Farmers Weekly NZ June 26 2023

Doctored milk a virus ghter

A call to action for agbusiness

happen. We must pay for the work to recover our food production capabilities.”

BUSINESS should be prepared to spend now or suffer later as farmers and growers grapple to restore crucial food-producing capacity in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle.

This was the urgent message from Toha co-founder Nathalie Whitaker, who told the E Tipu IFAMA 2023 World Conference in Christchurch that the industry cannot wait for the government to show it the way.

Toha is an independent technology infrastructure company that offers carbon credits outside of the Emissions Trading Scheme.

Following Gabrielle, Whitaker directed Toha’s expertise into the East Coast Exchange, a community-led organisation based in Gisborne that is keeping a public record of the work happening on the ground in Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay.

Whitaker said she had been hesitant to leave Gisborne to attend the conference but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a plea to industry leaders.

“On behalf of the East Coast I need to ask for your help,” she said. “We can’t build nature-based solutions unless we’re prepared to pay those on the ground to make it

It cannot be left to the government because the threeyear cycle gives food producers no certainty.

“We need to move faster than the politics. Wellington doesn’t set the pace and 2030 is coming very fast.”

The East Coast Exchange created a public record so people could get on with helping each other knowing the funds would flow later.

Despite hers being a team of technology professionals, Whitaker realised that after a weather event of this size it was Post-it notes and clipboards that were most helpful in the first days of the recovery.

“We’re not an emergency response charity, we’re a climate data co-op, but we did what we could.”

What the exchange did achieve was to protect the trust that is embedded in the coast community.

But as public interest waned it was important to keep up the momentum with funding and commitment from the wider food production industry.

“If you know of resources or funding that should get to cyclone-hit farmers, help us close the gap.”

Continued page 3

Ready to give it their all

New Zealand’s top young farmers are preparing to do battle in Timaru in the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final. Held over three days from July 6, the competition – now in its 55th year – will pit seven Grand Finalists against one another, the winner claiming the coveted FMG Young Farmer of the Year title. NEWS 29-36

Wallaby-proof fence takes

shape

Luke Longley of Cleavers Excavations rolls out wallaby-proof netting for a $1.4 million fencing project in South Canterbury. NEWS 17

Water is a focus as the top Innovation Awards from National Fieldays are handed out.

A sustainable farm loan offer could help farmers better gear up to meet climate change. NEWS 14

Steve Wyn-Harris looks back on some of the lives he has written about over the years.

OPINION 24

Bryan Gibson TECHNOLOGY Weather

EDITORIAL

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Neal Wallace | 03 474 9240

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ISSN 2463-6002 (Print)

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News

in brief No Mānuka appeal

THE Mānuka Charitable Trust will not appeal the Intellectual Property Office of NZ’s decision preventing the term “Mānuka honey” from being the sole property of New Zealand honey producers.

The ruling last month was prompted by Australian honey producers, who said the term is not the exclusive domain of NZ producers. The trust said it has decided not to appeal on technicalities but is considering its next steps.

Fertiliser prices drop

Fertiliser co-operatives Ballance AgriNutrients and Ravensdown have announced further reductions in the price of nitrogenbased fertiliser products.

Both companies have reduced urea by $100 a tonne. “We know you are facing cost challenges and margin squeezes in your business, and we are committed to doing all we can to help,” Ballance agri-nutrients general manager of sales Jason Minkhorst told farmers.

Dairy index unchanged

The Global Dairy Trade price index remained unchanged after the second fortnightly June auction, underpinned by whole milk powder prices that were unmoved.

Within the components of the GDT index, falls in skim milk powder and cheddar were balanced by a 5.5% increase for butter. SMP was down 2.3%, cheddar down 3.3% and anhydrous milk fat up 0.5%.

Freshwater reform

The government is for a third time seeking input into changes to Essential Freshwater reforms, this time to do with the slope maps used to determine stock exclusion.

The reforms were introduced in 2020 but last year the maps were revised to improve how low-slope land is identified. Further potential changes have been announced to exempt low-intensity farming and ensure the maps cover the slopes and farm types intended.

MOVE FAST: Recovering food production capacity cannot be left to the government, says Natalie Whitaker. ‘We need to move faster than the politics.’

Continued from page 1

Longer-term, Whitaker implored the industry to approach Scope 3 emissions in a just manner.

“If you have net-zero targets –we’re concerned that the cost will be pushed down to the Scope 3 players and they can’t afford it.

“The challenge must be turned into a massive opportunity for resilience and generosity.

“If you have a hard-to-solve emissions problem, we can put some of your future carbon credit budget to work now. It will be amazing to claim we can produce nature-positive food in the future, but that’s not the case now. Let’s prove the sceptics wrong and prove we can pay for what’s needed.”

Whitaker said the East Coast holds the key to how NZ can prosper.

“Gizzy is to NZ what NZ is to the rest of the world. Every primary industry sector is represented there. If the East Coast can’t nail a just transition then I’m unsure if there’s any hope for any other region.

“More events like Gabrielle are coming, which is why we need a monumental recovery for the East Coast now. Failure is not an option.”

No break from rain for farmers

Neal Wallace NEWS Weather

F

The region is still recovering from Cyclone Gabrielle in February, but the rain gods have not relented since, with regular falls saturating soil from East Cape to Hawke’s Bay.

Six months into the year, Toby Williams has already tipped 1200mm of rain out of the rain gauge on his Tairāwhiti farm, his average annual rainfall.

In the last week 260mm fell.

Such are ground conditions, farmers along the east coast cannot take tractors onto paddocks, stock are being setstocked early and cattle are being shifted to drier areas.

“It’s hard to do anything,” said Williams, a Federated Farmers board member.

“We can’t take tractors anywhere. We can’t do fencing and the digger contractor who is on the farm has had to leave because it’s too dangerous.”

Williams said mentally, farmers, their families and staff are all being dragged down by the constant wet weather.

“We know it will stop but we are also weary because once a really wet period stops, typically we get dry.”

This fear has been boosted by predictions that an El Niño weather pattern is forming.

Temperatures are still warm and, despite the wet weather, grass is still growing – but such are the saturated ground conditions, feed utilisation is poor.

The federation’s GisborneWairoa president, Hunaara Waerehu, said a major concern is surface flooding disrupting travel and damaging vulnerable roads and bridges.

He said water is once again pouring out of gullies, bringing

ANZCO Foods new online calf request system

This season ANZCO Foods is introducing a new online system for requesting calf pick-ups. The online system replaces all existing ways farmers have previously used to arrange calf pick-ups, so if you’re supplying calves to ANZCO you’ll need to use this system. You’ll be able to request pick-ups via the ANZCO Livestock App (available on Android and iOS) or via ANZCO’s Producer website: producerportal.anzcofoods.com

with it slash and causing surface flooding.

Farmers are moving stock from heavy, saturated flats to drier hill country.

ARMERS on the North Island’s east coast appear unable to buy a trick.Jim Galloway, the Feds’ Hawke’s Bay chair, said rainfall in the past year on his farm was 50% above average – and in the past week another 50mm fell.

Philip Duncan, a senior forecaster with WeatherWatch, said it was far from ideal that rain was expected over the weekend, but long range forecasts for the rest of winter and into spring indicate the North Island and upper South Island could trend drier than average. The lower South Island, however, could be wetter than average.

Between 80mm and 200mm was expected to have fallen on North Island’s east coast over the weekend, with the East Cape and Hawke’s Bay ranges hardest hit.

This follows persistent rainfall since late summer, including up to 50mm the previous weekend.

The north of the South Island has so far this winter tended wetter than usual, while the south of the South Island is experiencing normal rainfall but is warmer than usual for winter.

“What’s missing at the moment are the southerly weather patterns,” Duncan said.

He described current weather systems as chaotic but said an El Niño weather pattern is

forming, which tends to bring more westerly weather that tends to make it dry in the east of the country and wet in the west.

Duncan said this is not always the case, and of the last three El Niño systems to hit NZ, only one has created that pattern.

He said long-range forecasts indicate an El Niño is forming in Australia, which is starting to tend drier.

Given this and other trends in the weather systems that influence NZ, Duncan thinks a change is imminent.

“There could be long dry spells coming into the North Island but I still think we will see messy weather patterns across the country as we go into spring.”

NEW

ANY day now Dan Russell expects to have tipped 3m of rain out of his east coast rain gauge for the year to date.

Usually, Puketiti Station at Te Puia Springs inland from Tokomaru Bay records between 1700mm to 2000mm a year, but the rain since February, said Russell, has been “relentless”.

Cyclone Gabrielle inaugurated a period in which, Russell estimates, 50-100mm of rain has fallen each week.

As well as bringing sodden soils and damaged farm and

public infrastructure, the weather is testing people.

“Everyone’s morale is being worn down,” he said.

‘Morale is being worn down’

Neal Wallace NEWS Weather

LOOKING FOR A BREAK: Dan Russell’s Puketiti Station at Te Puia Springs is already scarred from Cyclone Gabrielle as shown here, but endured another 140mm on Wednesday night with more forecast.

Nappies offer new life to strong wool

consumer and industrial options.

things and solving problems.

NEW Zealand strong wool could provide ground-breaking solutions for massproduced consumer products that have a positive impact on the environment, rural communities and individual wellbeing, Woolchemy founding director Derelee Potroz-Smith says.

Fabric, clothes, carpets, bedding and upholstery come first to mind when thinking about fibre, but one of the newest uses is in hygiene, starting with nappies.

With NZ using a million disposable nappies a day and the world using 300,000 a minute, putting strong wool into nappies would solve NZ’s strong-wool problems, Potroz-Smith told the E Tipu IFAMA 2023 World Conference in Christchurch last week.

She said Woolchemy’s focus is on technical materials made from wool that care for people and the planet.

“There is 100,000t of wool here in NZ underutilised.

“I grew up on a farm producing all this wool with nowhere to go and the pain of no value. Then I had babies, I saw new opportunities.”

NeweZorb – a re-usable wool textile with increased natural absorbency – was born.

“Wool fibre in its unprocessed state can hold 30% of its own weight in moisture but through our patented organic chemistry, Woolchemy has developed a high performance textile that absorbs up to 1000% of its original weight while still feeling dry and comfortable and without the need for additives of synthetic chemical,” Potroz-Smith said. “We have massive global ambitions in developing high performance hygiene materials using the power of wool.

“I want to use up all the volume of strong wool in NZ. We are down to five sheep per person, we were once 12. This is a great opportunity to increase sheep numbers,” Potroz-Smith said.

Hemp and wool also play a part in innovating for a greener tomorrow, and NZ Natural Fibres (NZNF) aims to transform natural fibres to enable Earth-positive choices.

Combining the properties of wool and hemp fibres across the essentials of life is the focus, chief executive Guy Wills said in his message to E-Tipu IFAMA 2023.

“Where we live, work, play and wear, we are combining the properties of wool and hemp to combine the properties of two superior fibres.”

Products are made from renewable, NZ-grown hemp and wool, as well as blends of the two fibres, using proprietary technology to prototype, produce and market a wide range of

NZNF was founded in 2018 by two local businesses that shared the same vision for NZgrown fibres, which have many synergies in terms of sustainable provenance, ethics and environmental credentials.

Five years on the company continues to build its farmer and grower base while ramping up research and development activity to meet growing demand from domestic and offshore markets.

“We are very positive about the global future of NZ wool and hemp products,” Wills said. There is tremendous potential to increase awareness of the sustainability, versatility and quality of wool and hemp across a variety of value-add applications, he said.

“We have taken the total ecosystem, approved agronomy, design and production through to market.

“We need to work together globally on the technology curve. The fibre has tremendous ability to transform economies.”

Most of the hemp is currently grown in Canterbury, but plans are afoot to expand growing across the North Island.

“Hemp has been taken from niche to mainstream industry on price, performance and functionality.

“We need to move the dial. The automotive industry, the building industry, want more. We need to supply, we need to scale up volume,” Wills said.

Kiwi Fibre co-founders Ben Scales and William Murrell are using natural fibres to design solutions that help global industries make a change while having positive environmental, economic and social benefits.

The pair discovered the natural fibre composites industry in their undergraduate studies at university.

“We’ve always been fascinated by doing things better, improving

“We discovered the natural fibre composites industry in our undergraduate studies, and realised it was starting to emerge in the likes of Formula 1 and Aerospace – key areas of interest for us both,” Scales said.

“Around the same time, we learnt about the rich history of the NZ flax [harakeke] industry.

“We put these ideas together and now we’re revitalising one of Aotearoa’s oldest industries, with a modern twist for an emerging market.”

Kiwi Fibre developed a synthetic composite material akin to fibreglass, but plant based, solving technical and environmental

problems faced by every global industry.

Companies in industries such as manufacturing, construction and transport are not satisfied with the performance and sustainability of existing synthetic composite materials, Scales said.

“Our material has unique properties, which solves problems faced by existing synthetic materials, thereby improving companies’ products.”

“The life cycle analysis shows an 85% reduction in emissions so every farm in the country needs harakeke, growing on it as well as more sheep.

“It’s a watch this space,” Scales said.

Fonterra’s 4 boxes to tick on emissions

Bryan Gibson TECHNOLOGY Emissions

FONTERRA’s drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a response not only to New Zealand’s climate goals but to those of its global customers, Fonterra’s chief science and technology officer Jeremy Hill says. Hill told the E Tipu IFAMA 2023 World Conference in Christchurch that dairy farming’s methane emissions are a difficult problem to solve. Fonterra is investigating solutions that tick four boxes –good for the cow, good for the milk, good for the farmer and good for the planet.

They all had to be able to be used at scale.

A wide range of options have been considered –synthetic compounds like methane inhibitors, seaweed,

probiotics such as Kowbucha, improvements in effluent management, vaccines and breeding.

“If we can modify the development of the animal including the digestive system, we may be able to get lasting reductions in emissions. This would fit well with NZ’s farming systems,” he said. Post-emissions destruction is also being looked at.

Destroying methane doesn’t interfere with the biochemistry of the cow, which has its benefits, Hill said.

A combination of all these options will be required and “we’re about to massively step up our investment to try and get progress in all of these areas”.

The Centre for Climate Action joint venture has been set up to work towards these solutions.

“I’m optimistic that with the right partnerships and investments we can make significant progress,” Hill said.

Annette Scott TECHNOLOGY

Food and bre

PLANS: Derelee Potroz-Smith says Woolchemy’s focus is on technical materials made from wool that care for people and the planet.

Not a recession but a NZ reset, says Bagrie

Annette Scott MARKETS Economy

NEW Zealand has landed in an economic position offering opportunities to reset, rebuild and shape the future, according to financial economist Cameron Bagrie.

Speaking at a NZ Grain and Seed Trade Association forum in Christchurch, Bagrie told farmers and industry stakeholders the impact of inflation heading current economic factors is not a recession.

“This is a reset, not recession, it is flushing the pipes back to normal after five years of shit. We now need to check the economic reality both globally and domestically.

“The bottom line is there are a lot of opportunities to shape the future from here. We are reinventing NZ, we are rebuilding. We are not in recession; we are in a reset.”

Bagrie said the air of sugar candy is going and the air of substance is coming back.

“This journey is not going to be easy; the la-la land stuff is coming to an end. We are in the popcorn season and we need the popcorn to pop before we can see the benefits on the other side.

“The bottom line is now one plus one equals 11. Fast-paced change is here.”

The economy is set to go through an adjustment to get rid of inflation. Firms need to invest more in technology to improve productivity and adapt to change.

The bottom line is now one plus one equals 11. Fast-paced change is here.

Cameron Bagrie Economist

Tough economic and political decisions lie ahead.

“Think of the coming years as a reset with a huge wave of opportunity to forge ahead.”

Rising interest rates will mean taking real risk to make real money.

“The fun to running a business is

coming back. You get rewarded for your effort, not the markets.”

Lots of major trade-offs ahead make the path very uncertain, he said.

Numbers and fundamentals come back into play with opportunities to fix things such as banking and education, and leverage off NZ’s primary sector.

“When things break you go back to basics and the critical elements of doing things well. What do we have that is unique – our comparative advantage.

“Get the right people in place to execute a plan around that uniqueness and ruthlessly drive innovation and constant change.”

Priorities will include export markets, capital, skilled workers, innovative ideas and use of natural resources – all driving market forces and appetite for change.

“All taps get turned on that ruthlessly in the next five years in NZ,” he said.

The return of market discipline, which will morph into cost discipline and need for change, is coming back to financial markets and going to come back to communities.

“We would need to see the current account deficit narrow over the next 12-18 months and if it doesn’t there is going to be increased pressure on AA+ rating.

“We will navigate inflation but bigger issues are structural with indicators starting to flash.

“NZ and the world are very divided. How do we bring society together? We need to bring people along on the ride.”

Looking at the then and now, a once-globalised and connected world is now a fragmented world; low inflation and low volatility

REALITY: Cameron Bagrie says the air of sugar candy is going and the air of substance is coming back.

are now inflation and volatility; trending lower interest rates are now rising interest rates; the efficiency and just-in-time model is now a just-in-case model; and political leaders now populist leaders.

“When we go through tough times, we see who the people on the boards are that are the doers and in NZ and globally there will be a lot of passengers emerge.

“I can tell you, I would rather be a farmer in the next two years than an Auckland property developer,” Bagrie said.

‘Our turn’ as kiwifruit growers eye grim season

the strains experienced by other industries during the pandemic have been felt by kiwifruit.

“Now it is our turn,” he said.

“UNREWARDING and problematic”

are the terms NZ Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated CEO Colin Bond uses to describe the 2023 kiwifruit season, largely thanks to the low volume of fruit harvested this year.

Bond said the industry did relatively well during the covid-19 period because it was classed as an essential industry and allowed to operate. But in the past two years

He said problems for growers began with quality issues manifesting in late 2022, and bounced into 2023 – with poor pollination, wind flooding, hail and cyclones all working to reduce crop size. Original estimates of 160 million trays are now nearer 140 million and well back on last season’s 175 million.

At Mystery Creek Fieldays earlier this month, Zespri CEO Dan

Mathieson acknowledged growers had experienced two tough years but was optimistic this year would see better times, with estimates next year’s crop would at least equal the 2022 volumes. Meantime over half Green growers are likely to either only break even or even take a loss this year. Bond said growers are putting more pressure on Zespri to perform in markets to deliver the best possible returns from smaller crop volume.

“Despite Zespri reporting quality of our kiwifruit going to market

is high and the forecast returns looking good so far, NZKGI [NZ Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated ] will continue to track the quality closely over coming months.

“The industry has worked collaboratively to reduce quality issues and it is even more critical this work pays off in a low yield year,” he said.

This week Seeka, the industry’s largest post-harvest processor, announced the full year to December 2023 is likely to see the company experience a net loss before tax of $20-$25 million,

reflecting the lower fruit volumes.

The company packed 30 million trays of fruit, down from 42 million last year.

From one extreme to the other, next year is anticipated to be the largest harvest ever with a huge responsibility on the entire supply chain to perform to deliver.

“Planning is already underway across the industry. While we can’t control the weather, we must ensure we get our processes right to increase our chance of success and relieve growers from their financial burdens,” he said.

Richard Rennie MARKETS Horticulture

US beef market overload causing a drag on prices

Hugh Stringleman MARKETS

Beef

MEAT companies are passing back more of the export beef prices as United States imported prices weaken and the New Zealand dollar strengthens.

The procurement margin for manufacturing beef is at 66%, and meat company margins around $3/ kg, versus 62% and $3.70/kg this time last year.

The procurement margin is a measure of how much of the in-market 95CL beef value the NZ exporters pass back to beef farmers in their schedule prices.

AgriHQ market analysts forecast that the procurement percentage will rise to 69% in July and into the low 70s thereafter.

“The US beef market is going backwards and the immediate outlook is for their import prices to fall further,” AgriHQ senior

analyst Mel Croad said.

“For the first time in a while, the US has the upper hand in determining asking prices, with both NZ and Australia supplying ample manufacturing beef into this market.

“This has seen pricing weakness develop and it is expected to remain that way for the short term despite the US peak demand period.

“This weakness is now extending to China and other markets.”

Croad said that beef schedules have tracked sideways over the past three months and remain like their levels last year, despite the weakness in export markets.

As US in-market prices fall away, the procurement percentage for farmers should improve to 70%-plus, AgriHQ has forecast.

The US imported 95CL price has fallen from US285c/lb in April to 255c currently.

Beef farmers in the north are

contending with very high on-farm inflation for input costs and are looking to meat companies to help with their meat schedules.

Record profits declared by the companies in 2022 show that their procurement margins have been too high and should be reduced, farmers say.

“The companies made record profits last year and they shouldn’t be too hard on us,” Kawakawa bull beef producer Geff Cookson said.

“But I wouldn’t like to be running a meat company with all the labour shortages.

“Lack of killing space is a big issue and I am restricted to one load of bulls a week.”

A shareholder of Silver Fern Farms, Cookson watches both the NZ and Australian beef prices closely and agrees that both countries have overloaded the US market recently.

Leaders want out from under ETS threat

on measuring emissions and sequestration, and mitigation measures become available.

HOLDING PATTERN: Beef schedules have tracked sideways over the past three months and remain like their levels last year.

Campbell Parker to head up DairyNZ

dairy farmers,” Van der Poel said.

FARMING leaders are seeking the removal of the threat to include agriculture in the Emissions Trading Scheme should agreement not be reached on an alternative system for agricultural emissions.

If a new agreement is not achieved, agriculture is legislated to be included in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from January 1 2025, a threat DairyNZ chair Jim van der Poel said must be removed.

He accepts for that to happen progress needs to be made on an alternative model to reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, which he said the He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) partnership is pursuing in good faith.

Beef + Lamb NZ chair Kate Acland said it is fair and just that this is achieved before an emissions charge is imposed.

The organisation is committed to HWEN but, she said, the previous proposal was not fair or workable for the sheep and beef sector.

Acland believes technology and supply agreements with processors will incentivise farmers to reduce their emissions.

“Technology will come and markets will incentivise change and to me that’s what good looks like.”

Given there is little technology currently available to lower emissions, Acland said research and development must be funded.

WAIKATO-based executive Campbell Parker has been appointed chief executive of DairyNZ.

Parker brings a wealth of experience to the role and said he is excited to be stepping into DairyNZ at such a pivotal time for the dairy sector.

He replaces Dr Tim Mackle, who leaves at the end of June after 15 years in the role.

DairyNZ chair Jim van der Poel welcomed the expertise Parker brings to the company, including extensive experience in the rural and corporate sectors.

Parker, who starts in October, has been chief executive of GEA Farm Technologies NZ since 2020.

“Recruiting a new chief executive who is passionate about dairy farming and its future has been hugely important to us – alongside leadership skills to continue DairyNZ’s positive direction, as an organisation here first and foremost to represent our

“Campbell brings significant leadership and sector experience that will be invaluable to both DairyNZ’s senior team and in supporting and representing our farmer levy payers, in a wide range of forums.

“Campbell is passionate about agriculture and, in particular, supporting New Zealand dairy to continue as a world-leading sector.”

With over 25 years’ experience in agriculture, Parker has held roles with PGG Wrightson, Bank of New Zealand and Ballance AgriNutrients. He holds a Bachelor of Agriculture majoring in Rural Valuation from Massey University and grew up on a sheep, beef and dairy grazing farm.

Parker said he is excited by the opportunity to contribute to dairy farming in a new and challenging role.

“I am genuinely humbled and excited to be joining DairyNZ as the next chief executive. I am passionate about the role the dairy sector plays in creating jobs, building communities, and

contributing to the success of the New Zealand economy,” he said.

“It is important to build on the good work Tim and the team have done over the past decade, and to keep that moving –working collaboratively to ensure long-term sustainability and profitability of the sector.”

An acting chief executive, Peter Scott, will be in place until Parker joins DairyNZ in October.

“It is still our objective to come up with something that we and the government agree is fair and better than agriculture going into the ETS.”

He said any agreement needs to be supported by the primary sector – and must be enduring, not subject to constant political tinkering.

“We know for it to work, it has to work for everybody as a sector.

“We cannot accept something that works for one and not the others.”

After six months of little or no progress due to a change in prime minister and distractions such as Cyclone Gabrielle, Van der Poel said, the government is keen to engage.

He doubts much will happen before October’s election.

HWEN partners and six government ministers met at National Fieldays and agreed to terms to resurrect the faltering agreement.

In addition to removing the threat of inclusion in the ETS, they want a delay in setting a price until there is agreement

Farmer opinion is still divided but Acland is confident a model that differs to that initially proposed will find broader support.

“There is no doubt the direction the world is heading and we have to get on board and head that way, which is why we support measuring and reporting.

“Once farmers start measuring something, they can start managing it.”

Todd McClay, the National Party’s agriculture spokesperson, said if the government is genuine in renegotiating HWEN, it should remove the threat of the sector being placed in the ETS.

He said meetings with farmers he has hosted recently show a high level of distrust in the sincerity of the government.

Many think the widely rejected initial HWEN proposal has been parked until after the election.

“They [the government] are desperate to say to the urban population that the HWEN process is still alive but the only way they can demonstrate to NZ farmers that they don’t want to drive them out of business is to, before the election, take out of legislation that they will be put in the ETS.”

Neal Wallace NEWS Emissions

UNFAIR: Beef + Lamb NZ chair Kate Acland said the organisation is committed to HWEN but the previous proposal was not fair or workable for the sheep and beef sector.

Staff reporter PEOPLE Dairy

IN CHARGE: Campbell Parker says he is passionate about the role the dairy sector plays in creating jobs, building communities, and contributing to the success of the New Zealand economy.

Farmer Time logs its first 1000 schoolkids

Annette Scott NEWS Education

FARMER Time, an education programme

set up by Beef + Lamb

New Zealand to connect food and fibre producers virtually with NZ primary and intermediate school students, has reached more than 1000 students in its first year.

The educational programme aims to engage, inspire and educate young people about the journey of food from farm to fork in the primary industries.

Types of farming involved in Farmer Time include sheep, beef and dairy; fruit, vegetable and grain; goat, deer and pig; and agricultural contracting.

More than 1000 students participated in the initiative during 2022 with the programme receiving an enormous amount of positive feedback from participants, Farmer Time national co-ordinator Marie Burke said.

“It’s been amazing to be a part of this programme from the inception and see it grow so much.

“Our hard work to match teachers with farmers and growers has paid off and we can’t wait to see where it can go from here.”

Starting with a small pilot group of eight farmer-teacher pairs in term one of 2022, Farmer Time

expanded quickly to reach more than 40 pairings by the end of the year.

Feedback received from participants has been overwhelmingly positive.

Survey results indicate that 100% of classes thoroughly enjoyed the Farmer Time sessions.

Teachers agreed the programme contributes significantly to developing students’ awareness of the work carried out by food and fibre producers as well as shedding light on the numerous career

Marie Burke Farmer Time

opportunities available in the primary industries.

Notable statistics from the survey include 100% of teachers rating the programme as highly valuable for their class, with all respondents indicating their willingness to recommend Farmer Time to other teachers, with 91% of teachers reporting successfully connecting the ideas and discussions from Farmer Time sessions with further in-class learning.

Almost all farmers, 90%, expressed their intention to continue participating in Farmer Time with the remaining indicating they would be interested in returning to it in the future.

All the eight NZ curriculum learning areas were covered.

A Year two and three teacher from Northland School in Wellington, Emma McElrea, said Farmer Time is an incredible tool to help bring real-world examples to the NZ curriculum learning

areas in a unique way, “being able to literally bring them to life”.

“Our farmer, Mairi Whittle, has been incredible to work with. We’re learning so much and our whole class has formed a real bond with Mairi and her boys.”

Whittle, a sheep and beef farmer from Taihape, speaks very highly of her Farmer Time experience,

“It’s been an honour to be a part of Farmer Time in conjunction with Emma.

“I feel like I’m forming a real

connection with the students who didn’t initially know much about farming but are interested to learn more.

“My family and I take for granted what we know about farming, so it’s heartening to share parts of farming life with students who might not otherwise get this chance.

“We look forward to seeing their excited little faces and love the questions they think of,” Whittle said.

BRIGHT FUTURE: Farmer Time national co-ordinator Marie Burke, pictured with husband Rob, says she is excited to see where the programme goes from here.

LEARNING: Emma McElrea says Farmer Time is an incredible tool to help bring real-world examples to the NZ curriculum.

Our hard work to match teachers with farmers and growers has paid off.

‘ETS reforms could scare off investors’

Richard Rennie MARKETS Carbon

WHILE the latest Emissions Trading Scheme reforms may be well intentioned, forestry and carbon experts are concerned the methods proposed to force emission reductions may complicate and cloud the carbon market.

The reforms have been proposed to meet government concerns that New Zealand is not reducing emissions fast enough, with carbon offsetting being chosen over actual reductions by emitters, prompting an overemphasis on forestry offsetting.

The prospect of falling short on Paris Accord carbon reductions costing $23 billion has also spooked officials into revisiting how the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) scheme operates, and could better incentivise reductions in gross emissions.

The reform proposals come amid record levels of ETS forest registrations.

A spike in land submitted for ETS forestry peaked last year at 200,000ha, with the Ministry for Primary Industries estimating that, by January 1 this year, 500,000ha of land had been entered under the ETS.

It had taken 10 years to reach 300,000ha by January 2022.

But Lizzie Chambers, director of Beyond Carbon traders, said the government risks muddling control over land use with the ETS’s overall role, overcomplicating the market, and scaring potential investors away.

“A lot of the increase came from people realising they needed to get in and make a claim for NZUs, to put their hand up for five years of carbon credits.

“That sudden rush on forests already there may have contributed to the Climate Change Commission’s [CCC] concern over

pine tree planting. There was also 60,000ha of new forest included in the 200,000ha, but back then money was cheap and carbon prices were higher too.”

One the four proposals put forward to get closer parity between offsetting with ETS credits and actual emissions reduction is to restrict the type of NZUs emitters can use.

The government could restrict how many forestry-generated NZUs emitters can pay for their carbon emissions with. Another proposal is to create two ETS markets, one for emission reduction and one for removal.

Big emitters could not use forestry NZUs to offset, and NZUs would be sold to the government, or on a separate market.

Price matters. And yes, at the higher price more people may have moved into forestry. But you could deal with that by putting in constraints on land use through councils and consent processes, as has just been proposed.

Lizzie Chambers Beyond Carbon director

But Chambers said the complications of such proposals include creating an “A” and a “B” status in units, with forestry units likely to take a tumble in value if they can’t be bought by big emitters, further disincentivising tree planting, the only tool at hand so far for much of NZ’s total reduction efforts.

Instead, she favours a version of the other two proposals, which include tightening up the supply of NZUs to push the price up, something government was told to do by the CCC last year, and dropped.

The other option is to allow the government and overseas

buyers to buy NZUs from removal activities such as carbonabsorbing trees, raising the price to incentivise reductions and removals.

The government would also have to determine whether money was better spent to buy the NZUs, or provide direct funding to emitters, as in the NZ Steel case.

“If they [the government] is so concerned on price they could step back from auctioning so much into the market.” She said last year, when carbon prices were touching $88 a unit, signals were already flowing to emitters who were looking at even higher prices in a year’s time, and considering their gross reduction alternatives.

“Price matters. And yes, at the higher price more people may have moved into forestry.

“But you could deal to that by putting in constraints on land use through councils and consent processes, as has just been proposed. This is the place to deal to that issue, not the ETS scheme itself.”

Forest Owners Association president Grant Dodson said the CCC is taking a zealot’s view on emissions, focusing on gross emission reductions at a time when NZ is desperately short of technology capable of achieving genuine gross reductions.

“Much of the technology is at least 10 years away. CCC has said ‘We are worried about too much forestry.’ Forestry is the only thing that is working, and it is already being chopped.”

He said the uncertainty on ETS direction is prompting potential investors to pull back once this year’s plantings are complete.

“And we will have about $25bn of carbon liabilities that will be owed [under the Paris Accord] that won’t be able to be found elsewhere.”

He agreed with Chambers that having two differing units would only complicate the market.

“And just as a dollar is a dollar, a

unit should be a unit. The climate is indifferent where it has come from.”

Euan Mason, professor of forestry at the University of Canterbury, said he could understand the government wanting to reduce gross emissions.

“But when more than half the

emissions [from agriculture] are not covered, what can they expect?”

Having different units for different uses reflects woolly headed thinking and risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater by cutting off forestry, he said.

Catchment groups score $6m in govt funding

ALMOST $6 million will be invested in catchment groups to help farmers and growers restore the health of waterways, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced.

The money will go to seven catchment projects, in the Northland, North Waikato, Whanganui, Hawke’s Bay, Tasman and Canterbury areas.

“By providing financial support to catchment groups, the government is delivering on our commitment to restore the health of our waterways within a generation,” O’Connor said.

“Farmers, growers and their communities are coming together and taking the lead to restore waterways and improve the environment in catchments across New Zealand.“

O’Connor said restoring clean water is an essential part of the sector lifting its sustainability credentials to meet the demands of overseas consumers, which is a key part of the government’s plan to boost exports.

The funding is for three years and is from the Essential Freshwater Fund, part of the government’s Jobs for Nature programme.

The allocations are: $970,000 –Tukituki Land Care Incorporated (Hawke’s Bay); $960,000 –Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust (Canterbury); $950,000 –Whanganui Region Catchment Collective; $920,000 – Between the Two Rivers Community Catch-ment Collective (Hawke’s Bay); $870,000 – Motueka Catchment Collective (Tasman); $673,800 – Mangatangi and Maramarua Catchment Group (North Waikato); $596,653 – Piroa Conservation Trust (Northland).

COMPLICATED: Lizzie Chambers, director of Beyond Carbon, says the government is better o pulling price levers through NZ unit supply, rather than creating alternative credit types.

Staff reporter NEWS Water

Human-robot hybrid ‘revolutionises’ milking

Gerald Piddock TECHNOLOGY Fieldays

WAIKATO Milking Systems have created a new partially automated milking system that significantly changes how cups are managed and presented in the milking shed.

Called the ErgoPOD, it provides robotic-assisted milking while retaining a human presence in the shed.

Waikato Milking Systems project specialist Tom Morris described the ErgoPOD as sitting in the “grey zone” between a fully robotic system and the more traditional hands-on system commonly used in sheds on farms.

“Our main goal is to provide the best bail-to-human interface that we can.”

Unveiled at Fieldays, the invention was recognised at the Fieldays’ Innovation Awards with the Prototype Award.

Fieldays Innovation Award judges said the ErgoPOD “revolutionises” the way cups are presented and managed in the milking shed.

Waikato Milking Systems executive chair Jamie Mikkelson said when accepting the award that the company has worked on the product for four years.

“We had this crazy idea that if we were going to be the most admired company globally for milking efficiency, if a single operator could milk a thousand cows in an hour, that would be a game-changer.”

All of the equipment needed for milking is located in a pod that sits on the floor of the bail.

When a cow enters the bail for milking, four cups automatically emerge from the pod attached to a holster at which point the farmer removes the cups and attaches them to the teats on the udder.

Pulsation starts as soon as the farmer grabs the cup. When miking is complete, the farmer removes

the cups and attaches them back on the holster. The holster closes, and the cups are irradiated with UV light in preparation for the next cow, and are automatically washed at the end of milking.

“It gives us a lot more freedom around the different types of udders, the different teat spacings because you are not tied to the [milking] claw,” Morris said.

It is also synced into the farm’s RFID system, so if the cow is not to be milked for health reasons, the cups will not emerge.

It removes the need for automatic cup removers and a bail-mounted jetter and has a different control interface. While it was originally designed for large herd farms, Morris said they also wanted to keep it relevant to New Zealand and have created it with ergonomic benefits in mind with the added value benefit of collecting shed data.

The system is being tested on a trial farm with the cows having been re-trained to get used to the

new system. It is currently set up for a rotary system only.

Morris said they were handicapped by having to install the system in the middle of the milking season. To ease the herd into the system, they created 54 mocked-up plastic ErgoPODs that were used as training aids.

Morris said cow flow in the shed was moderately to severely affected for about two weeks

while the cows adjusted, before returning to normal.

He said the project has attracted notice from overseas dairy producers, including Saudi Arabia and Ireland. “We’ve had very good interest.”

Morris said Waikato Milking Systems plans further trial work on farms with ErgoPOD and hope to start commercial production in 18 months.

‘Wetland in a box’ cleans up at awards

Gerald Piddock TECHNOLOGY Fieldays

AFILTRATION system designed to remove freshwater contaminants may become another tool farmers and communities can use to improve water quality in New Zealand’s rivers and lakes.

Created by eClean Biotech, the system uses a bioreactor housed within a large structure similar to a container to filter out contaminants, specifically nitrates, E coli and heavy metals from farm drains, rivers streams, bores and dams.

The bioreactor and its housing can also be custom designed to suit the requirements of a particular waterway, eClean

Biotech creator Ngārie Scartozzi said.

“It’s like a wetland in a box.”

The invention was recognised at this year’s Fieldays, winning the Early Stage Award at the Innovation Awards.

Scartozzi said eClean Biotech’s potential as an environmental tool is exciting.

“We believe this could be another good tool that the dairy industry could use.”

Scartozzi spent three years researching and developing the technology in the laboratory and it took just under a year to commercialise it.

It was created in partnership with Hugo Plastics, which developed the tank design and housing for the bioreactor.

It has two systems that have been trialled in operation in

Christchurch for the past 18 months, with support and funding from the Christchurch City Council.

Two more systems are also to be installed, in Hinds in MidCanterbury, on farmland that uses the Managed Aquifer Recharge irrigation system for further trials.

It is a fast-acting treatment. Water is pumped into the system and travels through a series of baffles and is aerated. Microbes within a bioreactor eat the contaminants and the clean water is returned to the waterway.

“Basically, the technology removes up to 80% of nitrates, 50% E coli and 50% heavy metals first pass,” Scartozzi said.

“At the moment we can do on a single system 2L a second. We’re going up to 17-20L a second, which is like a million litres a day.”

A residue sludge is left over, containing high levels of nutrients that can be used as fertiliser.

The entire process takes around 45 minutes, she said.

“It’s got a really small footprint and we control everything inside the system.”

Intellectual property reasons prevent Scartozzi from revealing more about the microbes used in the process. She said they use a range of microbes, which are combined and customised depending on the contaminant profile of the waterway.

It is not designed to act as a filter for wastewater from an effluent pond but as a filtration system once contaminants have entered waterways, she said.

Scartozzi sees it being used in settings where there is a community or a group of irrigators

that want to improve the district’s water quality, or if a farmer has a series of drains or waterways on their farm and wishes to remove nitrates from the water.

“We can quantify how much nitrates they are removing per day, per kilogram and per tonne per year.”

The technology also has potential in aquaculture, where it could also be used for land-based fish farming to maintain water quality.

On a farm, the ideal place to put the system would be downstream close to where a waterway connects to a tributary so it can capture as much of the contaminants as possible.

In a large water body, such as a lake, a series of systems could be placed on its parameter to help reduce contamination.

TO MARKET: Waikato Milking Systems project specialist Tom Morris says the company hopes to start commercial production of the ErgoPOD in 18 months.

Checking the eDNA of your waterway

Each species identified is given a health value and the average is then taken.

ADNA testing service designed to measure and map fauna in freshwater was recognised at Fieldays, winning the Growth and Scale Award at the event’s Innovation Awards.

Using a water sample collected by the farmer in testing kits, Wilderlab can determine fish and insect species, fungi, plants, mammals and bacteria using eDNA technology.

The Wellington-based business was established in 2019 by scientist Shaun Wilkinson and has since grown to a team of 20.

The technology used by Wilderlab has been around for years, but had been mainly confined to the research lab, he said.

“What our main value add was that we took it out of the research lab and into the world. We made it really accessible.”

Wilkinson said there is a huge effort to clean up waterways and understand their ecological health, and this is the only technology available to fill that gap at scale.

Chemical testing of waterways is well established, but DNA testing less so.

“What has been missing was that biological side.”

Wilkinson said landowners can use the testing kits to discover if they have threatened species on the property that may need protecting as well as invasive species such as the freshwater Gold Clam, recently discovered in the Waikato River.

“Where I do think it has a lot of value for the ag sector is stream health,” he said.

Water samples are collected and pushed through a filter within the sample holder several times. A preserver is then added to preserve the DNA within.

The sample is mailed back and analysed, identifying what species are found and their abundance, and a report is sent to the customer.

A farmer who has a waterway

DISCOVER OUR FENCING RANGE, IT’S THE REEL DEAL

running through their farm would typically take samples at each end of the river and use the data to determine the impact the farm is having on the waterway.

Wilderlab has also developed a TICI (Taxon Independent Community Index) – an ecological score that takes all of the species data and condenses it into a number.

“This number tells you what condition your stream is in,” he said.

The sample score on show at Fieldays measured 91 out of 200 – an average score for a lowland pastoral stream in New Zealand.

“The theoretical maximum is 200 but the actual maximum we would ever get is 140,” he said.

In contrast, a sample taken from the Ruahine Ranges would have a much higher score due to it being in an area less disturbed by development.

Having that number can also act as a goal setter for improving stream health, he said.

Wilderlab’s testing results have also become part of the NZ Farm Assurance Programme Plus, with farms needing an eDNA sample to receive a gold rating. It has massively boosted the service as farmers send in yearly water samples to be eligible for the accreditation.

Wilkinson said local government has also shown a keen interest in using the service after the changes to the NPS in freshwater in 2020 meant councils had to find new tools to meet the statement’s reporting requirements.

“We do tens of thousands of samples per year for them.”

Gerald Piddock TECHNOLOGY Fieldays

WINNERS: Wilderlab founder Shaun Wilkinson (right) and lab manager Cari Bendersky at the company’s site at Fieldays.

Foresters give council powers thumbs-down

Richard Rennie NEWS Forestry

FOREST owners and local communities are at odds over government moves to give councils more say over where forests may be planted. Alongside concerns that the Emissions Trading Scheme is promoting over-planting of pines rather than emissions reductions, the government has also felt community heat from forest slash impact during weather events in Tairāwhiti and Te Matau-a Māui Hawke’s Bay.

Forestry Minister Peeni Henare announced last week that the government will empower local councils by amending the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry.

For Wairoa District Council mayor Craig Little the move has not come a moment too soon, and he maintains it is only through council pressure the changes have become a reality.

“We have been told before that we have all the powers possible, but when you read the national environmental standard, it overrides everything that we can do.”

He said councils have been seething ever since the standard was introduced in 2017.

“There have been 17 councils on board, and it is thanks to work

by Lawrence Yule that we have managed to get a lot done on it. We at Wairoa were a bit of a lone soldier on this for so long.”

Little said his council is not anti-forestry but has become increasingly alarmed at the amount of farmed area converted to trees over the past decade, with estimates that about 20,000ha has been converted to forestry in that time.

In announcing the changes, Minister of Rural Communities Kieran McAnulty said the

government had heard the concerns of rural communities, particularly in Tairāwhiti and Wairoa.

“We are empowering local councils to decide which land can be used for plantation and carbon forests through the resource consent process,” Henare said.

“Amendments to the National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry will see the environmental effects of permanent pine forests being managed the same way as plantation forests.

“This means many standards, such as ensuring firebreaks and rules planting next to rivers, lakes and wetlands, will now be required for any new forestry conversions,” Henare said.

The report on Tairāwhiti land use and Gabrielle’s impact issued last month slammed the Gisborne District Council for its lack of monitoring and compliance reviews of forestry, contributing to the resulting environmental damage.

The report incensed Gisborne mayor Rehette Stoltz, who claimed her council had been pushing for years to have greater control over forestry than the national standard was offering.

She was not available for comment on the latest change.

But Ruatoria local and former district councillor Manu Caddie told Farmers Weekly he was

cautiously supportive of the government’s latest move.

“It’s good to give that ability to local communities to determine what is and isn’t appropriate land but concerning that the minister is still talking about this misnomer of ‘permanent pine’ plantations.”

He said the same process should apply to bare pasture, especially on erosion-prone land, which is nearly 90% of the land in Tairāwhiti.

It adds another layer of ill-considered regulation that will dictate and limit what landowners can do with their land. Foresters will be subject to lengthy resource consent processes.

Grant Dodson Forest Owners Association

“If local government is to be enabled to control where pine plantations are allowed, councils should also be enabled to control where bare pasture is allowed.”

Linking back to recent ETS reform proposals Caddie said if the government is to face carbon liabilities between $3 billion and $30bn in offshore credit purchase, the funding is better spent locally on establishing indigenous forest plantings.

Manawatū mayor Helen Worboys

said she welcomed any greater say councils get on forestation.

“Government has moved to enable councils to protect high value soils from housing. We support that, but why allow trees to be planted on productive soils and not houses? That land is still being taken out of use.”

But Forest Owners Association president Grant Dodson said devolving more power to councils is problematic given the variation in skills and resources between councils throughout New Zealand.

“It adds another layer of illconsidered regulation that will dictate and limit what landowners can do with their land. Foresters will be subject to lengthy resource consent processes and restricted by the quantity and type of trees they can plant, if the process permits planting at all,” he said.

He disputed the premise that forestry is swallowing valuable pieces of highly productive land.

“Plantation forestry occupies just 1.76 million hectares of the 13.5 million hectares of agricultural land and has an export return that’s three times greater than sheep and beef production per hectare.”

In 2021, the estate expanded by just 1.1% and remains 70,000ha smaller than it was 20 years ago when forestry peaked at about 1.83 million hectares, he said.

MORE: SEE PAGE 24

‘Hold imported pork to New Zealand’s standards’

NZPORK is urging the government to take urgent action to ensure imported pork meets the same animal welfare standards as New Zealand-born and -raised pork.

The plea comes following a decision by Parliament’s Primary Production select committee not to ask Parliament to investigate ways to address the inequalities facing local producers of pork. The committee had considered

a petition signed by almost 3500 New Zealanders calling for the same animal welfare standards to be applied to imported pork as those for NZ-raised pork.

About 60% of pork consumed in NZ is imported, with most of it produced in countries using practices that are illegal in this country.

However, in its final report on the petition started by NZPork policy adviser Frances Clement, the select committee has opted not to pursue the request.

NZPork chief executive Brent

Kleiss said it is a disappointing decision.

“The unfairness of the regulations on New Zealand’s pig farmers clearly resonated with thousands of New Zealanders who supported the petition.

“Our animal welfare and environmental standards are more stringent than most countries supplying pork into New Zealand.

“What we are asking for is a level playing field for New Zealand pig farmers who must compete with cheaper imported pork produced to lesser standards.”

Kleiss said they understand the complexity of the situation and trade obligations but domestically produced pork is currently being placed in a less favourable position than imports.

“We urge policy-makers and Parliament to work with us to come up with a constructive solution that is consistent with our trading position.”

NZPork has consistently supported farmers to implement welfare standards reflecting current science and international good practice, Kleiss said. Welfare standards for pork

production in NZ are among the most rigorous of any country. For example, gestation stalls are banned in NZ.

However, most of the countries exporting pork to NZ allow sows to be contained in gestation stalls for the first four weeks of their pregnancy. In the United States, this is allowed for a sow’s entire pregnancy.

Piglets are not castrated in NZ but are routinely castrated in Europe, the US and Canada. Spain, Poland and the US do not require pain relief to be used during this procedure.

FAIL: Forest Owners Association president Grant Dodson says operators are less than happy about councils having a greater say in what land can and cannot be planted in trees.

Staff reporter MARKETS Pork

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Westpac makes loans a sustainable option

Richard Rennie NEWS Finance

FARMERS wanting to face climate change head-on and adapt their business sooner than later can leverage their way ahead with Westpac’s latest sustainable farm loan offering.

The bank used Mystery Creek Fieldays as the launch pad for two new sustainable farm lending packages, a sustainable farm loan and a sustainable business loan.

Bank agribusiness head Tim Henshaw said the sustainable farm loan offers a “whole of farm” opportunity to borrow, make changes to the property’s climate change resilience, and receive a discounted interest rate.

The farm client will receive a .2% discount off the existing loan interest margin across all term debt associated with the entire farm business.

“This is about the entire farm, not just for a specific project and the discounted interest rate which is effective from day one incentivises the farmer to move the farm to a more sustainable, resilient asset.”

The farm owner will have two years from signing on the loan to deliver on their adaptation proposals, where they must meet a Westpac sustainable farm standard.

“One aspect farmers are really liking is that we are using existing work done. If you already have an assurance report through your

The discounted interest rate, which is effective from day one, incentivises the farmer to move the farm to a more sustainable, resilient asset.

Tim Henshaw Westpac

processor, you do not have to do that again.

“Farmers don’t like duplication, and we can take the quality plans they may already have in place from the likes of Fonterra or Synlait, for example, and then there is just a bit more on top of

those to do mainly around climate adaptation, understanding climate change risk, and what to do to mitigate.”

Input for Westpac’s standards has come in part through the Sustainable Agricultural Finance Initiative (SAFI).

This initiative developed guidance for sustainable agriculture finance that takes note of emerging international frameworks as well as existing good farming practice standards used by New Zealand growers and farmers. AsureQuality will be undertaking the farm assessments. Prior to launch the loans were trailled on drystock and dairy clients.

Westpac also used Fieldays to

Gabrielle’s hard-won lessons on disaster

command and control approach to management, often with the communities most affected the last to have a say in the response.

launch its sustainable business loans to support corporate and agribusiness customers to advance specific adaptation/mitigation projects on farm.

Henshaw said these could be as diverse as electric vehicle purchase, solar panels, waste reduction or biodiversity protection.

They also come with a .2% discount off the loan interest margin.

Henshaw said if a farmer client fails to meet the promised adaptation standards after the two-year period, there is no requirement for the discounted interest to be clawed back and there would be a period of remediation in a loan agreement

that also involves a good level of trust between both parties.

The move to sustainable lending makes good business sense for the bank’s rural division.

Henshaw said the overseas pool of investor funds that must be committed to proven sustainable investment ventures continues to grow rapidly. Last year about 5% of all global bond issues comprised green social sustainably linked bonds in what was a tough year for all investment funds.

“This is a pool of funds that NZ Inc does not want to be shut out of, and by being able to offer these loans, it provides us with a means to tap into that vast area of funding that is only likely to continue to grow.”

JON Mitchell, the head of Massey University’s Centre for Disaster Research, had no idea a trip around East Cape in late January would prove to be a pre-disaster reconnaissance visit in light of the devastation that was to follow only days later.

Since Cyclone Gabrielle’s wrath hit the eastern coasts, Mitchell and his colleagues have spent even more time in the regions worst affected and are contributing to a store of knowledge and lessons on how future responses can be improved.

“The reality is we are getting better at responses, partly as a result of having had more events like this since Bola. If you compare Bola and Gabrielle, Gabrielle has had significantly better response,” he said at Mystery Creek Fieldays.

“This is in part thanks to a more uniform language used between groups involved, better processes and better relationships.”

Bola’s response was governed by the old 1983 Civil Defence Act that took a very central, “top-down”

This time around despite the devastation that unfolded across Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay, the region’s overall response proved better than what Auckland delivered its communities, in part due to the city having little recent experience with disasters of any natural type.

“And their ability to communicate with their outlying communities was lost quickly,” Mitchell said.

Loss of communications and road damage after Gabrielle down the east coast was similar to what Bola delivered, but communities proved to be in a better position to get communications up again, and organisations had a better understanding of their roles with less duplication or holes in action than in the past.

The willingness and capacity of communities to get involved in their own recovery is more apparent now, informed by social media and initiated by the likes of the “farmy army” and student volunteer groups that sprung out

of the Christchurch earthquake. However, there have also been lessons from Gabrielle on what could be done better, particularly for rural communities.

“There were issues about warning levels. As Gabrielle approached and telemetry reporting equipment started to fail in the hill country, there could have been a different response given the equipment had been taken out – it indicated a very extreme event was coming.”

He said there was a need for a more systematic, planned approach to re-connecting rural communities, one that demands more co-operation between groups that may not be used to working together, including the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Rural Support Trust.

When it comes to rebuilding rural businesses and communities, Mitchell said more work needs to be done on identifying how orchards and farms can remain where they are, but have more resilience in future events.

“Kiwifruit orchards, for example, have required significant amounts of silt to be removed. Perhaps future orchards could be designed

BETTER: Practice makes perfect and increased numbers of natural disasters in recent years have meant NZ’s ability to respond has been improving since Bola, Jon Mitchell of Massey University’s disaster research centre says.

in a way to make that removal simpler and less expensive.”

As maligned as they are, there are also already changes happening in forest felling practices to try to minimise site and slash losses.

The Port Hills fire also prompted the creation of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), an autonomous agency delivering more oversight to all aspects of disaster response.

Mitchell welcomed a more mature response to national disasters, with less finger pointing after events and more intent to

learn and improve.

“The approach we take is that it [disaster incidence] is only going to get worse. With greater volatility in the climate we will see greater extremes.”

With cuts looming across all tertiary centres, he is hopeful Massey’s post-grad Diploma in Emergency Management and the master’s programme remain intact, with interest strong across all areas of study from students.

“Our work is quite strategic and timely, and unfortunately risk and disaster management is a growth area.”

ADAPTED LENDING: Westpac’s Tim Henshaw says the whole-farm sustainable loan provides a strong incentive for clients to adapt their farm business to climate change impacts.

Richard Rennie TECHNOLOGY Weather

An update for the rural community Freshwater farm plans a practical and flexible tool for farmers and growers

Freshwater farm plans will start being introduced from 1 August in parts of Waikato and Southland, with other regions to follow over the next couple of years.

“While most farmers and growers will eventually need a freshwater farm plan, there is plenty of time and lots of help and resources will be made available,” said Sara Clarke, Director Implementation at the Ministry for the Environment.

The rst four guidance documents have been published on the ministry’s website, while Te Uru Kahika (regional and unitary councils of Aoteroa) is working on how-to guides for farmers and advisors. Freshwater farm plans are a risk-based approach for farmers to identify, manage and reduce the impact of farming activities on freshwater.

“The Government has spent the past three years working with councils, Māori, farmers, advisors, and industry groups on developing a system that will provide exibility for farmers and growers,” Clarke said.

“Many farmers and growers have already put in place a farm environment plan or are part of an industry programme.

“We are working with industry groups on what’s needed to align existing programmes with the new regulations.”

Around 34,500 farming enterprises are expected to eventually need a freshwater farm plan. Farmers and growers will need a freshwater farm plan if they have 20 hectares or more in arable, pastoral or mixed use, or ve hectares or more in horticultural use.

Protecting and improving freshwater Freshwater farm plans are part of the wider Essential Freshwater package which aims to protect and improve freshwater quality. The central principle of Essential Freshwater

to make it easy to navigate.

is Te Mana o Te Wai – healthy freshwater supports healthy communities, a healthy environment, and a healthy economy.

The health of lakes, rivers, wetlands and estuaries is the number one environmental issue for New Zealanders.

People should be able to swim in their local river without the risk of getting sick. People should also be able to catch sh and enjoy mahinga kai.

Stock exclusion from 1 July

From 1 July 2023 all stock must be excluded from natural wetlands identi ed in a regional or district plan.

In addition, certain classes of stock - dairy cattle and pigs, beef cattle, and deer that are intensively grazed – must be excluded from lakes and rivers wider than 1 metre.

Stock are allowed only to cross lakes and rivers twice a month and under supervision, unless by way of a bridge or culvert.

Consultation underway

The stock exclusion regulations were introduced in 2020 as part of the Essential Freshwater reforms.

A map of low slope land is incorporated by reference in the regulations and identi es areas where beef cattle and deer cannot have access to water bodies from 1 July 2025. Following feedback and subsequent

consultation in 2021, the Government revised the map in 2022 to improve how slope is identi ed and to address the issue of lower intensity farming in the high country being unintentionally captured in the regulations.

While those updates improved how the map identi es slope, it is still capturing some lower intensity farming systems (i.e., at lower altitudes and slopes).

The Government has agreed to develop an ‘exception’ from the requirement to exclude beef cattle and stock from water bodies, for farms that meet a threshold or de nition for extensive farming.

The Government is consulting on options to address (until 16 July 2023).

To nd out more: environment.govt.nz/have-your-say

Next steps for farmers and growers

• The regional councils in Waikato and Southland are engaging with farmers and industry organisations on how to prepare for the new system.

• Farmers in an area where the regulations are in e ect have 18 months to prepare their rst farm plan for certi cation.

• Every freshwater farm plan will need an initial audit 12 months after certi cation (by a di erent person than the certi er) and will be graded from A to D.

• Regional councils will receive a report on every audit: grades A and B will mean a longer time before the next audit is due, while C and D grades will have a shorter time between audits.

• Farmers in other areas can start getting prepared now for freshwater farm plans, including thinking about how to transition an existing farm environment plan or industry assurance work into the new system.

Support for freshwater farm plan roll out

To help the rollout of freshwater farm plans, the Government is investing $22.5 million via the Essential Freshwater Fund to improve the capability and of farmers, growers, and advisors.

The funding will help with the development of freshwater farm plans.

The programme will assist farmers, growers, and farm advisors to develop freshwater farm plans, as well as setting up the certi er and auditor roles.

In addition, the funding will provide support for tangata whenua capability and capacity, and farmer-focused initiatives.

Nitrogen fertiliser reports due at the end of July

Around 4000 dairy farms submitted their synthetic nitrogen use report for the 2021-22 year, the rst year the regulations came into e ect.

Dairy farm managers are required to submit their report by the end of July, for the year ended 30 June 2023, to their regional council. Farms that use synthetic nitrogen fertiliser on pasture, or any other grazed land, may be subject to the synthetic nitrogen fertiliser regulations.

A limit of 190 kg per hectare per year on pasture came into e ect from 1 July 2021. A resource consent is needed if this limit is exceeded.

In 2022 the regional and unitary councils worked with Ballance and Ravensdown to create or enhance online tools for collecting the required data (Ravensdown’s HawkEye app; Ballance’s MyBallance app; and the Regional Sector’s N-Cap Webform at: n-cap.teurukahika.govt.nz

The freshwater farm plan system has been designed with the agricultural sector

Work starts on 48km wallaby-proof fence

Annette Scott TECHNOLOGY Pests

A$1.4 MILLION fencing project has become the latest tool in the war on wallabies in South Canterbury.

Construction of a wallaby exclusion fence is the latest development in attempts to protect the Mackenzie Basin environment.

The 48km fence will follow the western border of Canterbury’s wallaby containment area, along the Lake Tekapo River system from Lake Benmore through to Lake Lake Tekapo.

“Over the past 10 years, wallabies have been spreading out of the containment zone

The work under the national programme is more than just having teams in the air and on the ground.

Brent Glentworth ECan

and into the Mackenzie Basin and we can’t afford to let them spread and establish further,”

Canterbury Regional Council wallaby programme leader Brent Glentworth said.

“We’ve seen a significant increase in wallaby reports and numbers destroyed in the area. Alongside other control methods the fence will be crucial for securing containment and reducing further spread.”

Fence construction will take place in stages over a few years, starting with a 15km section from Grays River north towards Lake Tekapo, with two local firms engaged to carry out the first stage.

Community consultation will take place around the fence alignment at the Lake Lake Tekapo end, although construction of that stage is not expected to happen for two years.

Glentworth said wallabies have a reputation for damaging normal farm fences as they attempt to push through or go under them.

The new fence will be 1.3m high and constructed with purposebuilt Australian-made wallaby exclusion netting, including an apron at the bottom to prevent wallabies passing beneath it.

It will also be rabbit netted, allowing continued management of this pest as well.

Glentworth said it is important to use every tool available in the battle against wallabies.

It’s estimated that the national economic impact of letting wallabies spread unchecked could be up to $84m a year by 2025.

“The work under the national programme is more than just having teams in the air and on the ground carrying out control and surveillance.

“It’s also tackling the wallaby

problem by investing heavily in research and improving wallaby detection at very low levels while exploring new and improved control methods.

“Fencing will play a critical role in providing a secure boundary 24 hours a day so we can progressively reduce densities within containment and eliminate the spread on the other side.”

A similar fence design has been used near Rotorua to progress work on its wallaby issue.

“It’s fantastic we have the opportunity to do this for South Canterbury thanks to the national programme,” Glentworth said.

The fencing project is being funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries -led Tipu Mātoro National Wallaby Eradication Programme.

Meanwhile the Horizons Regional Council is asking for people to be on the lookout after the discovery of a wallaby in the region.

Horizons’ environmental manager Craig Davey said a dead wallaby was found on Ongarue Waimiha Road in the Ruapehu District on June 11.

“We were alerted after a report was lodged via Biosecurity New Zealand’s wallaby reporting website. The roadkill wallaby was picked up on Monday from the place it was killed,” Davey said.

This is the first wallaby, dead or alive, to be recovered in the Horizons Region.

ROLLOUT:

Luke Longley of Cleavers

Excavations on the rst of the wallabyproof netting for the $1.4m fencing project in South Canterbury.

Davey said Horizons is using various surveillance techniques, including trained wallaby detector dogs, to see if there is an established wallaby population near where the dead wallaby was found.

“People should look out for any wallaby signs, including droppings and footprints. The most common wallaby in the North Island, the Dama wallaby, stands up to 50cm tall and weighs 4kg to 7kg. Their droppings are about 20mm long and tend to be pear-shaped, although there can be variability.”

Wallabies are a significant introduced pest, threatening the environment, biodiversity and economy. They are browsers, preferring to eat young plants and seedlings.

Their browsing removes forest understory, which impacts regeneration, native habitats and food sources. Their competition for food sources impacts native wildlife, including native birds. They also compete with sheep, cattle and other livestock for food. It is estimated three Bennett’s wallabies will eat as much in a day as one adult sheep. They damage crops, young trees and fences, as well as contributing to erosion and poorer water quality.

MORE:

Any sightings or signs of wallabies anywhere in New Zealand should be reported to BiosecurityNZ at www.reportwallabies.nz

Canterbury farmers score well on paddock preparation

CANTERBURY farmers have come up trumps for their paddock preparation, ensuring strategic winter grazing that will minimise environmental risks.

Information from aerial views has given Environment Canterbury confidence that the region’s farmers have adopted good management practices when setting up their wintering paddocks to minimise the environmental risks that come with winter grazing.

In early May, ECan conducted two flights, one in the Ashburton district and one in Waimakariri, North Canterbury, to observe how paddocks had been prepared

for the upcoming winter grazing season. Two ECan field staff were joined by an industry representative on each flight. They looked for signs that appropriate paddocks had been selected and that critical source areas and waterways were being well protected.

Principal farm systems adviser Sarah Heddell said results from the flights in May were largely pleasing, with no locations of serious concern observed.

“Our team saw good buffer setbacks, especially in foothill areas, and evidence that most farmers had selected paddocks carefully to avoid winter grazing in areas with more critical source areas,” Heddell said.

“Our field staff have followed up with farmers who have set up very

well, as well as others where we observed minimal setbacks from critical source areas, giving them advice on making sure they follow a robust winter grazing plan that will ensure good environmental outcomes once stock are introduced over winter.”

ECan will be undertaking two more flights over winter to observe winter grazing practices in action.

Like the flights that took place in early May, the winter flights will take place in a fixed-wing aircraft over the Waimakariri and Ashburton regions.

Heddell said these flights will observe how farmers are putting good grazing practices into play and ensuring winter grazing management plans are being followed.

“We’ve seen how people have

set up their paddocks for good winter grazing, so with these next flights, we’re looking for practice in action,” Heddell said.

“This includes things like back fencing being used, portable and well-spaced water troughs and feeders to reduce the movement of animals and damage to soils, as well as evidence of strategic grazing, like grazing from the

top end of paddocks towards waterways.

“People also need to ensure they have a wet weather plan in place to minimise adverse environmental impacts during extended wet periods.”

Heddell advised farmers to document tactics.

“All the environmental risks you have identified should be documented in your winter grazing management plan.

“It’s useful to keep notes on how you carried out your plan, as well as any changes you made.”

She said farmers should also plan to sow a cool-weather-tolerant follow-up crop, such as oats or rye, as soon as possible after grazing.

Sarah Heddell ECan

“This can soak up nutrients that would otherwise be leached if the paddock is left fallow.”

Annette Scott TECHNOLOGY Environment

We’ve seen how people have set up their paddocks so with these next flights we’re looking for practice in action.

Better farming, and better profits, through better Breeding Worth.

Freshwater plans to keep certifiers busy

THREE hundred certifiers will be needed at the peak of the rollout of freshwater farm plans when this occurs over the next four years.

Plans will be phased in between August this year and late 2025, with each farmer having 18 months to finalise them.

Creating a more profitable future for the NZ dairy industry with accurate, independent and inclusive animal evaluation that uses genomic information.

Genetic information is key in unlocking potential profit on Kiwi dairy farms. Through better rates of genetic gain farmers with a herd size of 450 cows could unlock an additional $39,000 in farm profit every year.

To give New Zealand the best chance of achieving internationally competitive genetic gain, we believe one key aspect is to improve NZAEL’s Breeding Worth, with genomics and make it available as one BW for the sector. By doing this we can help lift the performance and profitability of every New Zealand dairy herd.

Virginia Loughnan, the Ministry for the Environment’s agriculture, policy implementation and delivery manager, said after Southland and Waikato – the first regions required to have plans –implementation will then shift to farms in neighbouring regions to best utilise the pool of certifiers.

Certifiers must either have a suitable qualification or three years’ experience related to that competency.

They are required to undergo mandatory training to ensure they have an understanding of the role, the regulatory system and the requirements of the essential freshwater legislation.

Plans will be re-certified every five years.

The programme will be managed by AsureQuality but certifiers will function as independent contractors with delegated authority from the respective regional councils.

Plans will be audited by professionals, some of whom already work in the sector auditing supplier plans for processors.

A plan is required for any farming operation with 20ha or more in arable or pastoral use, 5ha or more in horticultural use or any combination equalling more than 20ha. Loughnan said the 20ha minimum threshold reflects the potential risk to water receiving areas.

Farm plans are a key element of the essential freshwater package and Loughnan is confident they will be fit for purpose.

The ministry learnt from errors in the rollout of intensive winter grazing rules and tested the proposal’s details on more than 100 farms, covering multiple farm systems, geography and ownership structures.

They also worked with providers who require plans from their suppliers.

“We’re pretty confident given the intentional way we built this from the ground up and learnt from other farmfacing plans,” Loughnan said.

“The whole point of this is the industry knows the farm and the environment.

“What is the risk to the environment and what is the risk to freshwater and how do they manage that risk? How they manage that is up to each individual.”

Plans need to identify risks to freshwater systems alongside actions on each property using maps to describe land units, inherent vulnerabilities and risks posed from farm activities.

They must also identify, along with timeframes, existing and new actions to avoid and remedy, and how they plan to mitigate risks and adverse effects on freshwater bodies. These must be considered on a catchment-wide context.

Maps need to show features such as land use, water bodies, soil type, landforms, areas used for intensive winter grazing, critical source areas and drainage systems.

They must also identify fences that exclude stock from waterways, riparian and tree planting, soil erosion controls, effluent systems, water-take bores, crossings and access routes, stock-related infrastructure, point source discharges and accommodation. Farmers have said they are concerned that individual plans will be held by regional councils and may be subject to release following an application under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

To find out more about our proposal to provide an improved Breeding Worth, visit dairynz.co.nz/better-bw

Loughnan said farmers will retain ownership of their plans with basic information required for compliance lodged with councils – such as action plans, dates and ownership details.

PROTECTING THE WATER: Freshwater Farm Plans must identify risks to waterways from stock, soil erosion and effluent systems, among other things.

Neal Wallace NEWS Water

Caveats on satellitecellular hook-ups

Richard Rennie TECHNOLOGY Communications

WHILE not equal to fibre, the much-touted cellularsatellite broadband service coming to New Zealand promises to fill some gaps in rural coverage across the country.

TUANZ CEO Craig Young welcomes the service’s arrival, with One NZ, formerly Vodafone, announcing in April it has partnered with Starlink to provide connectivity to mobiles in zero cellular coverage areas. The service is predicted to kick off next year.

Earlier this month Spark also announced it will be providing a satellite to mobile service for customers with a trial set to launch later this year.

“It has a real place. It gives coverage to areas that don’t have it, but it does not necessarily solve the accessibility issue given the cost of installation and to have the service,” Young said.

While for farms it may be a business expense that can be claimed, the $150-a-month cost is likely to be an obstacle to many lower socio-economic rural communities, he said.

A recent Commerce Commission report looked at options open to rural communities for connectivity beyond the national fibre footprint plan and how they stack up for price and performance.

It has a real place. It gives coverage to areas that don’t have it but it does not necessarily solve the accessibility issue given the cost.

Craig Young TUANZ

Over 80% of the country now has fibre, but more than one in 10 households do not and almost one in five farms are shifting to satellite broadband services like Starlink.

Young also cautioned about the inability to share a single satellite account across a number of devices or users, possibly demanding multiple connections and with them, additional expense. A farm dairy, for example, would require a separate account for the farm home.

Young cautioned the satellite service being offered at present for broadband is also provided by an overseas company (Starlink) and that can bring its own challenges when users require assistance.

“There are also no regulations on them around that, even if you are buying the receiver from a local outlet.”

When it came to satellite-cellular coverage next year, he cautioned it would not mean users could have the luxury of watching Netflix on their cell phone.

“The 100% coverage will be text only.

“But that can still be enough for people in events like Gabrielle. The thing we have heard the most from people in areas like Ruatoria is they just wanted to be able to message loved ones that they are all right.”

Young said NZ is uniquely fortunate to have access to the burgeoning Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite systems that have come early to this country and cover the north-south length.

He said he would like to see “domestic roaming” capability introduced at no cost, where cell phones can default to the

satellite systems if other transmission methods are not available.

“They will play a big part in fixing network holes but now attention needs to return to network capacity and capability.

“We can fix those holes. Now let’s put investment into continuing to improve what we have, whether it is through wireless providers, fibre further out or through 5G. Internationally we are doing reasonably well, but we do not want to take the foot off the accelerator.”

“ The gains we’ve seen are better reproduction, better six week in-calf rate and less empties.”

Mel Lilley, Mid Canterbury

NEW HORIZONS: Almost one in ve farms in New Zealand are shifting to satellite broadband services such as Starlink.

Educational resources for schools & students

Read, listen to, and watch what is happening in Aotearoa New Zealand’s food and fibre sector by scanning the QR codes or following the links. Answer the questions to complete the exercises.

How can improved GPS accuracy benefit farms?

New GPS technology was launched in Southland earlier this year to provide more accuracy for farmers.

bit.ly/GPS-tech

Have a go:

1. What does GPS stand for?

2. What does SouthPAN stand for?

3. Current GPS accuracy is around 3m. How accurate is this new GPS system?

Stretch yourself:

4. With more accurate GPS, subsoil drains are easier to find if they get blocked. What else would an improved GPS system help farmers with?

For more on agri technology see agritechnz.org.nz

Have a listen

What skills are used by an agri-banker?

Jack MacFarlane works as an agri-manager for Rabobank. In this episode of Road to Rural we hear about his pathway into the position and what a typical day is like.

lnkiy.in/agri-banker

Have a go:

1. Which university did Jack go to and what did he study?

2. What does Jack love about being an agri-manager?

3. What skills are helpful in this role?

4. What does a typical day or week look like for Jack as an agri-manager at Rabobank?

Stretch yourself:

5. What does the graduate programme entail and how does it help you find your fit within Rabobank?

Head to rabobank.co.nz/graduate-careers to find out more about their graduate programme.

Why does a Farm Environment Management Planner need to spend time on farm?

Toni Cottle is thriving in her role as a Farm Environment Management Planner. In this Opportunity Grows Here video, Toni talks about what has accelerated her learning and development and why being out on farm is important. bit.ly/enviro-planner

Have a go:

1. As part of the role, why is it important to get out on the farm?

2. What excites Toni about her role?

3. What has helped accelerate Toni’s development in her role?

4. As well as topography, how many other things can you list that might be assessed when on farm?

Stretch yourself:

5. Why might a farmer use the advisory skills of a Farm Environment Management Planner?

How are sheep affected by heat stress?

AgResearch scientists are developing a tool called a heat load index to help sheep farmers better predict when their animals are likely to be heat-stressed.

bit.ly/hot-sheep

Have a go:

1. What is heat stress?

2. What increases the chances of an animal being affected?

3. What sort of data is going to be collected during the project and how?

Stretch yourself:

4. How do you think the data and index tool will be used on farms?

5. Why is it important to have projects like this researching heat stress? How does this benefit NZ agriculture as a whole?

What will the next generation of bioprotection leaders be doing differently?

Bioprotection Aotearoa is working to create knowledge locally that agribusinesses can harness, and together with communities, use to make better decisions. bit.ly/BA-protect

Have a go:

1. When was Bioprotection Aotearoa launched?

2. What are three things that the holistic approach is designed to protect productive and natural landscapes from?

3. What does the model used by Bioprotection Aotearoa promote?

Stretch yourself:

4. What are some strengths of sharing knowledge and not working in a silo?

5. Why do you think it is important to use a holistic and long-term view of environmental sustainability?

For more see bioprotection.org.nz

Can we farm vertically?

Greengrower is a NZ company growing produce upwards in stacked layers. Watch to learn how bit.ly/greengrower

Have a go:

1. How many kgs of leafy greens can Greengrower produce in a year?

2. What are the three items that the AI light recipes determine in plants?

3. What is the typical germination cycle?

4. Compared to traditional farming what percentage of water is used?

Stretch yourself:

5. Explain how closed loop systems can help save over 36 million litres of water a year. Find out more at greengrower.nz

What are the risks?

Mairi Whittle talks about how an inspirational mentor and a tragedy on the farm have shaped her health and safety focus on the family farm.

bit.ly/safety-focus

Have a go:

1. What event really brought home the importance of safety conversations?

2. When working at Pukekaka Station what did Mairi like about Rob’s approach?

3. Why is it helpful to know where previous incidents had occurred?

4. What is the tip Mairi would like to share with other farmers?

Stretch yourself:

4. What are steps taken when a contractor comes onto Mairi’s family farm? Explain why you think each step is important.

5. When working alone especially in a remote place, what equipment can be used to make it safer?

RESOURCES FOR EDUCATORS

Parents and teachers sign up to receive Ag&Ed in your inbox.

agrihq.co.nz/our-education-resources

...is back!

...is back!

Learn about on farm scenarios, use real life case studies and understand what it takes to work in the ag sector in New Zealand. Students also have the opportunity to apply for our Ag&Ed Innovation Challenge, where 20 lucky students will work in teams to address key issues in the ag sector.

Learn about on farm scenarios, use real life case studies and understand what it takes to work in the ag sector in New Zealand. Students also have the opportunity to apply for our Ag&Ed Innovation Challenge, where 20 lucky students will work in teams to address key issues in the ag sector.

Applications are now open!

Applications are now open!

Thinking about a career in the primary sector?

Thinking about a career in the primary sector?

Whether you’re just starting out, or looking for that next step, there are education and training options. Some training options are even on the job, which means you’ll upskill and learn while you are earning.

Whether you’re just starting out, or looking for that next step, there are education and training options. Some training options are even on the job, which means you’ll upskill and learn while you are earning.

Other courses are free of charge, or have support options available.

Other courses are free of charge, or have support options available.

I have seen the agri future and it works

From the Editor

Bryan Gibson Managing editor

IT TOOK a while to put my finger on just why the E Tipu IFAMA 2023 World Conference was such a refreshing experience.

The secret, I think, was its focus on the future.

For a start, there were more young people among the attendees in Christchurch last week than I’ve ever seen at a farming conference.

They were not worried about fighting to hold on to what they already have, they were embracing the challenges that lie ahead.

Climate change is real and farming’s social licence is expiring, but these future leaders are invigorated, not anxious.

They’re already living in a warmer world and they want to do everything they can to make sure everyone in it has enough to eat.

What we’ve done in the past is acknowledged, of course. The springboard they’ve been given is sturdy.

Letters of the week

Gumboots on the ground

Tim Dangen

NZ Young Farmer of the Year, beef farmer and MPI Agriculture Ambassador

I CAN assure your correspondent Clive Dalton, in “Make the hub experience count”, (Letters, June 19) that the Careers Hub at Fieldays was not full of “corporate jackets and suits”.

The Opportunities Grows Here Careers Hub is backed by the Ministry for Primary Industries and Fieldays. MPI carefully puts the hub together with 11 sector organisations, which have displays and stalls encouraging people into primary sector work.

Organisations from the meat, dairy, hort and food sectors were there and the hub hosted some great sessions by young people for their peers, including one run by the Food and Fibre Youth Council. I was proud to host this year’s session with the Young Farmer Grand Finalists, which provided some great insights into working on farm.

It’s no longer just about “dirty gumboots”, and the hub uses a range of ways to get young people excited about opportunities – including virtual reality to try their hand at specific tasks.

I’m proud to support the hub’s efforts, working alongside Fieldays, MPI, industry organisations and the sector’s young people.

Dear Steve ...

But the dive still has to be executed –and they’re up for it.

There’s not much talk of the government among this cohort. Bureaucracy moves too slowly and the path to prosperity lies with them, not Wellington.

Finn Ross and Aimee Blake of Future Farmers New Zealand exemplified the values of the new generation.

This group has a simple strategy –united youth reimagining society to heal our world with food and fibre.

They’re building on the foundations that the farmers who came before them have laid down, erecting a structure that fits the world now – just as farmers have done for millennia.

Evolution doesn’t slow down and right now, with the exponential growth of technology, farmers are being pulled into the future faster than ever.

That’s not a problem for these digital natives who understand that the landscape encompasses not only pastures but fibre networks, social networks and spreadsheets.

The online world is a tool that will enable them to flourish, not a distraction that keeps them from farming.

What’s also inspiring is the way that groups such as Future Farmers are

widening their vision to encompass things like Matauranga Māori.

While some see it as a threat to the mainstream Western way of doing things, they simply see another way of thinking that can inform what they do and how they do it.

Kathy Mehrtens

Canterbury

FARMERS Weekly won’t be the same without your column. Often it was the first thing I turned to, bypassing all the articles on emissions, new regulations etcetera. It was always a bright spot over a Monday morning cuppa and always worth the walk to the mailbox, knowing some common sense and humour awaited before opening the bills.

We are the same vintage and circumstances as you, so have farmed through similar times.

Thank you for all your articles, they have been a linchpin to sanity at times.

They don’t just want to be business owners, they want to be custodians of the whenua who see value in more than just dollars and cents.

Ironically, a lot of research tells us the adoption of this way of thinking will help the bottom line over time, so it’s a winwin.

So while politicians and those with large platforms look for ways to exclude people and ideas from the recipe for success, our future leaders are mixing up a big, rich and diverse stew.

If this is a representation of the farmers who will take New Zealand forward, we’re in very good hands.

What has prompted me to finally send you an email was your comments in the article on you by Hugh Stringleman in “Wyn-Harris to bow out with honour” (June 12).

You well deserve your NZ Officer of Merit all to yourself, but in typical “just Steve down on the farm battling through the adversity of hard times and savouring the magic of the brilliant times” style, you have annointed the rest of us right along with you.

Legend.

Wishing you and Jane all the best for fun adventures ahead.

• Steve Wyn-Harris is retiring next week after more than two decades of writing his From the ridge column.

They’re already living in a warmer world and they want to do everything they can to make sure everyone in it has enough to eat.

In my view

Jim van der Poel Chair of DairyNZ

KIWI dairy farmers continuously strive to be world-leaders in pasture-based production, emissions efficiency and animal care. Our sector’s success in global trade relies on these factors.

Maximising genetic gain is important if New Zealand is to continue being world leading. Genetic gain expressed in Breeding Worth (BW) results in cows that are more efficient producers, meaning they need less feed for each kilogram of milk they produce.

Right now we are missing out on genetic gain due to slow on-farm adoption of genomics, fragmented datasets and multiple versions of BW presented to farmers.

That’s why NZ Animal Evaluation Ltd (NZAEL), a DairyNZ subsidiary, is proposing a single, independent BW index that will include all useful genomic information and make NZAEL’s BW more reliable and the sector standard.

Having more reliable information allows farmers to make better decisions, which will help ensure genetic gain is the best it can be for Kiwi dairy

my view

Graham West

NZ Farm Forestry Association

immediate past president

AT THE National Fieldays this year, the Forestry Hub held several lighthearted forums to discuss topical land use issues. One was “Are all trees created equal?” I was asked to speak on radiata pine. This is my summary.

Except for gorse and perhaps possums, few introduced species are more vilified than radiata pine and yet few species have been more tested, researched and widely planted.

Radiata pine was like an up-and-coming loose forward that bursts from every ruck – it surprised everyone, yet many doubters remained unconvinced.

The first recorded planting of radiata in New Zealand was in 1859, 164 years ago. It was planted, somewhat ironically, by a sheep farmer at Mt Peel Station, South Canterbury.

Most early plantings were on the harsh treeless Canterbury plains, providing shelter for stock

LOST OPPORTUNITY: NZ is missing out on genetic gains due to slow onfarm adoption of genomics, fragmented datasets and multiple versions of Breeding Worth presented to farmers, says DairyNZ chair Jim van der Poel.

farmers. This will help NZ keep up with the rest of the world when it comes to rates of genetic gain –meaning our farmers will be able to breed better animals every year. We want to help all dairy farmers in NZ unlock additional potential profit – for their benefit and that of NZ as a whole. The work we have done shows us this change is the right thing to do. However, we need an operating model that is fair to

all participants. A model that encourages all sector participants to get involved will see everyone working together and give us the greatest chance of success. We have developed a proposal and are now consulting with farmers and sector participants to get feedback to improve our thinking.

To be clear: NZAEL is not seeking to own genomics data. Commercial breeding companies will retain ownership of the

genomic data they have invested in collecting.

However, as an industry good organisation we are requesting access to it so the whole sector can benefit.

As a sector, we need to work together to ensure NZ takes full advantage of the opportunity genomics represents, so we can achieve world-leading rates of genetic gain.

Jim van der Poel DairyNZ

This is the same approach taken to the current phenotypic data –such as herd testing data – that flows into the Dairy Industry Good Animal Database.

This is a significant change for the sector and brings plenty of challenges, but we believe we would be remiss in our duty to farmers not to work towards this change. This is about dairy farmers and us all working together to get the best outcomes.

We believe the development of one BW with genomics by NZAEL as an industry good body, on behalf of the sector, is a positive use of farmer levies.

NZAEL works closely with world-renowned experts –agricultural geneticist Dorian

Garrick and AbacusBio managing director and agricultural scientist

Peter Amer – who have made it clear NZ’s rate of genetic gain has not improved to the level we should expect in the past 10 years. This consultation process is about making sure it can be going forward.

Their work has shown rates in other countries have risen significantly. NZ is falling behind and this has reduced sector competitiveness and farmer profit from what it could have been.

They also believe the sector’s rate of genetic gain could increase by up to 50% due to greater adoption of genomics and a whole-of-sector approach. This level of improvement, from modelling we have done, could have delivered an additional $136 million of annual value to the sector over the past 10 years. As a sector, we need to work together to ensure NZ takes full advantage of the opportunity genomics represents, so we can achieve world-leading rates of genetic gain.

Along with breeding companies, we are committed to finding a sustainable solution for NZ dairy farmers.

More information about the proposal is available on the DairyNZ website. Consultation is open until 5pm, Tuesday, June 27.

and human settlement.

Radiata came from coastal California, so Canterbury is well out of its natural range, and it should have died in the first winter.

Many other imported species were trialled and early on radiata stood out because of fast early growth. It was like an up-andcoming loose forward that bursts from every ruck – it surprised everyone, yet many doubters remained unconvinced.

Twenty years later it was first used for house building, again, ironically, a farmhouse.

In the development of the NZ primary sector there has been few species (of plants or animals) trialled with alternatives, over and over again. The alternatives have inspiring names like the Coast Redwood, Mexican Cypress, Grand Fir, Ponderosa pine, Oregon pine. Radiata was simply known as “pine”. Its early name was Monterey pine, but it was also called pinus insignis. “Insignis” means “distinguished” and “remarkable” and perhaps would have been a more appropriate name.

By the 1950s radiata was reluctantly adopted as the alternative to native timbers for house building and was soon also providing newsprint, packaging, tissue, posts and poles, plywood and particle board. Its early development was helped by being virtually the single focus of an

entire research institute, at that time called FRI, now Scion.

Radiata has been extensively trialled and commercially planted in many other countries of the world, particularly in Chile, Australia, Spain, South Africa, Ecuador, Italy and Argentina. The total area of radiata plantations is 4.1 million hectares.

Its strength is that it’s a utility player that can do all things well, often surprising the opposition with speed, adaptability, and easy progress. It is quick to the ball, difficult to move in a ruck, and establishes dominance in the loose play.

Radiata is easy to propagate from seed or cuttings, grows on almost any site below 600m elevation, requires almost no fertiliser, and yet on hill country produces more than twice the dry matter grown by pasture.

Its universal biological productivity is the secret that many pastural farmers haven’t discovered. On top of this it has had 70 years of genetic improvement.

Many people think we are too reliant on one timber species, and yes, logically we should diversify. Forest investors have been looking into that question for at least 30 years, because it has been a continual business risk.

On this issue, I think we got a clear message from the Kiwifruit industry when it was struck with PSA. What saved them was the

genetic diversity they had in the many varieties of their main species. One cultivar was found to be almost resistant to PSA and is now their leading money earner –it’s the yellow kiwifruit now called SunGold.

We perhaps should have a dual strategy on this issue, to create species diversity and genetic diversity within species.

NZ is very lucky to have radiata pine in its primary industry. Many have looked for alternatives, few have found its equal. This one species earns NZ $6.5 billion a year in export revenue. There is a large and ready market for almost

Phone 06 323 1519

FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – June 26, 2023 Opinion 23

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Are all trees created equal?

Policy barking up the right tree at last

Alternative view

IWAS pleased to read last week that the government is putting initiatives in place to tighten up the rules about converting good farmland to forestry.

They are badly needed.

It is a difficult balance. For a start we do need trees as both an export earner and carbon sink. That’s countered by the fact that New Zealand is a food exporter. It’s the base of our economy and needs to stay that way. Without it we don’t have a future.

There’s also the question about farmers being able to sell to the highest bidder and if that’s for carbon farming, so be it. In Wairarapa there have, in my opinion, been some ridiculous prices paid for good farmland to be converted to carbon forestry. The locals aren’t happy and it is a real barrier to new farmers joining the industry.

There is also the current legislative framework where a business can cover all its climate obligations by planting pine trees while maintaining its polluting activities. I don’t believe that achieves anything. It certainly doesn’t save the planet for future generations.

With all those complications, the government has come up with a strategy to give locals a say in the future of their communities.

It is “empowering local councils to decide which land can be used for plantation and carbon forests

This is the only logical solution to the issue. They [foresters] just won’t bother applying for a fullfarm conversion because they know it won’t be approved.

Kieran McAnulty Local Government Minister

through the resource consent process”.

I believe that is positive, as we do have a major problem.

In 2019 37,000ha of farmland was sold for forestry followed by 35,000ha in 2020. According to Beef + Lamb NZ that figure lurched to 50,000ha in 2021, of which 30,000ha is for harvest forest and 20,000ha for carbon.

That’s 122,000ha taken out of production in just three years. It is unsustainable.

At a local level, the Tararua Bush Telegraph tells me that between 2002 and 2022 stock levels in the district dropped drastically. They lost 600,000 sheep, 47,000 beef

cattle, 15,000 dairy cattle and 10,000 deer. That’s also involved the loss of 67,000ha of grassland.

That is devastating for a rural area that runs between Dannevirke and Eketāhuna.

Local Government Minister and Minister for Rural Communities

Kieran McAnulty said that “everyone accepts we need to plant trees. The concern is that blanket planting of productive land is counterproductive. This change will assist rural communities to ensure that the right type and scale of forests are planted in the right place.

“Local communities through their councils will ensure the location and the extent that carbon forestry can occur.”

While I support the initiative, my concern is the ability of local councils to act responsibly over who can and who can’t.

For example, we’ve had the government come out with questionable conservation policies affecting farming that the Wellington Regional Council have made even more severe and impractical.

I’d further question the expertise

of central government agencies to make scientifically based, sustainable decisions on farming issues. That concern becomes even greater at a local level.

Minister McAnulty doesn’t share my worry. “I am confident they can do it. Consenting is a cost covered by the applicant,” he told me.

“This is the only logical solution to the issue. They [foresters] just won’t bother applying for a fullfarm conversion because they know it won’t be approved. They’ll apply for bands of appropriate and suitable land, which is what we want them doing,” he said.

So it’s up to local government to decide where trees should be planted, which should mean the right tree in the right place.

That the policy is solid was witnessed by the near hysteria from the forest owners, telling me that the new policy will mean “that Aotearoa New Zealand will fail to meet its climate charge target by 2050”.

I thought that was a bit over the top. If we have to rely on good farmland being planted in exotics to achieve our climate target we’re in dire straits.

It gets better. Forest Owners Association president Grant Dodson said that “foresters will be subject to a lengthy resource consent process and restricted by the quantity and type of trees they can plant – if the process permits planting at all”.

He went on to add that “the premise that forestry is swallowing valuable pieces of highly productive land simply isn’t true”. If that is indeed the case, I don’t see the forestry industry having a problem.

I would, however, offer him a farm tour around the local area showing him the productive land forestry has taken out of food production.

His statement that reduced investment in forestry puts at risk “the biodiversity, community and economic benefit that sectors like our offer” did surprise me. I’d humbly suggest the opposite occurs.

Having a single one-size-fitsall policy coming from central government won’t work. Having local control over what the new government policy achieves will.

Lessons in love and last goodbyes

From the ridge

WE HAVE just come back from a close friend’s funeral.

I met Sally on my first day at school in the third form (Year 9) back in 1973.

We were being shown around the school by the teacher of our class, chatted and became part of a group of friends in that class. Independently through sport I met Simon in the same year, and we became lifetime mates.

He and Sally began to go out a year or two later and several years after that I was best man at their wedding.

So great friends for 50 years

but now after a brave battle with cancer Sally has died, leaving a hole in many hearts, not least my good friend’s.

of writing this column, I have written of the lives of several people I’ve been close to or who have had an impact on my own life.

I used to ring him every night from the kennels and talk to him while he lay in his hospital bed about the world outside that he used to be part of.

During the quarter of a century

Gordon was my fat stock drafter, as we said in those days – he would be a prime stock drafter now.

I used to tell him he was the best thing I inherited off the old man.

I was a know-nothing young farmer, and he offered me advice and the wisdom of a fellow who knew the industry well.

When I told him I’d read about his general manager saying in the paper that stock prices would be going up, he laughed and said

that they would likely be going down then. And they did. I learnt to be sceptical of seemingly knowledgeable authority figures. He trained me to do “woofers”, where we would draft deep into the lambs at weaning and “woof” them onto the truck. I used the term in an early column and it has now come into the rural lexicon thanks to Gordon.

My mother always took great care of herself and was determinedly against smoking, so it was unfair when she contracted lung cancer and, after a short

Alan Emerson Semi-retired Wairarapa farmer and businessman: dath.emerson@gmail.com

TROUBLE: If New Zealand has to rely on good farmland being planted in exotics to achieve our climate target we’re in dire straits, Alan Emerson says.

Steve Wyn-Harris

Central Hawke’s Bay sheep and beef farmer: swyn@xtra.co.nz

A generation forged in adversity and adjustment

Our future

many new experiences for New Zealanders, and for university students one of these came in the form of emergency remote learning.

THE 2023 Lincoln University graduation took place in May at the Christchurch Town Hall and the first class of what have been dubbed online degrees were awarded. What does this mean for the future of the food and fibre sector workforce?

I was one of the students at the ceremony, graduating with a Bachelor of Environment and Society. A celebration for my whānau, community, those who have been a part of my journey and everyone who has supported me. Ngā mihi koutou. Being a mature student at university and struggling with the adjustment from fulltime employment to student life was my own unique experience.

Covid-19 lockdowns introduced

Continued from previous page

illness, died. My siblings and I nursed her through those couple of months at her home, and her courage facing the grim reality of her death was impressive. I’d like to think because of that, I will be able to show the same courage and dignity when my turn comes and thus help those around me to aspire to similar sentiments in their own time.

I’ve now outlived her, but hope to put the love of reading she instilled in us to good use in my latter years as I get more time for such pursuits.

AJ was my first farm adviser and we kept in touch when he moved away.

His illness was a protracted battle, also with cancer, and he put up a great fight and nearly won.

I used to ring him every night from the kennels while the dogs were having a run and talk to him while he lay in his hospital bed and give him an update from the world outside that he used to be part of.

We saw a shift from the traditional in-person teaching in the iconic brick and mortar buildings on the Lincoln University campus to at-home, online study. During the 2020 lockdowns we saw students return home to the farm and juggle work duties with study. Many studies found there was a negative impact on student’s mental health and inequities were exacerbated, as found by a study undertaken by AkuhataHuntington in 2020. As one of the Māori tauira to struggle through these inequities, I hope that the identified issues will be rectified. I have seen staff working hard on this at the expense of their own mental health and wellbeing and hope the system will recognise this mahi and the changes that are required.

But can positives be taken from the experiences that the future workforce has endured and continues to? Absolutely. Not only are teaching methods adjusting to fit an ever-changing world, but we have a generation that is entering the workforce with tools that were not available previously. There is a generation of graduates and students who have adapted to online learning and the utilisation of AI tools at a pace that rules and guidelines cannot keep up with –and they have hit the workforce.

Glen was my brother-in-law and good friend. We went to his 60th birthday, and he was in great form. Less than a month later he dropped dramatically dead with a brain aneurysm. Deaths like this and abrupt accidents leave those behind unprepared and shocked with the suddenness of the event.

He was a wonderful husband to my sister and terrific father to his three kids and they still miss him terribly.

“Time heals” may be a cliché, but it does help.

And there have been many others. Young, old, tragic accidents and suicides.

All of those reading this have comparable stories.

As you attend the funerals of people you have known, the fragility of life becomes more apparent.

But also, the preciousness of life.

It is easy to take it for granted but farewelling loved ones is a reminder that you simply mustn’t.

Mae West summed it up well: “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

These students built resilience and an additional layer of self-drive through adversity to thrive in the workforce. Covid-19 highlighted the need for essential services and the importance of having impact in the world.

of the barriers to success for students. Some pushed the boundaries and didn’t see the rules, regulations or policies as a barrier but as an opportunity for growth and change.

Will this flexibility better serve the industry? Will we learn more from this generation?

IT TAKES A VILLAGE: Cheyenne Wilson says her graduation was a celebration for her whānau, who have been a part of her journey and supported her.

The changes to some courses could be interpreted as being much more closely aligned to real-life situations in the field where information is often readily available. The change from endof-semester exams to internal assignments replicates the reports many of our rural professionals are expected to present to clients. The lecturers who adjusted quickly and well to emergency remote learning removed some

I would like to think so. The industry needs to lean in to the diversity of thought that earlycareer professionals offer. When the people of this generation are managers, employers and business owners, they will remember the adversities that they faced. They will have empathy, understanding and respect.

Let’s learn from them now, let’s listen to their perspectives and hear them.

So, what shifts will we see in the sector? We already know that youth in the sector are taking the initiative to help their more experienced counterparts understand some technologies.

They teach short cuts and understanding of new marketing tools, applications and much more. This is reciprocated. It is encouraging to see many of the graduate programmes begin again, and new initiatives such as the Grassroots Graduate Programme being launched. This is an initiative aimed at accelerating the progression of early career dairy farmers by challenging the status quo. These young people have experienced student life in a different way to past generations and will offer the industry a vibrant, diverse thought process that is grounded. I believe young people follow values and principles that they are not willing to jeopardise. I support this and follow these myself. I won’t jeopardise who I am for a job, a role, or anyone else. My whānau know who I am, I want them to be proud of who I am, I want my tūpuna to be proud of who I am.

Cheyenne Wilson

Cheyenne Wilson is chair of the Food and Fibre Youth Network and a youth engagement coach

The industry needs to lean in to the diversity of thought that early-career professionals offer.

LEAVING THEIR MARK: In a quarter-century of columns, Steve Wyn-Harris has written of the lives of several people who’ve had an impact on his own life.

Woolshed workout sets farmers up to win

Junior Taulago manages a sheep and beef farm in Pātoka near the Kaweka ranges in Hawke’s Bay. His year was going smoothly until Cyclone Gabrielle roared through. Now, like many farmers and growers, he’s in recovery mode – and here’s what he’s doing to get through.

How affected was your farm by the cyclones?

We’ve had major infrastructural damage across our whole farm. This includes boundary fence lines, access bridges, water lines wiped out, major slips on hill blocks. The list goes on. The main access bridge which gets us into town washed away so we couldn’t get into town at all. We had no access point, so we just battled on like everyone else. Got things helicoptered in.

We had no power for two weeks. It was pretty crazy really. You felt stranded. But the cool thing was everyone in the community pitched in, we all had our diggers and helped each other make a road.

Everyone got together.

Did you lose much land and fencing?

We’ve probably got around 12km of fencing ahead of us to do and a lot of slips all over our farm. There’s a long haul ahead but we are just doing the best we can every day. Being positive is key! When it first happened, everyone was operating on adrenaline. Getting power back on our electric fences and fixing main water lines felt like a huge win. Celebrating those wins is really important, because it took a lot of mental and physical strength showing up and working long hours trying to fix things that were important, as well as looking after our own wellbeing. Putting the generator away was a nice moment.

How do you deal with a big setback like this?

You’ve got to pace yourself so you don’t burn out. Initially, we had all this stuff to do and just went hard at it. But you can only operate like that for so long. Now, I reckon it’s about making the most of the small wins. Trying not to think of the big picture all the time, taking it one step at a time. So, putting up a fence line is a win. We’re probably talking two years of work ahead, so it’s about doing whatever it takes to stay positive and getting off farm when you can to get a mental and physical break away.

One thing that’s worked for me is taking a moment every night when I can reflect on our progress, write down what’s going well for myself personally.

I also read and workout at my garage gym setup to relax. It is very important that we find an escape from reality, a healthy hobby that will take our mind away from our daily routine.

You’ve started up your gym sessions again for other farmers too, haven’t you?

Yes, before the cyclone I ran a

men’s fitness class called Rural Rise for the men around our area at the local hall. We used to get together once a week and have a workout.

It started off with one or two of us and now I have a good bunch of lads who I call my brothers. So, we’ve got it going again at the Glencoe woolshed every Thursday night at seven. I started this movement because there is huge mental pressure on farmers and rural men.

Gone are the days where we can just say “she’ll be right”. It’s about really taking the time to be heard and seen, taking the farming mask off and just showing up for yourself. I always push the boys to turn up with a purpose which transcends the daily grind of farming life.

Initially, we had all this stuff to do and just went hard at it. But you can only operate like that for so long.

What’s the benefit of taking time off when people are so busy?

Taking time off farm is important for the soul. Sometimes I feel we get so caught up on the mahi that we forget to take a break here and there. I make it a goal for me and the family to take a long break over winter when we are not so busy on farm. Getting off farm when you can is really important!

What else are you doing to get through?

Getting enough sleep, eating properly and staying hydrated are vital too so you have enough energy to get through the day. I also visualise how my day will go so I motivate myself to get the most out of my day. Training for the Hawke’s Bay marathon keeps me grounded, running 8-12km twice a week when I can – that pushes me mentally.

What sort of mindset do you think is required to hang in for the long haul?

There’s no doubt the cyclone did serious damage to this area and brought a lot of stress and grief for people. I know a lot of people lost their entire homes. I know farmers who have lost a lot more then we have here. I know a lot of men who are struggling in silence. The challenge is to look for the positives in the negatives.

I tell myself, the sun always shines through the storm. So it’s about acknowledging where you are at the moment, taking pride in how far you have come and

celebrating your wins! If there’s a silver lining in any of this, I think it’s strengthened our community and sense of gratitude. You don’t take things for granted anymore. I can still remember how just being able to go into town to get our own groceries after the cyclone felt amazing.

How would you describe life on farm now?

Life on the farm for me is great!

I’m just taking it one day at a time without looking too far ahead. We are making huge progress with repair and maintenance jobs and we are in the process of purchasing of our own bit of land which is something that I have been visualising ever since I started farming. I’m upskilling myself where I can, so I’m always learning too.

Our Rural Rise men’s HIIT classes definitely help keep me honest. Working alongside a bunch of like-minded men like that really sets you up to win every day. Despite the challenges ahead, it reminds you that life’s all about living and owning the moment.

MORE:

Farmstrong is a nationwide rural wellbeing programme for farmers and growers. To find out what works for you and lock it in, head to www.farmstrong. co.nz.

RELIEF WORK: Local farmers gather every Thursday at the Glencoe woolshed in Hawke’s Bay for one of Junior Taulago’s workouts as the region recovers from Cyclone Gabrielle.

BUILDING STRENGTH: Junior Taulago, centre, has been running gym workouts for local farmers every Thursday at the Glencoe Woolshed in Hawke’s Bay as the region recovers from Cyclone Gabrielle. Here he is with dairy farmers Lucas Wilson Taopua, left, and Ian Grant.

Junior Taulago Hawke’s Bay

Doctored sheep’s milk a virus fighter

What’s good for newborn lambs is particularly good for humans as a team of scientists and a biotech firm work to develop an enhanced sheep’s milk product that acts like colostrum.

Gerald Piddock reports.

ANEW sheep’s milk product fortified with enhanced immune protection against viral illnesses has been developed by a team of scientists at Waikato University in collaboration with biotech firm Ruakura Technologies.

The new hyperimmune milk acts similarly to colostrum, University of Waikato applied immunologist Dr William Kelton says.

The milk is being developed by Kelton in collaboration with structural biologist Dr Adele Williamson, and biotech innovators Ruakura Technologies (RuaTech).

The science mimics nature and can be compared to the way a mother’s milk protects a newborn baby.

Kelton says they developed a proof of concept for the milk in 2021 with the aim of creating a product to enhance protection against covid-19.

“At the height of the covid-19 pandemic we demonstrated we could produce specific antibodies in sheep milk to aid the human immune response to coronavirus.

“We did our proof of concept that showed it worked really well.”

The product starts with the development of artificial components to mimic the outer protein or antigen of a virus of interest.

This “smart antigen” is administered to sheep to stimulate an immune response that then naturally produces antibodies that carry into its milk.

Antibodies are produced by the body to neutralise invading viruses. Hyperimmune milk can then be used as a supplement to bolster humans against a specific disease-causing virus.

The technology could provide an early rapid response intervention for new viruses. Kelton believes using this technique could be used to tailor the milk to target specific viruses.

“This is a stage when vaccinations and medical treatments are still being developed and we know from covid-19 that the ability to provide early treatments will be a game-changer.

“Hyperimmune milk is a nutraceutical. A health supplement will never take the place of a vaccine, but unlike a vaccine, it’s much easier to adapt a milk product, as a virus adapts.”

$1000/kg it has huge added value potential, he says.

“What we are proposing is that in the course of a normal dairy season, you would capture two weeks of milk production – just after lambing, but you make sure the lambs get colostrum – and then your season would go as it normally would.”

production, especially when antibody levels are so high.”

With the world moving on from covid, Kelton says they have shifted their focus to creating a product that produces greater immunity from the norovirus.

“It worked really well for covid, so we’re quite encouraged.”

He estimates this product is still at least two years away from possible commercialisation.

Currently, the research is focusing on sheep’s milk only. This is mostly for practical reasons because sheep are easier to handle than cows.

It could be consumed possibly as a tablet or packaged as a compressed colostrum sachet that is reconstituted and consumed as a drink.

Sheep’s milk is already a highend product, selling as much as $15-$18/L, and with colostrumbased products selling as much as

The milk at that stage has a high number of antibodies. This ensures the milk will have a high level of bioactivity against the virus the milk is targeting once developed and could be extracted for a huge amount of value equal to the amount collected for the remainder of the milking season, he says.

That small amount of milk was more than enough to create the product.

“You only need in the tens of milligrams in that range of antibodies to provide a reasonable dose. We think you can take this really high value add cut during

Norovirus is a gastro-intestinal virus, and outbreaks are known for ripping through settings like age-care facilities, early childhood centres and cruise ships.

The process is similar to that of the covid immune milk where the number of antibodies specific to norovirus is increased.

“There’s different types of antibodies and we want to bias the milk to produce those that specifically function in the parts of the human body associated with the disease – so in the case of norovirus we want to up the numbers of IgA antibodies that work best in the human gastrointestinal tract.”

“Nonetheless we are exploring the design of our antigens in bovine systems. We’re definitely interested in that but the proof of concept is in dairy sheep at the moment.”

The technology could also be used in the veterinary health sector as a possible alternative to vaccinations.

RuaTech chief executive Dr Grant Smolenski says they have had interest from several global animal health companies that want to use the technology in the creation of new, more effective, vaccines.

The company is also working on commercialising the product that enhanced protection from covid.

Peony Pink Blue Sky

ADDING VALUE: University of Waikato applied immunologist Dr William Kelton says the new hyperimmune sheep’s milk he is developing can be used to bolster humans against a specific disease-causing virus.

A health supplement will never take the place of a vaccine, but unlike a vaccine, it’s much easier to adapt a milk product as a virus adapts.

Dr William Kelton University of Waikato

Bulls reach $65,000 in north and south

Hugh Stringleman MARKETS Livestock

REGULAR buyer

Whāngāra Angus from the east coast travelled north to the Bay of Islands and paid the top price of the two-year-old beef bull sales season so far, $65,000 for Waitangi S257.

Vendor John Bayly said that was a record price for Waitangi Angus, and S257 had excellent calving ease EBVs along with exceptional growth characteristics.

Waitangi’s annual auction resulted in 44 bulls sold out of 53 offered and an average price paid of $9022.

There were post-sale stud transfers to Puketi, Glenwood, Village Farms and Cleardale.

Silverstream Charolais at Lincoln near Christchurch also achieved $65,000 this year, paid for Silverstream Spectra S184 by a trio of Charolais breeders –Hemingford and Twin River in the South Island and Palgrove in Queensland, Australia.

Vendors Brent and Anna Fisher said the second top price was $39,000 for Silverstream Springston S143 sold to Topaki Charolais.

A full clearance of 54 Charolais bulls averaged $11,768 and 12 out of 16 Hereford bulls averaged $7166 with a top of $12,500 paid by Davco Farming.

Also in Canterbury, Sudeley Angus at Leeston made a top price of $50,000 for lot 27, Sudeley S172.

It was purchased by Tangihau Angus, Gisborne. There were good prices made throughout the catalogue, including $21,000 and three at $20,000, resulting in one of the highest averages of the season so far at $11,946 for 48 sold out of 50 offered.

Elgin Angus at Elsthorpe in Hawke’s Bay also had a high average of $10,210 for 19 bulls sold out of 21 in the catalogue, including a top price of $16,000 and another at $15,500.

Twin Oaks Angus at Te Akau, Waikato, made a top price of $27,000 this year, backed up by several sales in the range $15,000 to $20,000 and achieved an average of $10,833 across 57 sold out of 59 offered.

Nearby Rolling Rock Angus, Te Akau, had a top price of $15,500 and sold 22 out of 23 with an average of $9340.

Dandaleith Angus, Dannevirke, sold 25 out of 29 and averaged $10,140 with a top of $17,000

and several around $15,000 and $14,000.

In Amberley in North Canterbury the Beechwood, Richon and Woodburn Hereford studs combined to sell 23 of 28 and average $7520 with a top price of $18,000 paid for Beechwood Last Stand 210010.

Mokairau Hereford, Gisborne, sold 19 out of 23, averaged 7568 and had a top price of $11,000

paid by Pukeroa Station.

Ōrari Gorge Hereford, Ōrari, sold 19 out of 27, averaged $7083 and had a top price of $13,500.

Hinewaka Shorthorns at Masterton made a top price for $15,500 to Hinewaka Anzac 21/21 and sold 14 out of 18 with an average of $6180.

Up the road at Waipukurau, Glen Anthony Simmentals made a top price of $14,500 twice while selling 19 out of 20 and averaging $7658. The top prices were paid by Waikite Simmentals, Rotorua, and a commercial buyer at Taumarunui.

Ranui Angus at Kai Iwi, near Whanganui, made a top price of $21,000 and sold 30 out of 39, averaging $7850.

EMIGRATING: Silverstream Charolais Spectra S184 was bought for $65,000 by an Australian Charolais breeder in a syndicate with two New Zealand studs.

Mt Mable Angus, Kumeroa, sold 27 out of 30 offered, averaged $10,200 and topped at $21,000 of Mt Mable 2128.

Mt Possession Angus, Mt Somers, had a full clearance of 19 bulls, averaged $7700 and had a top price paid of $11,500.

Martin Farming Angus and Hereford, at Wakefield, Nelson, had a top price of $20,000 for Angus bull Aswan 2991 and sold 32 of 33 offered with an average of $8375.

Cleardale Angus, Rakaia Gorge, sold 23 out of 29, averaged $7652

PARADISE: Waitangi Angus S257 will swap the Bay of Islands for Whāngāra on the east coast after selling for a stud record $65,000.

and had a top of $14,500.

Riverlands J Angus, at Cheviot, sold 14 out of 19, averaged $7570 and made $11,000 twice.

Grassmere Hereford sold 11 out of 15, averaged $6818 and had a high price of $9500.

Maungahina Hereford and Speckle Park, Masterton, sold 29 of the 31 Herefords, averaged $9658 and the top price of $23,000 for Fandango 210048 was paid by Roundaway Station.

In the Speckle Park bulls a full clearance of 13 averaged $8115 and the top price of $18,000 was paid by Ben Murphy and Tony Trainor. Ten three-year-old incalf SP heifers were also sold and averaged $6590 with a top of $8200.

Ipurua South Devons, Te Kūiti, sold 12 of 25 with a top of $7500 and an average of $4500.

Stokman Angus, Waikite Valley, sold eight of 16, averaged $5325 and had a top of $7000 twice.

Glen R Angus, Darfield, sold 18 of 27, averaged $6250 and topped out at $9000 three times.

Brookwood Angus, Takapau, sold 9 of 20, averaged $7611 and had a top of $10,000.

Snake Gully Limousins, Northland, had a full clearance of 18 bulls, averaged $5533 and had a top of $9000.

Eastern sales dominate on both Islands

Hugh Stringleman MARKETS Livestock

AS THE national beef bull sale season rolled into week six, top prices of $42,000 were recorded in Hawke’s Bay and North Canterbury.

Koanui Herefords, Havelock North, had a top price of $42,000 paid by Maranui Herefords, Graham and Rachel Brown, from Waihi, for Koanui Milton S420. The Chesterman family at Koanui sold 37 of 46 bulls and averaged $8392.

Woodbank Angus, Clarence Valley, also made a top price of $42,000 for Woodbank 21175 when the Murray family sold 60 out of

62 offered and achieved an average price of $9616.

Sister stud Matariki Herefords, selling on the same day, sold 49 of 59, averaged $9112 and had a top of $17,000.

Atahua Angus, Feilding, had a full clearance of 23 bulls with a top price of $20,000 paid by Merchiston Angus and $15,000 paid by Abbotsford Angus. The Atahua average was a meritorious $11,391.

Kākahu Angus, Geraldine, had a full clearance of 84 bulls with an average of $9136 and the highest price was $21,000 paid by Mt Peel Station for Kākahu S041.

At the Hallmark-Waiterenui

Angus sale at Tūtira, Hawke’s Bay, 53 bulls were offered and 50 were

sold, averaging $8350. Top price was $15,000 paid by Kiwikawa Angus, Hastings.

In the Blenheim bull sale, Leefield Station sold 16 of 17 Angus bulls with a top price of $13,500 and an average of $5844.

Grampians Angus, Culverden a full clearance of 57 bulls averaging $11,324, one of the highest averages this season.

Blacknight Angus had a full clearance of 12 averaging $6666 and with a $9500 top price.

Kaiwara Angus, Culverden, had

a top price of $11,000 and sold 20 out of 25 with an average of $6325.

Hemingford Charolais, Culverden had a top price of $28,000 paid by Silverstream Charolais for Silverado S97 and they also had $20,000 paid by Darke Bros for lot 1, Smooth Operator S71.

In total 50 bulls were sold out of 57 and the average was $8334.

Grampians Angus, Culverden had a top of $24,000 paid for Grampians S014 and the stud had a full clearance of 57 bulls averaging $11,324, one of the highest averages this season.

Red Oak Angus, Waipara, sold all 42 bulls and averaged $9400, with a top price of $25,000 for Red Oak 21318 paid by Tapahia Angus, Waipukurau. Red Oak also sold 21

of 22 females, averaging $3710.

Earnscleugh High Country Genetics, Alexandra, offered 53 Angus bulls and sold 52, with an average of $10,500. The highest at $28,000 went to Riverlee Stud.

There were 33 Earnscleugh Composite bulls offered and 27 sold, averaging $5926. Some 27 Hereford bulls were offered and 13 sold, averaging $5460 with a high of $11,500 to Benmore Station.

Taimate Angus, Blenheim, sold 80 out of 81 and made a very good average of $11,294, with a top price of $21,000 paid for Taimate S19.

At the same venue Burtergill South Devons reached a top price of $12,500 for Patriot 2106 and six sold for an average of $7583.

Young Farmers ready to give it their all

NEW Zealand’s top young farmers are preparing to take over Timaru for the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final.

Held over three days from Thursday, July 6, the prestigious competition – now in its 55th year – will see seven Grand Finalists battle it out for the coveted title of FMG Young Farmer of the Year and around $80,000 worth of prizes.

Twenty-eight FMG Junior Young Farmer of the Year competitors will also compete for a national title, along with 63 AgriKidsNZ competitors from across the country.

Grand Final convenor and Pendarves Young Farmers member Ashleigh Bell said she’s looking forward to showcasing “what Aorangi is made of” with carefully curated challenges designed to capture the unique flavour of the region.

“In Timaru, we’re known for our diversity, including dairy, sheep, grain and deer farming. We’re lucky enough to have the Southern Canterbury Plains on our doorstep, the rolling hill country and the high country, so there are a lot of different industries in the mix.”

The practical day on Friday, July 7 at Winchester Showgrounds has a lot to offer spectators, Bell said. All 98 contestants will go headto-head in a series of practical challenges as well as several modules involving machinery, fencing, livestock management and more.

“We want contestants to be really challenged at this event. These competitors are incredibly talented, so we don’t want them gliding through it. They’re going to have to give everything they’ve

A lot is riding on contestants during a Grand Final. They’re consistently thinking about so many different things at once ... it takes a lot of mental skill to get through the three days.

prove they’ve got what it takes to be New Zealand’s best,” said Bell.

The AgriKidsNZ and FMG Junior Young Farmer of the Year

Contestants will have their awards ceremony on Friday night, but the fate of the seven FMG Young Farmer of The Year Grand Finalists won’t be decided until after the famous buzzer quiz on Saturday evening.

“A lot is riding on contestants during a Grand Final. They’re consistently thinking about so many different things at once. If they think too far ahead or too far back, they’ll lose focus, so it takes a lot of mental skill to get through the three days.”

Three of the seven FMG Young Farmer of the Year competitors have competed at a Grand Final in previous years. For two of them, Emma Poole and Lisa Kendall, it’s their last shot at the title. Poole’s

elder brother, Tim Dangen, was last year’s FMG Young Farmer of the Year.

NZYF chief executive Lynda Coppersmith said who the winner will be is “anyone’s guess”.

“This event is going to be phenomenal to watch. The talent is out of this world, proof that the future of farming in Aotearoa is bright.”

The FMG Young Farmer of the Year contest series would not be possible without its family of sponsors: FMG, Ravensdown, WorkSafe, Environmental Protection Authority, Ministry for Primary Industries, Milwaukee, Honda, Lincoln University, Massey University, PTS Logistics, New Holland and Bushbuck.

CHALLENGED: ‘We want contestants to be really challenged at this event,’ convenor Ashleigh Bell says.

is a leading New Zealand law firm with an unrivalled understanding of the country's most important primary industries.

and Partners is a leading New Zealand law firm with an unrivalled understanding of the country’s most important primary industries. We are proud to sponsor the New Zealand Young Farmers tournament series

got to

FRIENDLY RIVALS: The seven best young farmers from around New Zealand will be competing for the title of FMG Young Farmer of the Year from July 6-8 in Timaru.

Ashleigh Bell Grand Final convenor

Three-time regional winner a force to be reckoned with

LISA Kendall is a force to be reckoned with. A farmer, contractor, coordinator and mother, the third-time winner of the Northern FMG Young Farmer of the Year knows a thing or two about hard work.

Now, as she prepares for the Grand Final in Timaru, she’s digging deep to give the contest all she’s got.

“The last couple of years have been a bit frustrating with 2020 being cancelled due to covid, coming third place in 2021 and then placing second in 2022. I came back this year to get that win and now I’m on my way to the Grand Final.”

As an independent contractor, Lisa spends most weekdays on lifestyle blocks. Her work is varied, ranging from shearing to drenching, property maintenance and fencing. When her kids are in tow, Lisa says they’re strapped into the pram or backpack, helping Mum and Dad “chip away” at their 20ha “glorified lifestyle block” near Karaka, south of Auckland.

“Our small farm is actually the first sheep and beef farm in New Zealand to be SPCA-certified. I put in a lot of work to maintain that status. We’ve got shade sails in every paddock that doesn’t have trees, and we’ve done a lot of planting both for shade and waterway management.”

Building the pet goats a

playground, and a lamb shelter insulated with sheep wool, are just some of Lisa’s initiatives.

“We’re really proud of the work we’ve put into it,” she says.

Although Lisa wasn’t raised on a farm many of her friends were, and by her last year of high school she knew agriculture was her future.

She studied for a Diploma in

Agriculture and a Diploma in Farm Management at Lincoln University before studying via distance at Massey University. After university, she worked on dairy farms in Waikato and sheep and beef farms in Canterbury, before travelling and then returning home to set up her own property.

It’s been seven years since she signed up for Young Farmers, becoming a member of the Franklin Young Farmers Club in 2016. The rest, she says, “is history”.

She may be busy, but Lisa is trying her best to prepare for the Grand Final. It’s her last chance to take out FMG Young Farmer of the Year.

“I’m very aware that this is my

last chance – everyone keeps reminding me of it!” she says, laughing.

“Whether I win or not, it will be nice either way. Whatever happens, I can be proud of the effort I’ve put in over the years. I’m going to go out knowing that I gave it my all.

“Obviously, I’d love to win, but if I don’t, at least I learnt a lot in the process. The competition has been pushing me out of my comfort zone for years.”

She says the Grand Final is a great opportunity to get your passion recognised and build a platform to launch off – something she has done herself as a past competitor.

“It sets you up to make your mark and it gives you the confidence to put yourself forward with leadership and volunteer roles in Young Farmers or beyond.”

One of these leadership roles is working as Auckland’s Regional Co-ordinator for the Farm Environment Awards. Plus, she hopes to set up her small farm as an agritourism farm tour operation later this year.

“Sharing knowledge is something I’m passionate about, and when we’ve had school groups come through in the past, I’ve loved it.”

Lisa’s husband may not be into agriculture (except when he gives her a hand at the weekends), but she wonders if her two boys, Beau

and Quin, will follow her lead.

“I’m really happy they’re growing up with an understanding and respect of what goes into food production.

“I’m definitely not one of those parents who force their kids into anything, but they’ve naturally gravitated towards playing with tractors and diggers.”

“They love coming on the farm and helping me out. Plus, Quin, my youngest, has only got one

Region: Northern

Occupation: Small business owner

Age: 31

word, and that’s ‘cow’. Hopefully one day they’ll be able to compete themselves, but for now, I’m enjoying showing them the ropes.”

Farming right under the mountain

WHEN Emma Poole walks to the calf sheds in the morning, the first thing she sees is Mount Pirongia. Beau, her one-year-old son, is strapped to her front to help with the day’s first task. Chris, her husband, has already started his. He’s out at the milking sheds.

“We’re lucky we farm right under the mountain,” she says.

“Up on the hill is where our runoff with young stock is, and our dairy farms are at the base. So yeah, that big mountain is in the background of every scene.”

Emma and Chris look after a 720-cow farm, splitting calving between autumn and spring and rearing an additional 1000 calves alongside milking. Emma loves to use her vetting skills when she can and does a bit of embryo work for breeding too.

Emma, one of five siblings, was first introduced to farming on her parents’ Muriwai dairy farm. She

and her elder brother Tim Dangen would kick around the paddocks and woolsheds, lending a hand to their parents.

“Mum and Dad are incredibly creative and skilled in a lot of different areas.

“Dad can pretty much build anything, and Mum is just full of awesome ideas.”

Now a Grand Finalist for the second time, Emma gives credit to her upbringing for setting her up with the skills she has today.

Tim was crowned last season as FMG Young Farmer of the Year. Emma’s husband competed against him last year, too.

“It’s safe to say we’re pretty competitive in our family,” she laughs.

This season, Emma is going for gold. This Grand Final is her last shot.

“At 28, I haven’t aged out of Young Farmers. But I knew, even if I hadn’t won the Regional Final, it would probably be my last crack. We’ll just be busy with other farming things and our family from here on out, so I want to give the Grand Final my best.”

Competing head-to-head with 15 other contestants, Emma was announced as the winner of the Waikato-Bay of Plenty FMG Young

Farmer of the Year in March after spending the weekend competing at the Morrinsville A&P Show. The first day saw the young farmers tested on technical modules that challenged work safety, farming techniques and agricultural theory. Saturday saw a physical challenge, where contestants proved solution and stamina by lifting hay bales, herding sheep and building a fence.

Whatever happens, I hope to be an inspiration for other people and other young women wanting to enter the industry.

One thing Emma wants to work on for the Grand Final is her fitness. She says she wants to prove a woman can do the “men’s jobs” and more.

“If I do win it, I want it to be a good, strong fair contest, and I want people to look at it and think, ‘That was a really fair display of farming out there.’”

“Whatever happens, I hope to be an inspiration for other people and other young women wanting to enter the industry.”

Lisa Kendall

Whatever happens, I can be proud of the effort I’ve put in over the years. I’m going to go out knowing that I gave it my all.

Emma Poole Region: Waikato-Bay of Plenty Occupation: Dairy farmer Age: 28

Summers on the farm

MAC Williams first dipped his toes into farming when he was a teen on the West Coast.

“Where I’m from, it’s wild – 85% of our region is native bush, and we’re bordered by tall rimu and big scrub. You’re right in amongst it. One day you’ll get 200ml of rain, and the next day it will be beautiful sunshine.”

He grew up with his parents in town, but Mac spent a lot of time on his grandparents’ farm in Jacksons. He’s been mad about farming since he was a “wee squirt”.

“I ended up getting a cow when I was 10. Grandad bought me a young heifer off one of the people who leased the farm, and then I ended up running 10-15 cows on neighbouring lifestyle blocks. I worked for a few share milkers too.”

That was before he met his neighbour, Matt Donahue, a Canterbury dairy farmer who

bought the neighbouring property.

“He asked if I could drive tractors, and I said yes. He took me under his wing and taught me everything really. The rest is history.”

Mac spent the majority of lockdown in the bush, driving tractors through rivers that snaked through the 1200-cow dairy farm. What began as clearing gorse grew to milking cows, feeding out, and whatever else needed doing.

Now every summer Mac returns to work on Matt’s farm. His boss has taught him all he knows –knowledge and skills that have come in handy during the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Contest.

Calling it “fluky”, Mac says winning the Taranaki Manawatū FMG Young Farmer of the Year was something he didn’t expect.

“The competition has been pretty daunting, a lot of work to do, but it’s been really well done. Everything’s put in front of you. It’s awesome.”

Two years into a veterinary degree, Mac is no stranger to knuckling down. Wanting to get into farming but not knowing how, vet school felt like the perfect fit. Plus, he’s always had a love for cattle.

“They’re very interesting animals, creatures of habit. It’s crazy to think they’re so big but also so docile.”

Mac Williams

Region: Taranaki-Manawatū

Occupation: Student

Age: 20

In his first year at Massey University, Mac joined the Young Farmers Club. He was already familiar with the club dynamic, having been a member of TeenAg when he boarded at St Bede’s College.

This year’s competition was his first run at it, and it’s already influenced the way he sees farming in the future.

“The competition really immerses you into what’s coming next. WorkSafe and the Environmental Protection Authority, their modules are very forward focused. And the farming industry – it’s physically very challenging, but very rewarding too. But the mental rollercoasters of what’s in front of you show it’s just a constant problem-solving game.”

The variety of challenges has opened his eyes to what’s coming next, and Mac is confident he’s ready for it. But that doesn’t stop him from being relaxed about the whole thing.

“I’m the guy who is always wondering what’s happening

tomorrow,” he jokes.

“Whether I win or not, I’m looking forward to the opportunities presented by the

contest and being a part of such an iconic event. You’ve got to take what comes from it and enjoy the journey.”

Whether I win or not, I’m looking forward to the opportunities presented by the contest and being a part of such an iconic event.

Overcoming cyclone mayhem for the win

FARMING has always been part of owner and operator Patrick Crawshaw’s life.

“I grew up on Kenhardt Angus Stud, and my parents are still farming in Nūhaka, Hawke’s Bay. My upbringing birthed a lot of passion for the industry and in particular the red meat sector and beef industry.”

Patrick now owns and operates a beef and lamb farm with his wife, Isabelle, and their young family. Located in Pātoka, Hawke’s Bay, the farm produces up to 2500 lambs annually, and between 300 to 400 head of beef.

Sitting roughly 400m above sea level, the farm boasts stunning views – a sweeping panorama from west to east.

“We’ve got the Kaweka range behind us, which gives us a nice

There’s been a lot of community support to help me prepare for the Grand Final so I’m sure we’ll be able to piece something together, given the circumstances.

snowy backdrop on the farm. Looking east, we can see down the valley to the top of Havelock North. We’re lucky we get a sundrenched kitchen to wake up to.”

The scenery has looked a bit different lately in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle. Patrick’s farm was badly affected, and he says it’s likely they will still be cleaning up in a year’s time.

“For us, it’s about running a marathon, not a sprint.”

Cyclone Gabrielle hit just a few short weeks before the East Coast Regional Final was due to take place.

Patrick says he had many Plan Bs, Cs, and Ds up his sleeve to make it to the contest, including traversing the river on a boat.

“We had a fixed-wing pilot available, some helicopter pilots too, and a vehicle on the other side of the road during the good weather in case the bad weather levels left us stranded.”

As it happened, the week before the Regional Final had the best weather since the cyclone hit, and Patrick, after a great deal of adversity, took out the win.

Now he’s doing what he can to prepare for the Grand Final. The cyclone may have put a spanner in the works, but he says it’s not

Patrick Crawshaw Region: East Coast Occupation: Beef and lamb farmer

Age: 29

going to stop him putting his best foot forward.

“There’s been a lot of community support and reach to help me prepare for the Grand Final so I’m sure we’ll be able to piece something together, given the circumstances.”

Motivated to provide leadership in the industry and governance space, Patrick is interested in putting time and energy into innovative practices for the modern consumer. Winning the Grand Final would give him a leg up in the industry to do this, and he’s already excited to see where it could lead him.

“I get a lot of reward out of putting in the time, money and energy into producing a really good quality finished product for the plate.

“The Grand Final is an opportunity and you’ve just got to make it what it is for your own ambitions.”

Hot on the heels of his big brother

LINCOLN University

student Nick O’Connor has many ideas for his future, and winning the Grand Final is one of them.

Hailing from his family farm in Westport, Nick knows a thing or two, much like his elder brother and fellow competitor, Peter O’Connor.

Nick says winning FMG Young Farmer of the Year would be this year’s icing on the cake –especially if he can beat Peter.

“The Grand Final in July is going to be good fun,” he says.

The Tasman contest marked his first Regional Final, and as chair of the Lincoln Young Farmers Club, he’s stoked to have come away with a win. Nick hopes his “uni mindset” will give him an advantage in the final competition.

“Having the time and resources around me at Lincoln means I can get some quality study in for it. There are a lot of people willing to help from the uni, so I’m really lucky. At the same time, other contestants have skills and experience that I don’t have.”

His goal is to get better at the practicalities of agriculture –something he’s excited to try more of once he graduates.

“The plan is to go overseas and do a couple of harvests in Australia and Canada, then go and work on my uncle’s farm in the UK ... then I’ll get into dairy farming back home.”

One day he hopes to be a part of the Dairy Grassroots Programme in New Zealand, like his brother, and land a leadership role in the dairy industry – whatever that may be.

“Only time will tell. If I saw a need for innovation or change, I wouldn’t be afraid to push through.”

When he’s not knee-deep in studies, Nick works at his family’s farm on the West Coast. Wedged between mountains and sea, there’s not one paddock that isn’t surrounded by native bush. For Nick, it’s bliss.

“We’re pretty isolated from everything over here. For me, it’s a great break from the city.”

Growing up on the 600-cow farm made for a full-on childhood. When he was a kid, the farm had just developed, and both his parents were, and still are, very involved.

He spent all his spare time outside helping them both. So, when he’s home for the holidays,

Mum and Dad make sure to keep him busy.

“We do all of our own contracting, silage, cultivation work, fertilising and spraying, so there’s always something to do.” His favourite thing about farming is problem-solving. He says you might have one thing figured out, but there’ll always be something around the corner to follow.

Having the time and resources around me at Lincoln means I can get some quality study in for it. There are a lot of people willing to help from the uni, so I’m really lucky.

“Solving these problems and navigating the process of them is what excites me the most. You never stop learning.”

As a new-generation farmer, Nick is passionate about the future. His advice to those wanting to enter the industry is you can learn about anything, regardless of your background.

“You don’t have to be brought up on a farm to know everything about farming. If there’s one thing I know, is that no one really knows everything anyway.”

Nick O’Connor Region: Tasman Occupation: Student Age: 20

Next generation ready to take its shot

FOR Peter O’Connor, competing in FMG Young Farmer of the Year runs in the family.

“Dad and his brothers competed when they were younger and got pretty close, but never actually made it to a Grand Final. It’s always been a challenge I’ve wanted to take a crack at.”

Back in 2006, Peter watched his first Grand Final with his dad and grandfather in Greymouth. Attracted by the fast-paced challenge and prestigious “Young Farmer of the Year” title, Peter has long wanted to compete.

Now he’s living that dream. After securing the title of Aorangi FMG Young Farmer of the Year in April, Peter is preparing to compete in his first Grand Final – head-tohead against his younger brother, Nick.

“Obviously, I don’t want to let him win,” laughs Peter.

Both boys grew up on the family farm in Westport. Peter says he always loved farming, even if it wasn’t something he initially saw in his future.

“I always enjoyed helping Dad out on the farm when I was little, and I learnt to drive a tractor from a young age.

“I learnt to think practically, so

that’s always been of interest to me.”

In his last year of high school, Peter traded his dreams of being an engineer for a life on the farm. He couldn’t see himself at a desk job anymore.

“A job that was outdoors and working with people and farm animals was more up my alley. So it was a no-brainer for me.”

During his time at Lincoln University, Peter did two seasons of silage contracting (including one in Australia) before graduating with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science.

He reckons his time overseas gives him an edge in the competition.

“Over there, you always had to be paying attention to detail to make sure things didn’t go wrong. I think that’s the same with the competition where every

Peter O’Connor Region: Aorangi Occupation: Dairy farmer

Age: 25

point counts, so making sure you do things right the first time is important.”

Peter went into dairy full-time last season and was second in charge on a 900-cow dairy farm. Soon after he was named Dairy Trainee of the Year at the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards.

Now managing a 400-cow dairy farm near Methven, Peter wakes up to the Lyndhurst sunrise to milk cows, shift irrigation, set up fencing, and do whatever else is needed depending on the season. Every task is setting him up well in preparation for the Grand Final. But, he says, there’s still a lot that needs doing.

“There are lots of different things we could get asked to do at the Grand Final so I’m trying to prepare for as many of those as possible.”

If he won, Peter says he’d use the platform to increase awareness of career pathways in the industry.

“There’s lots of progression

opportunities in the sector. It’s a great industry to work in, I love working outdoors, and I love promoting that to other people. Farming might not sound like a career to some but if I could use my Grand Final title to change that for the better I would.”

Plus, he can’t wait to see his family cheering from the sidelines.

It’s all about continuing the tradition.

“Young Farmers is held in high regard in New Zealand so it’s a very prestigious award. It gets you more recognised among farmers and potential employers and gives you a platform to be a positive changemaker. I’d be very honoured to win.”

There’s lots of progression opportunities in the sector. It’s a great industry to work in, I love working outdoors, and I love promoting that to other people.

Looking to do some good in agriculture

HUGH Jackson doesn’t waste a second. On any given day you’ll find him on the tractor, milking, or speaking up about mental health.

Growing up in the picturesque Te Akau, a small farming settlement north of Raglan, Hugh spent his free time as a youngster on the family sheep and beef farm.

One of his earliest memories was slashing rushes on the tractor and drenching lambs.

When he wasn’t fencing or working with stock, he was running down to the coast to fish and surf, as the family farm lies on the coast of the Tasman Sea.

“Having that real upbringing, not being wrapped in cotton wool, and having the opportunity to do those sorts of things was a highlight growing up. It’s something town kids don’t get, so I feel really privileged,” he says.

It was this upbringing that inspired Hugh to pursue farming as a career. In 2017 he moved to Palmerston North to study Agri Commerce. He joined the Massey Young Farmers Club and was appointed vice-chair two years later.

In 2020 he was picked for DairyNZ’s graduate programme,

running events and facilitating discussions between farmers for two years out of Invercargill and Ashburton.

Now Hugh is a herd manager on a 600-cow dairy farm in Taramoa, Southland. He met sharemilkers Sam Hodsell and Jenna Hansen through the Thornbury Young Farmers Club.

“I wanted to give hands-on dairy farming a crack. I got on really well with Sam and Jen and knew that they were looking for staff so I made the move south. I’ve learnt a lot from these top operators and really enjoy being back in Southland.”

“Each day I assist in running the day-to-day operation. This entails milking, feeding out, setting up breaks, feeding calves, fencing ... whatever needs doing on the farm, really.”

Reflecting on his performance at the Otago Southland Regional Final in March, he’s stoked to have won.

“My experience so far has prepared me fairly well. I wanted to give it a good crack, and with the Young Farmer’s competition, a win is never guaranteed. I’ve had a few goes before and come up short so it was awesome to get across the line.”

Hugh is busy preparing for July’s Grand Final. He’s doing everything he can to sharpen up, spending his days off improving skills he doesn’t feel he’s particularly good at.

Hugh already knows what he’d like to do if he wins.

“If I was to win, I would hope that I could help encourage others to get into farming and promote the industry in a good light,” he says. “Agriculture is something I’m passionate about and I’m looking to do good in it.”

One thing he’d like to improve in the industry is how farmers talk about mental health and wellbeing.

“I’m pretty passionate about it. I’ve had my own experiences with it, so I know what it’s like to ask for help,” he says.

He hopes to see people enjoying their farming careers whatever step of the ladder they’re on.

“There’s always room for

improvement to look after our farm teams, and retention is key. Something I’d like to see get better is the industry’s ability to hold onto staff and help support them to reach their goals. It’s a twoway street, and we need to create outcomes where both parties win.”

Something I’d like to see get better is the industry’s ability to hold onto staff and help support them to reach their goals.

Hugh Jackson Region: Otago-Southland Occupation: Dairy farmer Age: 25

AgriKidsNZ ready for their time in the sun

AS THE contest’s youngest contestants prepare for the main event, a team of Waikato Primary School students are feeling the support of “an entire community”.

Regan Hemingway, Chloe Bowers and Quintin Stockholmes, all aged 12 and from Pukeatua School, were the AgriKids NZ winners at the Waikato Bay of Plenty Regional Final in March. The win qualified them for July’s Grand Final, where they’ll compete against 60 other primary-aged competitors from across Aotearoa.

Contestants will be tested on their practical skills as well as general knowledge with a range of modules designed by the competition’s sponsors.

Feeling “excited and nervous” about what lies ahead, the team has spent the last couple of months learning as much as they can about New Zealand’s food and fibre sector.

“We don’t know what kind of challenges we’re going to be faced with on the day, so we want to

be prepared for everything,” says Chloe.

This year is Chloe’s first go at the competition, but for Regan and Quintin, who competed at last year’s Grand Final, it’s more familiar territory.

“It helps having done it before, but we still need to keep an open mind and be prepared for anything,” says Quintin.

Regan agrees.

“We worked really well together as a team at the Regional Finals. If we can do that again, it will be amazing,” he says.

Between schoolwork and brushing up on their general knowledge, the team has spent their spare time working with the local community to fundraise for the trip.

“The local support and sponsorship from the community has been amazing,” says supervisor Katherine Hemingway. We’ve had fantastic donations of prizes for a raffle, monetary support, and even a donation of 100 native plants. It really has been a whole-ofcommunity effort.”

New Zealand Young Farmers chief executive Lynda Coppersmith says it’s been incredible to watch the talent that’s coming through with the next generation of Young Farmers.

“I’m so impressed by these contestants’ knowledge, despite their young age.

“It’s clear they take this competition really seriously, and competing in the Grand Final gives

them a bit of mana to take back to their school and say ‘Hey, look, I’ve achieved something awesome’.”

The winning team will be crowned the 2023 AgriKidsNZ Champions at an award ceremony on Friday, July 7.

• Regan, Chloe and Quintin would like to thank their many local sponsors who are making this trip possible.

We worked really well together as a team at the Regional Finals. If we can do that again, it will be amazing.

Regan Hemingway Pukeatua School

FMG Juniors showcase the future of farming

ACROSS Aotearoa, 14 FMG Junior Young Farmer of the Year teams are busy preparing for their shot at a national title.

The two-day contest for highschool-aged students will see the top two teams from each region come together to tackle a range of challenges, designed to test them on aspects of modern farming across the whole supply chain.

The winning team will be crowned FMG Junior Young Farmer of the Year at an evening awards ceremony on Friday July 7.

St Bede’s College students

Michael Blunt and Zander McCloy are among the top contestants, having qualified when they secured the title of Tasman FMG

We both made a commitment this year to go all out and put in as much effort as possible.

As year 13s, it’s our last year competing in the FMG Junior category.

Junior Young Farmers of the Year at the Tasman Regional Final earlier this year.

“I think it’s fair to say that we’re both feeling a mixture of nervousness and excitement heading into the Grand Final,” Zander says. “We both made a commitment this year to go all out and put in as much effort as possible. As year 13s, it’s our last year competing in the FMG Junior category, so we’re pretty happy to be giving this opportunity to go to the Grand Final and have that experience,” he says.

The pair are preparing for the contest by studying and are spending their spare time honing their practical skills with support from their supervisor, John McPhail.

“Obviously, we won’t know what challenges the boys will face until the day, but we’re putting our best foot forward and preparing for a range of scenarios,” McPhail says.

He says the boys have been lucky to have three former St Bede’s students as role models. Brothers Nick and Peter O’Connor, and Mac Williams, are all Grand Finalists this year.

“It’s awesome to see our students coming out on top – and it shows Michael and Zander what

can be achieved if you put the hard work in.”

Michael’s dream to compete in a Grand Final started in 2018, when he and his family made the trip to Invercargill to watch his brother compete in the Grand Final.

“I remember thinking the atmosphere was awesome. I really enjoyed the hype and the buildup, and it was cool to support my brother every step of the way.”

Michael is proud to continue his family’s tradition. His father, Anthony Blunt, won the coveted title of Young Farmer of the Year back in 1991.

“My dad is a third-generation sheep and beef farmer from Kaikōura, so it’s pretty special to be able to carry on in his footsteps and make him proud.”

New Zealand Young Farmers chief executive Lynda Coppersmith says the competition creates an awesome opportunity for highschool students to get involved in the agricultural sector.

“Hopefully they’ll feel really inspired. There’s so much more to farming than mustering sheep and milking cows. There’s a lot of pathways people can go down, and being able to showcase that is just one of the many great things about this competition.”

GROWING WINNERS: Waikato Bay of Plenty AgriKidsNZ winners, from left, Chloe Bowers, Quintin Stockholmes and Regan Hemingway.

RARING TO GO: Tasman FMG Junior winner Zander McCloy, left, and Michael Blunt.

Zander McCloy St Bede’s College

Nowinto our eighth year as the principal sponsor of FMG Young Farmer of the Year, we’re excited to see Season 55 in full swing, with the grand final just around the corner. The Young Farmer, Junior Young Farmer, and AgriKids competitors have been hard at it in the lead up to the Final and we’ve thrown in even more to compete for with the FMG Region-off!

Ask any farmer to name the best farming region in New Zealand and they’ll give you the same answer, ”my region”. So, now’s the time to settle it. You may remember FMG People’s Choice from previous seasons. Well, this year we’ve mixed it up, shifting the focus to align with one of FMG’s core values – community. The FMG Region-off encourages participation

not only from our Young Farmers, but also our Junior Young Farmers and AgriKids, all vying for glory in a regional showdown!

What’s up for grabs? Provincial glory is at stake obviously, but also the winning region wins a $5,000 cash prize for their chosen local charity.

The FMG Region-off kicked off on 7 June and participants have been taking part in a variety of team challenges while also giving back to their community.

It has become obvious, that while points are at stake, the best part to these challenges is giving back to the community.

Young Farmer teams can embrace their wellbeing, and the wellbeing of those in their community, while also earning points for their region. It’s all part of the Be Farmstrong Challenge – an idea that is centred around Farmstrong’s ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing.’ International research found that people who thrive have five things in common, they:

1. feel connected with others

2. take notice of the simple things

3. give regularly

4. keep learning

5. are physically active.

There has been great participation, especially from our next generation of Young Farmers. They’ve been out in their local communities, getting stuck in and giving back to the community in a variety of ways.

We’ve seen AgriKids and Junior Young Farmers out filling up bags of rubbish at their local reserve, drenching lambs, planting native trees, helping with fencing, and much more. Teams are actively planning other activities, for example our Otago Southland AgriKids will be gardening at a retirement village, and delivering food to local pensioners, and our Waikato Bay of Plenty AgriKids are taking firewood to local elderly, and helping an injured farmer continue to get things done. It has become obvious that while points are at stake, the best part to these challenges is giving back to the community.

So, who will win the 2023 FMG Region-off? It’s up to you!

Join us in getting in behind your region’s Young Farmers and help support strong and prosperous rural communities. Visit fmg.co.nz/ region-off to check out the challenges and vote for your deserving region. You’ll also go in the draw to win a $500 Prezzy Card*.

Voting closes at 5pm on 8 July, and the winning region will be announced at the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final.

Clockwise: Waikato Bay of Plenty Puketua Proud AgriKids planting natives with the support of their classmates William Walker, Noah Davies, Barker McKluskie, Quintin Stockholmes, Zara Bowers, Hayden Duncan, Sam McKluskie, Chloe Bowers, Regan Hemingway and Millie Davies; Flynn from Otago helping drench lambs; The Southern Boys from Otago/Southland, with their siblings picking up rubbish: Addison Clarke, Finley Clarke, Sam Horrell, Oliver Chamberlain, Tomas Clarke Daniel Horrell, Ruby Chamberlain.

Frasertown, Wairoa 1720 Lake Road

Tender

Starter package

• 251 ha of Wairoa Hill Country

• Three stand raised board woolshed

• Sheep and cattle yards

• Two satellite sheep yards

• 13 main paddocks

• Great stock water

Located only 15 minutes out of Wairoa towards Lake Waikaremoana. This farm offers great opportunity into the world of farm ownership or would make a great addition to any farming operation.

Pohangina 2373 Pohangina Valley East Road

Tender closes 4.00pm, Thu 27th Jul, 2023 (unless sold prior), 66 Reads Quay, Gisborne View By appointment Web pb.co.nz/GIR164610

Tom Lane

M 027 866 5263 E toml@pb.co.nz

Fenton Wilson

M 027 498 4483 E fenton.wilson@pb.co.nz

Konewa Station - 490 ha (STS)

Located in the renowned farming district of the Pohangina Valley, Konewa Station runs from the Pohangina River to the bush edge of the Ruahine ranges. The 490 ha offers a diverse range of land classes, from fertile flats to the boundary of the forest park. The property has been subject to an extensive development program in recent years, giving the ability to run any class of stock, from breeding to finishing. The contour balance is approx. 40% cultivatable and 60% grazing. The existing farming system is 80% finishing and 20% breeding. Improvements on the property include a 4-bedroom homestead plus excellent garaging and sleepout set in mature grounds, 3 stand woolshed, multiple sets of sheep and cattle yards, implement/hay shed and sundry farm buildings. Providing outstanding productivity along with hunting and fishing opportunities, Konewa Station is unequalled. This property demands the consideration of anyone wanting to take advantage of such a rare opportunity.

4 3 2

Tender closes 11.00am, Wed 26th Jul, 2023, 54 Kimbolton Road, Feilding View Wed 21 & 28 June - Farm tour commences at 10.30am 4 wheeler required Web pb.co.nz/FR164137

Blair Cottrill M 027 354 5419 E blair@pb.co.nz

Ted Shannon M 021 833 536 E ted.shannon@pb.co.nz

Stuart Sutherland M 027 452 1155 E stuarts@pb.co.nz

Owhango 47A Otapouri Road

Open Day

Ohura 17 Waikaka Road

Ultimate Otapouri

On the very popular Otapouri road in Owhango is this country charmer home. The home was built in 2010 and has a very practical layout. Keeping the home warm was focused on in the design of the home, heated via underfloor heating powered by a large diesel heater. This heater also heats the water when it is not heated by a solar water heating system. A large kitchen and open plan living space makes the most of the rural views from the home's position. There are four bedrooms, with the master having a very spacious ensuite. An internal access garage plus car port completes the home. The 9.9 ha property boasts beautiful country views of rolling Owhango flats and Mt Ruapehu.

Taumarunui 36 Kirikau Valley Road

4 2 1 2

Auction 11.00am, Thu 20th Jul, 2023, (unless sold prior), Property Brokers, 27 Hakiaha Street, Taumarunui View Sun 2 Jul 1.00 - 2.00pm Web pb.co.nz/TUR118991

Katie Walker M 027 757 7477

Rosevears

This is an immaculately presented 37.16 ha property with fantastic contour. The property stretches from fertile river flats to easy rolling hills with some medium hills. The property is currently part of a larger farming business, so it has a solid fertilser history and has been grazed well. It has been cropped, contoured and re grassed with quality Rye grass and Clover cultivars and is clean country with minimal weeds. The current owners fatten cattle and winter lambs, but the options could be endless. It could be used for planting maize and other crops. The property is well supported with its own spring water that is reticulated to troughs.

Taumarunui 426 Pukeatua Road

Kirikau Valley

If you are looking for the next property to step up on the farm ownership ladder then this 51.51 ha in the Kirikau Valley, Taumarunui could be for you. There are approx 11 ha of flat to rolling land at the front of the property that provides area to harvest supplement feed, grow crops or for fattening stock. The farm rises from flats to easy hills to steeper hills at the rear of the farm. Everything musters downhill to a well equipped three stand woolshed or to the cattle yards with load out. There is a good level of subdivision with 18 paddocks, a fenced laneway to the woolshed / yards, some are deer fences so there is potential to farm deer.

Hunt this down

4 1 For Sale By Negotiation View By appointment Web

426 Pukeatua Road is a 40 minute drive from Taumarunui and is an ideal haven for hunters, outdoor enthusiasts and honey production. It is at the end of a quiet gravel road, mainly surrounded by native bush reserve and pine tree boundaries. There are currently hives on the farm with potential to keep hives on for this summer or longer. There is approximately 60 ha of deer fenced ground plus a deer shed that with a bit of work could be used again as would the sheep yards. The farm currently has wild deer in the deer fenced area but could potentially carry 500 su of livestock again. You could farm the deer or leave them just for hunting and recreational activities.

Katie Walker

Canterbury 761 Homebush Road, Darfield

Motivated vendors have purchased elsewhere!

Situated in a coveted farming location providing a quality living environment underpinned by an immaculately presented land asset, currently running as dairy support and wintering cows. At 185.0532 hectares this wellpresented farm leverages highly-fertile soils and comprehensive irrigation to support the successful arable and dairy grazing operation. The thoughtfully-designed homestead combines a modern layout with cosy country styling, a sheltered outdoor BBQ area, expansive lawn and carefully maintained gardens. This exceptionally wellmanaged property is equipped with all the infrastructure you could need for continued performance. Located just a few minutes from Darfield township and under 45 minutes door-to-door to Christchurch city. This property is available for acquisition and accordingly, offers are sought from potential purchasers. bayleys.co.nz/5520130

185.0532ha

Deadline Sale (unless sold prior)

12pm, Tue 4 Jul 2023

3 Deans Avenue, Christchurch

Phone for viewing times

Ben Turner 027 530 1400 ben.turner@bayleys.co.nz

Craig Blackburn 027 489 7225 craig.blackburn@bayleys.co.nz

Wellsford Oldfield Road

Welcome to the rock!

Welcome to "Te Toka" ('the rock'), a stunning 249-hectare grazing and lifestyle property. Its landmark rock headland stands tall, overlooking all. With breathtaking 360-degree views, the property offers an ever-changing panorama, that stretches as far as the eye can see, from Hen and Chicken islands in the east to the Kaipara Harbour in the west. The farm has a flat to medium hill contour which has been meticulously farmed and subdivided into 25 paddocks, featuring an airstrip, a large four-bay implement shed, and a rustic yet charming 'shepherd’s’ cottage'. Its native bush provides potential for multiple onsite titles and TTR opportunities, with ETS income streams, and there's plenty for the hunter with wild goats and pigs roaming the hills. bayleys.co.nz/1203522

Helensville 419 and 429 Kiwitahi Road

Deceased estate

249ha

Tender (unless sold prior)

Closing 1pm, Fri 21 Jul 2023

41 Queen Street, Warkworth

View by appointment

John Barnett 021 790 393 john.barnett@bayleys.co.nz

MACKYS REAL ESTATE LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

Step into a world of endless possibilities with this picturesque 90-hectare grazing farm. Positioned in a prime location and with resource consent already secured for two additional titles, this property offers an incredible opportunity for further development. Nestled amidst landscaped gardens, you'll find a charming three-bedroom family home that provides breathtaking vistas of the farm and the Kaipara Harbour beyond. It continues to deliver with two lounges, kitchen and dining areas that seamlessly merge with the outdoor entertaining area. The former dairy farms gentle contour is well subdivided and connected by a central race network system, with a farm water bore and spacious barn for storage or conversion into stables for horse enthusiasts. bayleys.co.nz/1203512

90.6566ha

Tender (unless sold prior)

Closing 12pm, Fri 21 Jul 2023

41 Queen Street, Warkworth

View by appointment

John Barnett 021 790 393 john.barnett@bayleys.co.nz

Jayne McCall 021 606 969 jayne.mccall@bayleys.co.nz

MACKYS REAL ESTATE LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

BAYLEYS REAL ESTATE LTD, KUMEU, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008

bayleys.co.nz

It grows under them. CORK OAK TRUFFLE TREES

Trees produce truffles at around year 7, producing up to 1kg a year by year 15. Currently black truffles are selling at $2,500-$3,000 per kg, with high demand.

Great stock shade and shelter with 0% loss of grazing land. Stock protector options are available for cattle, sheep & deer.

Fantastic stock feed which is low tannin and high in carbohydrates. Produces up to 1 ton of acorns per tree each year.

Extremely resilient. Fire resistant, stabilises erosion, frost & snow resistant to -9 degrees. Drought & heat tolerant over 40 degrees.

Add value far into the future. Trees last over 200 years. Cork harvest income at year 25, then every 10 years. Potential carbon credits at 30% with a minimum 1ha canopy cover.

We currently have R2 Cork & Native Beech Truffle trees available in our Nursery for Spring delivery 2023 (limited numbers). Pre-ordering of R1yr seedlings available in Autumn 2024. Give Mark a call on 021 327 637 or visit truffles.nz

4X4 TAGALONG TOURS

Bring your own 4X4 on a guided tour to discover more of the South Island.

Tour 1: Molesworth Station, St James, Mailings Pass & Rainbow Stations

Dates: 2023 – Nov 13-16 2024 – Feb 19-22, March 4-7, March 11-14,

LOOKING FOR SHEEP AND BEEF OPPORTUNITY

Experienced and knowledgeable team looking for sheep and beef opportunity.

Lease, share farming or manager type position with possibility to grow our stock numbers considered.

We come with a stud flock of 300 ewes and are keen to take on anything including remote places and cyclone damage. Or give us a ring before you sell that family farm into pine trees. Always striving to improve the land and animal performance. Happy to work something out that suits you.

Please contact Haleigh or Steff on 022 574 1426 for a no obligation chat.

FARM MANAGER

Medway Hills and Beehive, Kimbolton

We are seeking a Farm Manager for our Medway Hills and Beehive property, a 633ha hill country farm. The property runs approximately 2800 breeding ewes and up to 500 1-year and 2-year Angus steers. The property is part of a 1335ha business which includes three finishing blocks.

The successful applicant will be responsible for the day-to-day running and up keep of the property as well as working with the owner in planning and development. They will also be required to assist on other properties within the group when required.

This role will suit a self-starter with a strong work ethic and good communication skills who is comfortable working independently as well as part of a team. The position would ideally suit someone looking for their first management position or someone with previous management experience.

The property is located 30 minutes from Feilding and 50 minutes from Palmerston North.

A 4 bedroom house is available.

For an informal discussion about the position phone Hamish Brown after 7pm on 027 22 66 276 or email: medwayhills@gmail.com

ANIMAL HANDLING

FLY OR LICE problem?

Electrodip – the magic eye sheepjetter since 1989 with unique self adjusting sides. Incredible chemical and time savings with proven effectiveness.

Phone 07 573 8512

www.electrodip.com

CRAIGCO SHEEP JETTERS.

Sensor Jet. Deal to fly and Lice now. Guaranteed performance. Unbeatable pricing. Phone 06 835 6863. www.craigcojetters.com

GIBB-GRO GROWTH PROMOTANT

PROMOTES QUICK

PASTURE growth. Only $6.50+gst per hectare delivered. 0508-GIBBGRO [0508 442 247] www. gibbgro.co.nz. “The Proven One.”

GOATS WANTED

SALE TALK

• The invention of the plough was a groundbreaking idea.

When my wife found out I replaced our bed with a trampoline, she hit the ceiling.

• A woman walks into a bar and says “I want an entendre, make it a double”.

When you call a psychic, why do you have to tell them your name?

I used to wear nuns headwear occasionally but now it’s a habit.

STOCK FOR SALE

STOCK REQUIRED

• Did you know that if a canoe turns upside down in the water, you can safely wear it on your head because it’s capsized?

DOLOMITE

GOATS WANTED. All weights. All breeds. Prompt service. Payment on pick up. My on farm prices will not be beaten. Phone David Hutchings 07 895 8845 or 0274 519 249. Feral goats mustered on a 50/50 share basis.

HORTICULTURE

• Who’s the genius that decided to call it “emotional baggage” and not “griefcase”? The knight nobody expected to see on the battlefield that day was Sir Prise.

• I thought the word Caesarean started with an S but when I looked it up in the dictionary it was in the C section.

NZ’s finest BioGro certified Mg fertiliser 0800 436 566

For a delivered price call ....

NORTHERN SHEEP SCANNING. Friendly and reliable service. Based in Northern Waikato, servicing surrounding areas and Northland.

Phone Natalie 021 109 5884.

BALAGE FOR SALE

EXCELLENT QUALITY, $85 per bale plus GST. Unit loads available. HAY, 5ft rounds, shed stored. $105 per bale plus GST. Unit loads available.

Phone 021 455 787.

CONTRACTORS

GORSE AND THISTLE SPRAY. We also scrub cut.

Four men with all gear in your area. Phone Dave 06 375 8032.

DOGS WANTED

BUYING DOGS NZ wide. 30/6 to 6/7. www.youtube.com/user/ mikehughesworkingdog/ videos 07 315 5553.

ELECTRO-TEK ENGINEERING

NZ KELP. FRESH, wild ocean harvested giant kelp. The world’s richest source of natural iodine. Dried and milled for use in agriculture and horticulture. Growth promotant / stock health food. As seen on Country Calendar. Orders to: 03 322 6115 or info@nzkelp.co.nz

LEASE LAND WANTED

RANGITĪKEI, MANAWATŪ or HB areas. Dairy or grazing farm. Regenerative farming practiced. Open to developing land in partnership. Phone Michael 027 223 6156.

LIVESTOCK FOR SALE

RED DEVON BULLS. Well grown, purebred. Feilding. Phone 027 224 3838.

RAMS FOR SALE

WILTSHIRES-ARVIDSON. Self shearing sheep. No1 for Facial Eczema. David 027 2771 556.

RURAL MASSAGE

RELAXING FULL BODY massage in rural Ohaupo. Unwind. De-stress. www. ruralmassage.co.nz or call 027 529 5540.

WANTED TO BUY

• Edam is the only cheese that’s made backwards. I for one, like Roman numerals. I used to have an addiction to Michael Jackson songs, but I just beat it...DAMMIT.

Upcoming Auctions

TUESDAY 27 JUNE: 12pm: Whangara Angus Bull Sale

Re-sharpening available for all makes

ATTENTION FARMERS electro-tek@xtra.co.nz

Phone: 06 357 2454

FARM MAPPING

WORK SMARTER with a farm map based on the latest satellite imagery. Drone photography also available in South Island districts.

For more info call Cliff Francis 0800 433 855 or visit farmmapping.co.nz

FOR SALE

Heated Vest $69.95 + GST

Shipping and battery extra. www.quantumfarmsolutions.store

HOUSES AND SHEDS for removal. Phone 021 455 787.

SAWN SHED TIMBER including Black Maire. Matai, Totara and Rimu etc. Also buying salvaged native logs. Phone Richard Uren. NZ Native Timber Supplies. Phone 027 688 2954.

WHAT’S SITTING IN your barn? Don’t leave it to rust away! We pay cash for tractors, excavators, small crawler tractors and surplus farm machinery. Ford –Ferguson – Hitachi – Komatsu – John Deere and more. Tell us what you have no matter where it is in NZ. You never know.. what’s resting in your barn could be fattening up your wallet! Email admin@ loaderparts.co.nz or phone Colin on 0274 426 936 (No texts please)

Do you have bull sale results to share?

Contact

What’s going wrong for lamb right now?

PROCUREMENT pressure has masked the deterioration in export markets for the past six weeks, allowing farmgate lamb slaughter prices to lift. But it seems those good fortunes could be coming to an end.

At least one meat company has called time on further upside, pulling money out of premiums to get prices better aligned. Whether or not this can stick, with more companies possibly choosing this option, will become clearer in the weeks ahead.

After bottoming out in early February, lamb slaughter prices started to slowly improve. The idea of China loosening its covid lockdown restrictions boosted expectations for a strong improvement in export demand. Upside to export prices was visible by mid-March and continued into April. Everything looked like it was tracking as it should be. So much so, store demand spiked as most expected a return to winter pricing trends witnessed over the last couple of years.

But as we have seen in recent weeks, export markets remain volatile and susceptible to fastpaced change. At the core has been a rapid deterioration in

demand and pricing from China, and this is starting to ripple through other key markets.

Pricing downside is uncommon at this point of the season. We did witness it through the first global covid-19 lockdown in 2020. But usually demand tracks sideways through the winter months as northern hemisphere markets contend with lower consumption in summer, before sparking higher in the later stages of the year.

Reducing

The tripwire to this downside has been increasing inventories and lowered consumption in key markets. In other words, demand is no longer outpacing supplies, rather it’s quite the opposite. Not only are key markets contending with average economic conditions, but the supply of lamb on offer has soared.

Between New Zealand and Australia last month, over 61,000t of lamb was exported.

This was a lift of 9000t on April’s volume and over 3000t more than May 2022. While it may sound promising that markets are absorbing larger export volumes, it is coming at a cost of much lower asking prices.

A whopping 24,000t of lamb was shipped to China from NZ and Australia last month, compared to 15,000t a year ago. Effectively this market is being saturated with lamb, giving China the ability

to determine prices, especially as inventories grow. Prices for key cuts such as flaps into China have fallen from US$7.25/kg in early April to now be closer to US$5.50/ kg.

Over the same period last year, flap prices fell by a much smaller amount, but they started out a lot higher at US$9.05/kg in early April, limiting any pricing impact at the farmgate.

It’s hard to envisage a turnaround in export fortunes in the next couple of months. As NZ’s production seasonally reduces, it will limit our exposure to the export scene. However, reducing exports in a bid to build demand won’t be as simple as previous years. Australia will keep its foot on the lamb production peddle, plugging any gaps in supply from our smaller presence.

Anyone setting pricing expectations based on what’s

happened over the past two winters will need to readjust their figures. Current export pricing and direction simply does not support a run in farmgate prices to record levels. For most that means prices won’t return to $9/kg or above as we have enjoyed over the last two winter trade seasons. For those that choose to ride the season out, it would be wise to lock in processing space, especially as contracts are thin on the ground. Despite industry forecasts for less lambs this season, the already-slow flow into plants means congestion will still feature late in the season.

AgriHQ’s outlook for lamb has been revised lower but still points to subtle upside through to spring. For anything greater to develop, export demand would need to pick up. Otherwise increased global supplies will continue to stifle prices.

With export markets still volatile and susceptible to fast-paced change, lamb’s recent good fortunes could be coming to an end.

exports in a bid to build demand won’t be simple ... Australia will keep its foot on the lamb production peddle, plugging any gaps in supply from our smaller presence.

Mel Croad MARKETS

Sheep and beef

RIPPLE EFFECT: A rapid deterioration in demand and pricing of lamb from China is starting to ripple through other key markets.

Weekly saleyards

The land of the long white cloud often presents varied conditions between the regions and this is certainly the case as we settle into winter. In the north and eastern areas of the North Island it is sodden but across the strait producers are counting their blessings after a mild start to winter. Limited numbers of well-finished stock coming forward to prime sales are selling well, up to $3.36/kg for a 675kg Hereford steer at Canterbury Park. But many are willing to hold on to others and grow them out further, so throughput is low in sheep and cattle sections.

Feilding | June 19 | 654 cattle, 4276 sheep $/kg or $/hd

Farmers Weekly connects our community of growers - growing together

Growing food, fibre, knowledge, people, connections.... together.

If I was only getting one farming media, it’d be Farmers Weekly. I really enjoy the research and innovation, and the big part is your AgriHQ analysis. It gives me the information I can use to control my farming business.

It’s brilliant. The farmers are always raving about Farmers Weekly because it keeps them right up-to-date right across the country. It makes them feel their challenges are shared and they are not alone.

William Hii Alliance Group Ltd Graduate, Oamaru

Patrick Crawshaw Farming sheep and beef on 280ha at Patoka, Hawke’s Bay, and Eastern North Island elected director on the board of Beef+LambNZ

EXPECTED DROP IN TALLY: Store lamb throughput dropped to just under 5000-head last Monday and this line of mixed-sex sold for $136.

| 114 cattle, 1111 sheep

18-20 July 2023 | Te Pae Convention Centre, Christchurch

Free to attend for suppliers and shareholders.

View the full agenda and register now at silverfernfarms.com/conference

Cattle Sheep Deer

Fertiliser

Slaughter values are weighted average gross operating prices including premiums but excluding breed premiums for cattle.

Forestry

NZX market trends

Dairy

provided by

Grain

feed wheat ($/tonne)

Close of market

Listed Agri shares

(US$/t)

WMP futures - vs four weeks ago (US$/tonne)

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Foggy with a chance of sorry not sorry

moving low pressure zones.

SOMETIMES forecasters seem like apologists, often offering an argument or defence when the weather doesn’t pan out as we expect.

But knowing why a forecast went wrong is a critical part of understanding the weather itself.

Recently I’ve been saying to people, “It’s predictable – when a weak and large low pressure zone stalls near New Zealand we get complaints about rain forecasts being inaccurate”.

We as forecasters know precisely what is happening and why people are going to start complaining, but the local forecast you look at may not give any hints.

This is why understanding the big picture of the weather is so critical – because how your weather is made is just as important as how it is forecast.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because big, large, lazy low pressure zones are a nightmare to forecast on a very local scale – big picture is easy – and in 2023 we’ve had no shortage of large, slow-

When a classic cold front moves in a forecaster has an easy job. We work out the speed of the front, the timing of it arriving at your place, rainfall, wind direction change and temperature drop.

But with a large stalled low it’s like a tyre stuck in the mud, going around and around.

The rain then fractures into pieces, not a perfect line of rain moving in one direction, but spinning in broken pieces – like a spinning firework that is just about finished. Our mountains and ranges alter these downpours (one side is wet, the other side dry – we see this in every single region across NZ).

So next time you see rain or showers in your 10-day forecast, dig a little deeper to get context. I can’t fly to London in one hour from Auckland and I can’t get 100% perfection in forecasts – the science and technology aren’t there for either (yet!).

But you can bring your forecasts to life and get more accuracy simply by understanding the big picture driving the weather pattern each and every day. There’s been a lot of news of

all the rain lately, and it’s sadly too muddy for some. But let’s not make the mistake of other outlets and assume everyone is in the “too wet” basket. Yes, rainfall in 2023 has been exceptional and record breaking for some, but for others it’s panned out to quite a normal mid-June set-up (at least soil-moisture-wise).

NIWA’s recent soil moisture deficit maps shows the three driest areas right now are all in places where we’ve been getting complaints about wet weather recently: Eastern Northland, East Cape and Canterbury. A big chunk of the western North Island is also basically normal for this time of year, along with the West Coast and Southland. That’s maybe 50% of NZ around normal, or even dryer than normal.

Highlights this week

• A westerly change to dry out the eastern North Island

• Drier than average in a large part of the South Island

• Not as cold as you’d expect for winter

• Still a messy neutral weather pattern

WHATTIME IS IT? JCB SERIES III JCB SERIES III IT’S TIME. III

Soil moisture anomaly (mm) at 9am on 20/06/2023

DRY UP: Despite some hugely saturated and muddy regions frequently making the news, the NIWA soil moisture image shows about half of New Zealand is either close to normal, or even leaning drier than normal, right now.

IF YOU CAN IMAGINE IT, A JCB SERIES III CAN LIFT IT.

Some farmers think a telehandler is for the big farms or best suited to European or North American operations. But you’ll be surprised to know that telehandlers are the fastest growing on-farm utility category in the New Zealand market. You’ll also be surprised by what you can do with a LOADALL and how much it improves productivity on all types of farms. You won’t however be surprised to know that the JCB SERIES III is the world’s No.1 LOADALL.

You’ll wonder how you farmed without it! JCBAGRICULTURE.CO.NZ

Philip Duncan NEWS Weather