the same waka and all. But, what if I don’t want to be in a waka at all? Do you know of any ways to avoid He Waka? With fond regards, Waka Jumper Dear WJ, It’s good news if you are planning on avoiding He Waka because she’s gone burger. He Waka was a “partnership” between the government, the agricultural sector and iwi to recommend an “alternative agricultural emissions scheme”. This being the kind of partnership where 1/3rd of the partners threaten the other 2/3rds into doing the whole science fair project. And, “alternative agricultural emissions scheme” being something other than tipping New Zealand agriculture face-first into the existing Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) via a processor levy. The He Waka partnership has made its recommendations and now we are on to the Government’s response which they seem to be calling Te Tatai Utu o nga Tukunga Ahuwhenua. Or “Pricing Agricultural Emissions”. This isn’t law, it is in the consultation stage. So I advise you not to get too carried away in your tax evasions, I

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mean, avoidance plans because things can change. The Government has a history of haggling like a donkey trader. They come in hard and fast with their worst offer so that they can get agreement with a much-less drastic, but still terrible offer later on, when you are done crying. Once Beef + Lamb NZ and Tangata Whenua are done explaining why this will disproportionately affect their people, then we will likely get some kind of concession. Perhaps an awkward hug and an agreement to keep the revenue gouging below 21%. Or they let us count the trees next to the creek as sequestration. We shall see. However, if you have time for a little brainstorming then page 19 of the 94page consultation document is where you want to go looking for loopholes. That’s the bit where it says the levy must be paid by GST-registered businesses with more than 550 stock units (sheep, cattle and deer) or more than 50 dairy cattle. Or applying more than 40 tonnes of synthetic nitrogen. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Just go with it. Empty your paddocks, fill your freezer, plant some trees and get a nice cushy job in town. It’s not much of a loophole, but sometimes the best revenge is to let your opponent have exactly what they think they want. Sneak under the 550su threshold by messing around with the definition of a stock unit. No one really knows what a stock unit is… least of all the suits in Wellington. Gaze upon my 549 gigantic, triplet-bearing ewes, for the bargain price of one stock unit a piece. Keep your white cows off on a distant hillside, now they are also 1su. Mess with your species. Goats are invisible to the government. Why not use a goat as a terminal sire over your ewes? Now you have geeps (or maybe shoats?). If the government can’t fathom emissions pricing for goats, then

they’ll never see geeps coming. Or farm ponies, I hear they taste like venison. If you construct a dressage arena, you can source them directly from the wild. Or branch into swine, poultry, llamas, alpacas, rabbits or wallabies which are carbon neutral on account of being fictional animals. Divide your farm into 550su enterprises under each family member's name. Do you have the kind of family where this wouldn’t descend into a fist fight? Well la de da, I hope you are all too busy smiling at each other in your Brady Bunch squares to see the accountancy fees coming. Once my family got their roots into your business, you’d never get rid of them. That reminds me, I must ring my sister. Love, 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

FARMING IN FOCUS

Top left: Shearer Danielle Boyd carries feed on the family’s Northland farm. Top right: Checking the flock with Sam the Beardie. Centre and bottom left: Handpiece at the ready and combs sharpened for action. Bottom right: Ben Lovell and his dogs on the Golden Bay farm.

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Top left and centre: Dog team at Taki Taki, north Wairarapa. Top right: Brendan Varty and daughter Leala, 4, at Taki Taki. Above: Chris Pellow’s winning Waikato maize.

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