Under the volcano

This Taranaki farm is wetter than most, and that means adapting the ‘rules’ of production to do what’s best for the livestock.

By Ross Nolly

Brad and Penny Jordan don’t always follow the manual, but with their Taranaki farm’s excellent figures they must be doing something right.

ATaranaki couple’s farming philosophy and their ability to farm profitably was put in the spotlight during a recent SMASH (Smaller Milk and Supply Herds) field day – but they do not believe they do anything special.

Brad and Penny Jordan milk 220 cows on an 80ha dairy farm nestled 7km from Mount Taranaki and Egmont National Park, which defines their farm’s climatic conditions.

SMASH had noticed that the Jordan’s farm profit per hectare was higher than the benchmark for similar sized farming operations, and that they’d held their farm working expenses to $4.36 per kg MS. The majority of that cost was stock feed.

Hosting the SMASH field day on the farm was a bit of a conundrum for them, with Penny saying, “We don’t do anything special, we’re pretty boring.”

But achieving excellent figures in a challenging environment, with upwardspiralling costs, is no mean feat, and certainly not boring.

“One of the first things our farm consultant said to us when we started out was to keep things simple. We’ve stuck to that the whole way through,” Brad says.

Not having to pay for labour is a big cost saving. Right from the start they knew they wanted to run the farm without any staff.

“It might sound boring, but we just try to keep everything simple. You don’t have to do everything that everyone tells you that you must do. There’s no point doing things just for the sake of it,” Penny says.

They have owned their farm for 10 years and their farming philosophies are to keep things simple, and to feed their cows well. Their mantra of “If you don’t need it, don’t buy it” has proven itself and helped them farm profitably.

Brad grew up in a farming family and after leaving school he spent 12 months at Taratahi in Masterton completing a National Certificate in Agribusiness Management. At the end of the course he stayed on to work over the Christmas holiday period until the staff and students returned in the New Year.

He then moved to Aokautere (Palmerston North) for 12 months for a

Farm Facts

• Farm owners: Brad and Penny Jordan.

• Location: Opunake, Taranaki.

• Farm size: 80ha and a 45ha runoff.

• Cows: 220 Friesian crossbred cows.

• Production: 2022-2023: 105,000kg milk solids and average 477kg MS per cow. Target MS production per hectare is 1,500kg.

• Farm working expenses: $4.36 per kg dairy assistant role on a 500-cow farm before shifting to Mokoia, south Taranaki, to work for a year on another 500-cow farm.

He then returned to his parent’s farm at Hawera, milking 150 cows. Two years later his parents bought the 140-cow farm across the road and milked the herds in each of the sheds for two years before amalgamating the farms, building

Continued page 10 a new 30-a-side herringbone cowshed, and milking 300 cows.

The farm has 4.5ha and 1.44ha QEII National Trust reserves and a 0.47ha fenced-off area of native forest. They set predator traps and usually catch 100 possums per year in the reserves, and stoats often along their riparian plantings. Brad clears the grass away from a predator box trap entrance.

When a neighbouring farm came up for sale they bought it and increased the herd number to 500.