NZ Dairy - Summer 2012

Summer 2012

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Our reputation is spreading

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2

WIM & MARIA MAKKER

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Wim keeps grip on his pasture Kelly Deeks With Fonterra’s forecast 2012-13 payout down, Wim and Maria Makker are intent on making the best use of the grass grown on their 80-hectare farm near Morrinsville.

A feedpad built two years ago and a bunker built last year are helping them improve feed use and allowing them average annual production of 467 kilograms of milksolids across their 250 cows.

They have raised production by about 10% in each of the last three years.

“We don’t want to have to feed out all through the year; we don’t want to be that intensive,” says Wim Makker.

He feeds 130 tonnes of maize and 90 tonnes

of palm kernel, mainly in winter and early spring.

Surplus grass in spring is made into balage and fed out during summer and autumn.

“We want to avoid bringing in too much supplement. A lot of people are losing a grip on their pasture management, and the grass goes to waste in the paddocks to the detriment of growth and quality. It’s a balancing act.”

The Makkers are hoping for a repeat of last season’s weather, which brought some good, thick grass growth in summer and autumn, and little damage to paddocks over winter. With a mix of rolling and flat land, they try to keep the cows on free-draining paddocks in wet weather.

Wim Makker emigrated from Holland to New Zealand in 1976 when he was 19, having just finished his agricultural-college studies. He left a Maria and Wim Makker with their children, son Simon (back left) and daughters (from left), Heidi, Diana, Corina, Micaela, Allison and Laura.

MAXIMISE FERTILISER RETURNS

Wim and Maria Makker say a new feedpad and bunker have helped them raise production by 10% in each of the last three years. Below, Wim supervises the cows on the feedpad.

16-cow family dairy farm to expand his horizons in the New Zealand industry.

“I started on wages, earning $48 a week, and worked myself up from there. I met my future wife, Maria, and went contract-milking with her brother near Te Aroha, milking just over 300 cows.”

They were married at the end of that season and went 50:50 sharemilking for Maria’s parents at Waihou, near Te Aroha. They milked just over 200 cows there on an all-grass system for four years.

In 1983, they bought a 39ha farm at Kiwitahi.

Originally a rehab farm, it had an eight-bail, walkthrough cowshed, two haybarns, an old implement shed and a tidy three-bedroom house.

“We milked in the walk-through shed for one year before building a 12-a- side herringbone cowshed on another site. Cow numbers built up from 100 to 120 over the next few years.

The Makkers say they have been lucky to have

had the opportunity to expand their operation twice.

In 2001, they bought 9ha of neighbouring land and upped cow numbers to 155. Four years later, another neighbouring block came up for sale, and they expanded their farm to 80ha.

The additional land meant that the dairy shed they had built in 1984 was in the middle of the farm; the Makkers expanded it to 20-a-side and started milking 240 cows.

As herd size has increased over the last seven years, Maria has been helping with the milking and calf-rearing; she also looks after the financial side.

Her sister, Christina Mellar, is employed during spring until the end of September. A Livestock Improvement Corporation IC/AB technician, she starts her AB run in October.

As well as raising seven children, the couple are active in their local community, school and farm discussion group.

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Summer 2012

www.waterfordpress.co.nz

Split system does trick for everyone – page 16

8

24

2

Bovine winter holiday

Two-into-one bid for freedom

Sixties spin gains new traction

Our reputation is spreading

• Proven design for reliability and simplicity

• Even spread pattern with new arm design

• Down to 5mm application depth

• Robust design suitable for most terrain

• 5 speeds to cover all applications required

• 5mm wire rope able to drag up 90mm alkathene

0800 4 EFFLUENT (0800 433 358) • www.williamsirrigation.co.nz

NICK & WENDY VOLLEBREGT

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

3

You get out what you put in Kelly Deeks Its all about cow condition for Nick and Wendy Vollebregt. Increased input has equalled increased production over the past few years on their property at Kiwitahi.

They are into their eighth season on the bought the 75-hectare farm and splitting it into two blocks – dairy, and dry stock.

In their first season, they replaced the 12-a-side herringbone shed with a 24-a-side model with automatic cup removers, and started milking 230 cows.

The following season, they built a feedpad, with adjoining bunkers, and began feeding out maize silage. They then added palm kernel, and more maize; they are currently using a palm kernel/ barley mix.

As input has crept up with each season, so has production.

“We’ve gone a bit higher again this year,” Nick Vollebregt says. “We want to try and fully feed our cows. We seem to keep feeding them and they keep eating, and making more production.”

The couple came to Kiwitahi from a 400-cow sharemilking position at Mangateparu; they, had struggled with staffing issues there and were pleased to starting a one-person operation.

Their first-season production was 74,000 kilograms of milksolids; the farm record stands at the 96,600kg milksolids produced in the 2010-11 season.

That figure slipped to 92,900kg last season, and but Nick says the attention being paid to cow condition this season should see a new record set.

“Cow condition wasn’t that good last (2011) winter and we paid the price for it during the rest of the season. We ran into June with good grass cover, so we decided to stop feeding palm kernel and maize and go grass-only for six weeks. The quality of the grass wasn’t there and we lost cow condition. This year we continued feeding right through the winter.”

The Vollebregts went into calving with good cow condition this season, and with spring

Scene in the Waikato: Nick and Wendy Vollebreght farm 75 hectares of typical Waikato rolling country at Kiwitahi, east of Morrinsville.

weather arriving early at Kiwitahi, there was some good grass growth on the farm.

“The only determining factor is going to be the summer, but we’re on track to achieve what we want to,” says Nick.

The couple are part of the Kiwitahi Discussion Group, which involves about 25

We want to to try and fully feed our cows. We seem to keep feeding them and they keep eating, and making more production,

OWEN MANNING

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farms. The group meets monthly at different host farms.

“They are really good for bouncing ideas off, and sometimes you find they have the same problems you do,” says Nick.

Information received from Dairy New Zealand is also invaluable at times, he says. When the Vollebregts upgraded their effluent system in November 2011, they searched and received good advice from specialists (including Dairy NZ) on what they should look for.

They decided to change their 64,000-litre pond with two days storage to a 3 million-litre pond with 90 days of storage; this has made

irrigation management a lot easier during the wet periods. Construction details of the pond can be found on the Dairy NZ website.

Last year the Vollebregts were approached by the Livestock Improvement Corporation to trial the upgraded Protrack Drafter 2G system.

They had installed the Protrack 12 months previously, had found it a very valuable addition to their farming operation.

After trialling the new system on farm from November 2011 to June 2012, they have continued to use it.

It’s a lot more user friendly and intricate than the older version, says Nick..

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4

JAMES STEWART

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

‘With all the (environmental) improvements that have been made in recent years, surely we should be celebrating,’ says James Stewart.

‘Bad science’ likely to stir leading to a great deal of discussion about science, and scientific processes.

Scientific method requires observation and experimentation to produce evidence that explains an event or phenomenon. It is supposed to be objective, and open to scrutiny. Sometimes science is used for predicting the future, based on past patterns, and these can, at times, be cause for passionate disagreement amongst equally well educated people.

The global warming debate is an example.

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When facts change your mind, that's science.”

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We do have to keep things in check – keep ahead of the game for our own and international interests... but it’s getting close to where you have to get a consent to farm.

In this country, the Horizons Regional Council has sparked such a debate with its One Plan proposal to manage its natural resources. This huge document brings together proposals from six planning groups, and has been eight years in gestation.

The Environment Court recently produced a ruling on the management of leaching and runoff, and not everyone is happy with its conclusions, most notably Fonterra, and Federated Farmers.

Dairy farmers in the Manawatu are up in arms at the claim that the Manawatu River is perhaps the worst in the Western World, and that they, along with horticulturists, are largely responsible for this.

James Stewart, Federated Farmers' dairy chairman for the region, reckons some of the plan's proposals are based on bad science. He worries that there is an increasing likelihood that the stringent demands the plan makes on farmers may lead to a widening of the gap between town and country, and lead to farmers being forced off their

land, being told by academics how to farm, or even getting angry enough to act unlawfully.

“Bad science stirs people up,” he says.

“Farmers have made huge strides in recent years. When I started out in dairying, most effluent systems were very basic, two-pond systems and were more likely to have an environmental impact.

Now, it's all land-based, and we've taken the crap out of the creeks. There's fencing to keep cows out of the streams, riparian planting, and better storage before application.

“Farmers have done really well to get systems up to scratch. Last season we had 91% compliance; and often the breaches were only technical. This new plan is a step too far.”

Stewart gets uptight about what he sees as double standards.

Acknowledging that the Manawatu is not pristine, he points to breaches that go unchecked when local-authority sewerage systems overflow,

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GRAHAM & LYN LAWRY

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

5

Calves show ‘we are doing something right’ Karen Phelps Two of Graham and Lyn Lawry’s embryo transplant calves have been accepted into the CRV Ambreed and Jersey New Zealand scheme, which aims to select heifers with genetic potential for the whole of New Zealand.

Graham Lawry sees the calves as proof of the quality of his herd and payoff for the hard work he has put into his pedigree jersey herd over the years.

“These calves have great potential and it indicates that we are doing something right with our breeding,” he says.

Graham Lawry grew up on a farms at Korakonui, south-east of Te Awamutu. In fact his grandfather, Thomas Lawry, was one of the pioneers of the region when he arrived there in 1911.

When Graham left school he worked in a bank for six years before returning to the family farm at Korakonui as a farmhand. After three years, he and his brother, Mervyn, went into a

50:50 sharemilking partnership. Graham used this as a stepping stone to buy the farm at Gallagher Rd, Ngahape, where he and Lyn are now based, in 1975.

for example. He also claims that the river is unique in that it runs pretty much from one side of the country to the other, passes through a mountain range, and in the early settlers' days was noted for being a mosquito breeding-ground because of its generally sluggish flow.

“We do have to keep things in check – to keep ahead of the game for our own and international interests. If the country doesn't want an efficient dairy industry, what is it going to replace it with?”

He acknowledges Horizons has been open to discussion over the implementation of the One Plan, and will provide a lead-in period for compliance to the plan.

“But it's getting close to where you have to get a consent to farm. Farming can change from day to day. It doesn't always fit a plan. Some academics are treating farmers as if they are dumb.

“With all the improvements that have been made in recent years, surely we should instead be celebrating.”

Clearly, the Environment Court's decision on the One Plan has not been as widely accepted as many would have hoped. Praised by environmentalists and many in the non-farming community, the science that should have been convincing has not changed the minds of many of those who are adversely affected.

Graham and Lyn Lawry’s favoured jerseys enjoy the greenery on their Ngahape home country.

up farmers

‘Farming can change from day to day. It doesn’t always fit a plan.

Some academics are treating farmers as if they are dumb,’ says James Stewart. xxxxx

At the time the 34-hectare property was milking 86 cows. In 1991, they bought 13ha that bordered the farm, and then, in 1995, they bought another 44ha farm.

The two units were run separately until 2003 when they built a new 30-a-side herringbone dairy shed on the original farm. All of the cows from the two farms were milked through the new shed.

In 2006 they hired a lower-order sharemilker to take control of the whole operation, which encompassed 311 pedigree jersey cows on 87ha (effective).

Two years ago they bought another adjoining block (53ha); it has its own 24-a-side herringbone shed with in-shed feeding system,.

It has its own manager, milks 176 pedigree jersey cows, and is run as a separate farm.

With a lower payout forecast, the focus this season is firmly on cost reduction, says Graham Lawry.

The couple will also continue to work on their breeding striving for bulls with better udder breeding values and higher milk protein percentage.

“We have always had jerseys,”says Graham.

“I like their smaller size and believe that, because of their feed conversion, they can produce more milksolids for their bodyweight than other breeds.”

Through a combination of good monitoring and blanket dry-cow treatment, the Lawrys achieved a low somatic cell count and no grades last season.

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After totalling 70,800 kilograms of milksolids with 171 cows last season, the Lawrys’ 53ha unit is already ahead on production. Production on their other farm totalled 118,000kg milksolids last season.

Both Graham and Lyn Lawry are still active on their farms – feeding all the bobby calve for the lower-order sharemilker, rearing half of the replacements, relief-milking on the 53ha farm, and taking an overall view of the business.

Their son Nathan, 21, works as a farmhand near Balclutha, and may return to the family farm one day.

The Lawrys are also looking at the possibility of joining the two farms together to make one large unit, and have a farm adviser assessing the viability of this idea.

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6

ALAISTER & JO MURDOCH

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Consolidation after ‘rapid’ expansion Kelly Deeks With Fonterra forecasting a payout cut for the 2012-13 season, South Taranaki farmers Alaister and Jo Murdoch are watching their bottom line.

The Murdochs are milking 700 cows on what was originally the Murdoch family farm at Kaupokonui.

The couple bought the farm 18 years ago, and milked 320 cows for 13 years before buying a 77-hectare dairy farm across the road from the home farm, and increasing cow numbers to 550.

In 2008 they built a new, 60-bail rotary dairy shed, then in 2009 bought another neighbouring 43ha dairy farm and 27ha run-off block, and upped cow numbers to 700.

The Murdochs still lease 121ha from Alaister’s parents, which gives them a total effective milking platform of 214ha.

In fact, the Murdoch family now owns the

entire road where Alaister was born and bred.

“We’ve expanded fairly rapidly, and now we’re trying to consolidate,” he says.

“Because of the payout cut this season, we’re aiming to do as much production as we can, without spending too much money.

We’re focusing on the bottom line and we’ll be asking ourselves whether we really need to buy that palm kernel.”

The extra support from the run-off block for the past three years has already made a difference.

“We try to get plenty of supplement off the run-off, and we also grow 9ha of maize on it,” Murdoch says.

“We take 150 calves there till May 1, then its shut up again for three or four weeks before the later-calving calves arrive. In the winter we send 120 cows up there before we shut it all up for silage. It gives us a bigger area here that is not under so much pressure to make silage.”

• To page 7 PHOTOS Above: Jo and Alaister renewed attention to the bottom line season in response to Fonterra’s forecast of a lower payout.

Left: Alaister (left) and Jo (second from right) Murdoch, Jamie Napflin (second from left) and Patrick Mullan (right) mull things over in the timehonoured pose

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HILTON WILLIAMS

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

7

New system heads for record Kelly Deeks A new in-shed feeding system in Hilton Williams’s dairy shed has him well on the way to record production this season.

The Manawatu farmer says his milk vat is bursting at the seams and cow condition that has never looked better.

He says he decided to install the in-shed feeding system because he was finding that the grass silage he had been buying in was becoming too expensive, and too difficult, and messy to feed out when he needed to while his paddocks were wet in the spring.

The new meal-feeder has upgraded Williams’ 40-year-old, 14-a-side herringbone shed, which he describes as “great, simple and effective”.

When Hilton Williams started using the mealfeeder in June, he filled the silo with 13 tonnes of feed from Woodville grain merchant James and Son. He has opted for a 70:30 feed mix of palm

kernel and biscuit for his herd of 140 cows.

A combination of a lower forecast payout from Fonterra for and the expense of installing the new in-shed feeding system persuaded Williams to opt for a low-cost feed in the 2012-13 season.

“But my vat is overflowing anyway,” he says.

“It’s bursting at the seams, we’ve had a good amount of quality grass growth, and cow condition has never looked better.”

He says he has had a great start to the season with some excellent growth of quality grass. This is all being used in the paddocks and the cows are just topping themselves up with the feed in the shed.

“I want them to use the grass in the paddocks,

cows, with the benefit of not making a mess in his paddocks.

Last season Williams’s herd of 140 cows produced 52,000 kilograms of milksolids while being fed on silage and grass.

The farm record – 55,000kg milksolids – was achieved three seasons ago using the same feeding system.

This season he is targeting between 55,000 and 60,000kg milksolids – and he says it is looking achievable.

“I’m currently 13% ahead of last year, I’ve never overflowed the vat before and cow condition is the best it has ever been.”

While the new meal feeder and excellent earlyseason grass growth have contributed significantly to the improved condition score of his cows, Williams believes two other factors have helped as well.

One was his decision to dry off his cows in the middle of May with the aim of setting them up for a good season. The other was the fact they were fed well at home over the winter.

and they are getting a good amount that,” he says.

“They are eating about two or three kilograms of feed in the shed, and those that eat more are leaving more grass in the paddocks for the other cows.”

Williams runs a tight system on his 47-hectare (effective) farm at Shannon.

He winters the herd at home, but grazes his 30 replacement heifers off farm every year. He says he has had years when he has never topped a paddock.

While he recognises that grass is the cheapest form of feeding his cows, he also realises that his new meal-feeder will make his job easier – just a case of being able to pull a handle and feed his

I want them to use the grass in the paddocks...They are eating 2-3kg of feed in the shed, and those that eat more are leaving more grass in the paddocks for the others.

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From left: Kody Murdoch, Patrick Mullan, Jamie Napflin, Jo and Alaister Murdoch at the 60-bail, rotary dairy shed they built in 2008.

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Tighter calving pattern pays off • From page 5

The benefit of using

The Murdochs use urea early on both the run-off and the home farm to ensure they are going to get enough supplement to carry them through potential dry periods without having to bring feed in.

Last season’s excellent growing conditions have left them with 100 tonnes of maize and a bit of silage, which Alaister Murdoch says will help as palm kernel currently as expensive as it has ever been.

The Murdochs have been tightening their calving pattern over the past two seasons, after Jo did the Dairy New Zealand Fertility Focus course and they got more proactive in their approach to mating.

“We’ve put a lot of work into it,” Alaister says. “This year we started mating on September 22; anything that had been in for 42 days and hadn’t cycled, we put CIDRs in.”

The result was a very compact calving, with 600 cows out of 700 in by the end of July. All bar 10 cows had calved within a two-month period.

He says the proactive approach of using

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dry out in December.

CIDRs early is possible on the coastal country where they farm, and the benefit is the extra milksolids in the vat before the farm starts to dry out in December.

“Every year since we’ve done this course, our production has been a lot ahead three months down the line,” he says.

“Last year we were 10,000 kilograms of milksolids ahead by the end of October, and this year we were 3000kg milksolids ahead by the middle of September.”

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8

ATIHAU WHANGANUI INCORPORATION

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Bovine winter holiday at Neil Grant With all the media-reporting of the work of the Waitangi Tribunal, and arguments over ownership of water and foreshores, it’s easy to miss another process that is restoring land, financial autonomy, and mana to Maori. This is the ‘resumption’ of land that had been vested

by Maori landowners to Maori land councils.

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Atihau Whanganui Incorporation (AWHI) is one such group, which has steadily resumed control of most of its 42,000 hectares over the last 40-odd years.

The land is mostly contiguous, stretching north-east from the mid-Whanganui River to Ohakune. Of the 42,000ha, 33,000ha is farmed, almost entirely producing sheep and beef; 3000ha is under forestry; and the remainder is still leased.

The Maori owners of this land vested it in the land council between 1902 and 1904.

The leasing arrangement had renewable 21year contracts, the rent being set at 5% of unimproved value.

Land could be resumed (taken back) only at the expiry of a 21-year lease cycle, or when the lessee asked to surrender it, and after payment of two-thirds of the value of improvements.

Over the years, lessees, of course, increased a farm’s total value by erecting buildings and fences, and so on.

In 1970, following a Maori Land Court decision, AWHI was formed, took over as landlord, and began resuming the land as it became available. In addition to compensation, AWHI also had to restock the land.

The incorporation is run like a company, with a board of directors, a chief executive officer, strategic plans, and 7000 shareholders

who receive dividends and an annual report at the annual meeting, Until the early 2000s, land purchase was financed from rental income and profits. With rapidly rising land prices and the availability of a sizeable tract of land to resume, the board at

the time took out sizeable bank loans. These have largely been repaid.

AWHI’s only dairy farm is adjacent to Ohakune township. Running 700 to 750 cows on 500 hectares, this farm provides a different angle from AWHI’s core business.

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MACE HULBERT & TIM INGRAM

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

9

Lower-order sharemilkers gather experience in fledgling partnership Kelly Deeks

‘Club Med’ “It works, but there are challenges associated with it previously being a sheep and beef farm, the high altitude, being near a mountain, adjoining the village of Ohakune, and its relative isolation from mainstream dairy,” says chief executive officer Chris Scanlon.

The view from the road, though, is part of the challenge.

For one thing, it means staff must be very careful how they position the effluent gun, or the townsfolk over the road will start getting twitchy.

For another, the main road separates the milking platform from the run-off. There is no underpass, so skiers get grizzly about getting manure under their shiny four-wheel-drives after the herd has crossed the road.

The 44-capacity, herringbone milking shed is near the road, and, as the land is roughly rectangular, the cows get a fair bit of exercise before and after milking time.

“There have been a lot of inputs over the last two or three years,” Scanlon says. “We’ve put in new laneways, and expanded a bit into

our finishing station next door. So we’re there for the long haul”.

It gets pretty cold at Ohakune in winter.

The herd is undergoing a change from friesian to crossbred, which seems to handle the conditions better. Nonetheless, the cows are all brought down country in winter to a sea-level feedlot at Whanganui.

“They come down to Club Med where they can feed and drink all day. They get a bit sulky when they have to go back,” says Scanlon.

But there is more to AWHI’s philosophy than just turning a profit. Scanlon speaks positively of the incorporation’s future.

“We also aspire to environmental stewardship and we are determined to retain and optimise the productivity from our land.

“This is in keeping with our vision: Productive Land – Prosperous People.”

PHOTOS All of these photos show activity on Atohau Whanganui Incorporation’s sole dairy farm – where 700-750 cows are run on 500 hectares bordering the township of Ohakune

Business partners and lower-order sharemilkers Mace Hulbert and Tim Ingram are getting valuable farm management experience on the low-input, 480-cow Taranaki farm they run for owner Dom Moffit.

Hulbert and Ingram are in their second season of running the Okato farm together.

They are the first lower-order sharemilkers Moffit has had on the farm, having previously worked it himself with the help of a manager.

Hulbert says farm operating systems that worked were already in place, and he and Ingram regularly consult with Moffit for advice on how to continue the system.

Ingram came into the partnership from a farm-manager position on a 500-cow farm, while Hulbert had been lower-order sharemilking. Hulbert says they have brought different ideas and experience, and formed a good partnership they hope to develop.

“The short-term plan would be to keep this job next season and look for another lowerorder position as well,” he says.

Both Hulbert and Ingram aim to go 50:50 sharemilking in the next five years. They are keeping their options open on where this might be, and whether it they do it as a partnership or individually.

On the Moffit farm, they milk a herd each through the 40-bail rotary cowshed.

“I’ve got the old girls and Tim has the two and three-year-olds,” Hulbert says.

They achieved 320 kilograms of milksolids per cow last season, feeding 180 tonnes of palm kernel from July 25 to October 15.

They also grow turnips on the farm, and normally make about 15ha of silage. Despite the good growing conditions last season, they only made 11ha of silage as, with 494 cows, the farm was slightly heavier stocked than usual.

This season they have lost 10 cows to milk fever: “I’m gutted, they just dropped,” Hulbert says. “It was just the way it happened, just one of those years.”

Moffit asks for calcium to be put through the water rather than dusted on the maize or spread on the grass, to avoid it sticking and rusting equipment.

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10

BRYAN & SUZIE JACKSON/DAVID & VICKI AXTENS

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Feeding the secret to gains Kelly Deeks A more intensive feeding programme and the assistance of a farm consultant have allowed Bryan and Suzie Jackson to make substantial production and body-condition-score gains since amalgamating two dairy farms four years ago.

The two units, at Kereone in the Waikato, were producing a combined 170,000 kilograms of milksolids. Since they came together production has risen – to 216,000kg milksolids last season.

Bryan Jackson says the improvement has come from more intensive feeding, using a feedpad, and nutritional advice from Interlact farm consultant Chris Pyke.

“Because we’re feeding our cows better, they’re getting bigger and they are in better condition,” Jackson says. “We’re always calving them at body condition score of 6; they never go below 4.2, and we maintain that score through the season.”

For the past two seasons he has been giving the herd 42 days dry, drying off groups of cows every week.

“When we start calving on June 26, we’ve still got cows milking. This winter we milked about 70 or 80 winter cows, including some of our empties from the previous year, and 15 autumn-calvers we bought in just as they were dropping.

“It helped our cashflow over the winter, and gave us something to do while the later ones were drying off. We’ve mated for autumn calving again this year and, depending on the climate, we can either milk them or get rid of them.”

Bryan Jackson was a late starter in the dairy industry. He began milking cows when he was 35, after a career in timber processing that – he was part-owner of a processing plant near Cambridge.

Bryan (kneeling) and Suzie Jackson, sons, Cameron (left) and Bradley, and some of their cows.

When approached by his dairy-farmer father-inlaw about the a sharemilking opportunity, Jackson decided to have a go at milking cows and see how he liked it.

“We moved from Cambridge to Kereone and started working weekends milking 140 cows on the Higgins’ farm. I did that for a year and decided a move into the dairy industry would be well worth taking.”

He was offered a full-time job by the Higgins, but knew that if he was going to go sharemilking in the next couple of years, he would need to get experience with a larger herd.

He gave up the his timber-processing business and took a full-time farm assistant job on a 400cow farm at Kiwitahi. Two years on, he bought

a herd of 240 and sent 50:50 sharemilking on Suzie’s parents’ farm.

After three years, the Jacksons were in a position to expand, and took on a second 50:50 sharemilking job near Morrinsville; they hired a manager to milk 230 cows there.

At home, in 2004 Suzie’s parents offered the couple the opportunity to enter into an equity partnership with them.

“We went to see the lawyer and the accountant, and we came out buying the whole farm,” says Bryan. “That was nine years after we started farming, and seven years after we started sharemilking.”

By that stage the Jacksons were milking 260 cows on the 75-hectare home farm.

Two years later the dairy farm next door came up for sale; the Jacksons were keen to expand, but the property was out of their reach at that stage.

However, they registered their interest to the new owner, and a year later it was offered to them.

“By that time things had changed enough for us that we were able to buy that farm,” Bryan says. “We bought 150 cows and put a manager on there. The new farm had a 14-a-side herringbone shed and we had a 20-a-side herringbone, so we ran the two farms separately for one season.”

Cow prices increased during the season, prompting the Jacksons to sell the cows from the Morrinsville sharemilking job and use the money to for a new rotary cowshed that would allow them to combine the two neighbouring farms into one unit.

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Thirteen months David and Vicki Axtens made a decision to focus on herd fertility, using the Dairy New Zealand In-Calf programme. This followed years of pushing their cows to milk like crazy had driven empty rates as high as 16%.

The Axtens have been milking on the 220-hectare (effective) dairy farm at Reporoa since 1999. They were contract milking and then 50:50 sharemilking before buying the property from David’s parents in 2006.

Over the next five years cow numbers fell from 600 to 530 – the consequence of the rising empty rates and four years of severe droughts.

However, the Axtens are now looking to get back to 600 cows next season. They are milking 580 this season, and aiming for empty rates of 6-7%.

The In-Calf programme was recommended to them by their vet, Mark Anderson, from The Vet Club.

“We knew we needed to do something to improve our empty rates, so we made a decision that we were going to use CIDRs,” says David Axtens. “It was a way to start moving things along.

In-Calf is a way of doing that and I’m finding a lot of it very valuable.”

He says empty rates had soared from 5-6%

to 14%: “We were asking the cows to do 400 or 500kgs of milksolids, and still expecting them to get in calf.”

In-Calf involves a lot more monitoring, including blood tests and body condition scores, and using a software programme to measure the growth of his ones and twos.

“We found out that 80% of twos are underweight in New Zealand,” he says. “When you’re pushed on your farm, whether its summer or winter, the first things to suffer are your young cows.”

This intensive monitoring has him focused on fully feeding his young stock, and the programme has projected an average weight of 600kg for his two-year-old heifers this year.

He has also discovered that he best way for a cow to get in calf is to have eight weeks between the calving and mating dates.

“Cows calved eight weeks before mating have had two or three cycles. We’ve always known we want to get in calf earlier, now we’re concentrating on getting them in calf to give us a calving date before that eight-week period before mating starts.”

This year he had 470 cows calved by August 28.

“On the other side of that, our production was 9000kg milksolids ahead of last year, because those cows calved earlier and are settling in to their rhythm.” .

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ROSS BURNETT

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

11

Owner expands way out of a job Kelly Deeks Manawatu dairy farmer Ross Burnett is looking for a new project. With the recent amalgamation of his run-off block into his dairy platform, he has been left at a loose end as manager Shane Robinson and his two employees tackle the day-to-day running of the dairy farm.

Burnett has expanded the farm in three stages.

He started by buying the farm next door; he hired a manager to run it, while he continued to milk on the home farm.

The two farms were supported by a leased run-off block across the road, where Burnett grazed young stock and about 40 beef cattle.

Three years ago he built a new dairy shed,

merged the two units into a 450-cow herd on one farm, and appointed Robertson to run the whole thing.

Burnett looked after the run-off and calf feeding Last February he bought the run-off and incorporated it into the dairy platform, building an underpass for the cows.

The additional land has pushed the dairy platform to 240 hectares, and allowed cow numbers to rise to 600. Robinson is now milking three herds of 200 cows through the dairy shed which is central to all three blocks.

Burnett has set up new graziers for the calves and yearlings, but says the disadvantage of incorporating the run-off block into dairy platform is that he has to find another lease block to give himself something to do.

He is looking for a lease block close by, where he can graze young stock, and maybe a few beef cattle: “We’ve been grazing beef for the past five years on the block across the road.

With in-shed feeding, the focus of dairy-support land is more important for growing good young stock, he says..

Target production this season is 230,000 kilograms of milksolids. Burnett says that’s based on what the farm achieved last season with 450 cows. A fantastic season for growth, with grass growing all year round, saw the farm produce 173,000kg milksolids.

They continued milking through winter as a way of increasing the herd from 450 to 600. Burnett bought 100 empty cows and milked them through the winter with the idea of them getting in calf this season and milking them with the rest of the herd.

in cutting empty rates

Having completed a three-stage development and putting a manager to place to run his dairying operation, Ross Burnett (far left) is pondering his options for a new project.

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12

DALE & KELLY PICARD

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Couple aim to get most out of farm, life Karen Phelps After working hard to climb the dairy ladder Dale and Kelly Picard say it's now time to reap the rewards. They milk 300 crossbred cows through a 44-bail rotary shed on their 83-hectare (effective) unit at Alton, in South Taranaki.

“We have been developing the farm for the past eight years, so the focus this season is on getting the most out of it,” says Dale.

Both of them grew up on farms in the Kaponga area. After Dale left school he worked on a dairy farm for three years, then headed to the United Kingdom for 18 months for working OE. Kelly worked at a vet clinic.

The couple took on their first lower-order sharemilking position for two years on a 160cow unit at Mangatoki. They progressed to 50:50

sharemilking for two years on a 230-cow property at Stratford, then, in 2000, increased the scale of their business to move to a 650-cow, 50:50 sharemilking position, where they remained for nine years.

In 2002 they entered an equity partnership with Kelly’s parents, Mike and Barbara Muller, and Kelly’s brother, Mathew Muller, on a 62ha, 200-cow property at Mangatoki. In 2004 the Picards bought a farm at Alton, close to Patea, and employed a lower-order sharemilker to run it. In 2009, they took over this farm and gave up their 650-cow sharemilking position.

They have done a lot of development work at Alton, including a new spray irrigator. Whereas their effluent system previously consisted of oxidation ponds, they are now be able to irrigate 30ha of the farm. They have also made a new bore to replace an old dam with the aim of improving water quality.

The Picards feed around 400 kilograms of maize to each cow per year, plus palm kernel to fill in the gaps. They hope that a new feedpad this season will help them improve their use of feed. They are

predicting they will be able to milk 10-14 days longer this season as a result.

The couple run a stocking rate of 3.6 cows to the hectare. They have no support blocks and winter all their cows on farm, which, Dale says, can be challenging. If the weather gets too wet, the herd is stood off on the feedpad and in the cowyard.

Dale works full-time on the farm and they employ one full-timer. Kelly is a full-time mum to their children, Tom, 7 and Ava, 4, and also works on the farm. The couple continue to oversee the family equity partnership.

Their production last season was 125,500

kilograms of milksolids, and they are looking for 140,000kg this season.

“Pasture utilisation is number one,” says Dale. “We need to ensure grazing down to the correct residuals and will be constantly monitoring paddocks by eye.”

He says the arrival of their children has modified their priorities and focus. They want to achieve more time off, but at the same time, they remain dedicated dairy farmers.

“We’ve worked for some excellent people who have given us a good start. We’re really passionate about the whole dairy industry.”

Kakaramea, RD 2, PATEA 4598 Phone: 06 273 8668 Mobile: 027 4811 777 E-mail: thegwynns@xtra.co.nz

PHOTOS Dale and Kelly Picard (pictured with four-year-old Ava), have done a lot of development work on their Alron farm. While the arrival of children has modified their priorities, they remain passionate and dedicated dairy farmers.

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MONOWAI STATION

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

13

Grazing idea adds fat to vat Karen Phelps Using to the max what’s already on the farm is the goal of Heath and Isabel Speed this season.

The couple are 50:50 sharemilking for Heath’s parents, Glen and Karen Speed, at Monowai Station, near Taupo.

Monowai is a 350-heactare dairy farm milking a mixed-breed herd of 1050 cows through a 60-a-side herringbone shed.

This season the Speeds are concentrating on their cropping plan to maximise dry matter per hectare. They re-grass around 40ha of the farm each year and plant summer crop in October grazing it until January.

They have started to use – and have a great success with – a technique typical of sheep-andbeef farmers.

“We don’t let the cows walk back over what they’ve already grazed,” says Heath.

“We fence it off so that it re-grows more quickly. It’s a big job to fence it off each day, but for the 20 minutes per day it took, it was worth it.

“This gave us three grazings last season, so we have learned there is more scope to get more grass out of our system by doing this. The more time we can spend on the crop and having the highest quality and quantity of grass the better,” The results have already shown in the vat – with production last season 15,000-20,000 kilograms of milksolids above what they were expecting.

The dairy farm is supported by a 100ha runoff used for winter feed. They didn’t graze cows on the run-off last winter as the wet weather invariably causes pugging; instead they used the run-off to cut silage.

“That decision has saved us 150 tonnes of silage,” says Heath.

“We are rationing the silage better by feeding it to the cows on the milking platform. Re-growth is also a lot better after a silage cut.

“And it has allowed us to extend lactation – we are aiming to have cows dry for only 60 days,

Getting the opportunity to go 27% sharemilking that first season really helped us.

which will allow us to lower our stocking rate.”

Cow condition is also a key part of their formula. The couple aims to have cows at a condition score of at least 4.75 year round.

The target is to monitor the herd regularly, then create a lighter herd that can be feed more, and another heavier herd that can be fed less.

They believe that see this system will give them greater control.

This year they have 35% replacements, but need only 25%, which gives them a surplus to sell and creates additional cashflow through their business.

The Speeds are not sure of their next step with their business.

They may raise cow numbers but Heath says that with three children – two-and--half-year-old Kylie and nine-month-old twins Emily and Marcus – they would have to carefully weigh any growth against lifestyle.

Like most dairy farmers, farm ownership is the eventual goal. They remain relaxed about how they will get there.

Both Heath Speed was 12 years old when his family moved to Monowai Station. His parents sharemilked on the property before buying it.

Heath worked on the family farm after leaving school, as well as going fencing, working on a deer farm and on other dairy farms.

He says family assistance has proved a welcome helping hand up the dairy ladder, especially when progressing from 20% to 50% sharemilking.

The couple managed to negotiate a 27%

xxx

sharemilking position for their first season on Monowai Station.

“We had been 20% on our previous position.

It was about working hard and saving money,” he says. ”Getting the opportunity to go 27% sharemilking that first season really helped us.

This got us to the stage where we could rear our own replacements out of our herd.”

The numbers confirm just how helpful.

In their first season at Monowai. the younger Speeds milked 950 cows – and owned 350 of them. By their second season they owned all 950 cows through rearing replacements and buying in some.

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PHOTOS Heath Speed has a growing work force to help him on Monowai Station. Nine-month-old twins Emily and Marcus are getting acquainted with the tractor (above), while two-and-half-year-old Kylie (left) is already a dab hand at feeding the calves

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14

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Accreditation ‘an excellent thing for clients’ A Waikato company’s expertise in designing, building and servicing dairy-effluent systems has been recognised by the industry.

Qubik TMC, based in Te Awamutu with branches in Otorohanga and Putaruru, has been accredited under Irrigation New Zealand’s farm dairy effluent system design accreditation programme – an achievement it shares with only five other companies in New Zealand.

The scheme is part of a dairy-industry target of reducing significant effluent-management noncompliance to 5% by 2016.

Kyle Osborne – one of the company’s directors, manager of its Otorohanga branch, and its effluent systems designer – sees the accreditation as a tribute to the company’s years of focusing on the high standards.

“It’s an excellent thing for our clients especially,” he says. “Along with giving us a good foot in the door and more exposure in a competitive market, accreditation tells our clients they can deal with us with confidence. We’re the only local company to have earned it.”

His background includes an agricultural engineering course, specialising in water, at Massey University, and a stint overseas before returning and getting involved in Qubik TMC. “We’re a family-based business. Mum helps in the office and, even though we’ve opened two branches, the company still operates as a tightknit group.”

Qubik TMC was established in 1981 by Kyle’s dad, Ken, as Te Awamutu Milking Machine

Company (TMC). There was only one other milking-machine company in Te Awamutu at the time, so it didn’t take TMC long to find its feet and make an impact.

Kyle says its aim from the beginning was to provide farmers with a quality and reliable service.

As the company’s reputation grew, so did the client base and the need for a wider range of services. Qubik TMC now offers a wide-ranging package to farmers: milking systems, effluent management, refrigeration, water reticulation.

The Otorohanga branch has four staff, but when work commitments demand more hands on deck, staff can be called in from other branches.

Kyle Osborne says it’s a flexible and efficient operational model that gives the company capacity to tackle projects of all sizes and time-frames.

He quotes the example of last season when pasture growth was exceptional in the greater Waikato area where Qubik TMC operates. In some cases the company had less than two months to get projects finished. But, by pulling together gangs from the branches, targets were achieved.

It’s something that Kyle Osborne says is extremely satisfying to look back on.

“A major stress for farmers is how they are going to pay for upgrades and new systems. We try to make a plan to get them compliant, giving them achievable building blocks, future-proofing the end-result so that they won’t have to undertake the work again.”

To achieve accreditation, the company submitted two on-farm designs created from

Qubik TMC’s Otorohanga staff. scratch. That involved a 50-page design document with an accompanying 40-page appendix – and that was only part of the process, says Kyle.

Beyond having to show high standards in design, the accreditation panel requires companies to develop and maintain robust quality assurance systems. Having gained accreditation, companies have hardly any time to draw breath because maintaining this status demands a renewal process, which includes a professional interview, every two years.

“Given our history and performance in the industry, we’re confident that we will continue to tick all the boxes to maintain this accreditation”, says Kyle.

“I get a buzz from finding solutions for farmers and with the quality of staff we have I know we’re going to continue to do well.”

IRRIGATION NEW ZEALAND

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

15

‘It’s not as scary as it sounds’ Irrigation New Zealand is urging businesses involved in dairy-effluent-system and irrigationsystem design to ‘become accredited’.

“It’s not as scary as it sounds,” says Irrigation New Zealand chief executive Andrew Curtis.

Six companies – Agfirst, Environmental Technologies, Hi-Tech Enviro Solutions, Opus, Qubik TMC and Waterforce – have been accredited under the farm dairy effluent system design programme Six new applications have been received and another three are part-way through their assessment process, he says.

The irrigation design accreditation programme integrates with the farm dairy effluent programme, and this should help companies avoid unnecessary paperwork, says Curtis.

“We’re really happy with progress, but there’s still a lot of effluent-system-design companies we haven’t heard from. We’ve also been promised applications from all the major irrigation-design companies in the irrigation-design accreditation programme’s first round – which shows a high level of industry commitment to attaining best practice.”

“We do respect that accreditation is quite a hurdle and that each application requires a lot of work.

“But critical mass is building. Being accredited will become the norm in the near future, and companies that don’t go through the process will be left behind.”

He says the codes of practice and design standards for irrigation and for farm effluent have been reviewed, and form the basis for the accreditation programmes.

While both are voluntary, Curtis says they have already helped lift performance, standardise designs and improve production and environmental outcomes.

“The codes of practice work hand in hand with accreditation. When combined with the industry code of practice, standards and training, an accreditation programme is the best way of improving skill levels and ensuring consistency.

“Managing within limits means significant investment will be required in on-farm irrigation and effluent infrastructure in the next five to 10 years, and without a quality assurance system, we may

Critical mass is building. Being accredited will become the norm in the near future and companies that don’t go through the process will be left behind.

not meet the performance standards required.

“The accreditation programme ensures irrigation and effluent system designers can deliver appropriate systems.

“With growing pressure on the dairy industry, it makes even more sense for design companies to be accredited.”

Irrigation New Zealand runs the farm-dairyeffluent-system-design accreditation programme under contract to partners Dairy New Zealand and the New Zealand Milking and Pumping Trade Association.

The programme was established as part of the dairy industry’s primary growth partnership programme overseen by the Ministry of Primary Industries.

The irrigation-design accreditation programme is run solely by IrrigationNZ. The accreditation process complements other assessment programmes IrrigationNZ provides for irrigation installation and evaluation, and water measurement.

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“We focus on employing staff that are very experienced and technically advanced, it’s such a specialist field”.

The AgFirst Engineering team consists of five highly skilled, experienced engineers spread throughout the North Island.

Gisborne based Ian Howatson specialises in all facets of agricultural engineering and was instrumental in the formation of AgFirst Engineering. He brings 30 years of experience to the team.

Te Puke has a team of three Environmental Engineers who have extensive experience in Dairy Effluent Treatment and Integration of wastewater into the agricultural system to maximise nutrient and irrigation benefits.

One Agricultural Engineer is based in Hastings who services the Hawkes Bay, Wairapapa, Manawatu and Taranaki regions.

“We are multi-skilled” Mr Howatson says, and “This is what has made us one of New Zealand’s dominant players in agricultural engineering”.

Another of the company’s strengths is its independence. Each agricultural consultant, is not biased by products or supplier, so clients can be assured of the best solution for them.

Providing the best solution is what has given AgFirst Engineering its reputation for excellence.

The company’s growth has facilitated a demand for more staff.

“We are not going to compromise quality”, Mr Howatson says.

So we are looking for experienced and technically sound engineers, who also have the people skills to deliver the level of service the company is renowned for.

16

RICHARD & CREINA JAMES/COLIN & HAZEL GRAINGER-ALLEN

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Focus on little things adding up Karen Phelps As they near the end of their three-year term for the Bay of Plenty Focus on Dairying project, Richard and Creina James say it has resulted in small but important changes to their farming system.

“We were at the stage of needing to finetune the farm and business, and basically the management committee have sharpened us up,” says Richard.

The input of the focus farm management committee has helped them recognise the importance of close monitoring of every aspect of the farming business.

“Everything is analysed now and clear decisions and rules are being formulated so

It (five percentage points) doesn’t sound like much, but a lot of small things adding up do make a big difference...I will miss the stimulation, challenges and support provided by the management team.

that the farm system is replicable over time with changes in staff.

“All stock are weighed, strategic blood tests are taken routinely, grass is monitored weekly and data produced to determine quality and quantity. Feed surpluses and deficits are identified early. All of this gives greater control over cow intake and condition, reduction of wastage and value for the dollar.

“It’s about looking at the business holistically, and to facilitate this approach, we have learnt that monitoring is crucial.”

Richard James points to two significant improvements over the three years – a 20,000 kilogram increase in milksolids, which he puts down to consistent monitoring, and a rise in the six-week calf rate from 65% to 71%.

“It (five percentage points) doesn’t sound like much, but a lot of small things adding up do make a big difference.”

The James have also been concentrating on improving pasture after monitoring revealed a wide range of performance in paddocks – from 10 to 20 tonnes of dry matter per hectare.

Richard and Creina ensure they get a current test from the retailer to check that the endophyte is still viable, as recommended by the industry.

Use of treated seed is essential with the level of black beetle and argentine stem weevil in the region, says Richard.

They are trialling grass species and, once again, monitoring and recording to analyse results. The expertise of AgResearch pasture specialist Tom Fraser has been very valuable, says Richard.

Richard James had been a funeral director and a sheep farmer before getting into the dairy industry in the 1970s. He and Creina progressed through the conventional pathway to farm ownership in the Bay of Plenty where they are

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Richard and Creina James: ‘We were at the stage of needing to fine-tune the farm and business.’ still based. They bought their present farm, at Matata, in 1991. The 172-hectare unit (145ha effective) milks 510-520 crossbred cows through a 36-a-side herringbone dairy shed.

The farm is supported by an 11ha lease block used to grow maize and a 100ha lease block used mainly for wintering stock. They employ three full-time staff – a manager, herd manager and dairy assistant – plus a calf rearer and relief milkers.

The Jameses are aiming for 200,000kg milksolids this season. That’s the same as they produced last season, but they aim to reduce

Split system does Kelly Deeks Fifty-fifty sharemilkers Colin and Hazel GraingerAllen’s aim is to be self contained. They are in their fifth season of milking 530 cows on a 160-hectare farm at Ngakuru, near Rotorua. They also lease a 140ha block up the road from the same owners.

The Grainger-Allens split the herd between the two blocks. They calve all their cows on the home farm, the walk the young cows the kilometre to the lease block. The timing of the move varies according to grass growth, calving rate and feed levels (which they monitor).

About 130 heifers are milked for part of the season on the lease block, which has its own shed.

The split reduces cow numbers on the home farm to around 400.

The lease block is also used to grow supplement for the milking platform, and to winter cows and young stock.

The arrangement has advantages for both the Grainger-Allens and the farm’s absentee owners.

“They wanted someone to look after both blocks, and it allows us to rear extra stock and milk a higher number of cows with relatively low inputs” says Colin Grainger-Allen.

“We have tried to milk more cows, but each

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costs to a farm working expense of $4/kg.

They believe the focus farm initiative has been successful.

“If comments and discussions from other farmers are any indication, I believe the concept supports, informs and benefits farmers in the region,” says Richard. “Good turn-outs at field days would verify this. It has been a lot of work, but it has been worth it. It’s not the big things we’ve changed; it’s the little things that add up.”

He says he will miss the knowledge, stimulation, challenges and support provided by the management team

Phone 07 333 2657 Mobile 0274 315 450

season is different weather wise, which affects grass growth, especially on the rolling to steep contour we are trying to farm on. Our present stock numbers seem to suit this system quite well.”

Both blocks have some steep contouring land, and a lot of the flats that are shut up for silage during spring.

The couple moved to New Zealand from the United Kingdom 14 years ago. Colin had been dairy farming for eight years, and Hazel is a farmer’s daughter.

While they were not new to the dairy industry, they were certainly new to pastoral dairy farming and New Zealand systems, says Colin. They entered the dairy industry in New Zealand as farm assistants at Morrinsville and then Tokoroa.

It wasn’t long before they got a farm-manager position at Te Puke, which evolved into lower-order and then 50:50 sharemilking 300 cows.

They love the Bay of Plenty, but realised they would have to move from Te Puke to find a larger 50:50 sharemilking job. The Ngakuru farm appealed as a good size to expand their business from 300 to 530 cows – and they would still be in the Bay. Colin Grainger-Allen sees similarities between the New Zealand and English dairy industries, particularly the increasing size of herds.

“In the last job I had there I was milking 100

SHAUN & FIONA KEHELY

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

17

PHOTOS – Above: The Bushlands crew (from left, Jhun Galon, Fiona Kehely, Wayne Smith, Shaun Kehely, Dayne Blair, Joel Lastimosa. Right: Jhun Galon follows his herd as they walk the 3.5km down to the cowshed. Lower right: Dayne Blair’s herd makes the 1.5km uphill walk to the cowshed.

New tweak for traditional wintering barn Kelly Deeks

After five years of looking Shaun and Fiona Kehely are finally getting their Herd Home, complete with a new development – a raised, central loafing area where cows can lie down, and a low-labour concrete effluent bunker.

The Kehelys – who run 800 cows on their long, hill-country Oropi Bushlands farm near Tauranga – have tried once-a-day and 16-hourly milking over the last two years in an effort to cut down on the number of kilometres their cows have to walk each day.

“We weren’t that happy with either option,” says Shaun. “Production dropped about 30% on oncea-day, but it was still too hard on the cows with the races running white in milk. The drop was less for 16-hourly, but that was too hard on the staff” He says he doesn’t like having big mobs of cows

on the hills, which make up a fair bit of the farm, and the winter-milkers stayed in close this year.

“We had 670 winter-milkers running in two herds.

We thought we need to benefit from this and get them inside,” he says.

He believed a wintering barn closer to the dairy shed would provide the answer. He could bring the cows in to milk in the afternoon, and they could spend the night in the barn and be milked again in the morning. The second herd would be housed for the alternate 12 hours.

He has been looking into wintering barns for 15 years, but never took the plunge as he didn’t like the cubicles and grates system; he preferred his cows to have somewhere to sit down.

“The cows love them, but traditional wintering barns are designed to bring the cows inside and feed them, then ship them out.

“What has happened is that when the weather got really bad, cockies didn’t want to let the cows

out into the paddocks, so they have kept them inside when they probably shouldn’t have. Traditional wintering barns have not been designed for this purpose.”

He was also looking for an alternative to the high-labour, high-maintenance effluent-storage and containment system in traditional wintering barns.

Herd Homes worked with the Kehelys to develop a 90-metre-long, plastic-roofed Herd Home with the capacity to feed 400 cows and sleep 280. It includes a 1.5m-deep concrete bunker where effluent runs through slats around a raised sand or limestone mound, and cows can lie down and sleep as they prefer, slightly uphill.

Herd Homes’s chief executive officer, Hamish McMillan, says the traditional combination of plastic roof and reinforced slat system on the floor is the

most efficient way of managing effluent, of regulating temperature and killing bacteria, as well as keeping both the floor and the animals clean and dry.

He says cubicles are an ideal way of containing effluent. Cows are filed in head first; the business end is at the back, which allows the area to stay clean.

He says the centralised loafing mound in the Kehelys’ barn does the same job.

Herd Homes drew from its experience with John Pouls; the company built the first of two barns for him six years ago.

“He has cubicles and, because of the airflow and temperature in the middle of the shed, it is the driest place to be,” McMillan says. “Any manure there will dry very quickly and will be easier to manage. He hasn’t cleaned his cubicles in the middle of the shed in the six years he’s had it.”

trick for everyone

Swedes are one of the supplement crops Colin and Hazel GraingerAllen grow on their nearby lease block.

cows, but these days, no one can afford to pay someone to milk 100 cows.”

Some UK farmers are moving away from the traditional feeding of cows inside and opting for grazing systems; in New Zealand some farmers in

colder climates are moving towards keeping cows inside and more intensive feeding.

“We are now using palm kernel, but only when things get to a level we need it. We try to feed only grass, and to use the leased support block fully.

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18

JASON & CATHERINE McGRORY/TIM & JANE FLEMING

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Couple get serious this time Karen Phelps After debuting in the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards last year, Jason and Catherine McGrory are entering again this year.

“Norsewood is a social place and there are a lot of ex-winners here, so everyone was talking about it; that made us want to enter,” says Jason McGrory.

“We found the feedback really valuable. We learned heaps about our business and our strengths and weaknesses.”

The couple made the top five in their region and won the pasture management award. This year, they say, they’re out to win.

They have been working on gaining a better understanding of the financial side of their business and have done a Mark and Measure course.

The McGrorys are very involved in their local community and are part of a local dairy discussion group. Jason plans to join the fire brigade to keep challenging himself.

The McGrory family practises sitting on the fence. From left, Catherine, Kaleb, Jason, Cohen, Jackson.

Both them are townies, born and bred in New Plymouth. After school Jason headed straight to Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre and, after a six-

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month dairy course, did part of a season on a dairy farm at Opunake. The couple then took a farmhand position on a 300-cow farm at Waitara; they stayed there for nine years, working their way to lowerorder sharemilking for owners Dave and Jane Shaw.

Next came three seasons as lower-order sharemilkers on a 350-cow farm at Inglewood.

They are now in their third season in a 50:50 sharemilking position with 200 cows on a 70-hectare (effective) farm at Norsewood for Neil and Pat Malcolm.

The farm has a friesian herd milked through a 16-a-side herringbone shed, and is supported by three blocks, totalling 55ha.

The McGrorys also lease 26ha where they will raise 33 rising one-year-old heifers and 10 mixedage cows they bought to get in calf, then sell for cashflow.

The Horizon Regional Council's controversial One Plan environmental management proposal, which could affect their farm if it goes ahead, has seen the couple place even greater emphasis this season on nitrogen management.

They and the farm-owners are establishing

protocols to reduce nitrogen use and improve their use of effluent.

They currently spread effluent over 12ha of the farm, but are looking at the possibility of investing in a slurry tanker to transport and disperse effluent to the other side of the farm (across a road). This would give them an around 30ha that could be spread with effluent.

The McGrorys employ no staff. Jason does the day-to-day farmwork; Catherine takes care of calf feeding and fills in where and when needed. They have three children: Cohen, 6, Jackson, 5 and Kaleb, 3½.

The McGrorys say their relationship with Neil and Pat Malcolm is close – above and beyond the normal sharemilker-owner relationship.

“They are more like grandparents to our kids,” says Jason. “Pat has babysat and picked the kids up from school, even cooked us dinner sometimes when we’re busy.”

Below: Catherine and Jason McGrory share some time out from dairying with their three children/

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There's no right or wrong way in farming, believes Tim Fleming, who farms near the Cape Egmont lighthouse in Taranaki.

“You take an interest in what others are doing, then adapt it to suit yourself,” he says. “One of my neighbours is into organic farming. It wouldn't do for me, but it works for him. So good luck to him.”

Members of the family have farmed in the area for several generations since arriving from Ireland.

In recent years Fleming has acquired three farms to attach to the one he grew up on. The four farms are now run as one unit of two blocks, each with its own dairy.

It's remarkable country. Largely flat and initially swampy, it is notable for its large mounds; remnants, according to Massey University earth science professor Vince Neall, of a huge landslide 23,000 years ago when a volcanic cone collapsed.

It makes farming interesting; you have to ride round or over the top to make sure you’ve got all

your cows. The swamps have been drained, and the dark volcanic soils are fertile, holding moisture well.

There has been a sharemilker, then a manager, running the smaller block on Cape Road, but now, both are managed by Fleming with four staff. One staff member spends most of his time on the smaller block, but everyone pretty much does whatever needs to be done wherever it needs to be done.

“The system is working well. They are good staff,” says Fleming.

“Everyone gets paid well. One guy has been with us four years, one for three. The young fellow's mother was with us for four years; now he's working for me. They have 11 days on, and three days off. There is always one person off.”

Cape Road has 180 cows, mostly friesian or friesian/ayrshire cross. They were bought with the farm from Fleming's cousin. On Lower Parihaka Road, the 390 cows are mostly jersey, continuing the family tradition.

The herds are run together until calving. One shed does the milking until the milking herd gets

ELIOT & MARY COOPER

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

19

xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PHOTOS – Eliot (right) and Mary Cooper are aiming to have their cows (above, on their way to milking), produce 100% of their bodyweight. A pivot irrigator (below) waters 49 hectares of the Coopers’ Takapau property.

All about the cows Kelly Deeks With their 30-a-side herringbone dairy shed the only limiting factor to increasing production, Eliot and Mary Cooper are content to concentrate on per-cow rather than per-hectare performance.

The Coopers are aiming to get their 600 friesian and crossbred cows, which have an average weight of 520 kilograms, to produce 100% of their bodyweight this season.

“We’ve got cows that will do it,” Eliot Cooper says. “We aim to calve better than a five condition score, and we have achieved that this year. We’re also focusing on herd genetics to achieve our objective, as well as feeding good-quality feed and making sure the cows are well fed at all times.”

This focus on per cow production has seen the Coopers using Livestock Improvement Corporation DNA-proven premier sires at mating for the past three years.

“We’re identifying the cows that are performing, and focusing on making sure they are getting in calf early,” Eliot Cooper says. “We invest a fair bit in using CIDRs to get a tight calving spread.”

The Coopers feed about 90% grass, supplemented by 500 tonnes of maize silage, a small amount of palm kernel, and processors’ byproducts (mainly sweet corn and beetroot) bought through James & Sons.

They also feed turnips which have been grown on farm as part of the re-grassing programme.

Last season they grew their maize on farm as well, but having reached the end of the re-grassing programme of more than 30 hectare a year, they plan not to grow maize this season.

The Hawke’s Bay climate and the Cooper farm’s free draining soils make it ideal for winter milking – they milk 230 of their cows through winter, drying them off in February and calving in March.

As well as their 283-hectare farm at Takapau, in Central Hawke’s Bay, the Coopers are in equity partnerships milking 850 cows at Mangatainoka, in the north Wairarapa, 600 cows in the Waikato, and 600 cows in Victoria, Australia.

Cooper visits the Victoria farm every couple of months. It’s a lot like the farming conditions in the Waikato, he says: “We’re in a rain-belt there, but we still feed a bit of grain to the cows.”

They have owned the Takapau property for 12 years, and run it with an assistant manager and Eliot milking most days.

They started with a 117ha block and 300 cows.

“That was ticking along nicely and producing 1600 kilograms of milksolids per hectare, then four years ago we bought the 166ha dry-stock farm next door,” Eliot Cooper says. “We have been slowly converting that to dairy, it is almost all complete and we’re now in our last year of developing our pastures.

Development of the new block has included the installation of a pivot irrigator, which irrigates 49ha of the farm and complements the Roto-Rainers used on the original dairy block.

‘I like to do it my way’ bigger, then the black cows go north, and the brownish ones stay south.

“There is no difference in management of the herds. Feed them well, and they produce. You make sure you know what's going on so that you can put the feed into them if necessary, especially in the spring period.”

There a two dairy sheds – 19-a-side and 34-a-side herringbones. The plan is to have just one shed – a rotary – in the middle of the properties in the next few years.

In his early years, Fleming kept a high stocking rate. Lately, he has lowered the rate, and finds that his production is higher because he is feeding them better.

He buys in about 350 tonnes of palm kernel a season; 200 on contract, and the rest at spot prices as needed. This is fed out on the paddock.

The lower stocking rate is also part of his philosophy of having a better balanced life, so that he can take a bigger role in family life, such as his children's sports.

Jane, his wife, does the farm books, and has taken full control of calving since everything came under their own control.

“She does a great job,” says Tim Fleming.

“When I was younger, I went hard out, I focused on the farm,trying to get there quicker. Now, I think it's running better. I like to think there are heaps of ways of doing farming, but I like to do it my way.”

The herds are run together until calving, One shed does the milking until the milking herd gets bigger, then the black cows go north, and the brownish ones stay south.

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20

MARCUS & LISA SMITH/TONY & LORRAINE RYAN

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

No instant prize in family deal Karen Phelps It’s easy to think that buying your way into a family-owned dairy farm is the easy route. But Stratford couple Marcus and Lisa Smith can vouch for the fact that process also comes with challenges. as the needs of all family members must be considered while the transition is taking place.

When the couple Smiths finally completed the buy-out of Marcus's parents to take over the farm that Marcus grew up on, it was the end of a 10-year process..

After working on a neighbouring dairy farm and doing a Diploma of Agriculture, Marcus Smith returned to manage the family farm for four seasons before buying the herd in 2002. The 65-hectare (44ha effective) was milking 100 cows at that time.

Two years later he bought 40ha of the home farm, and leased the remainder off his parents.

By 2006 Lisa had joined the business and together they bought 40ha of a neighbouring property, extended their 12-a-side herringbone cowshed to 30-a-side with automatic cup removers and built a concrete feed pad.

In 2010 they bought the remainder of the family farm through their trust, Beaufort Farm Trust. The farm now comprises 130ha (103ha effective).

They have decided that after this season they will lease 25ha of a neighbouring farm to add into their dairy system.

Marcus and Lisa Smith with their next generation (from left), Pieta, 4, Marnie 2, and Kean five months.

The Smiths are currently milking a herd of 310 predominantly friesian and friesian-cross cows.

They say their top priority is paying back debt – particularly in the context of Fonterra’s forecast of a lower payout.

“We are watching costs carefully and have no plans for capital expenditure this season,” says Marcus. “We are monitoring everything and only

If cows haven’t cleared out a paddock properly, we will put them back in there for a couple of hours until we get the right residual.

spending on what will give us a return.”

Part of cost reduction soil testing to monitor where fertiliser is needed, and therefore avoid wastage.

They will grow 8ha of maize for stock on farm and buy in 9ha of maize, plus palm kernel, if the price is right.

There is also a major concentration on pasture quality – grazing down to the correct residuals.

They are targeting 1500-1600 kilograms of dry matter.

“If cows haven’t cleared out a paddock properly, we will put them back in there for a couple of hours until we get to the right residual,” says Marcus. “It will be extra management but he hopes it will pay off in the vat.”

The Smiths have a 5% empty rate without

needing to induce cows. They will run hereford bulls this season, and plan to sell 40-50 whitefaces to help reduce their debt.

The biggest challenge of farming the rolling country farm is rainfall of around 2-2.5 metres a year. They cope with these conditions by standing cows off on the feedpad.

This season the Smiths are aiming for 125,000 kilograms of milksolids from their 310 cows – last season 260 cows produced 105,000kg.

They employ one full-time staff member. Lisa helps out as needed, does the bookwork and is full time caregiver for their three children: Pieta, 4, Marnie, 2, and Kean, 3 months.

They’re busy, but they say they are glad they seized the opportunity to take over the farm and continue the family farming legacy in the region.

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Attention to management and dairy hygiene saw Tony and Lorraine Ryan achieve highquality milk with no inhibitory substance grades last season.

Tony Ryan says achieving grade-free status with no somatic-cell-count grades or penicillin grades is quite a challenge.

It comes down to running a tight ship, training staff in dairy hygiene, and keeping the shed and plant in clean condition.

The Ryans 50:50 sharemilk 550 cows on Lorraine’s parent’s farm at Takahue, in Northland. They have been there since they joined the dairy industry nine seasons ago.

Tony Ryan left his building career to take up the opportunity offered by his in-laws, Stan and Audrey Buckingham.

The Buckinghams helped the younger couple by guaranteeing their loan to buy their first herd of 280 cows. Then, four years ago the Buckinghams bought a neighbouring property, extended the dairy platform, and built a 50-bail rotary dairy shed with De Laval plant.

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DEAN BAILEY & ANNA DAVIS

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

21

Next trick: turn the goal into the average Karen Phelps Dean Bailey and wife Anna Davis say they have already achieved their production goal: 160,000 kilograms of milksolids from 420 cows on their 115-hectare (effective) farm in the Manawatu. Now they are aiming to sustain this level year in year out.

“The aim is for this to be our average production,” says Bailey. The couple say they want a consistent 450kg milksolids per cow, and plan to do this through culling and selection.

The farm had produced 145,000kg milksolids the season before they arrived. They bought the farm in 2007 and started milking in 2008-09.

“We inherited this herd when we bought the farm, so we’ve been trying to improve quality,” says Dean. “We’ve been getting empty rates of 6-10%, and ideally we’d like to reduce this to 6-7%.”

Feeding out supplement on the rolling hills on the farm can be a challenge, so they bought a concrete feedpad to guarantee their return on supplement fed out. They contract-grow maize silage as well as feeding palm kernel and grass silage.

“We are always aiming to improve cow condition. The aim is 5 for cows and 5.5 for heifers.

We are recognising the costs to the business if we do not get this right. We are focusing on young stock and making sure we exceed industry targets in terms of weight at key times. We are valuing how important this is as that animal comes into the herd as a two-year-old.”

He says they are aiming to hold peak milking of

2.1kg milksolids per cow per day for longer. This year they have hit their peak 10-14 days earlier than normal and are striving to maintain that level.

“It’s about making sure we have the feed reserves to feed the cows through this critical period. We are prepared to spend the money required so that we don’t compromise peak production.”

He says Anna’s accounting skills help keep the farm financially on track. They do regular are budgets, and fortnightly and monthly cashflows.

“Our costs are the only thing we can control to a degree in response to other factors such as interest rates and weather.”

They employ two full-time staff, and Anna does the calf-rearing and helps plant waterways, a major interest for the couple who are fencing off waterways as well. They milk their crossbred herd through a 30-a-side herringbone shed.

Dean Bailey’s parents were sharemilkers who moved to town when he was 10. He has a Bachelor of Agriculture from Massey University and Anna has an accounting degree.

They dived straight into the dairying industry, working on a 500-cow farm in South Auckland for three years, progressing to herd managers and then managers.

They moved back to the Manawatu and into lower-order sharemilking, which they saw as the pathway to farm ownership. After three years, they increased their stock numbers and went 50:50 sharemilking in an equity partnership. This got them into large-scale farming with 600-900 cows.

Dean Bailey and Anna Davis’s children, Ella, 11, Jack, 9, and Callum, 12, celebrate an early Christmas.

Dean Bailey says they farm because they love the lifestyle. ‘It’s great being able to take the kids out on the farm.’

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of attention to detail This allowed the Ryans to increase their herd to 480, and they have upped that to 550 cows this season after major re-grassing last season.

They also have two new staff members, which allowed them to take some time off in November for a trip to the Melbourne Cup. One of the new employees has two years of milking experience, and is able to step up and take charge while the Ryans are away; the other is new to the industry.

Tony Ryan had worked every day since calving. Once he had his new staff trained sufficiently to milk by themselves, he has been able to leave them to milk in the afternoons while he does other jobs around the farm or off the farm.

Lorraine works in the office, doing all the

paperwork for the business, and helps out on the farm when needed.

Tony Ryan says there has been different climatic start to the season in Northland this year, with minimal active sunlight impeding grass growth.

“It has been cold and growth hasn’t taken off. We were still waiting for growth in October.

It was only about 17 degrees with the sun out, so it’s warm but we also have a cold wind.”

The slow growth at the start of the season could impact on production. The farm normally gets good milk until Christmas when the heat begins to dry out the property and change the quality of the grass.

The Ryans buy in maize and palm kernel, and make silage on farm to feed in dry periods.

They grow summer crops (chicory and maize).

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22

FOSTER & KAREN KALMA

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Effluent system designed to boost profits metre-capacity lined pond along with new effluent lines to reach nearly every paddock on the farm.

They now irrigate around 108ha of the farm with travelling irrigators spreading to as low as 6-7mm per application. They say this gives them far greater control.

They are aware that more advanced effluent technology is available, but say they have chosen to invest in a fairly basic system until there is more certainty on future regulations.

Meanwhile, detailed and accurate soil testing remains vital to get the best value from their new system, says Foster.

Last autumn the couple soil-tested every paddock on the farm in preparation for the new system, and Foster says this highlighted a number of misconceptions he had about the farm.

“For example, we discovered that one of my previous soil-test paddocks had been a dump site for lime, and that was why we had a very high pH reading in that paddock. This had given me a false impression of the pH of the farm.”

The tests also highlighted significant variability between paddocks, which means the Kalmas will now be varying the nutrients they put on different paddocks as well as their management of the herd.

Foster Kalma quotes an example.

Karen Phelps After noticing rising nutrient levels on their farm Foster and Karen Kalma invested significantly in a new effluent system they hope will reduce their environmental footprint and increase farm profitability.

The Kalmas – who milk 650 predominantly jersey cows on 115 hectares (effective) at Ngarua, on the Hauraki Plains – had already run a pipeline from their farm directly to the neighbouring property of Foster’s brother, Guy. This was exporting around 80% of the effluent their cows were producing.

“It wasn’t an environmental issue, but the soil tests were creeping up and I wanted to be proactive,” says Foster The Kalmas engaged Alison Dewes, an environmental consultant with Headlands, to discuss options for their farm to improve their management of effluent and capitalise on it.

They were shocked to realise they had been exporting around $50,000 worth of effluent off their farm each year.

Dewes highlighted the lack of storage capacity on the farm and the need to apply effluent at a lower rate on a larger area of the farm for maximum profitability.

The Kalmas have installed a 7300-cubic

• To page 23

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PLANTATION ROAD

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

23

‘Lost art’ could save millions Neil Grant Civilisation has progressed because individuals have refused to accept the imposed wisdom of either their chiefs or the common herd. These people have shown how to do things a different, and often better, way.

Galileo is the usually quoted example, telling the church it was talking bollocks about whether the Earth was the centre of the solar system or not.

It takes courage and determination to kick against the grain, but many are prepared to give it a go.

Kevin Davidson, a dairy farmer at Onga Onga, near Waipukurau, is a modern example. He has found he can dramatically reduce somatic cell counts in his 1800-cow herd, without using the usually prescribed drugs.

He says he has tried to get Dairy New Zealand to listen to him, but has found himself frustrated at every turn.

“I’ve struggled with this for the last two years, but have not got much traction,” he says. “We pay 3.4% of our cheque towards research, but we don’t get much say in what happens.

“I – and some of my farming mates – say, ‘We pay you. Why don’t you listen to us?’’”

There are two main thrusts to his argument.

The first is that there is almost total emphasis on modern, scientific systems, especially the use of drugs to maintain animal health.

“Farmers have lost the art of how to read cows’ coats and cow dung to see how a cow is performing,” says Davidson. “We shouldn’t need to do a test to find out what was going on five days ago.

“What was practised at the turn of the twentieth century has been forgotten by the industry since we started doing blood testing. You can tell selenium, copper, zinc and B12 levels etc by looking at a

cow’s coat. Some claim you can even tell if a cow is pregnant or not.”

The immediacy is the advantage, he says.. Nonperforming cows stand out because their coats are dull. Furthermore, cows lick their coats when they are gaining weight. If the weather is foul, or the feed not up to scratch, they stop. Feed them better, or when the weather improves, they lick themselves again.

Reading cows’ dung tells you immediately how good their diet is.

“I can see if a cow’s rumen is functioning correctly, so I need to test my pasture and my supplement less.

“Learning and using these techniques, saves you money, and helps you sort things out straight

Kevin Davidson says he has tried to get Dairy New Zealand to listen to him, but has found himself frustrated at every turn...I’ve struggled with this for two years.

Savings the prime advantage • From page 22 They used low-potassium paddocks for springing cows over calving this year, improving the animals’ metabolic rates from the previous season.

While the new effluent system represents an investment of around 10% of their milk cheque this year, the Kalmas say they don’t expect a rise in production as a result. They produced 260,000 kilograms of milksolids last year and have a similar target this season.

They are more intent on the savings they can achieve from the new effluent system.

Moving the irrigators does raise labour costs, but this will be more than offset by savings on the urea bill.

When the Kalmas first came onto the farm, it had a simple pond system. About 10 years ago they

moved to a higher-input system, which resulted in more effluent production.

They put in a spray-irrigation system that sprayed directly out of a holding sump onto the farm with little storage capacity. This allowed them to irrigate around 40ha.

The Kalmas both come from farming backgrounds, but met in Wellington where Foster was working as an economist and Karen was a graphic designer.

Foster Kalma admits he always had a hankering to get out from behind the desk and back to the family farm. He managed this in 1992, when he and Guy went into partnership managed 700 cows for their parents.

When their parents bought a neighbouring farm, the boys took over a farm each as lower-order sharemilkers. Foster and Karen Kalma are currently 50:50 sharemilking on this property.

away. I’m not saying,’Don’t do any testing’; but you don’t need to do as much.”

His second thrust is in herd management to reduce somatic cell counts.

Davidson’s herd is usually split into four subherds, one of which is the ‘red’ herd – cows with high somatic cell counts.

“Our high-cell-count cows were transferring it to others. We changed our protocol, and milk them, along with any treated for mastitis, after all the others. So, you stop transferring it; we contain it to the ‘red’ herd.”

Twelve months after the Davidsons adopted this system, their cell count was halved, and the size of the ‘red’ herd was halved.

“I don’t know of any drug that can match this. I wish I’d known this 30 years ago. I’ve culled cows unnecessarily.

“Now I find out work was done that showed this in the 1970s, but it was not shared with the industry. If they had shared that knowledge, it would have saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It’s appalling.

“Farmers are innovators and early adopters.

Why can’t Dairy New Zealand get the top 10-20% of dairy farmers in one room every year to share their knowledge and good ideas? It just needs someone to create a platform for that to happen.

“But DairyNZ would seem to prefer to work only with below-average farmers, trying to bring them up to standard.

“It makes me mad.”

PHOTOS Hawke’s Bay farmer Kevin Davidson says you don’t need drugs to treat and improve somatic counts, and you can ‘read’ cows’ coats and dung to check cows’ diet and health.

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24

GARETH & RAEWYN WILLIAMS

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Two-into-one bid for freedom Karen Phelps Gareth and Raewyn Williams have made radical changes to their King Country farming business.

They have combined two farms into one, with daughter Ashleigh and her partner, Tony Forman, returning home to take charge.

The Williams say that after a lifetime of hard work, it’s time to take a step back.

“We had to simplify the system because when things happened, such as staff off sick, we had to keep stepping in,” explains Gareth.

Gareth and Raewyn Williams bought the farm, at Aria, 20 minutes south-west of Te Kuiti, in 1994.

Through the purchase of neighbouring land and another farm, they eventually had two 95-hectare, 290-cow dairy farms.

They managed one farm and had a lowerorder sharemilker on the other, and ran a small drystock unit with white-faced steers and heifers to supplement their dairy operation.

That has all changed.

The 20-a-side herringbone shed on one farm has been enlarged to 40-a-side and the herd scaled down from 580 to 500 cows, consolidating the two farms into one. Their dairy platform will fluctuate between 150ha and 170ha depending on the time of year.

“The extremities of the farm from the cowshed can be used for the beef stock at different times of the year as well as for feed,” says Gareth.

Although they will be farming less intensively, the flexibility the Williamses will gain will more than compensate, he says. They will aim for higher per-cow production because, with the smaller herd, more feed will be available.

Ashleigh and Tony will manage the farm, allowing Gareth and Raewyn the time-off they crave. The farm structure has been set up slightly differently as Gareth feels that couples farming together also need some independence.

“We will give them each a section of the farm and a herd. They will individually come to me for advice about their block. Having to make their own decisions will lend itself to a better result.”

Last season, as two separate units, the farms averaged 315 kilograms of milksolids per cow. This

The Williams family has reorganised its farming business at Aria. From left, Raewyn and Gareth Williams, Tony Forman, Ashleigh Williams.

season the target is 330kg per cow. The Williamses also lease a block where they grow 7ha of maize.

“Normally we achieve around 1000kg milksolids per hectare and have a low-cost system.,” says Gareth. “This means that we can withstand drops in payout well without changing our system.”

It’s a formula that has obviously worked for them. As Gareth Williams points out, they had no family money, but have built their farming business successfully through hard work and savvy decisions.

“Dairying has been a huge commitment. It can consume you and it’s hard to break away from it and smell the roses.

“To make it work, all the way through our career we have had to calculate each step we took

carefully to ensure it was the right one as we didn’t come from a family farm. We’ve been thrifty and worked hard and now it’s pay-back time.”

Gareth Williams grew up in a non-farming family in Tauranga, but spent holidays on a relative’s farm where he caught the farming bug. By the time he was ready to leave school, he realised that, with no family farm to pass onto him, he would have to

make his own way. He says that has driven every business decision he has made since.

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He believes says this experience of different farming systems proved vital in establishing and developing the Aria operation.

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JOHN & ASTRID COVENEY

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

25

Couple love 20-year ‘work in progress’ Kelly Deeks The North Island’s southernmost dairy farmers have stabilised the growth on their farm after 20 years, and are now achieving more consistent production, using the body condition of their 520cow friesian herd as a guide.

John and Astrid Coveney bought the farm at Pirinoa, in southern Wairarapa, in 1992 as a 189-hectare sheep farm, and then converted to dairy.

In the first year the they built a 20-a-side herringbone dairy shed where they milked 260 cows. Over 20 years they have acquired neighbouring land and expanded the dairy farm to 269ha.

“We don’t milk off all of it,,” says John Coveney.

“The land is terraced, the milking platform is 187ha.

We also have an 80ha run-off block, of owned and leased land, within four kilometres of the farm.”

They also rear around 100 heifers and 100 wiener bulls every year.

As the farm and herd grew, they extended the dairy shed to 40-a-side, and employed a dairy manager, and two dairy hands on an 11-days-on, three-days-off basis.

“We’ve stabilised the farm and the size of the shed, and we don’t really want to go up any more in herd numbers,” John Coveney says. “We want to

put more condition on the cows, improve feeding, and reduce our environmental impact.”

Like all dairy farms, his farm is a work in progress and improvements come from making the best of the land, the grass, and the seasons, he says.

“We’ve made the cows work hard, let them get a bit light, and then at the end of the season, you wonder why you did because you don’t see the results in production.

“I’m now feeding out some form of supplement, not just irrigated grass, for eight to 10 months of the year.” Mineral supplements are given nearly all year round.

Coveney believes a focus on feeding and maintaining target body-condition score is the key to achieving consistent production. He supplements the 70-80% grass he feeds his cows with grass silage, maize, and palm kernel mixed with grain, bran, or syrup where necessary.

Every season he relies on 500 to 600 tonnes of silage, which is made on the farm and the support land, 300 tonnes of maize, which he contractgrows on a local sheep farm, and 200 bales of hay.

Excellent growing conditions last season saw him get unusual second cuts and make more than 1000 tonnes of silage on farm.

“This is usually a summer-dry area, but last year the rain just kept going,” he says.

He also achieved the farm’s record production,

up 10% from the previous record to 200,000 kilograms of milksolids.

“For the past 12 years, I’ve used RPR-based fertilisers and I’m pleased with the fertility and consistent growth between seasons.

“A recently corrected molybdenum deficiency, and better pasture establishment practices have seen a lift in pasture production, especially clover.

A recently purchased seed drill has been used to lift the pasture renewal rate from 12 years to six years.”

Best-quality rye, white clover, and chicory mixes for dryland and irrigated pastures are used, he says.

The farm is not self-sufficient until growth rates reach 45kg dry matter per hectare per day, he says.

They stay at that level for just a month or two before he has to start feeding out again.

A hundred hectares of the milking platform is under Bosch lateral irrigation, normally between December and March. It’s applied at night to obtain better use of water. One run-off has 25ha of k-line irrigation.

Yes, he says, at various stages he has been partially cleaned out by tubercolosis (Tb), bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) and johne’s disease and all its complications in the herd, five children over the age of 20, one ex-wife, John Kirwan’s disease, high interest rates, and numerous bulls ups. But he and Astrid really love the life, the community, the location, the challenges of farming, and the All Blacks winning the World Cup.

PHOTOS: John Coveney admits to having experienced his fair share of knockbacks, but he continues to improve his farm by making the best of the land, the grass and the seasons.

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26

DAIRY SERVICES: McINTYRE CONTRACTING

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Tony digs for ‘slice of heaven’ Lindy Andrews When Nature vented her fury on the Manawatu Gorge in August 2011, the torrential downpour washed tonnes of mud and rubble onto the road, leaving the landscape irrevocably scarred. However – with some lateral thinking and a lot of muscle – the devastation has become part of an extraordinary new asset.

For nine months, the gorge – a vital arterial link between Manawatu and southern Hawke’s Bay – was closed to traffic as contractors worked to repair the damage.

Behind the scenes, staff at the Department of Conservation and the New Zealand Transport Agencies turned their minds to transforming the storm’s negative effects on the landscape into a slice of natural heaven.

The result was Tom’s Loop, a new 1.6 kilometre walking and cycling track culminating at a lookout offering a commanding view of the slip.

Apiti-based McIntyre Contractors was called in to carve the track from the precipitous hillside.

“It’s challenging work; the terrain is steep and difficult,” says Tony McIntyre. “When you’re working in an environmentally significant area, you have to preserve as much vegetation as you can.”

There have been some nervous moments, but that’s what makes the work interesting.

“It keeps you on your toes; you’re trying to get tracks into places you think you can’t, and how you’re going to do it. There’s no such word as ‘can’t’.”

Working to strict DoC protocols with a small 1.8-tonne digger, Tony McIntyre and his staff have inched their way through the native bush, taking care that the root systems of trees of significance are preserved.

PHOTO Left: Working in some environmentally significant areas of the northern Manawatu hill country presents special challenges.

Left: Father and son Roger (right) and Tony McIntyre with some of the mechanical muscle that has helped shape Manawatu’s new walkway.

Aside from the hazards presented by the terrain, they have to be mindful of a constant stream of walkers using other tracks – some as little as eight metres away.

“The public are using the nearby tracks non-stop and there have been a lot of aerial ops – helicopters coming in and out with timber stairs and loads of aggregate for us to spread on the track.”

Construction of the track remains a work in • To page 27

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DAIRY SERVICES: KIWITAHI MAIZE GROWERS

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

27

Mark Fausett and Angela Thomasen (third and fourth from left) with some of Kiwitahi Maize Growers’ staff and the company’s New Holland machine.

Demand/supply equation crucial Sue Russell Having lived and breathed the business of growing maize in the Piako area of the Waikato for nine seasons, Mark Fausett is very clear on what matters most to keep Kiwitahi Maize Growers growing well.

“This is a very competitive business. We operate in critical-time-frame windows to supply customers and it’s my staff who make this happen. I’ve been very lucky to find good permanent, part-time and casual staff. It’s not something I take for granted.”

Apart from Mark and partner Angela Thomasen, the business employs four permanents, three or four permanent part-timers, and casuals. It’s a mix designed to be ready to take on work at short notice, work in tight time-frames, and seize unexpected opportunities.

“Our permanent staff – Garry, Rob, Ralph and Tom – are all able to multi-task, and it’s this flexibility I absolutely depend on,” says Fausett.

On an average day the company can plant 40 hectares or more, but Fausett knows that the crux is

not how much is planted, but how well the seed has been sown.

The days are long gone when growers could rely on stable weather through the spring planting season. Dairy farmers often leave it to the last minute to decide how much maize they need – as much as 80% of Kiwitahi Maize Growers’ yield is sold under contract signed up in September and October.

“I go around all the ‘regulars’ in September sorting out what they’ll want,” says Fausett. “They have first option on securing their maize, as they are a key component in our business. I have to take a punt on just how much land I need to plant in maize to meet demand for new customers.”

Last year the company baled its excess maize and sold it in spring to dairy farmers. It’s a fine line getting the balance between growing for confirmed orders and allowing for an unknown.

Fausett owns 48 hectares that is planted in maize. The rest of the business’s crop is grown on a 300ha leased from 10 landlords.

Science comes into play by giving Fausett a range of plants suited to various climatic and

soil conditions. He uses five main hybrids and gets advice on varieties from Genetic Technology (Pioneer) area manager Grant McDonald. Other product support comes from Paul Baker, PGG Wrightsons, RD1 and Ravensdown Fertiliser.

Fausett was previously a sharemilker on the family farm. When the price for cows was high, he sold and got into cropping.

Thomasen does the administration, operates

the weigh-bridge and is in the field during planting.

Fausett feels that because his staff have grown and evolved with the company, their ability to deal directly with farmers is a real positive.

“My main focus is supplying good-quality product, on time, to all my customers,” says Fausett.

“I can rely on my staff to provide consistently good service.”

PROUD TO SUPPORT KIWITAHI MAIZE GROWERS

Fire work provides crossover skills • From page 26 progress as rock stabilisation continues in the gorge.

Tony McIntyre loves nothing more than getting away into the “awesome environment” of the northern Manawatu hill country and playing his part in making it more accessible to others.

“The DoC work is quite rewarding. The project is going to be there well into the future and people will be using it.”

But his first loyalty remains to the farming clients who are his bread and butter: “Our predominant work is still farm work – dairy races, dry-stock farms, dams, clearing tracks and so on.

We continue to treat that as our mainstay.”

Diversification into civil construction during quiet times on the farming calendar has helped maintain work flow.

McIntyre’s role as Kimbolton’s Volunteer Fire Service chief also keeps him busy. When the town’s fire siren blares and pagers go off, it’s time to down tools and switch hats. A volunteer for 17 years, he is following in the footsteps of his father, Roger, a veteran of 29 years as Apiti’s chief fire officer.

Being part of the Fire Service is a bonus in terms of managing his own company: “There’s definitely an overlap from a management point of view. The Fire Service provides really good training and I can relate it back to my personal environment.”

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28

DAIRY SERVICES: FABISH & JACKSON

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

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Lindy Andrews In 1967, the death knell rang for Eltham farmer Merv Hicks’s old four-bail, walkthrough dairy shed. It sparked a revolution in New Zealand dairying.

Forty-five years on, Hicks’s invention – the rotary milking system – is tipped by researchers to become New Zealand’s preferred method of milking.

In turn, the rotary dairy sparked another innovation in design – the Octa-Lock hexagonal milking parlour, designed and built by Inglewood-based Fabish & Jackson Builders.

“When Merv designed the rotary platform, he wanted a shed with no centre pole; something big with no wasted space.” says Fabish & Jackson director Steve Fabish.

“After he’d got it up and running, he asked us to design a building to house it. We thought it was a great idea...cows on a carousel.”

As the company set about refining the Octa-Lock, it diversified, opening its own pre-cast concrete, steel-fabrication and

laminated-beam plants. The initiative has provided the Taranaki firm with a buffer in tough times, keeping it working and in good fiscal shape.

Today, says Steve Fabish, you’ll find an Octa-Lock on just about every rural road in Taranaki. There’s also strong representation through the Waikato and the South Island, and, yes, you’ll find examples in Samoa and Wales.

The company’s faith in Merv Hicks’s design has proved to have been well founded on a number of levels.

Research by Dairy New Zealand in 2010 found that 40% of New Zealand dairy herds were being milked in rotary parlours.

From a survey of 80 farms, Dairy NZ senior scientist Jenny Jago, post-graduate scientist Paul Edwards and assistant research

technician Jennie Burke concluded that on current trends, the rotary would become the dominant milking system.

While New Zealand farmers are “miles ahead of the (international) pack” in terms of milking efficiency, there are still gains to be made, says Jago.

“We’ve found a big range of efficiencies with respect to milking. By and large we’ve gone down the right road with the infrastructure and routines we’re adopting on our farms. What we’ve been doing is fine tuning – it’s all around people and the way infrastructure is used.

“It’s quite basic stuff, such as how to transition between first and second herds really effectively. We’ve looked at things like the speed of the rotary platform, clean-up, when to take the cups off…the smallest things can make a big difference.”

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DAIRY SERVICES: FABISH & JACKSON

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

29

While New Zealand farmers are miles ahead of the (international) pack in terms of milking efficiency, there are still gains to be made. By and large we’ve gone down the right road with the infrastructure and routines we’re adopted on our farms. What we’ve doing is fine-tuning – it’s all around people and the way infrastructure is PHOTOS: Outside (facing page) and inside (above) views of Fabish & Jackson’s latest development – the Octa-Lock hexagonal milking parlour.

used.

Seminars seek to help milkers get smarter in the shed Dairy New Zealand is in the midst of a campaign aimed at helping dairy farmers milk smarter. The organisation is running 10 Milksmart seminars

around the country.

The seminars – which are free to levy-paying

farmers and their staff – are part of a four-year Dairy NZ programme aimed at improving the efficiency of the milk harvesting process.

The seminar programmes cover all aspects of milking – collecting the cows from the paddock, milking, clean-up, and getting the cows back to the paddock.

Dairy NZ says the events will provide both practical hands-on sessions for junior staff and higher-level strategic sessions.

The organisation is also releasing its latest findings on rotary and herringbone dairies.

Presenters include: Dairy NZ senior scientist Jenny Jago; Mel Eden, a director and consultants from Hamilton-based Fox Eden & Associates Ltd; Neil Chesterton, from Veterinary Services Inglewood, who has a special interest in dairy cattle and lameness; Josh Wheeler, a director and consultant with Quality Consultants of New Zealand Ltd.

Milksmart project manager Chris Leach, who is also a presenter, says that even small changes to a milking routine can add up.

“Some pretty big savings, in both time and money, have been achieved by previous participants.

“Feedback from farmers at previous events has been incredibly positive and has helped shape

Dairy New Zealand senior scientist Jenny Jago (left), who led Dairy NZ research into milking in New Zealand, and Inglewood veterinarian Neil Chesterton, who has developed a specialty in dairy cattle and animal lameness, are two of the presenters at Dairy NZ’s MIlksmart seminars, the programme and format for this series. We’re including the topics that have worked well in the past, along with plenty of new material.”

Leach says the format of the seminars has been extended to run from mid-morning through to the evening, and attendees will have the option of going to as many sessions as they like, at a time that suits them best.

There is a choice of 14 milk harvesting-related topics, each of which will be repeated two or three times during the day.

Topics include:

• Stockmanship – understanding and working with cows.

• Managing milking – planning for efficient milking.

• Cow flow – identifying design issues and practical solutions.

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• Milking skills – cupping techniques, teat spray and efficient milking routines.

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Milksmart events are scheduled for: • Morrinsville – February 19.

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30

DAIRY SERVICES: W. D.DAVENPORT

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Pete Davenport (left) and Mike Moore discuss options for a new feedpad. By switching from his old 24-bail walkthrough shed to a new 40-a-side herringbone, Moore has slashed his milking and clean-up time from three and half hours to an hour and a half

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Lindy Andrews Warren and Peter Davenport reckon they know a thing or two about dairy sheds. Their family firm, W D Davenport Builders, has been making them for 21 years.

The cousins are now at the helm of the Morrinsville-based business that produces rotary and herringbone milking sheds, effluent disposal and water dispersal systems, and ancillary farm buildings tailored to client requirements.

They believe the experience and knowledge of dairying their family and company have accumulated have made a very real contribution to the profitability of many farms.

A good shed means better cow flow, can cut milking times by more than 50%, and adds to the bottom line, says Warren Davenport.

“Many milking sheds have become inadequate as farms have amalgamated. An efficient shed can cut milking time from three hours to an hour and quarter.”

Shorter milking times free up farmers to focus on other things and enhances milk yield as cows spend more time grazing, or in increasingly popular feedyards and European-style barns.

“More and more farms are moving to a European style of farming – bringing the food to the cow. Again, the emphasis is on boosting

• To page 31

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DAIRY SERVICES: TAUNT CONTRACTING

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

31

‘Step-ups’ a must for contractors Sue Russell Willingness to embrace new learning is keeping a Taranaki contracting business right up with game.

Barry Taunt doesn’t regret for one moment making the effort – along with brother Glen and fellow staff member Craig – to gain a New Zealand Qualifications Authority level 3 agricultural contracting qualification back in 2009.

He believes that going back to school and the subsequent decision that Taunt Contracting Ltd should join Rural Contractors New Zealand has

placed the company in a solid business position.

“It’s another step-up as far as I’m concerned”, says Barry Taunt, who feels the day isn’t too far away when professional registration as a contractor will be the industry benchmark.

Maintaining registered-contractor status involves the company in a three-yearly audit by the federation. This looks at all aspects of the operation, right down to equipment maintenance records and employer responsibilities.

A key benefit of federation membership is that farmers get assurance they’re dealing with a firm with its head screwed on the right way, says Taunt.

PHOTOS Left: Taunt Contracting machinery prepares a site for oil-drilling.

Upper right: Taunt Contracting’s new Welger 445 round baler has proved an outstanding success.

Sheds ‘light industrial projects’ • From page 30

production, and it requires a specialist approach to farm buildings.

A Davenport project begins with an on-site assessment by design staff, then a tour of working units the company has built.

“It’s a big capital investment and we’ve got to get it 100% right,” says Warren. “Farmers can see a unit in production and choose what elements they want to incorporate into their own milking sheds.

“It’s not a case of one size fits all – we build to suit the site and to suit what the farmer wants, not what we want.

“I can safely say that every milking shed we’ve built has something different. No two are the same.”

W D Davenport offers farmers a one-contact approach to the building process. The company

works with milking-machinery, effluent-disposal and water-systems suppliers and installers, as well as electricians and other sub-trades.

It helps with time management and helps ensure that projects are finished to the standard and within budget, says Warren Davenport.

“Gone are the days when a cowshed was just a cowshed – it’s a light industrial project. We work in with experts; we do what we do best and they do what they do best.

“It’s all about after-sales service, so we draw on local sales and service suppliers who can respond promptly is issues arise.”

He says it’s not unusual for farmers – and their wives – to find a few other odd jobs for the builders to get stuck into...repairing a hay barn, revamping a kitchen, even crafting a new house.

“We do the lot, and we’re a 100% Kiwi company.”

“Farmers know we’re a company that’s safe to do business with.”

He says they work hard with staff to create a safe and supportive culture. Drivers are encouraged to feel OK about saying they’re getting tired and will need replacing on a long job.

“It’s a very individual thing. Some drivers can handle longer hours. What’s really important is that our staff don’t feel under pressure to perform outside their own safety grid.”

If a farmer is pushing to get a job done in a certain time, and it is simply not ‘do-able’ from an operational safety perspective, Taunt says he will be the first to stand by the driver’s call.

“Ninety five per cent of farmers are really good with us on this. No-one wants an unsafe situation, and dealing with the sort of machinery we’re operating, safety is paramount.”

The business – which is based a few kilometres east of Stratford – was started by Barry’s dad, Les Taunt, 43 years ago,and remains very much a family affair. Mum Lyn runs the office and does the accounts; sister Kelly helps in the office; brothers Barry and Glen work full-time along with Craig; casual drivers come in and out through the year depending on demand.

The company operates a quarry on the Taunts’ 100-hectare farm, which is primarily Glen’s responsibility to run. In the last few years Taunts has got involved in preparation of oil-drilling sites,

preparing ground for drilling equipment, laying down metal for roads and routine maintenance.

The ‘Naki’s micro-climate – sun one day often followed by wet and slippery conditions the next presents challenges. For instance, chopping pit silage in misty drizzle calls for patience and, says Barry, an attitude that taking risks or cutting corners isn’t worth it.

New clients come mainly by word of mouth and recommendations from farmers, which Barry Taunt finds very gratifying.

“We provide a huge range of farm services... pit metal, cartage, bale silage, haymaking, paddock cultivation and planting.”

Taunt Contracting runs nine tractors and had, as Barry puts it, “a bit of a spend-up” last year on a 445 Welger round baler and a Vaderstad rapid-seed drill.

The baler has proved outstanding...very high output, and dense, tight, nicely shaped bales.

“We always provide six layers of wrap to seal the bales. This protects them really well and, by using an inoculant at baling, the product stays in top condition, free of mould.”

The drill is used to drill grass-seed to beef up pasture: “The great thing about the drill is that it can put down four products at one time,” says Barry.

“Fert is put down in a row next to the seed row.

This reduces burn damage and means we can put down more fert.”

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Growers shed vines for goats Outbreaks of PSA have driven a number of Waikato and Bay of Plenty kiwifruit farmers to rip out their vines and convert to goat farming as demand for goat milk increases rapidly.

Hamilton’s Dairy Goat Co-operative predicts its annual revenue will soar from $100m to between $250m and $500m by 2017.

For novice farmers it’s potentially profitable, but it comes with a fast learning curve.

“The advantage of goat farming is that you don’t need big acreage; small farms become very viable,” says W D Davenport Builders’ Warren Davenport.

“The biggest capital investment to convert to goats is the milking shed and, again, you’ve got to get it 100% right.”

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32

DAIRY SERVICES: ROSS TETLEY-JONES CONTRACTING

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Enthusiastic people the secret Sue Russell Running a contracting company has a lot to do with keeping an eye on the future, especially when it comes to employing staff, says Ross Tetley-Jones.

The Otorohanga-based rural contractor really rates his mainstay driver, Ronald Badman: “He has been working for Tetley-Jones Agriculture for the last 12 seasons and knows the farms and farmers just as well as I do. I can trust him to do the work to the same standard I do. He’s a real asset in the firm.”

But, with Badman in his early 60s, Tetley-Jones felt it was time to start thinking about succession.

“Last winter I took on young Hayden full-time.

He’s only 19, but he seems older. Having him in the fold has brought the business toward a younger set.”

Advertising for an experienced driver brought no response, but Hayden, who was living in Cambridge and has worked as a mechanic, saw the advertisement and made contact.

Tetley-Jones admits to having been “tractor mad” as a kid, and he sees this innate enthusiasm for contracting in his protégé.

“It’s an industry you have to be enthusiastic about, or it’s best to be doing something else. To really succeed in the industry, you have to love machines. I’m hoping that if Hayden wants to travel overseas, he’ll do this in our off-season.”

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silage, bales round and square, hay and silage, groundwork, cropping, direct drilling and breaking in country.

Ross Tetley-Jones says he gets a great deal of satisfaction working over marginal land and turning these areas into productive pasture.

On the cultivation side, a decision five years ago to buy out another contracting business in the Bennydale area resulted in a huge increase in turn-over.

“Most of the clients decided to stay with us. It gave them a sense of continuity, and our business has expanded in the area.”

Another factor in his decision to take on another permanent driver was the frustration he was increasingly feeling at having to put in time every

PHOTOS It takes a fair bit of machinery to deal with TetleyJones Agriculture’s broad mix of bulk silage, baling, cropping, direct drilling and cultivation work.

• Light to use • Feeds Fast • Front or Rear Loading

year to train new staff. It was down-time he knew could be better spent.

“I wanted to keep some continuity of staff.

Training up guys every year on the farms we work on, when 90% of our work is repeat business, was not the best use of my time or best for the business.”

Wife Diane is also very much a part of the business behind the scenes doing the office work and keeping the admin side ticking over. The couple have recently returned from a few nights on the Gold Coast, timely given that the next six months will be full on.

It’s about now that demand for contractors’ services builds and when Tetley-Jones Agriculture takes on two more seasonal full-time workers. At peak times a ‘floater’ is also brought in to help.

This time of year is quite a pressure point for the company – getting winter crops sown from early November to just before Christmas, then the New Year period when the best hay comes in.

This is when the flexibility to call on other contractors to help is invaluable.

Tetley-Jones says C.T. Engineering, also in Otorohanga, has provided huge support for his company. He maintains that C.T. is as much a part of his business as his core staff and machinery.

The old saying, ‘If it goes round, it breaks down’, is true, he says. He knows that part of the company’s success is the supportive relationships it has with allied services and with other contractors.

“It’s about word of mouth. You get to know a lot of people. We’re fortunate in that we’ve built up strong relationships through the years. It’s about people more than anything else.”

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DAIRY SERVICES: MIKE HARRIS EARTHMOVING

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

33

Mike digs in on his ‘patch’ Sue Russell There’s nothing like having a job with plenty of variety and challenge attached. For Mike Harris it has meant he has found himself in some “unusual” working situations.

“One year there was a big flood and the intake feeding water to the Tongariro hydro canal was structurally undermined. We took our gear down and worked on the riverbed to reinstate the concrete. The water was pumped out of the river so that we could get access.”

On another occasion his firm rebuilt a crossing off the Desert Road that had been washed away by a lahar after the Mt Ruapehu crater lake burst.

Harris has owned and operated Mike Harris Earthmoving Ltd from his base in Reporoa since going out on his own in 1996.

“I started as a sole trader and the company just grew. I had one digger back then, and did farm maintenance work and some forestry roading.”

Three years on, with demand for his services growing steadily, he took on a couple of more drivers. Thirteen years later the company employs 17 drivers.

The company has got into more and more logging work, having started with clearing and cleaning blocks of willow and poplar trees for Environment Waikato.

Harris’s business now owns two earthmoving excavators, a grader, a bulldozer and two logging trucks, one of which also tows a transport trailer..

Four excavators, a bulldozer, a log arch and a harvestline hauler are involved in logging.

He believes this equipment and a reputation for being able to work in challenging conditions are the reasons the company gets forestry work.

“While I’m tied up a lot with company management these days, I do still get out with the logging crews a fair bit, which is a good balance for me.”

The company has a four-man woodlot crew and an eight-man road-lining crew working from Opotiki for Rayonier NZ. For the last five years four or five company staff have been dedicated to building roads for New Zealand Forest Managers at the Tahorakuri Forest, between Reporoa and Taupo.

That project has a couple of years to run, but already Mike Harris is waiting to hear back from another company after having been short-listed to

tender for a large-scale, forestry-clearing project in the central North Island. It involves converting land back into productive farming blocks.

He also does a lot of farm maintenance and land-development work, and has built a solid number of loyal farmer clients. His ‘patch’ extends from Rotorua to Turangi.

The on-farm company’s services cover contouring crop paddocks, taking out tree stumps, and clearing and maintaining farm tracks and fence lines.

Mike Harris Earthmoving has a group of sub-contractors for truck work that includes Mike Richardson, Brian Smith and Tony Sargison.

Mike Harris’s wife, Christine, who is also his business partner, takes care of the day-to-day office work from home. She juggles this with part-time work at Rotorua Hospital.

On the management side of things, Mike Harris is really pleased the company has recently received a tertiary rating from the Accident Compensation Commission.

“Health and safety is huge in this business,” he says.

“This rating has proved the company’s worth with policies in place, records kept, and ongoing training. We are committed to health and safety as safety is paramount in importance.”

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34

DAIRY SERVICES: DAIRYMASTER

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Monitor takes heat out of fertility issue Sue Russell Some “very smart� equipment, incorporating nanotechnology, could revolutionalise the thorny issue of herd fertility.

Getting cows in calf as quickly as possible can be tricky, testy and costly – a stress many farmers face by the year. Miss a heat, and milk production losses are in the hundreds of dollars per cow.

The Moomonitor device – marketed in New Zealand by Stratford-based Dairymaster Milking Systems (NZ) Ltd – can assess cow behaviour on a 24-hour basis and detect subtle changes in behaviour that signal the onset of fertility.

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farmers to get on with other work, says Dairymaster co-director Craig Burrows. “These subtle changes in the cow, which can be easily missed by less experienced farm workers, are really hard to teach, and the owner, often reluctantly, has to become involved. With this technology,a farmer can delegate responsibility to a machine with absolute confidence.�

He says years of research and development by Ireland-based parent company Dairymaster back up the claim that Moomonitor can do what humans can’t. “They have poured stacks of money into R & D for years...amounts we could only dream of here.

Because of this they are able to verify everything from a scientific basis. When we market their

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PHOTOS The Moomonitor sits snugly around a cow’s neck (right) where it can track the animal’s behaviour 24 hours a day. Farmers can view data from the Moomonitor by ipad, smart phone (both lower left) or website. products here, they come with the same depth of science behind them.�

Because the new Moomonitor App technology allows data to be viewed on a smart phone, ipad/ tablet or website, farmers are better placed to use information, says Burrows. If they know the situation of each of their cows, they can draft off fertile ones for servicing.

Farm fertility is all about seizing opportunities and managing herds, he says. Heats can easily be missed because a significant proportion happen at night. The costs associated with missing a heat play directly affect farm profitability.

Craig Burrows, who has been involved in the milking-systems industry for 30 years, was drawn to Dairymaster products through veterinarian friend Adrian Joe. Joe, who had long held concerns about the adverse effect of some machinery on animal health, had been marketing Dairymaster products for five years and suggested Burrows take over the franchise. “I too was frustrated with milking machines causing problems such as teat-end damage,� says Burrows. “I was attracted by Dairymaster’s philosophy of sticking to the facts and a desire to milk in as natural a way as possible.�

He sees giving farmers on-farm opportunities to

The Moomonitor device can detect subtle changes in behaviour that signal the onset of fertility. see technology such as Moomonitor in action, and farmer-to-farmer talk as “by far the most effective way� of showcasing these products. “Getting farmers together to discuss their experiences with products is a great way to ensure they buy equipment that has value to them. “I’m not interested in trying to get farmers to buy things they don’t need. That attitude doesn’t serve anyone at the end of the day.�

Craig Burrows is vice-president of the New Zealand Milking and Pumping Trade Association – an industry body tuned towards raising standards in design and performance of the milk harvesting, pumping and water application industries; fostering training for members; and encouraging ethical trading practices.

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DAIRY SERVICES: CHAPMAN DAIRY

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

35

Shed brings wish-list to reality Lindy Andrews South Waikato farmers Gordon and Pam Blake have plenty to feel good about – their family’s environmental award-winning, 186-hectare property has never looked so good, or performed so well.

In 2008, Gordon’s son, Grant, sold his United Kingdom furniture business and headed back to New Zealand with his wife, Lindsey, and an eye to a farming future.

At the time, J & P Blake Farms consisted of two properties – one running 330 cows, the other 220. Increased efficiency and environmental sustainability, father and son concurred, lay in amalgamation. At the top of their wish-list – and pivotal to best practice – was a new, 50-bail milking parlour.

After a fair bit of research, the Blakes decided on a parlour designed and constructed

by Morrinsville-based Chapman Dairy, a subsidiary of Don Chapman Builders.

“We talked to a number of people and everybody was very complimentary,” says Gordon Blake. “We liked the quality of Don Chapman’s designs and the good rapport he had with farm-owners and staff.”

A number of automated systems were incorporated into the Blake shed – platform and yard cleaning, electronic tagging, cell-count monitoring, in-dairy feeding and drafting.

Savings were evident from the beginning.

The Blakes’ power bill fell by almost half, while milking and clean-up times were slashed.

The power bill fell by almost half, while milking and clean-up times were slashed

Left: Gordon and Grant Blake say they can milk two herds in their new 50-bail, Chapman Dairy milking parlour in about the same it took to milk on in a herringbone.

Below: Chapman Dairy design and built this rotary parlour for Agresearch.

“We still run two herds as part of our system, so one gets the herd in while the other milks,” Gordon says. “There’s less pressure on the workers, and the time it takes to milk both herds is just about equal to milking just one herd in a herringbone.”

The Blakes have devoted much of their “spare” time to environmental practices.

Effluent from a 60 to 70-day holding pond is sprayed across 50 hectares of the property, resulting in reduced need for artificial fertilisers.

Hundreds of trees have been planted to reduce run-off, and black, puggy scars have been eradicated from the landscape.

It gives Gordon Blake great pleasure: “It’s really gratifying; a good feeling.”

Their latest water-management idea involves installing meters in the shed to ascertain where further improvements can be made.

Don Chapman’s dairy designs are now produced under licence in the South Island.

While in Ireland and the United Kingdom, where Bertie Troy’s company, Dairytec, produces Chapman Dairy milking parlours, the planned 2015 lifting of European Union production quotas is forcing a rapid modernisation of farming practices and, most importantly, dairy infrastructure.

In 2008 Dairytec, which also imports Milfos rotary milking technology, started looking to New Zealand with a view to offering total dairy packages to farmers needing to upgrade or

construct dairy sheds on new, green-field sites.

“We were looking for a company that was a clear leader in the construction of dairy sheds,” says Troy. “After some research we were pointed in the direction of Chapman Dairy. In Ireland there are no dedicated companies that specialise in the construction of dairy sheds alone” It was smarter for Dairytec to link in with Chapman Dairy than develop its own designs, he says “It would just take too long to develop designs similar to Chapman’s and, in reality, we would never get them to the same level as what Don has created.”

Dairytec’s ability to provide complete

packages for its clients using Kiwi expertise fits neatly into New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s philosophy of encouraging allied New Zealand manufacturers to work collaboratively, says New Zealand’s trade commissioner for the UK and Ireland, Sam Lewis.

“They’re creating jobs in New Zealand and creating sales opportunities for people selling component parts,” Lewis says.

Gordon Blake, who describes his experience of UK dairying as “like moving back to the Dark Ages”, agrees that New Zealand agribusiness has a lot more to offer the world.

“All you have to do is ask yourself why so many people in those countries want to get experience farming in New Zealand.”

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Dairytec staff – (from left) Martin Crowley, Don Fowler, Finbarr Crowley, Martin Coleman and Alan Deane – on site at Ireland’s first Chapman Dairy-designed rotary milking parlour.

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36

DAIRY SERVICES: CHAPMAN DAIRY

NZ Dairy / Summer 2012

Kiwis can cash in on EU if they work together – trade head Lindy Andrews Collaboration is vital to Kiwi agribusinesses wanting to capitalise on rapidly changing European Union markets, says New Zealand’s trade commissioner for the United Kingdom and Ireland.

With production ceilings due to be lifted in 2015, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise is encouraging smaller exporters to work collaboratively to provide total agribusiness packages, Sam Lewis said from London.

“By working as a group, they are able to present with scale. New Zealand has an established reputation in the UK, but it’s about getting more from the relationships they have. The UK and Ireland are where the growth is.”

New Zealand pasture-based systems are more readily accepted in Ireland and the south of England, he says.

NZTE also sees opportunity for Kiwi agribusiness technology and expertise in Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands as those countries join the rush to improve milk production.

Partnering with ancillary businesses would make it viable for smaller New Zealand companies to compete, says Lewis.

“When it’s not competitive to sell bits of the total package, it makes sense for them to work

together. That’s where companies like Chapman Dairy and Dairytec will be getting their hits.

“If a company is resident in New Zealand, it is creating jobs in New Zealand and creating sales opportunities for people selling component parts.”

“That means specifying pieces of kit. If you’re exporting dairy parlours, you would specify (New Zealand made) equipment and technical aspects.

We encourage businesses to pull product through, to specify as much New Zealand kit as they can.

The greatest part is intellectual property.”

But it was not just a case of “making hay while the sun shines”. Kiwi companies need to maintain a focus on distribution and after-sales service if they want to maintain a long-term presence in European markets.

“When you’re selling in a new system it makes sense…with a 12-13-hour time difference and long flight times. You need people to check the installation and provide back-up.”

Amalgamation of UK and Ireland farms – many still stocked and operating at 1983 levels – is a certainty as tough economic conditions, stiff retail competition and the need to lift production combine, says Lewis.

“It will make it harder for smaller UK farmers to survive. The UK market is a liquid (dairy) market and we will see a change to solids. The UK hasn’t met its quota levels for some time, and that’s a lot

Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote Quote QuoteQuote Quote

They’re bullish about New Zealand’s agribusiness prospects in the European Union...New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s programme leader for agribusiness, Haylon Smith (left) and trade commissioner for the United Kingdom and Ireland, Sam Lewis (right). to do with the scale of its operations. Ireland was recently penalised for surpassing its quota, so will have to learn to manage those levels.”

NZTE’s programme leader for agribusiness, Haylon Smith, agrees that New Zealand still has an increasingly profitable role to play in EU growth.

Kiwi farmers have little to worry about, he says.

“The global population is 7 billion and will rise to 9 billion by 2050. Agriculture needs to increase by 70% just to feed the world.

“Many drivers are pushing consumers towards protein diets and away from grains. With the rising middle classes in India and China, New Zealand will not be able to supply all that demand.

Demand for New Zealand agribusiness products and expertise remained in demand, despite the strong dollar, he says.

“We’re still the first port of call for a lot of people looking for new systems and technologies; we still have the competitive advantage.”

NZTE is unable to put a figure on the value of New Zealand intellectual-property exports as a percentage of GDP. “The only way to get concrete figures is through the aggregation of businesses,” Sam Lewis said. “We’re reliant on their willingness to share data.”

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