Country-Wide November 2022

BACKING FARMERS

THE MANAGING TOUCH Hugh Abbiss and Sally Terry have made phenomenal changes on a Hawke’s Bay farm p46

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The detail and why it’s unacceptable

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What farmers should be paid

LAWS OF FARMING From corporate London to Rangitikei

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EDITOR’S NOTE Opinion

NZ needs farmers to be wealthy

A

RECENT FLIGHT TO SYDNEY WAS the first time I have been out of New Zealand in four years, a chance to get away from negativity and social engineering.

No racial dividing politics or farmer-bashing there. Aussies love their farmers.

Flooding in New South Wales was top of mind for many and it was blamed on rain, not climate change.

The Aussie media seemed more mature and objective with stories based on facts, not fact mixed with opinion.

My Sydney trip wasn’t a holiday but a life saving visit for brain radiation with the gamma knife, a fine, precise radiation treatment, and reputed to be highly successful. I’ll let you know the results in three months.

NZ doesn’t have the gamma knife yet. Aussie have three, the first bought 12 years ago. They cost about A$5 million and NZ supposedly has the expertise to run it. There is talk of Auckland getting one next year. The $5m is not a lot of money given the billions of dollars the NZ Government has chucked around. In 2020 tourism minister Kelvin Davis gave $5m and lent another $5m to AJ Hackett - for what? About $58m has been reported to have been spent on contact tracing since May this year, even though no one is being traced.

The NZ Government’s response to the Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership (He Waka Eke Noa) proposal hit the news in Aussie. One Aussie headline was Cow burp tax, a climate change attack on NZ farmers. Another was along the lines of NZ plans to destroy the economy for a few burps.

It is all very well following ideological niceties such as taxing farming emissions to lead the world but if we want to have life-saving health care and other necessities, NZ needs to be wealthy. Australia is wealthy. An accountant told me the average salary in his area, Potts Point, was A$200,000.

The Government’s proposal of reducing stock numbers by 20% would lead to the loss of meat plants and jobs associated with them. Farmers and

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November 2022

allied businesses would go bust.

Groundswell is to hold another protest against the farmer tax later this week and it will be interesting to see the turnout.

A year out from the election, we now seem to have a lame duck Government which is like a possum in the headlights. It can’t chuck around money like it used to, to try and solve problems without fuelling inflation which hurts its potential voters more. The prospect of a National-Act Government looks more likely every week. How much Labour legislation will be undone may depend on how big a partner Act is in the coalition.

It’s not a good time to be relying on the Government. Would you make a deal or take a job connected with the new Maori Health authority or Three Waters unless there is a generous exit payment?

The Government is under pressure which keeps building. The poor results from the local body election, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown saying no to Three Waters and rebel MP Gaurav Sharma forcing a byelection in Hamilton West are damaging. Voters seem to be tired of the Government interfering in their lives.

Ronald Regan once said the Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

However, it won’t be the likes of just Three Waters or race-based policies that will decide the election, as economist Denis Wesselbaum says, it will be the economy (p22).

Terry Brosnahan Got any feedback?

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

5

Contents

68

KUMARA AND LAMB MIX SWEET A combination of growing kumara and grazing lambs makes an excellent fit for a Northland farmer.

36

LAWS OF FARMING Despite high-flying careers overseas, a young couple couldn’t resist the call of the family farm.

8 BOUNDARIES HOME BLOCK 10 Andrew Steven weighs up grain’s feast or famine 11 Robert Carter discovers unintended consequences of carbon forestry 12 Rachael Hoogenboom is having adventures in northern Southland

30 BACK TO CORRIEDALE ORIGINS

13 Charlotte Rietveld tries to cope as The Boss heads west 15 John Scott contemplates the mess of Liz

BUSINESS 16 Ag emissions proposal not cautious enough 20 The making of a great manager 22 How the economy will decide the election 24 Management: The value of your time 26 Wool on the floor: Options for growers

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November 2022

26

WOOL ON THE FLOOR: OPTIONS FOR GROWERS

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

WOOL

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

30 Back to origins of Corriedale 32 Micron measures: Focus on performance 34 Woolless or finer wool?

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LIVESTOCK 36 Onfarm: Laws of farming 44 Stock Check: Check the trace element tank

THE MAKING OF A GREAT MANAGER

46 Onfarm: Number cruncher at Totara Hills 54 Onfarm: A Golden Bay family doing things their way

Opportunities await for multi-skilled farm managers.

61 Study identifies ewe wastage numbers

62 Where to next for deer?

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68 Kumara and lamb mix sweet 74 New tool shows true cost

HOW THE ECONOMY WILL DECIDE THE ELECTION

77 Agreement promotes certainty

ENVIRONMENT

YOUNG COUNTRY

Angus Kebbell South Island, Lower North Island, Livestock 022 052 3268 angus.kebbell@nzfarmlife.co.nz

82 Wool’s cool and it bounces 84 From the Ground Up: Wonderful wool coats

Tony Leggett | International 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz

COMMUNITY 85 Technology: Opening the Windows

Subscriptions nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop | 0800 224 782 subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz

87 Advice: Dear Aunt Thistledown

OUR COVER Find out how awardwinning manager Hugh Abbiss and partner Sally Terry have more than doubled gross farm income at Totara Hills Station, p46. Photo by John Cowpland.

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November 2022

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 Partnership Managers Janine Aish | Auckland, Waikato, BOP 027 890 0015 janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz

78 Tree planting brings multiple benefits

88 SOLUTIONS 90 FARMING IN FOCUS

Sub editor Andy Maciver 06 280 3166 andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz

Production Jo Hannam 06 280 3168

65 A sea-change thanks to velvet

CROP AND FORAGE

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

Designer Emily Rees 06 280 3167 emily.rees@nzfarmlife.co.nz

DEER FARMER

66 A deer milestone

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

Printed by Blue Star, Petone

62

WHERE TO NEXT FOR DEER?

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

The report card is out on a seven-year strategy for the deer industry costing $15 million.

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BOUNDARIES

RON LOVES DEER

Let farmers run ag scheme COUNTRY-WIDE CONTRIBUTOR Joanna Grigg plans to make a submission on the Government’s agricultural emissions proposal.

She writes: I read the 94 pages through and don’t like the idea that meeting a methane reduction target seems to be the sole driver of methane price.

Rural community and GDP (our country’s wealth to do other good enviro stuff) must have some formal consideration. I also question excluding non-ETS exotic tree stands, because they’re too tricky to count. Give farmers the chance, they will muster the numbers and decide if it’s worth it.

I want to do my bit to cut warming but, if it’s an ag scheme, then let farming methods drive it. The scheme needs to focus on reducing per head emissions (mitigation and growing stock faster so they are dead quicker) rather than shedding capital stock.

Sure, the pet lambs can go, that hill face can revert because it was a bugger to muster. We will cull an extra 50 light ewe lambs rather than keep them longer before culling as hoggets. But why drop

NING W I N I T ER WR 8

18% of flock ewes - Merinos growing $24/ kg wool and tidy terminal lambs from 120% lambing. Clothes and food.

We don’t need to go that hard to get 10% methane reductions. At eight cents/ kg methane, Government modelling suggests a 12% reduction in methane and 10% overall. I’ll put a stake in the ground and say let’s have the old He Waka Eke Noa proposal back please, and a price of six cents max by 2030.

Ring your MP, go to a Beef + Lamb NZ feedback meeting, fill in the Feds’ survey or protest on the streets. Do whatever turns that negative thought you are harbouring into something positive. Dark thoughts help no-one. Attack the issues, not the person.

Go outside and measure your shelter belts. Add up what you are missing out and put the hectares on your submission.

Revisit the B+LNZ calculator.

Our farm cost is $11,600/year for 2650 tonnes C02 equivalent, if methane x 11 cents and nitrous oxide x $1.26/kg. This is likely to increase each year, so we need to get it right.

Share your numbers.

Country-Wide writer Joanna Grigg won a major award at the annual Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators awards recently. Grigg picked up the Beef + Lamb NZ hard news award for her stories on He Waka Eke Noa and on-farm sequestration.

Old fashioned values and an incredible ability to matchmake buyers and sellers of deer earned PGG Wrightson Specialist deer agent Ron Schroeder the 2022 NZ Deer Industry Award.

The award, co-sponsored by CountryWide, recognises individuals or groups who have made an outstanding contribution to the industry. Ron, a Canterbury agent with an almost 50-year involvement with deer, was described by his numerous nominators as dedicated, knowledgeable, hardworking, professional, engaging and witty.

He was a senior deer agent recognised as a ‘Master of Diplomacy’ who was solidly dependable in closing the deal to the satisfaction of both buyer and seller.

His dedication to the industry went well beyond the saleyards and in the early days of deer farming included overseas trips to secure deer on behalf of clients. They entrusted Ron with the job of negotiating on their behalf and the safe delivery of deer which was a stressful exercise given the strict quarantine protocols.

He was also a staunch supporter of Deer Farmer Association events helping organise Canterbury branch field days, seminars and trials from the 1980s until the 2000s. He was also a leading advocate for quality assurance among stock and station companies during the early days of the deer industry’s quality assurance programmes.

One nominator summed up Ron’s contributions: “Ron loves deer; he farms, sells, hunts, eats and dreams about them… he even roars like them.”

Ron Schroeder. Photo: Ali Spencer.

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November 2022

TRANSITIONING TRIAL

FLOWERS SAY IT ALL

Massey University is trialling transitioning a Romney flock to a Wiltshire flock. Associate Professor Peter Tozer said the trial had been going for three years with hogget breeding of the resulting progeny each year.

In 2020 Romney ewes were bred to Wiltshire rams. In 2021 half-bred hoggets were bred to Wiltshire rams and this year the 3/4-bred hoggets were bred to Wiltshire rams and 7/8th Wiltshire cross lambs are being born this season.

All generations were kept and the halfbreeds born in 2020 were still part of the study and their lifetime performance was being recorded.

• Read more p34.

JOK

E An eight-year-old boy approaches his principal one

day, and after politely greeting the man, explains that - in his opinion - he should be taken out of third grade and placed into fourth. Upon hearing about this, the boy’s teacher storms into the office.

“He is not ready for fourth grade!” she exclaims.

“Well, let’s test him,” the principal says. “Young man, what’s five times five?”

“Twenty-five,” responds the boy.

“One hundred and forty-four divided by twelve?” the principal asks.

“Twelve,” the boy answers.

“What does the word ‘its,’ with no apostrophe, mean?” queries the principal.

“Of or belonging to ‘it,’” the boy replies.

“He seems ready for fourth grade to me,” the principal says. The teacher narrows her eyes and faces the boy.

“What do cows have four of that I only have two of?” the teacher asks.

“Legs,” responds the boy.

“What do you have in your pants that I don’t have in mine?”

“Pockets.”

The principal shakes his head. “We’re putting him into fifth grade. Even I got those last two questions wrong.”

Three weeks after Ellie Miller had an emergency caesarean, her husband Pax Leetch sliced through his quadriceps tendon while picking wildflowers on their farm.

The flower-picking gesture wasn’t quite as romantic as it sounds. Ellie’s mother Marjorie was after wildflowers for her Rural Women’s group and Pax stopped his motorbike to lean over and use his sheath knife to pick chicory flowers in the paddock. His shoulder hit the starter button and the bike was in gear so leapt forward down the hill. The knife in Pax’s hand sliced his leg, severing his quadriceps tendon and chipping the kneecap bone. It took three operations and a year recuperating before Pax was back full-time on the farm.

In the meantime, Ellie was back out on the farm earlier than she expected and enjoyed it so much that she got a team of dogs and kept control of most of the stock work. Pax got unexpected dad time with Opal.

“It’s been a blessing in disguise,” he says.

Now, Ellie usually heads out in the morning while Pax stays home with Opal and they switch roles in the afternoon.

Sometimes all three of them will head out on farm jobs.

• Read more p54

D I D YO U

KNOW?

I NEED A EWEBER!

Did you know that researchers have looked into the feasibility of a cast iron stomach? No, it’s not a euphemism for a person avoiding a case of the squirts, the University of Leicester actually investigated the implications of having a stomach cast out of iron. It’s not good news, your stomach acid will eat through it quick smart. Even if you upgraded to stainless steel, it would still only be 34 days until your metal stomach ruptured.

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November 2022

9

HOME BLOCK Timaru

Photo: nzbirdsonline.org.nz

Falcons here. Is famine far behind?

With the world grain market in turmoil, South Canterbury farmer Andrew Steven contemplates the big picture of feast and famine.

E “I have been agonising over fertiliser and looking at products and rates that will do the job, and thinking, what can I get away with? What will make the spend go further?”

10

ARLY OCTOBER AND WE ARE STILL struggling to get ahead of the work. We are yet to put a seed in the ground and tailing is behind, to the extent that the bigger lambs are not being tailed. If I were to never tail another lamb in my life, I wouldn’t miss it.

Looking back at world events in the autumn and how they might impact on grain price, I contemplated growing milling wheat. I looked at the likely returns and allowed for increasing costs and risk, and couldn’t be bothered. Without going to the extent of doing a gross margin, it appeared that we could be worse off, despite wheat’s increasing price.

It got me thinking about some of the bigger picture things. The only mechanism we have for ensuring adequate supplies of food is the market.

We are getting a price signal to produce more, but we are not responding to it. What if every farmer in the world made the same decision? A paradoxical market failure. Then I read an article that essentially made the same point. The author was George Monbiot. For readers who flip out at the mention of his name, I do hesitate to quote him as his share value in the rural scene is not high. However, he does have worldwide influence and some interesting ideas (and blindspots).

I like the old Bible story about Joseph in Egypt who found favour with the pharaoh and insisted (on God’s instruction) that grain must be stored up as there was a famine coming. Nowadays we have modern gods, traders in grain futures markets, who have a large role in setting world grain prices.

I have been agonising over fertiliser and looking at products and rates that will do the job, and thinking, what can I get away with? What will make the spend go further? The costs have become a bit frightening and I have a natural antipathy towards spending too much. Money being much easier to spend than to make.

We are rearing a few calves again this season and an aspect of calf rearing that I enjoy is picking up the calves and meeting the dairy farmers and the super women who run the calf sheds. They are doing a huge job, very conscientious, and they look exhausted. They have families of their own to look after as well. I feel like telling them to keep up the good work, because, while a large chunk of New Zealand is prejudiced against dairy farmers/ farming, it is their efforts that are paying the bills for NZ. A good news story. Our neighbours have had a pair of falcons take up residence around their farm yard and they are giving the local bird population a good curry up. Mostly falcons stick to the back country, so to have them resident so close to Timaru is pleasing. Much more pleasing than the wallabies that have also taken up residence.

Finally, we’re involved with organising the national conference for the Farm Forestry Association (NZFFA). We pulled the pin on it for 2022 because of Covid, but it will be happening in South Canterbury in 2023. There will be a visit to our farm necessitating a frantic tidy up. Check the NZFFA website for conference details.

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November 2022

HOME BLOCK Taumarunui

Unintended consequences Carbon farming has resulted in communications issues for many farmers. Robert Carter joins the Chorus.

I

N OUR ISOLATED LOCAL VALLEYS, WE are still quite dependent on copper cables for landline connections because we don’t yet have the luxury of cell phone reception.

There are still significant numbers of copper broadband connections despite the best efforts of fantastic internet providers such as Aonet quietly and efficiently installing repeaters and connections to homes and businesses.

The copper network is not hard wired back to the main communication hubs as cables connect subscribers to radio huts which in turn send signals back using a system known as MAR, multi access radio.

In the area south and west of Taumarunui we have a trig point on one of our Maunga known as Makahiwi.

Makahiwi has an impressive array of masts and aerials with dipoles, dishes and gear sending and receiving phone and internet traffic.

Makahiwi is at the head of our valley and the views from there are fantastic as it is a shade over 2000 ft above sea level.

Recently though, we’ve noticed that our phone and internet is very unstable with many messages coming up on screen about “unknown error has occurred”.

My friend Dan Steele from Blue Duck Station (three ridges away, 12km in a straight line but about 100km by road) has encountered the same issues, just about driving him insane as he tries to run his tourist operation at Whakahoro.

I decided it was time to investigate and went on a tiki tour for a “nohi” (look).

The network is owned and run by Chorus, so I tried to contact them a week ago and so far they have not responded to phone calls or emails. (Yes, I did get through briefly, enough at least to lodge a complaint).

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November 2022

"I found that the power supply to the system has been cut off by the local power company because carbon farming pine trees keep falling over the line.”

The good people at Chorus are in a corporate fortress and they take a lot of trouble to insulate themselves from serfs such as myself who have the audacity to try and contact them.

I found that the power supply to the system has been cut off by the local power company because carbon farming pine trees keep falling over the line.

The owner of the trees is happy for the trees to be cut. (But someone else has to pay for it of course) So, Chorus, in their wisdom, now have an electrician travel to fuel up a petrol-driven generator, three or four times a week.

Interestingly the electrician travels all the way from Whanganui to do this, a 400km round trip!

(I know several capable technicians, who live much closer, who could do this at a considerably lower cost.)

The generator putters away 24/7 or until it runs out of fuel.

In addition to the power supply woes, the carbon farming trees have grown so well they now occlude the line of sight required for the MAR system.

One could say that these are unintended consequences of the drive to absorb carbon dioxide to save the planet.

However, I do wonder about the carbon footprint left by A, the generator and B, the ute travelling 1200km a week to fuel said generator.

All I can say now is a well-used acronym, wtf.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, Chorus will have been in touch and given us all assurances it will all be fixed. Yeah right.

But I’m not holding my breath as this is par for the course nowadays where few, in positions of power, have any care at all about small towns or country areas and the basic services we need to operate.

They love to send their invoices though.

11

HOME BLOCK Gore

Adventures with a pup Ag nutrient specialist Rachael Hoogenboom is making the most of life in Southland, seeing the sights, training a puppy and taking to the water.

T “We could all probably agree that to be able to socialise with friends and family under very few restrictions has lifted our spirits. ”

12

HEY SAY TIME FLIES WHEN YOU are having fun, and I can hardly believe we are nearing the end of 2022. What a year it has been for the agriculture sector, for the world and for me.

This year has certainly been full of excitement and real emotion with the return of events and easy travel. We could all probably agree that to be able to socialise with friends and family under very few restrictions has lifted our spirits.

I have now spent a full year living in Northern Southland and this gorgeous region has begun to feel like home, especially when many of my weekends have been spent showcasing the sights to visiting friends and family. The number one destination of choice on these tours has been Milford Sound, and for good reason as each time I visit I’m just as astounded and lost for words as I was the first time I drove the no-exit road.

I’ve also made a few trips of my own this year, although unfortunately not international, but to varying locations for diverse events within New Zealand.

A focus for myself this year has been growing my passion and knowledge for the red meat industry. Through my work place I’m lucky enough to be involved in a selective sheep and beef development group. The aim of this group is to upskill employees on the opportunities within the sector, to engage in challenging conversations with farmers, and share our experiences.

I have attended three different modules nationwide with topics ranging from animal health and feed budgeting to farming as a business, but all agendas giving a different perspective on the diverse range of farm systems within NZ. For someone that didn’t grow up on the farm

but has spent a large amount of time immersed in the agriculture industry, I see an enormous amount of opportunity and future growth. This is most likely what drew me to my chosen career path, but the exciting part is that I still have so much to learn and therefore time to identify more opportunities, more adventures, and more success.

This has also been the year to discover my adventurous side where I have tried a few new things. You’re probably thinking I’ve picked up a thriving new hobby of skydiving or deep-sea diving, but I can assure you I won’t be trying those any time soon. Cam and I now devote our spare time to spoil a young, bouncy, and very cheeky 10-month-old Jack Russell puppy, named Indy.

The last eight months with her has certainly been a new adventure, which will continue as we learn the art of training something which never sits still.

A stretch to this introvert’s wild side has been saying yes to a seat in a rowing eight boat, which will race against various other teams to raise funds for the local rowing club. Water sports have never been on the top of my game list but it’s never too late to try, although I have been told our team would be doing very well if we found ourselves in the water. I'll be sure to keep you updated as I remain optimistic about this new challenge, but I doubt you will see me at the next Olympic games.

My favourite season has always been summer, and as the daylight lingers for a little longer each evening, I really do treasure the simple things in life. Like playing fetch with Indy, enjoying a refreshment in the sun with Cam, dips in the lake and laughter with friends. All this extra sunshine may even prompt me to really push the boat out and try barefoot skiing.

Stay tuned for more of Rachael’s wild adventures.

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November 2022

HOME BLOCK Rakaia Gorge

The Boss heads west Charmed by rain, The Boss and The Chief Inspector have headed to a new start at Hokitika, Charlotte Rietveld writes.

The Boss is packed and ready to head across the Alps.

A

FTER 50 YEARS IT HAS FINALLY happened. The Boss has flown the coop.

Technically it’s just a holiday house, but his holidays are breeding like bureaucrats. Residing just an hour inland from Christchurch, I was quite sure my parents’ long-awaited choice of holiday home would err on illustrious - Akaroa is the logical spot, Wanaka at a push.

How wrong I was. After a seriously wet year onfarm, it seems my father is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and has insisted on a house in Hokitika.

Previously considering an afternoon in Christchurch a big day out, The Boss now thinks nothing of a stint hitting the hay in the neighbouring province. True to his sheep farmer instincts, he’ll happily head into the breeze, battling a classic Rakaia Gorge gale nor’wester to arrive at its source, a Hokitika downpour.

Abandoned and bewildered, I have assured myself the novelty will soon wear off and Middle Rock’s most productive labour unit will return.

The real estate agent’s number has remained on the Samsung’s speed dial as I eagerly await a relist. It wasn’t until his favourite Swanny headed westwards that it dawned there was no bright-line risk here.

Since then I have adopted a sophisticated psychological theory known as the limping seagull strategy. Aiming to exhibit endearing vulnerability, I have presented The Boss with glaring farm managerial omissions and oversights. Diarising tailing of the rams, maps proposing fences across the main road and schedules of stockpiled scrap metal sell-downs have failed to raise alarm. Short of stitching ‘Help! Stay!’ into the swede sow-down,

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November 2022

"Abandoned and bewildered, I have assured myself the novelty will soon wear off and Middle Rock’s most productive labour unit will return. ”

I am unsure of what more I can do. It seems the gold-card carrying chariot has bolted.

But spare a thought for The Chief Inspector in all this. Happily at home gardening, she was forcibly uprooted and transplanted into the daunting world of setting up house in her 70s. Not, it transpired, that a free rein was allowed. Do keep in mind that The Chief Inspector is not to be messed with, but these were unprecedented times; The Boss had discovered Briscoes. No Breville beater nor Scanpan pot was safe in this man-raid. Despite failing to register 1000 of his wife’s historical haircuts, it turned out The Boss was quite the stickler when it came to bakeware, napery and serveware standards.

With porcelain purchased and possession date looming, the pack-up ultramarathon began.

Commandeering a covered trailer, this was a multi-day event involving various disciplines. Most certainly not a team sport, we the mere support crew were banished to the sidelines as the trailer Tetris unfolded. No square inch was spared as Briscoes boxes, bikes, beds and barbecues were retentively squeezed into self-locking formation.

Duly qualifying for automatic entry into the world champs of packing, The Boss was heartily satisfied.

After 50 years inland immersed in tussocks, matagouri, hills and gales, he was off to the Coast where a seaside stroll was rewarded with fresh coffee and colourful characters along the way. We have fortunately since lured him back to his main residence, with legendary work rate intact. But I am quite sure the coastwards pull will remain strong.

For anyone passing by or perhaps looking for an illustrious holiday home of their own, feel free to join The Boss in a Hokitika purchase. You’ll never buy better.

13

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November 2022

HOME BLOCK Hill of Fearn, Scotland

In Liz we don’t Truss Politics, the loss of the Queen, children off on OEs to New Zealand and coming rugby tests against the All Blacks are what’s on John Scott’s mind.

F

AIR PLAY TO LIZ TRUSS, OUR NEW Prime Minister. She’s found a whole new level of ‘hold my beer moments’ taking over from Boris Johnson who was fairly useless – she stumbled at the start when curtseying to King Charles and hasn’t recovered since.

Our economy is in a perilous place at the moment with interest rates on the rise and operating costs of businesses in every sector spiraling out of control. I would offer to swap you, but by the sounds of things Jacinda is equally feckless, though on the bright side, at least she’s consistent. Or it could be like Putin, whose hand seems to be awfully close to the red button as the world watches nervously. I really do hope it doesn’t happen and Russia and Ukraine soon find a way to cease fighting.

Anyway, enough of politics. Our Queen passed on in what can only be described as an amazing shift; a shining example to world leaders and a huge loss to not just the United Kingdom but the wider Commonwealth. I wouldn’t describe myself as a royalist but I was glued to the TV and shed a tear when the news finally broke, and I mourned with many others as we had a quiet day on the farm to honour her funeral.

Whilst I never met the Queen, I have spent time in the company of Princess Anne when we hosted the international and world sheepdog trials. Like her mum, the princess has a passion for the countryside, a real understanding of breeding stock, and a wicked sense of humour.

I hope our new King can carry on where his mother left off, whilst adding his stamp to the role, and that the next generation royals get the support they need from the wider family to fulfil what is becoming an increasingly difficult role.

Speaking of family support, Fiona’s been keeping me right following the departure of our oldest kids, James to NZ and Izzy back to uni. It was great having

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"I would offer to swap you, but by the sounds of things Jacinda is equally feckless, though on the bright side, at least she’s consistent.”

them around over the summer but the hole they have left is taking me a little longer to fill and adapt to than anticipated. I enjoyed sharing responsibility with them and they did take the pressure off me, but it's great they are away and experiencing the world, and before you know it they’ll be back and I might be grumbling that they are taking over.

Our gap-year students have had a meteoric rise in terms of responsibility as we are light on full-time stock people – an ongoing problem faced by the whole industry – and to be fair to them, they have really taken to it and are thriving, which is just great to see.

Murray’s taken a lead in the sheep enterprise and with a mating plan drawn up by James before he left, rams will be let loose by the time this hits your kitchen tables, while Ed has taken a lead with feeding the cattle using the mixer wagon plus making sure finishing steers hit weights while the price is decent.

We have about 200 steers to finish with half now on feed and the others still grazing a block further north. With the price at £4.60($NZ9.28)/kg we will move some of the cattle direct off grass at lighter weights. Ideally they will be 250kg plus deadweight at 18 months of age, which works for native cattle that have had minimal inputs to date. Those on feed should hit 300kg and more, but with feed barley at £250($NZ504)/t and climbing we just can't justify feeding too much of it even if it is home grown.

It would be fair to say we have gone beyond optimum in terms of cattle numbers on the farm and we will tweak things back a little for next year with fewer trading cattle bought for finishing.

The next few months seem to be filling in rapidly including the autumn rugby tests, which might or might not be a highlight. With rugby’s world cup countdown on selection should be interesting. If our coach gets it right then we have a chance to break our duck against the All Blacks – they do seem a little vulnerable at the moment.

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BUSINESS Emissions

The Government has released its proposals for agricultural emissions charges as part of climate change mitigations. Joanna Grigg reports on the proposals and their conflicts with the industry’s He Waka Eke Noa suggestions.

Proposal O not cautious enough

n the table from the Government is a proposed scheme for agriculture. It puts a cost against every sheep, cattle beast and deer on the farm each day, based on their gas output. Farmers are expected to start paying this cost from 2025.

It aims to reduce methane emissions on farms, by 10% by 2030. According to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, it will “carve out a high value space for our exporters”.

Nicky Hyslop, South Canterbury farmer and Beef + Lamb NZ Director, says there may be some validity in this claim, long term.

“But our sector must be viable in the short and medium term and changes the Government has proposed to He Waka Eke Noa, puts this at risk.”

“We cannot accept this proposal as it stands.”

Commitment to reducing emissions

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is important for access to markets, she says, and for multinational customers like McDonalds and Nestle, but it may not attract premiums in the short term.

She thinks the scheme should deliver moderate emission reductions that reflect warming impact, while allowing farms and rural communities to be sustained.

“The Government proposal on the table and their modelling, clearly shows this will not be achieved and disproportionately impacts hill country farming.”

To ensure, as she puts it, “the guts of our farm communities are not hollowed out” she wants to keep the He Waka model. This is all farm sequestration recognised, ongoing industry involvement in governance, and emission price setting that reflects progress to targets.

“No-one else in the world is doing this, so a cautious approach is critical or

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Tell them: eight cents maximum price

“The Government proposal on the table and their modelling, clearly shows this will not be achieved and disproportionately impacts hill country farming.” we will simply be replacing New Zealand food with high-emissions food which is counterproductive for reducing global warming.”

Ignoring this consultation (closing November 18) and hoping it goes away with a 2023 election is not realistic.

Christopher Luxon, National Party, says: “National supports New Zealand’s emissions targets, including reaching carbon net zero by 2050. And that means reducing agriculture emissions over time.”

National’s difference seems to be that they may allow farmers to earn credit for all forms of onfarm carbon capture.

Hyslop says while farmers are rightly frustrated and disappointed, they should not panic.

“All the He Waka industry partners are collectively focused on getting changes to this.”

FARMER AND BEEF + LAMB NZ Director, Nicky Hyslop, says the price put on methane must be conservative.

She encourages farmers to tell the Government this by submitting on the agricultural emissions proposal.

“Even the Government modelling shows that at 8c, it will have a significant impact on many sheep, beef and deer farms.”

The model in the consultation document shows that 8c by 2030 would reduce methane emissions by 12% (and meet a total 10% target). See Table A. It comes at a cost. At 8c (Table B) the model predicts an 18% drop in sheep and beef farm net revenue, from 2020 to 2030. This is likely to be made up of a 16% drop in lamb production, 14% drop in wool, 13% fall in deer, and 4% drop in milksolids. Beef production increases

in some scenarios, because more costeffective mitigation technologies are assumed for beef cattle compared with sheep.

The large drop in sheep includes afforestation, the impact of emissions pricing and some farmers switching from sheep to beef, Hyslop says. The Government modelling didn’t include sequestration and any future mitigations, so is a worst-case scenario.

Concern about this drop in production and profitability is the type of comment farmers should put in their submission, Hyslop says.

Farmers may think comments will fall on deaf ears. Hyslop says consultation, along with other actions, are all valid options to get the message across. She suggests making a powerful submission, farmers getting together with neighbours

Table A: Model results of emissions reductions in 2030, compared with 2020. It shows eight cents per kg methane would see a 12% methane reduction. $0.08/kg

$0.11/kg

$0.13/kg

Biogenic methane reductions

12%

13%

15%

Nitrous oxide reductions

3%

5%

5%

Total GHG reductions (note: 2030 target is 10%)

10%

11%

12%

Table B: Ouch: Changes in sector net revenue and agricultural production, if methane levy is at $0.08/kg, relative to baseline.

Change in revenue (%)

Change in production (%)

Dairy

-6

Milk solids

-4

Sheep & Beef

-18

Lamb

-16

Other

-1

Beef

8

TOTAL

-4

Wool

-16

Venison

-13

Note: Mitigation and sequestration are not included in the model, and these are likely to help to some small degree.

Source: Pricing Agricultural Emissions Consultation Document.

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or their catchment group and making a joint submission.

“Describe your farm or catchment, your ongoing commitment to stewardship, your plantings, your estimated carbon sequestration (using the calculator) and the likely emission costs.”

“If we lobby and submit and talk to local and central government, we can be effective and get changes.

“This scheme is the farmers' scheme, it’s our money being collected and reinvested or paid in sequestration, so they need to listen.”

There are 15 questions to answer in the consultation.

Question Five is the guts of how the levy price will be set. He Waka wanted a committee, including farm industry members, to advise on the price. The Government proposal is for ministers to set the price for both long-lived gas levy and biogenic methane levy.

When it comes to short-lived gas (i.e: methane) the Government wants to set the price based on whether emissions are dropping. This is quite different to what He Waka proposed, which was a price based on just bringing in enough levy to pay for sequestration, a share of administration, incentives to farmers and research into reducing emissions.

The consultation states ministers would periodically assess whether methane emissions were on- or off-track regarding the target. If over- or underachieving, ministers could update the biogenic methane price. Hyslop says the sustainability of rural communities and local economies must be included in pricing discussions.

“What about the potential loss of rural community, infrastructure, food production capabilities and economic returns – we can’t ignore these in the single-minded drive for overall methane reductions?”

In Section Five there is discussion on ‘pain relief’ for farmers during the transition. The Climate Change Commission had not finished writing specific proposals on what schemes, payments, they might be, so nothing

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concrete is here. An example may be methane levy relief if an adverse event struck. But the bottom line from the Government is it mustn’t “undermine the intended price signal”.

When it comes to using the levies collected, He Waka recommended levies collected from Maori landowners (e.g: collective agribusiness) go to a dedicated fund and be administered by Maori.

The Government proposes to do this by setting a minimum percentage of overall revenue that must go into the dedicated fund.

What’s unclear is how this would actually help Maori-owned sheep and beef farms, especially as they face the same issues of low profitability/hectare and few mitigation options as non-Maori sheep/beef farms.

If Maori levy income comes off lower-stocking-rate land, then the pool of funds is likely to be smaller than average/hectare. The minimum percentage may provide some topup. In the same way, the sheep and beef industry relies on methane levy payments from intensive dairy to create a pool of funds for sequestration, which is largely on sheep and beef farms.

Hyslop says the Government has tossed out the hard work He Waka did on balancing the different farming partners, and the discussions about wealth transfer using sequestration.

“We need to be careful we don’t divide our sector and tip the scales one way.”

If carbon offsets through sequestration are narrowed, there will be more imbalance.

Question Seven is where farmers need to put their case for pricing.

Hyslop suggests farmers review their numbers and work out the likely cost at the medium-level price of 11c/ kg CH4 as this is important for the submission. Some farmers had very high cost estimates as they used the carbon equivalent methane emission tonnes and plugged in the ETS price of $80/ tonne, she says, which is not the right price.

“Eleven cents is a conservative approach and a useful place to start.”

Onfarm exotics out

T

he freshwater regulation roll-out debacle showed up embarrassing government shortfalls in implementation. This 2022 experience is likely to be one reason behind the Climate Change Commission’s push for pragmatism in designing an onfarm sequestration scheme.

The Government has picked up the vibe and taken pruning shears to He Waka’s extensive work on sequestration recommendations.

Out go exotic plantings (mainly shelter belt shapes) even though they can’t be included in the NZ ETS, primarily due to being narrower than 30 metres. Managed indigenous forest and post-2008 riparian plantings are in, although size and age and type specifications are undefined. Those early adopters of riparian planting (pre2008) miss out.

Farmers can respond to sequestration proposals in Question 8 of the consultation.

Nicky Hyslop, Farmer and Beef + Lamb NZ Director, says she has just planted a shelter belt with a mix of natives and exotics. The exotics were chosen to provide faster shade and shelter than less-reliable, slower natives.

“This wouldn’t be counted within ETS farm sequestration as the size is too narrow, yet it couldn’t meet the proposed Government/He Waka scheme as the plant choice is wrong.

“I have issues with the Government promoting wide-scale exotic plantings across whole farms through their ETS policy, when they say they want integrated plantings within working farms, yet don’t reward farmers for it.”

She is also concerned that a figure floated for indigenous sequestration is only 0.5 tonnes/hectare – a very low rate.

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Table C: Proposed on-farm sequestration to be in/out in Agriculture Emissions Pricing Scheme, starting 2025. Compiled by Country-Wide.

IN

OUT

Managed indigenous vegetation (with stock excluded but not necessarily fenced) that can show specific management interventions.

Can be planted, regeneration or combo.

Additional sequestration only.

Exotic shelter belts. Potentially highest sequestration ability.

Mixed exotic/native shelter belts Fenced Riparian margin plantings after 2008, alongside waterway of minimum size. Set a reward rate for a specific period. Likely to be low reward as sequester only about four units/ha.

Riparian margins fenced before 2008.

Early adopters miss out.

IN but moving to new NZ ETS category at some stage

Possible NZ ETS Option

Pre-1990 indigenous forest at NZ ETS rates.

May need to align to current ETS 1ha rules.

Exotic shelterbelts are only eligible for NZ ETS if more than one hectare and the right shape and right species.

Riparian vegetation is not known as a high carbon sink. The 2018 Landcare report Carbon Sequestration On Farms, listed riparian vegetation as sequestering about 3.4 tonnes of C02/hectare/year. Exotic woodlots in a shelter belt, for example, would be streets ahead.

This pruning of offset options for farms has raised issues of fairness and has become the most disliked aspect by farmers. Ironically, inequity for non-farming landowners was listed by the Climate Change Commission as a reason for their stance. But isn’t this an agricultural scheme?

The commission suggested creating another scheme altogether – where additional non-NZ ETS plantings could be rewarded alongside biodiversity and water quality. Then, add categories to the NZ ETS. He Waka had always batted for as much onfarm sequestration as possible, even if it means a gradual addition of categories, with

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a full scheme by 2027. The original industry He Waka recognised that over time, if the ETS was reformed, this sequestration could be transitioned to the ETS. The Government proposal followed the commission’s approach, and favours the NZ ETS as the home for sequestration. Into this will go new categories like pre-1990 indigenous forest (previously ineligible).

While the bean-counters get this sorted, the Government proposes a short-term option where farmers can take a contract with the government for additional native vegetation, counted from 2025. This would transition, in time, to the ETS. No modelling is provided on whether the contract cost would be worth the offset. An example price is provided of 75% of the NZU price.

After the contract ends, there would be no ongoing liability requiring the vegetation to be maintained as it was for the duration of the contract. The Government shows

some vision here, in that the payment could be designed to align with biodiversity incentives being developed.

Farmers with pre-1990 forest may like the idea of an ETS category being opened for them. They will likely get higher payments per hectare via the updated ETS, than discounted rates through the ag emissions scheme. This reward for managing pre-1990 indigenous forest onfarm as a carbon sink, has been a long time coming and will be welcomed. However, farmers don’t have a lot of confidence in NZ ETS recognising regenerating onfarm sequestration.

Any new categories will have to prove themselves to be workable for farms.

The early-movers on riparian fencing and planting (pre-2008) are disadvantaged by the proposed 2008 cut-off. The cut off is because satellite imagery was better from this date. Other methods of proving planting are not discussed.

In 2022, Country-Wide drew attention to problems with the initial HWEN proposal that required full stock exclusion via fencing to get sequestration status for an area of bush/forest. This didn’t recognise that natural boundaries could exclude stock. The new proposal is far more realistic, defining stock exclusion to “include fencing, geographic boundaries and/or dense vegetation that stock cannot access”.

Beef + Lamb NZ said, in their initial email to levy-payers after the proposal release, that there is a lack of detail on sequestration from the Government (including what the sequestration rates could be) and they will be pressing for additional information and clarity over the coming weeks.

DairyNZ strongly disagrees with some of the changes made to limit the recognition and reward farmers will get for their onfarm planting, by removing classes of sequestration like shelterbelts, woodlots and scattered trees.

MfE and MPI will host a webinar consultation on the topic on Wednesday, November 9.

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BUSINESS Management

Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year winner Hugh Abbiss and partner Sally Terry at Totara Hills Station.

Making A of a great manager Opportunities await for multi-skilled farm managers with the combination of practical farming experience and necessary analytical skills.

Tony Leggett reports.

Photos by John Cowpland.

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host of career opportunities await farm managers with skills beyond practical farming experience and a great dog team, Hawke’s Bay farm owner Mike Rittson-Thomas says. His Tikokino farm has been managed for the past three years by Hugh Abbiss, who is this year’s Silver Fern Farms Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year.

Abbiss has transformed Totara Hills Station in three years into a highly profitable livestock trading and cash cropping business, now generating more than $1600/ha net profit (before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).

Rittson-Thomas says Abbiss and his partner Sally Terry, a rural manager with ANZ, are great examples of a new level of manager with the combination of practical farming experience and analytical skills required for a modern farming business.

Abbiss took over as manager in July 2019 and Rittson-Thomas says he worked for him “on and off” for the first two years after he

took over. “I was probably what Hugh didn’t want around in those first two years. But we had very few awkward moments in that time, which is a credit to Hugh and Sally and my wife Caroline.”

Over that time, they discussed various incentive options to reward Abbiss beyond his manager’s salary.

Rittson-Thomas had experience from serving on various boards, he had employed share milkers and helped out with employing managers at Mount View Station in Mangamahu Valley for several years.

“All we ever wanted here was a win-win.

And we’ve gone round and round on it a lot, but now we have what we would call a win-win,” he says.

For Abbiss, having some form of incentive connected to the financial performance of the station appealed the most.

“After the first two years managing, our relationship with Mike was embedded and that time also allowed us to learn a lot about the property and how we wanted to do

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things, and get settled ourselves,” he says.

“The incentive discussions got awfully complicated at one point, and we just slashed and burned that to finally come down to a bonus structure based on the property’s profitability.”

A set of parameters is defined in his employment contract to ensure farm practices are sustainable.

Profit in the agreement is defined as trading surplus plus an adjustment for the current market value of livestock on hand at balance date.

Rittson-Thomas retains an agreed base level of profit plus depreciation value on plant and equipment and Abbiss receives a market-level salary as the reward for the management of the business. A share of the remaining profit is his bonus.

One of this year’s award judges, Gisborne farmer and Silver Fern Farms director Dan Jex-Blake urged other aspiring farm managers to look closely at the steps taken by the winners.

At last month’s field day on the station, he suggested having analytical skills would create new openings in their careers.

“It is really good to see a lot of young guys here. My call out to you is take a look at what these two winners do and my advice to you is if you think having a great team of dogs is going to get you a top manager’s job, then think again.

“Trust me, those days are over. As an employer and landowner, I want a Hugh and Sally. We need people who are multiskilled,” he says.

Judges’ view Totara Hills operates a farm business that is able to “thrive in difficult times”, says local farm consultant John Cannon.

The district is particularly known for its testing, dry summers, often for consecutive years.

“It’s the attention to detail and positive attitude to learn which is a real credit to these guys (Hugh Abbiss and Sally Terry).

They understand the land they are on, its strengths and weaknesses, and they’ve built a farming system around the land,” Cannon says.

“They measure everything and evaluate it.

This is a system and method of farming that is fit for future growth.”

One of this year’s award judges, Lee Matheson from Perrin Ag in Rotorua, says

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“The incentive discussions got awfully complicated at one point, and we just slashed and burned that, to finally come down to a bonus structure based on the property’s profitability.”

Hugh makes an extremely complicated business look easy because he is in control.

“Ultimately, you can only manage what you measure and those numbers give Hugh the confidence to make timely decisions,” Matheson says.

“He’s able to show incredible patience because he understands what the numbers are telling him. He knows what his farm is growing and what his stock are eating. He understands the markets, so when everyone else is rushing out to buy cattle, he’s saying okay I’m comfortable not to do that.”

Jex-Blake says putting that confidence into action on the farm is another standout quality of the winners.

“You can do numbers till you're blue in the face, but you’ve actually got to execute it on the ground, and they’ve nailed that,” he says.

Reflecting on the victory in this year’s award, Sally Terry says the experience had been a mix of challenge, enlightenment and reward.

“Really early on in our own relationship we defined some goals about what we

wanted to achieve as a couple. So, through the process of entering this competition, and reviewing what we’ve done in the past three years, it was a phenomenal experience to reflect back and realise what we’ve done together,” she says.

“We entered for feedback and we were probably hoping to get a couple of years of feedback for free! But it’s been a great experience, stressful at times, but we got there.”

Terry grew up on King Island, in Bass Strait between Tasmania and mainland Australia. She moved to New Zealand in 2013 to complete her Bachelor of Commerce in Agriculture at Lincoln University with help from a Future Leadership Scholarship, and she’s now an agri relationship manager at ANZ with clients in the Tararua region.

Analysis runs deep in the Abbiss DNA. Hugh also has the same degree as Sally. His parents Mike and Donna farm at Halcombe in Manawatu and were the region’s monitor farm owners in early 2000s.

• Read the full onfarm p46.

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BUSINESS Opinion

How the economy will decide the election As the world and New Zealand face inflationary turmoil, next year’s election will be about the economy. By Dr Dennis Wesselbaum.

I

n the wise words of President George W Bush: “I think we agree, the past is over.”

The 2020 election was dominated by only one issue – Covid-19. Since then, we have seen a clear trend in opinion polls – Labour is trending down and National is ahead of Labour.

Will this trend continue and, more importantly, what will decide next year’s election? The list of topics is long: climate change, mental health, the health system, housing, education, immigration, crime, identity, and the list goes on.

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In my opinion, the famous quote of President Clinton’s election campaign strategist James Carville, “It’s the economy, stupid”, says it all.

Research has shown that the fate of the incumbent party in an election depends largely on the shortterm performance of the economy. The link between economy and election is particularly strong when one party is in power.

In many countries, the robust finding is that the state of the economy (either measured by inflation, unemployment, or income) affects the approval rating of the government and election outcomes.

This not only holds for “real” economic data, but also about the perceived state of the economy.

Along this line, in political science, one often distinguishes between the retrospective voter and the sophisticated or prospective voter. The retrospective voter looks at the recent performance of the economy and is more likely to vote for the incumbent when the economy is doing well. The prospective voter focuses on the parties’ economic policy plans and visions for the future.

I doubt that facts will decide this election. If they were to, then Labour would be in a bad situation.

Inflation is close to above 6%, unemployment is close to 6% (when taking into account the workready Jobseeker support programme), and GDP is very volatile. So-called repayment deficiencies (loans for which actual repayments are below scheduled) have more than doubled since 2019 and are high, potentially foreboding more stress, especially for highly leveraged house owners when interest rates keep increasing.

Further, the Government is now employing about every fifth worker in New Zealand. From 2020 to 2021, the government added 3948 fulltime equivalent workers (an increase of about 7%) and ministries under Labour have spent millions of dollars on consultants and contractors – in 2020/2021 MBIE spent $90m, Ministry of Education $176m, and Ministry of Social Development $94.8m).

The election will be decided by the state of the economy in 2023 and how voters perceive the economic plans of National and Labour.

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“The election next year will be crucial for the path New Zealand will take.

Voters, and hence political parties, have become increasingly polarised in many countries in the recent past and the New Zealand election will be no exception.”

Since we do not have the economic election plans available, we can only have a look into the forecast for next year.

How will the economy look in 2023?

International Monetary Fund projections are that world economic growth will slow and the World Bank is forecasting more supply bottlenecks. This is likely to create head wind and suggests lower growth rates here in New Zealand. In fact, the OECD projects real GDP growth to be 3% in 2022 and 2% in 2023. It also states (and we already see evidence for this) that private consumption will fall.

It projects that inflation will fall but remain high in 2023 because of global commodity prices and wage increases. According to Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) forecasts, house prices will continue to fall and so will residential investment. Further, the RBNZ predicts that GDP will grow more slowly and unemployment will increase. Overall, the outlook does not look promising, despite (or because of) the normalisation in the inflation rate.

The election next year will be crucial for the path New Zealand will take. Voters, and hence political parties, have become increasingly polarised in many countries in the recent past and the New Zealand election will be no exception.

Along this line, next year’s election will decide whether New Zealand goes further down the route of a paternalistic, big government or whether the responsibilities will be put back with the individual.

In the words of President Ronald Reagan: “We’ve gone astray from first principles. We’ve lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we’ve accomplished.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”

Dr Dennis Wesselbaum is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Otago.

23

BUSINESS Management

The value of

y o ur time Is the work you do on your farm really paying you a fair wage? Kerry Dwyer checks out the sums.

A

s a farmer, what value do you put on your time?

I was recently discussing with a client a lease proposal that had some relevant figures. This client has an agricultural contracting business that charges out at $40/hour for labour – and if that sounds high, then compare it with what your plumber or electrician charges an hour.

The farm up for lease was about 300ha, which according to Beef + Lamb New Zealand statistics would be generating a gross income of $450,000 to give a taxable profit of maybe $100,000 after all deductible costs. It was being run by an owner-operator with minimal additional labour input.

“...But if the manager works, say, 50 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, the hourly rate slips to $39, and that scenario is not uncommon.”

If that owner-operator farmer worked 40 hours a week for 52 weeks of the year, the net profit per hour worked would be $48. While it is obligatory to keep time sheets for employees, how many owner-operators keep a good record of time worked, or ensure they have the statutory four weeks annual leave that employees are entitled to?

After paying a lease, my client wants to be achieving a similar return for hours worked to what their contracting business is achieving. If the return is less than that, the client would be better spending more time contracting.

From the figures talked by the real estate agents, it appeared that return for hours worked would be very difficult to achieve as a lessee. Their rental figure indicated that the farm owner wanted to up his taxable profit from the current, which would leave a likely tenant doing it for less than the minimum wage return. Note that the current minimum wage of $21.60/hour equates

24

to just under $45,000/year and just over $38,000/year after income tax.

Current salary levels for sheep and beef farm managers appear to start at $80,000 a year and move upwards, depending on property scale and responsibility involved.

Housing rental can be added to that in most cases, and maybe some other perquisites. Taking a total package of $100,000, it’s the same as the farmer above, at $48/ hour. But if the manager works, say, 50 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, the hourly rate slips to $39, and that scenario is not uncommon.

Note that the figures for the farmer above allow all profit to go to cost of labour and management, with effectively no return on capital for the property itself.

If the 300ha property had a value of $6m, requiring a return of 2%, then the farmer is working for nothing, because the taxable profit all goes to return on capital.

The reality is that land-owning farmers often don’t look to a return on capital beyond the capital gain that has been the general trend in New Zealand.

Time management Looking at the figures above raises the question of time management relative to output. For my contracting client, time spent at each job is recorded and charged for, but for farmers there is a range of management and labour tasks that have varying levels of output.

There is an old saying that the best fertiliser is the soles of the farmer’s boots, meaning that being in the field observing (and maybe planning) is critical to the business, but it doesn’t have any direct measurable output. The labour tasks of handling stock, maintaining infrastructure, seedbed preparation, supplement conservation, etc, all have a measurable output and time involved, but need the soles of the farmer’s boots to get the planning and timing right.

Many farmers will say they multitask, combining planning tasks with labour tasks. My experience says that women multitask a lot better than men. And driving past roadworkers, I am mostly struck by their appearance of doing bugger all, but maybe they are busy planning.

I have had some farmers record their activities for short periods, to get a handle on time on the job. Interestingly,

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the results in terms of time and tasks seldom correlated with their perceptions before they recorded hard data on themselves. Similarly, the data in vehicle logbooks often showed differences between fact and perception.

Other activities As owner-operator farmers, we mostly live on the property and mix business with personal time in a manner that isn’t possible for those who travel to a workplace for set hours each day for a set number of tasks.

The intermingling of the two has pluses and minuses, but ponder what effect that has on output.

Involvement in community activities is an integral part of many rural lives, with many benefits. We all put different value on it and it helps keep our society ticking over, and the benefits are not all economic. How many sausage sizzles raise less profit than would pay the support crew the minimum wage?

And maybe the calibre of politicians we get reflects the pay rate per effective hour, or their skill levels.

Summary Stats NZ data shows that primary industries have increased output per labour unit per hour from a base of 100 in 1996 to 166.9 in 2021.

That has outperformed both the service and good-producing sectors, which have increased to 143.6 units and 121.6 units respectively over the same time period.

Compared to Australia, this country has been increasing output per worker 1.3% annually as against 1.9% over the ditch.

These statistics are relevant to where wages and remuneration packages have gone, and show what value you as a farmer should be looking at for your time and effort.

I heard recently that a third of government employees are paid $100,000/year or more, which rates at the $48/hour level. I think that few owner-operator farmers would be achieving that level of income if they factor in a return on capital from the business profit. To get a handle on your return for effort, best to record what you do and for how long. And as an Australian mate of mine told me, “don’t give up your day job”.

Kerry Dwyer is a North Otago farm consultant and farmer.

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25

BUSINESS Analysis

Wool on the floor 26

The returns, or lack thereof, for coarse wool have been a thorn in the lamb producer’s side for years now, but Nicola Dennis says there are some good options for wool growers.

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F

ingers are crossed that new technologies, or better marketing of woollen carpets and drapes, will put the ‘strong’ back in strong wool. But, for now, it remains the much poorer cousin to the snugglier fine wool that’s working its way into a growing number of fashion items.

If you find yourself looking at negative wool returns then you have two options. First, keep on keeping on.

Maybe you feel that the strong wool sunrise is just around the corner and you are happy to write off the shearing costs in the meantime. You might not even be that happy about it, but sometimes it is nice to have something innocuous to channel your rage towards. You’ll get no judgement from me, I happen to think that low-key outrage is one of the screws holding society together.

The second option would be to transition away from strong-wool breeds. You could introduce some fine wool genetics into your flock to target the higher value wool markets, or you could do away with the wool clip altogether by transitioning to a shedding breed.

Massey University has been crunching some serious numbers to model what production, profit and cashflow could look like for a Romney flock breeding up to a fine-wool composite (3/4 Merino, 1/4 Romney) or to a fully shedding Wiltshire-Romney crossbred. The Massey experts found that both of these strategies are financially favourable in the long term. The transition was estimated to be worth an extra $100–124/ha in operating profit for the Merino route, and $25–55/ha for the Wiltshire route once complete. There are some pinch points in the middle of the Merino route when the rise in wool returns lags behind the drop in lamb production, but if producing a tidy wool clip is your strong suit, then it’s worth taking a temporary hit for a long-term gain.

If lambs are a higher priority, then follow me. We are going to take a closer look at Massey’s Romney to Wiltshire research. Don’t worry about the wool folks, the editor can find someone much more skilled in wool Table A Annual expense ($/head)

Shedding score

Assumed shearing required

Less than 1

Shearing twice a year plus one crutching

$10.98

1

Shearing twice a year

$8.98

2

Shearing once a year

$4.89

3

Back-wool removal (equivalent expense to crutching)

$2

4+

None

$0

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classifications to talk to them. My paddocks are stacked with wild, woolless Wiltshires, I barely even know what wool looks like.

Let's see what Massey has to say about transitioning you away from shearing.

Computer sheep and assumptions This study was done in a computer model, which is great because it means we don’t have to wait around for scientists to document the 13–16 year transition period on real farms. It also means that the people writing the model had to make choices about the type of scenario they were modelling.

Picture yourself on a 530ha East Coast North Island hill country sheep and beef farm. This farm maintains a 2066 Romney ewe flock which consumes 60% of the total farm feed. Those are very specific numbers, so I expect we are also imagining a farm manager who is very good at keeping tally. The mature sheep yield, on average, 5.2kg of greasy wool each with an average fibre diameter of 36 micrometres. For the base scenario the farmgate wool price is $2.15/kg greasy, or roughly $2.95/kg clean. This paper was written in the deep, dark days of 2020 when wool was a very hard sell. But even now, a very nice crossbred fleece might achieve $3/kg clean these days.

“Might” being the operative word.

In computer land, the ewes had their first lambing at two years old and were culled for age after they had completed rearing their fifth crop of lambs at six years old. There was a death rate of 5.2% across the ages and a 25% replacement rate, and replacements were sourced from within the flock. The Romneys are booked in for twice-yearly shearing, plus a crutching at an annual cost of $10.98/head.

When modelling the Wiltshire transition, two endpoints were considered: either transitioning up to a Wiltshire (which is three generations of crossbreds) or going an extra generation to make a straight-bred Wiltshire. Both endpoints were assumed to deliver a fullshedding flock, but the offspring from the 7/8 flock might have a small proportion of partial shedders popping up in the mix. A 50% selection intensity was applied, meaning that the cross-bred ewe lambs were only retained as replacement if they had above average shedding scores in January (when they were about five months old). This is referring to a 0 to 5 shedding score where 0 is no shedding and 5 is completely shed. Of course the modellers had to decide on what the shedding score meant for shearing costs in Table A. There is always a wide variation of shedding in crossbreds. Some will inherit almost no shedding and some will be hard to distinguish from purebreds. The

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The grading up process The simulated grading-up process was what you would expect. Wiltshire rams were put over the computer Romney ewes and the best half-n-half lambs were used as replacements. Because this farm isn’t mating hoggets, the following year will still only yield the first generation half-n-halfs.

In the third year, the first crop of half-n-halfs would give a pool of 3/4 Wiltshire replacements (topped up with the best of the half-n-halfs). Once the 3/4 Wiltshires started producing as two year olds you would have some 7/8ths to choose the replacements from. This might be where you stop worrying about grading up, if you aren’t fussed on having a

Graph 1

700 700

Cash Cash operating operating surplus surplus ($/ha) ($/ha)

600 600 500 500 400 400 300 300 200 200 100 100 00 Base Base 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14 15 15 16 16 17 17 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25

computer is assuming that the top 50% of first cross (1/2 Wiltshire, 1/2 Romney) will have an average shedding score of 3 which means that there is some wool on the back of the sheep that would need to be removed, but the legs, belly and bum are clean.

It was assumed that there was no difference in lamb production or health expenses between the breeds.

That computer lambs grew at 100g/day post weaning and 55% were killed out at 18kg carcase weight. The rest were sold as store lambs. There was no money spent on the shearing of the Wiltshire-cross lambs as they were all expected to be tidy enough for sale (saving an estimated $3.71/head). I can attest that my processor has never baulked at the occasional woolly 4X 4Xkeep keep backed lambs I have sent in, even if they do look like turtles.

Year Yearsince sincetransition transitionstart start Aiming Aimingfor forstraightbred straightbred

Below: Wiltshires leave the strong wool manufacturing to the birds.

Base BaseRomney Romneyflock flock

Aiming Aimingfor for7/8th 7/8thcomposite composite

definitively naked lamb crop. Otherwise it would be a couple more years before the 7/8ths started producing full-blooded Wiltshires. During the grading-up process, the lesser-Wiltshire-cross animals were culled a year earlier as five-year-olds, to make way for the higher-Wiltshire crosses coming through. Once the desired Wiltshire content was reached, the culling age reverted to six years.

I might be exposing myself to ridicule, but I have never culled for age alone. I have some 10-year-old Wiltshire ewes that first lambed as one-year-olds out in my lambing paddock. If they still have teeth, feet and udders then I don’t see the point in swapping them for a hogget that might not be able to count! But, we can’t expect the computer to base its culling decisions on the fondling non-existent sheep, so off with their six-year-old heads.

The results Enough with the assumptions: let’s look at the results.

First let’s look at how long the transition is expected to take. In the model, it took 13 years to get to an entirely 7/8th Wiltshire flock and it took 16 years to transition the flock to full Wiltshire, although there was no shearing after the seventh year of transition.

If that all sounds too long, then remember that the hoggets weren’t being bred and there were some reasonably tight selection criteria on the replacements.

So, there is room to speed things up if getting to the finish line is the main priority.

During the transition, ewe numbers were elevated as the farm cycled through the new-breed mixes to get to the final goal.

At times, there were an extra 500 ewes on the farm. This means the number of lambs and the cull ewes (and therefore income) are all higher during the transition period. Meanwhile, the wool revenue

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November 2022

the model, is not cheap?

Anyway, the authors point out that the Romney farmers don’t have to shear twice a year and that $4.09/ewe could be saved by switching to once-a-year shearing. Although having woolly ewes during spring lambing might decrease ewe survival and lamb growth if ewes are more prone to becoming cast.

That’s one thing you can confidently say about Wiltshires, their sleek and athletic composition means they are very unlikely to get cast. But then again I’ve never seen a Romney try to stag leap out of a set of cattle yards.

So it’s horses for courses.

Ultimately, it seems that transitioning to Wiltshire or to a fine wool composite is worth the effort, if you have the inclination and patience to do so. But, when it comes to breed selection, you must follow what’s in your heart. You spend a lot of time looking at your stock and you have to like what you see. Although, your accountant is going to say the same thing about your books…

takes a dive and is completely eliminated after eight years.

Occasionally during the transition, the operating profit drops slightly below the base (Romney) scenario. See Graph 1 that I adapted from the study results.

As you can see in the graph, there isn’t a whole lot of financial difference between transitioning to a straightbred flock or aiming for the 7/8th composite. In reality, the purebreds might have cost savings that aren’t accounted for in the model, such as being able to forgo tailing or fly treatments, or the surplus ewe lambs might command a premium as breeding replacements for other farms, rather than being sold on the store or slaughter market. But then again, a bit of hybrid vigour in the composite could mean that they perform better on lamb production.

Massey also looked at the “break even” wool price, or how low the farmgate wool price needs to be for the Wiltshire strategy to be worth it. The break-even wool price was estimated at $4.15/kg greasy or $5.70/ kg clean. The authors point out that these kinds of prices haven’t been available for strong wool since 1989.

Ouch. Double ouch when you realise that $5.70 of 1989 money is actually worth $12 after accounting for 33 years of inflation. I wonder, if there were enough farmers transitioning to Wiltshires, could a shortage of strong wool have the remaining Romney farmers partying like it’s 1989? Or perhaps shearers would exit the industry and drive the cost of shearing through the roof? And, surely woolshed maintenance, which was not accounted for in

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“I wonder, if there were enough farmers transitioning to Wiltshires, could a shortage of strong wool have the remaining Romney farmers partying like it’s 1989?”

Real life transitions With the modelling complete, Massey is now undertaking a real-life Wiltshire-transition trial on its Riverside Wairarapa farm.

This will provide more data to ensure the academics’ assumptions in computer land were appropriate and applicable to gumboot land. That is the great thing about modelling – it allows you to piece together what information is out there, but it also highlights gaps in the scientific knowledge that are waiting to be filled. I, for one, am waiting with baited breath to see if there are noticeable changes in temperament and ewe-health costs during the transition.

The full, 24 pages of modelling results are available here: https:// bit.ly/wiltrom Farrell LJ, Morris ST, Kenyon PR, Tozer PR. Modelling a Transition from Purebred Romney to Fully Shedding Wiltshire-Romney Crossbred.

Animals. 2020 Nov 7;10(11):2066.

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WOOL Fining

Back to Corriedale origins One Romney wool fining project is using finer-woolled Corriedale rams in its breeding programme. Jo Cuttance reports.

Photos by Nathn Trethowen.

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A

trial to improve the quality and increase the value of wool in crossbred sheep is underway by a group of Corriedale sheep breeders.

The trial, started in 2021, involved mating Corriedale rams with Romney ewes, then assessing the wool of the offspring, along with how the lambs developed.

Project convenor John Booker said the idea had been in the making for a few years, borne from observing low prices for coarse crossbred wool. The idea was to see if having a finer micron wool on crossbred sheep helped farmers see a better return for their wool clip.

“It appears breeding has gone full circle. Romneys were one of the parent breeds of the Corriedale,” Booker said.

There was more to consider than just crossing a Corriedale ram and Romney ewe and looking at the wool, he said. Other factors needing consideration included: could commercial farmers develop a flock of sheep that could handle a wide range of New Zealand areas; what would the progeny be like; and would lambs be able to be fattened in a reasonable time?

Booker, who is Corriedale NZ Sheepbreeders Association vice-chairman, said there was no scientific modelling or trials that he knew of that used Corriedales to lower the wool micron in crossbred sheep, which was why the group were making a start in the hope that it might get the attention of others who would like to take the project further.

The five rams used in the trial were provided by five different Corriedale stud breeders with a wool micron ranging from 24 to 28. Booker said three of the five rams were at the fine edge of the micron and there were genetic differences between the rams.

Duncan and Tina Mackintosh from White Rock Mains, Loburn, Canterbury, provided 200 randomly selected four-tooth Romney ewes with Landcorp/ Pamu sheep genetics. The ewes offered were from a high-performing flock, Booker said.

The ewes were artificially inseminated and tagged according to sire. There were also 40 home-bred ewes mated to a Pamu ram as a control flock.

The lambs were weaned in January. There was a range between 22 and 49 lambs per sire with an average weaning weight of 32.81kg. After weaning, ram lambs were grazed at a farm in North Canterbury until autumn when they were dispatched to the meat works. The Pamu lambs had an advantage in carcase weight.

The ewe lambs were run on Charles and Emma

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The Corriedale breeders trial is more than just about fining up the wool.

“It appears breeding has gone full circle.

Romneys were one of the parent breeds of the Corriedale.”

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Miller Brown’s farm in Waipara. The lambs were weighed in April and those 36kg or more were put to a terminal Southdown ram. The scanning percentage was 80%.

The lambs would be shorn as hoggets and wool samples taken then.

Booker said this would also give an individual feel for the progeny of each sire.

The group would shear the hoggets in November.

Wool samples would be taken from the first cross animals and the control, and valued.

“It is important that anyone considering cross breeding should look at the value of the fleece now, and at a long-term five-year and 10-year price relativity of crossbred and mid-micron wool,” Booker said.

Looking at a long-term price would help farmers decide if there was any benefit in fining-up crossbred wool.

At this stage the plan was to retain the first-cross

ewes and mate to a Corriedale sire, then evaluate the second-cross lambs, so there would be at least one more mating.

The group was funding the project themselves, and they were all pitching in with the work.

“We are incredibly grateful to Datamars for their assistance with identification tags,” Booker said.

The idea was to start the ball rolling. It might be up to farmers themselves to get more trials done because at this stage there was no data available for crossing a Corriedale with a Romney.

“The data from the Corriedale rams will also be very helpful in establishing linkages between the Corriedale sires and our own Goldmark Performance Group,” Booker said.

This is the basic data to see what is possible.

It was anticipated a Field Day would be held in early December for farmers to view the progeny, their lambs, and also some fleeces. Details are still to be decided.

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WOOL Fining

Focus on

performance Jo Cuttance reports on a programme crossing Merino rams and Romney ewes to lower the wool micron measure.

TAKING THE BEST QUALITIES FROM A Romney and a Merino and combining them has the potential to produce an all-round crossbred sheep, which could increase profitability.

With falling prices for coarse wool and increasing shearing costs, producing medium wool through crossbreeding Romney ewes with Merino sires could help farmers improve returns.

Prices for medium wool between >24 and <30 micron and fine wool at <24 micron have risen, increasing income for farmers who can produce this type of wool. New Zealand’s national flock produces mostly coarse wool and only 15% and 8% of wool produced is categorised as medium and fine respectively.

Merino-Romney crossbreeding studies indicate that within a few generations the average micron of an initially purebred Romney flock can be reduced through crossbreeding with Merino sires.

This would potentially increase the wool income while retaining the higher lamb production of the established Romney flock.

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“Before starting the transitioning process farmers needed to consider sheep and wool prices and the risk of greater health issues with Merino-Romney crossbred animals.”

As part of the Wool Unleashed Primary Growth Partnership Programme, Associate Professor Peter Tozer, Dr Lydia Farrell and Professor Paul Kenyon analysed data for transitioning a simulation Romney flock to a crossbred Merino (¾ M ¼ R) flock for producing finer wool over a 13-year transitioning period.

The researchers recommended farmers who were considering grading up from a Romney to ¾ M ¼ R flock focus on maintaining lambing performance in the Merino-Romney flocks. There needed to be careful selection of Merino rams, and replacement Merino-Romney ewe lambs needed to be selected according to their wool fibre diameter.

Before starting the transitioning process farmers needed to consider sheep and wool prices and the risk of greater health issues with Merino-Romney crossbred animals.

The researchers acknowledged there were uncertainties about the productivity, management, and health issues of MerinoRomney flocks. This was because Merinos had specific management requirements, such as grazing style, potential health issues such as footrot and facial eczema, and retention of lambs over winter. Further study was needed.

The researchers used a model based on an “average” East Coast North Island hill country farm. In year one, Romney ewes with 36 micron wool were bred with Merino rams with 21 micron wool to produce a ½ M ½ R lamb with 28 micron wool. This first cross was retained for breeding and the ewes were mated to Merino rams to first lamb at two years old, producing ¾ M ¼ R lamb with 24.3 micron wool. (See diagram).

The ¾ M ¼ R ewe lambs retained for breeding were mated to ¾ M ¼ R or similar rams to maintain the medium of 24 micron of the mature flock.

It was assumed 65% of ewe lambs with the finest wool after wool testing would be kept.

The increasing wool fibre diameter of ewes as they aged in the flock was also considered. Flock average fibre diameter was determined by both

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What wewe did What did WeWe modelled anan ‘average’ East Coast hillhill country farm, based onon Beef + LambNZ quintile modelled ‘average’ East Coast country farm, based Beef + LambNZ quintile data.

Grading upup to to producing higher-value wool aimed to to replace thethe current flock of of 2,490 data.

Grading producing higher-value wool aimed replace current flock 2,490 Romney ewes (1,866 breeding ewes and 624 bred hoggets) with anan equivalent sized secondRomney ewes (1,866 breeding ewes and 624 bred hoggets) with equivalent sized secondcross ¾M¼R flock.

It was assumed that thethe Romney flock consumed 60% of of pasture onon thethe cross ¾M¼R flock.

It was assumed that Romney flock consumed 60% pasture farm, with thethe remainder being consumed byby beef cattle.

During thethe grading upup to to Merino farm, with remainder being consumed beef cattle.

During grading Merino (while ewe numbers and breeds were changing year-to-year), flock annual feed demand was (while ewe numbers and breeds were changing year-to-year), flock annual feed demand was constrained to to 55% to to 65% of of farm feed supply through varying ewe culling rates, soso asas notnot constrained 55% 65% farm feed supply through varying ewe culling rates, to to significantly disrupt thethe beef herd size oror operations. significantly disrupt beef herd size operations.

The baseline forfor thethe change was thethe self-replacing Romney flock to to establish thethe sheep The baseline change was self-replacing Romney flock establish sheep numbers, flock feed demand, production and profit.

In In year one of of grading up,up, allall Romney numbers, flock feed demand, production and profit. year one grading Romney (36(36 µm) ewes were bred with Merino rams (21(21 µm) to to produce ½M½R (28.5 µm) lambs µm) ewes were bred with Merino rams µm) produce ½M½R (28.5 µm) lambs (Figure 2).2).

The first cross ½M½R ewe lambs retained forfor breeding were mated to to Merino (Figure The first cross ½M½R ewe lambs retained breeding were mated Merino rams to to first lamb at at two years old, producing ¾M¼R (≈ (≈ 24.3 µm) lambs. rams first lamb two years old, producing ¾M¼R 24.3 µm) lambs.

Figure 2: Changes in sheep breeds on-farm forfor grading up up to to Merino based on on Figure 2: Changes in sheep breeds on-farm grading Merino based doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2020.106236 doi.org/10.1016/j.smallrumres.2020.106236 * Indicates useuse of ¾M¼R rams, with all all other rams used forfor breeding being purebred Merino * Indicates of ¾M¼R rams, with other rams used breeding being purebred Merino

The ¾M¼R ewe lambs retained forfor breeding were mated to to ¾M¼R oror similar rams to to The ¾M¼R ewe lambs retained breeding were mated ¾M¼R similar rams 33 maintain thethe ‘medium’ (24(24 µm) fibre diameter of of thethe mature flock.

When thethe ¾M¼R flock maintain ‘medium’ µm) fibre diameter mature flock.

When ¾M¼R flock

WOOL Shedding

ewe lamb selection intensity and flock age structure.

Lambing performance for Merino crossbreds was uncertain, but previous research showed lambing performance decreased with higher proportions of Merino.

When analysing data, the researchers tested several scenarios where lamb and wool prices were varied by plus or minus 10% of the 2017/2018 base values.

Once grading up to Merino was complete, the researchers looked at some comparisons with the baseline Romney flock.

The ¾ M ¼ R ewes lambing percentage 114% compared to 132% for the purebred Romney ewes, resulting in lower lamb revenue. Even though wool production was lower in the Merino-cross class, the wool price differential meant the wool revenue was significantly higher for the Merino-cross ewe flock.

While grading up to Merino, there were fluctuations in the cost operating surplus (COS), from the baseline Romney sheep enterprise COS of $390/ha in year zero. A COS of less than $300/ ha was predicted in years two, five and seven.

This was because there were high proportions of young, unproductive stock on farm. The researchers found this could be challenging for those paying debt and might require deferred capital investment in those years.

The researchers suggested farmers could look at different options to achieve higher-value wool than was modelled in this study.

Other options included using Merino rams with a wool diameter less than 21 micron and extending the transition period by having a tighter criteria for selecting Merino-Romney replacement ewe lambs. Another option was to breed part of the Romney flock with Merino sires, while maintaining a flock of coarse woolproducing ewes with higher lamb production.

Alternatively, farmers could take advantage of medium wool prices and use Merino rams as terminal sires across Romney, or similar coarse wool producing flocks. The Merino-Romney crossbred offspring could remain on farm over winter to shear before slaughter in spring with lamb carcase premiums.

To read more visit www. sciencedirect.com/science/ article/abs/pii/S0921448820301851

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Woolless or finer wool?

Modelling shows Wiltshire-Romney cross could relieve farmers of the costly animal welfare requirement to shear coarse-wool sheep. By Jo Cuttance.

W

ith increasing shearing costs and low coarse-wool returns, some New Zealand farmers are considering the benefits of changing from a Romney-based flock to a shedding flock.

In 2007, revenue from wool sales formed on average 13% of gross cash income for sheep and beef farms. By 2017 it had decreased to 7% and now some consider shearing an animal welfare necessity rather than a source of income.

Agricultural researchers Dr Lydia Farrell, professors Stephen Morris and Paul Kenyon, and associate Professor Peter Tozer have created a model to change a purebred Romney flock to a fully shedding Wiltshire-Romney crossbred flock. This could be done by breeding non-shedding ewes with Wiltshire rams.

The modelling showed change would take time, with 12 to 15 years of crossbreeding to achieve a fully shedding third- or fourth-cross flock. The model showed a transition from 2580 Romney ewes to a similarly sized flock of fully shedding third- or fourth-cross Wiltshire-Romney ewes, using a farm system based on an East Coast North Island hill country sheep and beef farm.

The researchers found shearing would not be necessary after seven years of transitioning when a Wiltshire ram with a shedding score of five was used. It would take longer if a lower shedding score ram was used.

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“With less feed demand for wool growth, the post-transition shedding flocks had more ewes producing more lambs and achieving greater annual profit compared with the base Romney flock.”

With less feed demand for wool growth, the post-transition shedding flocks had more ewes producing more lambs and achieving greater annual profit compared with the base Romney flock.

The net present value (NPV) of grading-up transition scenarios were, depending on wool price, up to 12% higher than the maintenance of the base Romney flock. A sensitivity analysis suggested a ‘break even’ farmgate wool price of $4.15/kg, where NPVs of the transition scenarios and maintenance of the base Romney flock were similar.

The transition was completed when the flock of ewes were either 7/8th W, 1/8th R, or straightbred and had a similar feed demand to the base Romney flock. The numbers of ewes in each age class continued to fluctuate until about 25 years from transition start. This affected sheep feed demand, production, and cost operating surplus.

Economically, crossbreeding to a shedding flock compared favourably with farming a full-fleeced flock.

The researchers found data on shedding sheep in NZ was scarce, and more was needed to improve accuracy. Further grading up was modelled to reduce the risk of non-shedding genes in ewes of the desired final cross. When more data becomes available on shedding scores and associated variances of Wiltshire crosses this would improve the ability of the model to predict changes in shedding score for a Wiltshire gradingup transition.

The Romney flock had an average age of 3.45 years, without replacement ewe lambs entering the flock during the grading-up transition, the average age increased to 4.46 years before all remaining Romney ewes were culled.

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The analysis assumed there were no production disadvantages of selecting crossbred ewe lambs to enter the ewe flock based on shedding score. This was because there was little data available for this.

The researchers felt farmers would be more likely to also select ewe lambs for flock replacement based on other traits, such as liveweight and conformation issues.

To read more visit: www.mdpi.com and search ‘Modelling transition from Purebred Romney’

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Andrew Thomas on farm with his working dogs.

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LIVESTOCK Onfarm

LAWS OF FARMING Despite high-flying careers in London, a young couple couldn’t resist the call of home and the family’s Rangitikei farm.

Story and photos by Sarah Horrocks.

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I

t was a gloomy afternoon in London when Andrew and Emma Thomas received an email from Emma’s father asking if they’d be interested in leaving their careers in London and coming home to Taihape to take on the family farm.

Andrew was a corporate lawyer, and Emma a data analyst for the Royal Bank of Scotland. The pair seemingly had it all, but the family farm and the dream of one day bringing up their own family in rural New Zealand was calling.

They made the shift back in 2014, and after using Auckland as a stepping stone to small-town Taihape, they found themselves in the thick of lambing beats by September 2017.

Emma’s parents, Owen and Sherie Batley, had been farming Waitoka since 1977 and with no sons, it was a relief when Emma and Andrew decided to come home to the farm.

The couple, in their mid-30s, were

38

committed to being full-time farmers.

Andrew hadn’t considered being able to still practice law. However, their arrival in Taihape coincided with a senior lawyer leaving Treadwell Gordon, a mediumsized firm in Rangitikei/Whanganui. The opportunity was there for Andrew to retain his law career alongside his passion for farming, and he now splits his time between the two, becoming partner in 2021.

The medium hill country operation is 955ha effective, 82% sheep and 18% beef.

In June 2022 they were running 5500 Romney ewes and 1450 hoggets, buying rams from Rob McCaughan in the Pohangina Valley.

“Their rams carry a genetic package that delivers high fertility and an efficient, moderate animal that’s really hardy,” Andrew says.

They breed their own replacements and try to maintain a closed farming system to bolster animal health.

The drenching programme is simple.

Triplets and MA twins get a Bionic capsule two weeks before lambing and lambs are drenched every 35 days.

Drench resistance isn’t a problem but they keep a close eye on it with faecal egg counts, and use a refugia system, which involves mixing stock classes to make sure there are some susceptible worms inside the animal to reproduce. The idea is to create a refuge for worms so non-resistant, more susceptible worms still remain in the population base.

“Last year we gave all the sheep the mineral solution Revive, which has increased productivity.”

The five-year ewes are all terminal, as well as anything with structural issues, the wet/ dries, and anything that has a single for two years in a row (EID tagging). This year 2400 ewes and all the hoggets were put to a Southdown terminal ram.

“We mate all the hoggets because we’ve got plentiful feed and we get good results.”

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Last year the hoggets docked 122% and it’s slowly lifting. The MA ewes docked 175%, producing 10,300 lambs in total, and Waitoka finished 6000 of those.

“We’ve got really fertile sheep,” Andrew says.

Fungal attack on cycling ewes This year during tupping they were struck with an estrogenic mycotoxin called Zearalenone (ZEA), which essentially stops cycling in ewes until the pasture recovers from the fungi. ZEA thrives in similar conditions to facial eczema and the consequence for sheep is higher rates of dries and an increased number of late lambing ewes.

Lambing kicks off on August 1 and the use of an intensive harnessing system during tupping has ewes lambing in condensed groups for accurate feed and weaning management.

“The early lambs aren’t docked at all.”

Andrew has found that despite studies finding no evidence of tail removal putting a check on lambs, they perform better when they’re not brought out of the paddock at all until weaning.

Half the lambs are sold through committed space with Atkins Ranch and Andrew is looking at options for the other half after using AFFCO and Alliance in the past.

Everything is weighed, with Atkins Ranch offering a 50c premium for lambs over 18kg carcase weight (CW). Anything under 18kg gets market price so it’s really important to hit the target weight. Waitoka usually gets

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Opposite page: Andrew and Emma Thomas with five-year-old Freddie (right) and two-year-old Oscar in the garden at the Waitoka homestead. Above: Mixed-age Romney ewes with lambs at foot on new grass. Below: Younger Angus cows are calved on the hill country and have no calving or metabolic issue.

50% of the lambs away off mum, and as the season progresses they’re looking for live weights of 43kg or more, depending on whether they’re on crops. The average kill weight over all lambs was 17.9kg last season.

“Our first kill off mum on December 1 drafts 1000 lambs.”

They’re growing 19ha of rape and 9ha of leafy turnip for the lambs, as part of a five-year re-grassing programme. The rape was given a third grazing by the hoggets in winter, which allowed grass covers to build

to 1500kg drymatter (DM)/ha for lambing.

“Atkins have heavy restrictions on their supply agreements,” Andrew says.

There’s a global animal welfare standard and you must meet the myriad restrictions in the level four criteria. Included are things such as no dog biting, no antibiotics and reduced time on trucks and in holding yards, which has benefited Waitoka.

“We find the kill weights better on our Atkins lambs.”

Andrew references a line of lambs that were split evenly between Atkins Ranch and another processor in 2021. Those killed at Atkins Ranch weighed 700g more and Andrew puts it down to spending less time in holding yards.

Atkins Ranch targets high-end consumers with stringent animal welfare standards, and Andrew and Emma like being aligned with the company.

“We’re very active in adapting our product to meet future consumer demand, especially in the regenerative space.”

Andrew sees future proofing his operation as being one of the most important aspects of the business, with opportunities arising for farmers certified by various organisations and seen as being environmentally sustainable and animal welfare conscious.

“We’ve just changed over to NZ Merino Company six months ago.”

It’s an exclusive supply agreement for

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the full 34-tonne clip and while Andrew and Emma can’t see a significant premium coming through from that partnership yet, they can see long-term value.

“If there’s going to be growth in the strong wool space, they’re going to drive it.”

Shearing is six monthly in January and June, with wool production at 49kg/ha last year, equating to $8.29/stock unit.

The audit for NZ Merino’s ZQ-RX programme is more strict than Atkins Ranch, but with four audits over the last two years, Andrew has a good grasp on where the sector is headed and feels it has bettered their land and farming system.

The biodiversity chief There’s a biodiversity plan in place that’s included retiring to natives, with four and five hectares given up in the last two years respectively. Owen is a keen gardener and has taken on the role of biodiversity chief. In the last four years they’ve also planted 28ha of poplars.

Andrew says it was originally done for erosion control but will be useful for offsets with He Waka Eke Noa. It’s all registered in the ETS under the permanent scheme, generating $25,000 of credits over the past three years.

Recently, 22ha of hill country was broken in near the top of the farm at 709 metres above sea level. This $50,000 capital expense shook up the farm working expenses, which were 65% of the gross farm income last year, up from 59% in previous years.

Waitoka is using Angus bulls over the 270 Angus females.

The biggest expense and change Andrew and Emma have made since shifting back to the farm has undoubtedly been in the cattle operation.

“Owen always ran a simple, traditional cattle policy,” Andrew says.

The 270 cows were Hereford Fresian cross and the bulls were Charolais, with all progeny sold at weaner fairs.

“The cows were solely there to clean up behind the high-performance sheep system.”

They were plagued with milk fever issues, partly due to the high milk production of the breed and partly due to potash levels, with the farm on the volcanic plateau.

“Potash inhibits the uptake of magnesium and calcium.”

They lost a lot of cows, which put stress on staff and the bank balance, so Andrew and Emma decided to make the expensive switch for smaller, high-performance Angus.

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Above: After losing a lot of cows, Andrew and Emma decided to make the expensive switch to Angus.

“We sold all the cows and brought in 270 Angus, all with high-performance genetics,” Andrew says.

Selling cattle at $1000 and buying in a mix of heifers and R3s at $1500 made it an expensive exercise that was completed by May 2022.

Andrew’s father Craig Thomas is a vet and geneticist and has been steering Andrew down the path of using science to get the most genetic gain possible from his new herd.

Reward in marbling Marbling is what farmers are getting rewarded for, by programmes such as Handpicked, and Andrew felt Kakahu Angus stud was a good fit. As well as buying heifers directly from Tom Hargreaves, he also bought from his clients, Waimate Station and John Levy in Wanaka.

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“Kakahu has good IMF and they’re on hill country so I knew they’d shift well.”

When some Mount Linton cows came along, they ticked the right boxes too, with low mature-cow weight, low birthweight and good IMF. “I’m really pleased with all the females we brought in,” Andrew says.

In the early 2000s Craig completed a masters degree, in which he proved that if a heifer is a good mother and raises a good calf, she’s genetically predisposed to be a better mother for her lifetime.

For this reason, Andrew is now tagging at birth in the heifer mob and plans to do a comparison of calf weight against the bodyweight of the heifer at weaning, adjusted for date of birth and sex. This will give him a ranked list of calves from which to select his replacements.

“We’re using Inherit Select on all the

i FARM FACTS 955ha effective, Taihape.

6950 Romney and 270 Angus.

Lambs sold to Atkins Ranch.

Andrew a lawyer three days a week.

Producing 10,300 lambs, finishing 6000.

Genetic focus for the cattle operation.

Adapting to consumer demands.

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Newly planted poplar poles can be seen on steeper, unstable hills that are prone to slippage. Below: Five-year-old Freddie Thomas feeding pet lambs with his younger brother, two-year-old Oscar (left).

heifer calves born this year.”

Inherit Select is a genomic tool that removes the environmental influences when selecting heifer calves for replacements, with the biggest calves at weaning often coming from high milking, older cows who know where the good grass is.

“It’s important for us to be able to identify and breed from the heifer calves that exhibit the characteristics and carry the genetic profiles we want in order to improve in our herd.”

Andrew plans to sell all the steers through the store market at weaning and carry all the heifer calves through to the spring. He’ll then know which females he wants to retain and anything else will be sold at 320kg LW. Bulls were bought from both Kakahu and Ranui Angus back in June.

The bull selection process was pretty straightforward – Mature cow weight below average, IMF above two, calving ease must be good, and a curve bender was a bonus.

“Ranui and Kakahu are both in AngusPRO so they’ve got the feed efficiency EBV.”

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Andrew now only uses nitrogen to boost the paddocks with triplet ewes and in some of the shorter twin paddocks.

Being off farm for three days every week means Andrew relies heavily on manager Richard Minty and shepherd Cody Craw.

“When I’m onfarm, Richard is my boss and the rest of the time I’m the boss.”

Andrew says it works well, with them playing to one another’s strengths, and he enjoys being able to just do whatever is asked of him when he’s onfarm. He sees it as a refuge from the stresses of work life at the law firm, where he deals with farm sales and purchases, estate planning, wills, trusts, and of course, succession planning.

“We are right in the throes of our own succession,” he says.

Succession under way

Andrew and Freddie on the side-by-side with the working dogs.

Andrew sees access to feed efficiency data as a good fit with everything else they’re doing onfarm, ensuring the entire operation is as efficient and environmentally friendly as possible.

While Andrew has the land and feed to create an opportunity to finish his own progeny, this might be two or three years away.

“The real goal for me is to build a reputation for breeding cattle that marble well with good growth and docility, and to find buyers who will pay a premium for that.”

With their chequered history of milk fever issues, Waitoka played it safe this year to ensure they didn’t lose any of the new females. The older cows were calved on the airstrip for their October 1 start, which was dusted with magnesium oxide to assist the cows to mobilise their calcium stores and prevent milk fever.

“We fed DanMix in winter to bolster the trace minerals and we blood test the animals monthly to check magnesium and

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calcium levels.”

Young cows have calved on the hill with no issues, and the heifers were all calved behind a wire for their September 8 calving, so they could tag and record the correct dam with Stockbook.

The economic farm surplus usually sits about $700/ha, with a gross farm income of $1700/ha or $167/su, but with the changes in the cattle programme and a reduced infrastructure spend, Andrew has budgeted on an EFS of $900/ha for the 2022-2023 year.

Plenty of money has been spent on fertiliser over the years but Andrew says it’s led to good soil fertility – Olsen P levels are 25–50 across the farm.

The pH has dropped from 5.8 to 5.6 in recent years and after learning that magnesium and calcium uptake is reduced at lower pH levels, Andrew partly attributes their issues with milk fever to this.

“As we’ve been putting more nitrogen on to boost the lamb feed, our pH has been dropping.”

Andrew and Emma are still working for Owen and Sherie in a shared profit arrangement but by the end of the year the ownership structure will collapse and Andrew and Emma will take on the entire Waitoka Farming company.

Andrew has more than a solid grasp of how succession works, but personal experience has opened his and Emma’s eyes to how emotions and personalities play various roles in the process.

“It’s a huge thing for my parents who have lived, worked and developed this farm from the ground up over 45 years, to step back from that and hand it over,” Emma says.

They went in with what isn’t an atypical scenario, offering a complete buyout in the form of a vendor loan. Their primary goal was to look after Owen and Sherie with an income for life, some equity release, the stability of off-farm property investments and no debt.

“At the end of the day, the big drawcard for Mum and Dad was them being able to stay on the farm,” Emma says.

Owen and Sherie are living in the cottage next door to the main homestead, where Andrew and Emma now live with five-yearold Freddie and two-year-old Oscar. They’re close enough to hear the squeals of delight as the grandchildren play on the front lawn and it all seems picture perfect.

“We can only dare to dream that one day the boys themselves will want to take all this on,” Emma says.

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LIVESTOCK Stock Check

Check the trace element tank Deficiencies of trace elements, unless severe, usually go unnoticed, Vet Trevor Cook writes.

O

ne of my colleagues was sharing with me in September a case of a farmer with two-year finishing cattle that were being fed but not growing.

They were tested for this and that and the glaring deficiency was selenium. It did not register on the blood test. The farmer supplemented with an injectable selenium and reported that expected weight gain followed.

Just about every farm in New Zealand is selenium-deficient as are we who eat food from these farms. That is not new knowledge. I look back on my notes from 40 years ago and I was advising farmers to be sure that selenium was not deficient.

Growth rate of young stock and all aspects of reproductive performance is sensitive to selenium levels. As for all trace elements, I advise that production deficits due to deficiencies should never occur. That is because we have the ability to test in anticipation of a deficiency and supplement before it occurs.

We must test the storage site to

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know how full the tank is to be able to confidently supplement. For copper and B12 that storage site is liver. For selenium it is a blood test.

For these two year cattle the only sign of selenium deficiency was a depressed weight gain. That same deficiency in cattle a year younger presents itself as scoury and wormy looking. The response to supplement in these animals which can look very poorly is very fast. So often they are given a worm drench and that response is seen but it was selenium in the drench that delivered the outcome, although not so many drenches have selenium in them nowadays.

The above illustrates the opportunity on so many farms from just getting the basics in place. If weight gains had not been monitored on the above farm the exit date for the cattle would have just gone back as weight gains lifted as the spring flush slowed. A good example of being in control, which I have talked about before.

Deficiencies of trace elements, unless severe, usually go unnoticed. The outcome

of a modest B12 deficiency in lambs is just a lowered weight gain. Nothing stands out to signal that a deficiency is present.

Copper deficiency will be the same in cattle although I think that expression of production deficits due to low copper is more complex than just finding a low level.

A complication to being totally in control is that differing seasons have an impact on levels of trace elements, soil macro elements and worm levels, for example. Extreme seasonal weather can have a huge impact on the levels of each. Repeated severe summer and autumn dry spells for many areas are necessitating more monitoring to recalibrate many farms. This usually goes alongside reviewing policies to better fit these weather patterns.

Ensuring the above is captured and implemented comes under the banner of planning. I am fascinated by the various forms planning takes. There are farmers who amaze me by their ability to cover all of the bases without there seeming to be any formal planning. No written plans are apparent. A common form of planning is to refer back to what was done last year. Surely a recipe for doing what you have always done. Whereas others almost cling to formal plans.

Obviously my inputs are mostly part of or intended to be in formal planning. It is quite satisfying to see my plans stuck to the wall or in the box on the front of the quad.

But I have never been able to link that to better outcomes.

The programmes now available that enable masses of farm information to be at your figure tips all on your phone is a massive step forward in storing and recording data, sharing data and even analysing data. From me, it enables much more readily to look back at dates, products, numbers etc which before were captured in the famous notebooks. Furthermore that information is backed up on a computer which safeguards against lost or damaged phones. For clothes-washed notebooks that data was often lost.

A bit that I really like is being able to send reminders or make comments when I am sharing the programme. I think this technology is up there as one of the gamechanger developments of recent times.

It is irksome that some of the good product options on the market are Australian. But then competition is a driver of innovation.

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November 2022

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LIVESTOCK Onfarm

Number cruncher at Totara Hills A 100% trading policy allows a couple to take advantage of opportunities and reduces the risks the region’s climate delivers.

By Tony Leggett. Photos by John Cowpland.

laying to the strengths of the Hawke’s Bay farm he manages is paying handsome dividends for Hugh Abbiss, this year’s Silver Fern Farms Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year winner.

When he and partner Sally Terry arrived in July 2019 to take on the manager’s role at Totara Hills Station, they were encouraged to challenge the status quo by owners Mike and Caroline Rittson-Thomas.

The couple embraced the opportunity and three years on, the 785-hectare-effective farm has undergone a massive shift in policy, performance and profitability.

“I guess we were going in fairly blind, but we did put a lot of effort in to deciding what we had in terms of the property, looking at historical trading margins for stock, and thinking about the policies we wanted to focus on, particularly around the fit with the cropping programme,” Abbiss says.

The couple identified the markets they wanted to be in, and that was predominantly lamb finishing, carry-over dairy cows (a major one), store-to-store cattle trading, buying in late winter and selling late spring, and five-year-old ewe trading.

Once they worked out which livestock enterprises would suit, they developed a cropping programme and put a feed budget together, then adjusted the livestock numbers to match it.

That spits out their stocking rate.

P

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“It’s adapted each year. For example this year we haven’t done any hogget grazing, but we’re back into cattle grazing. Last year was the opposite.”

An early casualty was the capital stock, all sold soon after they started the role. In its place is a 100% livestock trading and grazing enterprise, supported by a large-scale forage cropping and re-grassing programme.

Cash cropping remains on the 50ha of centrepivot irrigated flats and adjacent dryland cropping area, much of it now grown on contract with local contractors.

The farm is managed in four distinct parts – dryland cropping flats, irrigated cropping flats, improved rolling country and unimproved hill country.

Each area is handled separately.

They’ve almost ring-fenced them and used feed budgets on them separately to optimise the grass they grow.

“It is one of our key principles we’ve focused on from the very start,” Abbiss says. “It drives us and leads our decision making.”

Each block has individual cropping, re-grassing programmes and the livestock.

The 100% trading policy allows them to take advantage of opportunities and also reduces the risks the Hawke’s Bay climate delivers.

“I don’t like saying we’re summer dry.”

i FARM FACTS Total area 912ha, effective area 785ha.

Annual rainfall 1040mm.

Soil types: Range of silt loams, mix of natural drainage and P retention.

Topography: 46% flat to very easy, 35% rolling, 19% hill.

Labour: 3 full-time (farm manager, 2IC/ stock manager, two part-time fencergenerals), high use of contractors.

Infrastructure: 4 homes, 1 workshop, 2 haysheds, 4-stand woolshed, sheep yards and cattle yards.

Plant: 3 quads, utility, 100hp tractor, sheep autodrafter.

Water: Fully reticulated to every paddock.

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Totara Hills Station manager Hugh Abbiss has developed a finishing system to finish large numbers of lambs through the winter months.

How the 2020-21 numbers stacked up • Gross farm income (GFI) $2224/ha • Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) $786/ha • Farm working expenses (FWE) $1438/ha • FWE as % of GFI 65% • Return on capital 2.8% (based on value of $14,000/ha) • GFI/labour unit $581,911 • Estimated net emissions CO2 4.5t/ha

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Their biggest issue is variability and unpredictability.

“Yes, we can get a heap of rain and it can get very dry, but it’s not knowing what is going to happen in two months that is the biggest challenge for us.”

That’s why they have tried to design a system to handle that variability which allows them to grow as much grass as possible and convert it to the highest possible value in the livestock that graze it.

Abbiss concedes it looks easy when it’s numbers on an Excel spreadsheet and the real challenge is putting that into practice on the farm.

“We’re always adapting to grow feed and convert it. I focus on profitability, income less expenses, growing that farm surplus while taking into account the change in market value of the stock on hand.”

A key ingredient to their success is their deliberate choice to surround themselves with skilled professionals.

“This group is huge with this place, from agronomists to stock agents, to contractors.

The phone goes nuts some days. There’s also my own team of course who I think buy in to what we’re doing here.”

Number crunching using Excel spreadsheets to evaluate livestock options and get that elusive close match to feed availability is a constant for the couple.

Abbiss says the amount of analysis they do is a big part of the success achieved within the whole business to date.

He’s content to use Excel over other decision-support tools available.

With the support of the property’s owners, they kicked off a large regrassing, fertiliser and drainage investment in year one. Abbiss admits there were some challenging moments in achieving the level of change in such a short period.

“Our development expenditure was all cashflow funded, probably to the detriment of our first year’s performance.”

It was on the back of successive droughts, they were clearing out capital stock and getting cleaned out there.

“It was a rough enough year that didn’t

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How year-end livestock weight on hand has doubled End of year

Total LW (kg)

Grazing area (ha)

LW/ha

2022

781,341

723

1081

2021

498,082

710

702

2020

288,734

753

383

2019

417,532

775

539

(NB. Total LW includes stock on grazing on the farm)

quite go to plan and Mike probably was scratching his head a bit.”

But in year two, the development started to pay dividends and they achieved better margins than budgeted for by buying lambs and yearling cattle just as the area emerged from drought.

“We did go into it in the dark a wee bit, but I can’t stress enough how the change in livestock policies and banging through those short trades and cashing up that grass as fast as we possibly could made the difference.”

Stock that would deliver good profit Hugh and Sally knew if they were going to throw all the inputs into it, they had to put on stock classes that would deliver good profit.

“Our lamb carrying capacity through the autumn has tripled so that certainly has helped us,” Abbiss says.

The new livestock policies were bedded in by year two (2020-21) and they continued

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with forage cropping and new grass at the same pace, also expanding the area in grain crops with contractors.

In the same year, a programme to fence off waterways was started.

Livestock policies were further refined in their third year and the focus shifted to developing value-add relationships with contractors, suppliers and other stakeholders to the business. This included taking on Wairere’s terminal sire Dominator ewe flock, which is lambed at Totara Hills, and once a selection of ram lambs has been taken out for future ram sales, the remaining lambs are finished on the farm.

Year three also included completion of 4.2km of waterways fencing and the regrassing, fertiliser and drainage area reached a status quo level. It was also year one of their profit share arrangement with the farm owners.

For the 2022-23 year, the focus is on driving great profitability from the investment already made in building fertility, new pasture and the value-add

arrangements being developed. Reducing use of nitrogen fertiliser is also in their current year plans.

Gross farm income (GFI) per year has more than doubled since they arrived at Totara Hills.

“We never thought we’d get to where we are now when we started. An early aim was to do $1000/ha and we’ve gone past that now,” Abbiss says.

“We’re developing more land, and we’re opportunity focused so we’ll keep looking.

That’s our mindset.”

Hawke’s Bay farm consultant John Cannon says the best operators on this country are achieving GFIs of more than $3000/ha and some over $4000/ha, usually with a large component of cash cropping included.

The Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year judges reviewed the 2020-21 financials when judging entries for the 2022 Award, but if those results are adjusted for increase in the value of livestock between opening and closing that year, the numbers spike up.

GFI goes from $2224/ha to $3400/ha, EBITDA moves up from $786/ha to $1611/ ha and farm working expenses (FWE) drops from 65% of GFI to 47%.

GFI per labour unit was an impressive $582,000, well above the accepted standard for good performance of $500,000/unit.

Totara Hills traded 11,433 lambs in its 2020-21 year. Margins from sale price to next purchase price reflect the focus on shifting feed into higher margin periods of the year. The average sale to purchase margin for cattle was $677/head (selling at $1421 and buying in at $754). For sheep trading, the same margin averaged $56/ head (selling at $168 and buying in at $112).

That lamb margin doesn’t reflect the impact of buying lambs in early winter to finish a few months after the balance date.

“For past three years, the cash we generate within a financial year is getting blown in the last three months as we restock at higher stocking rates and carry heavy lambs through balance date that don’t get realised in that financial year.

“So, that’s something we’re aware of and take into consideration as we analyse how we’re tracking,” Abbiss says.

Total liveweight has doubled Total liveweight, including grazing stock on hand, has doubled from 539kg/ha at balance date in 2019 to 1080kg/ha in 2022.

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Helping grow the country

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The Totara Hills team, from left, fencer-general hand Fred Harris, second-in-charge Lou Watt, Sally Terry and Hugh Abbiss, and fencer-general hand Kevin West.

Wintering just over 1000kg/ha was challenging, especially as they were feeding at 3.5% of LW (average across all stock) to achieve weight gain rather than feeding at maintenance level, Abbiss says.

“It’s just something that happened with the increase in stocking rate. We’ve landed there. It’s not necessarily a goal to do that LW.” Totara Hills is estimated to be growing 11,500kg/ha/year drymatter (DM) and produces just under 4.5 tonnes/ha of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Its cash cropping enterprise made $3303/ ha net income and grazing generated just over $300,000 of income.

Grazing cattle on contract over summer is a big reducer of risk for the business.

Summer cattle trading is a less-preferred option in their risky summer-dry region, so they opt to graze cattle.

“It means we can stock up with trade lambs in the autumn because we know that

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grazing cattle are gone on a certain date. So, we’re not playing the market there.”

Cost is a constant focus in the analysis that goes into the forage and cash cropping programmes.

Abbiss says the total cost to get crops to the point of harvest increased 30% over the past year. Thankfully, cash crop returns have also increased by a similar amount.

The issue is their forage and new grass programmes.

“Our cost per kg DM grown for forage crops has gone up from about 8c/kg to 12– 14c/kg. But, if you back yourself to generate a return of more than 30c/kg DM consumed from livestock grazing that crop, you’re still holding a good margin there.

“I’m still comfortable to do it – it fits the system we have in place and that is a big one, probably the number one.”

The forage crops and new grass also relieve the internal parasite pressure on young stock.

“The elephant in the room is managing those parasites as well, and those forage crops are just essential for doing what we’re doing.”

Abbiss doesn’t rule out changing the programme, especially if cost creep continues.

“I’m not too keen on changing it but will be watching our margins.”

In their first two years, they spent a lot of money on forage cropping but have refined how they grow them, and are more efficient.

“The biggest cost in growing forage crops is a failed crop and you have to do everything to avoid that. If it happens you drop $1000/ha cost and you’ve got nothing to show for it.”

Forage crops cut parasites Large areas of forage crops are reducing the parasite challenge for lamb finishing and helping deliver high weight gains and

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higher carrying capacity.

About 130 hectares a year is going through a forage crop on a predetermined rotation. The crops are all direct-drilled and fill feed deficits in late summer and midwinter, de-risking the livestock operation from the effects of lingering dry summers and creating the opportunity to take on big margin lambs over winter.

Abbiss says there are high returns for the taking when there’s a meat schedule lift combined with an increase in stocking rate and liveweight gains.

The forage crops transfer feed to autumn and then to winter which allows him to maintain the stocking rate required to maximise utilisation when the spring flush hits.

“We’re trying to harvest as much spring grass as possible then take out the crop area once those winter trade lambs leave the property,” he says.

“By taking out 30% of the farm from September, we focus our efforts on the 70% left so the team’s workload is reasonably stable.”

For the dryland flats, a typical rotation would start with coming out of kale and into spring barley, then pasture for 22 months, before returning to kale.

After harvest, this area is sown in a mix of 10-13kg hybrid ryegrass (Mohaka is a common choice), along with 5-7kg/ha of Italian ryegrass, plus clover and plantain.

By Christmas, ahead of the typically dry summer conditions opening up that sward, these paddocks are sprayed out and go into a brassica, most likely a kale. They will be grazed by young stock in late February and March, then shut up for winter grazing by lambs, before being sprayed out for barley again in the spring, then back to a pasture mix after harvest for the following 22 months.

On the rolling improved country, they have found a summer fallow works best ahead of re-grassing with four to five-year hybrid/perennial ryegrass and clover pasture mix. Annual grasses are performing well between grain crops for the 50ha of irrigated flats.

Forage crops are sown with 100-150kg/ ha of DAP plus boron, and side dressed with 70-150kg/ha of urea, depending on their yield potential. Before the winter grazing by lambs, a second side dressing of urea at

52

Heading out to move a mob on Totara Hills Station, central Hawke’s Bay.

50-70kg/ha is applied.

About 90ha of spring barley is grown on rotation around the dryland cropping flats and all 50ha of irrigated flats is sown into a mix of crops including maize silage, carrot and radish seed, peas and wheat.

Paddocks selected for barley receive between 2-3t/ha of ag lime before sowing.

Average feed cover on each block is assessed regularly by eye, and data is recorded in a spreadsheet. Abbiss says

knowing demand is critical, especially when you can predict the growth with more certainty, like the period from when it rains in autumn to about October 1.

“We know we can predict with accuracy through that period, but after that we need to have significant flexibility in our system from October 1 to about the end of March, so that is when our policies will maintain that flexibility to cater for that time,” he says.

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DOING THINGS THEIR WAY 54

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November 2022

LIVESTOCK Onfarm

Taking on a long lease for a family farm at the top of the South Island after years working overseas means a couple are free to make decisions. Story and photos

by Anne Hardie.

L

easing the family farm near the northern tip of Golden Bay has given Ellie Miller and Pax Leetch the opportunity to do things their way.

The Miller family farm, Nguroa, lies near the Kaihoka Lakes in Golden Bay and bounds several kilometres of bluff-edged coastline, culminating in the sheer sides of Lunar Rock above a patch of beach.

Sand-blasted hills encircle patches of wetlands and about 220 hectares of mostly regenerating bush on steeper slopes and 10ha of radiata pine trees. That leaves 300 effective hectares of the 520ha to run 2269 stock units made up of 1100 Romney ewes, 100 beef-breeding cows and replacements.

Six years ago the couple approached Ellie’s parents, Peter and Marjorie, about leasing the farm. Peter and Marjorie were in their mid-70s at the time and still working on their farm. They were reluctant to give that up. Both generations still live on the farm and Ellie’s parents buy some of the weaned calves to finish on a productive block they still farm near Collingwood.

Pax says Peter and Marjorie were hard workers and put their life into Nguroa. They took on a well-cared for, productive farm.

“It has been fantastic leasing,” Pax says.

“Being free to make the decisions we see fit...it’s very freeing.”

The farm is in a family trust. Ellie’s siblings wanted the farm to stay in the family, but didn’t want to farm it

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Previous page: Outcrops of rock and regenerating bush provide good shelter on Nguroa. Above: Romney ewes and views of Lunar Rock, a solid landmark on the farm’s boundary.

themselves. A farm consultant worked out a fair lease agreement, basing it on the Federated Farmers lease contract, which Ellie says is nice and simple. They pay $22/su and have a 24-year lease divided into three-year terms with seven rights of renewal.

Pax says they were keen to have surety that works better for the farm. They will come out of the 24-year lease with stock and plant, so will need to establish a nest egg somewhere else by then.

Ellie and her three siblings were homeschooled on the isolated family farm, Ngarua, near the northern tip of Golden Bay. Stints on a dairy farm in Golden Bay and a cropping farm in Canterbury followed before Ellie headed over the Tasman to become a full-time musterer on large-scale cattle stations. One of the many stations she mustered on for about six years was the massive De Grey

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He says sometimes leasing is to the detriment of the land because lessors want to wash their hands of obligations to that property because they’re not running it.

Lessees are always looking at the next thing.

“So no-one is looking at the property like they own it.”

This way, they have a decent timespan to invest in the farm themselves. Such as a reticulated water system that’s waiting on the sideline to be installed when they have time. Peter and Marjorie will pay for the

Station in Western Australia that spread more than 800,000ha.

She worked for stations that used horses for mustering, but on occasion she joined teams on motorbikes that worked in conjunction with helicopters. She continued to return to Australia for winter cattle musters until baby Opal arrived 18 months ago.

tank but Pax and Ellie will pay for the pipe, troughs and installation to get water to paddocks instead of relying on streams.

Pax says the water system will be a gamechanger for them as they will be able to graze all paddocks more efficiently.

Animal welfare governs On the farm, animal welfare governs the business, from stock numbers to the way they handle the stock. When they began leasing the farm, Ellie and Pax dropped ewe numbers by 100 and began selling calves at weaning to take pressure out of the system.

They now have more feed through winter to feed stock and into spring when the wind cranks up. It stops the spring flush and it helps to make their goal more achievable: to run a simple, profitable operation well, purely on grass.

The ewe flock has 40 years of Wairere Romney breeding and the couple sees no reason to introduce new genetics. They tail 150–155% following an intensive lambing beat, which is part of their animal welfare philosophy. Their goal is for 10% or less

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Above: Pax Leetch and Ellie Miller with their daughter Opal.

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wastage, and they are close to that most years.

“We wouldn’t be getting that lambing percentage if we weren’t doing that,” Pax says.

He thinks they are adding about 10% to the lambing percentage.

The mixed-age ewes usually scan 180– 185%, while the two-tooths scan 160–170% and they don’t want any higher. This year, scanning results were down and Ellie and Pax suspect there was subclinical facial eczema in many of the ewes as they saw clinical signs in the lambs. It’s not usually a problem, probably due to the coastal winds keeping the spore count down. This year they enjoyed a calm autumn and they think they paid the price for that

with facial eczema. At scanning, the ewes dropped to 165% and the two-tooths were 148%.

Hoggets weighing over 42kg in autumn go to the ram which is about half of the hogget mob. For the past three years they have lambed the heavier hoggets and this year they scanned 92%. In the past, other classes of stock were prioritised over the hoggets through winter.

Pax says they now do a better job of their hoggets since they began running half of them with the rams. If they get a hard year and the hoggets are compromised, they will give hogget-lambing a miss.

Hoggets are mated to the Romney rams along with the maternal mob of ewes.

A terminal mob of ewes is mated with

i FARM FACTS 24-year lease.

300 effective hectares.

1100 Romney breeding ewes.

100 Herefordbased breeding cows.

Focus on animal welfare and stock health.

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Suffolk-Texel rams. After the first cycle, everything goes to the terminal rams and the black faces make them easily recognisable.

From scanning, the mixed-age and two-tooth ewes run as one mob and are rotationally grazed around the farm until they are set stocked for lambing. Triplet mobs get the better paddocks and they split the others into a mixed-age twin mob, mixed-age single mob, two-tooth twins and two-tooth singles.

Bluffs and bush give shelter Lambing begins from September 5 and the hills, bluffs and bush provide good shelter.

From all the mobs, they pick up a lot of lambs, but after mothering-on most of them they end up with about 15 that Marjorie rears.

Stock rotations begin again a couple of weeks after tailing.

Pax and Ellie are disappointed with lamb growth rates. They have enough feed through lambing, but don’t have that spring flush of feed to get the lambs growing. The farm is not suitable for crops to help finish them. About 10% of lambs go prime at weaning before Christmas and the couple wants to lift that. They don’t want to carry store lambs through the next winter, but they can be hard to quit.

“We struggle a bit with store lambs because we’re not big numbers and if we’re dry, then Nelson is dry too. We need to piggyback with someone else to move them,” Pax says.

Ellie previously worked as a musterer on Millungera Station in Australia. (Photo supplied)

KEEPING THINGS QUIET Cattle work on Nguroa is usually carried out on horseback, partly because of Ellie’s passion and background with horses, but also to handle stock with as little stress as possible. This keeps the cows quiet in the paddocks so calves can be tagged at birth and paired with their mothers.

In Australia, cattle were sometimes worked from outside the yard and Ellie says it often meant using minimal movement to move beasts in the required direction. They use the same stock handling principles with their sheep in the yards – moving them

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through the race quietly to avoid them crashing into gates and piling up.

Ellie met Pax in 2013 when he was working for her parents on Nguroa. He’d grown up on a small farm in Golden Bay, been a cadet at Smedley Station and had worked as a shepherd. After coming back from overseas he worked as a fencer and then spent three winters on a revegetation project for a Mongolian gold mine. In 2012 he found his niche at Nguroa.

Since giving up her full-time mustering stints over the Tasman and feeling a little homesick for the lifestyle, Ellie has

been starting horses for clients through summer, starting one horse a month. The horses get exposure to stock work and hill country through their first month of riding. She loves the work and it provides another income stream for the farm.

One day each week they have a casual employee, Josh van der Stap, help out with jobs on the farm, which is usually fencing. Sand and salt blasts take a toll on fences and in exposed areas the fences only last about 10 years before they succumb to rust. Old fence posts are half-buried by sand that’s blown over the farm through the decades.

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November 2022

Those lambs that do head to the works prime get a premium through Alliance’s special-raising claims that require lambs to be free of antibiotics and raised solely on pasture.

Pax confesses he’s a bit of an idealist. He doesn’t like to use antibiotics if it can be avoided, isn’t keen on drench and prefers not to spray.

“I’d like to farm without them, but we aren’t able to do that in our current system.”

Pax and Ellie have opted to sell calves at weaning so they no longer have the cost of buying in balage to winter weaned calves, and it enables them to feed stock better through winter and spring.

Initially, they sold the weaned calves through the yards at Brightwater, nearly three hours drive away. But it didn’t sit well with them. Half came back over the Takaka Hill to buyers and they didn’t feel good about leaving their stock in saleyards.

“We didn’t enjoy having them in the saleyards at all,” Ellie says. “Once they leave here you don’t have control over their welfare any more.”

They now sell the weaned calves at an agreed market value within Golden Bay, with some going to Ellie’s parents for their block near Collingwood, a few to Pax’s parents and the rest to another farmer down the coast.

The Hereford-based cows have Angus genes through them as well, plus a bit of Shorthorn from the past, and are divided into two herds at mating. The A herd is run with Hereford bulls and the B herd and heifers run with Angus bulls.

Copper deficiency in the herd became obvious when 7–8% of cows were empty and some were gaining an orange hue to their coats. Initially they were given two injections of copper a year but liver tests at the works showed they were still deficient and they’re now given three injections a year. This year the farm reached 98% in calf and the couple hopes they have the deficiency covered.

Fertiliser ‘part of the arsenal’ A few years ago Pax and Ellie had concerns about the animal health on the farm, such as bad feet in the ewes and mastitis in the cows. Culling has helped, but improvements have also been made through changes in their fertiliser regime.

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Moving cattle on Nguroa: Cattle are always handled quietly and are consequently quiet in the paddock.

For the last two years they’ve been following the Albrecht-Kinsey approach to fertiliser, and feel they are seeing better animal health as a result.

Though the sandy country gets hit hard through summer with drying winds, the farm usually gets good grass growth through autumn which sets it up for winter. Being coastal, the farm usually continues to grow some grass through winter as well.

About 40% of the farm is covered in regenerating bush.

Pax says the Beef + Lamb NZ greenhouse

gas calculator shows the farm is sequestering more than it’s emitting. Yet through the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme their 220ha of regenerating bush will not count. He says tunnel-visioned government regulations focusing on just carbon could make farmers financially better off by razing some bush areas and planting pines. Pax and Ellie have no intention of doing that, but Pax says regulations for greenhouse gas emissions need to have a holistic approach that looks at the wider picture.

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LIVESTOCK Study

The study found an attrition rate of 30 per 100 ewes.

Study identifies ewe wastage numbers

A

ewe wastage study on 37 sheep farms across New Zealand last year found that on average, 30 out of every 100 ewes left their flocks between mating and post-weaning.

Reasons for culling included failure to get pregnant, rear a lamb, age, teeth, udder defects and body condition, but on average, six out of 100 ewes died or went missing between mating and weaning, according to preliminary results.

The study found on average, 13% of ewes presented to the ram failed to rear a lamb and when combined with scanning data, an estimated 24 potential lambs were lost per 100 ewes.

This will be an underestimate of potential lambs lost, as it does not take into account lambs that died whose mother still reared a lamb, the report by Massey University Associate Professor Anne Ridler says.

The study, a collaboration between researchers at Massey and Lincoln universities and funded by the Massey –

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Lincoln and Agricultural Industry Trust, aims to describe ewe wastage on a sample of NZ sheep farms. These farms comprise a range of sizes, topography and climate types.

Nineteen of the study farms are in the North Island and 18 in the South Island.

The average size of the flocks studied was 4721 ewes (two-tooths and mixed-age) but ranged from 920 to 17,461.

In autumn 2021, all participating farmers were interviewed about their ewe culling decisions and while all farmers culled dry ewes, there was a big variation in culling decisions around wet/dry two-tooth ewes, culling on type or looks or age.

Most culled ewes with poor udders and some or all with poor feet, but a range of methods was used to access udders and feet.

The study calculated wastage as a percentage of the ewes put to the ram in 2021 compared to the number that failed to rear a lamb to tailing (docking).

It took into account dry ewes, wet-dry

ewes, ewes culled for other reasons and ewes that died or went missing.

It also looked at reasons for culling at weaning or post-weaning and this was when farmers culled on age, teeth, body condition and udder defects.

The attrition rate of 30 per 100 ewes, which requires a replacement rate of around 30% to keep flock numbers stable, aligns with replacement rates on most of the farms in the study. These ranged from 19.3% to 44.9% with an average of just under 30%.

Further analysis of the results is being done, and work into ewe wastage is ongoing.

Dan Brier, Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s general manager farming excellence, says B+LNZ supports the study because it is such important work.

“Ewe flocks are such an important driver of profitability on sheep and beef farms.”

He says the study highlights the huge variation in how farmers make decisions about which sheep to cull.

“B+LNZ has a number of tools to help farmers with their culling decisions and I’d encourage them to look at the video and resources that Dr Ridler has produced for us on udder health in sheep.”

• Supplied by Beef + Lamb New Zealand

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DEER Industry

Where to next for deer?

The report card is out on a seven-year strategy for the deer industry costing $15 million, Lynda Gray looks at the results.

T

he number of high fences without deer behind them had agriculture minister Damien O’Connor asking “where to next?” for the deer

industry.

At a September parliamentary reception celebrating the conclusion of Deer Industry New Zealand’s (DINZ) Passion to Profit (P2P) strategy, O’Connor said there had been “good progress”, but in follow-up comments he said judgment was reserved until receiving the findings of the final Ministry for Primary Industries report.

“It [P2P] might have given more confidence and profit [but] if that hasn’t occurred, the question is why and what to do?”

A major focus of the seven-year Primary Growth Partnership programme was to increase venison export revenue by 40% through market and product development, improved onfarm productivity and environmental management.

It was a big-thinking and audacious

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strategy that hasn’t delivered the money. In 2015 $181 million of venison was exported and in 2021 $155m ($141m in 2015 money).

O’Connor acknowledged the Covid effect but said the industry needed to work harder to grow the value of venison and branded Cervena cuts. Most of the meat companies had treated venison as an “add-on” to beef and lamb. He believed there was potential to separate it out as a special product that would stand alone on the world stage in the same way that kiwifruit-branded Zespri did.

“We support initiatives from the sector to grow the value of the product… we look forward to the next stage.”

The future of the deer industry was caught in a challenging environment and very much in the hands of global consumers who were discerning and concerned about global warming and reducing emissions.

“When the lights went out in California recently, it hit home about climate

change and it’s affecting the behaviour of consumers. The question is how to turn that into a positive?”

O’Connor didn’t have hard and fast answers on how to do that but talked about adding “more up the value chain” as well as incorporating values and management to address environmental and climate challenges.

Asked about ready-to-go greenhouse gas emission mitigation tools for deer farmers, many of whom were unable to offset with trees due to physical and regional regulations imposed on the hill and high country they operated, O’Connor said the opportunity was there through climate emergency response initiatives announced in May. These included $339m to fast track development of technologies and practices to reduce GHG emissions.

The sheep and dairy sectors had been quick to pick up on this new opportunity, but O’Connor was unaware of anything connected with deer; it was up to the

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The future of the deer industry was very much in the hands of global consumers.

“Some of the P2P spending, especially on venison market and product development, led down some massive rabbit holes.” industry to take the lead. He said the door was not shut to the deer industry for future collaborations, such as P2P, but any such initiative would have to be in a coordinated way.

B-minus effort P2P scored a 6.5/10 – the equivalent of a B-minus exam result, DINZ chief executive Innes Moffat said. That was the verdict of the P2P advisory group members. They rated progress and results midway, and at the conclusion of the seven-year project, P2P was a cornerstone $15 million 50-50 government and industry-funded project.

The big goal was to earn the industry another $56m in revenue over seven years by changing the way deer were farmed, the

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way venison was marketed and reversing the decline in deer numbers.

It had succeeded with the first two but failed in the latter with the national hind herd shrinking by 65,000 head (15%) to 365,000 over six years. That retrenchment in numbers meant the industry fell well short of meeting the volume and value of venison targeted at the outset.

“Back in 2013 and 2014 we were optimistic in our forecasts around the increase in hind numbers, venison production and chilled venison exports and the cumulative effect of that were bold projections,” Moffat said.

Over the seven years the value of venison exports fell from $181m to $155m, or $141m in 2015 dollar terms. This was due largely to the dwindling volume of

venison, and Covid-19, especially in Europe where much of NZ venison was destined for higher-end restaurant and food service sectors.

Moffat welcomed the agriculture minister’s challenge for the industry and venison marketers to do more to add value and work more collaboratively.

However, venison marketers had done a good job targeting new and small niche markets such as Sweden, United Arab Emirates and New York with their particular brands and the common story of farmraised venison.

“They are small niche markets so there’s less of a need for a collaborative strategy. It’s different from lamb where there are large volumes going into UK supermarkets and there is a higher degree of competition.”

During the course of P2P, marketing activity had changed focus from the European food service sector to North American retail. NZ exporters of venison were getting a foothold into that market,

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Photo: greatbritishchefs.com

but it needed investment to sustain that momentum.

Another change during the course of P2P was a greater emphasis on environmental management, a response to the rollout of various guidelines and legislation over the seven years.

Managing and mitigation of GHG emissions was a big issue, but Moffat said it was unrealistic for the industry to fund standalone research on mitigations. Instead, DINZ was an investor partner in the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium on the understanding and hope that projects would lead to mitigations, such as inhibitors or vaccines that could be adapted for deer.

Although P2P achieved an overall B-minus, Moffat said it scored a 9/10 in motivating change among deer farmers.

The main forum for doing this was advance parties – farmer-led groups where members followed through on production-boosting projects with support and advice from industry specialists.

At the conclusion of P2P there were 29 groups with 333 farmers involved.

These groups had led to the creation of environmental groups to help farmers develop their own farm plans and assess their GHG emissions.

NZDFA president Justin Stevens said advance parties was a success story because it motivated, challenged and encouraged farmers to take on board and follow through with new management.

“They’ve been effective, although I think there should have been more benchmarking included.”

He drew on his own involvement, which he credited in part to lifting his velvet income by 85% through a combination of better management and a 35% increase in stag numbers.

Advance parties had been confidence and morale boosters to a certain degree, but the fact was many deer farmers were at the crossroads on where to go with deer due to financial and growing environmental regulation.

On Stevens’s 180ha Marlborough rollinghill farm near Seddon, about 10% of the area was planted in grapes and contributed half the farm income. His velvet system produced the other half, but he could easily double or triple farm income by reducing

A major focus of the seven-year programme was to increase venison export revenue by 40%.

Average yearly venison schedule price Year

$/kg

2015

7.01

2016

7.86

2017

9.09

2018

10.96

2019

9.22

2020

6.63

2021

5.97

2022 (until end of June)

7.89

Source: AgriHQ

stag numbers and planting another 20ha of grapes. “It’s both the money and the environmental regulations that farmers are struggling with,” he said.

Overall he awarded P2P a 7/10 and “could do better”.

What payback?

Could the $15 million dollars invested in P2P be better invested to generate some return?

It’s a big question for a small industry that struggles for leverage from the money invested in industry growth.

History has shown that research and

development and the execution of bigthinking production and marketing strategies are invariably ‘slow burn’ exercises that can take decades for measurable success. A good example of that kind of investment was Cervena, an overarching brand for high quality, high spec venison from NZ farmed young deer launched in 1992.

The strategy burned up more than $13m of industry money over the first five years with little discernible return. It finally fired when it was picked up as part of the P2P climbing to about 16% of venison export sales in 2018/19.

Innes Moffat said in retrospect some of the P2P spending, especially on venison market and product development, led down some massive rabbit holes.

Development of a venison protein bar is one example, progressing well until the commercialisation stage at which point it was decided the risk was too great to continue further. But he says the spending was not a waste because it had created the intellectual property for a company to pick up and run with.

Another arguable example of misspent money was the European summer venison programme that fell flat. However, the time and effort had left DINZ confident in the decision to target new markets.

“A lot of what we did was research and sharing the financial risk to find something new.”

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DEER Velvet

A sea-change thanks to velvet A son’s rugby injury and its treatment with deer velvet products convinced Barry Cuttance to give up life as a seafarer. Lynda Gray reports.

P

ick up and run with the best velvet antler science, that’s the advice of New Zealand Deer Velvet’s Barry Cuttance.

“We need to revisit past deer antler science, pick out the best and collaborate across the industry to commercialise it,” he says.

He came to the 50 years of deer science gathering and enjoyed looking back on what had been achieved by a handful of dedicated scientists but had hoped for more in-depth discussion on the direction of research.

Invermay’s velvet research programme was once internationally renowned for the output of practical science but that dried up with changes and cutbacks in funding.

There is an opportunity to pick up and run with some of those past projects, he says.

His bias towards velvet antler science is due to first-hand experience in the United States vet pet market where he sells six velvet-based wellness products to 1300 clients, generating a “seven figure” turnover.

There has been a big swing to TCM-based (traditional Chinese medicine) and holistic treatments which are now endorsed and respected by many North American vets.

The products range from general wellbeing tonics, arthritis tablets and an oral spray for cats and dogs to protect and promote healthy gums and teeth.

His pathway from merchant seaman and part-time North Canterbury deer farmer to the North American vet and pet wellness market started in 1999 with the ankle injury of Sean, his rugby-playing son.

The injury, incurred during the National Provincial Championship semi-final against

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Barry Cuttance: ‘I want to keep it niche.’

Waikato, led to surgery and a recommended 16-week stand down from training. When Barry told his Christchurch-based Korean velvet buyer and processor Youn Lee of Sean’s plight Lee gave him four bottles of deer velvet capsules, prescribing a dose of two tablets a day to speed up recovery.

Barry took them home but admits to having a ‘snake oil’ view about the use of velvet and the TCM preparations and tonics they were used in. But he changed tune when Sean was back training for the Crusaders within 12 weeks.

“He went on to play professionally in Japan for six years with no ankle repercussions… he also recovered from psoriasis, a skin condition he suffered from since childhood.”

Barry, now convinced of velvet’s healing qualities, quit life on the sea to start marketing deer velvet in collaboration with Youn Lee in 2000.

He decided to target the natural health market and took a punt on a self-funded trip to two natural health expos armed with deer capsules.

In hindsight it was a move too soon with too few medics switched on to the TCM philosophy of promoting wellness to prevent illness with the help of natural medicines such as velvet.

On return home Youn Lee encouraged Barry to refocus by developing velvet products for the pet market. His starting product was a velvet, green-lipped mussel, ginseng and shark cartilage tablet for the treatment of arthritic conditions in dogs.

After a modest start to sales a couple of happenings led to a ramp up in demand.

The first was a University of Montreal clinical evaluation of powder from elk velvet antlers for the treatment of osteoarthritis in dogs. It was peer reviewed by vets who rubber-stamped the healing qualities of velvet. The second was a roundabout introduction to an Israeli vet who, on hearing about the healing qualities of velvet and trialling it with success on several dogs, launched it in his homeland in 2006.

The company has sold products in Israel, Italy, Germany, Romania, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia and NZ but North America is his main market.

Getting a foothold there involved a lot of networking at holistic veterinary expos and conferences, and cold calling.

“I got lucky (in the United States) but it was very difficult at times.”

Relationship building, especially with leading lights in the companion pet natural therapy and treatment sector such as Dr Paula Broadfoot was important as was spreading the NZ story which he did by hosting barbecues and serving up NZ venison in the US. Now in his late 60s, Barry says he’s comfortable with the business he’s grown from scratch.

“We don’t chase clients or markets now, I don’t want to become a Warehouse-type operation, I want to keep it niche.”

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DEER Research

A deer milestone Set up in the very early days of New Zealand deer farming, the people of Invermay have celebrated half a century of scientific research for the industry.

By Lynda Gray.

Invermay deer farm.

I

t wasn’t a trip down Memory Lane, but it was a jaunt in and around Puddle Alley at Ag Research Invermay, near Dunedin to reminisce on 50 Years of deer science. About 130 people gathered to celebrate the industry that could, with the help of science.

The prolific output of practical science from 1972, barely a year after establishment of a farmed deer herd, was testament to the passion and motivation of a dedicated few, Dr Ken Drew said. He was the driving force behind the deer research programme which at its peak employed 18 scientists and technicians. Although an academic institution Drew said the science was farming focused and included a lot of field days which attracted hundreds of people.

In 1983 a Deer Biology conference organised by Drew, Pete Fennessey and other Invermay staff attracted people from around the world. The event cemented Invermay as the global hub for deer farming research, said Dr Jimmy Suttie.

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Former Invermay deer research programme leader Ken Drew with Herbie, the foundation stag of the Invermay herd.

Suttie, a Scotsman, was recruited by Drew in 1981 to lead a velvet research team which grew to include 10 scientists. One of the highlights was proving, on an ash content basis, that NZ velvet antler was a

high quality product equal to, if not better than velvet grown in Russia and China.

The day included a tour of the rolling 170ha Invermay deer farm, where the 330 stags, 650 hinds and 450 R1s have spectacular views to the south over the Taieri Plain. A stop-off at the deer shed included evidence and details of a Frankenstein science-type project in 2004 and 2005 where antler stem cells were harvested, cloned and used in the assisted reproduction of a handful of stags with identical antler. At a practical level the cloned stags were a nightmare to manage, especially during the rut when their battles to establish dominance were long and drawn out due to each having identical antler. It was ‘remarkable, but a sensitive piece of research,’ AgResearch scientist Jamie Ward said. The stags were never mated to hinds and the curiosity-driven science never made it beyond the gates of the Invermay deer farm.

The event concluded with an evening

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dinner at the University of Otago. Jonathan Wallis of Minaret Station and son of deer farming pioneer Tim Wallis gave an informal speech relaying some of his memories as a child growing up amid the development of the deer farming industry.

This included some bring and show exhibits of net guns, one of which included a stun gun which Sir Tim helped develop. The people that drove the fledgling industry were visionary and blazed the trail for deer farming in New Zealand. They were tall poppies and as such attracted criticism and naysayers in much the same way that Lake Hawea Station owners Geoff and Justine Ross did earlier this year after appearing on ‘Country Calendar’.

“I was a bit shamed by that. It made me think back to the 70s and the start of deer farming. I don’t think that we should be so quick to knock (new) ideas and thinking… that was what gave the deer industry their chance.”

He said deer farming was the last great adventure in the pastoral scene, but there was still lots of new science and adventure to come.

Below: Identical sets of antler, the output from red deer cloned from antler stem cells back in 2004 and 2005.

Charlie Bennett (left) and Bryan Thompson with a GPS tracking collar.

Seeking grazing personalities IS IT POSSIBLE TO GENETICALLY SELECT DEER according to their grazing personality?

That’s the end point question Invermay research associate Bryan Thompson is hoping to answer in his three-year PhD project.

At the heart of the project will be 200 hinds/stags fitted with specially developed GPS collars to track and monitor their grazing behaviour in different landscapes.

By way of explanation Thompson likened his fast and furious guzzle and go eating habits to that of a red deer on the flat, whereas his research colleague Jamie Ward was more of a forager suited to the extensive hill country.

If it was possible to genetically identify the different grazing personalities of deer it would mean farmers could pick and match them according to terrain for more efficient utilisation of feed.

The tracking collars which took two years to design and cost about $70 each were designed by research associate Charlie Bennett. The wifi collars, with rechargeable battery, include an accelerometer to capture foraging behaviour in detail.

It will take about three years to prove and identify grazing personalities before moving on to the next step of trying to develop a genetic marker for such behaviour.

Thomson’s research mirrors a Lincoln University project that looked at the grazing personalities of Hereford cattle on Canterbury farms.

The research is funded by AgResearch and DINZ.

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CROP & FORAGE Onfarm

i FARM FACTS Dunsmore Gardens, Baylys Beach, north of Dargaville.

200ha with up to half used for kumara cropping in summer.

Annuals, perennials or mustard and oats grown over winter.

Up to 3000 lambs run sold to local trade.

30-40 whiteface weaners or yearlings bought in, taken through to 24-30 months of age.

20ha of maize grain grown in some years.

KEY POINTS

Kumara growing and sheep grazing match well in Northland.

Store lambs bought in autumn after the kumara crop.

Lambs sold to local trade, late July to October.

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Kumara and lamb mix sweet A combination of growing kumara and grazing lambs makes an excellent fit for a Northland farmer. By Glenys Christian.

Photos by Malcolm Pullman.

hile sheep numbers may have dropped markedly in Northland over the last 30 years they’re still a very important component of kumara growers’ operations.

The industry, based around the Kaipara Harbour, especially in the Ruawai and Dargaville areas on the west coast, is relatively small, taking up about 1500 hectares. But it’s very important to the local economy despite returns varying considerably from season to season.

And after the kumara crop is harvested in autumn and grass sown, lambs are gradually brought in to be finished on the new pasture.

W

Doug Nilsson is chairman of the Northern Wairoa Vegetable Growers’ Association and this winter has about 2000 head on his 200 ha farm inland from Baylys Beach, just northwest of Dargaville.

He was brought up on his parents’ sheep and beef farm further north before they diversified into leasing land to grow buttercup squash.

“But in the 1980s things got tough for sheep and beef farming, with Rogernomics kicking in and subsidies going,” he says.

The family eventually sold their sheep and beef blocks from 1988 through to 1991 and bought two adjoining dairy farms further south which weren’t economic, putting in sub-surface drainage to improve

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Above: Doug Nilsson taps the plastic to dislodge condensation so he can check on the health of his kumara plants.

November 2022

the land for cropping. They continued to lease land, growing about 60ha of squash and starting to grow a little bit of kumara.

Doug and his wife, Ann, took over the farm in 2002 phasing out squash and concentrating on kumara. They bought a further five small adjoining properties, amalgamating them and growing only kumara and sometimes some maize for grain. No land is leased now and on their sedimentary clay flats which sit at sea level they slowly changed over to growing kumara on up to 100ha. Doug trialled up to nine different varieties, but now grows just the four main commercial varieties – red, gold, orange and purple.

“With my background with sheep and

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beef and shearing, bringing lambs into graze through the winter was a neat fit,” he says.

“With the price of store lambs now it’s a big capital outlay to stock up with lambs but still profitable for us and good for sheep farmers as well.”

Many kumara growers follow the same regime but a few will graze lambs for a percentage of weight gain rather than buying them in and having that large expense.

The kumara industry has struggled over recent years with returns far below the cost of production and costs such as labour, fertiliser and fuel going “through the roof”.

Returns are only 50% of what they were

in 2002, Doug says, as sales have dropped off and more recently consumers have cut back on kumara purchases as inflation bites.

He’s used workers from Vanuatu under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme for some years, building onfarm accommodation for them to stay in and often providing an evening meal. But with Covid19 their numbers decreased along with backpacker labour which he also relied on.

This season he hopes to employ 13 RSE workers once more to help fill the shortfall of locals who are not around in the numbers needed. They’ll work onfarm for up to seven months, first planting the crop, then weeding and harvesting it after which

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Above: A one-off machine designed by Doug and built locally for placing soil on the aprons of plastic tunnel houses to secure them from extreme wind and weather. This task was previously done by hand with shovels. Below: Doug at the wheel of his trusty old truck that once roamed the roads of Northland but is now confined to on-farm duties.

an annual grass crop will be sown by Doug or else perennials as part of a rotation of his kumara-growing land.

Sometimes a cover crop of oats or mustard will be planted but not this year.

While mustard is valued for its fumigant properties it needs to be incorporated quickly into the soil in order for it to be effective.

Sheep will be bought in when the grass is ready to be grazed, usually about the end of May. “We need the sheep numbers because they’re doing a job for us,” he says.

“They’re nice and light on our new pasture. But they are getting harder to buy and some growers are looking to put more land into cover crops.”

The animals will stay on the farm until late July through to October depending on the weight they gain.

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Views of the combined kumara and sheep farm.

“I’m buying in lots of different lines and on the small-framed sheep you can only put so much weight on,” he says.

Buying in lambs His agent, based out of Kerikeri, further north, buys a lot of sheep from around Northland but will go as far afield as Stortford Lodge in Hastings. All breeds are bought in with some sheep coming from as far away as Rakaia to the Chatham Islands in the past.

“They’re expensive to buy in at an average of $135 a head this season but we’re on track to average $200 a head when they leave,” he says.

“I used to be happy with a $30 turnover with them over the winter but with the increased capital outlay now and shearing at a loss we need that extra margin.”

He doesn’t stock them intensively

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November 2022

and doesn’t put fertiliser on in autumn, reasoning “if the grass grows, it grows”.

Any grass surplus is made into silage, normally sold to local dairy farmers, but some this season has gone as far south as Te Awamutu.

When the lambs come on to the farm they’ll be put in a holding paddock for a day so they’ve had a good feed before drenching and spend another day there to be checked for parasites before going on to new pasture.

“Then they’re drenched only if required but some lines of lambs we get in need drenching regularly even though the pasture’s clean.”

Doug bought 400 in-lamb ewes this year, which mostly have had twins which will be weaned and fattened over summer.

The ewes will be shorn in November or December then sold on.

“I tell my agent to buy shorn lambs,” he says.

But his success, or lack of it, is shown by the 40 bales of wool he has stored in his two-stand shearing shed, the proceeds of the last two years’ shearing, waiting for the market to improve.

With yards holding up to 1000 sheep under cover he can get 400-450 - “a comfortable day’s work for the shearers” - in at a time.

“We do everything in stages because the sheep will have different lengths of wool,” he says.

“Once they’re shorn they’re hungry so I make sure there’s plenty of feed.”

Most of Doug’s lambs will go to local trade, being processed through Auckland Abattoirs with the last group sent off-farm killing out at an average of 22kg.

About 30-40 white-face cattle are run

71

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November 2022

only on the rougher paddocks. They’re bought in as weaners or yearlings and taken through to two-and-a-half years of age, also going to Wilson Hellaby. They’ll make a run for low grade kumara Doug feeds from a trailer. He’s careful to take out into one of non-cropping paddocks so any disease problems don’t get re-introduced back into the kumara-growing land.

Alligator weed can be a problem in the kumara crop so over summer paddocks are rested to try to reduce this problem by spraying.

“But it’s very resilient,” he says.

“Stock love to eat it but it’s toxic to young animals, stunting their growth and making them look like they have bad eczema.”

“We have good artesian water and also a main canal that runs through the middle of the farm that flows year-round.”

This year Doug has sacrificed about 20ha of the worst affected area to spray it out and re-sow pastures.

Kikuyu has been eradicated apart from on non-cropping areas and is mulched where this is possible when it becomes rank, in order to keep it palatable through summer.

Work continues on getting rid of small pockets of pampas and gorse.

All waterways have been fenced off so stock are excluded and he’s now starting to fence off some of the steeper and wetter sidling areas then planting them in natives.

“We have good artesian water and also a main canal that runs through the middle of the farm that flows year-round,” he says.

There’s a small 125-cumec-a-day water consent from the canal and plans are to build a dam to store that water in order to be able to increase the area irrigated when required. Up to 20ha is irrigated at present, with the water mainly going on the kumara crop.

“But we want to have options to help future-proof us against climate change.”

He’s careful to check he’s not polluting waterways by regularly taking water samples at the top and bottom of his property.

Occasionally maize for grain is planted

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Top: Sheep grazing, with the main kumara propagation hot house in the background. Above: Staff sorting kumara ready for dispatch. In the busy season Doug employs up to 20 locals.

with 20ha being grown this year. It goes back into a winter cover crop to be ploughed in before kumara planting in the spring.

“I prefer to grow maize for grain rather than silage so we can build up more organic matter in the soil which gets depleted from cropping,” he says.

Soil tests are carried out every year with a pH of 6.2 being the aim, a move up from

some paddocks sitting at about 4.3 when the farms were bought. Over the past years a lot of lime has been used to get the pH up but now only maintenance dressings are applied, with gypsum, put on after harvest in the autumn at 2 tonne/ha, used as a soil conditioner.

“Our heavier clay soils don’t leach nutrients too much and kumara have very small nitrogen requirements.”

73

CROP & FORAGE Management

New tool shows true cost A cost of production spreadsheet from Federated Farmers is helping growers calculate the true profitability of ryegrass and white clover crops. Victoria Rutherford reports.

A

‘cost of living crisis’ in the herbage seed industry has growers and merchants collaborating to ensure a viable future for the industry.

With fixed and production costs steadily rising over time, some growers have struggled to make a return as industry prices for seeds have remained static and yield gains have plateaued.

However, a cost of production spreadsheet from Federated Farmers offers growers a tool with which to analyse all relevant costs.

Unlike a gross margin, the spreadsheet includes fixed costs, helping growers calculate the true profitability of ryegrass and white clover crops in the current market. It also includes return on investment.

Federated Farmers Herbage Seed chairperson John McCaw has been involved with the tool’s development from the outset and hopes it will become the

industry benchmark.

"It’s all about the cost of production," Methven-based McCaw says.

While gross margins have their place, he says analysis is simplistic and useful only for considering one crop option against another.

“A gross margin is certainly a useful tool to understand production within your farming system, but that is not the equivalent of seeing your actual profit.”

Being able to allocate a share of all those ‘other’ costs like wages of management, rates, insurance, and administration (about $1300/hectare) to an otherwise simple gross-margin assessment was a lightbulb moment for McCaw. “You must consider your overheads: costs which must be supported by every productive hectare of your farm, and that’s what this spreadsheet does.

"I’ve been doing gross margins on our farm for 20 years, thinking I understood our cost of production. I wish I’d had this

The pasture landscape is

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tool earlier - I think we would be farming very differently now if we had."

Industry collaboration While the pricing issue was recognised across the industry, the key to gaining traction has been collaboration between seed merchants, growers and industry bodies, he says.

“No one has the answers, but we all agree we’ve quantified the problem. And that was something many of the firms had been attempting to do themselves but finding they didn’t have the information available.

“We were all working on good initiatives, but the concern was that unless we were coordinated, we would be using conflicting numbers.”

A working group of eight farmers got together to establish an ‘official’ gross margin for ryegrass and white clover seed production as a basis for industry discussions.

“We sat down and opened the books –

and that isn’t something that comes easily to an arable farmer,” McCaw says. “It was a very open dialogue.”

It soon became clear that rather than create an official gross margin, a calculator was needed so growers could generate their own net margin. The role of the working group then became defining the production costs.

The grower group included large- and small-scale operators, both irrigated and dryland, from different areas. Despite this, they found the figures were remarkably similar.

Averaging the costs, McCaw says they went through everything with a fine-tooth comb and put it into the spreadsheet.

“We tried to create something interactive which could be tailored to a particular farm and crop, so by the time the grower gets to the bottom of the page, they feel like they own it.”

Buy-in from merchants has been good.

Continues

››

Federated Farmers’ downloadable spreadsheet to help growers to analyse their costs.

CHANGING...

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75

“...If we don’t address the issue of low profitability, then we simply won’t have a herbage seed industry in New Zealand.”

Some firms have been using the spreadsheet internally to work out contract pricing for next year as well as in discussion with their parent companies, which in many cases are overseas.

The extent to which prices must increase to return growers to profit is of concern to both growers and merchants, he says.

“There has already been good positive discussion about movement in price, but to get where the spreadsheet says we need to go will be a journey – it won’t be achieved in one step.”

They need a price reset – not just an inflation adjustment.

“We’ve got to work together to get to an end point where things are back in balance. If we don’t address the issue of low profitability, then we simply won’t have a herbage seed industry in New Zealand.

“The question is how to achieve that

76

without pricing ourselves out of the international market.”

While the Federated Farmers spreadsheet includes lamb grazing income, McCaw concedes not all arable farmers are willing or able to trade lambs.

A recent Foundation for Arable Research gross margin analysis for ryegrass seed production showed a break-even result on seed production but a profit from associated lamb trading.

"Grazing lambs requires capital, labour, and infrastructure quite separate to that of seed production.

"Having ryegrass in the system facilitates lamb grazing but this should not be used to justify a lower seed price to growers."

it useful and, in many cases, enlightening.

The main challenge is educating those who are not attending meetings, field days or reading news publications, instead relying on word of mouth. At the other end of the spectrum are growers who may not look at it because they feel it doesn’t relate to them.

“Our hope is that the spreadsheet will become the blueprint, the gold standard; updated annually and broadened to include other crops. Rather than demanding a certain grower price for seed we want to ensure both sides have the information they need to make an informed decision and let the market operate,” McCaw says.

Getting the word out McCaw says feedback from growers who have used the spreadsheet tool have found

The spreadsheet is available at fedsnews.co.nz

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CROP & FORAGE Variable costs

Agreement promotes certainty

I

n the face of skyrocketing prices for fuel and fertiliser, farmer and rural contractor industry groups have an initiative to help safeguard their members.

Federated Farmers arable chairperson Colin Hurst says their new forage trading agreement gives growers, harvesters and buyers an agile contract that caters for price spikes, helping to ensure no-one is unfairly out of pocket.

The idea for the agreement was sparked when contractors in the Waikato took a big hit on contracts set up at harvest time.

“Last year the price of fuel went through the roof, and some rural contractors running expensive machinery with fixed costs basically lost money,” says Hurst.

“Normally the costs don’t move that much within the six months between planting and harvesting.”

Federated Farmers and Rural Contractors New Zealand contracted NZX to develop and regularly update fuel and fertiliser cost reference indices. As a result, growers and contractors can view the independent data, then take advantage of the agreement to select what variable costs they want to move, and at what rate.

The template provided with the agreement is a guide to assist with calculating the change in price.

“It doesn’t tell either party how to price, as everyone has their own cost model and pricing model,” says Hurst.

The new agreement and the template to assist with calculating the variable costs are available now. Members can access the data through both feds and Rural Contractors NZ websites.

Hurst says the agreement has been well received.

“The reaction from farmers, growers and contractors has been very positive and we’d be keen for any feedback to ensure suitability for all forage crops and also to cater for other key input costs.

They will look to refine the agreement for next year following feedback.

“We think this is a valuable tool for the sector, one that offers a bit more certainty in these uncertain times,” says Hurst.

...FOREVER. endophyte le ilab n Ava ively i 2 s A1 lu e xc u n N E n g Sho r a u tu m fo 023.

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77

ENVIRONMENT Trees

A series of gullies on Glenlake are ideally suited for planting poplar poles.

Planting brings multiple benefits Poplar poles and native plants are making their mark on a North Canterbury farm. By Sandra Taylor.

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F

our years after buying their North Canterbury sheep and beef farm, Jim Burrows and Kim Marshall have already made a significant mark on their landscape.

With an extensive and on-going poplar pole and native planting programme, they will not only generate income through the Emissions Trading Scheme, it will help with soil stabilisation, provide shade and shelter. It will attract native biodiversity and add aesthetic value to Glenlake, the couple’s 840-hectare rolling hill country farm near Waipara.

While the farm is well laid out with a central lane way, it lacked shade and shelter and had small areas vulnerable to slipping.

The farm also has a series of gullies which were only marginally productive.

“We’ve got a lot of gullies that grow grass, but

they have no shelter, they are not cultivable and not really effective, but we didn’t want to plant them in pines,” Jim says.

The couple initially looked at poplar planting through Environment Canterbury’s Soil Conservation and Revegetation (SCAR) project to help with soil stabilisation and it was one of their neighbours, who is knowledgeable about the ETS and incorporating trees into the farm business, who mentioned that planted correctly, poplars qualified for the ETS. These neighbours also encouraged Jim and Kim to join the Hurunui District Landcare Group (HDLG) which, for the cost of a $200 annual membership fee, has provided Jim and Kim with a “huge” amount of value. This is through the provision of expert advice from ETS consultant Phil

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poles, they had to cut the poles themselves, which was a much bigger job than they had anticipated.

It took six people two days to cut 1500 poles (to be shared with the neighbour), but this work resulted in a significant saving.

A forestry gang came in and planted the poplars last winter with five men taking two days to plant 850, 2.5 metre poles in their 1.7m-high protective sleeves.

These gangs can plant 1000 pines per person per day, but the pole planting was a slow process. With the poplar poles, a spike is driven into the ground to create a hole and the poles are then driven in with a driver, much like a hand-held post-driver.

Jim says in the future, they will try and source skilled poplar planters in the hope they will be quicker.

“We’ve got a lot of gullies that grow grass, but they have no shelter, they are not cultivatable and not really effective, but we didn’t want to plant them in pines.”

Jim Burrows: The primary focus of their planting programme is shade and shelter and the income generated through the ETS is just the icing on the top.

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Orme and help in securing funding from HDLG’s catchment planting programme (funded by the Government’s One Billion Trees initiative) to pay for and plant 3ha of natives.

Visiting the farm, Phil identified opportunities to plant poplars down the gullies and alongside creek beds and used a drone to map out and create an ETS-eligible planting plan. This ensured the spacings were correct and everything fitted together to create a 10.4ha block.

Jim stresses that the ETS wasn’t the primary driver for the planting.

“With the poplars we get the shade and the shelter and the ETS is just the icing on the top.”

The shade will be particularly welcome around lucerne stands which are used for finishing lambs over summer.

Last year, Jim and Kim tracked down reject poplar poles that would have otherwise been mulched by a local nursery. In sourcing these

Taking into account inevitable losses, the trees were planted at a slightly higher density than is required and despite being a very wet and therefore favourable summer for the trees, Jim estimates they lost 20% of what they planted.

The primary cause of these losses were sheep rubbing against the sleeves and breaking the trees off at ground level or damaging the roots beneath.

While the couple appreciate being able to graze sheep around the trees immediately after planting.

Jim says ideally, they would exclude all stock for two years, until they are well established.

Last spring, Jim release sprayed the trees to help conserve moisture in their typically summer dry climate, an exercise he will repeat this year.

The poplars have already been registered in the ETS as a permanent exotic forest and Jim says it was an easy process, thanks to Phil Orme who knew what was required and ensured all the information was entered correctly.

All up, Jim says the poplars have cost $2000/ha and at a carbon price of $80/tonne, they expect to have pay-back within three years. After that, it is straight profit which Jim says could help pay for another staff member or be used for farm development.

Jim and Kim have a similar area ear-marked for poplar pole planting this year with further scope

79

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Above: The family has planted a 5ha of marginal land in natives.

They received funding for 3ha.

for more planting in the coming years as they plant out their numerous gullies. Ultimately, they would like to have 40-50ha planted in poplars.

While it has become harder to source poles due to the increase in demand, they can buy poles for $13 each from Environment Canterbury with the protective sleeves costing $6.50 each.

In future, they will be able to cut poles off their established poplars which will be a considerable cost saving.

Native plantings One of the areas of the farm Jim is most proud of is the 5ha of natives they have planted over the past two winters.

A mix of a wide range of native plants from grasses to beech and podocarps, the first 2ha was a labour of love for the family who spent any free time planting the area out.

Jim says he developed a love of native bush while working on high and hill country farms and again it was their neighbour who showed what was possible to grow in their environment.

At a cost of $5000-15,000/ha, these are not cheap to establish and neither do they generate significant

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returns in the ETS, but they make use of 5ha of marginal country which was part of a 25ha block.

To be able to afford to do this planting, Jim says they developed the remaining 20ha which was growing browntop, by putting it through a two-year forage crop programme before sowing it in improved pasture. They have also subdivided it and installed a reticulated water system over the 20ha developed.

“By intensifying three-quarters of it, we could afford to do the planting.”

The final 3ha of natives was funded through HDLG’s catchment planting programme which was part of the Government’s one billion trees initiative.

The funding covered the costs of the plants, the planting and the fencing. Jim says they were really impressed with the contractors who came and planted the 3ha very quickly and efficiently. The first 2ha of natives planted last winter have established really well thanks to the wet summer, they have had two relief sprays and will get another this coming spring.

Jim’s parents, who have recently moved to the farm, have been an enormous help with these projects, not only with planting, but also with setting up a small nursery to propagate plants for future native plantings.

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c boun es WOOL'S COOL AND IT

A pair of mobile wool sheds are on a tour of New Zealand schools teaching students about the story of wool. Annabelle Latz reports.

Kohimarama School Year 5 students, making the most of getting close with wool.

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T

ennis balls used at Wimbledon are made with New Zealand wool felt. It has the best crimp factor in the world and gives balls the best bounce.

Kiwi students are learning such facts and the versatility of wool thanks to Wool in Schools.

Set up by the charitable trust Campaign for Wool, a global initiative spearheaded by patron King Charles III when he was Prince of Wales, the wool education programme saw its 25,000th student pass through its doors in August.

Two mobile wool sheds made from shipping containers travel NZ visiting mainly primary schools. Students take a 30-minute tour and see a wool boom full of knots used for sucking up oil spills in the ocean, wool insulation for houses and many other uses.

Vicki Linstrom has been project manager Wool in Schools since 2016 and says the programme is helping to close the rural-urban divide. Since the programme’s first woolshed visited Tawa Intermediate in 2015, the interest from schools has snowballed, and in 2018 a second container was set up in the South Island.

Funded by the Campaign for Wool NZ Trust and with key sponsor PGG Wrightson, this facility is free, and the logistics and tutors are all arranged.

Schools apply via the Wools in Schools website, although word of mouth is still the greatest marketing tool, alongside social media and printed articles.

“It’s a case of getting the students to think, ‘what else can we do with this?’”

Linstrom says Merino wool is the product most people know about, but word needs to spread about all the things strong wool can be used for.

“We’re not necessarily wanting more kids to think about being farmers when the wool shed visits their schools – we’re educating them about the diversity of the fibre and how it can be used in the future.”

The wool shed visited Kohimarama School in Auckland earlier this month. Year five teacher Kershnee Naicker says many students hadn’t realised the positive impact wool has on the

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Year 4 students at Havelock North School enjoying their time in the Wool Shed.

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environment, and the interaction in the wool shed provided a solid foundation for further questions, such as why wool products should replace plastic.

“Students found the various uses of wool surprising as well as the fact that it is fire resistant.

We spoke about how technology can be used to help farmers.”

The wool shed has visited some high schools too. Head of technology at Waitaki Girls’ High School in Oamaru Bronwyn Gillies says her Year 10 and Year 12 textile technology and environmental agriculture students enjoyed the hands-on experience, being able to touch the wool with its lanolin, and learning the different ways wool can be processed for knitting, weaving and felting.

“It was a wonderful opportunity to reiterate our passion for the potential of wool and its many attributes, allowing students a wider experience,” Gillies says.

Waitaki student Breanna Stewart says the wool shed was interesting and helped to reinforce their previous knowledge from wool studies.

“We were able to see the process of the different stages of the wool and learn about how it can be turned into many practical and useful products.”

Linstrom says going to rural schools is not preaching to the converted, as a lot of children have no idea what happens to the wool after sheep are shorn and leaves the farm.

“It’s education for everyone, whether they are from rural or urban backgrounds.

She says they can all think about why they should use wool rather than plastics. The wool story has been lost in a generation of using plastics and polar fleece, with people not knowing basic facts such as wool being a fire retardant.

“We have a long way to go with getting those wool prices up, but the interest from people has grown.”

The container wool sheds cost about $15,000 each to buy and fit-out and the programme may be expanded to take the educational programme deeper into secondary schools.

Chair of Campaign for Wool NZ Tom O’Sullivan says digitising the school course material will add extra value and enhance the experience.

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Wonderful wool coats Inspiration for a product originating on the family farm came from standing on the cold winter sidelines of a rugby match. The story behind The Clip is told in the latest episode of the From the Ground Up podcasts, Rebecca Greaves writes. tanding on the sideline watching her daughter play rugby in winter, Charlotte Bell thought she’d love to have a warm wool coat to wear. When she searched, she couldn’t find what she was after, so she decided to create her own.

Charlotte and her husband Hamish and their two girls Alexis (8) and Zoe (6) live on their sheep and beef farm at Cattle Creek in the Hakataramea Valley, South Canterbury.

Using Romney ewe lamb’s wool sourced from their farm, Charlotte started The Clip in 2019, creating stylish, functional and warm wool coats that will stand the test of time.

“The Clip was born from a cold winter’s day. Wool prices obviously have been terrible for a long time and we started brainstorming what we could do with it to try to increase revenue from the wool side of the business,” she says.

“Watching my wee girl play rugby, I was looking at the different coats people were wearing and thought, why not try to make a wool coat?”

Luckily, the wool they were producing on the farm turned out to be a good fit for making a wool coat. “Even though we have crossbreds, both my husband and father-inlaw still select their rams for their wool as well as other traits. We were producing good wool but not getting any money for it. It’s nice to be able to make use of this wool.”

The ewe wool was too strong, but the lamb’s wool was ideal. Handily, Charlotte’s father-in-law is also a classer and a passionate wool man, so he was able to lend his expertise for selecting the wool.

“He loves it. He has come over and classed the wool every time. I stand beside him and try to learn as much as I can. It’s been great having him on board.”

Charlotte’s beautiful coats are New Zealand made, using all natural materials, from the cotton lining to the ethically made cowhorn buttons. A coat from The Clip is an investment, fitting with the ethos of slow fashion – quality over quantity, buying less

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but making it last.

“I wanted it to be completely natural, and that was hard to find in the market; I thought there was a bit of a gap. With Covid we found we were getting more passionate about New Zealand-made and supporting local manufacturers.”

Lambs on the farm are shorn twice a year and the wool used in the coats is handselected, ensuring the perfect length and micron, making each piece a limited edition.

Charlotte admits she had no previous design experience but has always loved beautiful clothes. She set about creating something she wanted to wear.

Getting started involved plenty of Google and seeking advice from people in the industry. Andy May at Woolyarns provided good advice and recommended talking to Interweave, who weave the fabric.

A friend who had a background in fashion design helped with the patterns and sewing samples.

“She was amazing and put her hand up – she’s a busy farming mum in Southland. She had been on a factory visit to Albion [Clothing] in Christchurch and recommended I try there to get them made.”

Getting the wool scoured is one of the slowest parts of the process, Charlotte says. It is then spun and dyed into yarn before being woven into fabric, which is then made into the coats.

Plenty of trial and error and tweaking the design resulted in the luxurious, long, wool coat she now has on the market. The coats are available in one style with three different colour options, and Charlotte’s next step will be to create a men’s line.

Apart from her desire for a lovely wool coat, a big part of Charlotte’s why is to show her children that opportunities are there for those who are brave enough to take them.

“It’s my daughter that keeps me going. I found a note she had written the other day and it said, ‘when I grow up, I want to be just like my mum and make fashion designs’.”

FROM THE GROUND

To hear more about The Clip and how Charlotte set about designing, manufacturing and selling her wool coats, listen to the latest episode of Young Country’s From the Ground Up podcast.

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COMMUNITY Technology

Opening the Windows Kirstin Mills negotiates 30 years of Microsoft’s operating systems.

T

he first operating system I ran on a computer was Windows 3.1. It was the early 1990s and I taught myself to use it – there wasn’t that much to learn so it didn’t take long.

Then a few years later, Microsoft introduced Windows 95. The interface was completely different and in came the taskbar and start menu. It was a better operating system, of that there is no doubt, but it was different. Luckily, I was in my 20s with a young brain and I could figure out what had changed and how to operate the new system.

Over the years came the good (Windows XP) and the bad (Windows Vista), but the one constant has been change.

Now Windows 11 is here. You might have seen an upgrade notice appear on your computer and be wondering if you should take advantage of the free upgrade from Windows 10.

Windows 11 came out in October last year and there have been a few teething issues, but Microsoft has been working on those. An operating system change can affect your hardware and software if it is not compatible.

I remember in one upgrade (to Windows Vista) where various devices I had attached to my computer stopped working. The software for some hardware could be updated but my scanner was out of action for a couple of weeks until new scanner software was released. By now these sorts of issues should be ironed out.

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However, before you can upgrade, you will need to check the specs of your computer against the minimum system requirements for Windows 11 (see www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11specifications).

To check if your computer can handle the upgrade, go to Settings > Windows Update and see what it says on the right-hand column (or you can go to: https:// www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11 and click “Check for upgrade now” and it will take you to the same place). There has been a lot of talk about the minimum requirements – many PCs that are just a few years old will not make the grade.

While you can try installing Windows 11 on a computer that does not meet the requirements (it just requires a few more steps), Microsoft does not recommend it. The company says: “Your device might malfunction due to … compatibility or other issues.

Devices that do not meet these system requirements will no longer be guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates.”

In other words, you could render your computer incapable of getting security updates and that would make it vulnerable. Also, older computers can slow to a crawl if they run a Windows version they don’t have the grunt for.

Given Windows 11 isn’t a game changer when it comes to operating systems, you’re probably best to stick with Windows 10 if your computer does not meet the requirements. Eventually, you’ll need to get a new computer, but Windows 10 is supported by Microsoft until 2025 (meaning the company will still issue security updates for it until then).

Time to upgrade If you are running Windows 8 or earlier, support has long ceased, and it's time to upgrade to at least Windows 10 or invest in a new computer if it cannot handle a newer version.

The upshot is, it's worth looking at Windows 11 if your computer meets the requirements; if not, don't fret.

If you upgrade and then experience issues that make you regret your decision, you can roll back to Windows 10 (select Start > Settings > System > Recovery > Go back). You must do this within 10 days (after 10 days the files needed to perform the rollback are removed to free up disk space).

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November 2022

COMMUNITY Advice

Dear Aunty Thistledown, I’m in a little bit of a pickle. My dog, Porkchop, hunts pests (rabbits, possums, and feral geese) on our property.

I thought this was all environmentally friendly good fun for my hound. However, I’ve recently looked on Facebook and the local community group is incensed by sightings of a “slinky white dog attacking defenceless geese” on our road.

The people there are encouraging each other to ring SPCA and animal control about it. I suspect it was Porkchop that they are referring to, although I’ll be damned if I know what slinky means in regard to him.

Porkchop looks like he regularly eats a whole goose.

I haven’t broken any rules have I? Should I just tell them that it’s just me and Porkchop doing our bit for pest control?

Cheers, Harried Hound Hunter

Triple H, I heartily advise against any form of communication.

Should someone try to bring you into the conversation, then say something that sounds deep such as “there’s no such thing as a defenceless goose”. Nod wisely and then coolly walk into the sunset chewing slowly on a toothpick.

Social media is a pantomime and, if you have to, you want to play the role

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of a sage bystander who says one witty line and then exits like a cool dude.

Nobody is actually going to call the SPCA because they don’t really care.

People who care ring the SPCA instead of posting on Facebook.

Does the SPCA even care? Well, the SPCA is not thrilled about the use of dogs for hunting. They advise against the practice on the grounds that it presents some risk of injury to the dog.

They are also “opposed” to sticking pigs for similar reasons. They don’t love hunting when its sole purpose is for human entertainment. And they are “concerned” about the use of crossbows and lead ammunition. So, whatever you do about the pests, know that the SPCA is disappointed in you.

But, as long as you/Porkchop are not willfully or recklessly ill-treating the animals being hunted, then you are not breaking any laws. As someone who spent her childhood on ponyback watching Beagles shred hares, I have to imagine that the threshold for illtreatment is pretty high. Much higher than Porkchop dispatching a goose.

I looked into cases where the SPCA have successfully prosecuted hunters with dogs. The behaviour described was well beyond the pale for even the most hardened hunter. In one case, a person posted videos of themselves restraining wild goats while encouraging their dogs to rip chunks off them for more than five minutes at a time. One of the goats was dragged (by a human) via its already broken leg during the process. That’s some effed up stuff from a particular kind of person who doesn’t come along very often.

It seems unlikely that you and Porkchop are that kind.

Here are three things you could do to lift your game, should you be interested.

First, keep it discreet. Stay away from the roadside or other boundaries to avoid upsetting the urban folk who don’t have farmwork to distract them from the pains of modern life. They are looking for something, anything, to

froth about on social media. Let it be power cuts and lost mail, rather than you.

Secondly, quickly dispatch any pests Porkchop maims but doesn’t kill.

Carrying a hunting knife is a decent idea. Refer to the first piece of advice and don’t stab geese near twitching curtains.

Thirdly, the Department of Conservation (DOC) states it is fine to hunt on designated DOC land with dogs (with or without an accompanying firearm). I imagine that they are even more okay with you remaining on your own property for the hunting. They do, however, suggest a native bird aversion programme if your dog is likely to encounter species such as kiwi or whio.

That's all.

Love, Aunty Thistledown P.S. Animal control won’t care, Animal control never cares.

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

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SOLUTIONS

NZ beef differences highlighted PASTURE-RAISED BEEF IS THE cornerstone of the New Zealand meat industry. But do we really understand the benefits we get from the meat when it is raised this way?

New research from the Riddet Institute indicates there are differences in meat quality relating to health and digestion, depending on how the animal is raised. A research team led by Dr Lovedeep Kaur and Dr Mike Boland from Massey University’s Manawatu campus, has compared pastureraised New Zealand beef to grain-finished beef, and a plant-based alternative. They found differences in the fat content of the beef, potentially leading to better health outcomes.

The team examined how the human digestive system responds to the differing food compositions and how the nutritious proteins and lipids (fats) are released for the body to use. This was completed using lab-based or “in vitro” digestion simulators.

This experiment imitates how a human digests food in the stomach and beyond.

The researchers found the protein from both the pasture-raised and grainfinished cuts of beef digested in a similar way, whereas significant differences were observed for fat or lipid digestion. Digestion of meat from pasture-raised animals

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released greater levels of good fats, relative to the generally considered “bad” fats.

Meat digested from pasture-raised NZ beef, showed higher total amounts of free long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and lower amounts of free, long chain saturated fatty acids (SFAs), than meat from grain-finished cattle. The role of long chain SFAs in increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease and conversely that of omega-3 PUFAs in providing health benefits is well established in food science research1.

Dietary intake of long-chain omega-3 PUFAs has been recommended in dietary guidelines worldwide as these fatty acids have been reported to promote lowering

of total cholesterol and fats in the blood stream of people with high blood cholesterol. This suggests potential health benefits of consuming pasture-raised beef.

The plant-based alternative tested in this study had no long chain omega-3 PUFAs. As plant proteins are generally known to be less digestible than meat proteins, the plant-based meat substitute showed relatively lower protein digestibility.

Differences in processing and other non-protein ingredients could also be responsible for the observed differences in protein digestibility, she says.

She says scientists generally agree that higher rates of release of amino acids [protein building blocks] during the digestion of meat leads to beneficial effects in muscle, such as maintenance or gain in muscle mass. This is particularly important for the elderly in managing sarcopenia [muscle wasting] and for athletes who want to increase muscle mass, for example. What was interesting to see in our research was that whilst an animal’s protein composition is largely determined by its genetics, and the samples we tested contained highly digestible proteins, the composition of the fat in an animal, particularly the long-chain PUFAs, is largely affected by what it has been eating.

This research forms part of a larger programme underway examining the nutritional value of NZ pasture-raised beef, as compared with grain-finished beef and with a plant-based substitute. www.hsph.harvard.edu/ nutritionsource/what-should-youeat/fats-and-cholesterol/types-of-fat/ omega-3-fats/

Rural journalist Tim Fulton captures the majesty of the mighty Clarence River and many of its farming families and station life in his latest book, The Clarence: People and Places of Waiau Toa. It’s also country that breeds and nurtures incredible characters, like the musterers who keep coming to these stations for seasonal work until their legs, hips and backs can give no more. For these men and women, the grandeur and solitude of the back country is an addiction.

Country-Wide has copies available for sale on its online shop at www.nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop at $79.95 plus $10 for postage and handling.

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November 2022

Trans-Tasman award finalists

Versatile Massey Ferguson MF 5S Series combines impressive visibility with easy operation, comfort and control.

Versatile, user-friendly tractor THE MASSEY FERGUSON MF 5S Series includes five new models ranging from 105hp to 145hp and continue the striking new era design and enhanced operator experience introduced on the advanced, MF 8S Series.

With impressive visibility and four-metre turning radius, the narrow steep-nosed bonnet and practical features they are supreme loader tractors. Also, their greater payload and higher linkage capacity make them powerful performers in the field and on the road.

All models are equipped with fourcylinder engines, offering maximum powers from 105hp up to a new range topping 145hp model. There is a choice of two levels of specification – Essential and Efficient, plus a range of options including outstanding control from the latest stateof-the-art, easy to use Smart Farming technology.

“The versatile MF 5S Series builds on the high performance, comfort and

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November 2022

agility we’ve come to expect from Massey Ferguson’s iconic steep bonnet design.

This class leading tractor range has been appreciated in the New Zealand market for decades. The new MF 5S makes the best better. Exceptional visibility and special features make them the ultimate loader tractors,” says Raph Hymus, Marketing Product Manager Massey Ferguson HHP and Specialty Tractors ANZ. “True multi-purpose tractors, the MF 5S Series offers the right choice of power and specifications to suit all applications.

Building on the success of the MF 5700 S Series, these modern tractors deliver straightforward operation and enhanced features with low ownership costs. The MF 5S blends together the compact dimensions required by livestock and mixed farmers with the performance and power needed for arable work,” he adds.

More? Visit masseyferguson.com/ en_nz/product/tractors/mf-5s.html

THE ZANDA MCDONALD Award has announced their 2023 finalists, comprising six agricultural professionals from Australia and New Zealand.

Now in its ninth year, the award recognises future leaders working in agriculture, and provides an impressive prize package centred on tailored mentoring and education.

The New Zealand finalists are Harriet Bremner, 33, author and health, safety and wellbeing advocate for rural New Zealand, and farmer at Jericho Station, Southland; Jacques Reinhardt, 34, manager at Castlepoint Station, Wairarapa; and Monica Schwass, 31, future farming manager at The NZ Merino Company, based in Christchurch.

The Australian finalists are Charles Vaughan, 29, Queensland operations coordinator/group veterinarian for Australian Cattle Enterprises and director of Charles Vaughan Veterinary Services Pty Ltd; Mitch Highett, 33, founder and managing director of farm management company Bullseye Agriculture, from Orange, NSW; and Sarah Groat, 34, development officer for government Agtech programme “Farms of the Future”, for the Department of Primary Industries, who lives on the family farm near Rankin’s Springs, NSW. Each winner will get a personal development package, including a personalised mentoring trip in both countries, $10,000 worth of tailored education or training, media coaching, and other mentoring and industry opportunities.

Face-to-face interviews will take place towards the end of the year, and the winners will be announced at the Zanda McDonald Award Impact Summit in Brisbane in March 2023.

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FARMING IN FOCUS

Top left: Staff sorting kumara ready for dispatch on Doug Nilsson’s sheep and kumara farm in Northland. Top right: First of the season’s kumara emerging in the plant propagation greenhouse. Centre, left: Angus calf at Waitoka, near Taihape. Centre right: Two-year-old Oscar Thomas among the daffodils at Waitoka. Above: Andrew and Emma Thomas, with sons Freddie and Oscar at Waitoka.

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Top left: Yarding cattle at De Grey Station in Western Australia. Top right: Ellie Miller starting a horse (Photos supplied). Centre left: Pax Leetch with daughter Opal and Border Terrier, Sandy on Nguroa. Centre right: Wind-blown trees on Nguroa. Above left: Working dog on Totara Hills, Hawke’s Bay. Above right: Trading sheep are part of the mix for Hugh Abbiss and Sally Terry at Totara Hills.

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November 2022

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