YOUR INDUSTRY
COMBINING VEGETABLE GROWING WITH DAIRYING, ORGANICALLY Words by Andrew Bristol
Sam Hogg in the field
Mingiroa Farm, near Halcombe, is showing how to combine certified organic vegetable growing with dairying, for environmental as well as financial benefits.
processes, and you have to apply Band-Aid after Band-Aid.’
“If you get your system right, you could net up to ten times the profit in vegetables compared to dairy per hectare,” says Sam Hogg.
“With dairying, there’s an excess of nutrients. That excess can be used for vegetables. The dairy farmer could do the growing or lease the land out, probably making more money from the lease than they would per hectare of dairying.
“But you need a system that’s straightforward and has a bit of fat in it, so anyone on the farm can pick it up and manage it, rather than make things more complex. “We grew three hectares of organic vegetables last season: potatoes, pumpkin, squash, red and green cabbages, cauliflower and some broccoli. If we just grew say three hectares of organic broccoli, there would not be a market for it as there are no exports and the domestic market is only so big. We sell mainly through Ceres, who distribute our produce including through Foodstuffs. “With our zero input potatoes, we yielded 35 tonnes to the hectare, and that was single row, low density planting as well. (Also see NZGrower April 2021, “Potatoes as part of a regenerative farm system,” page 68.) “I do not think that vegetable growing needs to be that hard if you build the right foundations. I think it just gets hard when we remove ourselves too far from natural 34 NZGROWER : JULY 2021
Sam says there’s a huge opportunity with dairying in New Zealand to take a few paddocks out and put them in low input vegetables.
“This would be a great way to profitably reduce the national dairy herd rather than just being told to do it.”
Completely organic Today, Mingiroa Farm is certified organic, milks 300 cows on 240 hectares, with about 100 hectares being cropable. They employ three full-time-equivalent people, and casual labour when required. More than 20 years ago, Sam’s father Richard Hogg grew process vegetables for Wattie’s, until they started to source from overseas. The farm has been in the Hogg family since 1852 and is run as a family business. “This farm’s not for sale, whereas with a lot of farms, the succession plan is that the neighbour buys it.” says Richard. “Our goal has always been to keep the farm through
