Country-Wide March 2021

BACKING FARMERS

Debt motivates How Tararua farmers Rachel Joblin and Alistair Timothy grew their farm business p30

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MARCH 2021

Country-Wide

March 2021

Farm ownership What it takes to succeed

Whisky drinking A station diversifies 1

PREVENT. PROTECT. PERFORM. A range of sheep vaccines made for New Zealand conditions.

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March 2021

For nearly 80 years, MSD have been developing sheep vaccines for New Zealand farmers. We have a extensive range of vaccines to help you improve flock performance.

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1. Wilkins M, O’Connell E. (1992) Vaccination of sheep against Toxoplasma abortion, Surveillance, 19:4,20-23 2. Anderson, P (2001) The implications of Campylobacter Infections in Ewe Flocks. Proc 31st Annual Seminar, Society of Sheep and Beef Cattle Veterinarians., NZVA p31-40 3. Geldard, H, Scaramuzzi, R.J., & Wilkins, J.F. (1984) Immunization against polyandroalbumin leads to increases in lambing and tailing percentages. New Zealand Veterinary Journal, 32:1-2, 2-5

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Jo Lucas and her son Tim are par business t of a family wh transforme ich has their dev d farms with elopment p54

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Attitude is king

M

oney helps when trying to be a farm owner, but even new entrants with good financial support have failed.

Why is that?

A major reason farmers achieve farm ownership is attitude. I always thought the harder you work the luckier you will be. However, it is the right attitude that will make everything fall into place and make you lucky (p18).

I’ve met many successful farmers who started out with little money and high debt but they had good skills and a good work ethic.They also had discipline.

Forgoing instant gratification and controlling costs, especially in the 80s and 90s.

It is hard to believe how tough those times were. I recall townies helping out farming siblings by paying their grocery bills and basic costs.

Supplementary minimum prices were gone and farmgate prices plummeted. Freezing workers were making $1000 a week (about $2000 today) when farmers were getting less than $10/lamb and a bill for killing ewes.

Attempts to find alternative markets such as livesheep shipments were disrupted by strikes, and pickets by wharfies aided by freezing workers. North Island freezing workers were staying at Timaru’s Hydro Grand, in town to protest against the loading of sheep onto a boat. During the farmer march, one of them called me a ‘scab’ and wanted to fight me. I was wearing my uncle’s freezing work boots.

King Country farmers Chris and Lynda Baines survived the downturn even though interest rates climbed to 26% and they were receiving final demand letters (p42). They had the right attitude and battened down the hatches. Like many farmers during those days they drastically cut their costs and battled through.

Successful farmers joined discussion groups and established a good reputation for being honest and reliable. Some approached top farmers to be their mentor.

Don’t underestimate the generosity of older,

established farmers. Most seem only too willing to help new entrants out. Whether it is lending gear or giving advice, it all makes a difference. One farmer had a rule: if borrowing gear, return it in better condition than what it was in when borrowed.

Tararua couple Rachel Joblin and Alistair Timothy got on the ownership ladder in 2004 by buying a half share of her dad’s farm and going into partnership with him (p30). That was after they bought, renovated and sold houses to raise capital. Next they took on an equity partner to buy her dad out. Later they bought the partner out and have never stopped growing their business. They’re got the right attitude.

‘TRIAL’ DISCREDITED The article ‘Fertiliser comparison spurs discussion’ in the February issue received responses questioning the robustness of the results, the site selection and the lack of statistical data revealed.

Country-Wide accepts the article fell short of providing any statistical analysis or financial comparison to readers on each of the products.

The trial was not intended for publication but the pasture production data was supplied to the writer through a third party which had supplied one of the fertiliser options compared.

The results contradict robust research by many MAF and Agresearch scientists.

Farmers should seek advice from reputable advisors (check their credentials) when considering any input for their farm business.

Ideally, any claims made about products should be supported by peer-reviewed science and advice from independent sources.

Terry Brosnahan Got any feedback? Contact the editor: terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz or call 03 471 5272 @CountryWideEd

NEXT ISSUE: APRIL 2021 • Cashing in: Station owners made $240,000 from the sale of carbon credits in 2020, a welcome boost after their hunting business’s income dried up due to Covid-19.

• Outstanding: A North Island farmer produces top weaner beef bull calves after a client asked him to leave 20 male calves entire as an experiment.

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March 2021

• Sheep’s milk: The nutritional value of sheep milk and the burgeoning industry built around products made from it.

• Climate change: An environmental consultant’s analysis of the commission’s report and its impact on farming.

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Debt motivates successful duo

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EDITOR: Terry Brosnahan | 03 471 5272 | 027 249 0200 terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz PUBLISHER: Tony Leggett | 06 280 3162 | 0274 746 093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz SUB EDITOR: Faye Lougher | 06 280 3166 faye.lougher@nzfarmlife.co.nz DESIGN AND PRODUCTION: Emily Rees | 06 280 3167 emily.rees@nzfarmlife.co.nz Jo Hannam jo.hannam@nzfarmlife.co.nz SOCIAL MEDIA: Charlie Pearson | 06 280 3169 WRITERS: Andrew Swallow 021 745 183 Anne Hardie 03 540 3635 Lynda Gray 03 448 6222 Robert Pattison 027 889 8444 Sandra Taylor 021 151 8685 James Hoban 027 251 1986 Russell Priest 06 328 9852 Jo Cuttance 03 976 5599 Joanna Grigg 027 275 4031 PARTNERSHIP MANAGERS: Janine Aish | Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty 027 890 0015 | janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz Tony Leggett | Lower North Island 027 474 6093 | tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz David Paterson | South Island 027 289 2326 | david.paterson@nzfarmlife.co.nz SUBSCRIPTIONS: nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop | 0800 224 782 subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz Printed by Ovato Print NZ Ltd, Riccarton, Christchurch ISSN 1179-9854 (Print) ISSN 2253-2307 (Online)

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Contents BOUNDARIES 8 9

Middlehurst ram sale Could carbon knowledge reduce China risk?

HOME BLOCK 11 12 13 14 15 16

Charlotte Rietveld covets her parents’ house Chris Biddles: Give me water – where I need it!

Suzie Corboy ponders how fast time is flying by John Scott considers buying some Lycra Mark Chamberlain finds something to impress Converting farmland to forestry concerns Robert Carter

BUSINESS 18 20 23 24 27 28

Attitude will give altitude Options for a feed surplus Shoes from the sheep’s back Tackling speculators How to find the good oil Opinion: Innovative food for thought

Attitude will give altitude

MORE p18

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March 2021

MORE p16

A farm ownership dream

MORE p42

Column: Money versus morals

LIVESTOCK 30 38 41 42 50 53 54 56 Diversify into whisky drinking

MORE p76

Onfarm: Debt motivates successful duo Shear sense needed to reduce injuries Ewe losses can be expensive A farm ownership dream Time to pass on the baton Stock Check: Old notes forgotten gems Break the parasite cycle this summer Opportunities to reduce lamb losses

CROP & FORAGE 58 Study shows South Island soil fertility low

ENVIRONMENT 64 68 69 70

Gene editing an exciting science Food production via gene editing Trees the focus at Arklow Get involved with your catchment group

YOUNG COUNTRY Drone business takes off

MORE p72

OUR COVER: Alistair Timothy and Rachel Joblin haven’t been afraid to take on less than premium farms to move up the ownership ladder and their hard work has paid off.

Photo by Brad Hanson.

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March 2021

72 Drone business takes off 75 First step to farm ownership

COMMUNITY 76 Diversify into whisky drinking 80 The winter solstice hunt

SOLUTIONS 81 S12 Lithium solar fence energiser

FARMING IN FOCUS 82 More photos from this month’s Country-Wide

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BOUNDARIES BEEF + LAMB NZ – BY FARMERS, FOR FARMERS? BY: KEN GEENTY

Above: Willie Macdonald guides the rams back into the paddock after the auction.

Photos: Jim Tannock.

Middlehurst ram sale

T

he Middlehurst Merino Ram sale is now a popular event on the summer social calendar.

A couple of hundred people attended Willie and Sue Macdonald’s third Polled Merino ram sale, at their Awatere Valley station in January.

The rams themselves drew interest for their heavy clipping fleeces and positive carcase traits of fat and muscle.

Of the 100 up for ‘open-cry’ auction, 98 were sold on the day at an average price of $2835.

Sue Macdonald said they were absolutely thrilled with that price, with a lift of $200 on the 2020 sale.

The MerinoSelect ASBVs show the couple’s focus on fleece weight and staple length, with breeding values

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of the sale rams well above the breed average (sale ram staple length was 18.2 versus 7.6 for breed average).

The dual-purpose Merinos went to commercial operations as far south as Southland and to Pamu Farms in the North Island, to cover a range of ewe breeds.

Independent auctioneer, Willie Sage, sold all rams in 90 minutes and the sale was followed by a barbecue of Middlehurst meats. The family has developed a line of direct-to-market Merino meat, sold under the brand Middlehurst Delivered.

“It was lovely to be able to showcase the meat products, and the lamb racks went like hot cakes.”

›› More photos p83

The Beef + Lamb NZ (B+LNZ) slogan ‘by farmers, for farmers’ implies farmers have a measure of influence, supposedly for expectations from their producer organisation. However, some farmer rumblings along the following lines suggest this may not be happening.

Allocation of resources to environmental issues such as biodiversity, greenhouse gases, and water quality may be doubling up with efforts by regional councils and government departments in primary industries, the environment, and forestry. Should farmers’ meat levies be devoted to these issues when they are already contributing via their rates and income tax?

This begs the question: wouldn’t funds directed to the above by B+LNZ be better spent on innovative research and development (R&D) for new technologies, improved farm systems, and fresh solutions identified by farmers? This means useful research deliverables for implementation and extension on farms with a definitive timeline. The shape of R&D may need dramatic revision for such delivery, including a more cooperative approach for applied delivery leveraged on government and other funding agencies for underpinning basic research.

For this transformation the implementation of farmers’ desires, possibly through a more authoritative framework, needs to have much more punch. The word is that many of the existing B+LNZ farmer consultative groups such as the national farmer council, farmer research advisory group, and the facial eczema working group, seem ineffective.

Ken Geenty is a primary industries consultant. He has had a long career in the sheep and beef cattle industries which included researching sheep milking and dairying, lamb growth, ruminant nutrition and applied breeding. Later with meat and wool producer organisations he guided research and development, farmer extension, and the setting up of Sheep Improvement Ltd. His emphasis during his working life has always been on innovative research for farmers, clearly and simply communicated in more than 100 research publications and five books used widely by farmers.

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March 2021

COULD CARBON KNOWLEDGE REDUCE CHINA RISK?

IRONIC TIMING OF NEWS FLASH

What’s your farm’s carbon footprint?

DairyNZ’s recent release of research it commissioned showing New Zealand milk’s footprint to be the lowest of the 18 countries studied was welcome. It begs the question whether our sheep and beef sectors could say the same. One would hope so, but it would be worth finding out as a logical progression from last year’s Auckland University of Technology study showing sheep and beef farms are close to carbon neutral. If indeed we can claim global bragging rights on emissions then we should ramp up marketing of that, particularly to wealthy, environmentally conscious European and US consumers. It might mitigate our growing dependence and consequent vulnerability to China as a market.

A Country-Wide reader had to chuckle at the timing of a news flash last month announcing the Green Party’s presentation of a petition of 30,000 signatures calling for a ban on nitrogenous fertiliser. Why? Because he was at the Ballance plant picking up a load of urea at the time!

That said, it did prompt him to go home and look up the CO2 emissions associated with the product. According to Ledgard et al’s 2011 paper presented to the Fertiliser Association, an average 1.06kg of CO2 equivalent is released per kg of product, and that’s just in overseas manufacture and transport to New Zealand. On application another 0.73kg CO2 equivalent is released. Using ball-park figures of 10:1 pasture drymatter response to nitrogen applied, and in turn a 15:1 conversion of pasture drymatter to sheep or cattle liveweight, his ‘back of an envelope’ calculation was that the nitrogen fertiliser added 1.79kg of CO2 equivalent to the farm’s carbon footprint to produce just 0.31kg more liveweight.

HILL TERRACES ANYONE? In parts of Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, steep but fertile hill country has long been cropped using terraces, so why not in New Zealand? Probably because most settlers had no experience of the technique Agresearch’s Jim Crush and Lincoln’s Jacqueline Rowarth note in a recent article in the New Zealand Grassland Association newsletter. While costly to set up, the technique maximises water use efficiency and retention of silt, so a little horticultural cropping on terraces could ease the need to farm ruminants on some hill country, reducing methane emissions, water contamination, and fertiliser loss, they reason. See www.grassland.org.nz

TRACTOR TIP Putting on and taking off dual tractor wheels can be a challenge. One method to make the job easier was to put a tractor weight on the ground in front of the back wheel of the tractor, then drive up on to the tractor weight. This meant the dual wheel was now off the ground and free to be removed.

If it was stuck on, some gentle persuasion with a sledgehammer and leverage with a post usually worked. Raising the back wheel off the ground by driving on to a tractor weight also made the job of putting on a dual wheel more manageable.

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March 2021

GE BOOSTS IPM Integrated pest management is much talked about here in New Zealand but there’s one tool we cannot ‘integrate’ into our control programmes: genetic engineering. In the US, according to a new study by the state Agricultural Research Service and University of Arizona, integration of GE and classical pest control led to eradication of major cotton pest the pink bollworm, but neither approach (GE or classical) could have achieved it alone.

Eradication has cut insecticide use 82%, allowed beneficial insects to return, and is saving growers millions of dollars every year through reduced in inputs and crop losses.

›› Gene editing page 64 APOLOGY

In our February issue this year, early in the article ‘Venison gross margins’, there was information from the publication, Deer Industry News, which should have been attributed. We apologise for the oversight.

JOKE

A farmer buys a new rooster to replace his aging one. The new rooster approaches the old one and says, "Well, I'm the one who will be servicing all the hens from now on". The old rooster says "How about we have a race to decide it; the first one to make it completely around the house gets to be in charge?"

The young rooster just chuckles, he knows he can beat the old rooster without breaking a sweat, so he agrees.

The old rooster asks for one favor; since he's old and slow, he wants a head start.

The new rooster agrees, knowing the other doesn't stand a chance.

So the old rooster takes off around the front of the house, where the farmer is sitting on the porch. Seconds later, the new rooster comes around the corner behind the old one. The farmer sighs, picks up his shotgun, and blows the new rooster away.

He says, "That's the third gay rooster in a row they've sold me".

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Coveting thy parents’ house Charlotte Rietveld thought her parents’ home would be a better option than her small, crowded house.

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ith ample rain and more than enough grass growth, summer was a blinder. Such a farming-friendly season has allowed time to dabble in a global intergenerational family farming tradition: covert house coveting. A field of speciality normally reserved for daughters-in-law, covert house coveting involves the sly scoping of the olds’ house. Key aspects of interest include establishing just how much storage space and bedrooms they are wasting, how many leaking taps and drafty doors they have compared with one’s existing abode, and mental calculations as to furniture placement and interior paint colour transformations. The aim of said undercover investigations is to establish the degree of motivation for a takeover bid.

Returning home to go farming about a dozen years ago I was a single lass living in the dated but spacious 1970s farm cottage originally built as my grandparent’s retirement home. Fast forward a few years (while conveniently skipping over some selection yarns, it’s a hard road finding good breeding

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March 2021

stock who can tolerate the temperament) and I’m pleased to advise that one is now five. Such developments are not without their drawbacks – a farm cottage with three preschoolers it turns out, is rather a full house. Hence, I have been undertaking some serious surveillance of my parents’ house.

A quick head count at their place tallied inhabitants at three, one of which is a geriatric feline and I’m just wise enough to not pass comment on the other two. As her name suggests, The Chief Inspector is ever alert to a ‘visual indictment’ and thus specialises in home maintenance. Though it must be said that if The Boss is blind to rust, she is blind to dust. As I happen to share this genetic trait, I was able to overlook certain aspects and quickly conclude their home far superior and spacious. There is one major detraction; the voracious garden. It has on average consumed a paddock per decade. Many would call such expansive grounds an attraction, but years of helping out with clipping, clearing, hoeing and mowing have altered my thinking.

Reality checked, house coveting and takeovers were quickly abandoned.

Instead, out came the cramped cottage drawing board and plans to convert our brick garage into bedrooms were quickly established. Consent and builder followed at pace, all was going swimmingly.

Having dodged all that gardening, I granted myself a rest and finally inspected the book The Half Banana Years given to me by The Chief Inspector for Christmas.

While I hadn’t yet established the subject of this year’s book, it was at least an advancement on her previous year’s literary present, How to Parent Successfully.

At the time I couldn’t help but note that neither of my siblings, both of whom are parents, had received this gracious gift.

I should have known that once again it would be a pointed present. Written

by Alison Argyle, The Half Banana Years is a New Zealand farming treasure. Named after one farmer’s comment that they could no longer afford to give their children a whole banana, the book documents the brutal rural downturn of RAKAIA the late 1980s following the GORGE Rogernomics reforms. It offers candid interviews from 10 MidCanterbury farming couples, several of whom were forced off their farms. Various other recollections from the area’s rural professionals and business owners gives a broader perspective of the devastation that spread. As a young child at the time, it explains so many of the difficulties I didn’t understand but undoubtedly sensed. It is a quick but brutal read. I suspect anyone who farmed through those years will find it both fascinating and cathartic.

Eerily, the preceding conditions back then seem alarmingly similar to our current agricultural and economic situation. With a government set on hardline environmental reform and worldwide markets falsely inflated with printed cash, the situation is surely volatile.

The book has given me a profound appreciation of conservatism. I can only hope appreciation for the new bedrooms is as enduring.

The Half Banana Years is $45 including rural postage from haworthhouse@xtra. co.nz

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

The digger stuck in the peat last year while looking for a back up water supply and the end result.

Give me water – where I need it!

Chris Biddles hopes that throwing money at his water situation will allow him to spend less time monitoring the pumps next summer.

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ater, water effing water. For much of the country you either have too much or too little. For us on the coast with mostly sand country, we can never have enough. Even in the winter we are better off with a good lot of rain apart from having to work in it.

Unfortunately, over the past nine years we have only reached our 35-year average annual rainfall on two occasions. As a result of these years of below average rainfall our water table is shallow and our springs do not have the flow we normally have.

Forty-five years ago, an old Dally (Dalmatian) farmer said to me in a very strong accent, “the trouble with farmers is, they do not use their brains when they choose their house site. They always build somewhere with a nice view. But if they were not so stupid, they would build their house beside the pump shed because that is where they spend all of their summer”. I always remember that when we are running around looking for water problems.

For the past couple of years, the springs that supply the water for our ram pump have been supplying considerably less

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than normal. This means we have to increase the TE KOPURU speed of the ram, which uses and also pumps less water. It was not until the end of January that we installed a pump and buried 700m of 63mm alkathene that can pump to two of our tanks. This has been a huge help but we were still not getting the water from the ram that we expected.

The problem was in the short stretch of alkathene coming from the ram before it joins PVC. A stainless fitting put in 35 years ago was leaking. It is only the meters we installed that allowed me to work out where the likely problem was.

I have borrowed another quarter of a million dollars to harness some of this water and improve our summers. I’ve had thoughts about this for many years but it was last year’s horrible drought that made my mind up. With a national service provider and a private company procrastinating for 10 months, nothing is delivered. I hope by the time I write my next article I’ll be able to report on what this system is and that it’s up and running. If I can’t, I will possibly name and shame. I am tired of people blaming Covid for everything when I am sure

much of it is inefficiency.

An update on my recovery from my accident two years ago. In October 2020 I had my ankle fused and further pins and plates were inserted. At Christmas I was progressing well. Mobility was pretty good in a moonboot and I was spending some time off crutches. With both staff members on leave for two and a half weeks I had an active Christmas period shifting stock and feeding out.

Then the shit hit the fan. After bringing the last of 12 mobs of cattle home for pregnancy testing and freeze branding my ankle swelled hugely. I had a massive infection. Bugger.

Eight days in hospital, surgery number eight to clean the crap out, and back in plaster and non-weight bearing. I am home on crutches and have an IV line in my arm that runs through to my heart.

I carry a bladder of antibiotics on my shoulder that I change daily. For the first fortnight I had a suction line in the ankle hooked to a pump I also carried with me everywhere, but that’s now changed to a small battery-operated system the size of a cell phone.

It has put my recovery back a couple of months and will require at least one more surgery at some stage.

The worst (or best!!) side effect of all this is beer tasted like shit!

All this because of one dumb arse decision two years ago, made because I was extremely fatigued. Take care farmers and recognise the dangers of getting overtired and fatigued.

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March 2021

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Paul and Suzie made the trip overseas (to Wellington) to celebrate with her family.

Time flies when you’re busy all the time Catching up with relatives celebrating significant birthdays has made Suzie Corboy realise just how quickly time is passing and how much work she still has to do.

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elcome to my first column of 2021 – it is March already, where does the time go?

Christmas is but a memory, although I do remember getting only two hours sleep on Christmas Eve as we had a few jobs on the ambulance. Paul and I were very kindly invited to have Xmas dinner with a colleague of mine, and they understood why I was so tired, after many years of being a paramedic. Paul drove to Dunedin and back as I tried to catch up on some sleep, and we had a brilliant meal, with pleasant company. Without this invite we would probably have been sitting at our dining table, surrounded by the junk that seems to accumulate faster than I take it away, both reading magazines or free farming papers like we do every other day.

We were kept busy as usual in January with sheep work. Weaning and culling the bottom off the ewe lamb mob takes place in the first half of the month, then rotating mobs of ewes and lambs along

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March 2021

with mulching thistles, moving cattle, and general farm jobs soon seem to overfill our days.

Our lambs were about a kilogram lighter than last year at weaning, but we were not surprised because we got quite short of feed on the paddocks when we took ground out for winter crops and the new grass wasn’t ready for grazing yet to compensate.

Our first and main selection criteria for selecting ewe lamb replacements is liveweight. While we are weighing the lambs we also pull off any off types we see, but with composite ewes some people would say they are all OWAKA off type because they don’t look like peas in a pod.

The heat rarely arrived at Owaka in January, and we had more than 130mm of rain. At least the moisture kept the grass growing and the lack of sun saved on sunscreen usage; as with the price of wool, we have to keep an eye on additional costs.

My grandmother (Scottish, like me) obviously never considered that I would be a farmer in New Zealand, and my mum was born in January, one of our busier months of the year. It was a significant birthday for mum this year, so Paul and I made the trip overseas (to the North Island) to celebrate with my family. Perhaps Cook Strait isn’t a sea, but it is as far as we can travel easily in these Covid times. We had a wonderful four days in Wellington, the weather was great, we ate out every day, and it was good to catch up with my parents, and my brother and his wife, none of whom I had seen for more than a year.

Between me writing this and you reading it we will have made another trip to the North Island, to celebrate Paul’s parents 80th and 85th birthdays in one party, presuming NZ does not have a Covid breakdown and we are back in lockdown. Paul’s brother had planned a visit from England, but with a worsening of the Covid-19 situation over there, and the need to quarantine over here, it made no sense to make the trip.

Every year getting cattle killed in the autumn seems to become an issue, with killing space being very limited. I will not name the company we sell to, but we are very loyal shareholders and it is getting very frustrating having cattle booked in and it taking weeks for them to leave the farm. We thought we would be more organised this year and get most of the R3 cattle we wintered killed before Christmas, but couldn’t get space to do this. I know our drafter is not happy about the situation, and it is not his fault, but with dairy farmers starting to scan cows soon and cull dries, I hope the labour problems, which are blamed for some of the lateness, can be sorted out soon.

That is enough of my gripes for the month so I will go and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts. I stupidly didn’t use enough of the aforementioned sunscreen yesterday and have slightly red legs, so my evening walk will be in long trousers. I am working at Mosgiel ambulance station today and tomorrow so I have to go check out Mos-vegas, it’s been a while since I was last there. Happy farming everyone.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Time to roll out the Lycra?

A year on from Covid’s arrival, John Scott finds farming life carries on with few changes, but he’s signed up for an online fitness class and is seeing some positive benefits.

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s a middle-aged, easilyfleshed farmer in the north of Scotland, 2021 has been what could be described as challenging so far. I’m not one for New Year resolutions but the realisation that I would have to either lose some weight or buy new clothes gave me the kick up the **** required to restrict intakes while upping daily activity.

I signed up for an online fitness class (online is the only sort of fitness class we get over here due to Covid) and Doddie Aid, which is a month-long team event that involves any sort of exercise that you can measure in aid of Doddie Weir’s MND charity. Suffice to say the team I’m in is leading by some margin. It’s unlikely that my efforts have tipped the balance in our favour, nevertheless I have done my bit.

Taking both on at once was maybe a little foolhardy, but the boss lady says there is a difference so I’ll stick to it until at least lambing, and who knows, it may become a permanent lifestyle change.

Lycra has not been bought yet, but it may be getting closer.

I’m definitely feeling sharper and I think my team appreciates my better attitude, and business decisions are being made with greater clarity and focus.

The aforementioned ‘better attitude’ was once handed to me on a shopping list; suffice to say I didn’t find it in Tesco, and have been keeping an eye out for it ever since.

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It’s not rocket science: one of Doug Avery’s key messages when he toured Scotland in 2018 was that your most important farm asset was yourself, and despite taking onboard much of what Doug said then and since, I hadn’t quite embraced the fitness element.

Following Doug’s visit, those of us who organised the trip felt that there needed to be a legacy and we started looking at what could be done. We’re not there yet but we have had lengthy discussions with Farmstrong NZ and would really like to set something similar up over here, so watch this space.

In the first Covid lockdown in March last year we were fairly relaxed about the virus, based on where we were, well away from the hotspots, and when restrictions eased we returned to a semi-normal life.

This time is different however. The virus is all around, people are really scared and rightly so, the vaccination programme is slowly being rolled out, and hopefully mum and dad in their early 70s will get the blue letter summoning them soon.

Some creative sheep farmers have offered their services as vaccination specialists but I’m not sure the towns and villages of Easter Ross are ready for me to rock up with the auto drafter and vaccination gun just yet. Maybe it’s just as well Tui has just had pups because there’s no way we would get the flow right without her on the job.

Our kids are homeschooling and on the whole seem to be coping fairly well, although they miss the craic and banter with their mates and look forward to seeing them again at some stage, although we are unsure when that will be. My gut feeling is that they won’t be back at school until after the Easter break, which for Izzy aged 17 means she has effectively left school, leaving just the younger two in secondary HILL OF education.

FERNE With Covid changing the way we live our lives we are adapting and as a result held our first Yourbid cattle sale in the same format as our ram sale, which we were delighted with last August. On the whole it went well, although the Luing cattle we had on offer just didn’t sell; possibly too early in the season for them or too close to the main breed sale?

Our Shorthorns on the other hand sold well, with an R2 bull selling to £9600 (NZ$18,335) and averaging £5911 (NZ$11,289), while in-calf R2 heifers averaged £3225 (NZ$6159) with a peak of £5100 (NZ$9740). Our buyers were located all over the UK and Ireland and there’s no doubt that this format is the way to go for us. It lets us sell our cattle in their natural condition without having to overfeed them for auction sales, which also bring various extra costs.

We have just scanned our ewes and are reasonably happy with the results, studs averaged 180%, with cross-bred ewes at 188%, gimmers (two-tooths) at 156%, and hoggest at 116%. Barren rates were low for ewes and gimmers, with both below 3% over 28 days, but hoggets had 23% empty which was a little frustrating.

Lambing and calving will soon be upon us. Thankfully two new members of our team arrive back from New Zealand in mid-February and following isolation they will be able to get stuck into their new stock manager roles at Fearn.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Megan Whitehead’s world record shear.

Shear brilliance Mark Chamberlain isn’t impressed by much, but he says Megan Whitehead’s lamb shearing world record is something we should all be impressed with.

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fter years in the dairy industry, it can at times be hard to be impressed. You see, you become numb to the trumpet-blowing, flag-waving personalities walking around simultaneously looking into a mirror and singing, ‘How great thou art’ – you get the picture.

But every now and then something, or someone, comes along and wakes you from your desensitised slumber and impresses the heck out of you.

This happened a few weeks ago, towards the end of January in a small woolshed on the outskirts of Gore, on what was a stinking hot day. Megan Whitehead was aiming to capture the nine-hour, women's lamb shearing world record. I for one know the pain and misery involved with the removal of wool from said sheep. Attending shearing school while still at high school, I harboured great aspirations. I reached

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“If you are the best person for the job, let’s get on with it.” the lofty heights of a third placing in the Woodlands Junior Shears, which was satisfying enough as I beat GORE a fellow outspoken Home Block columnist, who had to be (dis) satisfied with fourth place. Fortunately, or unfortunately, that was to be my lot, as my working life headed in a different direction.

Megan knocked a lamb out every 50-odd seconds with military precision – impressed I was. Her father, Quentin Whitehead, leaning over the catching pen with constant words of encouragement and advice, reminding her to keep breathing and to stick to the plan. The casual observer may be

fooled into thinking that all of this ‘just happens’. But it ‘just happens’ at a huge personal and financial cost and thanks to dozens of volunteers. Megan herself started training many months ago while still holding down a full-time job as a shearer.

What impressed me, perhaps the most, was the community standing shoulder to shoulder in that packed woolshed, to support this woman. We are constantly told that we live in a sexist world but when I look around the agricultural sector, and in my day-to-day life on the farm, it is dominated by the fairer sex.

A quick count of the reps I deal with regularly reveals that the vast majority are female. The two large mercantile firms that I use are managed by women, along with our vets and all our relief staff. And of course, the obvious leadership roles of Fonterra directors, the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Governor General – all women. Until now, I never really noticed, because frankly, I do not care. If you are the best person for the job, let’s get on with it.

I imagine it has not always been this rosy for Megan and I am sure she has had to, at times, prove herself more than her male counterparts. Agricultural districts throughout New Zealand are full of stories of pioneering women. Over time they have become a major part of the industry; sometimes seamlessly, sometimes not. Most often turning up without fanfare and simply doing their job – and we are all the better for it. I like to think that we have come a long way from the rugby club after-match speeches that, of course, thank the ladies in the kitchen. As a wise woman recently reminded me, it is much better to be told ‘well done’ rather than ‘well said’.

So, to Megan I say, I am impressed.

You are not only a fine example to my four daughters but also to my son, who stood in that woolshed and watched you succeed, proving that you do not have to be big to be mighty.

At the end of the day, it was a masterclass of mind over matter.

661 lambs all counted out, mission accomplished. Congratulations.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Money versus morals The continued conversion of hill country farmland to forestry is a trend concerning Robert Carter.

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he 50 Shades of Green has led a good informative campaign about the spread of pines onto good hill country farmland, however I too feel compelled to say something before I become relegated to the state of a ‘quaint curiosity’ folks will pay to visit to see how things used to be in the good old days.

I’m referring to the steady and seemingly unstoppable conversion of our hill country breeding farms to hectares of pine trees for carbon sequestration purposes.

Just recently another couple of local farms succumbed.

The carbon investors, buoyed by our government policy, which encourages conversion in this market, are buying properties as they come up for sale.

This government supplies a heavy subsidy to encourage this activity at the expense of sheep and beef farming, and this enables carbon farming enterprises to pay well in excess of what would normally be achievable for conventional farming or beekeeping.

It’s a well articulated issue in the rural

16

media but it seems little is being done about it.

The combined effect of afforestation of hill country as well as the TAUMARUNUI accelerating move away from wool production is giving rural areas a solid kick in the guts from an income perspective.

There has been some talk about protecting class 4 and 5 land type properties from full-on blanket planting, however it appears that planning (if there is any) overlooks the fact that class 6 and 7 farms are the nursery properties for the sheep and beef industry.

Many operators have been able to wean in excess of 150% lambs and 85% calving on these properties, and their loss to carbon forestry will shorten the supply of store lambs and good genuine beef breed calves for finishing.

Justifying wholesale land use change to forestry based on classification units 6 and 7 is a blunt instrument because most hill properties all have a mix of land unit classifications within them.

(You’ve heard the rhetoric from the ministers: “it’s okay as it’s only class 6 and 7 land being converted”.)

Class 6 and 7 farms also contain some class 3 through to 5 areas, allowing both breeding and finishing to occur.

A far better approach would be to plant trees on areas within farms where it is sensible to do so, considering all aspects for farm forestry, species, topography, soil type and depth, extraction/harvest, timber production, and last of all, carbon.

This could be achieved through farmer/ investor partnerships.

We need to be building balanced landscapes where the right enterprise is in the right place and on each suitable soil type on each farm.

Very soon, under the current regime, our farm will be a quaint green sheep and beef as well as farm forestry (with manuka honey too) oasis in a blanket of pines on one side and the much more natural native cover of the Whanganui River National park on the other.

If I were ever asked about how to describe my big picture thinking I would say that I am a ‘decentralist’, as I believe we should be developing and promoting policy that encourages people away from cities into rural areas.

This could spread the load on housing and build truly resilient communities based around healthy outdoor rural lifestyles.

One huge factor with this is the need to provide employment and to do this, we need to retain the core fundamental resources which can be used to generate economic activity.

Covering previously developed hill country farms (with all the required infrastructure) with pine trees is just plain stupid and even irresponsible given that there are much better ways to reduce atmospheric CO2 across the globe.

In the future, we will look back on this as one of the greatest disasters we have witnessed in rural New Zealand.

There was a previous wave of planting carried out in the 1990s and already those forests are affecting health and communications, as well as decreasing water quality in our rivers and streams.

Most days I spend working on our local rivers and it’s sad to witness the degradation in water quality from

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March 2021

We need to be building balanced landscapes where the right enterprise is in the right place and on each suitable soil type on each farm. sedimentation and debris loading from forest harvest operations.

Health is being affected on quite a few fronts: a rise in respiratory issues from pollen, and the more alarming rise in depression and suicide where people are put under increasing economic pressure.

Communication infrastructure is having to be upgraded and relocated as pines block the line of sight views required for VHF and UHF signals from repeaters and transmitters.

As Jane Smith so rightly points out in her Herald article, the urban majority have been lied to about the reality of carbon farming and the unbalanced Emissions Trading Scheme.

It will need a concerted effort to gain the hearts and minds of policymakers, particularly as it seems that knowledge and

science are no longer the arbiters of reality.

It’s hard to determine if the outcomes we are witnessing are those of the ‘unintended consequences’ category or the intended result of a campaign to reduce hill country farming into oblivion as soon as possible.

I note that there is a rise in the number of consultants and experts providing advice and predictions on what should be done, one of them called ‘Fitch’ (a more suitable name would be Weasels) airily states that “less efficient famers will exit once the true costs of accounting for enteric emissions are brought to bear on farms”. (I hate mustelids.)

Oh, so when they exit, so too will the farms, as well as the production, taken over by a monoculture of boring pines.

We have millions being spent on removing wilding pines from unproductive

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land for protecting landscape values, yet on the other hand we have created an environment where productive land is being bought and planted with very similar species.

Absolutely bonkers in my view.

Key points: • I’m not against carbon farming per se, but we could do this on our landscapes within farms in a much more clever manner.

• We should be putting in strong measures to ensure that communities are not destroyed by policies failing to maintain economic activity that contributes to steady annual cashflow.

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March 2021

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BUSINESS | FARM OWNERSHIP

Attitude will give altitude Knowledge and hard work will only take you so far in life. Peter Flannery says your attitude is the key difference between success and failure.

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young couple recently asked me what is the best way to get into farm ownership. I don’t think they particularly liked my answer. I think they were expecting a roadmap for them to follow. Unfortunately, it is not that easy, and there is no sure-fire pathway. Some will succeed and some will not.

If I go back to the early 1990s when I was working for the Rural Bank, I helped settle two young families into their first farms. Both took different routes to get there.

The first had saved just over 50% of the purchase price for a 250ha farm. The Rural Bank lent the balance of the land, plus stock and plant. They had collected their savings from hard graft, frugal living, and a focused and determined attitude to make it.

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The second was helped into their first farm with significant family help. His family lent/gifted the bulk of the purchase price and the Rural Bank lent the balance.

Ten years later, the first had repaid all the debt and had bought their second farm. The other couple floundered, treaded water, and eventually sold.

What was the key difference between the two? The obvious answer is that one had earned the opportunity and the other had been gifted it. But to my mind that is not the key difference. My observation is that success is all about attitude. Yes, skills, knowledge, and a bit of good timing all help. But if your attitude is not right, you will fall short of your target.

Just a point of clarification. It wasn’t the fact that the second one was given the opportunity that caused the lack of success. Many have been given great

opportunities through family help and flourished. It was just in this particular example the attitude wasn’t quite what it should have been. Don’t be put off helping your family, however, they do need to earn the right to be helped. An important point.

Coming back to attitude. It is attitude that will help you get the skills and knowledge, and once you have those it is amazing how lucky you can be. All of a sudden, you can end up being in the right place at the right time.

HOW DO YOU DEVELOP A GOOD ATTITUDE? If I had the foolproof answer to that, I would be a wealthy man. Parents, sports coaches, horse trainers, and psychologists all battle with that question. As a parent it is a challenge between making it too hard and making it too easy.

But if you are 25 most of the molding, parenting and coaching has been done.

So now you are on your own and it is up to you. I don’t believe you can magically conjure up the right attitude. You will either have it or you won’t, or at best, something will happen in your life that will spark a radical change. The biggest mistake you can make is to think you have the right attitude when in fact you don’t.

You need self-honesty. I’ll give you another example from my banking career.

I was contacted by a young couple who had just landed their first contract milking job, and they needed a supportive banker.

So of course they rang me. I turned up to freshly made muffins, a quick farm tour,

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March 2021

and a set of three-year, 10-year, and longerterm goals. I was blown away by their preparedness and drive. They had all the right answers. An easy lend.

However, 12 months down the track the wheels started to fall off. A flash new TV at my next visit and on my third visit, a flash new Toyota Prado in the garage, all on HP. Their attitude was not aligned to their goals.

I can’t really tell you how to develop the right attitude, because that is down to the individual. What I can tell you is those with the right attitude will forgo instant gratification, will have a series of goals, if not on paper, certainly in their head, and will have a clearly laid out plan on how to achieve the goals. Like all plans they will need constant monitoring, review and changes, depending on changing circumstances.

You need to ‘sharpen the saw’.

Every now and then you need to stop

what you are doing, wipe the sweat off your brow and sit down and talk about it.

In other words you need to leave the field of play and go sit in the coach’s box to review and revise your strategy with your co-captain and coaching staff.

Finally, you can’t do it on your own. It doesn’t matter whether you are male or female, but if your partner/spouse does not share your attitude and vision, you are probably not going to succeed to the level you want.

Furthermore, surround yourself with likeminded mentors and rural professionals who can help you. There is no shame in asking for help. Beg borrow and steal where you need to. Be cheeky and knock on the doors of those you have identified as being successful. If you think you can spot an opportunity, go and talk to the people you think will help you take it. It is called being interdependent.

Interdependency means leveraging off the

skills, knowledge, experiences and even capital of others for mutual benefit.

Furthermore, your hands and back will only earn you so much, and it is the top three inches (brain) that will set you apart.

Use your brain to create wealth. Wealth of skills, wealth of knowledge, wealth of contacts and relationships, and financial wealth.

It doesn’t matter whether you are into shearing, fencing, leasing, sharemilking, rental properties or the sharemarket. They are just vehicles to success. It is the engine that drives the vehicle that is the most important part, and that engine is your attitude. If you have that in spades you will most likely succeed. If you don’t, it will be a long and tortuous road ahead.

• Peter Flannery is an agribusiness consultant for Farm Plan www.farm-plan.co.nz

›› More on farm ownership p42

‘It is attitude that will help you get the skills and knowledge, and once you have those it is amazing how lucky you can be.’

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March 2021

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BUSINESS | FEED

Options for a feed surplus Higher than normal rainfall last year has resulted in phenomenal pasture growth. Kerry Dwyer goes through the options farmers have for taking advantage of that additional growth.

Cattle have a capacity for lower quality feed than sheep and will utilise deferred grazing far better.

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n our patch of the woods we have had a major turnaround over the past month. In the eight months to December 20, 2020 we had 137mm of rainfall, when our annual average is about 475mm. From December 20 we received 220mm in three main falls. As a consequence, pasture growth has taken a major leap. Over the past spring our North Otago dryland pastures averaged maybe 15kg DM/ha/day growth rate, which jumped to more than 75kg DM/ha/day in early January.

While destocking over spring was essential for many farmers in the area, the consequence now is they don’t have enough eating power now to handle the change of growth pattern. What can be done with the surplus?

Note that this is not a normal spring

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surplus, it has come mid-summer, and we have had almost half our average annual rainfall in a very short time.

As pasture managers we have two basic parameters to control: quantity and quality. Successfully managing the interaction between these allows for productive results this year and next.

First off, get a handle on feed demand over the next six to 12 months. That means some feed budgeting process, formal or informal, listing not only stock numbers but also their various pasture quality requirements.

As you can see from the tables, it is very important to consider what stock you have and what their feed quantity and quality requirements are for the next six months. If you want stock to clean up pastures there will be a decrease in their

production. If you have a mix of stock types and production aims (and therefore feed quality requirements), then you can mix and match to get some producing, while some maintain but get on top of the surplus.

Then get a handle on what feed you have in front of you. Quantity might be easy to work out but most farmers overestimate the quality of feed on hand.

In our area we are getting a flush of feed with less stem and seed head than spring growth, which is making a big difference in feed quality, and that will have a big impact on future quality.

My local farmer clients have a feed surplus at present, with reasonable quality in the pastures. They have less stock than normal due to spring destocking. Let’s look at the options to handle this.

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Table 1: Estimated maximum daily intake of feed DM in relation to feed quality. (Intake of DM, as % of liveweight).

(Source: Lincoln University Farm Technical Manual, 2003)

Table 2: Estimated maximum daily intake of feed DM in relation to feed quality. (Intake of DM, as kg DM/hd/ day). Calculated from Table 1.

Table 3: Estimated maximum daily weight gain, of non-lactating animals, related to feed quality and relative to the figures from Tables 1 and 2.

Energy content of feed (MJME/kg DM)

Sheep Young

Young

Dry

Lactating

1.7

8

2.5

1.7

9

3.4

2.3

2.4

10

4.3

3.0

3.1

1.8

2.6

11

5.1

3.6

2.3

4.2

11.5

5.5

3.6

2.3

4.2

Energy content of feed (MJME/kg DM)

Sheep 35kg lamb

7

0.6

8

0.9

Cattle 65kg ewe

150kg calf

450kg steer

600kg beef cow

8.1

15.6

1.1

9

1.2

1.5

3.6

10

1.5

1.9

4.6

11

1.8

2.3

10.3

25.2

11.5

1.9

2.3

10.3

25.2

Sheep

Cattle

Energy content of feed (MJME/kg DM)

35kg lamb

7

-200g

8

-100g

0

9

0

20g

250g 750g

65kg ewe

150kg calf

450kg steer

600kg beef cow

10

100g

100g

500g

>1kg

11

200g

200g

1000g

>2kg

11.5

300g

200g

1000g

This may be a conscious decision or it may be an inability to make a decision. There is a consequence that leaving pasture ungrazed will allow some quality decline; it may affect future pasture growth; and it may have some impact on animal health due to fungal or parasite presence when grazed.

Letting all your pastures go rank will lower quality in the future and the performance of growing stock will be affected, especially if used to clean up the rank pasture. The maths is that lambs growing at 300g/hd/day can reach a set weight in a third of the time of lambs growing at 100g/hd/day. That has a major impact on profit, and also on future feed demand.

Pastures that have been left rank do not

March 2021

Mature

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DO NOTHING/DEFERRED GRAZING

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recover from grazing as fast as those with more grazing pressure. Your autumn and winter pasture growth rates can be lowered 25-40% as a consequence.

Loss of quality pasture for sheep, combined with some impact of fungal toxins on ewe ovulation, can cost you severely, with up to 5% lower lambing percentage and then a drag on to lower lamb growth rates next spring. The total effect can be a 10% lower income next year.

Deferring grazing for feeding to cattle in future is a different ball game from sheep.

Cattle have a capacity for lower quality feed than sheep and will utilise it far better.

Cattle can be break-fed with one hot wire and are affected differently by fungal toxins. Consider that older cattle handle lower quality feed better than calves.

Consider carefully what animals you are going to graze on these pastures. When?

What is the production objective?

Deferred grazing might be sexy in regenerative agriculture or sabbatical fallowing, but as a pragmatist I would be picking some paddocks for this rather than the whole farm. North-facing and drier areas might benefit from a rest, with lower pasture cover and the ability to break-fence for a cleanup.

FEED CONSERVATION Making balage or pit silage will shift a surplus for future use; if that helps future income then it makes sense. Pit silage costs about 10c/kg DM to ensile, with good contractors, while balage is more like 20c/ kg DM. Can you afford that investment?

Continues

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It is important to consider the stock’s feed quantity and quality requirements for the next six months.

Will you get a return when it is fed out?

If you spend 20c/kg DM to make balage and then another 10c/kg DM to feed it out, is that good business when your ewes are returning below 30c/kg DM? The key to conserving the surplus is to be fast out of the blocks: get the pasture cut while it is quality because it only loses over the making and storage process. If the stock don’t really like it when you cut it, then they will struggle when fed the silage in future.

Selling some surplus might be good business, if the double benefit is better pastures after harvest, and some income from the sale. Current prices range from 10c to 25c/kg DM standing, so it is very dependent on area and quality. Consider the longer term implication of taking dry matter off-farm.

One large-scale New Zealand dairy enterprise has the mantra of not letting any machinery get between the cow and the grass; while that may have some other effects, it has been an effective business model.

SPRAY AND SUMMER FALLOW As soon as it started raining here, I had clients spraying paddocks out to allow a fallow period before sowing new pasture or crop in autumn. The immediate benefit is to reduce pasture available, and to allow control on the remainder. The next benefit is to have quality growing into the winter and next spring from the sown area.

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‘If you spend 20c/kg DM to make balage and then another 10c/kg DM to feed it out, is that good business when your ewes are returning below 30c/kg DM?’ The cost per kg DM of the next crop grown will be about 25c/kg DM before mid-winter, but lowering to below 10c/kg DM if calculated to the end of the calendar year. The key is to be fast out of the blocks, before any pasture has accumulated excessive cover that becomes difficult to get rid of before sowing. And to allow some fallow time for moisture accumulation and herbage breakdown.

TOPPING Cleaning pastures up by topping will remove excess growth, but is it good business? If you have wasted 1000kg DM/ ha at a cost of maybe $30/ha, will you get a payback from improved growth and quality in the future?

A better option may be to get the break fences out asap, rather than wait for winter.

GET MORE STOCK Increasing feed demand seems an obvious choice. You need to consider the time frame for the additional stock, and their quality requirements to achieve the production target.

Buying lambs at $3.50/kg liveweight on a $6.50/kg schedule and growing them at 100g/day is tough business. The return looks below 15c/kg DM on a short-term trade and not much better for a winter sale.

Plenty of farmers appear to have jumped on this option around here, with store lambs moving from well under $3/kgLW in December to well above, now.

Getting cattle in might be a better option for many, since their quality requirement is not as delicate as lambs. Short-term grazing cattle might be difficult to source and store beef cattle have jumped in price over the past month. A margin of 15 to 20c/kg DM from beef trading looks possible which may be a better return than topping paddocks. To get the best of the deal you might have to run out those hotwires.

The key to considering purchase options is how that may affect winter feed demand if purchased stock are on hand longer than expected. We get back to some issues raised at the start: first, how does your stocking rate sit compared with normal? And what is the future rainfall and pasture growth pattern likely to be?

Decision-making is a structured process of analysing the problem, gaining relevant information, and evaluating the options and consequences. Whichever decision you make will be better than not going through the process.

• Kerry Dwyer is a North Otago farmer and farm consultant.

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BUSINESS | ALTERNATIVES

Allbirds says it is supplied by about 120 farms in NZ and in the past four years has bought 453 tonnes of NZ Merino wool.

Shoes from the sheep’s back BY: KIRSTIN MILLS

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llbirds is a successful footwear company, known for using Merino wool, but it could also possibly be a cult. The evidence? Just talk to people who have bought Allbirds shoes; they will try to convert you. They rave about the comfort or the style or the ease of washing and insist you must buy some.

Cults always need a few celebrities in their number and big names from actors Ben Affleck and Leonardo Di Caprio to Google co-founder Larry Page and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

have been snapped wearing them.

Even if you have not heard of the shoes, you will likely have seen people wearing them. They are quite recognisable despite not having an obvious logo on them – there’s just not anything else out there like them (although some copycat designs are starting to appear, albeit without the sustainable materials).

The Allbirds story had its earliest beginnings a decade or so ago when cult leader, ex-Kiwi footballer Tim Brown (who had studied design), wondered why the footwear industry did not use wool in shoe production, when it would be good not just for comfort, but also for sustainability.

He worked for years on getting the design right. Together with American Joey Zwillinger, he launched the company in the United States in 2016. Within five years it was estimated to be valued at $US1.4 billion with stores and staff all around the world.

An Allbirds spokesperson says the company is committed to using NZ Merino wool that is ZQ certified. Allbirds says it sources wool from about 120 farms in NZ. In the past four years, it has bought 453 tonnes of NZ Merino wool and has committed to buying about 362t over the next year alone.

I recently bought a pair after months of foot pain and as soon as I put them on, I felt relief (yes, I have joined the cult). I have friends who wear their Allbirds as slippers because they are more comfortable than any actual slippers.

Along with Merino wool, Allbirds uses recycled and plant-based materials in its shoes. Sustainability and eco-friendliness is a big focus for the company. Its goal is to have no carbon footprint.

The company measures the emissions (from raw materials, manufacturing, product use and end of life) and announced in April that it would start adding a carbon footprint label to its shoes.

It also uses carbon offsets, claiming to therefore be a completely carbon neutral business.

In May, it announced a partnership with Adidas to work on creating a shoe with the lowest-ever carbon footprint. In an interview with the Business of Hype podcast in May, Brown said the aim is to make great products sustainably, rather than making sustainable products. He told podcast host Jeff Staple: “Our definition has evolved to the idea that a product can only be great if it’s sustainable.”

GREAT FOR SORE FEET Allbirds have been a godsend to me. I suffered from thin skin due to a chemotherapy drug and I had problems with blistered feet from wearing conventional shoes. I had to limit my walking. Now with my Allbirds I have no problems. I use one pair for rough walking across a muddy field or in the rain. Feet get wet but stay warm due to the wool. If they get dirty I simply dry them out and brush the dirt off. If too muddy I put

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them in the washing machine on a short cycle, cold wash. What is also interesting is their online service. You order and pay online. Shoes arrive and if they are the wrong size, colour, or you just don’t like them, you return them in the box provided. The sale is refunded and you start again.

People ask me what they are like to wear. I say like slippers but more socially acceptable.

NZ is not the only country that

supplies wool into ZQ Merino. A NZ Merino company spokesperson said it supplies a significant amount of wool from outside of NZ to brand partners under ZQ. Allbirds says it is committed to using NZ Merino wool that is ZQ certified.

Does this mean Allbirds only use NZ wool? The company was asked to clarify this but had not responded by the time this magazine went to print.

– Editor.

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BUSINESS | OPINION

Tackling speculators Soaring residential house prices has seen renewed calls for a capital gains tax. But as Phil Edmonds reports, farmers may have little to fear.

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ather than drifting towards the end last year in postelection glory, the new Labour Government was confronted with having to fight a revived pesky nemesis – runaway house price inflation.

Given its limitless media appeal, advice was thrown at the Government from all corners. This included fresh calls to tax capital gains. Not being at the centre of the problem – in many ways far from it – farmers have been able to sit back and watch the debate unfold from afar.

But might farmers be better prepared to contribute to what some are now saying is an inevitable change in tax policy?

After Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern categorically ruled out introducing a

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capital gains tax following the public reaction to proposals that emerged from the Tax Working Group (TWG) in 2018, there was a sense the matter was buried, and there was little point in discussing it further. It certainly drifted off the media’s agenda, and even in the lead-up to the election last year no party gained any traction by raising it. The Greens shifted its focus to promoting a wealth tax instead.

That was before house prices started to go nuts. As the boom gathered steam towards the end of 2020 and the prospect of huge untaxed windfalls became a source of disquiet for those locked out of the property market, talk of taxing capital gains re-emerged.

This was no surprise to some tax experts, who remain convinced the way the

New Zealand tax system is configured is unsustainable, and will inevitably have to change, irrespective of political promises.

After Ardern crossed out CGT in 2018, one tax consultant at the time suggested CGT was not dead, but merely resting.

Westpac economist Dominic Stephens shared that view in one of the bank’s economic forecasts in November. He said that as the “Government will still be running large deficits mid-decade, and beyond that time, our pick is that a future government will introduce some form of tax on assets, such as a land tax, capital gains tax or a wealth tax. Societal concern about increasing wealth inequality is only going to intensify, eventually creating a large constituency for such a change.”

Some commentators remain convinced

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‘The majority of farmers are located some distance away from urban centres, and therefore won’t be subject to sharp increases in capital gain. In terms of the overall percentage of farmland, it would be small.’ there is no chance of this happening with family home on a farm). While this was so much vested interest among those always going to be a feature, the reasons who own property assets, and who still were political rather than based on tax constitute the largest voting bloc. However, efficiency. The experience of exempting population data shows millennials – family homes in Australia has simply broadly those who are encouraged more frequent relatively unwealthy, and the buying and selling as people losers of escalating property engage in ‘castle building’. prices – will become the Otago University tax policy biggest voting bloc by 2030, lecturer Andrew Coleman and the years approaching says despite the Government this will inevitably lead to a attempt to minimise change in thinking. exemptions, the modest level Given that, new taxes could of revenue the proposed CGT Westpac economist well become a question of was going to generate means it Dominic Stephens. when, not if. has arguably been overhyped Of the options available, CGT is still top in terms of its ability to solve the problems of everyone’s mind, partly because NZ is with the tax system the TWG initially set the only country in the OECD that does out to fix. not have such a tax. As a result, there are Coleman says it would still be worth regular appeals for NZ to simply join the introducing to bring NZ in line with other rest of the world. countries, but to make it effective, it should It’s not, however, as simple as a copybe applied each year as land values go paste exercise. A closer look at CGT in up – on an accrual basis rather than on a other jurisdictions show a myriad of realisation basis. nuance in how it is applied, with rafts of What are the implications for farmers of exemptions and discounts. a revived CGT? Should it be feared?

In many ways its unwieldy First, the reaction among prominent administration made it easy to reject farming voices when the TWG Working nearly two years ago. Some of the proposed Group revealed its recommendations in features that contributed to that included: 2018 were conclusively negative on the • The requirement of all qualifying proposition to introduce a capital gains assets to be valued on a certain date. tax. Federated Farmers’ then vice-president This would have been a valuer’s dream Andrew Hoggard labelled the CGT (if there were anywhere near enough proposal a ‘mangy dog’, that would add valuers in NZ to do the dreaming) but unacceptably high costs and complexity. a public administrator’s nightmare. The This was to some extent countered government rejected an option to only

by PwC partner and member of the include asset sales after the rule was Tax Working Group Geof Nightingale, introduced, as Australia did in 1986, who said very few of the specific CGT because it would have taken a long time recommendations would have affected to change the shape of the overall tax farmers in the short-term. burden and would have raised very little So are farmers right to continue fearing revenue in the immediate future. a capital gains tax as much as other land • No discount for inflation, as is made in asset holders? other countries. This meant assets that While no ardent fan of CGT, Manawatudid not make any real gain value would based rural accountant Michael Lawrence still be taxed. Again, the reason for this suggests farmers should not be terrified was because taxing inflation-adjusted – at least based on its introduction being values would produce significantly less a means to stifle the rampant property revenue. market.

• Exempting the family home (including Lawrence says farmland is not typically

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CAPITAL GAINS TAX ON FARMS IN OTHER COUNTRIES AUSTRALIA Capital gains tax – same as marginal personal income tax rate.

Some discounts and concessions apply for individuals who sell all or part of their farmland. If your home is part of the working farm, you may be eligible for a partial main residence exemption. You may also be exempt if you are over 55, are either retiring or permanently incapacitated, and have owned a working farm for more than 15 years. If you are a retiring small business owner selling your business (including farms) you may also seek exemption from CGT – in recognition that small business owners, unlike employees, are likely to have far less retirement savings. To address this imbalance, farmers may be eligible to disregard up to $500,000 of the capital gain on the sale of a farm.

IRELAND Capital Gains Tax – 33% Principal private residence and surrounding gardens etc is exempt from CGT, but any ‘development value’ is liable (for example, if part of the land is sold off). Retirement relief from CGT is available where an individual, who is at least 55 years of age, disposes of an asset (farm business, for example) and they have owned it for at least 10 years. Full relief may also be claimed by an individual aged 55 – 65 years of age on the disposal if the whole or part of the qualifying assets are transferred to their child.

CANADA Capital Gains Tax - Half of a capital gain constitutes a taxable capital gain – taxed at ordinary personal income tax rate.

Farmers may be able to take advantage of the lifetime capital gain exemption. The farm must have been used principally (more than 50%) for the business of farming by an individual or family.

Sale of a farming business that includes your principal residence (typically 0.5 hectare) will generate partial CGT exemption.

There are also significant opportunities for tax savings from transferring farms within families.

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subject to speculation (most people buy farms for long term ownership), and that the focus of farm ownership is now more likely to be for business profitability rather than accumulation of capital gain.

“If you look back two decades at the trajectory of dairy land prices, you would have seen a massive increase in prices in the five years to 2010, but prices now are probably no dearer than they were in 2010, if you remove inflation. So there probably hasn’t been much speculation in dairying over the last decade.

“For sheep and beef farmers, there may have been some recent movement with the forestry incentive where farmers have sold to foresters and have then spent that money on cheaper dairy land but this is not really speculation that compares with what has gone on in the residential property market.”

Lawrence says a slight exception might be some people who have speculated on farms close to urban centres with a view to convert them to housing or lifestyle blocks.

But land use change for this purpose is more likely to have been a result of existing farmers getting to a point where the land has a premium value over farming value.

“The majority of farmers are located some distance away from urban centres, and therefore won’t be subject to sharp increases in capital gain. In terms of the overall percentage of farmland, it would be small.”

The other reason why farmers have less to lose from a CGT is that they have had to become more focused on income than capital gain in terms of their farming

proposition. Lawrence says “farmers haven’t quite put capital gain to bed, but income is far more important. For quite a long time, capital gain would have dominated farmers minds, but over the last decade there is much more emphasis on producing income, if only for banks increasingly wanting to see the principal of loans paid off.”

Lawrence’s overriding view is that CGT is an unnecessary worry for farmers if its imposition is designed to address land speculation.

Otago-based rural sector tax advisor Tony Marshall says there are ways a CGT could be implemented that would negate the deep-rooted hostility – such as making it apply to everything but at a very low (5%) rate. This might end up being twice the rate of commission you’d pay to a real estate agent to sell your house – something people should be able to live with.

However, he says if the Government was to pursue a CGT along the lines of the TWG recommendations, there are reasons

Manawatu-based rural accountant Michael Lawrence.

why farmers might feel disproportionately targeted, particularly when trying to develop family succession plans. If no rollover relief is given (as it is in some other jurisdictions – see Canada and Ireland) then it could make it harder to retain farms within families.

As was evident when the TWG recommendations were operationalised by the Government to provide a practical case for implementation in the last term of Government, lobbying for exemptions took on a heightened level of importance.

Given the complicated and idiosyncratic way CGT has been applied in other countries, that is likely to continue being the case if discussions continue.

If CGT does elude the bravest politicians, it doesn’t mean taxing capital gains is dead though – if nothing else than for the demographic reasons identified above. So in an effort to get ahead of the predicted tipping point, what might farmers pay lip service to, if some kind of tax on capital gain is inevitable?

Andrew Coleman suggests an urban land tax is a potential alternative to CGT. And despite wholesale opposition to land taxes to date, it might be one farmers could happily live with.

Blanket land taxes have so far been dismissed as a blunt tool but Coleman says a distinct urban land tax would make sense.

“One of the problems with taxing rural land is that a lot of the land value reflects the value added by farmers themselves (fencing, drainage, improving pastures and so on). You might want to tax the income that arises from the value added to the land, but not necessarily to the land itself. By contrast, most of the added value to urban land is derived from what other people do – councils creating new amenities, improvements that neighbours make to the neighbourhood.

“This land represents a much better tax opportunity as the value does not reflect anything that individual landowners are doing. They may well be adding value to a house, but not the land component.”

It might sound far-fetched, but we’ve entered an era where far-fetched is becoming yesterday’s plausible. Even, possibly, for tax policy.

• First published in NZ Dairy Exporter, January 2021

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BUSINESS | PRODUCT CHECK

‘Is there a time limit or quantity limit on the offer?

Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) induces rash behaviour. The Auckland housing market makes the point…’

How to find the good oil BY: JACQUELINE ROWARTH

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s the tsunami of mail arrives in the inbox, through rural delivery or the internet, there can be some confusion in sorting whether the products and suggestions will be useful or not.

Are the fliers marketing or science? How do you know whether adoption will be positive – or whether not taking up the offer will mean you drop behind?

For people swimming in a flood of information and trying to find the good oil, consider asking the following questions: Is there a time limit or quantity limit on the offer? Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) induces rash behaviour. The Auckland housing market makes the point…

What problem is the new thing solving?

Do you actually have that problem? I was offered a product that would improve animal health on the farm. I replied that the farm owner is a vet. I was then told that the product would improve soil health. I replied that I am a soil scientist.

At that point I was told that it would do other things as well…

How many problems can one product solve? One size never fits all and there is no

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silver bullet for multiple ailments.

Are the results of research presented appropriate for your farm or business? Is the pitch on emotion or evidence? Client testimonials are not the same as evidence.

Evidence is facts, data and research, preferably where appropriate comparisons have been made with other products or systems, and in a setting appropriate for New Zealand. Analysis of a product (its chemical composition, for instance) is no substitute for its effect.

Was the research done by an independent researcher and have the results been published in a reputable journal? The peer review process generally ensures that the research has been carried out according to scientific principles, and that conclusions are supported by the results. Peer review does not check for how the research is then used by marketers – it can’t.

Are figures of production disclosed?

Quoting percentages without indicating the starting point can have impact but is meaningless. A grazing management system that increases production by 30% sounds impressive but 30% of something that is poor is still not good. Is the starting point given?

Can the mode of action for the new

product or solution be explained? Do the marketers/promoters/salespeople know how the new product or concept works?

If the mechanisms and processes have not been identified, the effect cannot be known for circumstances beyond those existing where the research was done. Promoters saying ‘we don’t have time to wait for the research to catch up’ are creating FOMO. Is the merchant/promoter/salesperson credible? Does he or she have qualifications and a track record of professional experience? Is the track record appropriate for NZ? The soils and farming systems here are very different from those in the rest of the world.

Has the new product or concept been examined over several seasons/years?

Results from a short-term trial might not reflect typical conditions. When pasture management is changed, it takes several years, even decades, for the interaction between soil, pasture and animal to reach equilibrium again in organic matter, nitrogen loss and production. We know from the long-term superphosphate trials that the effect of withdrawing superphosphate takes several years to show up. Basing policy on results from the time of change, rather than after equilibrium has been achieved, could end up with detrimental consequences on both environment and productivity.

Science and marketing are part of a continuum with potential for confusion.

Scientific research can certainly be coloured by perspective, but reputable journals sort out fact from wishful thinking.

Once published, however, marketers sometimes focus on possibilities rather than realities. And people trying to do the right thing and create a better life, do get carried away.

• Dr Jacqueline Rowarth, an adjunct Professor at Lincoln University, is a soil scientist and farmer-elected director of DairyNZ and Ravensdown. The analysis is her own. jsrowarth@gmail.com

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BUSINESS | OPINION

Innovative food for thought BY: ANNA CAMPBELL

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nvestment into innovative food companies during the first half of 2020 was greater than the full 2019 financial year. Topping the list for investment was alternative protein burger company Impossible Foods who raised US$500M (NZ$689.9M). The top 10 also included MycoTechnology (raised US$39M/NZ$53.8M) who are developing proteins and ingredients from a mushroom-based fermentation process and Good Catch (raised US$32M/ NZ$44.2M) who are producing plantbased seafood analogues. The only non-US company on the list was YFood (raised US$17M/NZ$23.5M), a German company producing ‘complete meal’ drinks, powders and snacks – Fonterra is one of YFood’s investors.

It’s fascinating to read about these companies to get a feel for what is going on in food innovation and how the companies tell their stories. Generally, there are ‘save the planet’ and ‘health’ themes in their marketing material and like any traditional food producers, any kinks in their message will be jumped on by consumers.

Oatly is a Swedish company producing oat-based milk products high in betaglucan, a soluble dietary fibre linked to improving cholesterol levels. Oatly raised US$200M (NZ$276M), however the investment group was led by Blackstone, an investment company with alleged ties to deforestation in the Amazon. Activist consumers have taken to Twitter stating they won’t be buying Oatly products and why. Oatly has responded (on their website) that sustainable companies have only been able to access a small proportion of investment capital and this path leads the way for investors like Blackstone to put more of their dollars into sustainable companies.

All is not well within the alternative-

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protein sector either; there is a war of words going on among Impossible Foods, Beyond Burger and Lightlife Foods.

Lightlife Foods is a relative newcomer to the alternative protein space but has not held back in an open letter to the New York Times where its president, Dan Curtin, wrote “Enough with the hyperprocessed ingredients, GMOs, unnecessary additives and fillers, and fake blood… while we want the same things – a greener planet and a more sustainable food system – at Lightlife, we’ve chosen a very different way to get there. We’re making a clean break from both of you ‘food tech’ companies that attempt to mimic meat at any cost.”

Analysts who have dissected the plant burgers from all three companies state they are similar from a health perspective, despite Lightlife’s belief that because their products are less processed, with fewer

ingredients, they are more healthy. No wonder consumers feel overwhelmed!

There is no doubt that big-food businesses are some of the greatest culprits in terms of environmental mismanagement and negative impacts on our health.

A Food Navigator report on plastic pollution accuses the biggest plastic polluting companies, Unilever, Nestle, Coca-Cola, Danone, Mars, PepsiCo and Mondelez of hypocrisy for having plastic reduction commitments in geographies where it suits them, yet pushing singleuse plastics in countries like India, the Philippines, and Asia.

I don’t think any company starts off wanting to pollute the planet or adversely affect people’s health, but money talks and when investors come into the picture or when companies launch on the stock exchange, profits are most often the primary driver of success. Perhaps Oatly is right in its position and by ‘dancing with the devil’ they can lead change – or perhaps that is wishful justification on their behalf.

Ultimately, the greatest challenges lie with us as consumers. We need to hold all companies to account, the new food companies alongside existing players – we must ask for evidence and not allow ourselves to be green-washed or carried along by the hype.

It’s also really important those ethical companies genuinely making a difference are given credit for what they are doing.

It is hard for these companies to compete price-wise with companies that continue to push cheaply packed goods and overlyprocessed food. We need to ask ourselves, at what point are we willing to buy fewer products, at a higher price, to make a measurable impact?

• Anna Campbell is managing director of AbacusBio, a Dunedin based agri-technology company.

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Dr. Abi Chase Boehringer Ingelheim

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COPPER ― OR THE LACK OF IT. NZ’S COPPER DEFICIENCY IS COSTING NZ AND YOU. Copper is vital for life and essential for growth, reproduction and immune function.

Naturally occurring copper is low in New Zealand agricultural systems and it’s because of this that it’s vitally important to supplement copper in livestock. This is particularly important with your young cattle to ensure they enter the herd in peak condition with strong bones, a strong immune system and ready for a productive life.

Talk to your vet about everything you need to know about NZ’s copper deficiency and the best way to manage it for long term gains.

BOE 1146

PROUDLY AVAILABLE FROM YOUR LOCAL PARTICIPATING VETERINARY CLINIC Restricted Veterinary Medicine; available only under veterinary authorisation. Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand Limited. Level 3, 2 Osterley Way, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand. COPAJECT® is a registered trademark of the Boehringer Ingelheim Group. Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997, No. A011573. © Copyright 2021 Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand Limited. All rights reserved. NZ-MSP-0021-2021.

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LIVESTOCK | ONFARM

DEBT MOTIVATES SUCCESSFUL DUO Alistair Timothy and Rachel Joblin have been willing to consider any option that might help grow their business. Today, they own and operate a sheep and beef breeding and finishing farm near Pongaroa. They spoke to Rebecca Greaves about how they got there. Photos by Brad Hanson.

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Alistair Timothy, stock manager Hamish Murray, and Rachel Joblin at Arklow.

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ith Alistair’s attention to detail, hard graft and ability to manage stock, and Rachel’s background in agribusiness, the duo make a formidable team.

Investing in capital development has always been a high priority, and a willingness to buy farms needing work that were not in premium locations means they have been able to generate a high return on investment.

Rachel explains that had they set their sights on premium farms in premium locations from the outset, they may never have got on the farming ladder, or been able to grow to significant scale.

“Our debt to equity ratio started at 60:40.

I was working full time off-farm, Alistair did some casual work, and we didn’t take any drawings from the farm business.”

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Their debt/equity since has been under 50%, even when they bought more land.

“We’re not afraid of debt – it’s a great motivator.”

Their farm working expenses have to be kept low, as this allows them to invest in capital development.

Farm working expenses are generally kept to about 50% of gross farm income (GFI).

Every year they spend money on capital projects like subdivision, drainage, capital fertiliser and lime, yards, water, and improving dwellings. On average, for the past five years, they have committed about $70,000/year to development and riparian/ environmental projects.

“Business growth has come from good stock performance, but improving our asset base to make it more productive has been what’s driven that business growth.”

The couple have three children, Ruby

(14), Molly (12) and Liam (10), and Rachel has her own business as a farm consultant, Summit Consulting. Creating a business that allows them to spend time as a family, both onfarm and off, as well as supporting their hobbies and interests, is important to them.

The couple also place high priority on environmental initiatives, and were finalists in the 2018 Horizons Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

FLEXIBLE STOCK POLICIES An ever-changing and expanding business means stock policies are flexible – but sheep are number one. The emphasis is on doing the basics well, and the focus is the number of lambs on the ground. Their goal is 150% lambing for ewes and 100% lambing for hoggets, and the business was achieving this prior to buyinging the Waione block.

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Top: Lambs on the red clover/plantain. The red clover is renewed after four years. Above left: Liam Timothy (10) with the Arklow sign.

Above right: Cattle are a pasture management tool, with all cattle mated to a Charolais terminal bull

Arklow has a good balance of breeding and finishing country and they were doing 75% finishing 25% breeding before buying the Waione block in 2017, which is harder country.

“We doubled our ewe numbers and that tipped the balance towards store lambs,” Alistair explains.

Normally, they get 6500 to 7000 lambs, including hoggets, but the drought dented performance this year and meant only a handful of hoggets were mated.

Normally they have about 900 hogget lambs, but only got 120.

“But the flip side is that’s a focus for this year, getting hoggets up to weight as it’s been a good season – there’s no reason why everything shouldn’t be up to weight,” Alistair says.

Last season the focus was on the ewes.

The hoggets were behind and they made the decision not to push them harder and

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to prioritise the ewes. Survival at lambing was good and they were easier to grow out as they had the feed.

Five-year-olds and the B flock are mated early to either a Suffolk, Texel or Suftex ram, with the ram going out in mid-March. All other ewes are mated to a Pahiwi Romney, with the ram going out on April 1.

Lambing is August and September and the early lambs are weaned first, with the first draft of prime and store lambs in midNovember. About 2000 lambs will be sold store before Christmas. This season with the drought, followed by a great season, coupled with buying more land, they only sold 400.

Everything is sold onfarm, which gives assurance of exact price. They use Alliance for store and prime animals, and place value on loyalty and commitment. They don’t shop around.

FARM FACTS • Arklow – near Pongaroa, Tararua District • 890ha (830ha eff) • 200ha of cultivatable land, balance PONGAROA ranges from easy to steep hill country • Sheep and beef breeding and finishing • About 1000mm annual rainfall • Flats have a high clay content, hills have an argillite base • Stock wintered: 3900 ewes – Coopworth/Romney cross, 1000 ewe hoggets, 100 cows – predominantly Angus, 75 twoyear-old cattle, 85 one-yearold cattle.

Continues

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Alistair Timothy checking on some of the crops at Arklow.

“We’ve always been able to get space when it’s tight and that builds loyalty of supply too, as we feel they have done right by us,” Alistair says.

They usually also sell five- and six-yearold ewes with lambs at foot annually.

Cattle are seen as a tool for pasture management, as well as adding diversity in terms of risk and cashflow.

Cattle are mated to a Charolais terminal bull and all cattle are finished, with bull calves left entire, and two-year-olds are killed through spring. They buy in replacements, either in-calf mixed age cows or heifers.

Adding 380ha by buying two neighbouring blocks, has meant some

TIMELINE

fine-tuning of stock policies and figuring out how the three blocks can best work together.

CROPPING ENGINE ROOM A core driver of physical performance is the cropping programme. The original Arklow block has 100ha in crop, divided into 25ha blocks and fenced into 3ha paddocks.

At any given time there are two 25ha blocks in red clover and red clover/plantain for lamb finishing, with an aim to finish lambs to 17-18kg carcaseweight. It is also used to lamb older ewes on. They tupped ewes on it during the drought. After four years, the clover blocks are renewed in winter or summer crops, either brassicas or

Bought and renovated three houses

Bought Passmore (604ha) in partnership with Rachel’s father

Bought Rachel’s father out of Passmore and purchased Arklow (500ha) with an equity partner – went 50/50 in the stock and land on both farms with the equity partner

2003

2004

2006

PASSMORE

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short rotation ryegrass or Italian.

“We found we were leaving the red clover too long, so the aim is to be stricter and renew after four years.”

As they put in more red clover it creates a hole in winter when it’s not growing, so they’ve increased their use of other crops to fill it.

Alistair says wintering bulls on the ryegrass has worked well.

They plan to add a further two 25ha blocks to the cropping rotation on the Turton block.

Using Dave Treder from H&T Agronomics has been key to the success of the crops. That’s working out how to best utilise the crops based on the number

ARKLOW

Equity partner (a couple) exited the business – Alistair and Rachel bought them out of both farms

2011 PASSMORE

ARKLOW

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Above: Sheep are the number one priority, with a focus on number of lambs on the ground. Top right: Liam Timothy and his pal.

Above right: Red clover and plantain crops are a key part of the lamb finishing programme.

of lambs they have. The use of an outside expert adds accountability and provides another person to bounce ideas off.

“Ultimately the final decision rests with us, but we think it’s healthy to have outside input.”

Treder does fortnightly crop walks with them and they undertake annual soil testing to monitor paddocks.

Red clover gets 200kg DAP and 1 tonne lime/ha at establishment and a 350kg/ha Super 10 7K annual dressing.

The Italian/Jivet ryegrass is sown with DAP and gets a Super 10 annual dressing.

Urea is applied post the first graze, followed by two spring urea dressings. The brassica crops have 150-200kg/ha DAP plus boron,

then two 65kg/ha urea dressings.

All flats on the farm get 350kg/ha of Super 10 annually.

ROAD TO OWNERSHIP Returning home after their OE, the couple moved to Hawke’s Bay and secured good jobs, Alistair as a stock manager and Rachel with Ravensdown.

They scraped together enough money for a deposit on a house and renovated it, the start of building equity.

Then they bought more houses and renovated them.

“We were working full-time and renovating, that kicked it all off,” Rachel says.

In June 2004 the opportunity arose to buy Passmore, near Akitio, with Rachel’s father – Rachel was 27 and Alistair 31.

They owned 50% of the land and all of the stock and plant, and funded development themselves. “Dad was also the guarantor for the first 18 months. The capital gains were all ours due to the development undertaken, it was only dad’s original investment that was considered a debt.”

In February 2006 they purchased Arklow with an equity partner and bought Rachel’s father out of Passmore. They farmed both farms 50/50 in stock and land with their equity partner.

After five years their equity partner wanted to exit, so was bought out.

Continues

››

Sold Passmore

Leased 60ha next door

Grazed the forest at Passmore, ending in 2018

Ended 60ha lease and bought neighbouring Waione block (290ha)

Bought neighbouring Turton block (104ha)

2013

2015

2016

2017

2020

PASSMORE LEAS

ED

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WAIONE

TURTON

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Lambs on the red clover/plantain.

ADVICE FOR GETTING INTO FARM OWNERSHIP: • Have a good work ethic – a willingness to work hard means opportunities will come to you • Build a network of people – this could come from discussion groups or community groups • Establish a good reputation for yourself – be that person people know about and would want to employ • Don’t be afraid to ask, be ballsy. It could be asking if someone would be willing to share farm cattle with you.

Even if they say no, you have sown a seed and they could come back to you later.

• Build a team around you – professionals and people you respect. This could include a banker, even if you don’t need finance. Find a mentor.

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Feeling stretched, they sold Passmore and continued to farm Arklow, this time as sole owners.

“At this time, Alistair’s family, who are dairy farming in Southland, started their succession planning and there was some (financial) support from his family then,” Rachel says It wasn’t long before they started to look for the next opportunity.

“We leased a small block, and grazed a few blocks. In 2015 we felt ready to grow again, but couldn’t find anything. We approached neighbours and eventually did end up buying a neighbouring block.”

The couple was willing to consider all options.

“As things came up we were always thinking, aware and looking, without feeling pressure,” Rachel says.

Having great family support has been a huge factor, not just financially. “They’re all farmers and they’re our cheerleading team.”

They helped out financially, but also with moral support. Little things, like borrowing

her dad’s tractor for a month every year.

“Someone would drive it the three and a half hours here, we’d ram a whole lot of fence lines and drive it back. Alistair would wire up the fences later.

They are proud of what they’ve done but there have definitely been hard years, as well as amazing years.

“That’s just life in farming.”

A HEAD FOR BUSINESS Rachel’s job as a farm consultant, going out on her own six years ago, injects outside thinking and a structured approach to business planning.

Previously she worked in animal health for MSD and as a technical field officer for Ravensdown. Having gained an Applied Science degree in farm management and rural valuation, agribusiness service was always appealing.

Additionally, having a second off-farm income has proved invaluable. “That income has contributed to us getting ahead. It’s been massive, and positive,” she says.

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‘Business growth has come from good stock performance, but improving our asset base to make it more productive has been what’s driven that business growth.’

“As a consultant I love helping farmers to strengthen their business, as well as the opportunity to learn from them. All the business planning and structure, that’s what I love.”

Growing young people is another passion for Rachel. Over the years she has tutored the Agribusiness Diploma for Primary ITO, as well as delivering computer courses for farmers. She has done resource writing for RMPP and provides facilitator support for those who have done the RMPP facilitator training.

While Alistair would prefer to stay at home and work, Rachel is frequently attending field days, returning home buzzing with ideas.

“I’m probably outward looking and he’s very inward looking, we probably challenge each other on that and that’s good. I like the formal stuff, Alistair does all the hard work.”

Not surprisingly, they have a comprehensive strategic plan around what they want to achieve for the business, including key KPIs like GFI, EFS and debt repayment. It also covers what the business should provide to them personally.

The strategic plan sections are financial performance, physical performance, business growth and development, personal and family, environmental sustainability and development, and social, industry and community contributions.

Recently, they appointed stock manager Hamish Murray, as Alistair realised his heart wasn’t in that side of farming any more and recognised someone else might come in and do a better job.

They wanted to bring someone into the business who could take responsibility for decisions around day-to-day stock management, leaving Alistair to focus on development.

“But the stock is what drives the business and provides the money to buy fencing gear, so having the right person in that role is crucial,” Rachel says.

“It used to be the other way round, but I enjoy the fencing and development more

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Stock manager Hamish Murray recently came on board.

now rather than chasing sheep around,” Alistair says.

“I started to think stock were getting in the way of a good day fencing!”

Previously, they had taken on young shepherds and helped them grow their skills and experience. The realisation they could still help someone experienced progress in their career made it a no-

brainer to employ someone in a position of greater responsibility.

“I think the fact Alistair could recognise that someone else could come in and do a good job, and was prepared to give them the opportunity and mentor them, is a really cool thing,” Rachel says.

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LIVESTOCK | SHEARING

Shearing tables in action.

Shear sense needed to reduce injuries BY: ROBERT PATTISON

S

hearing tables or upright shearing platforms (UPSP) could be the holy grail for reducing work injuries in the wool harvesting sector.

In fact ACC has warned that a shortage of qualified shearers could lead to more injuries in the wool harvesting workforce.

ACC says there has been a 40% increase in shearer injuries in the past decade.

That could be due to shearers working longer periods without a day off during peak seasonal periods where some could work seven days a week for several weeks at a time.

The New Zealand Shearing Contractors website shows the wool harvesting sector had an ACC work account claims liability of more than $25 million in 2017. There were 755 work-related injuries, resulting in 9300 lost working days. That’s despite a concerted campaign to keep shearers and shed hands injury-free. The target was a 30% reduction in work-related injuries.

With the recent announcement of a new

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$1.86m shearer and shedhand training programme and increased shearing costs, it raises the question: is it time to consider other options compared with traditional shearing methods?

Country-Wide raised the issue with new training provider WOMOLife, but was told UPSPs had not been considered.

An Otago University research study found traditional shearing techniques are one of the most physically demanding occupations in New Zealand. The research identified that the cumulative load on shearers’ backs is six times greater than rest home workers and four times greater than

SHEARING FACTS: • Beef + Lamb New Zealand Economic Service farm survey data shows shearing expenses per sheep stock unit (SSU) for all farm classes increased by 32 to 68% over the past 10 years. For the same period wool revenue/SSU for farm classes 3 to 8 dropped by 3 to 36% (see Table 1).

automotive assembly plant workers.

The study also found that shearing sheep using a shearing table or UPSP reduced the stresses on shearers’ backs by 60 to 70% compared with traditional shearing methods. The downside was that the daily tally reduced by up to 50%.

However, the research study was focused on comparing the two shearing techniques for removing fleeces from each sheep. It didn’t consider the whole process of wool harvesting. Efficiencies can be gained from using UPSPs where the shearer becomes a wool harvester, shearing and preparing (skirting the fleece) at the same time as shearing the sheep.

Perhaps it is time the New Zealand wool harvesting industry had a rethink about how our 27.4 million sheep are shorn. The challenge will be how to train people to rethink how sheep are shorn.

Given the fact it has been proven that UPSPs offer the greatest promise for a reduction in back injury risk within the shearing industry, it is surprising that ACC hasn’t questioned why there has been no industry acceptance of a much safer wool harvesting system.

Training people for a shearing career that is physically demanding and has a high risk of injury seems an unsustainable activity.

Information in Australia shows that back injuries amongst shearers cost the Australian wool industry AU$76.4m per year.

While there has been extensive research and development of UPSPs in New Zealand and Australia over the past 40 years, they have failed to gain acceptance by farmers and shearers.

In 2005, Meat & Wool New Zealand announced a three-year joint venture project with Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) called ‘Shear Effort’ to evaluate 45 UPSPs. Total expenditure for the project was AU$14.5 million, with NZ contributing

• A shearer shearing 200 to 300 sheep (at an average liveweight of 60 to 80kg) over an eight-hour day is catching, lifting, dragging and restraining between 12,000kg to 24,000kg. That’s putting a huge stress on a shearer’s body.

• Using a back harness can reduce the forces on a shearer’s back

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AU$1.5 million. Wool research portfolio managers from both organisations were appointed to oversee the project.

However, despite the appointments of project managers and engineers as well as farmers, shearers and health and safety experts from both countries, there were no recorded outcomes, recommendations or reports published. The wool harvesting industry never gained any benefit.

New South Wales and South Western Victoria farmer, Grant Burbidge, of Burbidge Farms, has developed and used UPSPs since 2015. Burbidge Farms run 22,000 fine wool Merinos and have shorn 150,000 sheep. They have spent AU$250,000 developing their ‘Shear Anywhere’ UPSP wool harvesting system.

Burbidge initially sought advice and assistance from AWI, but they weren’t helpful.

He says the upright shearing system is not new, but the UPSP concept has failed to gain industry acceptance in Australia because the developers have tried to use experienced shearers to work the system

and have engineered their systems to be fully automated, making them expensive to build.

The most important thing he has learned is it is best to keep the system simple and to train people with no traditional shearing expertise to work on the tables. He says “the system works, but the challenge is to find people to work the system”.

He says people also have to understand the UPSP system encompasses the whole wool harvesting process: shearing, fleece preparation, 18 year old Leah shearing Merinos on Shear and pressing. The ‘Shear Anywhere’ Anywhere UPSP system. system is simple, manually operated, and portable.

“We have developed an automated He found that Andrew Wytkin from loading system but it is more expensive.”

Western Australia was his most helpful The platforms are mounted on trailers and adviser. Wytkin had established a successful can be easily moved between farms. wool harvesting business shearing more Burbidge says he waited 30 years for than 200,000 sheep using the upright someone to develop a more efficient wool shearing system. harvesting system but it never happened, He says there has not been any outside despite AWI spending tens of millions on funding; Burbidge farms has funded the failed concepts. whole project.

Table 1. Shearing expenses and Wool Revenue per Sheep Stock unit for 2009-2010 compared to 2019-2020 B+LNZ - Economic Service

2009 -2010

2019 - 2020

Sheep and Beef Farm Survey

Shearing

Wool

Shearing

Wool

Per Sheep Stock Unit Analysis

Expenses/SSU

Revenue/SSU

Expenses/SSU

Revenue/SSU

Shearing

Wool

Class 1 South Island High Country

$7.31

$31.64

$10.96

$49.08

49.93%

55.12%

Class 2 South Island Hill Country

$5.89

$14.61

$9.56

$16.25

62.31%

11.23%

Class 3 North Island Hard Hill Country

$6.52

$11.16

$10.15

$8.74

55.67%

-21.68%

Class 4 North Island Hill Country

$6.91

$11.42

$10.01

$9.09

44.86%

-20.40%

Class 5 North Island Intensive Finishing

$6.19

$11.07

$10.41

$10.74

68.17%

-2.98%

Class 6 South Island Finishing & Breeding

$6.13

$12.84

$9.42

$9.13

53.67%

-28.89%

Class 7 South Island Intensive Finishing

$6.61

$11.90

$9.69

$8.73

46.60%

-26.64%

Class 8 South Island Mixed Finishing

$4.82

$9.20

$6.34

$5.90

31.54%

-35.87%

Class 9 All classes - New Zealand

$6.44

$13.03

$9.84

$13.12

52.80%

0.69%

by about 30%. However, refining traditional shearing patterns and techniques is unlikely to reduce the risk of back injury.

• Shearers can spend 12 hours per day bent over. Sitting for breakfast, travelling to work, eight hours shearing, travelling home, sitting for dinner, and watching TV. They lose

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about 10% of their ability to extend backwards after 10 years, but gain 30% more flexibility to lean forward.

• Lying on their stomach and arching their back, or walking during rest periods, is better than sitting.

• Wool handlers working on a fourstand flat straight board handling full length fleeces from annually

% Change

shorn sheep with an average fleece weight of 4-5kg will pick up, carry and throw between 4000kg and 5000kg per day. They will also crouch, bend, kneel and stand more than 500 times, as well as cover about 10km per day transporting wool to the wool table, fadges and wool press.

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LIVESTOCK | EWE LOSS

Ewe losses can be expensive BY: DR KEN GEENTY

T

he immense value of ewes in breeding or terminal lamb enterprises is often underestimated. In addition to the dollars, they are reliable and resilient workhorses, pumping out lambs year after year. Their use in pasture management during the four months each year not pregnant or lactating is a bonus.

However ewe losses, particularly during pregnancy, are very costly, with both capital stock and unborn lambs included. The most common causes such as vaginal prolapses or bearings and metabolic disorders can be minimised with alert animal health and sound grazing management. Ewe losses are greatest in ewes carrying multiple lambs, adding to overall costs, along with increased labour and potential vet fees.

Most ewe deaths are in late pregnancy due to ewes being cast, suffering milk fever or sleepy sickness, having bearings, and sometimes being exposed to fertiliser toxicity.

Milk fever due to calcium deficiency can be caused by disruptions in feeding by the likes of shearing, vaccinating, or crutching in late pregnancy. It is most common in ewes bearing multiple lambs when they quite rapidly become unsteady and drowsy,

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with muscle trembling. Classic early milk fever signs are a green discharge from the nose. Symptoms may be confused with sleepy sickness (pregnancy toxaemia), but milk fever is distinguishable by complete relaxation of the stomach muscles and an appearance of flabbiness. Treatment is an injection of calcium borogluconate.

Most ewe deaths are in late pregnancy due to ewes being cast, suffering milk fever or sleepy sickness, having bearings, and sometimes being exposed to fertiliser toxicity.

Sleepy sickness occurs when the ewe’s energy intake is considerably below requirements. Mobilisation of body fat produces ketones, which make the ewe drowsy, with awkward movements and an appearance of being blind. If not treated with a sugary solution or Ketol, the ewe will rapidly decline, go down, and slip into a coma before dying. Early diagnosis is the key, when ewes should be promptly offered additional high quality feed.

There is little or no scientific evidence on causes of bearings. Excessive intra-

abdominal pressure in late pregnancy with multiple lambs and often bulky feed predisposes ewes to bearings. The problem can also occur just after lambing, but less frequently.

Scientific and farming observations indicate risk factors may include dietary, hormonal or mineral imbalances, putting on excessive weight in late pregnancy, under-exercised ewes, running pregnant ewes on hill country, and tail length from docking being too short.

Farm surveys have shown prevalence is generally greatest in aged ewes, often with a history of multiple lambs, and sometimes in flocks experiencing a sudden surge in lambing percentage. Incidences varied considerably between affected farms and years, ranging from 4-12% of ewes. Average incidence was less than 1% across all farms.

This means on average 20 ewes and 40 lambs are involved in a 2000 ewe flock, with possibly a high proportion lost.

Although there are no known ways of avoiding bearings, sound nutrition to maintain middle-of-the-road body condition score (BCS) right through to lamb drop is a good strategy. At the same time, consider the predisposing risk factors listed above and ensure good feed quality with no mineral deficiencies or imbalances.

Because most cases of bearings occur in pregnant ewes with multiple lambs, a good practice is to separate ewes carrying twins and triplets for preferential management on flatter paddocks. This can only be done if pregnancy scanning has been carried out between 60 and 90 days of pregnancy.

Importantly, ewes with multiple lambs should not have restricted feeding during the final 6-8 weeks of pregnancy in the hope this will reduce bearings. Rather, it could cause lowered lamb birth weights with increased lamb deaths due to missmothering and starvation.

Successful treatment of bearings relies on early detection, gentle and clean replacement using a mild disinfectant, and effective retention. Preferably a vet should have been consulted for correct procedures.

It’s likely ewes will successfully recover and lamb normally but the probability of repeating the problem in subsequent lambings is high. Therefore ewes should be clearly identified for either culling or preferential future treatment.

• Ken Geenty is a primary industries consultant.

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LIVESTOCK | ONFARM

A FARM OWNERSHIP DREAM For many people, returning home to final demand letters would be a sure sign the honeymoon was over, but for Chris and Lynda Baines, it was the spur to achieve their dream. Mike Bland reports.

I

n the late 1980s Chris and Lynda Baines returned from their honeymoon to find two final demands amongst their mail.

One was from the phone company telling them their phone was about to be disconnected, the other from their electricity supplier saying their power was about to be cut off.

Heavily in debt and struggling to make ends meet, it looked like their farming career was coming to an abrupt halt.

But, like many farmers in a similar position, they cut their costs to the bone and battled on.

Back then they were leasing a 550ha drystock block at Benneydale while trying to save money to buy a farm of their own.

“It was a real struggle,” Chris says.

“The banks wouldn’t lend us money to buy stock but we eventually persuaded a finance company to loan us the money. That loan was secured by the farm owner and cost us 26% interest.”

When they bought their first farm, 235ha at Piopio, the Baines were still considered highrisk clients by the bank.

They reared calves to build equity and stock numbers, and Chris worked off-farm on a range of jobs, including mustering and dagging.

“One year we lost 50 calves to a mystery

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disease but we didn’t tell the bank because we thought they might sell us up.”

Their interest rate had come down to 18% by then. But with four kids under five years of age, it was still touch and go.

To Lynda, who was raised on a sheep and beef farm in the district and had never had debt until she married Chris, the situation was pretty stressful.

“At one stage we couldn’t even afford Christmas presents for the kids,” she says.

“Chris had to make them using old drench containers and stuff he found at the dump.”

It took them nine years to reach a financially stable position.

Having been through that experience, it would be no surprise if they’d decided to sit tight on the Piopio farm until their debt was paid off. But Chris had much bigger plans in mind – plans that would test the resolve of their bank manager.

In 2000 he and Lynda persuaded their bank to fund the purchase of Waikaka Station at Matiere, northwest of Taumarunui, a much larger and much steeper proposition than the Piopio farm. They thought the hill-country unit, then about 620ha effective, was a better option than expansion at Piopio where land was more expensive.

Continues

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Waikaka Station will run about 9200 stock units this year on contour that ranges from rolling to steep hill.

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After borrowing heavily to buy Waikaka Station 20 years ago, Chris and Lynda Baines are now enjoying the benefits of increased scale.

FARM FACTS • Waikaka Station • Matiere, northwest of Taumarunui MATIERE • 2012ha total (1100ha effective) • Rolling, medium hill and steep hill country • Running sheep, breeding cows, deer and goats • Up to 80% of lambs finished, depending on season • Two more blocks (totalling 446ha effective) added since 2018 to build scale.

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Waikaka had some challenging contour but it had been well farmed and had good infrastructure. A storm in 1998 had left much of the steeper hill country erosionscarred. This may have deterred other potential purchasers.

“To a lot of people it would have looked like a hard farm, but to us it looked ideal, and we were lucky that the previous owner left money in.”

For Chris the purchase of Waikaka was the realisation of a long-held vision. Raised on a market garden at Kaiapoi, he’d wanted to be a farmer since he was 10 and started by rearing calves on any spare land his parents had.

After leaving school he worked on a mixed cropping farm near Christchurch before going shepherding in the South Island high country.

When they took over Waikaka, the Baines, with their four young children in tow, were itching to develop the farm further.

“We’ve always funded development out of income and when we first came here we

thought we wouldn’t be able to do anything major for five years. But lamb prices lifted and we were able to start straight away.”

GOING FOR SCALE Over the past 20 years the Baines have invested heavily in track work and fencing.

And in the last six years they have gone back into expansion mode, buying adjoining land to Waikaka. In 2018 they added a 316ha (240ha effective) block, Jolly Farms, which is now managed and partially owned by their son, Jared. Last year they also bought a 206ha (effective) block, Tekoa at Otewa, near Otorohanga, which they take over in June.

With its easier contour, Tekoa will be used mainly as a finishing block. It will carry about 1000 terminal-mated ewes, and the progeny from these ewes will be finished along with about 1600 lambs transferred from Waikaka.

Chris says they tried to find finishing land closer to Taumarunui but land prices in the region had rocketed and the Otorohanga block was comparatively better value.

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‘The banks wouldn’t lend us money to buy stock but we eventually persuaded a finance company to loan us the money. That loan was secured by the farm owner and cost us 26% interest.’

Top: The Baines switched to Coopworths eight years ago. Above: About 200 Friesian bulls will be finished on Jolly Farms this season.

And in the long term Tekoa may become a permanent base for Chris and Lynda.

It’s more central than Waikaka, which is a 45-minute drive from Taumarunui.

“Two years ago when Lynda suggested we make a move closer to town, I felt like someone had died. We really love it here but I do realise now that we will need to wind down at some stage.”

After buying Tekoa the Baines told their bank manager they wouldn’t be knocking on her door for at least four years. They aim to consolidate and reduce debt, though they haven’t ruled out leasing extra land in the short term and perhaps buying more land in the longer term.

An advantage of the increased scale is that it has enabled the Baines to employ staff. Before, Chris and Lynda ran the farm largely by themselves and this brought its own pressures.

“I love Lynda dearly, but after docking lambs together for two weeks solid, we had completely run of conversation,” jokes Chris.

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Things got tougher when the children started school. He often had to work alone when Lynda was called away from the farm for various school commitments.

Now he works alongside his son Jared and shepherd general Jack Casey, who has been on the farm for more than five years. The Baines also employ a labour unit over the summer months and this year it’s Daniel Thompson, who is training to be a shepherd. Lynda still helps out when needed, providing the equivalent of about half a labour unit.

“She gets the tough mustering jobs because she’s got the best team of dogs on the farm,” says Chris.

“She’s also teaching Daniel how to train a dog.”

Chris says having a good team on board has made a massive difference to how the farm is run.

“Everything happens quickly and efficiently. I rarely have to pick up a drench gun these days and I find the dynamics of managing staff stimulating and rewarding.

It’s like a dream coming true.”

In 2018 a hip injury suffered while dodging a charging heifer in the yards saw Chris out of action for several months, so he and Lynda were thankful they had good staff.

“For someone who has always been fit and strong, that really knocked him,” says Lynda.

Chris says he found having to rely heavily on others to carry the workload quite humbling, but recovery also gave him time to reflect.

“It’s probably the first time my body has had a rest in 59 years and I felt great afterwards.”

He has always been competitive and continually trying to crutch faster than everybody else. “Now I’m trying to pace myself more.”

While the farm still carries a significant amount of debt, Chris says it’s easily manageable, especially at current interest rates.

“We are very confident with where we are now, and we’ve built a good relationship with our bank.”

SHEEP SUIT THE HILLS Waikaka Station now totals 2102ha, but a significant proportion of the farm is in bush, which brings the effective area down to 1100ha.

About 60% of grazeable land is steep hill country, with 20% medium hill and the rest flat to rolling.

Stock numbers have varied in recent years, due to drought and the extra land acquired since 2014.

Last year Waikaka carried more than 5000 ewes and 1550 ewe hoggets along with about 290 Angus cows and heifers, and 200 red hinds. This year 1000 ewes will be transferred to Tekoa for winter, and extra replacements will be retained to bring Waikaka’s ewe flock up to about 4500.

Continues

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Protect your ewes. Improve your lambing performance*.

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Toxoplasma is present on 100% of New Zealand farms, and Campylobacter on 88%1 - but both are equally important. These two diseases can cause abortion storms with losses up to 30%, or more, of lambs*2,3.

Preventing them takes two vaccines. Maiden ewes require 1 dose of Toxovax® and 2 doses of Campyvax®4 ahead of mating. An annual booster of Campyvax4 to mixed age ewes is required in following years.

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ORDER TOXOVAX AND CAMPYVAX4 FROM YOUR VET TODAY. AVAILABLE ONLY UNDER VETERINARY AUTHORISATION. ACVM No's: A4769, A9535. Schering-Plough Animal Health Ltd. Phone: 0800 800 543. www.msd-animal-health.co.nz NZ-CVX-200900003 46 Intervet International B.V. All Rights Reserved. 1. Dempster et al (2011), NZ Veterinary Journal , 59:4 155-159. 2. Wilkins et al (1992) Surveillance, 19:4, 20-23. 3. Sahin et al (2017) The Annual Review of Animal Biosciences. 5: 9.1-9.22 © 2020

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Top: Chris and Lynda Baines work alongside their son Jared, who returned to the farm in 2018. Above left: Coopworths have proved their worth on the steep hill country. Above right: Trainee shepherd Daniel Thompson picked up a lot of farming skills while working on Waikaka over summer.

“It’s good to be able to supply our own ewes to Tekoa,” says Lynda.

“When we’ve bought a block and stocked it with bought-in sheep, they have never done as well as our own stock.”

The original flock was Romney but the Baines switched to Coopworths about eight years ago, sourcing FE tolerant sires from the Nikau Coopworth Stud in northern Waikato.

Chris says Coopworths have proved their worth on the steep hill country.

“They are very forgiving. They’ve had it pretty tough, especially over the last two drought years, but they still perform.”

Up until two years ago the mixed-age ewes were lambing at 150% (survival to docking), though this fell to 138% in the drought seasons.

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About 80% of non-replacement lambs are finished at 16 to 17kg carcaseweight (CW), with the remainder sold store.

“Depending on the season, it can be a battle to finish so many and it’s the ewes that take the pinch,” says Chris.

He says store lamb prices vary considerably from year to year, so the Tekoa block will enable them to finish more lambs and reduce their dependence on the store market.

On Waikaka the Baines keep a small flock of recorded ewes to supply maternal ram lambs for mating. Jared Baines also keeps a flock of 150 recorded ewes on Jolly Farms to provide terminal rams. He mates Southdown-Charollais ewes to Texel rams.

Replacement ewes are then crossed back to a Southdown.

Chris says having a good supply of their own ram lambs means they can afford to pay top dollar for the best outside bloodlines when needed.

Nikau rams are bred for parasite resistance, so he hopes this will help reduce the workload on Waikaka in future.

“I’d like to think that in 10 years we will only be drenching about 20% of our stock.”

Waikaka will winter about 9200 stock units this year. This is below the farm’s potential carrying capacity but the Baines want to take the pressure off the ewes after two hard years.

While the farm received reasonable rainfall during January and was looking in good shape, Chris says the lower stocking rate will give it a breather and allow ewes

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NZ Herefords National Seed Stock Sale Helmsman Auction Tuesday 11 May 2021, 10am Orlando Country Club, Palmerston North View catalogues and bull videos from April at www.herefords.co.nz For any queries contact manager@herefords.co.nz 48

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Shepherd-general Jack Casey came on board over five years ago and is a key staff member.

to add weight for mating and lambing.

Deer make up a relatively small part of the operation but provide diversification.

The Baines lease Wapiti stags for mating to their red hinds, and most of their progeny are sold to a King Country finisher at 62 to 64kg liveweight (LW).

Chris says deer are farmed on the steeper country.

“There’s not a lot of work involved with them, and we enjoy mixing with people from the deer farming industry.”

Chris often uses a drone to muster the deer and sheep.

USE DEBT AS A TOOL Chris is unreservedly optimistic about the future of sheep and beef farming and he believes farm ownership is still an attainable goal for young people – as long as they are prepared to work and save hard.

Chris and Lynda tried to instil the importance of saving and investing wisely into their offspring – Jared, Corey, Melody and Stormey – from an early age.

The children had to learn the difference between an asset and a liability.

“Each of them reared five calves and they had to break-feed them on the side of the road to help them understand that

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feed comes at a cost. Then we gave them the opportunity to lease a paddock at commercial rates.”

All four did well out of their ventures, using the proceeds to buy their first car.

They were then encouraged to use their savings to buy an investment property.

“They had varying degrees of success with their rental properties but they gained a lot of life experience.”

Jared, the oldest son, sold his rental in Taumarunui to buy shares in a company the Baines set up to own Jolly Farms. He eventually hopes to buy the whole farm (see breakout).

Chris says a degree of risk is the cost of any land purchase.

“I’ve never been afraid of risk, even if it means borrowing more money than the bank’s comfortable with.”

Despite sailing close to the wind at times, he says the whole farming experience has been a worthwhile journey.

“Our first focus was to buy a farm and that seemed impossible. After we’d achieved that we wanted to buy a bigger farm and that seemed impossible too.

“If at some point we had lost the farm, at least we could say we enjoyed farming while we had it.”

FERAL GOATS UTILISED Waikaka is also home to a flock of 1000 to 1200 feral goats, which were originally used as a development tool on the station. The Baines still use the goats to control weeds like blackberry, ragwort and Manuka, and sell about 600 to 700 a year into the goat meat market.

Lynda says many of the feral goats come from the bush that surrounds the farm.

“We have experimented a bit with different breeds but the feral has always been the best.”

The Baines do a minimum of 4km of fencing a year. Most of it is new subdivision but Chris says they still have unfenced bush boundaries they’d like to fence.

Wild pigs can be a problem as they come out of the bush and disturb lambing ewes, causing mismothering.

Fortunately, shepherd Jack is a keen pig hunter and he does his best to keep numbers down.

›› More on Jared Baines p75 49

LIVESTOCK | GENETICS

There have been very impressive gains in deer growth rates and a lift in meat, and health trait BVs.

Time to pass on the baton Ken Moore has finally hung up his SIL/Deer Select service provider boots, and retired at the age of 77. He reflects on how far the industry has come to achieve the genetic progress which keeps farm businesses viable.

I

was employed as a farming tutor in the Christchurch Polytechnic’s (now Ara) science and computing department in the 1980s as the computer age unfolded. At that time MAF offered sheep breeders Sheeplan breeding values (BVs) for growth, fertility, and wool using a mainframe computer.

Enter the personal computer when different software groups developed programs for livestock recording. Once MAF dropped its Sheeplan service, the Animal Breeding Trust, Flock-Linc, and the bureaux running Studfax picked up the job. In 1999 Sheep Improvement Limited(SIL) launched, and the data from these three groups combined under the

50

new Jade-based data analysis. I registered as a SIL service provider (NZ Performance Recording Services ) with five flocks in 1999, growing to 123 over time.

Exciting days.

Breeders were encouraged to join up with SIL, but fears that computers might generate freak sheep were widespread.

It has taken years to break down this misconception, and while SIL is now a farming acronym, change is afoot. The system that has served us well for 21 years is being superseded by nProve. Same process (analysing sheep data to provide breeding values and indexes), but on a new and more powerful platform, with added features like the RamFinder app. Greater

levels of breeder access are also in the pipeline.

Another game changer in the past two decades has been the use of DNA for more accurate assigning of parents. Just as important, if not more so, is the discovery of gene markers for key traits like MyoMAX and LoinMAX. This genetically derived information can now be incorporated into the calculations for related breeding values.

The ‘Single Step’ evaluation across all SIL recorded flocks takes place every weekend, after which selection lists and sire and dam summaries can be forwarded by service providers to breeders via the internet.

Commercial breeders can compare rams from different studs using the SIL breeding

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1600

NZ Standard Maternal Worth

1400 1200 1000

Cents

Dual purpose NZ Maternal Worth Trends since SIL started.

1995 baseline zero.

800 600 400 200 0 -200 1999

2003

2007

2011

2015

2019

1600

NZ Standard Terminal Worth

Ken and Maewyn Moore.

1400

NZ Terminal Worth Trends 1999 – 2019.

1995 baseline zero.

1200

Cents

1000 800 600 400 200 0 -200 1995

Deer Terminal

2400

Red Deer Terminal Index 1999 – 2019.

1995 baseline zero.

2000

1999

2003

2007

2011

2015

2019

Cents

1600 1200 800 400 0 1999

2003

2007

2011 Year

Get ahead this season with NZFL Lamb Plan

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2015

2019

values, and maternal and terminal worth indexes via the RamFinder app.

The need to incorporate genes like MyoMAX from one breed to another (e.g. terminal to dual purpose) has led to many breeders breaking away from the registered breed association regulations in order to produce faster growing, meatier, multipleborn lambs. The Beltex, our latest sheep breed import, has extra muscling in the rump, but a gene maker for this trait has not yet been discovered.

Tests for facial eczema (GGT) and worm resistance (FEC, CARLA) provide further data for incorporation into health trait breeding values, leading to significant progress in critical health areas.

Over the past 40 years we’ve moved from handwritten stud records to fully electronic pathways. A breeder can record lambing on a handheld device or mobile phone, uploading weights (utilising electronic ear tags) from electronic scales via bluetooth to Continues

››

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51

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52

‘Amazingly the upward slope of the genetic trend graphs show little sign of tapering off.’ a computer. Then off to the SIL/nProve service provider via the internet. Apps are under development so data can go to nProve directly from a mobile phone.

Back in 1980 wool and meat were pretty much equal contributors to farm income. Nowadays with meat the main earner, the steady incremental genetic progress made possible through SIL, and genes like MyoMAX, is helping sheep farmers stay in the black.

The deer industry, a little slower off the blocks when it came to trapping the kind of data needed to drive genetic progress, got cracking with Deer Select. Deer Select runs on the SIL platform, with its own genetic engine. As I was familiar with deer (we had some major deer breeders using Studfax), I was invited to become one of two service providers for Deer Select. Today a good number of red deer and elk/wapiti breeders use Deer Select to make better informed selection decisions. There have been very impressive gains in growth rates and a lift in meat and health trait BVs, as well as terminal and replacement indexes derived from these BVs. It has been a privilege to be part of the SIL (and Deer Select) story. My main regret is losing regular contact with the breeders I’ve worked with for more than 25 years. Some of these folk are industry leaders and I’m proud to have played my part in their success and, indirectly, to the passing on of improved genetics to commercial farmers.

I’ve been one of only eight independent SIL service providers. They are all very talented and dedicated people standing at the interface between breeders (and their animal data) and the sophisticated software running on banks of computer servers at AgResearch in Hamilton, supported by an equally dedicated band of animal scientists and computer experts driving the whole process. The transition from the MAF of the 1980s to B+LNZ Genetics today is huge. In a world gone crazy over methane emissions as a greenhouse gas we need all the help we can get, and finding ways to reduce methane emitted by ruminants is the next breeding challenge.

After 21 years of steady genetic progress one might think there is no more room for improvement. Amazingly the upward slope of the genetic trend graphs show little sign of tapering off. This is good news for the industry and an incentive for stud breeders to record the data necessary to maintain this ongoing lift in genetic progress.

Moore has sold his business to Barbara and Belinda Beckett.

• Ken Moore worked in farm education in Australia and Tanzania, before taking up a farm tutoring role with Christchurch Polytechnic in 1980. Transitioning to teaching ‘Introduction to Farm Computing’, he established his own business selling and supporting computer software, including the Studfax livestock recording program. Studfax formed the computing platform for his NZ Performance Recording Service, a SIL service provider bureau established in 1999.

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LIVESTOCK | STOCK CHECK

Enzootic pneumonia can reduce lamb growth rates by 50%.

Old notes forgotten gems BY: TREVOR COOK

J

anuary is my catch-up month and includes attacking accumulated documents. It’s a slow process because some are forgotten gems, like a page of notes from a workshop I attended in 2008 about enzootic (viral) pneumonia.

This is a lamb disease I have commented on for years because it’s a major cost to the industry yet flies under the radar.

Back in 2008 it was reported to cost the industry $53 million, or $1.26 to $3.07 per lamb. How that figure was arrived at I cannot understand, but I don’t dispute it. It’s a difficult disease to monitor and our standard indicator is the incidence of pleurisy in killed lambs. Pleurisy reported on killing sheets is the remnants of an active pneumonia, in effect the scar tissue left after pneumonia heals. Unless we know how many repaired pneumonias end up with pleurisy, the incidence of pleurisy on kill sheets is only an indicator.

Often deaths are the expression of an outbreak, but lowered liveweight gain is by far the biggest cost of this disease. The workshop said that lamb growth rates could be reduced by 50%. This reduced weight gain often occurs when other factors that lower weight gain are present.

Low pasture quality and worm challenges

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are two frequent ones. Tail-end lambs are typically an outcome. Enzootic pneumonia is a major factor limiting lamb growth rates throughout New Zealand, especially in the North Island.

The workshop presented the usual factors such as yarding, large mobs, heat, dust, and mouth-breathing. Managing these factors will lower the incidence but hardly reduce it enough in my experience.

But what does? It is reported that shearing lambs at weaning increases the incidence sevenfold. Farms that rear their own replacements have higher levels. But in reality it requires something more.

EVEN GROWTH RATES A feature of the Massey University work looking at lamb growth rates on herbs was how even the growth rates were. The absence of a tail end. Was this because that feed had a protective effect, or feed factors that act as triggers were absent?

Other work done in Northland showed that feed factors can be a major trigger.

The endophyte toxins in old rye grasses in particular. The improved weight gains we see in lambs on a variety of summer crops will not just be because of higher feed quality, in fact some of those summer brassicas will be only marginally better than pasture. But on those crops

a combination of low worm challenge and low pneumonia triggers will be contributing.

There has not been enough focus on spring and the contribution of the ewe to the pneumonia problem. The ewe is the reservoir of the bugs, and by weaning the bugs have been transferred to the lambs.

Not necessarily from their mothers but from the mob. We see more pneumonia in lambs following a tough spring. Is that because the ewe transmits more bugs, or provides less protection in some way?

Does yarding ewes and lambs a month before weaning increase that transfer?

There is mounting evidence, albeit onfarm, of weaning age being a factor. It seems early weaning results in less pneumonia.

Is the problem confined to lambs from young mums? In the porcine industry the pneumonia is mostly confined to piglets from gilts. Is that a reason why the lambs from ewe hoggets so often struggle? I have no knowledge of any survey looking at dam age and pneumonia. Is there more pneumonia in twin reared lambs compared with single reared? My hunch is that early flocks have overall healthier lambs than late flocks. Knowing some of these possible relationships could give an insight to how this disease works. Managing the bug once it is in the lamb has proven to be unrewarding.

STUDY NEEDED An interesting observation I picked up from sheep breeders who have been selecting for worm resistance for a long time is they get fewer wasting ewes and less pleurisy showing up in killed lambs. A common cause of wasting ewes, especially in the North Island, is chronic pneumonia stemming from when they were a lamb.

As a lamb they did not totally get on top of the pneumonia and an active bit was walled off and remained. At some stage, usually mid-life, that walled off infection breaks out and invades the lung and beyond. In selecting for worm resistance, is the immune system boost that occurs also giving some protection in the lung?

There is so much we don’t know. The last substantive study into pneumonia in sheep was in 2005 and included a survey to try to identify risk factors and patterns. It seems some basic study could reveal a lot, as well as the high level DNA work which is being done.

53

LIVESTOCK | ANIMAL HEALTH

Set your drench dose to the weight of the heaviest animal in the line, shake the drench well, and calibrate your drench gun prior to every use.

Break the parasite cycle this summer BY: BEN ALLOTT

L

ate last year I was contacted by a sheep and beef breeding operation to investigate poor pre-weaning growth rates in lambs on their farm. The long and short of it – lamb autopsies revealed gut damage consistent with parasitism.

Faecal egg counts and total worm counts from lambs indicated high worm burdens were present in lambs prior to a preweaning drench.

Post-drench egg counts/larval cultures indicated that this pre-weaning drench had been ineffective. No evidence of other disease processes or trace element deficiency were found.

The picture is all too common and unfortunately the response is often to simply add a drench here, or to change the drench product used and hope the problem sorts itself out for next year. Below I delve into my thinking and the approach I am going to encourage with this farm as we work through the next season.

Pasture contamination with parasite larvae is long-lived – if you allow any sheep stock class to develop high parasite

54

burdens, the eggs that this stock pass in their faeces will challenge you for months to come. Once a parasite larvae hatches, it can survive in a moist faecal pat, the base of a pasture sward, or in the upper layer of soil, quite happily for nine months or more. This means parasite eggs passed on your farm today and for the rest of summer/autumn will become a significant part of the parasite contamination that will affect ewe and lamb performance next spring.

FEEDING STOCK WELL Well-fed stock that are not under stress develop and maintain more effective immunity against parasites. They will develop lower worm counts, pass fewer parasite eggs in their faeces, and suffer less production loss than sheep that are experiencing nutritional stress.

AVOID GRAZING TOO LOW Parasite larvae are concentrated in the upper layer of soil and at the base of a pasture sward. Stock that are forced to graze low will intake more parasite larvae.

They subsequently develop larger parasite burdens and experience more production

loss than stock that are maintained on higher pasture covers. Clearly this principle needs to be managed alongside grazing management to keep pasture at high quality.

The two components above have strong relationships with stocking rates, rotation lengths, feed budgeting/management, planned start of lambing versus pasture growth curve, pasture renewal and soil fertility/fertiliser programmes, and climatic conditions. Some we can control/ influence and others we can’t. Control what you can.

LOW CONTAMINATION FEED TYPES Internal parasites are well-adapted to cycling on grass-based pastures. They are less well adapted to completing their lifecycle on legumes, herbs, and brassica crops. Strategically using forage crops can be a very useful tool for creating feed that has very low parasite contamination.

Integrate effective cross-grazing throughout the year – areas of the farm that are intensively grazed by only one species of animal, and even more so when it is only young animals, are at high risk for developing heavily contaminated

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Key points I work through in all my animal health plans: • Use highly effective drench products every drench – base this decision on drench testing, faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT), and check the efficacy using a 14day post-drench check at least once each season.

• Always set your drench dose to the weight of the heaviest animal in the line, shake your drench well, and calibrate your drench gun prior to every use.

• Appropriate intervals between drenches are critical to prevent stock becoming reinfected and egg counts starting to rise. For lambs rotationally grazed on pasture, the standard rule of thumb is 28-day drenching through the summer. This can be modified for lambs under more extensive grazing management or for lambs on summer crops where appropriate egg count monitoring is in place.

• Monitor the faecal egg count of two-tooths and MA ewes through the summer and autumn to ensure egg counts remain low as expected. If older stock are heavily parasitised and developing high faecal egg counts, then in my opinion drenching is indicated.

The key point – do not allow high faecal egg counts to build in any stock classes now. This contamination will affect future performance. Feeding management is a critical driver of parasite burdens.

pasture. In previous articles I have discussed how older stock classes can be used to ‘vacuum’ parasite contamination.

Likewise, using cattle in rotation with sheep will help reduce parasite contamination of pasture. Your animal health plan should assess your farm system for likely contamination hot-spots that may go on to challenge ewes and lambs in the spring. Look into the ratios of young stock to mature stock and the ratio of sheep to cattle in your system. Can you find a way to improve the balance of stock carried on your farm?

LONG-ACTING DRENCH PRODUCTS (CAPSULES/LA INJECTION) I personally don’t take a good versus evil stand on these products. These products can be used strategically to protect vulnerable stock and to maximise performance. However, continued use in a large proportion of sheep on a farm is in my opinion a recipe for selecting for drench-resistant parasites and is an unsustainable practice.

These products only provide a commercially significant production benefit if the animal is intaking a large number of parasite larval from contaminated pasture. Therefore, can a farmer look back through the season, identify the likely source of this contamination and modify his management of the upcoming season to avoid repeating the contamination cycle, thus reducing reliance on long-acting

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products to patch the problem?’

Common culprits through the summer are: attempting to finish too many lambs and carrying too many lambs through the autumn. Using drench products that are not highly effective, inappropriately long drench intervals in young stock and low BCS ewes/nutritional stress leading to breakdowns in immunity in older stock classes.

LOW COVERS DURING LACTATION The other common issue that I encounter is low pasture covers through the early lactation period, resulting in underfeeding, nutritional stress, and forcing ewes to graze into the parasite zone near the base of the sward. Don’t look to a capsule or LA injection to help solve this problem.

Parasites are less well-adapted to completing their lifecycle on legumes, herbs, and brassica crops.

Take a good look at the date you start lambing and your stocking rate compared with predicted pasture growth rates.

An interesting fact, the major driver of production loss in parasitised animals is that gut inflammation results in reduced feed intake. You can drench stock all you like but if they can’t then harvest more feed because none is available, you will see little production benefit.

Your management decisions from today are affecting how heavily ewes and lambs will be challenged by internal parasites next spring. I would encourage you to take deliberate, well considered steps today to break the cycle of contamination that has occurred on your farm in the past.

• Ben Allott is a North Canterbury veterinarian.

Using cattle in rotation with sheep will help reduce parasite contamination of pasture.

55

LIVESTOCK | LAMB LOSS

Opportunities to reduce lamb losses BY: DR KEN GEENTY

L

ost production and income from lamb deaths at lambing can range from moderate to horrendous. This wastage can be minimised by sound animal health, good feeding management, and genetic selection. Ram purchases each year should focus on genetics, with high lamb survival. Ewes need to be fed to maintain ewe body condition score (BCS) of 3, with lamb birth weights between 4.2 and 7.4kg for multiples and singles respectively. With veterinary advice a sound animal health plan should be developed.

In planning to minimise lamb losses next lambing it is strongly recommended to revisit results from previous years.

These may include causes of lamb deaths, most commonly starvation-exposure for light multiples and dystocia for heavier multiples and singles. Management to minimise these losses will include separation of pregnant ewes with multiples given preferential feeding in mid-late pregnancy, and those with singles fed less generously. The aim being to achieve

56

the range of lamb birth weights shown in Figure 1.

Advance planning for pregnancy and lambing can include choosing and preparation of your best lambing paddocks for multiple lambing ewes. Preferences will be for easy contour, good shelter, and a feed bank at lambing of at least 1400kg DM/ha.

As much as 12% of embryonic loss occurs by pregnancy scanning.

Another 18-25% of potential lambs die at lambing.

Activities likely to be diaried will include ewe vaccinations pre-mating for contagious abortion, and pre-lambing for clostridial diseases. Pregnancy scanning will need to be scheduled during the period between 60 and 90 days of pregnancy.

The primary determinant of lambing

percentage is ovulation rate at mating, but lamb wastage between then and weaning can be frighteningly high. With an average ewe BCS of 3 or better an OR of up to 1.9 can be expected, leading to a lamb tailing rate of 160% or greater if lambing survival is up to scratch.

As much as 12% of embryonic loss occurs by pregnancy scanning. Another 18-25% of potential lambs die at lambing.

This means for every 100 ewes mated, some 30-40 of the 190 potential lambs in the example above are lost by lamb tailing.

Little can be done to avoid the embryonic losses, but minimising BCS losses during mid-late pregnancy and careful lambing management can reduce deaths around lambing.

Even greater lamb losses can occur, at almost any time during pregnancy, if contagious abortion strikes. The most common causes are toxoplasmosis and campylobacter, or vibrio and sometimes salmonella. All can be controlled by vaccination, with natural immunity generally present in older ewes through previous exposure. Vaccination is recommended, particularly in young ewes

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Figure 1: Lamb birth weights for 75% survival

Proportion surviving to weaning

Lamb losses can be minimised by sound animal health, good feeding management, and genetic selection.

POSTMORTEMS

75% survival

1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0

2

4

6

8

10

Lamb birth weight (kg)

or first lambers, after consultation with your animal health adviser.

Dietary deficiencies of selenium, vitamin E and iodine – causing white muscle disease and goitre respectively – can also increase lamb mortality.

Laboratory analysis of feed or autopsies of dead lambs can detect occurrence, and veterinary advice should be sought if these conditions are suspected or diagnosed.

The question of ewe shearing in winter during pregnancy often arises, and

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the general consensus is there are no detrimental effects if done correctly. Some of the consequences are that pre-lamb shearing within 6-8 weeks of lambing increases ewe appetite and may cause ewes to beneficially seek out shelter around lambing. Shearing earlier during mid pregnancy may increase birth weights of multiple lambs, with better survival. It is recommended to use winter shearing combs that leave a 5-6mm ‘wooly singlet’.

Previous diagnosis of lamb deaths may have been as illustrated in Appendix 2 of Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s booklet ‘Making every mating count’ which can be found at: beeflambnz.com/knowledge-hub/ PDF/making-every-mating-count.pdf Included is an illustrated postmortem examination and decision support tool that some farmers have learnt to use effectively after instruction from their animal health adviser. This may be considered extreme, but given the extent of lamb losses and the cost to your bottom line, familiarity and/or possible use should be considered.

• Ken Geenty is a primary industries consultant.

57

CROP & FORAGE | SOILS

Avoid soil sampling in areas where stock camp because results will be skewed.

Study shows South Island soil fertility low A decade’s worth of soil samples from 284 South Island farms have been independently analysed and show pasture nutrition and fertility is underdone. Jo Cuttance reports.

A

gKnowledge scientists Dr Robert McBride and Dr Doug Edmeades looked at the soil fertility and pasture quality of 284 South Island farms, from 2010 to 2020. The results showed there was room for improvement.

Soil samples taken from their initial farm visits on South Island dairy blocks found 82% were below optimal levels of Olsen P, for drystock blocks 42% were below. Other minerals were also below par, K, 65% of dairy blocks were below optimal, and 57% on drystock blocks. Organic S 67% of dairy blocks were below and 78% of drystock blocks were below optimal levels.

McBride did not blame farmers for

58

the results, saying there was a lack of production-based science research available to help farmers make decisions.

Production-based science had been set aside in the past decade for a focus on environmental, and policy science. In the past, he said the industry had a much better gauge of where farms were, with regard to soil fertility and pasture quality.

When assessing soil fertility, there needed to be a combination of visual assessment and testing that took years to get right. More important was knowing when the tests were wrong, and throwing them out and starting again.

Clover-based pasture was the backbone of South Island agriculture, McBride said.

The ability to grow white clover yearround provided an economic advantage of both inexpensive (4-5cents/kgDM) and high-quality livestock feed. However, growing clover had a cost, with a higher nutrient requirement relative to grasses and crops. If there was a soil fertility limitation, clover would start to decline.

With the loss of clover came diminished nitrogen inputs, resulting in a decrease in grass production and ultimately weeds.

He said the South Island was mostly sedimentary soils and clover should be there all year. Not necessarily growing in winter, but it should be there.

The first step with annual soil testing was to look at the land overall. He did not recommend individual paddock testing and application, suggesting breaking the farm into areas. For example, river flats, rolling ground, developed high country, undeveloped high country, and then treat each area separately. Otherwise, if each paddock was treated individually, the natural variations would become more variable, and the variations worse.

He recommended using the same trajectory, same paddocks, and to test around the same time each year. If a paddock had stock in it, or was being cropped, then change to a nearby paddock.

Stock should be excluded for a couple of weeks prior to the soil test, as it was difficult to tell where the urine patches were when stock was in the paddock and testing a urine area would skew results.

A defined testing regime helped compile useful and comparable data.

Visual considerations were, was it green, or was there a yellow or brown look? Did it have polka dots, from dung and urine patches, or does it have humps through it?

If it looked like there was a problem, there was a problem, although consideration was needed for weather events affecting the land.

McBride said dung and urine patches were like mini experiments happening in the paddock and farmers could look to see how the clover was responding in those patches. Crudely, if the clover responded in the urine patches the soil needed more K (potassium); if clover responded in the dung patches then phosphorus (P) and sulphur (S) were needed.

A good paddock had a green, even look to it, he said. “Soil test results were not set in stone.”

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If a number looked wrong, then it probably was, and should be dismissed, he said. Typically, farmers tended to average the numbers across an area and expected the resulting number to be correct.

However, this was often not the case: if the soil sample was taken in a urine patch, the number could be doubled or tripled.

Soil tests were not deadly accurate, with readings having a variance of + or – 30.

Crazy numbers should be thrown out, then trends could be seen, he said.

Hill country stock typically carried nutrients to the top and bottom, so testing in these areas would likely give a skewed result, especially if the test was taken where the animals camped at nights.

The largest contributing factor to misdiagnosis of nutrient limitations was by not applying the appropriate protocols when soil testing. Learning how to take soil tests took time. If the soil tests looked nothing like what the paddock did, then the tests needed to be dismissed and taken again. If the paddock looked patchy, yellow or full of weeds, but the tests showed good nutrient levels, then the

A polka dot look in the paddock shows soil fertility needs to be improved.

Figure 1.

Qualitative relationship between Pasture Visual Assessment and relative pasture production. With 1 representing low fertility pasture and 10 representing a high fertility pasture, the graph shows SI farms are performing at about 60 to 80% of their capability.

Pasture Visual Assessment (PVA)

Block and number of samples

Score (1-10)

Clover content (%)

All (480)

4.9

15.9

All dairy (208)

5.5

16.6

Milking platforms (139)

5.3

15.8

Effluent blocks (69)

5.8

18.4

All dry-stock (272)

4.5

15.4

Low stocking (90)

3.5

11.1

Typical stocking (111)

4.7

17.5

High stocking (71)

5.4

17.8

110 100 Relative pasture production

Table 1: Pasture Visual Assessments (PVA) of South Island pastures based on 480 observations between 2010 and 2020. Each observation is an average of multiple paddocks within a block.

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Pasture Visual Assessment

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8

9

10

test results were wrong.

“A soil test that gave misinformation was worse than having no test at all,” he said.

McBride disagreed when farmers told him nothing could be done on poor or weedy land. “Get the soil fertility right, and good clover and rye grass will grow.”

A paddock full of weeds represented low fertility. He explained a weed did not need much, it just sat in the ground, and went from seed, to plant, then seeded, needing few requirements. A paddock with plenty of rye grass and clover would outcompete most weeds. But weeds dominate low fertility areas.

As part of an annual soil testing regime, an organic sulphate test should be requested, because it gave a much truer result, McBride said.

THE STUDY McBride and Edmeades compiled the soil fertility limitation information while assessing the results of soil tests they had compiled through AgKnowledge on South Island farms from 2010 to 2020.

The distribution of farms was: Southland 38%, Canterbury 37%, Otago 21%, and Westland/Tasman 4%. The data was compiled from the initial farm visits and represented a snapshot of soil fertility, pasture quality and composition, and relative pasture production on these farms.

When first assessing, the scientists used a 10-point visual scale (Table 1 and Figure 1).

A One pasture had little or no clover and was dominated by low fertility species such as browntop, sweet vernal and flat weeds.

Additionally, a One pasture was yellowish to brownish in colour and the excreta patches were very obvious. In contrast, a 10 pasture was 30 to 40% clover and was dominated by high fertility grass species such as ryegrass, and was dark green and even in colour. Specific nutrient deficiency symptoms and clover content were also noted. On the basis that “pastures do not lie”, visual assessments provided a basis to ‘ground-proof’ soil test results. Edmeades said invariably, if the visual assessment and the soil test data do not agree, the error was with the soil sampling. The average pasture visual assessments indicated that South Island farms were operating at about 60 to 80% of their potential, with the average clover content in most of these pastures about half of what was regarded to be optimal.

Continues

››

59

Table 2. Nutrient concentrations in clover-only samples from milking platforms and effluent blocks on 128 South Island dairy farms between 2010 and 2020.

Nutrient

N (%)

P (%)

K (%)

S (%)

Mg (%)

Cu (ppm)

Mo (ppm)

B (ppm)

Deficient

<4.4

<0.30

<2.0

<0.25

<0.15

<5

<0.10

<20

Average

5.0

0.4

1.7

0.3

0.3

9.6

0.4

24.6

% deficient

22

6

67

10

0

2

26

20

All blocks (128)

Milking platforms (103) Average

5.0

0.4

1.7

0.3

0.3

9.7

0.5

24.6

% deficient

22

7

72

10

0

2

26

20

Average

4.9

0.4

2.0

0.3

0.3

9.4

0.4

24.5

% deficient

20

4

48

12

0

4

25

16

Effluent blocks (25)

Table 3. Nutrient concentrations in clover-only samples collected from 313 South Island drystock farms between 2010 and 2020.

Nutrient

N (%)

P (%)

K (%)

S (%)

Mg (%)

Cu (mg/kg)

Mo (mg/kg)

B (mg/kg)

Deficient

<4.4

<0.30

<2.0

<0.25

<0.10

<5

<0.10

<20

Average

4.6

0.4

2.0

0.3

0.7

9.2

0.4

24.7

% deficient

38

26

53

35

0

4

25

24

All blocks (313)

Low stocking (107) (<10 su/ha)

A strong clover presence is good for production. Weeds easily establish themselves in soils with low fertility.

Average

4.5

0.4

2.2

0.3

0.8

9.2

0.5

23.1

% deficient

43

31

35

37

0

2

19

28

Typical stocking (130) (10-14 su/ha) Average

4.5

0.4

1.8

0.3

0.8

8.9

0.3

24.4

% deficient

42

29

62

39

0

5

33

22

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High Stocking (76) (>14 su/ha)

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Average

4.8

0.4

1.9

0.3

0.3

9.8

0.6

26.9

% deficient

23

15

56

25

0

4

19

25

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CLOVER-ONLY DATA

for K (53%), Mo (25%), along with phosphorous (P) 26%, sulphur (S) 35%, and boron (B) 24% deficient.

Clover-only samples were taken to see whether there were sufficient nutrients available to meet the plant’s needs. This differed from soil testing, which indicated the size of the soil nutrient pools, which were used to calculate fertiliser requirements.

The results (see Tables 2 and 3) showed for the dairy farms overall 67% of the blocks were potassium (K) deficient and 26% were molybdenum (Mo) deficient.

These results were similar for effluent blocks and the milking platforms. In drystock farms, deficiencies were found

SOIL DATA The soil test results from the dairy farms (see Tables 4 and 5) showed P was frequently below the economic optimal range (82%) and that K (65%) and S (sulphate S 61%, organic S 67%) were below the respective biological optimal ranges. For the drystock farms S (sulphate 62%, organic S 78%) and K (57%) were most frequently deficient, followed by P (42%).

“Sampling errors most often result in inflated values.”

Table 4. Soil test results from 219 South Island dairy blocks between 2010 and 2020.

All Blocks (219)

Olsen P

MAF QT K

S04 (ppm)

Organic S (ppm)

MAF QT Mg

MAF QT Na

pH

Optimal

35-40

7-10

10-12

10-12

8-10

3-4

5.8-6.0

Average

26.1

6.6

10.5

8.4

22.0

6.6

6.0

82

65

61

67

2

5

11

24.6

5.7

10.7

8.3

21.1

6.4

6.0

89

79

60

68

3

4

11

29.2

8.5

10.2

8.7

23.9

7.1

6.1

68

36

64

63

1

6

10

% Below Optimal Milking Platforms (146) Average % Below Optimal Effluent Blocks (73) Average % Below Optimal

Table 5. Soil test results from 308 South Island drystock blocks between 2010 and 2020.

All Blocks (308)

MAF QT K

S04 (ppm)

Organic S (ppm)

MAF QT Mg

MAF QT Na

7-10

10-12

10-12

8-10

3-4

19.9

6.9

9.6

7.6

24.2

6.7

5.9

42

57

62

78

2

11

26

10-20

7-10

10-12

10-12

8-10

3-4

5.5-5.6

15.5

8.0

8.0

6.7

28.3

5.9

5.7

18

36

67

39

1

17

49

20-25

7-10

10-12

10-12

8-10

3-4

5.8-6.0

20.4

6.1

9.5

8.2

22.3

6.8

6.0

50

72

60

74

2

5

16

25-30

7-10

10-12

10-12

8-10

3-4

5.8-6.0

25.0

6.6

11.9

8.0

21.7

7.9

6.0

61

61

57

74

3

13

13

Olsen P

Optimal Average % Below Optimal

pH

Low Stocking (104) Optimal (<10 su/ha) Average % Below Optimal Typical Stocking (129) Optimal (10-14 su/ha) Average % Below Optimal High Stocking (75) Optimal (>14 su/ha) Average % Below Optimal

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WHAT DOES THE DATA TELL US? The scientists concluded that the unexceptional vigour and clover content of South Island pastures could be directly attributed to suboptimal soil fertility. There could be several reasons for this. With the establishment and maintenance of high-quality, productive pastures as a top priority for producers, they felt it was unlikely farmers were holding back on fertiliser inputs.

This suggested nutrient deficiencies were not being identified or were not being remedied with current fertiliser policies and practices.

They said it was possible changes in farming practices in the past few decades had caught farmers and their consultants unaware and fertiliser ‘recipes’ that worked well in the past were no longer applicable. Edmeades said the widespread deficiency of K may be a consequence of relying on historical fertiliser formulas where little if any K was used. Onceadequate K levels in many soils have been mined down, and were now not meeting modern production requirements.

Livestock health concerns were often given as reasons for not applying K and Mo. But Edmeades said farming with deficient levels of any nutrient was detrimental to clover growth and overall pasture production.

Both Edmeades and McBride felt the largest factor to the misdiagnosis of nutrient limitations was by not applying the appropriate protocols when soil testing.

“Sampling errors most often result in inflated values,” Edmeades said.

For example, if a single core from a fresh urine patch was included in the 15 to 20 cores that made up a sample, the reported result could be more than double the actual soil level.

After studying the data Edmeades and McBride believed there was considerable opportunity to increase the productivity of pastoral farming in the South Island. This could be achieved by appreciating the science behind soil fertility and pasture nutrition to grow clover-based pastures.

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SPONSORED CONTENT | CLOVERZONE

Massive increases (80%) to hill country animal production.

A

s more sheep and beef are being finished on hill country, it has become more vital to improve pastures to get better results. The following numbers speak for themselves and the simple solution offered by Fertco could unlock excellent financial returns for farmers. Better feed quality and an extended seasonal pattern of feed supply from pasture are two of the critical requirements to achieve an additional 10kg meat sold per breeding ewe (or equivalent) for hill farm viability over the next 15 years (Fennessy et al. 2016).

Nitrogen (N) is the nutrient most strongly limiting pasture growth in hill pastures, followed usually by phosphorus (P). A recent scientific study looked at the strengths of phosphate fertiliser and clover

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cultivars in relation to hill pasture improvement. The paper, ‘The relative strengths of phosphate fertiliser applications and white clover cultivar introduction for hill pasture improvement’, was presented at the 2017 Grassland Association conference. The study included combinations of four Phosphate fertiliser rates and three pasture types with different white clover varieties. Combinations were compared in self-contained, replicated farmlets grazed by sheep over four years. The trial was done on the low-fertility no improvement hill-country at Ballantrae Hill Country Research station. White clover varieties were: The resident clover (first introduced in 1986), Huia and Tahora. Fertiliser rates: 0kg, 8.5kg, 22.5kg and 26.5kg/ha/ year of citric – soluble Phosphate. Grazing management ran on a two-paddock, two-week on two- week off system. Pasture covers were monitored on all plots and stocking rate adjusted to utilise pasture growth in a give and take type system. The results of this experiment showed both P fertiliser addition and white clover cultivar introduction significantly increased animal production (measured as liveweight gain/ha/year). There were no significant interactions between fertiliser inputs and pasture type for any of the variables.

Fertiliser increased white clover herbage accumulate (HA) three to

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four fold, compared with the control treatment increasing total sward HA by 50%. The introduction of Tahora white clover increased white clover and total sward HA and nitrogen fixation compared with the resident and Huia-sown swards. Sheep liveweight gain was greater in all systems fertilised with P and in systems sown with Tahora. A mean 12% improvement in animal performance from the introduction of a persistent adapted clover cultivar, at low initial cost, appears to offer an economically viable strategy for improving hill land production. The three fertilised treatments produced an average 80% greater liveweight gain/ha compared with unfertilised. The improved availability of soil N resulting from greater clover growth and higher N fixation stimulated the growth of more productive grass species such as perennial ryegrass: compared with low fertility-tolerant grasses such as browntop. Perennial ryegrass has the potential to grow more herbage on an annual basis and is more productive in winter when low pasture growth rates commonly limit stocking rates on hill swards.

“The three fertilised treatments produced an average 80% greater liveweight gain/ ha compared with unfertilised”.

An extra 300kg of white clover dry matter (DM)/ha/year was grown in the Tahora-sown sward compared with the resident, but a further 1000kg DM/ha/year (approximately) came from other species present.

When P fertiliser was applied, N fixation was 2.5-3.2 times greater than where no P fertiliser was applied. Enclosed cage measurements revealed a strong effect of fertiliser (P<0.001) driven by 45% higher total annual pasture HA in the treatments where P fertiliser was applied compared to the control treatment (mean of 10,530kg DM/ha for the three fertiliser inputs versus 7275kg DM/ha for control).

The results of this experiment showed both P fertiliser application and white clover cultivar introduction significantly increased animal production.

The statistical and absolute effect of fertiliser was much stronger and larger than the effect of white clover cultivar introduction: over four years, fertiliser application increased animal production by an average of 80% compared to the control (unfertilised) treatment, whereas the difference between the best clover cultivar (Tahora) and the pastures based on the resident clover ecotype was 12%.

The P fertiliser effect was the outcome of a large increase in total white clover HA, increased N fixation, and an increase in total HA of nearly 50%. Because stock numbers allocated to each replicate of fertiliser were adjusted fortnightly according to the amount of pasture available for grazing, higher stocking rates were achieved on the fertilised pastures. This was the major driver of increased animal production. The recommendation of the study was that clover cultivar introduction as a compliment to fertiliser use, not as a replacement, remains valid and should be considered in any management decision concerning improvement strategies for hill land.

Seed and feed

Now that the scientific insight is understood, a solution needs to be developed. Fertco have therefore developed a product to allow farmers to tap into this production and profit benefit. SS8 combines seed-safe Dical 8 and Tahora white clover seed. Fertco’s preferred form of Phosphate for over 20 years has been Dicalcic Phosphate (or

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March 2021

reverted super) and particularly our unique product, Dical 8. One of the reasons for this preference of phosphate source is because it is “seed safe”. This phrase “seed safe” refers to the fact that Dical 8 is close to pH neutral, whereas other products such as superphosphate are highly acid at pH 1. It is of course the acid in superphosphate that burns seed and therefore renders it not suitable in a lot of cases to be blended with seed. Applying seed and fertiliser together makes sense as there are application savings to be made and a better seed spread is achieved. Two jobs are completed in one and the scientific paper points out the positive returns. Designed for a spread rate of 400kg per ha SS8 supplies 32 kg of phosphate, 28 of sulphur, 104 of calcium and 3kg of seed. At a cost of $220 per ha plus application. *Extracts from ‘The relative strengths of phosphate fertiliser application and white clover cultivar introduction for hill pasture improvement’, D.F. Champan, A.D. Mackay, B.P. Devantier, D.A. Costall and P.J. Budding.

For further information or to talk to a local Fertco consultant please call 0800 Fertco or visit www.fertco.co.nz

Meet some of the Fertco Team

Tony Montier

Sales Consultant North and West Waikato tonym@fertco.co.nz 027 665 5482

After growing up on a dairy farm in the Waikato I moved into a career in sales before returning to the farm to raise my children. As my children got older and I moved back to town and I decided to put my sales and agriculture skills to use in the fertiliser industry. I bring a hands on and practical approach to my work. I have a passion for sustainable farming practices coupled with strong relationships within the sector to help your business grow.

Away from work I enjoy coaching rugby, fishing, motorsport and time with my family.

Educated at Christchurch Boys High and Lincoln University, Andrew has more than twenty years’ experience in the fertiliser industry and a lifetime in horticulture. He has a genuine interest in helping farmers and orchardists with any of their soil fertility issues and maximising the efficient and profitable use of fertiliser inputs.

Andrew Marles

Sales Consultant Bay of Plenty, Coromandel, Gisborne & East Cape andrewm@fertco.co.nz 021 860 200

Andrew has a passion for most things outdoors including hunting, shooting, fishing and farming (which he has to as he owns a farm).

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GENE EDITING AN EXCITING SCIENCE Scientists who gathered recently to discuss gene editing shared their frustration at the slow development of the technology in New Zealand. Tom Ward reports.

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ENVIRONMENT | SCIENCE

Could gene editing control clover weevil?

R

ecently the NZ Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science (NZIAHS) held a one-day forum at Lincoln University on the subject of gene editing (GE).

The 12 scientists who spoke were all in favour of the need to develop this science in NZ, and without exception showed their frustration at the difficulty and expense of advancing the technology in this country.

NZIAHS, a group supporting primary industry science, organised the forum to assist the Royal Society (RS) in promoting a national, science-based, discussion about GE. The RS is a NZ body promoting knowledge of all sorts. The topic is vast and complicated, with the GE acronym itself being confusing – GE has in the past denoted the term genetic engineering, now we are using it to mean gene editing, and both terms are a part of the wider field of molecular biology. Since the Royal Commission’s report into genetic modification in 2000, there has been no informed public debate and the legislative and regulatory controls, at both local and national government levels, have become, if anything, stricter. However, there have been major developments in the science over the past 20 years. As far as I can deduce, gene editing has taken over the other genetic modification technologies.

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A panel, put together by the society, recently completed a three-year review of the science in NZ. The review found that after 20 years very strong views were still held, particularly on transgenesis (betweenspecies gene transfer). It found that young people were more inclined to consider the intricacies of GE technology, and that politicians were aware of GE but uncertain how to respond. It found the legislation is not fit for purpose; for example, some gene technologies are virtually undetectable, and there is no legislation to deal with the international trade in GE. Maori investment in primary production is growing and they do not have a coordinated view on GE. For example some will want GE out in the environment so they can accelerate manuka improvement for honey production. Others do not want that, but there is a high awareness among Maori of the potential for GE to deal to some of the congenital diseases Polynesian peoples are more susceptible to.

Overall, the generally low level of knowledge about GE in the NZ population needed to be addressed.

Plant biologist Dr Paula Jamieson built some perspective around GE by taking us through a history of plant breeding. Firstly, she defined GE as “taking a gene from one species, and putting it into another with which it could never naturally breed”.

Jamieson pointed to the numerous

arguments against GE, i.e. tinkering with nature, Frankenfoods, escape into the wild, farmers cannot save seed, big companies control the food chain, unexpected consequences, and contaminating organic produce.

BREEDER TECHNIQUES In classical plant breeding, within the same species, male and female chromosomes match, and reproduction relies on successful pollination and fertilisation.

With hybridisation the breeder either (1) crosses inbred lines or cultivars of the same species, or (2) does wide crosses between different species (or genera) and the offspring are usually infertile. With the former (1) you get hybrid maize, hybrid broccoli, hybrid pansies and while this generates hybrid vigour, seed cannot be saved because the next generation will be too diverse. With the latter (2), you get for example, a mule as a result of putting a horse over a donkey and the mule will be infertile because the chromosomes cannot match. However, in plant breeding, since the 1930s a chemical called colchicine, which doubles the chromosomes, has been used and we now get a fertile plant.

Embryo rescue is a technique where, in wide crossing, the endosperm which sustains and feeds the growing embryo is insufficient (unbalanced), and the embryo can be ‘rescued’ by culturing it

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in coconut milk or banana, or a synthetic endosperm. This has allowed plant breeders to do between-species crosses for decades, e.g. orchid breeders. Breeders have also done crop crosses, e.g. triticale, from wheat (a tetraploid) and rye (a diploid) with colchicine and embryo rescue. Triticale, which is fertile, is a new artificial genera grown all around the world. There is no legislation covering this technology.

TRANS-GENETICS IN NZ

While gene editing is said to be very accurate, there is a very great difference between editing (removing) one sequence in a species, and introducing DNA into a sequence.

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Mutation breeding, either chemical or radiation, is another technique used by breeders. There are thousands of mutant varieties registered in 170 plant species, 25% of which are ornamental. Of the crops (75%), rice, wheat, barley, peas, and grapefruit are examples where mutation breeding has brought increased yield, quality, disease resistance, herbicide resistance, and alkaline and acid tolerance. The technique has been used for 80 years and there is little regulatory control over the magnitude or type of genetic change; it is random, multiple and unspecific.

Another example is the organic beer brewing industry, which used Golden Promise barley, a gamma ray mutation, for 20 years.

Genetic engineering is inter-kingdom transfer (i.e. animal to plant, and vice versa) which cannot be done with any other plant breeding technique. An example is firefly in tobacco. Foreign DNA is inserted into a plant, usually using a specific bacteria, and is random. Traces of the insertion remain. These plants are grown widely around the world, the most common being herbicide tolerant

(Roundup ready maize, canola), insect tolerant (bt maize, eggplant), and virus tolerant (pawpaw in Hawaii). No GE plants are grown in NZ. However, in laboratories in NZ, transgenetic organisms are being developed, i.e. medicines, such as insulin, and vaccines.

Foods are imported that are genetically modified, e.g. canola and soybean. In NZ there are no field trials, which may be permitted when controlled. There has been only one release, an equine flu vaccine, the use of which is very tightly controlled.

‘While there are risks, we at least need to debunk naysayers with informed debate.’

The scientists at the forum were very critical of the costs and difficulties, particularly the public submissions, of the application process for permission to conduct trials. This pushes ownership and development of the technology offshore. Furthermore, because the legislation is such a handbrake on research, no one can see how the technology can be marketed, further reducing capital available for development.

The USA is unregulated, Australia is unregulated if gene inserts are minor, Chile and China proceed on a case-by-case basis, the EU is fully regulated, and Argentina is unregulated if no new genetic material is used.

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NEW GENE EDITING SYSTEM The most recent (exciting) development in the molecular biology field is an editing system, CRISPR. This is derived from a naturally occurring bacterium defence mechanism which ‘snips’ small sequences of DNA from interlopers (attacking organisms) and copies them into its own genome for future identification should the bacterium attack again. The clever part is that scientists have adapted this discovery so that any specific DNA sequence in a collective DNA ‘book’ can be identified, selected, removed and replaced. The introduced sequence can even be removed and the original sequence reinserted.

In plants, with CRISPR, we can already reduce seed shedding in ryegrass, increase seed size and number in crops, reduce abiotic stress, enhance disease resistance, improve digestibility and herbicide tolerance, edit neurotoxin genes in endophytes, and speed breeding in tree crops.

Dr Suzanne Rowe from Agresearch described how, over eight years, the company has bred a functional sheep with a 24% reduction in methane emissions.

This is not genetic engineering/gene editing, just conventional selection technique and has cost $10 million. GE has been attempted and 600,000 DNA markers have been identified but not successfully sequenced yet. The researchers still cannot find a gene of larger effect for gene editing.

In any case most emissions are from cattle.

TRYING TO MODIFY MICROBES Dr Travis Glare of the Bio-Protection Research Centre spoke interestingly on modifying microbes to increase their efficiency in primary industry.

His focus is on killing insects. Due to chemicals meeting resistance, or being seen as potentially carcinogenic, there are demands for more biological, environmentally friendly methods to control weeds, pests and diseases. These are called biopesticides, and may be a virus, bacterium or a natural product derived from a plant. The genomes in these organisms are easily modified and scientists working in this area do not really need genetic modification or CRISPR. We already use biopesticides in human and veterinary medicine, e.g. insulin from a pig’s pancreas. These microbes have different methods of operation, i.e. direct infection, toxicity, induced resistance, resistance priming, hyper parasitism,

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competition and antibiosis. Examples are Beavaria and metarhizium, both of which have a scorpion toxin inserted. Beavarium kills insects 15 times faster than in its natural state, with a 40% lower kill time.

Metarhizium kills mosquitoes nine times faster and caterpillars 22 times faster.

Despite these successes, this technology is only 5% of the pesticide market.

Dr William Rolleston, a former Federated Farmers president and co-owner of South Pacific Sera, a South Canterbury-based blood product business, spoke about the history of molecular biology in New Zealand. The Royal Commission in 2000 disagreed with activists who argued risks of misadventure from genetic modification were so great that all GM should be stopped, and recommended the country should proceed with caution.

According to Dr Rolleston, the past 20 years has seen claim and counterclaim, with more caution than process. The CRISPR-Cas9 discovery has, however, been a significant development because it is very precise.

ANIMAL ORGANISMS DIFFICULT Prof Peter Dearden, an insect geneticist who is very interested in keeping insects alive, suggested that while CRISPRCas9 has made genetic modification on animals possible, gene editing animal organisms is in fact very difficult. Very few animal organisms have actually been gene sequenced (flies, mice very badly) so nearly all the gene editing possibilities for animals have been done on models. For example, honey bees can be gene edited to resist insecticide sprays, but this has raised concerns about ‘Frankenbees’. Wasps, a major predator of bees in NZ have been gene sequenced but we do not yet know how to edit that sequence, how effective the editing would be, or whether the wasp would become predatory on other organisms (wasps are not a pest in Europe).

While gene editing is said to be very accurate, there is a very great difference between editing (removing) one sequence in a species, and introducing DNA into a sequence. The latter is definitely genetic engineering. Deardon’s opinion is that there cannot be a sensible conversation with the NZ public until the risks are known.

Plant biologist Prof Andy Allen says the world’s most important crises are climate and population, and by 2050 there will be another one billion people

Tobacco plant with firefly gene.

on earth, requiring a 52% increase in food production since 2010. That means another 600 million hectares for food production (an area twice the size of India) which will increase CO2 equivalent emissions by 15 gigatons.

Allan explained how a 60-year conventional breeding process to obtain a red-fleshed apple can be reduced to seven years by introducing DNA to make the plant constantly flowering, then removing that DNA when the red-fleshed state is reached.

Another example is the kumato, a wide cross between a tomato and a wild relish which sells for $11/kg compared with $6/ kg for a tomato. Conventional breeding techniques require 300 million molecular changes; using gene editing only four base pairs need to be changed. This is not allowed under current legislation.

I do not pretend to be an expert in molecular biology, I thought I would give it a crack. The technology has clear benefits, both for human health treatments and nutrition outcomes. The rest of the world, the European Union aside, is moving forward on this. There is expected to be increased pressure on feeding a warming world and a growing world population, such that improved food and science efficiency will be required. While there are risks, we at least need to debunk naysayers with informed debate.

• Tom Ward is a South Canterbury-based farm consultant 027 855 7799, tfward@xtra.co.nz

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ENVIRONMENT | OVERSEAS

Gene editing could give farmers with crops resistance to pests, disease or extreme weather.

Food production via gene editing BY: CHRIS MCCULLOUGH

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sing gene editing to produce crops and livestock in England could get the thumbs up depending on the outcome of a consultation just launched by Defra (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

Defra secretary George Eustice launched the consultation at the virtual Oxford Farming Conference, recognising that the technology could unlock substantial benefits to nature, the environment and help farmers with crops resistant to pests, disease or extreme weather, and to produce healthier, more nutritious food.

Although the practice is banned in the European Union, Brexit has offered this opportunity for England to make its own decisions on the method.

The way plants and animals grow is controlled by the information in their genes. For centuries farmers and growers

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have carefully chosen to breed stronger, healthier individual animals or plants so that the next generation has these beneficial traits, but this is a slow process.

Technologies developed in the last decade enable genes to be edited faster and more precisely to mimic the natural breeding process, helping to target plant and animal breeding to help the UK reach its vital climate and biodiversity goals in a safe and sustainable way.

Gene editing is different from genetic modification where DNA from one species is introduced to a different one. Geneedited organisms do not contain DNA from different species, and instead only produce changes that could be made slowly using traditional breeding methods.

However, due to a legal ruling from the European Court of Justice in 2018, gene editing is regulated in the same way as genetic modification.

The consultation will focus on stopping certain gene editing organisms from being regulated in the same way as genetic

Defra secretary George Eustice.

modification, as long as they could have been produced naturally or through traditional breeding.

This approach has already been adopted by a range of countries, including Japan, Australia and Argentina.

Government will continue to work with farming and environmental groups to develop the right rules and ensure robust controls are in place to maintain the highest food safety standards while supporting the production of healthier food.

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‘Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic resources that mother nature has provided, in order to tackle the challenges of our age.’

“Gene editing has the ability to harness the genetic resources that mother nature has provided, in order to tackle the challenges of our age,” said Eustice.

“This includes breeding crops that perform better, reducing costs to farmers and impacts on the environment, and helping us all adapt to the challenges of climate change.

“Its potential was blocked by a European Court of Justice ruling in 2018, which is flawed and stifling to scientific progress. Now that we have left the EU, we are free to make coherent policy decisions based on science and evidence.

That begins with this consultation.”

Consulting with academia, environmental groups, the food and farming sectors and the public is the beginning of this process which, depending on the outcome, will require primary legislation scrutinised and approved by Parliament.

The Food Standards Agency’s chief scientific advisor professor Robin May welcomed the consultation.

“The UK prides itself in having the very highest standards of food safety, and there are strict controls on GM crops, seeds and food, which the FSA will continue to apply moving forward.

“As with all novel foods, GE foods will only be permitted to be marketed if they are judged to not present a risk to health, not to mislead consumers, and not have lower nutritional value than existing equivalent foods. We will continue to put the consumer first and be transparent and open in our decision making. Any possible change would be based on an appropriate risk assessment that looks at the best available science.”

The consultation will run for 10 weeks from January 7 to March 17, 2021 at 23:59.

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Trees are planted annually on Alistair Timothy and Rachel Joblin’s farm.

Photo by Brad Hanson.

Trees the focus at Arklow Environmental sustainability and creating a tree-filled landscape has become a passion for Pongaroa sheep and beef farmers Alistair Timothy and Rachel Joblin, undertaking a planting project annually.

It started in 2009, when they completed a whole farm plan (WFP) through Horizons Regional Council for their hill country property, Arklow.

The initial motivation was a WFP enabled them to access subsidies for poplar pole planting, but it soon morphed into much more extensive riparian plantings – well beyond the scope of what was recommended in the plan.

“We did a big 1-hectare pine block and then decided we didn’t want to look at just pine trees, so we tried other things,” Alistair explains.

“It was a pretty bare and boring landscape here. Whenever we look at farms, the ones we most like always have lots of trees. It adds character.”

As well as poplar poles, pines and native riparian plantings, they have tried other timber species – redwoods, manuka, eucalypts and lusitanicas.

An added bonus with native riparian plantings is that fencing is subsidised, and they do it themselves, keeping the cost down. While many of their trees are still small, Alistair says it’s rewarding to see it becoming established.

This winter they will undertake their biggest environmental project yet, planting a large gully in natives and pines, for both timber and carbon.

Entering the Horizons Ballance Farm Environment Awards for the first time in 2018 was a positive experience.

“It was scary, but cool to talk about it and show the judges,” Rachel says.

They picked up three awards –- soil management, agribusiness management, and livestock.

Arkow onfarm p30

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ENVIRONMENT | FRESHWATER

A catchment group can bring in not just farmers in an area but townies too.

Get involved with your catchment group BY: KAREN TREBILCOCK

T

here are now more than a hundred catchment groups throughout the country, and if you haven’t got one in your area that you can join, maybe it’s time you began thinking about starting one yourself.

Catchment groups get all farmers in an area together – not just dairy and including forestry – to work on improving the waterways that run through their land.

Some include towns, making sure urban people get involved and are doing their bit as well.

DairyNZ, NZ Landcare Trust, Beef + Lamb NZ and regional councils all support catchment groups, and if you are not sure

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if one is already set up in your area, get in touch with these organisations and they will be able to tell you.

NZ Landcare Trust has a map of catchment groups on its website, and there are still parts of the country, especially in the North Island, that don’t have them.

GETTING STARTED Read about catchment groups on the internet, ring your neighbours, organise a get-together and see if you have enough people interested to share the workload.

Figure out your catchment boundaries, a few goals, and if it’s a ‘yes’ then it is time to get the whole community on board.

Advertise a public meeting and get people involved. Invite someone from one of the support organisations, such as

Landcare Trust, who has had experience with other catchment groups, to explain how it all works.

Figure out what is important to everyone about their catchment – what they use it for.

It might be for fishing, swimming, irrigation, duck shooting, or stock drinking water.

Maybe it’s home to endangered or native species, both in and above the water.

Or maybe it’s home to some species such as rats that you would rather do without.

It’s a start that will then allow the group to set some short-term goals, such as water testing and a stocktake of the environment, and longer-term goals such as riparian planting and predator control.

Maybe you once swam in the river

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A riparian planting funded through a catchment group in south Otago.

but now are worried about letting your children do it because of the water quality.

Having a goal of making it safe to swim in again will energise a group to test the water regularly and figure out what is going on and why.

RESOURCES Do a stocktake of what you have got.

Pooling local knowledge is great, but also see if there is water monitoring testing already being done by your regional council and find out what information they have.

Fish and Game and the Department of Conservation might also be able to help.

Also, do a stocktake of the skills of people in your group. Hopefully you have someone who is keen to take on the co-ordinator’s role, others who have easy access to the waterway for regular water testing, and someone who is good with finances and filling in funding applications.

Water testing and planting riparian strips takes money, but catchment groups can apply for a variety of funds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

You can establish your catchment group as either an incorporated society or a charitable trust, which helps with funding applications.

You may wish to set up member

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subscriptions as well, and some larger catchment groups pay their co-ordinator for their time.

As well, you can set up a website about your catchment and include the group’s aims and progress, which can become a historical record of what you have achieved.

And there might be someone with an empty tunnel house who likes growing seedlings, and others who love an excuse for a day in the bush or along the river to collect native seeds for them.

Or someone who is keen on predator control and wants a supply of possum fur.

Or someone who wants to set up motion sensor cameras to see what is really out there living along your river banks.

GET TOGETHER SOCIALLY The social side of catchment groups should never be forgotten. Make sure your group includes all members of families for various activities such as planting areas, collecting rubbish, weeding, get-togethers over a shared barbecue, or visits to special areas in the catchment.

Keep it fun and people will want to be involved.

Include all landowners but also think about the community groups, churches, and iwi in your area.

Organise a bus trip for a retirement

village or a school outing, to raise awareness of your goals and ambitions across the community. They may also be keen to contribute either financially or with their time.

Bird watchers, duck shooters, whitebaiters and fishermen who live outside the area but are users of the catchment should also be included, and will be valuable both with their knowledge and time.

Getting everyone together gives them ownership of the waterway collectively and a common goal all can work towards.

It also allows people to feel connected to the streams and rivers in their area, even though they might not flow through their farms.

What you do on your land will eventually affect your nearest waterway, and catchment groups can give a greater understanding of it.

Use scientists as well as water and soil experts to help figure out what is going wrong and what can be done.

INVOLVE TOWNIES Don’t forget urban areas and make sure they have adequate wastewater (sewage) and storm water systems so they’re not undoing farmers’ hard work.

If they have a consent to discharge wastewater into your catchment, then approach your councillors to get it stopped.

Many people in towns do not know where their wastewater goes, and with some older homes water from roofs goes into the wastewater instead of the stormwater systems, creating problems in times of heavy rain. Getting them to understand the importance of their plumbing would be a huge win.

And remember the local newspaper, radio station, and Facebook groups. The more information you can get out there about what the catchment group is doing, and what still needs to be done, will energise people and encourage them to get involved.

It may be just a river you are looking after, but in the end it could be your whole community.

• First published in NZ Dairy Exporter, October 2020.

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Drone spray operator Isaac Taylor also uses the technology to spot for a pest control company.

Drone business takes off Illness led a young goat culler to develop a second career piloting contract spraying drones and now spotting pests for hunters. Jackie Harrigan reports with additional reporting from Terry Brosnahan.

Photos by Brad Hanson.

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A

n aerial business using drone technology wasn’t originally on the cards for Isaac Taylor. But three years and two drones in, the 23-year-old is fast growing his business.

His successful second career came about after a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis, a form of spinal arthritis. Hailing from a sheep and beef farm near Marton, he worked as a goat culler after leaving Feilding High School – until the illness struck at 20, meaning he could no longer walk the distances required to hunt wild animals in the hills.

Casting around for ideas on what to do next, Isaac thought of aerial spraying with a drone.

“I don’t even know where the idea came from, but I thought it might be a good business to get into,” Isaac says.

“While I wasn’t all that interested in drones themselves, I was quite taken by the unmanned aerial technology and the applications for that.”

He set about researching on Google and

setting up the business – buying his first drone, a 10-litre spray capacity DJI Agras MG1S drone with four spray nozzles across its 1.8x1.8-metre frame.

The battery-powered model required a kit of eight 4kg batteries, a 7kVA generator and a bank of charging hubs mounted on a six-wheeler ATV to keep the drone fully powered for a day’s work. The bike also carried the spray tank and mixing drums and Isaac invested in a ute and trailer to tow all the equipment.

Poor spray power from an underpowered pump led Isaac to modify the drone to deliver more spray, a job complicated by the builtin controller and inaccessible electronics and pump on the Chinese-made model. He persisted, and with the help of a technician in Auckland managed to pimp the performance from 1 litre/minute to delivering 11 litres of spray each minute, allowing a spray load of 120-130l per hour, once reload time is factored in.

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CHANGE OF FOCUS Isaac recently parked his spraying side of the business and has focused on spotting for a pest eradication company culling deer. He also uses thermal imaging for spotting at night.

Issac was worried about the returns on his investment in the spraying gear due the lack of economies of scale and it wearing out, and is waiting on the right technology. Also, his partner Kelsi Hoggard (23) used to help him but now has a job at a regional council. With the pest control work, he has more work than one person can handle. He has advertised for an employees and has hired one; another one is pending.

While many lessons have been learned by the pair, and “some of them have been expensive”, they had been working up and down the country as word spread about the effectiveness of the mode of spraying.

Isaac was not looking to take work away from the helicopter sprayers but able is to come behind them and get into all the tricky and inaccessible spots to follow up and spot-spray.

“And we can do it very cost-effectively and with half the amount of water.”

Isaac wears FPV goggles, allowing him to see what the drone is seeing while operating it.

This way, he can spot the weeds and activate the spray function only when he sees the weed they are there to eradicate. There’s no wastage of active ingredients or chance of killing other species.

He has also installed a carbon fibre boom to the unit, with five spray nozzles to give a wider pattern, and designed a gorse gun to shoot from the front of the drone.

The high-spec HD camera has a great resolution for spotting and identifying the weeds they are paid to target.

Isaac looks a bit like an alien when using his FPV (first person view) rig.

“It’s a much more ecologically friendly way of weed spraying, as it targets the actual weeds and uses much less active ingredient,” Kelsi says.

She has found her Bachelor of Science degree in zoology and plant biology a handy resource.

The young couple have upskilled in knowledge on weeds and spray chemicals and offer farmers the chance to supply their own chemical or have the company provide it. All mixing is done onsite and in small batches to maintain good suspension in the spray tank.

CERTIFICATION COSTLY In a newly minted industry, Isaac found the certification process to fly drones grew as he was going through it and reckons the original $5000 cost blew out to $15,000 by the time he was finished. He has passed the CAA Part 102 Certificate and 2019-2020 UAS Pilot Certificate, acknowledging they’re a cost of doing business and an important way of keeping the industry regulated and safe.

“After six months of supervision and the year it took me to get my certification, along

Partner Kelsi Hoggard found her degree in zoology and plant science a handy resource.

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with a heap of paperwork, I think what was a hindrance at first could help us to secure the market now – it’s quite an involved process.”

Isaac passed his EduChem UAV Pilot Chemical rating certificate, along with his first aid, ATV safety and onfarm hazard management certification.

They bought a petrol-powered hybrid HSEM4H drone (with enough battery in reserve to bring it down safely) and say it is far more environmentally friendly without the unrecyclable lithium batteries, more costeffective to run, and easier to carry spare fuel rather than a bank of batteries and a generator.

“The petrol motor should easily last four years and it is cheap to do annual maintenance and then rebuild it.”

The drone pumps at 12l of product per second and will allow spraying of 130l/hour with an autotimer that records flight time for charging out – but comes with more noise pollution due to the two-stroke motor.

“But that’s easily fixed with ear defenders,” Isaac says.

Work has been growing, with increased awareness from their Aerial Spraying Services Facebook page, website and flier drops in rural letterboxes, alongside positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

Gorse, blackberry, manuka, thistles and Old Man’s Beard are frequent targets, along with a contract with the local Horizons Regional Council for spraying gunnera – a common homestead garden plant for many years that has become a pest plant as it escapes and seeds prolifically. Weeds in blind gullies, on steep banks, under tree cover, and places where helicopters can go but tractor or quad bikebased spray units can’t easily reach are all good candidates for drone spraying.

• First version appeared in the Dairy Exporter, February 2020.

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Jared Baines’ parents instilled in him a strong work ethic and the skills to make his own way in the world.

FIRST STEP BY: MIKE BLAND

F

arm ownership has always been a goal for Jared Baines. Now he is on track to achieving that goal much sooner than expected.

Jared, 30, grew up on two King Country sheep and beef farms owned by his parents Chris and Lynda, but after finishing school he left home to work on other farms.

He says his parents, who own Waikaka Station near Matiere, had always encouraged their children to make their own way in the world. They instilled their offspring with a strong work ethic and taught them the importance of saving money.

Like his siblings, Jared reared calves on Waikaka and used the proceeds from this and other work to buy a rental property that could later be used as a deposit on a home or farm.

He bought a house in Taumarunui when

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he was 18 and went shepherding, working his way up to a stock manager’s position in the Wairarapa and then becoming a block manager on Te Pa Station, Ohakune, which is owned by the Atihau-Whanganui Incorporation. He moved to the East Coast in 2014 and managed Ngahiwi Station near Gisborne for four years.

While on the Gisborne farm he enjoyed teaching farming skills to highschool students through the Gateway programme.

He still keeps in touch with three of these students, who have all gone into farmingrelated careers.

In 2018 he and his then-wife were looking for another management position on a larger farm when the opportunity to return home came up.

Chris and Lynda had just bought a 316ha farm (240ha effective) next to Waikaka Station.

They formed a company to own the new farm, known as Jolly Farms, and Jared bought 25% of

the shares, using proceeds from the sale of his Taumarunui rental. Unfortunately his marriage broke up soon after returning to Waikaka.

Jared now works between Jolly Farms and Waikaka Station, but will soon assume management of about 500-550ha of Waikaka, close to half of the effective area. Chris and Lynda will manage the rest of Waikaka with the help of general shepherd Jack Casey, who will work between both blocks.

Casual labour is employed over the summer months. Last year the Baines also bought another block near Otorohanga that will be used for finishing lambs. Jared, Chris, Jack, Lynda and their summer labour will continue to team up for big jobs, such as drenching, dagging and dipping. By June this year Jared will be managing about 7000 stock units across the two farms.

He runs a flock of 150 registered ewes on Jolly Farms which are used to provide terminal rams to the whole operation.

Otherwise, stock policy on Jolly Farms has been “a work in progress”.

It will finish about 200 autumn-born Friesian bulls this year.

“I started with bulls because sheep were so expensive, but ideally I’d like to get bull numbers down to about 150 and build ewe numbers up to about 1000.”

About 30ha of the farm is flat to rolling, 120ha is steep hill and the rest is medium hill.

Jared hopes to own about 75% of Jolly Farms within five years and is balancing development work with buying shares in the farm.

“I focus on one development project a year.

Last year it was track work and this year the aim is to do about 1.5km of river fencing.”

In the longer term he’d like to buy Jolly Farms outright.

“And the ultimate goal would be to buy a 10,000 stock unit farm that I could run with one full-time staff member.”

Jared is extremely appreciative of the opportunity his parents have given him.

He believes farm ownership is an achievable goal, even for those who don’t have a farming background. Young farmers should save hard and put their savings towards an appreciating asset like a house, he says.

“Having debt is compulsory saving.”

His advice to anyone considering a farming career is to go for it.

“It’s a great industry to be involved in.

All you need is one person who is prepared to give you an opportunity. Don’t let anyone say you can’t do it.”

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COMMUNITY | TOURISM

Will and Emily Murray recognised the appeal of the Cass to trampers and skiers and have built and upgraded huts on Glenmore Station with this in mind.

Diversify into whisky drinking The hut may have been named ‘Bad Decision’, but it’s turned out to be the perfect spot to stop and take in a dram or two. Joanna Grigg reports on an unusual hut tucked away in the backcountry.

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G

lenmore Station owners Will and Emily Murray decided on a whim to create a whisky drinking spot and sheltered haven from the elements.

Thinking it might be a white elephant they called it the Bad Decision, but the cute shelter is now looking to be a star drawcard for the growing tourism side of their business.

Perched on an alpine saddle at 2200m, looking north to the Liebig Range and south to Falcon Nest Hut, it comes complete with a whisky shelf and warm rugs and the couple say it is probably the best whisky drinking spot in the world.

With 11,000 Merinos, including the Glenmore Merino Stud, cattle and deer, the couple have more than enough to keep them busy on the 19,000ha Tekapo station.

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Top left: Will and Emily Murray outside the Bad Decision hut on Glenmore Station. Above left: Inside the hut. Above right: View north from the hut to the Liebig Range.

“But we wanted to have a bit of fun with the huts in the backcountry,” said Emily.

“We really appreciate the landscape we farm in and want to share it.”

Over their 18 years farming Glenmore the Murrays have renovated existing huts and also built new huts. In 2012 they built the 10-bed Lady Emily Hut at 1600m, on a southern valley that feeds the Cass River. In 2018 the Falcon’s Nest was built to accommodate the growing demand from ski touring groups. With log burners to keep you warm, these huts provide excellent access to some ski touring terrain, including the well-known Scorpion Run. These two huts are almost fully booked for the 2021 winter ski touring season.

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The income helps pay for the upkeep of the huts but the Murrays said they have mainly done it because they enjoy sharing the site with people.

“The type of people we get are great – ski tourers are fun, outdoorsy people.”

Booking for ski touring is done via Emily, but an online option is being added.

Skiers get referred to guides or alpine flight companies they can book if required.

Ski touring involves either driving and walking or helicoptering into the site, and then skiing the area with special skis and skins that allow skiers to walk back uphill.

“Will and I started ski touring in the Cass and realised the terrain has a lot to

offer. We would stop at this site and think, ‘wouldn’t it be great to have a shelter to hunker down here’.”

The huts and shelter now create a linked circuit up the Cass, returning to the Tin Hut along the Cass River. Plans for another hut in the mountains, above the Waterfall Hut, will create another circuit option there.

A logical step was to offer summer tramping tours at Glenmore, but the Murrays were too busy to do it themselves.

In 2017 they partnered with tourism operators Cristina Simpkins and Benjamin Laffan of Tekapo Adventures, who they met through Hamish and Julia MacKenzie at neighbouring Braemar Station. Tekapo

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The Murray, Rhodes and Grigg families on a summer trip to the Bad Decision Hut.

Adventures was running 4WD tours on both stations.

Cristina and Ben were looking for more tourism options to add to the backcountry hiking tours they run in British Columbia, Canada, and New Zealand’s South Island.

“Our background is 13 years’ experience guiding in remote areas, off piste and giving people an inspiring and safe backcountry experience,” said Cristina.

“When we saw the Glenmore huts we said, ‘holy smoke, they are amazing’.

“People can really immerse and connect with the outstanding natural landscapes of the Mackenzie Country in private.”

The couple have recently developed different options for guided tramps in the area and have started taking bookings. A hut fee goes to the Murrays.

“There is nothing to the scale that Glenmore has on private property – Mount Cook is on the boundary and it’s so unique.

“The walk will have great appeal to the New Zealand market and the Lady Emily over to the Falcon’s Nest, via

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the Bad Decision, is a lovely two-night trip.”

Having a guided system means trampers get safe passage in the mountains where there are no marked tracks. They get exclusive use of the huts and can have food taken for them and prepared.

“No crowds, or rush to the hut or thinking you need to take a tent.

“We are really grateful to have the access and work closely with the Murrays.”

The Murrays believes this sort of higher-end tramping on private land will really appeal to the moderate/ advanced fitness set who don’t like crowds.

The adventure tourism works well with farming operations. The Murrays book out the huts for the autumn muster for a few days in April, but otherwise the guided tramps can run from December to June. Ski touring is July to August then the huts are closed during spring while the rivers are high and snow melts. For more see https:// www.tekapoadventures.com/mackenziealpine-hiking-tour/

FOR SHELTER AND WHISKY The latest Glenmore Station hut is built for shelter and a spot to savour a whisky.

Skiers can order whisky from Whisky Galore, which will then be transported up to the Bad Decision Hut and be waiting for them in winter with their name on it.

Will and Emily Murray had no preconceived ideas of the hut design and let builder Mark O’Leary from Renovation Solutions, Christchurch, come up with some suggestions.

The result is a pentagon shaped red corrugated iron-clad hut, lined with tongue and groove plywood. The base metal frame, constructed by Will, was flown in first, and the outside seat baskets loaded with rocks to weigh it down in the brutal alpine winds.

The hut itself weighs 700kg and is secured with wire rope.

It only has a 2.2m x 1.6m footprint but the pentagon shape allows space for two wooden bench seats, allowing eight to sit easily. Around the wall is a steel shelf to store up to 100 whisky bottles. A silver serving tray holds glasses, and wool blankets and cushions are provided.

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COMMUNITY | HUNTING

Canterbury pig and deer country.

The winter solstice hunt BY: PETER SNOWDON

T

he shortest day is seldom the coldest day of the year, but mid to late June weather in the Canterbury high country can be unpredictable and the daylight hours for hunting are short.

With this in mind and the knowledge that access to the Department of Conservation land required several river crossings, waders and a manuka pole were thrown in the truck. I also made sure to charge the headlamp battery and tuck neoprene gloves in my daypack.

The forecast was predicting a turn to a southerly late in the day with possible snow showers.

A gusty, chilly westerly accompanied the dawn. We completed the river crossings, stashed the waders, donned boots and headed up the valley. A winter day in the hills in wet boots has no appeal so waders are the ideal kit for this trip.

We speculated the wind would keep deer and pigs tucked up in shelter. The

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only way to test this theory was to cover ground and look. Given the conditions we were surprised to startle a stag shortly after beginning the climb from the valley floor. He was in a sunny matagouri choked gully less than 100 metres away and was well on the move when we sighted him.

He gathered speed heading over a ridge.

A promising start to a mid-winter hunt.

Energy levels lifted; the temperatures did not.

The fast departing stag was the last animal we would see until late afternoon despite covering a lot of ground and seeing patches of deer and pig sign. We climbed to view likely spots, descended and traversed promising ridges and staked out areas that had proved bountiful on previous trips. Nothing was sighted until a stag was picked up on the opposing face, bedded down on the sheltered edge of a clay pan.

It was obviously using it as a windbreak.

While planning our approach another stag was spotted in a sheltered gully 300 metres from the first. Game on! The second animal was closer and could be approached

unseen once we gained the opposite face.

Moving delicately like a cat among cactus we closed the ground to stag number two, who had by this time bedded.

A combined shooting effort from 120 metres and we had an eight-point red, and a six- to eight-kilometre carry to the truck. Daylight was short so we took steaks, planning a return the next morning for the remaining meat.

The promised southerly arrived in the evening with snowfalls to the valley floor.

Our return journey was in intermittent sleet and showers. We choose the most direct route possible up the creek. About 30 minutes from the deer carcase four pigs took flight among the snow tussock about 200m away, not far above the creek.

Reaching a handy rock Geoff waited patiently for one of the mob to pause long enough for a shot… which one did. A clean shot at 250 metres and a young 16kg boar became part of the tally. It was butchered for retrieval on our return journey.

Light snow was falling when we relocated the now partly snow-covered stag. Butchery with cold, numbed hands was unpleasant. We were glad to get moving again despite the heavy packs; at least it was downhill. A couple of pork legs added to the burden and slowed our return over the river crossings and back to the truck. What was planned to be a quick retrieval mission turned into a longer than expected day. We’d walked a long way, carried heavy loads, and battled cold temperatures. But it sure beats sitting at home on the couch waiting for your legs to go black!

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SOLUTIONS | SOLAR ENERGY

S12 Lithium solar fence energiser FARMER FEEDBACK HAS BEEN KEY to the development of Gallagher’s latest product innovation, which has taken solarpowered portable electric fencing to the next level.

By embracing the latest battery technology, Gallagher has replaced heavy lead-acid batteries with lightweight lithium iron phosphate to create an even more powerful solar electric fence energizer.

The S12 Lithium Solar Fence Energizer is lighter and more compact, with a faster charging battery and longer lasting power, to keep stock safe regardless of sunshine hours or weather conditions. It also features a built-in earthing terminal.

Gallagher has led the way in the development of solar-powered energizers.

Marketing manager Mark Harris says the S12 Lithium has been 18 months in the making, with farmers having input into the initial product concept.

“We started the whole process by doing some research with our customers. We had feedback from more than 300 farmers around the world, who told us how they were using our current solar-powered energizers, what worked, and any issues they had.

“We came up with a number of concepts, which we tested out with a selection of farmers to get their feedback. They liked the S12’s compact size and the fact that it mounted to a post, keeping the solar panel

clear of grass and out of the water.

“They also loved the product’s portability. Rather than balancing the energizer on the motorbike between their legs, they found it easy to carry the S12 Lithium, having it attached to one of the fence standards strapped onto the bike.”

Farmer feedback also confirmed the earthing lead as the most common cause of fence failure, so, the team at Gallagher removed it completely.

“We developed the S12 Lithium with a built-in earthing terminal,” says Mark.

“It is earthed through a secure mounting stake, such as a Ring Top Post, which means you don’t need an earth lead at all.

It gives cows one less thing to chew!”

Gallagher’s New Zealand-based team of experts are world-renowned as gurus of electric fence technology. The S12 is further testament to their capabilities.

“The technology behind the S12 is smart,” says Mark. “A microprocessor tracks the amount of solar energy coming in and operates the unit in the most efficient way.

It makes sure the energizer can still operate effectively during extended periods of low light, like in winter or on overcast days, and it adjusts itself to keep stock where they should be, while not over-discharging the battery.”

Mark explains that only about 60% of a lead-acid battery’s capacity can be used, otherwise it won’t recover. He says lithium

Out now

batteries are better at holding their charge and can be depleted to almost zero and still be fully regenerated.

“Because you can use a lithium battery’s whole range of capacity, it can be smaller in size,” he says. “It can also manage many more charge/discharge cycles so lasts 7-10 years, as opposed to a conventional battery which typically only lasts three seasons. Switching to lithium makes sense whichever way you look at it.”

Capable of powering up to 1.2km of fencing across 0.6 hectares, the S12 Lithium is ideal for strip grazing and pasture management on beef or dairy units, as well as equine.

The innovation will also be rolled into a new market segment for Gallagher. The lower powered S6 Lithium is ideal for containing pets or excluding pests from your backyard or garden.

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FARMING IN FOCUS

Top left: View north from the Bad Decision hut to the Liebig Range on Glenmore Station. Top right: A winter solstice hunt in the Canterbury high country. Centre left: Alistair Timothy, Rachel Joblin and stock manager Hamish Murray at Arklow near Pongaroa. Centre right: Liam and Alistair Timothy checking the crops at Arklow. Above: Arklow has 200ha of cultivatable land.

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More photos from Middlehurst ram sale. Top left: From left; Dr Mark Ferguson, Willie Sage, Tim Johnson and Mike Hardagon. Top right: Harry Fowler and Tom Small, Blairich Station. Centre left: Middlehurst Merino ram sale. Centre right: From left to right; Grace, Ava, Lil, Jim and Giles Foley from Maherua Station, Southern Banks Peninsula, and Willie and Susan Macdonald with the top selling ram. Above left: Aerial view of Middlehurst farm. Above right: Susan and Willie Macdonald. Photos by Jim Tannock.

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