13 minute read
Driving force behind water
Land Champions Driving force behind water quality group
The Pomahaka Water Care Group is proof landowners can and will lead changes to improve water quality. Neal Wallace speaks to Lloyd McCall who has been one of the driving forces behind the group seeking to improve water quality in the catchment of the Otago river.
LLOYD McCall’s lightbulb moment was initially marked by horror, but quickly changed to defiance and determination to fix it.
The West Otago dairy farm, of which McCall is an equity partner with his son and daughter in-law, fronts the Pomahaka River for about 5km, but two tributaries, the Heriot Burn and Crookston Burn, flow through the 320ha property.
It was 2013 and the Otago Regional Council was meeting with groups of farmers to discuss issues such as water quality, and they presented data to show the impact farms were having on waterways.
It was not good news for McCall.
“They had tested the tributaries where they meet the Pomahaka after it had flowed through our farm. It was not good. I just stared at the graph for a few minutes,” McCall said.
“That was my lightbulb moment and I told the group the only people who are going to fix this are farmers and landowners.”
His philosophy is that issues such as water quality have to be driven from the bottom up not the top down.
The water quality results for McCall’s farm came as an added shock because he has reduced use of synthetic fertilisers to strategic only applications, to focus on managing the soil biology and pasture health.
“My ethos and that of Adam and Georgie (son and daughter-inlaw), is to never advance myself ahead of land, man or cows,” he said.
“We’ll always have well-fed cows, staff that are well looked after and always strive to maintain the land and have a low environmental footprint.”
Soon after seeing the water data, McCall and five other farmers met and came up with a plan which, unbeknown to them at the time, would be the foundation of the Pomahaka Water Care Group.
Later, Janet Gregory, formerly of NZ Landcare Trust, would help with its establishment.
The foundation group committed to testing water at three spots on the main tributaries and waterways that run through their properties, to encourage farmers to learn about their waterways and to test discharges.
The aim is to encourage farmers to take ownership.
“Only farmers know those test results and where they come from, but it gives them ownership and they start to learn about their land and interaction with waterways,” he said.
Other commitments were to promote best farming practice, publicise their activity, promote land plans and charge an annual subscription of $250.
The financial commitment was important.
“It gives ownership,” he said.
“This is all about ground-up farmers who want to improve waterways rather than farmers who must meet a rule.”
Momentum built quickly with 80 attending a public meeting that launched the group.
More than that, McCall says there was a genuine desire to ensure future generations could enjoy the river as the current generation had.
“People were only told the river was dirty but they were still swimming in it. They couldn’t relate,” he said.
That difficulty in relating to declining water quality meant solutions had to be driven from the ground up and not by regulation.
“It’s not about rules or regulatory authorities, it’s about landowners wanting to care for the river so future generations can enjoy it as we have,” he said.
McCall, who had stepped back from daily management of the farm to focus on his accounting and management business, found himself leading the Pomahaka Water Care Group, a role he has been doing ever since.
The 80km long Pomahaka River starts in the Old Man Range above Roxburgh and covers a 2020 square kilometre catchment.
It is bordered by about 440 farm businesses of 100ha or more. Of those, 102 are dairy farmers, 180 sheep, 124 mixed sheep and beef and 35 others, including forestry.
Some holders own multiple farms.
In 2016 the water care group became an incorporated society and subsequently has the support of the Otago Regional Council, Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures, Ernslaw One and 170 landowning members.
McCall says the group is intentionally blunt and confronting when needed, publicly highlighting in community rural newspapers
Lloyd McCall Pomahaka Water Care Group
what is unacceptable farm management.
Equally, it promotes and explains desired farm management practices such as intensive winter grazing or applying effluent.
Signs on roads around the region promote the group, its activities and serve as a public reminder that farmers are improving water quality.
McCall says such is the group’s influence, he believes most West Otago farmers will meet most of the intensive winter grazing provisions of the Essential Freshwater Policy, excluding the resowing date, pugging and slope provisions.
If there are reports of farmers doing activities deemed environmentally unacceptable, a group known as the Best Practice Response Team will have a quiet word with the offender and offer advice.
He says the team was an idea they considered for some time before implementing, worried at how it will be received.
“We came up with the idea, then sat on it for a while and then
DOING THE WORK: Improving water quality. Lloyd McCall of the Pomahaka Water Care Group in Otago.
decided to implement it,” he said.
“We’ve had some massive gains from it and often find the farmer doesn’t know the issue raised was happening.”
The water care group is also involved in research and demonstrating to members steps or solutions that can be taken, such as building wetlands.
McCall says he had a second lightbulb moment with data showing the impact on water quality of a wetland they constructed.
Water leaving the wetland had up to 90% of E. coli killed and a 60% reduction in nitrogen compared to where the water entered.
It is work they are continuing and have just secured Jobs for Nature funding of $176,000 for the construction of an 11ha wetland on private land between Waipahi and Clydevale.
The funding will pay for fencing, the planting and maintaining of 21,000 plants and the construction of a boardwalk.
The group is also overseeing 100km of riparian planting in the Pomahaka catchment with funding from the Provincial Growth Fund and the One Billion Trees programme.
McCall says farmer efforts have successfully improved water quality, but just as importantly testing highlights areas requiring attention due to a lapse in management or a one off event.
Phosphate, nitrogen and E. coli levels are improving overall, but there is an issue with riverbank erosion because landowners are no longer able to manage the build-up of gravel which causes erosion and the release of nutrients.
Testing has also revealed that phosphate levels peak in some areas prior to Christmas, coinciding with sheep farmers applying fertiliser, but then a heavy rain event can wash that phosphate into waterways.
It also reveals some anomalies, such as the role ducks and waterfowl have in spreading E. coli in water and high nitrogen levels when leaving areas of native forest.
McCall says improving water quality in the catchment is a symptom of landowners being made aware of issues and then addressing them.
“You can’t buy water quality and you can’t regulate water quality,” he said.
“Water quality has to come from within the people.”
Minimum standards still have to be enforced to bring everyone up to acceptable levels, but McCall says when encouraged, human nature is to exceed those limits.
“If we go down a regulatory system, the regulation is as far as farmers go,” he said.
“If they do it for themselves, the community and the future, they’ll go way beyond those regulations.”
The West Otago community is also benefiting from the Pomahaka Water Care Group’s activities.
A community-run nursery has been established, which grows 15,000 plants a year for riparian plantings.
A portion of proceeds from plant sales are gifted back to the community and has so far raised $40,000 for a cover for the Tapanui Community Pool, with funds now being raised for the West Otago Health Trust.
Land Champions Proof of profitability in the north
Far North beef farmers Dennis and Rachelle O’Callaghan have spent 20 years refining the most profitable and sustainable management system for their land and have shared every step of the way with fellow farmers and rural professionals. They spoke to Hugh Stringleman.
ON THEIR 576ha effective Te Mataa Station at Taipa, most of which drains into the Parapara Stream and Doubtless Bay, Dennis and Rachelle O’Callaghan produce 500kg/ha/year carcass weight by rearing young Friesian bulls.
This is more than twice the provincial average for any form of beef production.
Almost the whole farm is covered with intensive beef systems (IBS), being TechnoGrazing and variations on cellular systems that carry 2400 yearlings in more than 100 groups.
Dennis and Rachelle have changed from traditional setstocking and up to 60% sheep stock units to trading cattle only on rotational grazing in small groups with two-day shifts.
They were three years as Meat and Wool Monitor Farmers in Northland, during which the IBS were introduced, and have hosted numerous field days in the decade since.
In 2016 they were the Supreme Award winners of the Ballance Northland Farm Environment Awards, along with winning awards for soil management, integrated water management and their livestock.
They have proven that IBS are better for a sensitive environment than set-stocking and that kikuyudominant pastures are productive when kept well-grazed and/or topped before winter.
Cattle in IBS give the required level of kikuyu control to keep it nutritious and to allow the integrated ryegrass and clover to
WRANGLER: Dennis O’Callaghan calls the horse paddocks his mental health stimulant. IMPRESSIVE: At 500kg/ha/year carcass weight, Dennis O’Callaghan’s Taipa-based farm produces more than twice the provincial average for any form of beef production.
Dennis O’Callaghan
grow back in autumn.
No feed supplements are made or brought in.
Bulls are procured at 100kg liveweight (LW) and are taken through their first winter to a 300kg LW target, when they are on-sold to finishers.
Dennis says the younger bulls are lighter on the soil structure of his wet country and are the most consistently profitable cattle class.
Drainage is classed as poor to very poor throughout the farm, and the laneways of the IBS run across the slopes along contour lines to slow down streamlets and help prevent tomos forming.
Hundreds of poplars have been planted in the wettest and potentially most erodible places and all permanent streams have riparian stock exclusion fencing and native plantings.
Fencing is all two-wire powered and the standard winter rotation length is 60 days, speeding up to 30 days at higher pasture growing times.
The mild Far North winters enable sufficient grass growth to keep putting weight on the R1yr bulls, whereas spring growth may not be sufficient to finish 2yr cattle or to fatten lambs.
A Mycoplasma bovis-enforced depopulation two years back gave the O’Callaghan family a good chance to re-evaluate all livestock classes before buying back in.
The cow herd and 2yr bulls were not as suitable or profitable as the younger bulls.
For the annual intake, Dennis prefers Friesian bull calves from South Island dairy farms that are bigger and stronger, but obviously carried the M bovis to the north. Many of the one-year-olds go to finishers in Waikato.
They are run in mobs of 20 to 30 head and half of the 120 mobs are shifted every day, a job that takes two family members or workers on specially-equipped ATVs about two hours each morning.
Every one of the hundreds of cells on the farm has a ground level micro water trough, fed from a reticulated four-site tank storage scheme with line breakage protection.
When asked if he foresaw any further improvements to the farm and its systems, Dennis says he always wanted to be challenged and learn from others.
“If we could put together fixed-price contracts between calf rearers and us, between us and the finishers, and between the finishers and meat companies – that would be the goal,” he said.
He would also like to see the M bovis control system treat nonbreeding cattle according to their years of birth.
For example, any 2018 bulls should be kept on a Notice of Direction (NOD) farm until scheduled slaughter, not killed ahead of time.
“By design our mobs are separate in the IBS and we don’t have breeding cattle, so we could keep any infected bulls for their planned stay,” he said.
More detailed water monitoring by the Northland Regional Council (NRC) might also establish that sedimentary and phosphate losses are being minimised by the type of farm management.
When the NRC formed the Doubtless Bay Catchment Plan for a sensitive district all committee members visited the O’Callaghans to see how intensive systems improved water quality, and not the other way round.
A drive to the commanding heights of the farmhouse, about 100m above the sparkling bay,
brings the visitor in contact with several curious quarter horses.
Dennis and Rachelle got involved at the Oruru Valley Rodeo Club about 10 years ago and he has served as vice-president and animal welfare officer while she has been secretary-treasurer.
The whole family participates in rodeo, travelling long distances to compete during the summer season, and has a full trophy cabinet and a wall of framed action photos and certificates.
Most recently Ryan, 21, was the NZ open champion and the rookie champion, in the same year, for team roping, a rare achievement.
After an agricultural science degree at Massey, he works on a farm at Matauri Bay in Northland.
Older daughter Gabriel, 23, is a chemical engineer at Golden Bay cement plant, Portland, near Whangarei.
While in her last year at college three years ago, younger sister Tegan, 20, went to the International Youth Rodeo in Oklahoma for barrel racing in an Australian Junior Rodeo Association team, the first New Zealander to attend.
She finished her second year in environmental planning at Massey and is working on the home farm during the break.
Barrel racing and cattle roping events are practised at home, but the most difficult job is to desensitise young horses to all the noise, activity and colour at rodeo events.
Cattle also must be taught before events – rules stipulate 100-150kg for calf roping and over 200kg for team roping.
The national rodeo circuit is 33 events and the O’Callaghans get to about 20 during the year, going as far as Southland.
“We are away for quite long periods, sleeping in the truck and taking four or more horses,” Dennis said.
“It’s really my only off-farm activity.”
Oruru club has been reinvigorated in recent times with barrel racing and fun events, plus riding lessons for all-comers, mainly young women. It now fields a group of competitors in the Christmas-New Year events at other clubs.
DEPARTEES: Yearling bulls about to be moved to a finishing farm.
ARRIVALS: Weaner bulls get their first taste of life in the North. NEVER-ENDING: Dennis O’Callaghan drenches weaners when they come on to Te Mataa Station.
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