BACKING FARMERS
DAN, DAN THE OVIS MAN After a lifetime of fighting sheep measles Dan Lynch retires, p90
ENVIRONMENT:
Plant Pakeha trees
BUSINESS:
Online stock trading
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Country-Wide
November 2021
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November 2021
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Vol 43 No 10
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EDITOR’S NOTE Opinion
Farming’s biggest threat
W
ITH EACH ISSUE OF COUNTRYWide the threat of carbon forestry to pastoral farming worsens. Pine trees are replacing stock units and land values are soaring. Less farms mean fewer jobs and people in our rural communities Sheep and beef farming are enjoying record farmgate prices but still losing the battle to pine trees and the carbon credits they generate. That’s because it is an artificial market controlled by the Government. The carbon credit market is now up to $65/tonne. There is talk of $15,000/hectare for hill country in the Wairarapa. It comes at a time when pastoral farming is enjoying record market prices and earning the country valuable export dollars. Professor Keith Woodford says carbon forestry is the single biggest issue facing rural New Zealand. He says there is no certainty as to where prices will head long term but warns the ETS cannot achieve its climate change goals unless the carbon price climbs considerably higher. The only alternative is for the Government to ditch the ETS in its present form and shift to tax and command systems. Where’s the fairness? Farmers are not allowed to count native or exotic trees planted prior to 1989 and areas less than one hectare. If they were, many farms would be carbon neutral. One farmer recently worked out his farm was sequestering 2.5 times more than what it was emitting. Also farm methane is not a global warming threat if the GWP* metric was used in Government policy (p82). Methane breaks down after 12 years and is not adding to global warming. The Government wants farm emissions reduced by 10% by 2030 but
it only needs to be 0.3% which farmers are easily doing. So farmers are reducing emissions by more than 0.3% but not receiving any reward whereas investors in carbon forestry are creaming it. The ETS diverts companies’ money away from research and development of technology which can lower emissions. Instead the companies pay to keep sinning. NZ does not lack trees. Like the rest of the world, it lacks a workable plan to wean itself off fossil fuels. We are not addressing the problem by planting trees. The problem with the ETS is that it is simultaneously too drastic and not drastic enough. It threatens our export markets while not achieving the necessary changes in carbon emissions because companies/polluters can offset emissions. Weaning ourselves off fossil fuels requires tradeoffs that would upset industries reliant on personal vehicles and ugly transition periods. So it requires political bipartisan support (the kind we saw recently over scrapping resource consents for certain residential housing to curb the housing crisis) otherwise we have one party ridiculing the other about inadvertently funding a perverse outcome.
Terry Brosnahan Got any feedback? Contact the editor: terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz or call 03 471 5272 @CountryWideEd
Next issue: December 2021
• Growing great two-tooths: What does it take to get sheep producing the maximum amount of lamb weight at weaning?
• Taste Pure Nature: How the meat companies are faring with the campaign.
Country-Wide
November 2021
• Working dogs: An update on the dog food guide, insurance and a trust which looks after retirees.
• Kiwi semen: Overseas interest in semen from a ram high in resistance to internal parasites.
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Contents
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SHEEP OF THE FUTURE With farming and overseas markets changing, Country-Wide asked industry people, what should the sheep of the future be?
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QUALITY WITH EVERY CUT Expanding their online business to a butchery and deli was a whirlwind for a farming couple in Wairarapa.
29 MERGER LOOKS TO BOOST STRONG WOOL
8 BOUNDARIES HOME BLOCK
84 LOCKING UP LAND WON’T WORK
10 Mark Chamberlain detects some coop hypocrisy 11 Paul Burt discovers beauty treatment down the drain 12 Gaye and Murray Coates take in the realities of farming 13 Charlotte Rietveld plays nursemaid as surgeons take charge of The Boss
BUSINESS 16 Internet options boost saleyards 19 Covid leads to a winner 20 Top farmers are in the know 22 China: Taste Pure deemed a waste of time 25 Campaign is making inroads 26 Peter Flannery on succession: The art of communication 29 Merger looks to boost strong wool 32 Exports: The shipping news
14 Dani Darke is shaking off the winter blues
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November 2021
LIVESTOCK 34 Taking the pressure off 42 What should the sheep of the future be? 46 Wool: Drop in quality threatens comeback
Country-Wide is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740
48 The power of e-technology 50 Feed ’em like dairy cows
General enquiries: Toll free 0800 2AG SUB (0800 224 782) www.nzfarmlife.co.nz
56 Meat: Quality with every cut
ANIMAL HEALTH
Editor Terry Brosnahan 03 471 5272 | 027 249 0200 terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz
61 Lice: Ineffective treatment rising 62 Lousy sheep are a big deal 65 A drench check vs a FECRT 66 Worms: Firing up the immune system 69 Stock Check: Getting close is as good as it gets 70 Lambs: Worm control options
DEER FARMER
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Publisher Tony Leggett 06 280 3162 | 0274 746 093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz
TAKING THE PRESSURE OFF
The Martin family have farmed their Richwyn properties since the 1880s.
72 Book launch: In Hindsight 73 A remarkable animal to farm
Writers Anne Hardie 03 540 3635 Lynda Gray 027 465 3726 Robert Pattison 027 889 8444 Sandra Taylor 021 151 8685 James Hoban 027 251 1986 Russell Priest 06 328 9852 Jo Cuttance 03 976 5599 Joanna Grigg 027 275 4031
74 Finding the balance with crop rotation
ENVIRONMENT 78 Emissions: Running the numbers 82 Farmers should question methane tax
Partnership Managers Janine Aish | Auckland, Waikato, BOP 027 890 0015 janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz
84 Locking up land won’t work 86 Plant some pakeha trees
88 Becoming a practical Kiwi
COMMUNITY 90 Dan, Dan, the Ovis man 94 Hunting: Pigs’ digging exposes target 95 Technology: Beware the scammers
96 SOLUTIONS 98 FARMING IN FOCUS
Angus Kebbell South Island, Lower North Island, Livestock 022 052 3268 angus.kebbell@nzfarmlife.co.nz
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Tony Leggett | International 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz
DROP IN QUALITY THREATENS COMEBACK
Subscriptions nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop | 0800 224 782 subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz
A drop-off in quality threatens to derail crossbred wool’s comeback
Printed by Ovato Print NZ Ltd ISSN 1179-9854 (Print) ISSN 2253-2307 (Online)
OUR COVER After nearly 30 years dedicated to education and awareness around Ovis (sheep measles), Dan Lynch is hanging up his boots. Page 90. Photo: Brad Hanson.
Design and production Lead design: Emily Rees 06 280 3167 emily.rees@nzfarmlife.co.nz Jo Hannam 06 280 3168
CROP AND FORAGE
YOUNG COUNTRY
Sub editor Andy Maciver 06 280 3166 andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz
@CountryWideNZ
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INTERNET OPTIONS BOOST SALEYARDS Country-Wide
November 2021
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BOUNDARIES
What should the sheep of the future be? Sara Sutherland
The sheep we all look for, the sheep we’re all needing has two healthy lambs that you can sell at weaning. Who never gets bearings, or wounds superficial and loves to eat gorse, ragwort, grass grubs and thistle. Who never gets milk fever, sleepy, or cast and whose lambs (born alive) stand and nurse really fast. Most important: to gut worms they have a resistance trichs, osters, haemonchus, in happy coexistence. And the sheep of the future we can never proclaim Unless they go their whole lives without going lame. Whose valuable wool they drop without struggle, blowflies leave them alone and dags never trouble. And best of all it will make PETA livid When they find that lamb chops are the cure for Covid!
Making a statement HAWKE’S BAY FARMERS ROBBIE AND MONIQUE Schaw couldn’t believe their good fortunes when Country-Wide called to say they had won the Akitio chaise lounge from Big Save in our recent subscriber prize draw. The couple visited Big Save’s Napier store in late September to select their colour and it is now being manufactured for them in Big Save’s plant for delivery in the next few weeks. He was surprised that almost the entire couch, apart from its feet, is made from wool. “It’s not full of foam rubber. It’s filled with wool and was really comfortable to sit on.” They chose a dark grey colour and Monique has already mapped out where it will go in the lounge of their home at Arohiwi Station. Robbie manages the station at Puketitiri close to the Kaweka Ranges for the owner, Presbyterian Support Services East Coast. The 1000-hectare hill country station runs 5000 ewes and 300 Angus cows. Robbie has been managing there for just over a year, working closely with local farm consultant John Cannon who oversees the station for its owner. Since taking over, they have moved to single shearing the ewes in December to ease feed pressure after the usual pre-lamb shearing date in June. Robbie says his plan is to return to a mid-winter shearing in the future, once he is confident the feed is there for them. About 90% of lambs are finished on the station each year. Steer and cull heifer progeny from the Angus herd are also finished on the property. Most are gone at about 18 months, but a small percentage are taken through a second winter and killed in the spring.
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• Sara is a veterinarian, and poet. More on sheep of the future p42 Above: Robbie and Monique Schaw check out the chaise they won.
A priest decided to skip church one Sunday morning and go play golf. He told his assistant that he wasn’t feeling well. He drove to a golf course in another city, so nobody would know him. He teed off on the first hole. A huge gust of wind caught his ball, carried it an extra hundred yards and dropped it right in the hole, for a 450 yard hole in one. An angel looked at God and said “What’d you do that for?” God smiled and said “Who’s he going to tell?”
BACK-COUNTRY CALENDAR Hawea-based and Canterburyraised Anna Munro (nee Jaine), is a musterer, physio and more recently, a finalist in the National Geographic Photography Awards. She’s a regular on the Lake Heron spring and autumn musters. Since carrying a camera on her beat, she has shared the magnificent back-country sights (see MUSTER on social media). Now she’s created a MUSTER calendar with rural poetry/quotes – for people with a heart for the high country.
Calendars are $35 from annajaine@hotmail.com
Country-Wide
November 2021
SHEEP-OH!
RICH IN NAME AND HISTORY
A shout out to the volunteer team who run and maintain The Wool Shed, New Zealand’s Museum of Sheep and Shearing in Masterton. We stopped in on a day trip to the Wairarapa while staying in Wellington and were welcomed by a pair of volunteers keen to help and inform us. We stayed about half an hour – and would have lingered longer if time permitted – meandering around the sheep and shearing exhibits. There’s an old school shearing shed board with two belt-driven Wolseley shearing machines which are fired up occasionally for shearing demonstrations. The shearing shed, dating from the 1880s, is one of two from local farms that were joined together to make the museum which opened in 2005. There’s lots of other displays championing sheep, wool and farming, as well as a retail shop selling all things woolly. Visit thewoolshednz.com
AD BUTTLO
DID YOU
KNOW ?
Buttload is a real measurement referring to casks of wine or ale. The actual quantity of a butt has been lost to the sands of time, but at 400+ litres it would have made for a party. Similarly “assload” is a legitimate, but vague, measurement of how much a donkey can carry.
AGRO WHAT? We wrote in the last issue about what an agronomist is, but do you know what an agrostologist is? The term was used widely in the 1930s to the 1970s. It refers to those who studied grasses and their use and management. Also covered agriculture plants such as rice and wheat, turfgrass management, ecology and conservation.
Sheldon Martin holding a photo of the original Martin farm house built in 1888.
Richwyn has been owned by the Martin family since 1886 when Sheldon’s great grandfather Murdoch along with four brothers (all quite young) rode from Fordell near Wanganui to Rangiwahia each to take up an 80ha block of heavily bush-clad land. Their parents who remained at Fordell, had made the journey to New Zealand from the Isle of Barra, in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. Sheldon’s parents who had been farming a Martin family trust block between Kiwitea and Kimbolton moved to Rangiwahia in 1970 when Sheldon was aged one after selling their share in the trust and buying Sheldon’s great uncle John’s block where Sheldon and Nicola live today. Since farming at Rangiwahia, Sheldon and his father have acquired four of the five original blocks bought by Murdoch and his brothers. Sheldon and Nicola have recently bought a 26ha finishing block at Vinegar Hill near Hunterville with views of the Rangitikei River.
• Read more p34
Country-Wide congratulates the five winners of the September new subscriber draw for Kiwi Farmers’ Guide To Life book written by Tim Fulton. Tim S - Selwyn; Conrad B - Tararua; Sarah H - Rangitikei; Karen P - Central Otago; Luke B East Coast. We hope you enjoy the read.
Country-Wide
November 2021
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HOME BLOCK
Gore
Oh, the hypocrisy! Mark Chamberlain seeks a translation for one of his cooperative’s box-ticking exercises.
I “You see, it is as if Fonterra is not only singing off the same hymn sheet as the government but that James Offshore is playing the organ while comrade Cindy conducts.”
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HAVE TO SAY, ACADEMIC GREATNESS is not what I am remembered for at my old school. Former teachers remember me, I’m sure, for other deeds. But I learnt quickly to think for myself and to question things. Recently, I have had tonnes of thinking time. Sitting on a tractor going in ever diminishing circles and milking endless rows of cows. And it has only now occurred to me that our farmer cooperatives must be employing people that actually agree with Green Party views and Labour policies. It is a hard to prove theory but is surely a mathematical probability. Is it possible that these employees not only support these views but that they are enacting them? Making a change from within? Fonterra has introduced a new compliance tool called the ‘Cooperative Difference’ – no one in Auckland could see the oxymoron? Really? Without getting too deep in the weeds, Fonterra will take 10c per kg of milksolid off suppliers and depending on how many boxes we can tick correctly and, if you are a good boy/girl/other; they will return none, some, or all of it. Sound straightforward? What is interesting is that there are levels of achievement labelled in a language I do not understand. I have asked that perhaps Fonterra can put an English translation beside these names as well, so that we can actually learn what they are trying to communicate. My lovely wife sometimes believes my pronouns could be ‘argumentative’ and ‘belligerent’, but I am certainly not ignorant. Stop licking your doublescooped wokey-pokey ice-creams and concentrate on meaningful messaging, rather than tokenistic virtue signaling. They have also gone hard at high-input feed systems and their nitrogen surpluses per hectare. These farms, in their own small way, have helped Fonterra become what it is today – providing consistent milk all season as opposed to a bellshaped curve.
Producing hot air.
They have asked these farmers to reduce their nitrogen surplus more or less overnight, so they can qualify for the Cooperative Difference (and hence get some of their money back) yet Fonterra has promised the government that they will stop burning coal within the next generation… or thereabouts. We are repeatedly told that our customers are demanding this from us. The confusion really sets in when I read that New Zealand is importing two million tonnes of coal, some of which, ironically, must generate power for dairy sheds and even more confusingly, that our biggest customer is the world’s biggest polluter, with questionable human rights violations. Are we to believe that these ‘customers’ are so paranoid about what the farmers are doing at the coalface (excuse the pun) yet will happily turn a blind eye to other hypocrisies? I find that hard to believe. It may seem I’ve gone a bit hard at them, but I am very proud to supply Fonterra. Nobody should retreat from healthy and robust debate as it keeps us all honest, and engaged. You see, it is as if Fonterra is not only singing off the same hymn sheet as the government but that James Offshore is playing the organ while comrade Cindy conducts. I say this of course without a shred of evidence but as my wife tells me, timing is everything. Because it appears that all of this started happening when Fonterra finally got traction around the softening of the DIRA regulations, something that was nigh on impossible during nine years of a perceived farmer friendly National Government… but achieved within just three years of a slightly slippery socialist one. What did Labour ask for in return? I certainly would have asked for something if I were them. My neighbour thinks I am cynical, maybe so but as an old salty sea dog once told me, there are no coincidences in Wellington.
Country-Wide
November 2021
HOME BLOCK
Matata
Beauty treatment down the drain
COCONUT OIL
Following a Code Brown alert, Paul Burt spends a day on the tools before admitting defeat and calling a plumber.
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T’S WELL RECOGNISED THAT FARMING is a multi-discipline occupation and as unglamorous as it is, a farmer will be wellserved by a knowledge of plumbing. Besides, it’s a real thrill to have the chance to go up a few pay grades when you are forced into action. You can go for years without needing your big gloves, suction devices and long unblocking tubes but circumstances change, habits change. We have long enjoyed baths in our house, soaking and hot, they are the right and necessary end to a day of physical labour. Being naturally frugal, one tub of hot water must serve two but in the interests of hygiene and harmony I always go second. In a distant past I can remember employing another technique using even less hot water. That only happened once because I ruined the atmosphere with an innocent comment about how high the water rose when Louise got in. My most recent call to action followed quite a scary experience. We are so used to the efficiency of modern sanitary systems we just take for granted that, on flushing, our ablutions will do as expected and disappear with no fuss. However, an indifferent glance turns into a painful 180 degree head-spin when the processed remains of what you ate yesterday rises up to the rim of the bowl and threatens to escape. The capacity of the cistern must be less than the volume of the bowl because the worst didn’t happen but I was puzzled as the septic tank had only recently been emptied. Assuming no fault on his part it’s natural for a man to start quizzing the other members of the household as to what they might have done to cause this serious situation. Of course no-one wants to admit contributing to a code brown incident which forced me to wrack my brains for other clues. I then remembered the
Country-Wide
November 2021
“As a member of the fairer sex, Louise is very concerned that the coconut oil therapy has been banned. I made things worse by flippantly remarking that Cleopatra bathed in milk.”
oil slick apparent after my last few baths. More interrogation resulted in Louise admitting to reading that coconut oil was very good for aging skin. She said we should have started using it 20 years ago and it transpires she was compensating by using industrial quantity dose rates. Great for vanity but not so good for 70-yearold drain pipes especially in winter. The oil you don’t take with you on your rejuvenated glistening exterior goes down the plug hole and slowly solidifies in the drain. Next day, having solved the mystery and buoyed by the thought of the money I would save, I launched into the job. After a couple of hours of unpleasant futility (those plumbers earn their dosh) I had a better idea. I put in a zoom call to Jacinda, nauseatingly full of smiles, platitudes and adulation before I cut to the chase. I told her I wanted to sign up to the Three Waters Scheme immediately. Well, not the whole scheme exactly, just the waste management part. We had a long conversation nauseatingly full of smiles, adulation and platitudes (from both sides I will admit) and then she was gone. The upshot seems to be that the Labour Government is fully aware that s..t happens but other than talking the problems into submission lack the vision and skills for equitable long-term solutions. Dejectedly I did what Louise had suggested in the beginning and called a professional. The bill arrived and Louise got cranky when I harped on about the costly side effects of her baby’s bottom complexion. As a member of the fairer sex, Louise is very concerned that the coconut oil therapy has been banned. I made things worse by flippantly remarking that Cleopatra bathed in milk. On the noticeboard the next day was a reminder to ring the stock agent about a house cow.
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HOME BLOCK
Haupiri
The realities of farming For Gaye Coates and husband Murray the end of winter has allowed them to focus on the ‘doing’ part of farming.
A “...that innate flexibility to rethink, modify the plans and work with the context that is, rather than what should be. That is farming.”
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LONG WITH SOME FAIRLY tangible evidence that winter has all but been packed away, October is a month that delivers on the farm for us a satisfied sense of completion as the last cow calves and we see the end of another calving season. While calving is undoubtedly the most intense part of our dairy calendar, one of the things I look forward to most is the decluttering that occurs over those busy weeks, the noticeable hiatus from the external distractions of phone calls, visits and branded vehicles calling unannounced. There is an opportunity to indulge in almost single-mindedly focusing on the core elements of the “doing” part of farming and stepping back into established routines. Of course, nothing is guaranteed to be static in farming and this year’s calving has not been in the easy category. It’s been a struggle to match cow need with available feed. Late winter typically delivers us a brief but very beneficial dry and warm period buffering us with a small but significant flush of growth for when the inevitable equinox cold and sustained rain sets in. This year that safeguard just wasn’t in place. Inclement weather throughout August, with rain and low soil temperatures produced little growth. The weekly farm walk gave some depressing clarification to the eye measurement, showing some weeks as low as 13kg drymatter/ha per day, resulting in some of our lowest pasture covers ever at the beginning of October and well short of what was needed. Compounding this has been wet paddocks and trying to avoid damage saw the cows kept off the grazing platform, more often than was ideal for them. Slow growth resulted in supplementary feed contributing to almost half of the cows’ diet, significantly more than would feature in a typical calving season. Cow-condition is slightly less than we would be happy with but a recent visit from the vet boosted our confidence with her reassuring
objectivity that they are doing okay. While the supplementary feed is compensating for the lack of grass, it has been difficult to source. Our preference is to feed barley over other grains such as wheat, but our usual Canterbury supply options have not been able to match our requirements (and one scenario saw the forward planned order reneged). We have had to buy from further away and compromise by resorting to wheat to make up the shortfall. However, a positive for supplementing the cows’ diets was our decision to retain rather than sell surplus balage made onfarm last season. Predictably, the flow-on effect of weather and slow growth has impacted on milk production, with a season-to-date deficit of 7% compared to last season. Our “taniwha project” of constructing two composting cow barns is frustratingly behind schedule. The plan to have these built for the start of calving would have played out a very different scenario for this calving if the deadlines promised had been met. But they weren’t, and I overheard on more than one occasion disgruntled mutterings emerging from under dripping raincoat hoods about where they and the cows would rather be. From my vantage point, cocooned comfortably within the shelter of the calf shed, all looked reasonably well. The cow shed office desk strewn with repurposed milk tanker dockets doodled with the workings and re-workings of feed budgets suggested otherwise. While all of this sounds like the makings of a woeful story, in reality it was one to celebrate. Between everyone, our team here have worn out more than enough pairs of gumboots to have acquired that innate flexibility to rethink, modify the plans and work with the context that is, rather than what should be. That is farming. All is well, albeit different to what we would like and optimistically, sun is forecast next week.
Country-Wide
November 2021
HOME BLOCK
Rakaia Gorge
Surgeons take charge of The Boss When The Boss ran out of puff, The Chief Inspector booked him into hospital. Charlotte Rietveld plays nursemaid.
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PRING HAS ARRIVED AND WITH IT, considerable change. It started as a minor, albeit uncharacteristic, complaint from The Boss about being puffed when walking up hills. As a greyhound-limbed six-foot bloke, he strides with ease. At least he does when compared to my rather more dachshund-esque 5’3” maternally inherited physique. And so, when the puffed complaint arose, I realised my opportunity to seize some ground - in this case, hectares of it. “You’re just getting old,” I generously advised him in my kindest condescension. At 71, he’s fit, lithe and hardly what we’d call old, but we shorties gleefully compensate height with bite. Unlike myself, The Chief Inspector refrained from the pack and promptly called the medical centre to book him in. What followed was a gradual escalation through the medical hierarchy. Angina morphed into angiogram as a second appointment became a third, then just like that, he was frog-marched to hospital. With main arterial blockages, my father was apparently one lamb-break away from disaster. Doctor’s orders were to remain within the single hospital ward on strict observation until surgery could be scheduled. This was all a far cry from his usual 10-hour hill country days, though after 50 years married to The Chief Inspector, strict observation was rather more familiar. Like so many blokes of the back blocks, The Boss does not often come to town. Thus, the great crosssection of city life that is hospital was rather an eyeopener. Croc Dundee meets Christchurch. Not that he was complaining – he’d long ago done the family tree calculations, concluding that the average age of his male predecessors was 72. Six months off the magic number for the family’s dominant genetic heart condition, he was practically delighted to be under hospital house-arrest. With the novelty of three meals a day delivered with a smile and the daily code cracker aced at pace, The Boss had little excuse not to master the final frontier - operating a smartphone. He’d slipped the collar on many an occasion, falsely protesting that his dumbphone was more than adequate. But his day of reckoning had arrived.
Country-Wide
November 2021
“...the last words I heard were my heavily sedated father informing the surgical nurse ‘Sssshhhe shhhould be out ffffffarming’.”
Grandchildren pay their respect to The Boss, in convalescence.
Apps were downloaded, socials installed and swiping tutorials supplied. Years of family group Whatsapp messages were surveyed, emails sent and the watchlist scrolled. After seven days, just as he’d discovered the dubious world of emojis, he was released from the hospital holding pen. Despite open-heart bypass surgery considered little more than a stroll in Hagley, The Chief Inspector and I knew how to ensure the five-hour surgical wait was as distracting as possible. Having waved him off on a hospital gurney, the last words I heard were my heavily sedated father informing the surgical nurse “Sssshhhe shhhould be out ffffffarming”. But after a week of stepping up in my big-girl pants and the threat of an anxious afternoon, we decided some leisure was permitted. Having quaffed the lattes and lamingtons, the mop-chops had barely been blow-dried before the phone rang advising surgery was successfully completed. Cheated of half our supposedly anxious actually glorious afternoon, we reluctantly left the shops untouched and credit cards complete to dutifully return to the patient. Sporting some impressive wounds, all had gone to plan and I am pleased to report The Boss is now home and recovering well. Perhaps a little too well. Despite a sawn sternum and a lengthy vein-donor leg scar, walking is his current occupation. While initially outpaced by the toe-dragging geriatric heading dog, my father’s daily walks now appear to be markedly increasing in both pace and length. Having thought I might be footloose to make all manner of farming errors for another month or so, it seems I’ll have to up my game smartly. New tricks might be limited to smartphone clicks but there’s life in the old dog yet.
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HOME BLOCK
Aria
Shaking off the winter blues Columnist Dani Darke returns to her keyboard with observations of spring on the family’s Aria sheep and beef farm.
S “Having grass makes farming much more fun – moving about the farm thinking about how to keep quality is a more enjoyable place to be than trying to work out how everything is going to be fed.”
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PRING – THE BEST AND WORST TIME of the year. So much hope, daffodils, spring lambs, hogget chops for tea, and sunny days. Dashed with a sprinkling of heavy rain, thunderstorms, down cows and muddy gateways. Once the sun comes out from behind the rain cloud I can’t help but smile with joy at the possibility of another spring, and summer just around the corner. Shaking off the winter blues, and the winter rotation with all those pesky pigtail standards is an annual highlight. Docking has come and gone. This year the kids stepped up and the main picker-uppers were my eldest daughter and her two cousins. We also had a dedicated musterer for the first time. A lovely older guy who has awesome trial standard dogs, but only a handful of sheep at home to practice on. He has a wee trial yard set up, but the six sheep see a dog, make a beeline for the yard, and wait patiently for the gate to be closed. Presently we are three-quarters of the way through calving, which (touch wood) is going really well this year. We were probably a bit harder on the cows this winter, but they have coped well, and are popping their calves out without drama. We calve right next to the house and it’s an enjoyable pastime watching calves race around the front paddock at dusk. This year we spent a small fortune on nitrogen, but we are seeing the benefits with our lambs looking roly-poly and happy. Nitrogen in our farm system is a must in the spring. It brings on a spiral of goodness – fat lambs, fat ewes, easy tupping, good scanning and so the spiral continues (unless a drought turns up of course). Conversely, no N, and slow-to-arrive spring feed creates a spiral of doom – we struggle to get lambs away, then it’s the battle to get light ewes up to weight, plus all the extra mouths still on, then limited options to flush for mating. Besides that, having grass makes farming much more fun – moving about the farm thinking about how to keep quality is a more enjoyable place to be
Maddy’s tenth birthday present - a GoodNature possum trap - has delivered a steady supply of dead possums.
than trying to work out how everything is going to be fed. Of course, we need to make sure we have money in the bank too, and we made sure to do the maths before our N went on. With the spike in fertiliser prices, when we put in our crystal ball lamb price for December, 30kg of N/ha still stacked up well. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend watching Fight For The Wild. It’s a New Zealand documentary you’ll find on YouTube about the fight for our native birds and PredatorFree 2050. It starts out a bit depressing but then gets quite exciting. I sat down with the family to watch it, and we (including the kids) ended up bingewatching all four episodes. By the end, Maddy asked for a possum trap for her birthday. I happily obliged and for her tenth birthday last month we bought a GoodNature possum trap. It has been delivering us dead possums on a consistent basis and checking the possum killer is a highlight of the day. I hear tales of people earning more from possum fur than wool, and this has lit the capitalist kid’s eyes up. Plucking the fur from a dead, cold possum is not much fun though, so we need to find a better way. I love how on a farm there are a hundred ways a kid can make an enterprising crack at something. I might google auto fur pluckers – that could make a good Christmas present. • Dani and husband Anthony and their three girls Eva, Maddy and Allegra run a 412-hectare 4500-stock unit intensive bull beef and breeding/finishing sheep farm at Aria, King Country.
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15
BUSINESS
O N L I N E
S E L L I N G
Internet options boost saleyards Online options for buying and selling stock are experiencing greater uptake as it provides an extra tool, complementing more traditional methods of trading livestock. Rebecca Greaves reports.
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t Temuka Saleyards, live streaming has been a new addition to complement selling through the ring for cattle. Operations manager Noel Hewitson said cattle sales were live streamed for six weeks on view only, with the first sale accepting online bids taking place on Monday, October 11, 2021. The cattle sale featured 139 lots, and 17 pens were sold online, with a couple of bidders participating. “We were always going to do it, probably Covid last year brought it on quicker than what we anticipated.” He said it was part of the overall upgrade of the yards to be more electronically used, and live streaming was part of that plan. They picked an American company to provide the live streaming technology. This itself proved challenging, as no one was able to travel to New Zealand to help implement the system. It meant online video calls, and trial and error. Hewitson says Temuka also has vendors from the Chatham Islands so are now able to watch from home along with others unable to attend the sale in person. Temuka has felt the pressure of Covid closures, with two months out of action last year and one month this year. Being a farmer-owned co-operative, Temuka saleyards are equipped for auction
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through Tessco South Canterbury Limited members; PGG Wrightson, Hazlett, Rural Livestock, NZ Farmers Livestock and Carrfields. Yarding fees go to the saleyards while load out fees go to Tessco, which helps run the sale. The saleyards are a joint venture between the saleyards and Tessco (who Hewitson works for) running the software system side. No sale equals no income for the saleyards, and Covid-enforced closures have impacted the bottom line. Hewitson said last year Tessco ran at a loss, and the saleyards probably didn’t have their best year either. “We can’t blame anybody, it’s just the way it is. “ He said since they came back after the latest lockdown sales were good. Some cattle would have been sold privately but generally they had great support from farmers. Numbers have been good since going to Level 3 and 2. In the North Island, Covid has also made its presence felt at Feilding saleyards. PGG Wrightson lower North Island regional manager, Steve Wilkinson said Covid closures in Level 4 obviously killed the saleyards, with no sales held and literally zero business. “It does have a massive effect on your business when a major source of sales is taken away, it really puts the pressure on.
“We have a number of support staff we have a responsibility to, too, so there’s an expense there as well to keep them going.”
Kept going under lockdown During the most recent lockdown they were able to operate under Level 3 with strict protocols. If they end up in Level 3 again and rules remain the same there is confidence to run. Even under Level 3, it does restrict the saleyards in terms of crowd numbers being limited and social distancing. Extra people have to be employed for contact tracing too. For online options, PGG Wrightson has AgOnline as a noticeboard and messaging platform for stock to sell or wanted to buy. Wilkson said they have been used extensively to sell or source livestock. “It’s amazing when you advertise there, the calls you get.” Then there is the online sales and live auction platform, Bidr, which is a subsidiary of PGG Wrightson but not limited to exclusive Wrightson use. “We really gained momentum on that through the last lockdown. There is livestreaming of weekly sales around the North Island and live onfarm genetic sales.” Wilkinson says there has been a major rise in people’s comfort levels in using the technology. “It’s taken people a while to experience it,
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November 2021
use it and get comfortable and confident. It gives people the option to bid from the couch at home. If for whatever reason they can’t make the sale or don’t want to be in a public space, it gives flexibility. He sees it as another string to the bow and an avenue to open up stock to a wider audience, but the company is not looking to replace its core business. For onfarm stud sales, running online streaming alongside the physical sale is a good combination to boost profile and provide another option for bidders. Hazlett’s Peter Walsh, says they are using the Livebid platform where needed. “We haven’t needed to, mainly because the saleyards have been open again and we have developed the saleyards to have online bidding,” he says Farmers can have an onfarm sale and the option for live bidding. Having both covered it’s a very strong selling tool. “It’s certainly the way of the future.” Walsh says online selling won’t take the saleyards out, but it provides another option for people who don’t want to shift stock by transport twice. Walsh says the system at Temuka is very good, similar to Bidr. He says the two main considerations are cost savings and animal welfare. For example, sending weaned lambs to the saleyards, and uptake will be driven by young people, who are more tech aware. The new generation have been educated about animal welfare and were quite fussy about it. Walsh himself prefers to see stock in the flesh, and says there’s nothing like a saleyards auction with three or four firms selling. He sees great benefit in the social side too.
Continues
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November 2021
‘It was part of the overall upgrade of the yards to be more electronically used, and live streaming was part of that plan.’
››
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“For my generation, I like to see what I’m buying. But young people are happy to look online, and are more accepting of what’s involved.”
Online quoting gains momentum Online quoting platform Cloud Yards noticed an upswing in activity during the latest lockdown, with a rise in subscribers. Ed Wallace, of Ed Wallace Livestock, is a Cloud Yards founder and shareholder, along with five other North Island stock agents. Launched in November 2019, the aim is to give farmers, and agents, an extra tool in their kit when it comes to quoting livestock. Wallace says, while there’s still a place for the saleyards, more and more people are looking for alternatives. He said when there are lockdowns, or people can’t travel, they can do this from the sofa or even while riding their horse while mustering. “We actually had that happen, it literally is at your fingertips.” The way Cloud Yards works is a farmer registers and chooses an agent, they are then able to view every line of stock advertised for sale. If farmers are interested they enquire on that line, from there the agent comes in and looks after the transaction. Likewise, if the farmer wants to advertise stock for sale, the agent takes care of it. The agent will assess the stock, take photos and video and it is uploaded for viewing. Cloud Yards is purely a quoting platform, not an online auction. As well as the
shareholding agents there are a further 13 agents across the North Island, with a geographical spread from Wellington up to Cape Reinga. The platform has 1300 subscribers and averages eight or nine listings a day, up to 20 in the busy season. Wallace believed the reason Cloud Yards was working so well was the agents involved and the ease of use for farmers. The agents are tech savvy and proactive at putting stock up. Cloud Yards itself is a very basic, fast, easy-to-use platform. Farmer Ben Cunningham, who has a number of blocks spread between South Auckland and North Waikato, has used
Cloud Yards to buy trade lambs, as well as bulls and steers. He said it’s great. “I get an email every day with stock coming on, which is a good prompt. He said the other aspect that’s good is the fact he was not doing the buying, the agent still negotiated the deal. “It’s good having photos and videos of the stock and you know the stock has already passed spec to be on there.” Cunningham said the platform is easy to use and with the agent involved, there’s no pressure to remember to bid. “...I’m checking my emails all the time, so getting the new stock listings you are prompted well and it’s informative.”
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November 2021
BUSINESS
Online selling
Covid leads to a winner
John Scott and his family started with Texel sheep and Shorthorn cattle but over the years they have added Beltex, New Zealand Suffolk, Aberfield Sheep, and Luing cattle.
BY: STAFF WRITERS
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cottish farmer and Country-Wide home block columnist John Scott is successfully using a New Zealand online selling system. With no chance of holding a traditional ram sale auction on their farm at Fearn near Inverness due to lockdown in 2020, the Scotts started to look for ways of holding the sale online. John says there were various United Kingdom options available. “Nothing really ticked the right boxes until we found Yourbid developed, due to Covid, by Giddings family from Fairlie NZ.” The Scotts’ customer base now covers the whole of the UK and Ireland. It used to be a three-hour drive radius of the farm. “Our averages are better than ever!” He had met George Giddings and his father David by chance in 2019. John spent an hour chatting to George and a friendship was formed. John says Yourbid is a very simple system using the Helmsman style auction which allows buyers to bid on their preferred lot before falling back to their second and third choice if need be. “It’s transparent and extremely fair on both the buyer and seller and is userfriendly for the remote bidder.” John and his family have been breeding stud stock at Fearn for 25 years. It started with Texel sheep and beef Shorthorn cattle but over the years they have added Beltex, New Zealand Suffolk and Aberfield sheep, and Luing cattle. “Online selling of livestock isn’t something I ever thought we would do at Fearn but thanks to Covid it has become a key element in our sales strategy.” He says selling online is all about preparation and by the final day of the sale the hard work has been done.
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November 2021
"It’s important that you let buyers see what you’re up to all year round so they build confidence in the way that you produce stock." “We can focus on the day and any buyers who turn up in person.” John says they are always thinking about their next sale, how to make it better and broaden their reach. The serious preparation starts with a timeline which includes, filming stock, catalogue preparation, a media plan which includes a lot of social media, catering, sponsor communications and more. He emphasises social media as it takes up a lot of time throughout the year. “It’s important that you let buyers see what you’re up to all year round so they build confidence in the way that you produce stock.” The family splits their social media which gives multiple benefits. It engages the next generation in the business and ensures they appeal to as wide and varied an audience as possible. The Scotts have now held two successful online breeding sheep sales and a cattle sale at Fearn. John says it will be fascinating to see how their online sales develop. There were
fewer people in person than expected for their recent breeding sheep sale. Some had already seen the sheep on a prearranged viewing day and bid from home. He says ideally they would like people to attend the day in person as socialising is important for their and customers’ wellbeing. Selling online via Yourbid allows the Scotts to capture data, by sale day they know who has registered for the sale. “Online selling opened up the whole of the UK and Ireland to buyers who are looking for stock produced sensibly as we do.” John says auctioneers handled the money for the first Yourbid sale but the Scotts now handle it in house and save commission. If they do decide to bring buyers to the sale, the auctioneers will receive a commission. He says auctioneers are unlikely to endorse online selling at this stage. “They have certainly pushed back a little rather than embracing change and it's maybe a step too far out of their comfort zone?”
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BUSINESS
Benchmarking
Top farmers are in the know Rachel Joblin takes a look at the data to see what makes the difference for top performers in the industry.
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s a farmer do you wonder if your business is performing well and wonder what can be improved? How can you set some goals for the potential that could be achieved? Top performers generally know where their business performance lies compared to others and what they do better than most. They also know what their weaknesses are and identify opportunities to improve. Using data from their own business they can compare it to similar businesses, ones that have similar types of systems to theirs and using a gap analysis approach, can see where the performance of the business can be enhanced. Based on the 2020 BakerAg FAB benchmarking there are some clear characteristics of high-performing sheep and beef businesses. They have a high stocking rate and the ewes lambed 11% higher than the average, providing them more lambs per hectare. Sheep revenue per sheep stock unit was $20 higher. They achieved a net income $339/hectare more than average and maintaining a tight cost structure means they only spend $94 more a hectare to achieve that income. Interestingly they are more indebted too. Winter stocking rate was 14% higher than the average group. Well-subdivided paddocks, good soil fertility and a high level of stockmanship is required as the
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Table A: Performance compared
2019/2020
BakerAg FAB Hill Country Summer Dry (N.I and S.I)
B+LNZ Class 4 N.I Hill Country East Coast
Top 25%
Mean
Effective area – ha
924
1239
574
Lambing %
145
134
130
$1399
$1060
$1048
EBITR $/ha
$645
$400
$459
Interest and rent $/ha
$206
$139
$156
Return on capital %
4.9%
3.3%
2.4%
Gross farm revenue $/ha
Opportunity $/ha Opportunity $
system is highly tuned. Through this they can maximise the consumption of high-quality spring feed, and ultimately retain quality throughout the season. Top performers use marginally more nitrogen at strategic times of the year, spending $2.73 vs $2.55/stock unit. There is no significant difference between average and top 25% in their ratio of sheep:cattle. Beef performance is important, although the compatibility of the enterprise to the sheep system is where the value lies. Top performers can squeeze another $13/ cattle su. Sheep breeding efficiency is the driver of
Mean
$245
$186
$303,555
$106,764
these high-performing systems, resulting in an average lambing of 143%. Our knowledge of the businesses shows us they have robust animal health plans, they condition-score ewes and preferentially feed those under BCS3 to ensure the maximum number and kilograms of lambs get to the drafting gate at weaning. Many are mating hoggets very successfully too, and see this as a lever in their system to fully utilise the feed grown, or to back off the demand in a poor autumn and winter. We know that the FAB Top 25% of farmers spend less on cropping than an
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November 2021
Sheep breeding efficiency is the driver of these high-performing systems, resulting in an average lambing of 143%. average farmer, but in the 2020 East Coast drought spent more on feed and grazing. They leverage from the cropping spend they do make to ensure it is utilised by the highest returning stock class. Generally, in these systems it is ewes under body condition score 3, and feeding ewe hoggets to ensure two-tooths are well grown and ready for a highly productive lifetime. During the prolonged dry, supplementary feed and off-farm grazing was utilised to lock in capital stock liveweights, or at least to mitigate weight loss. The key theme here is that investing in crops and re-grassing is a big expense, top performers manage to feed this to the right stock class, at the right time to have the most positive impact on their business. In the last few years this has typically been to
put extra condition on lighter ewes, or ewe hoggets to meet their liveweight targets. Top performers in FAB benchmarking were able to generate a return on total farm capital of 4.93% vs 3.3% (FAB) or 2.9% (B+LNZ). The top businesses return three times what the average are able to. This number really begins to matter when business growth, investment into capital projects or other assets and business transition are business drivers, which is applicable to most business owners. The ability to fund additional activities or be a good proposition for external finance hinges on this number. Working out the potential size of the prize for your business is a good place to start. It’s eye opening and motivating. When comparing the FAB Top 25% against the FAB Mean and B+LNZ Mean there’s a
hefty reward for lifting performance, at over $186/ha in additional EBITR whichever way you analyse the data. At the time of writing the B+LNZ quintile information for the 2019/20 year was not available but would paint a similar picture. Using a service like FAB allows timely comparison and highlights the opportunities for your business. Having this information won’t change your business performance, it’s the actions thereafter that change the results. With the added motivation of knowing what you’re aiming at it becomes easier to take the steps and commit to the changes required. What would you do with your prize?
• Rachel Joblin is an agribusiness consultant for BakerAg, Masteron.
Many top performers are mating hoggets very successfully too, and see this as a lever in their system to fully utilise the feed grown.
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November 2021
21
BUSINESS
China
Taste Pure deemed a waste of time BY: HUNTER MCGREGOR
F
rom my point of view, being located in Shanghai, Beef + Lamb NZ’s Taste Pure marketing in China seems to be a waste of time. But hold on, pricing for NZ beef and lamb are doing well and it looks likely they will remain positive for this year at least. This is great news, but linking the strong demand for NZ red meat in China to any Taste Pure Nature marketing is a bit of a stretch. The pricing is more likely influenced by African swine fever, geo-politic tensions between Australia – China and a long-term Chinese consumer trend of eating more beef. These three points have the ability to move markets, Taste Pure Nature marketing not so much. Shanghai is a market leader in food and beverage business and sets a lot of the trends for the rest of China. A lot of chef and restaurant owners travel to Shanghai to learn and understand these new trends.,
“With meat, like all food you need to get people to eat it, and if they like this experience, then they might buy it again.” You often hear about the hundreds of thousands or millions of views the Taste Pure marketing in China is generating, which all sounds great. What you didn’t hear is the cost of those views (as they are not free). You also don’t hear if those views actually generated any sales or more importantly, moved sales in a sustainable direction. In China, the online influencer market, known as a Key Opinion Leader (KOL), is very mature. It is one good way you can generate plenty of interest in your products. The bigger your budget, the bigger the KOL (ie their following) and the more views your posts or videos will have. However, views are not the same as sales. With meat, like all food, you need to get people to eat it, and if they like this experience, then they might buy it again. This is why it is important that online marketing/sales and offline
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November 2021
Taste Pure Nature retail campaign in Beijing, China.
(especially restaurant) experiences work together. Australian beef has done this very well. Where you can experience a brand of beef at a top restaurant and easily buy that same brand online, to cook at home.
Grass-fed meat not popular in China The elephant in the room with regards to the NZ red meat “story” in China, is “grassfed”. Unlike in the North American or European markets where there is a growing consumer interested in grass-fed meat, this is not the case in China. Over the past six years, grass-fed is not in my top five selling attributes when talking about NZ venison in China. In fact, it is lucky to make the top 10. It would be great if it was more important, but it is not. Some dairy companies are starting to promote grass-fed dairy products and this is a positive step. I have talked in the past about the major challenges NZ beef has in China. From what I have seen, at retail and wholesale level, grass-fed beef is sold at a discount to grainfed. There is a meat distributor in China
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November 2021
who sells Australian, US, Russian and NZ beef. The cheapest by far on their product list is NZ grass-fed beef. Even the grain-fed Angus beef from Russia is at a premium over NZ grass fed. This is the reality of the market demand from consumers. I have also seen more NZ grain fed beef in restaurants around Shanghai than grass-fed, and I still only know one place that has NZ grass-fed beef cuts on their menu full time. Also, I am yet to see any NZ beef in a steak house in Shanghai. It would be great to understand how NZ beef is being positioned as a premium product in the Chinese market. NZ lamb is in a better position as it is being sold in many top restaurants around China. However, I continue to hear from chefs that Chinese lamb quality is improving, but the consistency is not there yet. The market upside with NZ lamb seems to be an easier road than NZ beef but there are plenty of missed opportunities. I wrote about some of these “lost opportunities for New Zealand sheep meat in China” in last year’s Country-Wide Sheep special. One year on, nothing much has changed. I have seen one new NZ lamb brand at
retail level in Shanghai, but the quality was not good when I tried it. It was a major disappointment, as we all know that it takes a lot of time and effort to get the product to the end consumer. China is a competitive market place and it is important that if you want to position your product at a premium end of the market, then it needs to arrive at the end consumer in the best condition. The Taste Pure Nature marketing seems to be about more of the same or an extension on what has happened in the past. It is very much along the lines of “doing the same thing and expecting different results”. While commodity prices are good, it would be a good time to begin to position NZ red meat away from being just another commodity. The Taste Pure Nature concept is a positive step in this direction, but in its current form for the Chinese market it is going to achieve very little. This is because Chinese consumers no longer see foreign products (including food) as superior to Chinese ones. Covid-19 has pushed this trend forward faster and if your major selling point is just NZ, then you will start to go backwards. It is very easy to criticise without offering solutions, and I have also written in the past about these. But there are some more ideas: • Start small before you scale up. • Listen to what the consumer is saying and wants. • Focus on quality for the end consumer • Flip the funding model on its head to only focus on targeting the right consumers in the right cities. • Be transparent about what is working and what is not. • Be prepared to fail fast and adjust quickly. It is going to take a lot of hard work to get NZ red meat in front of the right Chinese consumers who are prepared to pay what is required for a long-term sustainable industry. I see this as both a big challenge and opportunity because NZ produces some really high quality beef and lamb. Only time will tell if Chinese consumers think this as well. More: Lost opportunities for NZ sheepmeat, Country-Wide Sheep, October 2020. • Hunter McGregor is a Chinese-speaking Kiwi living in Shanghai.
Beef + Lamb NZ’s view p25
23
Sell your stock with
Interactive online and on-site Helmsman-style auctions Developed by farmers, for farmers Can be used for: - Stud and commercial sheep and cattle - Deer, pigs, dogs etc - Machinery, plant, vehicles - Commodities - Art, antiques, collectables - Charity auctions and fundraisers Call 0272299760 Email george@yourbid.org 24
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BUSINESS
China
“We have done a lot of competitor analysis to understand where the consumer and our competitors are going.” They were making sure NZ had a “unique” point of difference with grass-fed meat, he said. McGregor said 14 years ago NZ sheep meat was seen as a premium product. Compared to other NZ industries like dairy, the NZ meat industry had invested little in brand building. The ongoing gains behind NZ farm gates has not translated into stronger Chinese market opportunities. The image of NZ sheep meat in China had gone backwards. Beeby said China was an incredibly competitive marketplace with NZ competing against many other countries and the domestic supply. Imported food was still viewed favourably. “NZ as a country still has an incredibly good reputation in the marketplace.”
Beef cuts on sale at a Beijing supermarket.
Monitoring consumers
Campaign is making inroads BY: TERRY BROSNAHAN
T
he impact of swine fever and other factors have had a massive impact on China, Beef + Lamb New Zealand market development general manager Nick Beeby says. The aim of Taste Pure Nature was to raise awareness and create a preference for grassfed meat in China, he says. The programme had gone well in California where it had been running for two and a-half-years. There was a lot more NZ product visible and available at retail for the consumer. The awareness campaign had worked well. The approach in China was very different to the United States. In China the availability of NZ red meat at retail is still growing. So Beef + Lamb has worked much closer with the NZ companies and their partners to run a programme where grass-fed meat is already available to consumers. Beeby says the online programme is getting millions of views. In the recent mid-autumn campaigns Alliance and Silver Fern Farms ran programmes with some of the premium retailers in China. Companies already have product in the market place so they worked with them to design integrated campaigns. They were large
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November 2021
social campaigns with influencers as well as out-of-home advertising. Beeby couldn’t give a cost of the campaigns because the information wasn’t at hand but would find out. He was interviewed close to this issue’s deadline. “We are excited with what we invest and the results we see through the increase in meat companies partners' sales.”
Growing interest
Every quarter they monitored Chinese consumers and NZ’s reputation had increased due to covid and other factors, he said. “We know that our standing is increasing in that marketplace.” In response to McGregor’s claim of a lack of investment in branding and low-quality meat, Beeby agreed NZ had not spent anywhere near what its competitors had in marketing. It was now an opportunity for Taste Pure Nature to focus on areas where it would make the most impact on consumers. Taste Pure Nature has been focused on Beijing and Shanghai. A programme with a high-end Swiss Butchery had NZ concept stores within it promoting the benefits of grass-fed, he said. It has been followed-up with training workshops for staff cooking grass-fed meat as well as demonstrations for VIPs and social influencers. The staff were given talking points about the meat for when they had customers sampling the meat. Taste Pure Nature had customers going from the online experience to the store where they got to sample the meat before buying it.
‘We have done a lot of competitor analysis to understand where the consumer and our competitors are going.’
Meat marketer Hunter McGregor (p22) wrote from his experience grass-fed beef is sold at a discount in retail and wholesale markets. He said in the North American or European markets there was a growing consumer interested in grass-fed meat, but this is not the case in China. Over the past six years, grass-fed was not in his top five selling attributes when talking about NZ venison in China. It was seen as inferior to grain-fed. He wanted to know how NZ beef was being positioned as a premium product in the Chinese market. Beeby said grain-fed beef was at the premium end of the market which was due to influence by other countries.
• More on Taste Pure Nature next issue.
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BUSINESS
Succession
The art of communication In part two of a series, communication and starting early with discussion is important for successful family farm succession, Peter Flannery writes.
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here are four pillars to any successful succession plan. They are: • Build a strong business first (Country-Wide October issue) • Communication • Fair comes before equal • Understanding the difference between ownership and control. Communication must be at the heart of any plan. The purpose of the communication is to “flesh out” the underlying needs of the entire family. Unless there is a strong understanding of everyone’s thoughts, needs and vision for themselves, the family and the family business, a poorly communicated plan, or even the lack of a plan, will potentially lead to conflict within the family. Lack of communication creates a vacuum of knowledge and understanding. It is a scientific fact that a vacuum will not stay empty for long. If a vacuum cannot be filled with facts, it will be filled with assumptions masquerading as fact. Perception is reality.
If the decision makers do not consult with the family, conflict can occur in one of three ways: • The decision makers assume they know what the family’s thoughts or needs are and put in place a plan that does not meet them. • If there is no communication with the family and/or a plan is not disclosed, the family will make their own assumptions of what is happening and will react accordingly. Their assumptions may be quite wrong and therefore their resulting behaviours can become inappropriate. • Thirdly, if a plan is disclosed, but with no explanation of the reasons behind it, family may misinterpret the intent. The sooner the communication starts the better. Children are never too young to be schooled in the “way of the family”. So, while you cannot set goals for your children, you can mould their values. A strong family influence will help mould values that reflect the family’s values. The better this is done, the lower the probability
of having a few black sheep running around the back paddock. The younger the children, the less formal the communication should be. As they mature the communication should become more formal and structured. For many families there has been little or no communication regarding business succession. For example, if I am the likely successor, who has spent the last five years helping build the business, and I have no knowledge of what mum, dad and my siblings are thinking, and vice versa, we will all fill our heads with our own thoughts of what others may be thinking. The danger is this will lead to misunderstanding, suspicion, jealousy and ultimately conflict. If this goes on unchecked the situation will become untenable. There is no doubt communication can be difficult. Most businesses will have some financial constraints particularly if the business is small and the family large. Difficult conversations handled well and at the appropriate time can build respect and understanding. Difficult conversations that don’t happen only add fuel to an eventual fire.
Don’t let the horse of reason bolt Most advisers have dealt with families in this situation. Conflict has arisen, most probably through poor communication. By
“The younger the children, the less formal the communication should be. As they mature the communication should become more formal and structured...”
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November 2021
the time the adviser arrives on the scene all that remains is for the adviser to shut the stable door because the “horse of reason” has long since bolted and can be seen disappearing over the horizon. Shut the door, he won’t be back. Once perceptions become entrenched, they turn into reality and can be incredibly difficult to turn around. By the time a natural successor (or two) in waiting has put down their own roots, with a partner and family, the need to start communicating is becoming increasingly urgent. You don’t necessarily need an adviser or independent to be part of the communication process. However, the later the start the greater the value an independent can add. They will help remove the fear of starting and can filter and manage any unrealistic viewpoints. So, what is communication? My good friend Mr Google provides the following: “Communication is the act of giving, receiving, and sharing information -- in other words, talking or writing, and listening or reading. Good communicators listen carefully, speak or write clearly, and respect different opinions.” The three key words in that explanation are “giving,” “receiving” and “sharing”. Someone once told me we have two ears and one mouth. A good communicator uses them in that proportion. In other words, listen twice as much as you speak. A good communicator and/or leader doesn’t just tell people what is happening. They listen to what people have to say,
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November 2021
take on other viewpoints, base their judgements on what they have heard. They don’t necessarily have to take on board everything they have heard, but they need to at least hear it. Furthermore, not only do the family need to be heard but they need to know they have been heard.
Listening, an underrated skill Stephen Covey, an American educator, author and businessman developed what he calls “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Habit number five is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” That is the art of a good communicator. How do you seek to understand? You ask questions and you listen to the answers. Listening is an understated skill. We learn to speak, read, and write at an early age, but we are not taught to listen, we are told. Asking questions, listening and learning from the answers and then weighing up your response is not a weakness. “No one is going to tell me what to do!” Asking questions and listening and learning from the answers is in fact a massive strength. However, you also need to demonstrate you have heard and show you understand what family members are saying before you make yourself understood. For example: “Yes, I hear and understand your point of view. You believe that one of your siblings is going to be treated more favourably than the others and you believe that is unfair and I understand that. However, what I want you to understand is this family would not be in the fortunate position it is in if your
grandparents had not treated me favourably 40 years ago and we have all benefited from that, you included. “This has been our home, yours included, and it is important it is retained, and to achieve that we cannot treat everyone equally. You will be helped, but in a different way, and we need to work together to make sure it is fair to you and everyone else. Do you understand?” I realise this example is a bit scripted or contrived. Difficult conversations seldom pan out exactly as we would like. However, my point is, this example is better than simply saying “It’s my decision to make, I’ve made it and I don’t want to talk about it.” The eventual outcome of the conversation in the above example will depend on the attitude of the person receiving it, and as discussed attitudes need to be moulded from an early age. Difficult conversations are not easy, and some are better at it than others, but shying away from them will only make matters worse. You need to talk about issues and outcomes before they become difficult, and attitudes become entrenched. It’s a bit like planting a tree. The best time to start communicating was 20-30 years ago. The next best time to start is now.
• Peter Flannery, of Farm Plan Ltd, is a Southland and Otago-based agribusiness consultant, specialising in business planning, financial management and family succession.
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November 2021
BUSINESS
Strong wool
Merger looks to boost strong wool The proposed merger of CP Wool (CPW) and Wools of New Zealand (WNZ) has the industry hopeful that there might finally be a turnaround for strong wool. Penny Clark-Hall finds out what the excitement is all about.
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ew Zealand’s largest market that consumes wool is soft floor coverings. It where 61% of its wool goes but that has been undercut by synthetic carpets. So much so that market share for plastic soft floor covering has gone from 10% in 1996 to 85%. WNZ chief executive John McWhirter says the industry’s problem is the wool price, “the industry is in a chaotic position and that’s unanimous." McWhirter says he’d been to many meetings and asked 200-300 farmers to stand if they’re happy with the industry and no one has stood yet. “What everybody's saying is that it will take 10 years to fix it and when I go to the farmers: ‘who's got 10 years to wait?’ One of them said, ‘I’ll be dead in 10 years.’ He said the industry was looking for a
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faster solution than some technology will take to bring on stream. So, if NZ wants to start moving the needle fast on strong wool returns, McWhirter says it has to be done with carpet. The merger is proposing a commercial business model owned 100% by farmers. “...right now, the soft floor market is the single biggest opportunity that we have to move volume of strong wool fast.” He says worldwide, carpets consume over 50% of the total strong wool. “So, if you enter the market with a known product, that is more than 50%, and you can change the demand curve for wool within that category, you can get change happening really fast.” By merging CPW and WNZ they are gaining scale (33% of NZ’s total wool clip) and shortening the supply chain, generating a bigger margin and return for the farmer. McWhirter says CPW is owned by farmers
so it has the ability to procure or source wool from its farmers and send it straight to a large European manufacturer, who has the scale to produce carpet at significantly lower costs (competing in the northern and European markets). “That means we can bring some back to NZ and compete here with a lower cost product, not a cheaper product.”
Lack of WNZ shareholder support CP Wool’s Chairman Richard Young says the beauty about manufacturing in Turkey is that the carpet is closer to those offshore markets such as Europe and North America. “That's where the big game is but let's make sure it's going to work locally first, and then take it wider. That's when we will really see the dial change.” Wools of New Zealand was set up precisely to address the demand in the
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November 2021
market by establishing a strong brand presence, here and overseas, for strong wool. Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to achieve that on their own due to a lack of support (supply) from their farmer shareholders. Hence the merger. “I think we'd have to apologise and say that that wasn't achieved,” McWhirter says. “So, what we've done in the last 18 months, is decide that we have to do it a different way, because we know the definition of keeping on doing the same thing that didn't work.” That's why they've moved into consumer marketing by launching carpet themselves, under the Wools NZ brand, into the NZ market. “We've got ourselves close to the consumer with a product offering that you can attach a brand and a marketing story to so that you can actually propagate the benefits and the reasons why people should be putting wool carpet down, not plastic. We're able to present to consumers a product at a price they can afford and that can compete with plastic so consumers can choose wool, whereas historically it has been too expensive.” Young describes WNZ as the Toyota Corolla of the industry and CPW as the V8 engine, complementing each other and filling the gaps where WNZ was lacking the supply and CPW lacking the brand and market access. “I think you've got two really good businesses in CP Wool and WNZ, but together they'll be even stronger. He says they're two complimentary businesses coming together with two completely different skill sets. So why hasn’t it happened before now? This merger has been four years in the making but many farmers say it should have happened a long time ago.
Like minded, no egos “I don't want to dwell on the past,” Young says. “I think the opportunity was there to do it now with some like-minded people in the room. There were no egos and I think you've got to remember from a Primary Wool Cooperative (PWC) point of view that we also had Carrfields to exit and you've got to take your hat off to Craig Carr and his board that they saw the bigger picture about industry reform. It wasn't necessarily about what's right for individuals. It's what's right for the industry.” Carrfields having released its 50% shareholding of CP Wool to PWC has taken ownership of NZ Natural Fibres alongside
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November 2021
Wool yarn: ‘We have the ability to procure or source our wool from our farmers and send it straight to a large European manufacturer’.
“If we can get people to rediscover natural soft flooring, our cup will runneth over."
NZ Hemp and some smaller investors, which manufactures high quality wool yarn for carpets and also plant fibers with hemp and flax being a significant part of the floor covering market. CP Wool rep Richard Hurring, who was a part of the last attempt to form a cooperative in 2011, is supportive of the merger. “With too many entities you get price gouging. Every product that comes out of New Zealand should have the (WNZ) fern on it. We have such a massively fragmented selling system.” He likens the merger to a Zespri or Fonterra co-operative model for wool. “If we’re climbing Everest, base camp is wool carpets. It’s a good base to set up finances to climb the rest of the mountain. If we can get people to rediscover natural soft flooring, our cup will runneth over.” The carpet strategy seems to be working in competitive pricing already, with plastic carpet and WNZ carpet on special at the
same price. McWhirter is predicting a twoyear turn around. There is also ambition to grow the procurement and logistics side of the business with Young saying scale allows change. “Every extra bale we can get going through the logistics side of the business will give us the profitability to then drive the carpet side of the business.” He says the pricing will be standardised for suppliers per kilogram of wool. While McWhirter and Young believe the industry needs to stand on its own two feet, the plastic carpet lining Parliament’s hallowed halls reinforces to them that the industry is on its own. Young says it would be good if the Government supported a natural sustainable fibre but the focus should not be on small gains. “There's no point beating a dead horse forever. “Let's go and win where we can win.”
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BUSINESS
Exports
Shipping containers stacked waiting for export loads.
THE SHIPPING NEWS BY: SANDRA TAYLOR
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etting New Zealand’s primary products to international customers has become increasingly challenging with significant Covid-19-related disruptions to international shipping. In a recent presentation, ANZCO Foods’ Head of Logistics Brent Falvey, said a massive and completely unexpected shift in consumer behaviour during the pandemic, with people spending money on goods rather than services, saw an unprecedented 20% increase in the volume of goods moving through international shipping terminals. Even in normal conditions, ports would have struggled with an increase of this magnitude, but layer on labour shortages and delays due to Covid restrictions and shipping schedules are thrown into chaos and ports have become extremely congested. Since October last year, waiting times outside of ports have been days or even weeks. These long delays are contributing to an international shortage of shipping containers exacerbated by a 40% drop in new container production, again due to Covid restrictions.
In parallel, shipping costs have soared. About 60% of the ocean fleet is chartered and charter rates have climbed from US$18000 a day in January of this year to US$35,000/day in March, $40,000/day in April and $45,500/ day in May. At $35,000/day, this means an additional US$8 million every seven days or about US$300 more per container just to break even – and there is no respite on the horizon. Global trade is forecast to lift 8% this year and a further 6% in 2022 which suggests there won’t be any let-up in demand. This continues to put upward pressure on global freight rates. This massive disruption in global shipping comes on the back of a decade of bankruptcies and mergers in the international shipping industry, driven by low profitability and overcapacity. This began after the global financial crisis in 2008/2009 and between 2014-2017, the industry underwent a transformation due to the consolidation of four major carriers and one bankruptcy. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the industry
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had been slowly recovering and while shipping lines are now enjoying soaring profits, many are remaining loyal to their long-term clients in the knowledge that the situation could change very quickly. To negotiate this extremely complex world of international transport logistics, ANZCO Foods has its own inhouse logistics and shipping team which was established in 2019. Falvey says this means ANZCO has direct and personal relationships with all shipping lines, so are working with accurate four weekly forecasts and have weekly teleconferences with shipping lines to understand schedules, bookings and equipment availability. Regular meetings with individual shipping lines ensure both parties have met agreed expectations and targets. They also agree on future freight rates and volume commitments.
Bottlenecks, border requirements and backlogs “It’s not plain sailing for our exports.” This is how Thomas Chin, New Zealand Grain and Seed Trade Association chief executive, euphemistically describes the challenges facing all primary sectors. “Shipping is critically important to us, it’s one of the biggest challenges we are facing and it’s an on-going global problem.” He expects these challenges to stretch into 2022. With crops in the ground and strong demand for NZ-grown seeds on the back of weather and fire-related seed shortages in Europe and the US, this is concerning for a sector that in 2020 exported $300m worth of product to 60 different markets in Australia, Asia, Europe and the US. “There is absolutely no guarantee that any of these issues will be resolved before the next export shipping season.” The fact that NZ is exporting from the bottom of the world - and for seed companies – from the South Island – does not help when shipping companies are preferring to focus on shorter, more lucrative routes between Asia and the US and Europe. This also means a shortage of empty containers coming into NZ. One seed exporting company typically needs 50 containers in a season and this year they had 12. Chin has calculated the industry needs around 2500 containers for the coming harvest.
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Freight costs have increased astronomically as a result of this undercapacity in shipping which is a significant extra cost for exporters. This, says Chin, is particularly tough on commodity exporters whereas exporters of high value seed crops do have more leeway. In this environment, timeliness is critical and Chin says government testing and sampling processes can slow the loading of containers, which is frustrating.
Fleet-footed Sydney-based My Therese Blank, head of Oceania Export Market for A.P. Moller Maersk (Maersk and Hamburg Sud) which operates the largest general and reefer container fleets in the world, says they are experiencing significant disruption to their ocean network as a result of the pandemic, changes in consumer buying patterns increasing demand on goods and congestion at terminals. Congestion at Ports of Auckland, as well as industrial action in Australia, are also placing additional pressures on their network. Blank says the vessel delays are caused by terminal congestion – as a result of the higher demand – coupled with measures to contain the pandemic which have slowed global supply chains. “This is negatively impacting on available vessel capacity and the availability of empty containers as the turn time is increased.” They are losing vessel positions and it’s taking longer before to reach demand locations, which ultimately leads to exporters experiencing a shortage of empty containers. Blank says it’s hard to predict when the situation will be alleviated as this depends on further unexpected Covid-19 disruptions, bottlenecks or shifts in local consumer demand. The global supply chain is complex and at times like this, when it is already facing disruption, smaller issues have a compounding impact. “We are doing everything we can to get back to normal as soon as possible and minimise the impact to our customers as much as we can.” She expects the situation to last until at least the end of the year. In the past nine months A.P. MollerMaersk has increased the number of ships that call on NZ and back in March, launched the Sirius Star service which Blank
“This means that even though we have more containers in circulation they cannot be reused as many times as each trip takes significantly longer.” says adds significant flexibility to their network, particularly to and from Nelson and Timaru. They have added one vessel to their Southern Star service which connects NZ to South East Asia to absorb some of the schedule delays and deployed extra loaders and additional ad-hoc vessels to help position reefer containers to NZ to meet export demand. These extra loaders also help with the removal of empty, lower-grade containers which are unsuitable for agricultural exports back to Asia. This helps alleviate the inland depot congestion in Auckland. Blank says during the past 18 months, A.P.Moller-Maersk has invested significantly in building new shipping containers to increase the number in circulation. While the number of containers available for NZ exporters has increased, shortages are still occurring due to port congestion resulting in increased waiting times for ships to get a berthing window and slower turn-around times. “This means that even though we have more containers in circulation they cannot be reused as many times as each trip takes significantly longer.” Additional vessels in NZ are helping to move empty containers to demand locations.
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LIVESTOCK
O N F A R M
TAKING THE PRESSURE OFF
The Martin family have farmed their Richwyn properties since the 1880s. Russell Priest describes how the present generation operates. Photos: Brad Hanson.
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reating a farming business based on taking pressure off both man and beast has resulted in a more relaxed and enjoyable work environment for Sheldon (52) and Nicola (50) Martin. The better bottom line has enabled them to pursue other interests. They have been farming 600 hectares (585ha effective) around the small settlement of Rangiwahia in the northern Manawatu since 2001. The Martins run a successful sheep and cattle breeding and finishing business (Richwyn Farm Limited). One of the strengths is its excellent balance of contour. “Any stock we sell spends time on the flats before being sold, even our dry ewes,” Sheldon says. At 550 metres above sea level and within a stone’s throw of the normally snow-clad Ruahine Ranges, the township of Rangiwahia has been traditionally accustomed to at least three snow falls a winter and a rainfall of 1300mm. “The heaviest snowfall we’ve had since we’ve lived here was about 0.6m around the house which lay on the ground for nine days,” Sheldon says. From its 120ha of Kiwitea silt loam flats and its 465ha of predominantly compacted sandstone and mudstone-based hills the Martins’ business generates a return on capital of 3.9% (mean 1.4%). This ranks it in the top quintile of Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s 2018-2019 Sheep and Beef farm survey for class 4 North Island Hill Country in the Manawatu-Taranaki region. The Martins’ lambing was 143% (mean 134%), average
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lamb price $137 (mean $127), total expenditure of $759/ ha (mean $879/ha) in spite of high debt servicing interest of $213/ha (mean $139/ha). The farm profit before tax was $479.42/ha (mean $291.15/ha), the economic farm surplus $425.04/ha (mean $188.88/ha) and earnings before interest, tax, rent and managerial wage of $692.27/ ha (mean $458.82). Teamwork is another of the business’ strengths. Sheldon and Nicola are a great team, working together particularly when there’s stock work to do (Nicola has her own huntaway and eye dog) and complementing one another when there’s administration and tractor work to complete. Beef + Lamb’s survey shows working owners on Richwyn contribute 1.7 labour units (mean 1.14). Handyman Peter Mangold is available seven days a week for as many hours as required. They also employ a student over the summer, an experience they always enjoy. “Peter’s the tool man,” Sheldon says, “and repairs anything that needs fixing as well as helping us out with dagging and drenching.”
Couple fight fires With the local fire station nearby the community-minded Martins are both on call if required. Sheldon has been a volunteer fireman for 36 years (as was his father before him) being the chief fire officer for the past 20 years. Nicola has been a fireman for nine years. Sheldon and Nicola have two children, Sophie (25) a physiotherapist, and Fraser (23) who is the mechanic for
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Top: Aerial view from the southern side of the farm looking North-east. Their farm wraps around the small settlement of Rangiwahia and has enclaves of DOC reserves. Above: Sheldon and Nicola moving break feeding on oats.
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the Hopkins Farming Group. The Martins’ use dicalcic superphosphate fertiliser (dicalcic), set stocking, focus on feed quality, direct drilling and then retire unproductive land from grazing. Even though dicalic is expensive the Martins swear by it. Beef + Lamb’s survey shows the Martins’ expenditure on fertiliser is $102/ha (mean $141/ha) and $12/su (mean $15.69/su). Many people would be horrified at their pasture covers at times, he says, particularly over the winter. However their cows thrive wintering on the hills set stocked among the ewes in spite of there being little roughage. “We haven’t soil tested for 20 years since we’ve been using dicalcic so I’m guessing our P levels are not very high.” Sheldon says there’s no point in having high P levels if you can’t maintain the quality of the grass grown. Unlike the ash-based Kiwitea silt loam soils the sandstone and mudstone based hill soils have an insatiable appetite for sulphur.
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This is applied annually in the autumn mixed with Hatuma Dicalcic 8S at 300kg/ ha. Sheldon says the mudstone based soils can carry at least 1 su/ha more than the sandstone-based soils. When the last soil tests were taken the Olsen phosphate levels were 12-15 on the hills and 20 on the flats. Stock do need a helping hand at times to keep on top of the growth with flat paddocks often being topped twice over the spring/summer period to maintain quality pasture for finishing lambs. The Martins are strong advocates of setstocking but use a form of rotational grazing (shuffle grazing) before and during mating in the late summer/autumn. Going out of rotational grazing has enabled them to drop our stocking rate which is not high anyway (9-9.5 su/ha) and adopt set stocking for most of the year. This has taken pressure off both them and the animals and lifted their performance. When Sheldon’s father was farming
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Richwyn the stocking rate was 12su/ha. Richwyn’s MA ewes come off the hills at the back of the farm (where they have been set stocked since shearing in early January) in late February for dipping and sorting into their three mating mobs. These comprise 1700 A flock ewes (including 720 2ths) mated to Romney rams to generate replacements, 1100 B flock and 240 five year ewes mated to Suftex rams. “Any ewes from the A flock that are light when we’re sorting mobs for mating go into the B flock.”
FARM FACTS • Sheldon and Nicola Martin, Rangiwahia, Northern Manawatu • Business Richwyn Farming Ltd. • Farm 600ha (585ha effective) of flats and hills plus 26ha finishing block. • Sheep and cattle breeding and finishing. • Relaxed conservative farming lifestyle featuring great teamwork. • Excellent financial results. • RoR 3.9% (top quintile).
Mobs are shuffle-grazed Two tooth and B flock ewes get a pre-mating drench but seldom do the A flock ewes. The B flock ewes get drenched because of the higher proportion of lighter ewes in the mob. This year the five-year ewes were mated on March 5 and sold running with the ram in May for $200 a head (subsequently scanned 180%). Mobs are shuffle-grazed for three-four
weeks before the rams go out on April 15 and while the rams are out for two cycles. “If it’s dry when we start shuffling them they may take a bit of a pinch however once the rains come the grass responds which gives them a boost. It hasn’t failed us yet, touch wood.” Set-stocking resumes after rams are removed in mid-May with ewes being spread out on the hills at 7/ha until coming
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in for scanning in mid-July. They are vaccinated with 5-in-1 and given drench capsules in mid-August. About 10% of the heavier conditioned ewes are not capsuled as the Martins practise refugia. Ewes generally scan about 170% (without identifying triplets) delivering about 4000 lambs. Light conditioned ewes are removed at this point and put on better feed. Multiple-bearing ewes are returned to the easier hill paddocks at 6.5/ha while the single bearing ewes (generally about 600–700) are set stocked on steeper hill paddocks at 7su/ha. “Reducing the stocking rate on the hills from 7 to 6.5/ha takes a bit of pressure off enabling the grass to come away under them in readiness for lambing,” Sheldon says. Single bearing B flock ewes are set stocked on the exposed flats at 12/ha, twin bearing twins on easy hills at 6.5/ha. “When a southerly comes through at lambing time it’s pretty deadly especially on the flats so the bigger, single crossbred lambs have the best chance of surviving,” Sheldon says.
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They only do a lambing beat on the flats to pick up dead animals and assist if needed. The first draft of lambs occurs about December 12 when 200-300 terminals leave Richwyn at an average CW of 18-20kg.The remaining terminals are left on the ewes until the next draft early January. A weaning draft of single Romney male lambs is taken in early January. The Martins aim to draft 1000 lambs off mum by the second week in January. All remaining lambs are weaned and shorn after these two drafts are taken. Lambs continue to be drafted off the flats throughout the summer leaving up to 300 winter lambs which are all gone by July at an average weight of 18-20kg ($170-$180). Last year about 3000 lambs were killed at an average weight of 18kg and price of $136. This year the average weight will be 19kg. Ewes are shorn at the same time as the lambs and those in extremely light condition along with the five-year ewes are drafted off.
Very light ewes culled “We cull the extremely light ewes which may number only about 20-30 because experience has shown us that they, for whatever reason, are incapable of regaining condition. They’ve had a drench capsule and have been weaned late so they should have responded,” Sheldon says. Any light-conditioned ewes get drafted off whenever ewes are in the yards and are given extra feed to lift their condition.
Above: Nicola surveys MA Angus cows. Top: Hoggets set stocked on hills with snow-clad Ruahine Ranges in the background.
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The five-year ewes get preferential treatment in readiness for mating in early March and are later sold as running with the ram. The main mob of ewes is set stocked on the hills at the back of the farm where they spend most of the remaining summer. Twice-a-year shearing in early January and at the end of June is still practised in spite of the cost of shearing and the poor return for wool. Ewe losses are generally 2-3%. The Martins produce about 120 bales a year of high bulk, high yielding (85%) fibre which commands a premium. “This year’s June shear returned $2/kg in the shed but would now be worth an extra 20c/kg.” Romney rams come from Turanganui and Suftex rams from Rob Tennent at Takapau. They pay $1300 for their Romneys (middleof-range rams) and $1500 for Suftex (top pick). Sheldon likes moderate-framed rams with a broad hind end and a good spring-of-ribs.
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November 2021
Wool must be well-structured and be about 37 microns. He has a particular aversion to white feet. The maternal index is of some interest to him but he doesn’t like to see any outliers. Good early growth coupled with good fertility/fecundity are the traits he particularly targets. Suftex ram selection is based on the same phenotypic characteristics as the Romneys with growth being the only genetic trait of interest.
Calving on the hills The cows are set-stocked on the hills for a large part of the year coming down onto the flats when the ewes start lambing on September 10. They come off the hills for weaning/pregnancy testing (April/May), a month before calving (to administer 5-in-1 and rotovirus vaccine and get a lice/ anthelmintic pour-on and at calving. Once the first of the four paddocks contains a quarter of the cows the next paddock starts receiving its quota. By the end of calving the four paddocks will each contain about a quarter of the cows and their calves. Before the bulls go out on December 20 these four groups are amalgamated into two and are moved onto the hills with two bulls running in each group for 50 days. First calving R2 heifers receive preferential treatment in the last month of pregnancy by being moved into a 10ha hill paddock with 150mm-200mm of saved grass and fed hay. Calving occurs in an easy contoured 3ha paddock close to the house where the Martins can keep an eye on them. They get a picking of grass and are fed hay and like the older cows are shed onto saved pasture along with their calves a couple of days after calving. “We used to calve them behind a hot wire on the flats like we do with the cows, however we had too many calving problems that we don’t get calving them on the hills,” Sheldon says. R3 heifers are single-sire mated as a group with the bull going out on December 20 also for 50 days while the top 40 15-month heifers are mated to a low birth weight EBV bull for 30 days with the bull-out date being December 1. Normally 28-30 get in calf. Weaned in April/May the calves average weights are about 280kg for steers and 265kg for heifers. The Martins normally achieve a 90+ calving percentage (cows mated/calves weaned) but have
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November 2021
Sheldon setting up new break of green-feed oats.
“If I can get a bull for under $10,000 I’m pretty happy.” exceeded the 100% when they have had a good run with twins. Cows are not cast-for-age but are culled if dry, have bad feet or develop udder problems as a result of producing too much milk or udder ligament breakdown. R2 steers and cull heifers are normally sold in forward store condition (steers 500550kg and heifers 400-450kg LW) at 18mth for $3/kg LW. As is the case with their rams Sheldon prefers to buy the bulls he likes and is prepared to pay for them. “If I can get a bull for under $10,000 I’m pretty happy.” Sheldon likes a more compact type of Angus but with good 600-day growth because all 18-month steers and cull heifers are sold on weight. Porina damage to pastures is a major
problem on Richwyn to the extent that it couldn’t be farmed economically without treatment. The entire farm has to be sprayed annually with the insecticide Dimilin which is applied with the thistle spray in July using a helicopter. “One year the pilot missed a strip across a paddock and all that was left were flat weeds,” Nicola says. Richwyn’s flats have their pastures renewed every 10 years using a cropping rotation going from old grass to oats in the autumn followed by annual ryegrass in the spring and back to oats in the second autumn and finally into young grass in the spring. “Oats are a very cost effective winter feed and grow well in our environment being easier to grow than swedes and chou,” Sheldon says.
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LIVESTOCK
Futuristic
EFFICIENT AND PROFITABLE SHEEP NEEDED With farming and overseas markets changing, CountryWide asked industry people, what should the sheep of the future be?
S
outh Otago ram breeder Garth Shaw says the first thing the sheep should be is profitable and to do that, they must perform. They must have good lamb survival and be high meat yielding.Their meat has to be of a high quality and healthy. He and his wife Chris run Wharetoa Genetics and a commercial sheep operation. Shaw says intramuscular fat is starting to be selected for which is likely to be in most breeds. It is a matter of identifying and multiplying it. The lamb of the future will be 25-30kg carcaseweight because of the economics of processing. “It’s criminal to kill at 1718kg CW.” Killing at that weight range is just wasting the lambs because they have so much potential to be bigger and profitable for little extra cost, he says. But there needs to be the genetics to make them grow bigger without going grossly overfat. “It is not just about growing crops.” The mean kill date is another important factor. Finishers’ lamb growth rates are poor
South Otago ram breeder Garth Shaw. Photo: Chris Sullivan.
and they need to grow quicker for a faster turnaround. He was told recently the biggest thing farmers can do to lower the carbon footprint is to finish the lambs quicker. Sheep also need to be easy-care and pleasant to work with. “Easy-care doesn’t mean no care, you can’t get everything for nothing.” Shaw says sheep will still need to be drenched and wool will make a comeback, but not to the levels it used to be. The main drivers will be meat and characteristics. Future sheep need to have the conformation for a consistent body condition score (BCS) of 3.5 to 4, year in, year out to withstand environmental variations. Having Texel-type genetics in a ewe has helped maintain BCS and aid milk production. Farmers should be mating at least 40% of their ewes to terminal rams, he says. “Very few farmers do.” By doing so they are aiding meat and growth characteristics in their works lambs. With improved cultivars and nitrogen fertilisers, feed can be generated to carry
“Easy care doesn’t mean no care, you can’t get everything for nothing.’
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into the winter and early spring. Farmers should be taking advantage of this and lambing more ewes earlier and killing when prices are high, Shaw says. That would allow farmers to buy in stock, perhaps ewes-all-counted, to capitalise on the spring growth before the summer dry.
Must survive without chemicals Veterinarian and Country-Wide columnist Trevor Cook says it needs to be a sheep that can survive without chemicals because insecticides and anthelmintics are failing. It must be low-cost with little work like dagging and crutching needed. “It’s more expensive than people realise.” If wool has value it still has to be low-cost to produce. If it becomes high value then Cook says it warrants more attention but he doesn’t believe it will. He says, tongue in cheek, of course sheep won’t be able to emit any methane so they can save the world. Wairere business manager Simon Buckley says any ram breeder must produce rams that can sire high-performing modern sheep which remain structurally sound for at least five years. They also need to show a high level of reproductive performance and produce red meat customers are prepared to pay a high price for.
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November 2021
Buckley says stud managers need to understand how to get the most out of the data collected from their stud flocks. Farming sheep that don’t need to be docked, dagged or drenched should be the target. “It would be just like farming cattle!” He feels there is scope to develop sheep that produce a high-quality fleece the market requires. Sheep farming’s greatest non-political threat is the widespread appearance of internal parasites resistance to up to three anthelmintic active ingredients, he says. Triple-active resistance is growing at an alarming rate so selecting sheep that can grow and thrive without a high level of anthelmintic intervention is vital. Buckley says a new CARLA test that allows rapid onfarm diagnosis of counts could be a breakthrough for ram breeders because it makes selection cheaper and easier for the trait used for parasite resistance.
Marketers need to do their job For sheep income to continue its rise in real value, Buckley says marketers have to convince consumers of the eating quality
and safety, and environmental credentials of our sheepmeat. There is a growing awareness of the impact of the intramuscular fat (IMF) trait on eating quality. Buckley says it is easy to measure, test and improve it through genetic selection, and some processors are already rewarding farmers for it. IMF is a relatively highly heritable trait and advances in technology are allowing assessment in live animals and more importantly, via genomics. Buckley says genomics is probably the most exciting and potentially valuable technology in any ram breeder’s toolbox. Recently LIC proclaimed that the use of genomics in dairy cattle is going to lead to much faster rates of genetic gain and will do much of the “heavy lifting” that is required to make the progress required. “LIC has invested heavily in genomics and we need sheep breeders in NZ to do the same.” A dual purpose ewe that will reliably raise two lambs is West Otago farmer Brian Howden’s vision for the sheep of the future. Even better still would be a ewe with
three tits to raise three lambs. He wouldn’t like to see too much change size-wise, believing ewes need to be at least 65kg to cope in bad weather. AgResearch Scientist Kathryn McRae predicts the ideal sheep will be regionspecific, bred according to particular health and prevailing weather challenges within specific parts of the country. McRae, who has a special interest in genetic selection for improved health and welfare, is also predicting sheep with shorter tails and less wool on the belly and around the breech. These physical changes would avoid animal health issues such as flystrike, and meet consumer animal care and welfare expectations. Depending on the fortunes of wool, self-shedding sheep could become more prevalent.
Look back to look forward AgFirst farm consultant Peter Andrews says when looking forward it is best to first look back in history to see what has worked. “What have been the triggers and drivers that have created this unbelievable transformation of our ewe flock to be the star performer out there in the paddock.” Andrews says a breeding ewe is in a world of her own when it comes to efficiency. Off a winter weight of 70kg liveweight some our best ewes are generating 90kg of saleable product by Christmas. Self-fed as she wanders around the hills with no feeding of supplements. “She is an unbelievable converter of grass to product.” Increases in the lambing percentage will be important. Wool has about six months to rebuild credibility with farmers otherwise it is gone, he says. There are credible and achievable alternatives. “The top guys are having a very good look right now.” Scottish farmer and Home block columnist John Scott says likely they will need to produce more from less, as the “forestry monster” creeps in every direction across hillsides. Land availability will become an issue. Labour for bigger non-family units will continue to be a huge challenge. However, worldwide demand for high-quality red meat will ensure farmers are paid appropriately for their products. “It will in turn let us incentivise those working in the industry.”
Farming sheep that don’t need to be docked, dagged or drenched should be the target.
Wairere business manager Simon Buckley. Photo: Brad Hanson.
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November 2021
43
LIVESTOCK
Management
New-born twin lambs with mum. Will they make it to sale? There are options if they don’t.
Recovering from a poor lambing BY: KERRY DWYER
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ambing time has been difficult for some, with the weather reducing the number of lambs below expectations. Pasture growth has been limited also, so how do you get more from what lambs you do have? Let’s look at the scenario: you had 2000 ewes mated, and you hoped for 130% lambing survival to sale. Pregnancy scanning removed 75 empty ewes and showed a potential of 2900 lambs from the remainder, being 150%. You then set stocked 1925 ewes, being 960 twinning and 965 single-bearing ewes. The weather hit over lambing and the survival rate suffered more than normal so you saw 2200 lambs through the tailing yards. The single mobs tailed 85%, being 820 lambs while the twins mobs tailed 1380 lambs, or 145%.
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Your options are to sit and watch for things to get better, or do some work. If you want to retrieve the situation then having a plan and doing some work might be well worth the effort. Let’s start with the single mobs. If the pregnancy scanning was accurate, and ewe death rate was minimal there should be just under 140 ewes with no lambs. They will get fat at the expense of the lactating ewes. If you get them out of the mobs that lowers the stocking rate for the remainder by 15%. Feeding the single-lactating ewes at a lower stocking rate is going to have a considerable effect on the ewes, allowing them to gain weight, but also giving their lambs more feed which will show in better weaning weights. In the twinning ewes there might be a similar percentage of ewes that have lost both lambs, being up to 70 of them. Taking them out at docking or soon after gives 890
ewes with one or two lambs on them. On these figures there would be about 490 ewes feeding twins and 400 feeding one lamb. Sorting whether these twinning ewes have one or two lambs remaining will be very difficult, so you are looking at running them in those mobs, unless you have exceptional stockmanship and time for the job. But note that overall you now have about 1700 ewes with lambs, allowing 15% more feed for them with the wet/dry ewes taken out. Then look at your grazing management plan. Set stocking is simple but the best results are from rotational grazing because rotational grazing allows higher pasture covers to grow more grass – maybe 30% more. The difficult part is getting from the lambing set stocking to the post-docking rotation in terms of both pasture cover and moving the mobs without stress on the maternal bonds. Taking the first shifts easy
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November 2021
Table A: Post lambing options Status quo scenario: 2000 ewes lambing 135%
2100 lambs to sell Average price $137/hd Less lambs than planned: 2000 ewes lambed 110%
What is your lamb sale plan going to be? We know that single lambs get more milk so wean at heavier weights. We know that terminal-sired lambs have hybrid vigour so wean at heavier weights. Is your plan to get those lambs growing for earlier sale? So, feeding them the best pastures - plantain and clover or lucerne will boost that even further. Or you might go the other way and say the twin mobs get the preferential treatment so there is less tail end at weaning. Having some plan and decision making on this will be better than not. Remember that maybe half the lambs in the twin mobs are being reared as singles in this scenario. Good decisions are based on good information, whether that be objective or a very good subjective assessment (often called stockmanship). If in doubt go for the objective assessment – sample-weigh some lambs regularly from docking onwards, spray-raddle their weight on them or tag them, monitor growth rates. Lamb growth rates pre-weaning are the best achieved over their lives, money in the bank at weaning if you get it right.
• Kerry Dwyer is a North Otago farm consultant and farmer.
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November 2021
2200 lambs docked
965 single-bearing ewes set stocked 820 ewes in single mobs with 820 lambs 960 twinning ewes set stocked 890 ewes in twin mobs with 1380 lambs = 400 with one lamb & 490 with two lambs Management strategies with less lambs
“...400 fewer lambs means $55,000 less income. To pick that up from the 1700 lambs means lifting the average price by $32/head.” Weaning dates should be set as part of a management plan, rather than being a date on the calendar. Think about what you are trying to achieve in terms of weaning weights and sale plans. In this scenario you have 2200 lambs instead of a hoped-for 2600. That means having 1700 for sale instead of 2100. Industry picks I have read think we might be looking at an average lamb selling for $137/head in the coming season, 400 fewer lambs means $55,000 less income. To pick that up from the 1700 lambs means lifting the average price by $32/head. If you are selling store lambs that might be an additional 8kg liveweight, or over 4kg carcaseweight on prime lambs. While those figures might seem daunting, getting even half that gap filled will not happen without some planning and serious effort. The $55,000 shortfall might be your drawings for the year, so retrieving it is your year’s work.
2600 lambs docked
Remove wet/dry ewes – up to 200 ewes = over 10% less stocking rate Rotational grazing ewes & lambs Preferential feeding singles/twins/terminals Monitor lamb growth rates Plan selling strategies
silverdale southdown stud est. 1928
Early maturity • Easy lambing Prime lamb sire • Promote good weaning weights DF + JR Gray Rongotea, Manawatu
er96213
trains them and subsequent shifts become natural for them. The first paddocks might be low on pasture cover but pasture will build with the grazing intervals. A common statement is that there is nothing to move them on to, then by definition set-stocking them will have them on even less than that! Shut those gates and rotate those mobs. Aim for manageable-size mobs of 200-300 ewes covering maybe five or six paddocks on a 20-day rotation.
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LIVESTOCK
Wool
Drop in quality threatens comeback BY: RICHARD GAVIGAN
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his season’s improvement in the prices and prospects for New Zealand strong wool is good news for the industry. But a drop-off in clip preparation standards and subsequent wool quality threatens to derail our crossbred wool’s comeback. Shearing contractors throughout the country have come under pressure from farmers to reduce the number of woolshed staff to keep a lid on the cost of shearing. Employing one woolhandler per shearer was once standard practice, but many sheds shearing crossbred sheep (ewes producing wool about 37 microns in fibre diameter) are now trying to get by with half that number of woolhandling staff.
While this may be understandable given the cost of wool harvesting relative to returns, in many cases it can be a false economy. It may also have a negative effect on NZ wool’s competitive advantage in the international marketplace. According to a Manawatu-based shearing contractor, 70-80% of his clients have dropped a woolhandler from a four-stand woolshed over the last two years. This means sheds harvesting second-shear wool are now often working with only two woolhandlers, while full-wool sheds using a wool table are now operating with three at best. Removing one woolhandler from a woolshed saves a farmer about 20 cents/ sheep. The contractor says he recognises the financial challenges facing clients, but is concerned his teams can’t do a proper
job and that farmers are actually losing themselves money. “Our farmers still want four shearers to do 1000 sheep a day,” he says. “But at that rate, with only two woolhandlers it’s pretty much impossible to do anything like a decent job with the wool.” Unfortunately, the shearing contractor is right. Time and motion observations made by NZ Wool Board staff in the 1980s suggested in a closed-board woolshed, about 50% of a full woolhandling team’s time was spent simply moving wool rather than optimising its readiness for processing and subsequent attractiveness to buyers. Looking at the effect of reducing shed staff, the calculations are simple: • four shearers, 1000 sheep shorn per day • four woolhandlers x 8 hours worked = 32 total woolhandler hours
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JEFF PEARSE
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November 2021
• 50% x 32 hours = 16 hours moving wool (+16 hours optimising wool quality) • two woolhandlers x 8 hours = 16 total woolhandler hours Daily wool volume does not change: hours available to optimise wool quality = 0 In better-designed, more efficient openboard (including raised-board) woolsheds less time is spent simply moving wool so more time is available for clip preparation. In these sheds, wool quality is less sensitive to changes in staff ratios, but can still be impacted if woolhandler numbers are reduced without first considering the characteristics of the wool coming off the sheep.
Clear discounts for faults What impact can the quality of clip preparation have on wool price and how does this relate to potential cost savings made by reducing woolhandling staff? Segard Masurel lower North Island wool representative Andy Price says there are clear price discounts for faults present in what would otherwise be good quality wool clips.
Many sheds shearing strong wool sheep are now trying to get by with half the number of woolhandlers needed.
“It’s important that you look at what your starting point is in terms of wool quality and work out what you need to do to make sure that you don’t miss out on price premiums.” REASONS FOR DISCOUNT • Inconsistent preparation (discoloured wool, short wool and/or wool containing vegetable matter present) = 30c/kg clean discount. • Poor preparation (large amounts of fault present) = 50c/kg clean discount. • Colour = 20-30c/kg clean when Y-Z (yellowness) is over 3.5. • Vegetable matter (VM) = 25c/kg clean discount when VM is above 0.2% in good coloured wools (Y-Z less than 2.0); 35c/kg clean discount when VM is 0.4% or greater. • Penstain = 40c/kg clean when moderate to heavy. • Cotting = 40c/kg clean when present, even in very poor coloured wool. • Sheep markers = over 100c/kg clean discount when present in significant amounts.
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November 2021
Given that even second-shorn ewes will likely clip at least 1.8kg of clean fleece wool at a shearing, the potential discount for substandard clip preparation typically ranges from 35-90c/sheep, depending on how poor the job is. This is significantly more than the cost saving per woolhandler of 20c/ sheep, so any move to reduce woolshed staff should be made with care. Those that have already taken the clippers to their woolhandling workforce should probably review that decision along with the quality of their last wool clip. PGG Wrightson general manager wool Grant Edwards agrees that there has been a reduction in the quality of NZ’s crossbred clip. “Some growers are still fully focused on clip preparation but, in general terms, there has been a drop-off in wool quality,” he says. “We are seeing it in both the North
and South Islands, and it restricts the ability of certain wools to be used in certain endproducts. “Removing woolhandlers from the woolshed can backfire. It’s important that you look at what your starting point is in terms of wool quality and work out what you need to do to make sure that you don’t miss out on price premiums. “Quality has always been a key point of difference for NZ wool across the world and we need to maintain that,” Edwards says. “There are two parts to it – we need to present a quality product on the sheep’s back, then we need to make sure that our preparation standards – influenced by the number of staff and the training that they receive – are up to the mark.” • Richard Gavigan is a farmer, wool technology teacher and former NZ Wool Board employee.
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LIVESTOCK
E-tech
The power of e-technology BY: KEN GEENTY
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-technologies enable easy capture and handling of pasture and animal liveweight data. The advancements mean more precise and effective animal management. The rewards are improved profits and better facilitation of genetic improvement in sheep and cattle. The equipment comes at considerable cost so your first question will be what are the benefits? Some of these include – • Pasture meters give objectivity to what was previously subjective visual assessments, with increased accuracy • Strategic liveweight recording provides weight gains and importantly variation within the mob. Invaluable for feeding management, lamb drafting and genetic selection. • Walk-over weighing is much less labour intensive than manual and with autodrafting can enable preferential feeding and animal health applications • Feed intake measurements accompanying liveweights allow estimates in cattle of allimportant feed conversion efficiency. Applying dollar values for cost-benefit analysis is difficult but the general
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consensus is that benefits far outweigh costs. There are also intangibles such as the feel-good factor of having use of whizzbang gear. For ‘best estimate’ cost-benefits liaise with key farming friends or your appropriate rural professional. The underlying mantra being ‘good information leads to good decisions’. Many of the observations discussed here come from this author’s time working with the Sheep Cooperative Research Centre in Australia. However similar available equipment in New Zealand is wide ranging and often comes with training and data management packages. Well-known suppliers such as Tru-test, Allflex and Gallagher have extensive information on their websites. Available pasture meters include both hand-held and mobile versions for use with your farm bike. Both are equally effective with the correct protocols but the bike option is much faster. Automated weighing and drafting of sheep relies on radio frequency identification (RFID) ear-tags recorded by an electronic tag reader. For practical reasons there is also a corresponding visual tag number.
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Some of the applications developed include: • Walk-over weighing • Auto-drafting • Pedigree-matchmaker The most commonly used application has been walk-over weighing. This involves a raceway with weighing scales and a tag reader. Sheep can either be manually moved through the system or left to voluntarily walk over the scales. The latter usually requires an incentive for the sheep such as moving to a fresh paddock or to access supplementary feed. Most tag readers also record time and date of weighing with the data able to be easily downloaded to a computer for further processing.
Auto drafting sheep The auto-drafting option has the additional ability of drafting sheep according to pre-set criteria such as particular weight ranges. This can allow for sheep below a certain target weight to be preferentially drafted off to feed supplements with a re-cycling setup as shown in the Figure 1 diagram. Normally sheep would be allowed to voluntarily use the system. In this
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Figure 1: Weighing, drafting and feeding setup Diagram of an automated weighing and auto-drafting setup for preferentially feeding lighter ewes. Research project: Ken Geenty
Complete mob Drafted to supplementary feed Drafted back to paddock
Supplementary feed pen
WOW platform
Holding pen Paddock
experiment half of the paddock mob, or controls, not being drafted to supplement needed to be manually moved over the walk-over-weighing (WOW) platform periodically for comparative weights. The supplemented sheep offered rationed lupin grain often passed through the setup several times daily, before returning to the main mob. They gained an additional maternal liveweight of more than 5kg during pregnancy. Up to 78% of the 400 ewes in the project voluntarily passed over the WOW platform daily. Some farmers use a similar system for targeted animal health treatments including drenching for internal parasites. A larger-scale farmer with about 10,000 ewes has been quoted as saying auto-drafting of lighter animals for preferential parasite treatment saved him some $30,000 in drench costs. The Pedigree Matchmaker option simply involves having a walkover weighing and recording setup strategically placed in a paddock during the lambing period. As ewes walk over the system followed by their lamb(s) the tag numbers are recorded in sequence so the data can identify lambs belonging to each ewe. This avoids disruption of manually tagging lambs and recording their mothers in the paddock during lambing. And the liveweight data is useful for early lactation management.
Holding pen Water
Paddock
Innovative measure Similar auto-weighing equipment for cattle is available and with the addition of feeder load cells allows innovative measurement of feed intake and animal growth. Undoubtedly there is great potential for NZ use in evaluation of feed conversion efficiency (FCE). Australian research has shown a good correlation between animal feedlot FCE with that of pasture. Similar componentry equipment to that used by Growsafe is available in various forms in NZ. The information, accessed live and retrospectively on a stand-alone computer system, enables recording of vast quantities of feed intake and live weight performance data. Feed intake and liveweight trends over time can also be used for management in commercial feedlots with identification of slow growing animals with health or behavioral problems. Estimates of bull or progeny FCE from residual feed intake (RFI) over a 50-70 day recording period can be derived from feedlot data.
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November 2021
Grow Safe equipment used for paddock liveweight measurements. Source: Grow Safe Systems Ltd.
Residual feed intake RFI is the difference between measured feed intake and expected intake from published values for maintenance and growth. The lower or negative values are best. Since feed represents about 70% of production costs selection for low RFI is very beneficial as it has a moderate heritability of 3540%. Availability of multiple liveweights allows accurate estimates of feed intake to liveweight gain ratios or FCE. Use of the Growsafe technology is more prevalent in Australia where feedlotting of cattle and sheep is much more widespread than in NZ. However there are opportunities here to set up more sire and/or progeny group tests for RFI on farms with feedlot facilities or on already established feedlots.
The Hawke’s Bay based Rissington Cattle Company has Growsafe equipment for feed conversion estimates. Overseas Growsafe are developing pasturebased applications where animals are lured into weighing stalls with supplementary feed. This author understands there are also pasture intake measurement techniques under development by Grow Safe and collaborators. Horowhenua-based farm consultant Ron Halford said uptake of e-technologies in his experience is a ‘trickle’. It is hoped this improves soon to a slow-flowing stream for benefits to sheep and beef cattle farmers.
• Ken Geenty is a primary industries consultant.
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LIVESTOCK
Feeding
Feed ’em like dairy cows The sheep industry’s success in breeding more-fecund ewes has put a lot of pressure on our pastoral system to provide enough quality feed, Russell Priest reports.
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f farmers want to maximise lamb production they need to start feeding the ewes more like dairy cows. That’s what Professor Paul Kenyon of Massey University told a Beef + Lamb NZ Farming for Profit seminar at Rangiwahia in northern Manawatu recently. He said the most efficiently produced prime lamb is one which is drafted off mum. The weight of that lamb is largely generated by the most nutritious feed the lamb is ever going to get, its mother’s milk. Kenyon said there was at least a 30%
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difference (1 litre/day) in milk production between ewes with a Body condition score (BCS) 4 and BCS 1 being underfed at the same level of 1.8kg DM/day. His presentation was on managing ewes and hoggets in winter through to set stocking. Kenyon says more-fecund ewes has put a lot of pressure on the pastoral system to provide enough quality feed for them, particularly in the last month, of pregnancy to maximise their production potential. Ewes bearing multiple pregnancies
struggle to physically eat enough of the bulky (low energy dense) feeds like grass and brassicas to satisfy their energy requirements in late pregnancy. The uterus with its rapidly growing foetuses pushes up into the rib cage and reduces the size of the rumen . “That’s why having a fat buffer generated by having a BCS greater than three to get them through this period is essential.” Grass is 80% water so during the last month of pregnancy a multiple-bearing ewe needs to eat and ruminate 25kg a day
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Cash operating surplus for various hogget reproductive performance levels in a NI Hill country flock achieving 132% with mature ewes.
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Cash operating surplus for various hogget and mature ewe reproductive performance: Income from sales of sheep and wool, expenses,
to meet her energy demand which is a tall order especially if her teeth are suspect. Swedes are even worse at 92% moisture so should never be fed to multiple-bearing ewes in the last month of pregnancy because there’s not enough energy in them. Underfeeding and/or poor body condition of in-lamb ewes can lead to an alarming number of problems including increased lamb mortality. He says unfortunately farmers never seem to have enough grass to achieve the ideal levels of feeding particularly in the last month of pregnancy mainly because of the timing of lambing and winter feed growth. “The ewe flock should not be managed during pregnancy as just one group. Differential feeding is required.” This should be based on a ewes BCS, the number of foetuses she is carrying and her expected lambing date (i.e. early or late). The lower the BCS below 3-3.5 the greater
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4 0 R : 0 R :26 R:0 R:28 :104 R:0 :10 R: 6 HW HW HW HW HWR HWR HW 2 HW 5 0 3 5 4 0 5 5 1 5 1 : 0 3 1 5 3 R :1 :1 R: R: :1 3 R :1 5 R :1 F W F WR F W F WR WR FW FW F FW
Income
Expenses
Sheep COS (NZD/ha)
Income and expenses (NZD ‘000)
and cash operating surplus (COS), for scenarios with combinations of varying weaning rates (lambs weaned per ewe which was presented for breeding) of mature ewes (FWR) and hoggets (HWR).
0
Sheep COS (right-hand side axis) Farrell et all 2020
will be the production response to better feeding. He says BCS in mid-pregnancy to identify the bottom 15-20% then set stocking and preferentially feeding these will greatly improve their performance.
Set up a feed budget Information on pasture covers based on historical data is invaluable in setting up a feed budget. If this shows a deficit particularly during the late winter/early spring a plan should be developed to prioritise which stock will be apportioned the scarce feed. He suggested prioritised feeding should
be first given to poor-conditioned, multiplebearing ewes lambing in the first cycle. Next the rest of the first cycle multiples. Secondcycle multiples should be third followed by first-cycle single-bearing ewes and finally late-lambing singles. Single-bearing ewes are more able to buffer and the feed demand of later-lambing ewes will increase in line with increasing pasture growth. Triplet-bearing ewes have theoretically a greater feed demand than twin-bearing however the issue is that they can’t physically eat more than the latter. Kenyon’s advice is that if there is plenty of feed (above 1200kg DM/ha – 4cm) triplets
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The foetus is like a parasite and the ewe/hogget will do everything within her power to keep the foetus alive, apportioning as much of her energy as is necessary into retaining it often at her own expense (death). This is known as the buffering effect. need not be separated from twins. He says triplets feed demand becomes greater than twins about six weeks before lambing. If feed is scarce they should be offered paddocks in which covers are greater than 1200kg DM/ha. Energy requirements of a pregnant ewe are relatively small until scanning (day 90 of pregnancy) during which time the placenta, foetus and udder are developing. Developing a large placenta is critical in supporting multiple pregnancies. At scanning the foetal growth starts to increase significantly until day 120 when it starts to accelerate. When a ewe lambs, it sheds a significant amount of weight in the lamb, associated fluids and placenta etc (single lamb 1013kg, twins 14-18kg, triplets 20-22kg). So if she is to maintain her mating weight she must increase it during pregnancy by these amounts especially in the last month. Kenyon says during days 100 to 132 of pregnancy not to graze pastures below 900kg/ha. In the final two-three weeks before lambing, ewes should be offered an allowance of 2.5-4kg DM/ewe/day. Intake should not be restricted and pastures should not be grazed below 1200kg DM/ha (4cm). Ideal covers for any productive sheep are
1200-1800kg DM/ha because at that level they are able to get a full mouthful each bite. Sheep can only achieve a fixed number of bites a day because they also have to ruminate. Optimal grazing covers at lambing are 1400kg DM/ha. Don’t offer more than 1800kg DM/ha because they’ll trample it into the ground and quality lost later on in the spring. Farmers know from experience which are the best paddocks for twin-lamb survival. Kenyon advises that these paddocks are given time to recover after grazing for the best possible covers when set stocked for lambing. Individual paddocks should be set stocked according to ewe demand (number of
KEY POINTS • Feed ewes to achieve BCS 3-3.5. • Don’t feed all in-lamb ewes/ hoggets the same. • Offer ewes/hoggets 1200-1800kg DM/ha in late pregnancy. • Prioritise feed when in short supply. • Feeding the main driver of hogget-breeding success.
Total liveweight profile in pregnancy, lactation and post weaning Remating
70 Lambing
Weaning
65 60 kg
70 g/d gain
55
Mating
50 Docking
45 130 g/d gain
40 May
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July
October
December
April
pregnancies, BCS), pasture cover, lambing cycle (early/late lambers) and lamb survival rating. Thinner twin-bearers should be set stocked at a lower rate. Later lambing ewes can be offered less feed than earlier lambing ones. Paddocks with poorer lamb survival records can be stocked with singles or even better conditioned twins.
Impact of ewe deaths Ewe deaths during the lambing period were often underestimated and can have a huge impact. He says 50% of ewe deaths occur between set-stocking and docking. If a death rate in a flock of 1000 is 10%, it can be an expensive exercise. If these ewes recorded a 150% scanning and 5% (50) of these ewes died between set-stocking and docking this represents a potential loss of 75 lambs. Not only does this represent a loss of income from the lambs, but it also means the farmer must find another 50 replacements. These replacements may come in the form of hoggets, two-tooths or mixed-age ewes with the latter being a better option for the average farmer. He says a mature ewe can be held at maintenance for at least two thirds of her pregnancy because she has reached her mature weight. A mature ewe only has to put on a maximum of 22kg during her pregnancy if she is bearing triplets to maintain her mating weight whereas a 45kg hogget has to grow at 130g/day, wean a lamb plus grow a further 90g/day from lambing through to re-mating at 65kg. “This is the ideal growth profile of a hogget to avoid her two-tooth weight and her lifetime productivity and longevity being compromised.” To achieve this she needs to be offered good quality herbage with pre-grazing masses in the range of 1400-1800kg DM/ha and post-grazing masses above 1000-1200kg DM/ha. This may require a reduction in other stock classes or an increase in alternative feed sources like brassicas or chicory, plantain or clover. Winter crops can be used in early to midpregnancy, however hoggets should not
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be asked to clean up a paddock as this will restrict intake. The aim should be to grow them as big as possible.
Traditional management of ewe in early pregnancy 5
Energy demands
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4
3
Foetus
kg
The first two thirds of a hogget’s pregnancy is the period in which the energy demands from the conceptus are low. This is the most opportune period for the hogget to grow so that she develops good structural size. It is not the time to be rationing her feed intake and stunting her growth. “Farmers concerned about lambing problems in their hoggets are shooting themselves in the foot by screwing them down during pregnancy. This slows their growth and development of structural size and since this is directly related to pelvic area this creates lambing problems having the opposite effect to what was intended,” Kenyon said. He explained the reason why birthweight cannot be significantly influenced by feeding is because 90% of a lamb’s birth weight is determined at conception with only 10% being influenced by feeding. The foetus is like a parasite and the ewe/hogget
2
1 .04
Udder development
Placenta
0
0
30
60
90
120
150
Days pregnant
will do everything within her power to keep the foetus alive, apportioning as much of her energy as is necessary into retaining it often at her own expense (death). This is known as the buffering effect. He says Massey conducted a trial where 40kg hoggets were mated to the same rams and grown three different growth rates
to reach 60, 70 and 80kg before lambing. All lambs were weighed at birth with the average weight of the lambs from the 80kg hoggets being only 300g heavier than those from the 60kg hoggets. “Of course the 80kg hoggets spat their lambs out easily.” Rams from breeds of a lower mature weight than the hogget breed are the best for mating hoggets. A large study looking at the relationship between lamb survival and weight of hoggets at lambing showed at 50kg the lamb survival rate was 66% and 88% if 60kg. With hoggets lambing in late September the pasture covers should be improving and at least 1200kg DM/ha. The aim is to feed hoggets as well as possible to not only achieve maximum milk production but also to encourage them to continue to grow. As with the ewes if pasture covers are lower than is ideal, hogget mobs need to be prioritised. Herb mixes have been shown to increase lamb survival and weaning weight as well as hoggets lactation performance, liveweight and BCS.
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LIVESTOCK
Diversification
Winning concepts: Dion and Ali Kilmister in their Homegrown Butcher Deli and Pantry in Masterton.
Quality with every cut Expanding their successful online Homegrown Farm Fresh Meats business to a bricks and mortar butchery and deli was a whirlwind for Wairarapa farmers Dion and Ali Kilmister. Story: Rebecca Greaves Photos supplied by Homegrown.
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T
he Homegrown Farm Fresh Meat ethos is know your farmer, know your food. Dion and Ali hand-pick every animal and have developed their own special meat breeds of lamb and beef to ensure the consistent quality of every cut. Their attention to detail and delicious products were recently recognised with two gold and one silver medal at the Outstanding New Zealand Food Producers Awards, as well as walking away with the overall Supreme Champion title for their mixed box of gourmet beef and lamb. Dion and Ali don’t do things by halves. Country-Wide first featured the couple when they won the 2018 Wairarapa Sheep & Beef Farm Business of the Year. They had an inspiring pathway to farm ownership story and Dion showed remarkable resilience in the face of adversity. He lost his son Jayden and wife, Maria, in a short space of time, and they have been an important part of his story. He met Ali, a self-confessed city slicker with a sharp business mind, at a pub in Wellington eight years ago and she became his partner in life, and in business. Together they have formed a formidable team. Homegrown Farm Fresh Meats was in its infancy in 2018, having been launched as an online business the previous year, starting out
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A Farm Fresh Lamb box prepared to order, (top), while a Homegrown butcher prepares a pair of legs of lamb.
with Farm Fresh Lamb boxes – half and whole lamb boxes, processed fresh to order. At the heart of their story is the idea of encouraging customers to eat how a farmer would eat, utilising every cut of meat. Fast forward three years and the Kilmisters have not been putting their feet up. Not long after the Farmer of the Year field day they took over and moved to their new property on the Pahiatua Track. They converted the dairy platform back to sheep and beef finishing, and it is from this farm that Dion selects the animals for the butchery. Joe’s Meat Market in Masterton had been cutting up the meat for their online boxes, before Ali picked it up and packaged it for delivery to customers. When the
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‘The Angus Park gives an amazing eating experience, and that’s what it’s all about for us. We like to be different and we’re in a competitive market.’ opportunity arose to purchase Joe’s, it seemed a natural progression. Based on customer demand, they took the plunge and bought Joe’s, taking on all the staff. They traded as Joe’s for six weeks before closing for a complete renovation, which took eight weeks. The Homegrown Butcher Deli and Pantry officially opened for business in September 2019.
Ali admits they never dreamed of having a shop, but they hadn’t reckoned on the demand. “We even had local farmers asking about buying meat. It’s a bit of a dying art for shepherds, the butchery, and we’re looking at running classes for shepherds, to keep that education going. It (butchery) is a real skill and something I’m passionate about keeping going.” Ali says Joe had done a great job at bringing on young guys and training them. As she puts it, they have taken them to finishing school. They saw something in Jake Wiffin, 23 at the time, and quickly made him head butcher. “Eventually, we hope he will be our succession plan. He’s passionate about what he does and how he does it, and he’s good with customers. Like us, for him the customer always comes first. He’s young, but he’s worldly mature.” It was when they advertised for two qualified butchers, and couldn’t find any, that Ali realised what a problem it was. Instead, they put on two apprentice butchers and are training their own. Waste is another challenge, but the Kilmisters are big on minimising waste and extracting maximum value. To that end, they have started making dog food, a dog roll for pets and Farm Dog Blocks for working dogs, which are portioned cubes of frozen meat. They are even investigating providing a service to farmers, for those animals that are not able to go to the works, to turn them into dog tucker. In the butchery and deli they created a hot food offering, building a commercial kitchen to serve lunch time food, which includes a lamb, beef or pork hot roast sandwich with all the trimmings, lamb, beef and smoked brisket pasties and sausage rolls. On Thursday and Friday you can get pork ribs. Ali says the offering is small, but it’s another way to ensure there’s as little waste meat as possible. The butchery uses old fashioned methods. All sausages and small goods are made on-site and they have managed to get rid of 95% of plastic packaging. All meat is wrapped in traditional butcher’s paper, while some customers bring in their own reusable containers. Due to the nature of posting meat, they do vacuum pack all online orders, though they are in the process of changing to compostable vacuum packs. Dion’s passion is for finishing animals. He loves to see a prime animal produced off his
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When they started, lambs were worth about $90 at the farmgate, which created a better margin. With farmgate prices much higher now, the business is more of a passion project. “Obviously it has to make money, but for the time and effort I put in, it’s definitely more of a passion project for me. We’ve always been about averages, even in our farm equation, riding out the highs and lows to get a good average. “It’s about keeping as much of our good meat as we can in New Zealand, and that consistent product 12 months of the year.”
Operating in lockdown
At Homegrown Butcher, Deli and Pantry owners Dion and Ali Kilmister are front-of-house crew every Saturday.
own farms, and prides himself on selecting animals for the butchery he himself would want to eat. He puts his hand on every animal personally. They are gender specific, only using females to ensure consistency and eliminate testosterone spikes at different times of the year, and have their own breed of Charollais lamb and Angus Park beef (a cross using an Angus cow and a Speckle Park bull), which they have trademarked. “The Angus Park gives an amazing eating experience, and that’s what it’s all about for us. We like to be different and we’re in a competitive market. Meat is meat, so you
need something a little bit different to stand out from the crowd.” The couple is the front of house crew every Saturday. “I’m there Wednesday to Saturday and Dion is farming and in the shop on a Saturday. That’s special and gives him a buzz, to look at it and say ‘that’s our own meat’, we feel very privileged to be in that position.” They put four to eight heifers and 20 to 60 lambs through the butchery a week, depending on the season and demand. Ali says there is a margin, but it’s not huge, and it’s not about the money.
After reopening as Homegrown Butcher Deli and Pantry it was a hectic five months before everyone’s world was turned upside down by Covid-19. “It was summer, everyone likes a steak, it was a new business and everyone wanted to come in and have a look. We were so busy we still had our old website and hadn’t had a chance to update it.” Three days out from the nationwide Level 4 lockdown they saw the writing on the wall. Ali’s son and his wife had just moved back from Melbourne. They spent two days and nights photographing every single cut of meat in the store and creating a new website. “We were listening to what was being said and knew our shop frontage would be shut down, but we thought if we were online we could still trade. We moved very quickly to ensure we’d done everything necessary to continue online.” Because they had already run as an online business, they had the logistics in place to make online ordering and delivery possible, albeit on a far larger scale than before. For seven weeks they and their staff put in 16-hour days to get as much meat out the
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Dion Kilmister behind the counters at Homegrown.
door as humanly possible every day. At one stage they ran out of ice packs and ended up freezing water in vacuum packs to make their own. Their front of house staff and kitchen worker became delivery drivers. “It was daily problem solving. We had MPI in auditing things and it was a time of high anxiety for staff, and for us. For the most part, they were working their arses off and everyone else was at home with their kids on holiday, it was like Groundhog Day. “We had this young business that could have gone belly up, but it thrived and we probably got access to more people, as people turned to online, and we had a far wider audience than normal. A lot of people have now gone back to what they knew, and convenience, but we have retained customers.” Ali says they had to make decisions and act fast. “For right or for wrong, if you make a decision, you have something to work towards. If we had got closed down by MPI, we got closed down. But we made a decision to work towards something we thought was sustainable, and it worked.” They didn’t take the wage subsidy and basically broke even for that period. Ali says it was exhausting, and they felt the weight of responsibility in being allowed to stay open. They came through the other end with a business and all their staff kept their jobs, which was the best case scenario. Ali says the experience did bring them all closer as a team, but it is one she hopes never to repeat again. Winning the Supreme Award at the Outstanding Food Producers Award was the
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FARMING OPERATION • Brook – Pahiatua, 282ha • Pukanui – Ashley Clinton, 1100ha • Glenbervie – Pahiatua, 100ha • Mahunga (lease) – Masterton, 40ha of flat land in town • Belmont Regional Park (lease) – Wellington, owned by the Greater Wellington Regional Council. They are 5.5 years into their 10-year lease.
icing on the cake after a tough year. “I felt absolutely elated. It’s one of those moments in time. What we do is hard work, if it was easy everyone would be doing it. The judges and chefs gave us amazing feedback, it was unbelievable really.”
Buying and selling On the farming front, the Kilmisters have also been full steam ahead. Since buying the farm near Pahiatua in 2018 they elected not to renew several of their lease farms, hoping to give others the opportunity to get into farming. Wanting to add more flat land near their home base, they recently made the tough decision to sell Canoga Park, at Bideford. Canoga Park was the farm where the dream began. “It was Dion’s first lease back in 2005, the first opportunity ever. It was huge to let go of that farm – it’s where he lived with Maria and Jayden – all his history is there. But, again, that’s why it’s good to let go. It was
his decision, but it has been hard.” The couple had decided if the right property came up to buy, they would sell Canoga Park to their neighbour, who wanted it. When Pukanui, a sheep and beef station in Hawke’s Bay, came up for sale they knew the time was right. “It’s in the Tukituki catchment, which is something new for us. It’s a whole new learning experience, what we can and can’t do.” At the same time they also bought Glenbervie, a 100-hectare dairy farm, near their Pahiatua farm. The property is completely flat and the plan is to convert it to sheep and beef finishing too. The contract manager concept discussed at their Farmer of the Year field day is still going strong, essentially giving the farm manager some skin in the game and rewarding hard work. They know from their historical Cashmanager records the costs of running a farm, per year and per stock unit. The contractor is paid a yearly amount for running the farm in equal monthly portions, plus GST. This way the contractor has his own business within a business, taking care of things like budgeting and GST. They also build equity through ownership of plant and equipment. Dion’s brother Kerry was their guinea pig, contract managing Belmont Regional Park and Ali says it has been a success. The model means Dion doesn’t have to sweat the small stuff. The contract manager employs the staff, monitors the day-to-day operations and takes care of things like how gear is being treated, which is important when he owns it. Dion’s nephew Chris Kilmister was contract managing Canoga Park, and will move to Pukanui in the same role. “One of Dion’s favourite sayings is ‘the sweat off your brow is your best reference’. There’s plenty of opportunity for them to pocket money, things like crutching, you can pay someone or you can do it yourself and keep that money. “The biggest benefit is the opportunity for the contractor, the monetary thing is huge, but also for Dion and I, that small stuff doesn’t have to be sweated. It’s taken care of, and it’s taken care of by someone who has true buy-in. It’s really hard to find staff these days, we want to offer something different to get good staff and keep them.” Trying something different sums up the Dion and Ali approach to life. They work hard, but they are passionate about that work, and they have a hell of a lot of fun along the way.
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STEP UP TO 8 IN 1 PROTECTION When you’re running big numbers of sheep and cattle… there’s one number you want to keep really low. And that’s unnecessary losses from Clostridial disease. That’s why Brownrigg Agriculture have stepped up from 5 in 1 to Coglavax8 vaccine to protect against 8 Clostridial diseases present in New Zealand.
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ANIMAL HEALTH
Lice
Sheep getting a full wetting in David Ludemann’s shower dip.
Ineffective treatment rising BY: JOANNA GRIGG
A
fter 54 years in the lice control game, contract dipper David Ludemann, has seen a few trends come and go. David operates a Creelmin shower unit, dipping more than 400,000 sheep a year, mainly in North and East Otago. He has seen an increase in flocks where lice treatment has not been effective. This is for two reasons; poor application methods and potential tolerance of lice to the chemical used. “The chemical tolerance issue has a real question mark on it, though, especially as we don’t have the research to confirm it. “Australia has got a major problem with lice tolerating chemicals, and we tend to follow them with breakdowns in insecticide efficacy.” In a recent example, he had been called in to shower-dip sheep, following unsuccessful pour-on treatments that had been used for some time. “I get these types of calls following treatments, either by pour-on or jetting, using insect growth regulators mainly.” The 2019 Managing Flystrike and Lice booklet reported that Australian lice
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have widely recorded resistance to both triflumuron and diflubenzuron. These treatments are largely abandoned. The BPUs aim to kill immature lice via pour-on or jetting. Spinosyn, applied via saturation/ jetting or pour-on has no recorded resistance and has a low threat to mammals, birds, fish. It could be part of a rotation strategy, where dissimilar chemicals are used from one treatment to the next. Ludemann has gone back to using an organophosphate-based product, Seraphos, as a step in a chemical rotation. “It gives a lot better control of lice but I don’t know how long we can use this.” Resistance by lice to organophosphates is very rare, making it an effective treatment option. His tips for successful control include dipping all the stock on the farm at the same time. “Don’t leave the old works-ewes or those few lambs in the corner paddock undipped.” He says using enough water for full saturation is also vital. Some jets are using less than two litres per sheep but his shower system will get about seven litres on each sheep. Each animal gets a good three to four minutes in the shower dip,
depending on the length of wool. Chemical dilution is important to get right. Stressed water (contaminated with faeces, soil, urine and grease) needs to be changed. His clients have Halfbred sheep mainly, although there are some Merino, Romney and Crossbred flocks. Last season, another 60,000 ewes were shower-dipped by Ludemann. He was called in to treat these mobs because previous treatments via pour-on or jetting hadn’t sustained effective control. Dipping costs between $1 and $3 per head but at least the farmer knows it is being done properly, he says. “When you look at the price of fine wool, it’s a small investment.” Farmers are encouraged to work with neighbours, to get effective community control. “To a point farmers work with their neighbours, but not as much as they used to.” • David Ludemann was a contributor to the 2019 Managing Flystrike and Lice Guide, published by Beef + Lamb NZ, and the NZ Veterinary Association. This is a free resource for farmers and found online.
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ANIMAL HEALTH
Lice
No independent research on lice has been done for 20 years, but the pest costs the Australian sheep industry more than $120 million a year.
Lousy sheep are a big deal BY: JOANNA GRIGG
T
wo financial incentives to keep lice in check are improved wool cut and quality and, possibly, improved lamb growth rate. Colin McKay works with veterinarians and animal health retailers across New Zealand. In his role with Elanco New Zealand giving technical advice, he has witnessed changes in farm management which have led to incomplete control of lice. The first change has been a shift away from full saturation dipping methods, he says, to low-volume methods such as automatic jetting races and pour-on products. This is to save time and treatment costs. Secondly, many strong wool growers have
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shifted to once-a-year shearing, to keep costs down. Together, it means more lice are surviving a treatment, and there are fewer treatment chances per year to nail them. “We’ve seen more infestations in Southland and the North Island, especially in mobs under stress,” McKay said. “Research in the UK shows that lambs carrying lice had depressed growth rates compared to lice-free, so it’s potentially about lamb production too, not just wool.” “It used to be a big deal having sheep with lice – you couldn’t sell them. It was all about clean musters and maintaining boundary fences.” McKay says any chance to produce better quality wool should be a goal, even with strong wool, as a better-quality product has an increased chance of getting a higher
price. Farmers often contact McKay after seeing high levels of lice on ewes, just before lambing. They are typically in eight months of wool. “This is not ideal.” Emergency treatment of pregnant sheep in long wool is limited to pour on, or in some cases, jetting. Stock welfare and metabolic conditions must be considered with yarding and stress. The best advice is to make a plan to improve control next year, he says, to keep infestations from ballooning pre-lamb again. To do this, the first step is planning a treatment post-shearing. Pour-ons are most effective if applied within 24 hours post shear. “Farmers must treat them, not wait until all the mobs are done and some animals
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have two or three months’ wool growth, or a more convenient time, as it impacts the results.” Resistance has been recorded in NZ and Australia to some commonly used lousicides, with rotation of active ingredients recommended as a means to slow the development of resistance. McKay gives an example. A dual active product like Zapp Encore (with Insect Growth Regulator and a knockdown chemical) is suitable but it should be alternated with another class of activity with the following treatment, for example a Spinosad. Ultimately, saturation at four weeks postshearing is the best bet, he says. “However, lack of saturation dipping equipment, shearing programmes, lambing dates and stocking policy all conspire to make this unachievable on many farms.” Application of louse products needs to be thorough and exactly as per product
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label. If jetting, he recommends checking water quantities per head by measuring the balance of a full 1000-litre tank once the first 100 sheep run through, to see litres used/head. “The surface area of a sheep is more than what you think.” The rule of thumb is two litres per sheep and half a litre for every month of wool grown, he says. “Australian farmers often plunge dip once every five years and use off-shears pour ons in the intervening years.” If there is widespread lousiness throughout a flock it may require two treatments in a year; off shears and again in the autumn, to reduce louse numbers to acceptable levels, he says. “Applying chemicals to sheep is just part of an overall louse control programme – all of the stock advice provided to farmers during the days of compulsory dipping remain valid – treating all stock on a defined date, maintaining good biosecurity, secure boundaries, clean musters and checking bought-in sheep for lice.” Monitoring the effectiveness of any treatments applied is also key. McKay would love to see research on chemical resistance in the lice population in NZ. “We have had no independent research done since the AgResearch entomology unit wound up 20 years ago.” “We have to rely on Australian data, which tells us there is resistance to a number of active ingredients including louse-effective insect growth regulators.” Synthetic pyrethroid resistance was found in NZ in the 1990s. “Synthetic pyrethroids replaced organochlorines in the 1970s and were very widely used over a long period of time.” Organophosphate products are still available and very effective against lice but care must be taken when using them. Australia has a bigger range of products available than NZ, as a result of the cost to register a new product here and scale of the market. The Davies Livestock Research Centre (Adelaide) is working on a way to test if sheep have lice, during shearing. DNA samples are taken from the shearing combs and processed quickly on site, under 60 minutes. This means farmers can identify if sheep are lice-free and don’t need treatment off-shears. NZ had a core test for bales of wool, to identify if lice were present at the time of shearing, but the information gained was largely historic and farmers
The life cycle of the sheep body louse
Young adult emerges
Female lays 1 or 2 eggs every 3 days
Day 31
35 days to maturity
Egg attaches to wool
Adult lice may live up to 8 weeks Day 9 Day 22 Day 17
Egg hatches
Nymph moults 3 times as it grows
• Sheep lice are surface grazers (they don’t suck blood). • Live at the base of the wool fibres on the skin, where they consume surface debris. This can cause intense irritation. • Shearing removes 50-70% of lice with the fleece. When followed with a correctly applied chemical treatment, is an opportunity for eradication. • Immediately after shearing, grease flows from a sheep, so off-shears is best time to treat. • One study found lice could survive for up to 10 days on shearers’ moccasins. Change clothes and footwear if recent contact with lousy sheep. • Clean the shed of wool pieces (board and yard area). • Treat bought-in/returned stock as infected. • Don’t forget to treat ewe hoggets, late prime lambs, rams and the dog tucker mob.
didn’t use it, McKay says. Sheep lice cost the Australian sheep industry more than $120 million annually. Lousy sheep not only produce about 10% less wool, but also further decrease wool quality value about 10% plus the costs of chemical treatment. • For more NZ information see Managing Flystrike and Lice booklet, B+LNZ, 2019. McKay was a contributing author.
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ANIMAL HEALTH
Lice
Treat lice and fly separately
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IT MAY BE HARD TO HEAR, BUT farmers have to learn to live with some lice, as they won’t get the last one. That’s the advice of Jason Gray, who has worked in veterinary practice and represented animal health companies in the Upper South Island since 2000. Being based in the heart of fine and medium wool country in Marlborough, he’s well placed to offer advice on lice. “This is not a cop-out, just a result of changing systems and return on investment, and never being able to get every last louse on the farm or at the neighbours. “But keep knocking them down, so you don’t see rubbing or wool damage.” His advice is four-fold. Make a separate plan for lice and fly, work with neighbours to synchronise dipping sheep on neighbouring farms, understand the chemical families and correct application, and feed stock well. The gold standard lice plan should have two lice treatments a year, to eradicate post shearing then follow with a knockdown in autumn.
“Starting from off-shears, either jet or pouron off-shears, or immerse in a plunge later in the year.” If using pour-on, the best time is within 24 hours off shears, he said. This will ensure the pour-on will translocate through the fresh lanolin expressed by the sheep. As the grease gets colder, it slows down the spread. “Then do another lice treatment in autumn, perhaps this one in sync with an autumn fly treatment.” Gray encourages farmers to work in with neighbours so sheep can be treated for lice at similar times, to avoid cross-contamination. Feeding sheep is a great preventative as low condition score is linked to lower immunity. “Lower condition score and lice go together like bangers and mash.” He is a fan of the Spinosad (Extinosad) chemical range for an emergency quick knockdown pre-shearing, as it has no residual. “It’s a good product to use when you get caught out.” “My rule of thumb is the longer and finer the wool, the harder to kill the lice.”
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ANIMAL HEALTH
Drench resistance
Unless the worm egg count (WEC) was known before drenching, it can’t be said how ineffective the drench was.
A drench check vs a FECRT BY: SARA SUTHERLAND
D
rench resistance is rising and increasing in importance in New Zealand. Have you got drench resistance on your farm? There are two ways to tell; a “drench check” and a faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT). The difference between the two is important to know as they tell you different things.
What is a drench check? A drench check is a faecal egg count 7-14 days after drenching. (A faecal egg count FEC is also known as worm egg count WEC since it is not the faeces that lay the eggs). By this time, the eggs that were already laid when the adult worms were killed by the drench will have passed out in the poo. There won’t have been enough time for larvae that were eaten just after the drench to have developed into adults, mated and laid eggs of their own. So a WEC at this time should always be zero. If it’s not zero that means some worms have survived the drench. A drench check only tells you whether some worms are surviving the drench. We don’t know which worms, or why. A non-zero egg count is an indication the drench is ineffective, but a zero egg count doesn’t necessarily mean it is effective. Unless we know what the WEC was before drenching, we can’t say how ineffective the drench was. In other words, a WEC after drenching of 100 eggs/gram
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when the WEC before drenching was 5000 e/g is not as big a deal as a WEC of 100 e/g when the WEC before drenching was 100 e/g. We generally recommend all farmers do drench checks twice a year – once near the beginning of their summer lamb drenching and once in the autumn. The first will make sure the drench you are planning to use for the summer is effective. The second to check for resistance that may have developed through the summer. A drench check after a quarantine drench may also be useful.
A FECRT A faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) is the only test that will tell you which worm species are surviving which drench families on your farm. It gives you a lot more information than a drench check. Unfortunately the eggs of all the major worm species we worry about look identical down a microscope. For the past 10 years we have been promised that a PCR test to identify worm species from the eggs is two or three years away. There still isn’t one available. The only way to tell which worm species are present is to let them develop into larvae and identify the larvae. This is called a larval culture, and takes about two weeks. For a FECRT you do a starting (predrench) egg count and larval culture. The larval culture is very important and we try to time our FECRTs to when a variety of worm
species are likely to be present. Then lambs are drenched to their exact weight with different drenches. At a second visit 10-14 days later we collect faecal samples from each treated lamb and do larval cultures on these samples. Now you know the number of eggs at the start and the worm species that laid them, and the number of eggs and worm species that have survived the drench. From this we can work out how effective each drench family is against each worm species that was there at the start. For example, we could say that levamisole is 70% effective against Trichostrongylus worms, but 100% effective against Haemonchus. A FECRT is very important because your parasite management plan will be different depending on the amount of resistance present (drench efficacy), how many drenches or drench families are ineffective, and which worms are resistant to which drenches. Because of the higher cost of a FECRT ($1500-2000) we recommend these are done every three years. You may choose to do them more often if you are concerned that you may have bought in resistance, if you have made major management changes, or if a drench check shows worms surviving a drench that the FECRT previously showed was effective.
• Sara Sutherland is a veterinarian for Veterinary Services Wairarapa.
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ANIMAL HEALTH
Worms
Firing up the immune system
Like young children, in the first four months of a lamb’s life they have to have worm challenges to fully activate their immune responses.
BY: GORDON LEVET
A
bout 20 years ago, I was discussing aspects of breeds of sheep with the worm-resistant trait with Dr John McEwan of Invermay AgResearch Centre near Dunedin. He surprised me when he said one day scientists would find the gene involved in worm resistance. I commented that when this gene was found, it would mean the end of my work. He assured me that would not be the case. I assumed we were talking about just one gene. Some 10 or so years later, talking on the same subject with Dr Jon Hickford of Lincoln University, he said there are many genes in the immune system involved in providing immunity to worm challenges. Bearing in mind the previous conversation with Dr McEwan, I asked was it two or three? He said, maybe 10 and up to 20, and added, and some we may never find. Some of these genes may have other
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functions outside the immune system, he said. So what appeared to be a simple matter of finding the gene involved, on further research, the immune system was found to be much more complex. In all living species genetic variation enables all to adapt to environmental changes, be it climate change, or the dominance of a species. This genetic variation has enabled humans to “reprogramme” domestic animals to produce more of what they need in food; trees that produce superior timber; plants that provide better fruits, vegetables and grains. This same cornerstone of nature has enabled worms to evolve to become immune to chemicals designed to kill them. The immune system also has genetic variation in its DNA that enables it to adapt to environmental changes. Selective breeding will shorten the time for the immune system to adjust. The bigger the change, the longer it takes to adjust.
Scientists and farmers have concentrated on improving the productivity of farm animals and have been very successful. But the importance of the immune system has been generally ignored. I find this strange because it is the key to good health and longevity. The immune system can be slow in recognising and meeting disease and parasite challenges; it can be weak and fail to control them. Or it can quickly recognise and aggressively meet and overcome these challenges to forestall damage. This is genetic variation.
Breeding for worm resistance The only way to breed for a more aggressive immune response that I know of, is to breed for worm or disease resistance like foot diseases and pneumonia. Probably breeding for worm resistance is the best option. Counting worm egg numbers in a gram of dung gives a reasonable assessment of worm levels. Selecting a low faecal egg count (FEC)
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The immune system also has genetic variation in its DNA that enables it to adapt to environmental changes. Selective breeding will shorten the time for the immune system to adjust. The bigger the change, the longer it takes to adjust.
Lifecycle of Nematodirus battus.
ram by the best sire for the lowest average FEC in his progeny, is a good first step. Mating this select ram with the daughters of another sire of progeny that also had an average low FEC will be a good second progressive step. The more sires used, the better. I usually used 10 or 12 sires. Using three to four sires would slow progress, and small breeders breeding for this trait need to pool their resources to make more progress. Progress starting from scratch will be slow, especially if selecting for other traits which we have to do to have a saleable product. It took me 34 years to breed sheep that have a moderate to high resistance to worm challenges, with most never requiring a drench, in a region of high Barber’s Pole worm challenge, with FEC averaging 4000 and over. One key aspect of the immune system is that it is a fluctuating force with ebbs and flows. Good nutrition is essential for maintaining high immune responses. Times of low nutrition, as in a drought, a weakened immune system opens the door of opportunity for parasites and diseases. One of my father’s sayings was “skinny sheep breed lice”.
Play in the dirt In a trial with children in England several years ago, it was found that the first three years of a child’s life determined the lifelong strength of the immune system. Dr Hickford knew this when he told me he had said to his wife their young children must play in the dirt at least twice a week. Sadly farmers have had mixed messages on drenching over many years. Drench every four weeks. Leave some lambs undrenched to ensure the survival of the
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Source: Elanco.
Severe Barbers’ Pole lamb’s eye damage (top) compared to normal healthy colouring.
weakest worms. Now for my take on all of this. Early drenching of lambs is a big mistake. Like young children, in the first four months of a lamb’s life they have to have worm challenges to fully activate their immune responses. Their immune systems are like a laid fire, ready to be ignited. In
three or four weeks lambs will be nibbling grass and ingesting worm larvae. This will ignite the immune system like a match to fire. Removing the worm challenge by drenching results in a pause in immune development. Another surge in immune responses will commence when worm numbers again increase. Like a fire, the immune system needs to be stoked. Continual challenges from diseases and parasites will ensure a vigorous response. Worm challenges are not great up to the middle of January, with the exception of nematodirus which is a problem in spring in colder regions. So lamb’s immune systems should be able to handle worm challenges until after weaning in most regions. Lambs destined for the works may need more drenching. With ewe lambs, destined for the breeding flock, I would leave the best undrenched, run them separately or mark the drenched lambs. When drenching ceases, the lambs with the least drenches could be top candidates for the breeding flock. Where the Barbers’ Pole worm is dominant, more attention is needed as lambs can die while in prime condition. Bear in mind that the opinions expressed are based on experience and close scrutiny of 34 years of data, rather than the results of scientific trials.
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ANIMAL HEALTH Stock Check
Getting close is as good as it gets BY: TREVOR COOK
A
discussion group the day before lockdown exposed the progress of a farming business which was told when last visited that it was not financially viable. As well, the poor pasture control on the hills was criticised and that per-head performance was being too compromised in the interests of higher per hectare performance. At the August meeting the almost tenfold increase in the EFS over the last four years was testament to sticking to a plan despite having to compromise so much and put up with too many things not being right. Having very poor cashflow could be and often is a pathway to destruction. But working within that cashflow, implementing unpalatable policies that have clear objectives to create it and putting up with criticism does work. That outcome was the result of combining planning, monitoring, an ability to focus only on the bits that improved the cash position and having a thick skin. Perhaps that discussion group forum had its part to play. It certainly did in helping look at the next steps, now not so constrained by lack of cash. An interesting discussion was about how much investment is made in a farm. Is there an end point to spending money on development? Repairs and maintenance are a necessary spend but new tracks, fences and pasture, for example, can keep soaking up funds. Whether to slow up and start accumulating more cash or keep spending is a very personal thing. Obviously succession can have a huge impact on which option is taken. Pinned to my office wall for 20 years is a page titled The Station. It describes being
on a train enjoying the journey but getting to the destination is the thing most on your mind. When we get to the station that will be IT. Similarly when we get debtfree, when the kids leave home, when we retire, are in effect stations but they will always be followed by more stations. The message in this page is that the journey is where most of the achievement, joy and satisfaction happens. This so much applies to that end point of farm development. If accumulating the cash instead of spending on the farm leads to another journey then it has been a good choice. But farming is all about the journey. Enjoying and getting the satisfaction of making the farm more productive, easier to run, more sustainable or whatever is as much a valid spend as taking the cash. As well, the long-term benefits might be that the farm is worth more, or that the next generation will be better off. But extending the journey is justified in its own right. To capture the other benefits is the icing on the cake. I am always impressed with the dynamics, influence and companionship that exists in discussion groups. It is a forum to blow off frustrations to a totally sympathetic audience. Discussions like that described above can only happen in a safe environment where the criticisms are taken as being helpful and being exposed is not destructive. I get a lot of pleasure returning to a farm and seeing a lot of change. But equally the group members get pleasure seeing one of their own succeeding. There is no other industry that does this, and maybe it is
“Enjoying and getting the satisfaction of making the farm more productive, easier to run, more sustainable or whatever is as much a valid spend as taking the cash.”
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unique to us. Visiting overseas farmers who I have taken to discussion group days have always been amazed about the willingness to share information and willingness to help. Service providers such as bankers and fertiliser reps often come to these days and usually to support the host. But I see much more value in them being there because they need to be exposed to the reality of making a farm succeed. Service providers often do not appreciate how hard it can be to apply best practice. No farmer does it perfectly and getting close to best practice is as good as it gets. Appreciating why budgets are not met and a planned spend is not made is important. The discussion group days that I facilitate usually get an animal health reminder. This session never fails to trigger lots of discussion. An outsider observing this would easily think there is massive conflicting advice given to farmers to lead to such vigorous discussion. There is probably a big element of truth in that observation but the reality of what fits and works on a farm very often necessitates varying from best practice. The biggest variation is in trace element inputs. The lack of monitoring data to base inputs on is very common. But factors like the convenience of yarding, the level of trading and the source of replacement stock all justify a varied approach to trace elements and vaccines. In that group forum though there is the opportunity to present best practice to set as the target. Getting close is as good as it gets.
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ANIMAL HEALTH
Drench
Worm control options BY: TOM WARD
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T
he first option is the preventativeblanket approach where the lamb receives four to five drenches from different families at four-weekly intervals. Secondly, preventative – based on a monitoring approach. Lambs are drenched based on faecal egg counts (FEC), body condition scoring (BCS), liveweight gain (LWG), etc. If the FEC, which should be done at four to five weeks, shows less than 200 eggs/gm, do another test in two weeks. This approach has been shown to reduce the frequency of drenching, and therefore reduce drench resistance, however it does not always maintain satisfactory production levels. Ewes should not have to be drenched, although there are times when a dench may be beneficial. Quarantine drenches are used to ensure
sheep coming on to a farm do not bring worms. Drench, hold off pasture for 24 hours, then graze contaminated pasture, then FEC 10 days later. There are two options: Combine no less than four unrelated drench families with at least one being the drench active chemicals monepantel or derquantel, and drench with a combination containing monepantel or derquantel. Watch withholding periods. Every farmer needs a written quarantine policy. CARLA is an acronym promoting selection of animals with high levels of genetic immunity to worms. The test measures antibodies against worms in sheep saliva.
Drench resistance and refugia Drench-resistant worms which survive breed resistant ones. Over time this increases the proportion of resistant worms. A 2006 survey showed 36% farms showed no resistance to
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drench. Resistance to Ivermectin was shown to a half dose on 36% of farms and to a full dose on 25% of farms. Resistance to Levamisole occurred on 24% of farms, and to Albendazole on 41% of farms. Resistance to Levamisole and Albendazole combination occurred on 8% of farms. To fight drench resistance we can use a strategy called refugia, which is described as: a part of an animal population left unexposed to drench, allowing the worms in those animals to develop and reproduce. In practice, refugia ensures there are some drench-susceptible worms available to reproduce, the aim is to increase the proportion of susceptible animals, thereby reducing the pool of resistant worms, and leading to an improvement in productivity. In practice, the challenge is to find ways to maintain low levels of worms but retain a useful pool of susceptible worms. A maximum of 10% left undrenched has been shown to be sufficient. Not drenching the best lambs when feed is plentiful and of good quality is desirable. Even if you have low drench resistance, refugia could still help as some worms will be resistant. It is about finding a balance. Refugia will increase worms on pasture, but longterm drench resistance could be a greater problem than short-term lowering of production. The risk of developing resistance in ewes is high where a long-acting pre-lamb drench is used and moderate where a weaning one is used. Consider whether any drenching of ewes is necessary, or drench only part of a ewe mob. In some districts haemonchus (barbers pole) is a problem and ewes will need drenching over summer.
Reducing contamination Preventative drenching of lambs, five or six times after weaning, is the main approach to reducing the amount of pasture contaminated by worms. Consider drenching every 28 days, thereby allowing susceptible worms to re-infect the gut and pass to the pasture, ensuring a mix of susceptible and drench-resistant lambs to be on the pasture. Buying in lambs is a high-risk strategy. Using ineffective drench is high risk, as is using a single active ingredient one. Drenches can be divided into the different ‘active” family groups: the so-called “white drenches”, the “clear” drenches and the “avomectins”. They
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CONSIDERATIONS FOR EFFECTIVE REFUGIA ARE: • When best to not drench stock • What proportion to not drench • Implications for production • Drench resistance status of the worms • Sheep/cattle ratio and stocking rate • Other farm enterprises • Effect of climate • Key risk periods for animals • Ewe drenching policy • Feed quantity and quality
can also be classified around how many worm types they kill (broad or narrow), or whether long or short acting. Broad spectrum drenches can be divided into five action groups: Benzimidazoles (BZs), levamisole/morantel and macrocyclic lactones (MLs), amino-acetonitrile derivatives (AADs) and spiroindole (Si). BZs are sometimes called “white drenches”, although not all are white and they prevent the worm from digesting nutrients. They are effective against most worms in sheep although may not be as
effective against lungworm and inhibited larvae as the MLs. Some are effective against fluke. Levamisole and morantel are sometimes called “clear drenches” although again are not all clear. They work on the worm’s nervous system and are effective against most worms in sheep. MLs include avermectins and milbemycins and work against both internal and external parasites (endectocides), their action paralysing the worm. AADs act on receptors that occur only in nematodes, blocking those receptors, paralysing the worm. SIs are the latest type of anthelmintic to be developed. One of the group, derquantel, blocks the use of acetylcholine, causing flacid paralysis. It has excellent efficacy, apart from only 95% efficacy against Ostertagia. It works better in combination with an anthelmintic from a different class. Narrow-spectrum drenches include clorsulon, closantel and praziquantel which are used for killing specific worms such as liver fluke , tapeworms or barbers pole. Acknowledgement to Wormwise for assistance with this article. • Tom Ward is an South Canterbury farm consultant.
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DEER
Book launch
Covid and the cancel culture BY: LYNDA GRAY
C
ANCELLATION OF MY BOOK LAUNCH is the unwritten postscript to ‘In Hindsight, 50 years of deer farming in New Zealand’. I was primed and nervous about the big reveal of the book at the NZ Deer Farmers Association meeting in Wellington on October 11. It was touch-and-go whether it would be printed on time, thanks to the August lockdown. However the Christchurch designer/publisher, and printer went the extra mile to make sure the first 100 books were printed, bound and delivered to the Wellington hotel where Cam (husband) and I checked in on Saturday night. We decided to make the trip north a couple of days earlier to get a city fix and catch up with friends. It was with huge trepidation and clumsy hands that I retrieved the first book from one of the seven cardboard boxes. It was hard to believe that after almost four years of research, interviewing, writing and procrastination (all in equal measure) my name was finally on the front cover of a 288-page book. I did a quick flick through with one eye shut to check there were no blank pages and glaring mistakes, then celebrated with a glass of bubbles in the hotel bar. Onwards and upwards to the official launch, or so I thought. The next day on the motorway heading out of Wellington for a day trip to the Wairarapa, I got the phone call to say that the NZDFA meeting was cancelled. The decision was due to Covid uncertainty and the risk that those farmers attending, some of
Lynda Gray with a copy of her book: ‘In Hindsight, 50 years of deer farming in New Zealand’.
WIN
whom were heading into the thick of velveting, could be stranded in Wellington. Deer oh Deer. What to do, and what to say? Nothing. We kept calm and carried on, stopping off at Greytown then Masterton for a stunning lunch at The Screening Room, and back to Wellington via Martinborough. By this time I came to realise there is a lot of upside to a non-launch event: I wouldn’t have to deal with queues of admiring deer farming fans lining up with a pile of books for signing. Nor would I have to endure the tedium of endless and lengthy media interviews leaving me more time for power-walking along Lambton Quay and Hot Yoga outside the Beehive. The downside is I didn’t have a soapbox for the brief and hard sell on why ‘In Hindsight’ is a musthave book, i.e: it’s the definitive story on the first 50 years of deer farming in NZ which weaves in the stories of farmers, vets, scientists, marketers and entrepreneurs who made it all happen. Avoid disappointment and order your copy now: inhindsightnz@gmail.com Book signings, interviews and selfies available on request.
Thanks to Lynda Gray, author of In Hindsight, CountryWide has 3 copies to giveaway to three lucky readers. Head to nzfarmlife. co.nz/promotions to complete an entry form.
Entries close November 30, 2021. Open to all New Zealand readers of CountryWide magazine. Terms and conditions apply - see nzfarmlife.co.nz/promotions for more information
It was the best line of Hereford bulls we’ve ever presented and our highest sale average on record. With slick coats and no sign of parasites you could say the drench had something to do with it.
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Internal and external parasite control
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DEER
Retirement
A remarkable animal to farm BY: LYNDA GRAY
T
ony Pearse admits he was disappointed but relieved when his official Wellington farewell was cancelled. The intention was to formally acknowledge a 40-plus year contribution with fitting fanfare, but the plans were scuppered following the decision to shelve the event as part of the annual Deer Farmers Association branch chairs meeting due to Covid-19 risk and uncertainty. Pearse emphasises the meeting and event was never intended to be all about him. It’s a predictable response from the man who has mostly stayed out of the limelight in preference for managing, facilitating, mentoring and organising at many levels across the industry. In a retrospective look he says the camaraderie and enjoyment factor of the deer industry has been a constant. “Beyond the quite remarkable animal we farm, is the unbroken succession of extraordinary people that have driven the industry and have shared their knowledge, enthusiasm, and vision with their fellow industry participants.” What had changed was the direction new challenges were imposing on an industry that once flourished on the back of innovation. “We have become consumed by imposed regulation and rules that require huge industry input by organisations, and more demands of farmers at the coal face.” That was putting at risk the viability of deer farms and businesses, the resilience of the deer farming community, and the confidence of the next generation of deer farmers. However, Deer Industry New Zealand (DINZ) is doing a good job at counteracting these negatives through the P2P programme and its successor being worked on at present, he says. Pearse’s deer-centric career started at Invermay, following an invitation by the research center director Jock Allison to join the Deer Research group in 1983. “Jock said I wasn’t up to being a scientist because I only had a second class honours degree, but he thought I had the right farming and scientific background to take
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November 2021
on the management role of the deer farm.” Prior to that Pearse got a formal introduction to deer on a MAF-run weeklong course at Telford Farm in 1979 which he attended for more practical know-how and tips for a deer farm he was managing for a group of city investors. At Invermay Pearse became the go-to person for practical and research-backed advice to the rapidly growing number of deer farmers. What particularly impressed him was the open sharing of practical know-how, science, and research among farmers, scientists and vets. “Everyone was learning, so there was lots of trust involved, and that persisted as the industry developed.” He was appointed manager of Invermaybased consultancy MAF Deer and during the early to mid-1990s worked closely with a NZDFA owned company Deer International Limited (DIL) to help establish new overseas deer farms and related enterprises. “That led to opportunities I could never have imagined such as the Canadian and USA work with Sir Tim Wallis and Alpine Deer Group, and visiting the Saami Reindeer herders in Norway.” DIL wound up in 1996, and Pearse returned to the restructured AgResearch Invermay taking on deer research looking at genetics, health and disease, and nutrition. In 2002 he left AgResearch following appointment as the producer manager for the newly created DINZ organisation. Over the 20 years it developed into a broad role in which he tackled issues and topics affecting the practical business of deer farming. There had been many highlights such as development of an industry-led management programme for Johne’s disease. “It was a total team-based effort led by visionary vets, deer farmers and researchers. But so too has been the development of the Environment Manuals, and the industry Environmental Awards.” Involvement with the Deer Farm Association activities, velvet antler competition and judging, and the 26 conferences which he organised were other highlights. It was unfortunate to be leaving his DINZ
At Invermay Tony Pearse became the go-to person for practical and research-backed advice to the rapidly growing number of deer farmers.
role during an industry low. He says the impact of Covid-19 is challenging in terms of returns and confidence although there are strengthening signs of recovery for venison. Former DINZ Quality Assurance manager John Tacon echoes the sentiments of the many people who had worked with Pearse. He says Tony is one of the most knowledgeable people on all things deer and the industry. “He’s a loyal colleague who has always been willing to help in any way.” Although relinquishing his DINZ role, Pearse will have ongoing involvement with industry R&D planning. Beyond that he was looking forward to spending more time with wife Julie, and small-scale deer farming on their Dunedin property.
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CROP & FORAGE
FINDING THE BALANCE Strict crop rotation is a key to success for the Bierema family on their Mid Canterbury farm, Annabelle Latz writes.
R
unning a successful cropping farm is about being consistently good, not always striving for records. Steven and Freda Bierema along with their three young sons moved on to their Mid Canterbury farm in the winter of 2004, from the Netherlands. It was a case of seeing how the arable farming Kiwis do it and following suit, while they found their feet. Two adults, three young boys, seven suitcases. “One of the boys said to me, ‘Do you know what you are going to do?’ I said ‘No, but we are going to make it work,’” recalls Steven, a sixth generation arable farmer from the Netherlands. “Not one problem is that big that you can’t solve it,’’ Freda adds. The 500ha farm near Rakaia was a dryland one when they moved there, and they learned quickly about what Mid
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Canterbury arable farmers had been doing for years, which Steven described as the “traditional Mid Canterbury crop rotation”. Two linear irrigators were installed quickly, and later they added several pivots. After a couple of years of easing into the New Zealand farming way of life, the Bierema family started to incorporate some of the knowledge they gained in their Dutch farming years. But when it comes to the basics of farming economics, it’s the same the world over. ‘Turnover minus cost is profit or loss. If you can control your cost, you can create your profit. If you can’t control your costs, you will end up in the red.” Striking efficiency meant looking at the farm and paddock size. They introduced a six-year crop rotation of clover, peas, cereals, brassicas and grass seed, with a focus on “finding that middle ground” of
replacing soil nutrients and breaking weed and pest cycles with their rotation in place. “I come from a very intense cropping system, so there was a lot of trial and error for the first couple of years, with not much technology.”
Buy in store lambs Autumn and spring cropping has always been on their annual programme. They feed lambs on the winter crops which change from clover to oats to new grass as grazing store lambs is a massive part of grass management. They prefer Romney cross lambs, which they buy later in the autumn, preferably store size between 30-33kg, and run an average of about 5000 in a season. Methods of drilling and cultivation can vary, the outcome dictates what they use. They try to find that middle ground with what works and what doesn’t work.
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Lincoln University, has worked in Europe and Australia, and is now happy to be back on home turf with his parents. They do most of the work themselves including all the fertilising and spraying, a neighbour provides transport, and a contractor does the baling.
Succession a gradual process
Above: Steven and his son Pieter Taco work on the farm together, and succession is a conversation that has always been there. Below: Another day at the office for the Bierema family. Photo supplied.
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“The outcome is the goal, and how to get there is not a goal in itself.” Autumn and spring-sown crops means finding a balance with the crop rotation, and different species means different modes of action for chemicals. On arrival in 2004, grass weeds were a problem, but diverse crop rotation and varying chemical use helped mitigate this; finding the middle ground and keeping everything in balance. Grass grub has been the biggest enemy, but there are still insecticides available to use and biologicals are looking to be a promising option for the future. “It will always remain a challenge,” Steven and Freda’s middle son Pieter Taco says. Incorporating all residues is done by cultivation. Wheat straw is sold to the mushroom industry. The waste product, mushroom compost, comes back to the farm and is used to increase the organic matter of the soil and therefore the fertility. “Our goal is to make our farming system as circular as possible.” They also lease two paddocks from their neighbours, which are on a 12-year rotation for potatoes and lilies. The lilies are grown for the bulbs, the potatoes for their seeds and processing. “A 12-year rotation means there is enough time to get the restorative phase back.” Pieter Taco, 26, has moved home to help run the farm. He studied Bachelor of Commerce majoring in agriculture at
Succession of the farm has always been an open conversation for the Bierema family, a gradual process both physically and mentally. “You are never solely the boss, you always have to deal with someone else,” Steven says, who bought his own family farm from his parents in The Netherlands and paid his three sisters out. “And we have to make sure we pass it on to the next generation in a good way.” The oldest son is a political scientist at Galway University (Ireland), while the youngest son works in the rural team for ANZ. Pieter is very aware of the changing regulations with farming such as freshwater, but is not overwhelmed or concerned. “It’s baby steps every year, the farming world will not be turned on its head.” Regulations set by the companies who buy their crops are a big part of their farm practice, but ones he acknowledges are for good reason, as it’s all about ensuring quality. The requirement for isolation blocks between different varieties of crops can prove difficult at times. It can be hard on their own farm and neighbouring farms. “Sometimes it’s up to five kilometres of isolation block. But you need that for quality standard.” Pieter says although not everything has to be sold prior to planting, you need those contracts, which are gained from proven track records. “It’s about planning, and acknowledging that although not everything is successful, you learn as you go, and adjust as you go forward.” Efficiency and simplicity with the different crops are the strengths of the farm, as are the good soils and irrigation which means good production security. The last five years has been about finetuning their methods, and they’ve added a grain drier and improved storage facilities. Steven says consistency is key, and the more control from their end, the more they are able to deliver. “Harvest time is crucial, so if the weather is not favourable, we can dry it ourselves.”
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Grazing Romney cross lambs from late autumn helps significantly with grass management.
Steven acknowledges that one year wheat is good, and another year that might be the clover, and it’s a matter of finding balance and having everything in place from the machinery to the crop rotation to the people involved. “Farming is always in progress, it is always changing, it is never static.” On a per hectare basis, a yield of anything over two tonnes of grass seed is a bonus, anything under two tonnes is bad. They like to hit 800kg for clover and the benchmark for barley is 10t, always double figures. For the milling wheat, anything over 11t is good, the feed wheat is aimed at 1214t or over. The aim of the peas is 5t, and anything under 3.5t is disappointing. In the past 20 years they have seen a 2% yield increase every year. Steven says “irrigation, disease control, new varieties and seasons play a big role in this.” For the machinery side of things, a mix of self-owned, hire purchase and contractors gets the job done. Both in The Netherlands and NZ, their aim is that between 1520% of the turnover cost of production is depreciation, maintenance and contractors, and they have managed to control this at 17%. “So this means 3% is profit,” and also leaves some wriggle room for things like inflation or new technologies, Steven says. Everything that has an engine gets replaced every seven to 10 years.
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The Bieremas’ 130ha farm in the Netherlands was just north of Uithuizen, a small rural town in the Northernmost part of the country. They grew wheat, grass seed, tulips, carrots, sugar beet and seed potatoes. They had cool storage for 6000 tonnes of produce stacked in bins and an industrial grading facility. The move to the Southern Hemisphere nearly 20 years ago was one the family saw as an exciting new challenge. “We don’t mind change, I never have, and we wanted a new challenge. We had done our homework reasonably well, we knew it would not be along the same route with intensification, but basically trying to find that balance,” Steven says. He is now a board member of Foundation for Arable Research (FAR).
The cultivators, tip trailers, and drill replacement depends on when there is new technology that has added benefits.
Change not so dark He predicts a lot of change in the next five to 10 years in relation to freshwater regulations and carbon emissions, and says research and collaboration is the path for a successful future, for both his family and agriculture as a whole. “If you look at Groundswell lately, a lot of farmers are anxious about what this change will be and mean. But I think it’s not that dark.” He sees organisations such as FAR as being very essential in providing knowledge and support. “We must reduce the inputs and maintain productivity, we just need to find a solution to do this.” Steven says NZ farmers must remember
that regulation of farming is happening all over the world, and it’s all about adaptation. “Change is difficult, and annoying. But farming has never been the same, otherwise we would still be ploughing with horses and harvesting by hand.” Pieter agrees with his father, and as a young farmer himself believes progress needs research, and research allows for change. He says it’s the mind shift farmers now face which is massive. “Our only hope is to keep production up, and decrease cost. And that is a tricky challenge.” As a family, Pieter believes they are reasonably on track with succession, and predicts the farm will pretty much run as status quo for the next few years. “You never know what opportunities come up, and you just react when one does, and assess it on its merits.”
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RUNNING THE NUMBERS Marlborough farmer Joanna Grigg gets counting farm emissions and gets a pleasant surprise.
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ENVIRONMENT
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was happy to get cracking on counting our farm emissions and sequestration when the call went out. I was curious about how our 4600-hectare hill country farm (and 300ha lease block) might stack up using the Beef + Lamb New Zealand (B+LNZ) GHG calculator. With our woody weeds and significant kanuka forests we should be on the right side of the ledger, surely? If farmers don’t run their Greenhouse Gas (GHG) numbers for their farm, then the appointed group working with government, He Waka Eke Noa, can’t say farmers have met their milestones and their part of the deal. By the end of 2022, all farms need to know their GHG numbers. A quarter of us need to do it before December 31, otherwise primary industries run the risk of going back into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). When I rang Ben Hancock, who built the calculator for B+LNZ, he pointed out that the pricing mechanism for agriculture greenhouse gases is not settled yet. For this reason, it’s important farmers know where they sit. The calculator results are stored by B+LNZ and confidential to farmers, he said. He reassured me it won’t be individually identified and sent to the government. No details of any farms are given to any parties, only the number of farms that have completed the GHG Calculator. A corporate farming friend was nervous about putting the IRD number in, not wanting to be ‘bound’ by perhaps interim results. He can be reassured. Ben also pointed out that if the IRD number isn’t in, the property can’t be used in the sample. It’s a unique indicator. I knew from our Overseer analysis done in 2019, when we did a Farm Environment Plan, that at 9800 stock units plus farm activities, our farm fart/burp/emits about 4000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year. We had 100 R2 bulls that year too although never again, says the boss. We also grew cabbage seed so used more fertiliser. When I calculated the hypothetical cost of offsetting these 4000t of emissions via buying carbon units through the ETS at the October $64 price, I suddenly got sweaty palms. That’s an annual bill of $256,000.
Threat of bankruptcy After a restless night’s sleep and dreaming of swapping a town business for our farm, I tried to reassure myself that the intention is not to bring agriculture into the ETS 100%. This would bankrupt many farmers and be so dire for the nation that the government couldn’t possibly consider it. Would they? It would go against the
United Nations call for climate change management to protect food production. Wouldn’t it? Being Marlborough hill country, we have scrub and lots of it... except the GHG Calculator calls it shrubland which is a far kinder term. If our place is not carbon positive then most farms will not have a hope, unless they have exotic forestry. Our family trust has had indigenous forest in a Permanent Forest Sink (now NZ ETS) since 2013. I recall our farm discussion group in the mid-2000s, staring up at a choked face of kanuka, pittosporum and bracken, and the consultant telling us we were looking at a fortune. He got it half right. It costs a bomb to keep what we have clear. It took a lot of convincing the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), via lengthy mapping exercises and climbing through back-country with a hand saw to get tree samples, to get just 240ha accepted into the ETS. I learnt how to count tree rings. This earns us about 700 units a year – a pittance compared to Pinus radiata sequestration rates, but a handy income of about $42,000 at $60/unit. We’ve tried three times since to get more recently regenerating areas within a possible 1500ha accepted into the ETS, but MPI has got tough. Too tough. ETS rules exclude so much regenerating forest on farms because they consider scattered trees as existing forest (pre-1990) by looking at shadows on maps. We have scattered kanuka trees across much of our grazing land, for shade and on steep areas where the scrub rake couldn’t reach in the 1980s. But the ETS mapping rules consider the scattered kanuka join together to count as a forest in 1990 – so it’s exempt from being eligible to offset our emissions. The B+LNZ GHG calculator is a completely different beast to the MPI ETS rules. It is serving a different purpose. Its goal is to paint a picture of a farm business. A tree is a tree in this case. No sub-one-hectare limits and no 1990 cut-off for forest age. It’s more like a set of annual accounts. It forgets the strict MPI rules of what is an eligible carbon sequestration plant and makes it far easier to find qualifying shrubs and trees to offset farm emissions. It is a simple ledger with stock and fertiliser emissions on one side, and forests, shrubs and shelterbelts on the other. The sequestration rates are different too. The official line is that the He Waka Eke Noa minimum requirements include the expectation that peer-reviewed research is used to establish sequestration rates, rather than ETS rules. I have to admit I was what Phil Journeaux, agricultural
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Stock, shrubs and trees: how do they stack up for a Marlborough hill country farm using the Beef + Lamb NZ GHG calculator?
“By the end of 2022, all farms need to know their GHG numbers. A quarter of us need to do it before December 31, otherwise primary industries run the risk of going back into the Emissions Trading Scheme.”
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economist, AgFirst, predicted in his Review of Models Calculating Farm Level GHG Emissions Report, prepared for He Waka Eke Noa, May 2021. I was a confused farmer. I was trying to match the ETS rules alongside this different GHG calculator approach. They are different. With that sorted in my head, I logged into the GHG calculator page and watched the seven video guides (well worth it).
First, the fert The first step was entering fertiliser applications and that was easy. Cunning to put that first. The next section vegetation floored me a bit. See Table A. We have large areas of scattered native trees like kanuka, mixed in with shrubland species that won’t make 5m like coprosma, tauhinu and muehlenbeckia and yes, bracken and barberry. Then I’m supposed to divide these shrubland areas into two categories; more than 30 years old or less than 30. I know manuka is considered able to reach 5m. I’ll add kanuka to that too, as it’s hard to tell the difference. But how close together do different tree species need to be to make the 30% canopy cover? I was starting to wish I had a forestry degree. The calculator user guide doesn’t have a list of what’s a tree and what’s a shrub and what’s
not. B+LNZ based this section on the Ministry for Environment calculator and both are aware of needing to refine the categories. I decided I didn’t have time to get a flash app to map the vegetation accurately (although they are in the pipeline, apparently). I decided to go really broad brush and figured that being ‘out a bit’ shouldn’t blow the equation. I based this on the fact that the sequestration rates for shrubland is low with the GHG calculator. It is 1.7t CO2-e /ha/year, while in comparison, the indigenous forest MPI tables for the ETS are about 3t/year, depending on age. I reached for the best mapping document we have - our Farm Environment Plan. The very athletic Suzie Le Cren, LandVison, had run around the property trying to get the trees sorted from the shrubs when she did the leg work for our FEP. She said there was about 2900ha of effective area. But she also said 680ha of this actually had more than 50% shrub cover on it. But how old? I decided it was younger than 30 years, being on the clearer areas. Let’s call it that slow creep of tauhinu, young kanuka, coprosma and muehlenbeckia. This leaves 2250ha effective. But looking around these best paddocks, they also have scattered shrubs. Even our best sub-clover lambing blocks are dotted with coprosma, manuka and muehlenbeckia. I tossed another
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Enter the total area of woody vegetation on your farm that will occupy more than 30% canopy cover. ‘Forest’ is able to reach a mature height of at least 5 metres. ‘Shrubland’ is the woody vegetation under 5 metres. Do not count forest where carbon credits have been sold. Note you can include areas under 1 hectare in this calculation.
Existing (ha)
Harvested this year (ha)
Exotic forest (less than 29 years old)
35.0
ha
Indigenous forest - regenerating
0.0
ha
Indigenous forest - established natural forest
17.0
ha
Shrubland (less than 30 years
21.0
ha
0.0
ha
natural forest (less than 100 years old)
old) Shrubland (more than 30 years old)
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Beef + Lamb New Zealand
5.0
ha
0.0
ha
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ha
LIVESTOCK BALANCES
An example of the B+LNZ GHG calculator.
100ha in the shrubland column. much as shrubland, it leaves no expansion The FEP listed 1979ha of consolidated areas for the next generation for adding kanuka, manuka and shrub species. I took regeneration. Also, what if they want to an educated guess and decided these shrubs bowl the shrubs because merino wool is would be more than 30 years and cover $40/kg and lamb $15/kg? Would we have to 300ha. This means our central forest is pay back lost carbon? 0800 BEEFLAMB (0800 233 352) WWW.BEEFLAMBNZ.COM 1679ha. Any areas in the ETS are out of the Our ecology work in the area (as part of equation, as we’ve already counted and sold the Significant Natural Area process) says the credits. I took 240ha out of the column this is the last remaining tract of indigenous ‘Indigenous forest (less than 100 years)’. forest in the zone and some of it is original, so well over 100 years. So I play God again Wool theoretically carbon and call 30% older than 100 years and 70% positive younger. Wool is an interesting one. Currently it is Peripheral clearance fires were moderately not counted in the GHG calculator. I had a successful in the 100 years of family garment retailer who uses our merino wool tenureship but large areas were never burnt, ring me to say even after processing and according to family lore. transport, he can ‘theoretically’ offer a wool I started to worry that if I counted too garment as carbon positive. This is a great story for wool although I hear European legislation is not that favourable for wool over synthetics for TABLE A GHG. Submissions have been made by B+LNZ GHG CALCULATOR NZ wool industry people to the European The B+LNZ GHG calculator includes Union, as we tend to copy their regulations several categories of forestry for (another story). Over lockdown in Auckland sequestration: he’d worked it all out. • Exotic forest (< 29 years old) The retailer then said he had spare carbon • Indigenous forest - regenerating to ‘offer’ back to our farm system. But then natural forest (< 100 years old) • Indigenous forest - established I thought, hang on, when he buys our natural forest wool does he buy the sequestered carbon • Shurubland < 30 years old too for free? Should we charge him double • Shrubland > 30 years old the price? He was a little surprised when I brought that up. I’m digressing. The next tab on the calculator was entering the livestock opening and closing numbers. That’s pretty straightforward to do using the farm accounts or stock reconciliation. The livestock movement tab is a good idea to capture stock trades and off-farm
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grazing. We send about 1000 hoggets to vineyards over winter. I’m sure the wine company guys won’t be adding them into their GHG calculator so I decided we’d better not mark it as going off-farm. I had a few red comments alerts on the Livestock Movement tab as I forgot to kill the 800 ram hoggets. Once I zeroed them on the closing, it seemed to balance. Good luck on your reconciliation… the hardest job on the farm. The GHG calculator does not consider supplementary feed, cropping or vehicle use, so you don’t need to fill that in. With bated breath I click results. It split the three main gases into methane, nitrous gas and CO2. This is then converted into CO2 equivalent (CO2-e). All up, emissions are about 2840t. The stock figure tells me the total emissions (kg CO2-e) from the sheep and cattle are about the same. I was expecting the cattle to be much higher. Methane emissions are 92t but you have to multiply this by 25 to get the equivalent in CO2. No space to go into the rights/wrongs of this given the methane cycle. Our fertiliser contributes only 5% of our emissions. Our vegetation offsets, not surprisingly, make us carbon positive – in other words we take more GHG out of the atmosphere than we pump in. To the tune of one tonne to the hectare (or-3200 net CO2 emissions). I wonder how many utes that might be? Our indigenous forest sequesters 4760t CO2/year and the shrubland 1340t. Out of interest, I add another 100 mixed age beef cows and put those 100 R2 bulls back on, taking us over 8800 su. It doesn’t make much difference. Carbon positive by 2800t still. We should shout it from the rooftops. This classic hill country farm is carbon positive, using the B+LNZ GHG calculator tool. It will be interesting to see the final parameters they end up to measure this, though. In the meantime, the farm is a super climate-change-friendly and environmentally superb space to grow food and fibre, and pump-up export earnings. A parting thought, courtesy of Phil Journeaux: “Under the Zero-Carbon Act, methane cannot be directly offset by forestry sequestration, although all the models infer this is the case.” And here is a plug for planting indigenous long-term forests, like totara or kanuka. Under the averaging scheme for harvested pine forests, they only earn sequestration in the first 17 years. Then nothing up to harvest where you need to plant again. Indigenous plantings return over 100 years. This may be a better fit with succession planning.
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ENVIRONMENT
Emissions
Farmers should question methane tax BY: STEVEN CRANSTON
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ith He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) due to release their emissions pricing mechanism in the coming weeks, farmers will soon get an idea of how much this incoming regulation is set to cost them. It’s not just the direct cost of the emissions tax of course, there is also the reduction in stock numbers to factor in. The Government’s goal of reducing methane emissions by 10% by 2030 will require the industry to have significantly fewer livestock by that date. Many will be retired en masse to make way for carbon forestry, others will need to be trimmed
from flocks and herds to help balance the budget. Pricing will likely start low so as not to startle rural folk, but over time it will be raised to a level sufficient to drive the change needed to meet the Government’s targets. Farmers have good cause to question this proposed pricing mechanism. Methane is a short-lived gas that breaks down in the atmosphere after 12 years. It might be a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) but that does not mean your methane emissions are adding to climate change. Scientists have concluded that a minor reduction of 0.3% per year from a steady flow methane source, such as a farm, is sufficient to offset any atmospheric
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warming. The 0.3% reduction is due to some residual emissions which stay in the atmosphere after the decay process. It’s simple logic, if the emissions remain stable the decay rate will eventually be the same as the emissions rate. There will be no increase in atmospheric methane and no increase in warming. If methane emissions are reduced by more than 0.3% per year on a consistent basis, the atmospheric concentration of methane will decrease and result in a cooling effect. But unlike the carbon foresters, who will receive a handsome return for reducing atmospheric CO2, farmers will receive no recognition for their similar contribution to reducing methane. This is one of the many
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injustices HWEN is poised to deliver. A zero-warming target for methane until 2030 would require emissions to be reduced by about 3%. This target would be sciencebased, fair and likely widely supported. The Government’s 10% target will see farmers forced to reduce an additional 7% of emissions not responsible for climate change, this is effectively a contribution to atmospheric cooling on behalf of the farming community to help offset other industries’ emissions. A contribution that will be achieved at a cost to your business and will receive no acknowledgment. Warming effect is important, the stated objective of HWEN’s pricing mechanism is to help ensure global warming does not exceed 1.5C. Yet when it comes to taxing agricultural emissions, warming effect is conveniently overlooked. The tools to measure warming effect are available to HWEN, the GWP* metric can be used to distinguish between emissions that add to climate change and those that do not. Unfortunately for farmers it has been decided that GWP* will not be used in emissions policy.
It has been left to groups like Groundswell NZ and farmers themselves to battle for a fairer outcome.
Government ministers, the Climate Commission and MPI have all declined to comment on why farmers are being held responsible for emissions that are unequivocally not adding to climate change. It is clearly an awkward subject. The rural community needs to take ownership of what is happening with our emissions policy. Sitting back and expecting rural advocacy to fix this situation is not an option. DairyNZ have submitted in favour
of the 10% target, and while Federated Farmers and Beef & Lamb had initially supported a warming-based target, they are now silent on the matter. It has been left to groups such as Groundswell NZ and farmers themselves to battle for a fairer outcome. The future of many rural communities may depend on it. • Steven Cranston is an environmental consultant and farmer.
Not silent says Beef + Lamb BY: JO CUTTANCE BEEF + LAMB NEW ZEALAND AGREED with the argument about using appropriate metrics, and ensuring what was asked of farmers was fair. However, B+LNZ chairman Andrew Morrison refuted claims that it had been silent on supporting warming-based targets. “We have repeatedly and publicly called on the Government to report on warming, and for targets that are fair and equitable,” he said. B+LNZ agreed the Government targets asked agriculture to do more than the rest of the economy. “This is an issue we have been raising and we have consistently been calling for a review of the methane reduction targets using GWP*.” He said it was a question for the Government, why methane had been asked to do more. Many climate scientists wanted to see sharp reductions in methane because they wanted to use it to ‘cool’ and buy more
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time to reduce carbon dioxide. Turning the dial down more quickly on methane meant a better chance of staying within the goal of keeping within a 1.5C temperature increase. “While this may make sense from a climate perspective it raises massive equity and fairness issues. “We do not believe it is fair for agriculture to be asked to cool while fossil fuel emitters only have to get to no additional warming by 2050.” He said B+LNZ was working to try to set up a framework under He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) that was fairer than simply being put into the ETS. They wanted to delink the methane price from the carbon price and get better recognition for the sequestration happening on farms. It supported the GWP* (global warming potential*) metric and had called on the Government to use this metric. They had raised this in their submissions, in media releases and in commissioned influential research. Morrison said in the background B+LNZ
have had meetings with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, the Climate Change Commission, academics and officials to raise GWP* and warming. He said they worked closely with other sector groups like Federated Farmers and DairyNZ to push strongly for NZ’s negotiating mandate for the COP26 climate change negotiations to focus on warming and to promote the use of GWP*. But the important thing to note was that GWP* should be used to determine the methane reduction targets in the Zero Carbon Act. GWP* was not practical or necessary at a farm level, in part because you needed about 20 years of data.
• GWP100 is the metric used to report on annual emissions. GWP* is an alternative accounting metric that scales emissions over time and better accounts for the different warming behaviours of short-lived gases like methane which disappear after 12 years.
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ENVIRONMENT
Biodiversity
Locking up land won’t work BY: DAVID NORTON
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onservation in NZ requires active management because of the many threats our biodiversity faces. Merely locking an area up as public conservation land will not sustain its biodiversity. Despite employing some of the world’s best conservation managers, the Department of Conservation (DOC) doesn’t have the resources to manage the public conservation estate and would need its budget quadrupled to have any chance of addressing these threats. Unfortunately, many in government and the environmental movement don’t understand this and argue for even more land to be added to the public conservation estate. And if they can’t do that, they push for planning rules to restrict private use (the proposed indigenous biodiversity National Policy Statement). However, this fails to recognise the realities of NZ today,
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especially that native biodiversity requires pro-active management rather than just tenure change or restrictive planning rules. Threats such as stoats, myrtle rust or climate change are not influenced by whether the land is public or private, or whether there are rules prohibiting particular types of use. Rather, these threats occur across all land tenures and planning frameworks. Legal “protection” does not equate to successful biodiversity conservation. We urgently need to discard the fallacy of statute and regulation and adopt a new philosophy if we are to have any hope of sustaining, let alone enhancing, our extraordinary biodiversity. We need to rethink the way we do conservation, especially on private land. Simply creating more rules is the wrong way to engage landowners and motivate them to manage biodiversity, because if landowners don’t
feel respected and supported, they will not spend their money looking after biodiversity. My suggestions for doing this include: • Develop a 21st century conservation vision that places people at the centre, which acknowledges both the past and the realities of NZ, in looking to the future, and that focuses on sustainability and resilience rather than preservation. • Restructure how we manage conservation by establishing a national conservation authority that sets policy, distributes funding and advocates for biodiversity conservation across all land tenures. This authority would foster partnerships across agencies, iwi, community groups and individuals, across public and private land, and would allow DOC to focus on managing public conservation land.
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“Simply creating more rules is the wrong way to engage landowners and motivate them to manage biodiversity...”
Below: Professor David Norton says merely locking an area up as public conservation land will not sustain its biodiversity.
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• Shift the focus of biodiversity conservation on private land from a rules-based approach to one based on education and incentives. We need to empower those who have stewardship of land to look after their biodiversity, and celebrate them for doing this. A reliance on regulation is already failing on private land and will continue to fail. We need a dramatic rethink of the approach taken in district and regional planning, shifting the focus to empowerment, properly supported by education and incentives. • Finally, we need to educate young Kiwis about what native biodiversity is, why it’s important and how it is vital to our
lives. A greater focus on immersion-based biodiversity programmes in schools is needed to engender the sense of ownership of native biodiversity that will guarantee its long-term survival. Partnerships should be the guiding principle for biodiversity conservation not statute, tenure and rules. We urgently need to shift the fundamental model that guides biodiversity conservation. From one that is based on the presumption that protection through statute and rules equals conservation, to one that is based on education and incentives, with people at the centre.
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ENVIRONMENT
Trees
Plant some pakeha trees Broad-spreading deciduous exotic trees offer stock the chance of shade in a scorching summer, while avoiding it in winter, Hawke’s Bay farmer Peter Arthur writes.
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ears ago, while fishing at Lake Rotoiti with my cousin Chris Biddles, the kids from next door came down with a battered old slug gun bound up with tape and string and asked if they could shoot some birds in a clump of bamboo. We said ‘yes’ but asked them not to shoot any of the native birds including the wood pigeons. Their reply was simple. “We will only shoot the pakeha birds” which they proceeded to do with great accuracy, despite the state of the weaponry.
The trees I’m going to write about in this article, I am going to term ‘pakeha’ trees. The Concise Maori Dictionary defines the word ‘pakeha’ as ‘foreign’ or ‘foreigner, usually applied to a white person’. I dislike the term ‘native’ when describing trees as all trees are native to somewhere. Indigenous is a better word. We have climate change upon us. It was called global warming which was more apt as the New Zealand weather is getting hotter and drier, with the occasional flood thrown in. As for climate change,
Trees need to be deciduous so there is minimal winter shading of pasture.
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it is always changing, and is a force more powerful than man. All we can do is try and adapt and take preventative measures. One thing livestock farmers can do is dot plant pakeha trees in their paddocks to provide shade from the searing summer heat. This last summer we had several days with 38C heat and there were no sheep to be seen in my front paddock – they were all under the shade of scattered oaks, elms, European limes, sweet chestnuts and plane trees. I have never measured, with a thermometer, the difference in temperature but it is noticeably cooler under the shade of a tree than in the open paddock. Just like people, livestock suffer from heat stress. You will have seen sheep in a treeless paddock with their heads in the shade of a power pole, post or even a batten, seeking some respite from the heat. The poor things are almost being cooked alive. The most useful thing we can do is prepare for the worst and expect it to get hotter and in many areas, drier. There will probably be more floods and storms with most of the water rushing out to sea. We need to conserve stock water, and by providing shade the stock will be drinking less and be much more comfortable, like you sitting by an air conditioner with a beer on a stinking hot day. The first thing with planting a shade tree is to make sure it is not going to interfere with any tractor work. The second thing is
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London plane (Platanus acerifolia).
Ginkgo biloba.
it needs to be deciduous so there is minimal winter shading of pasture. This puts paid to pines, conifers, eucalypts and other evergreen trees. NZ natives are also out for dot planting as they nearly always require a protective nurse crop to become established. A big, broad-spreading pakeha tree is needed. The cheapest and quickest growing are the poplars and willows, just a few trees to each naked paddock. Auger a hole, pop in the pole with a protective plastic sleeve, ram the dirt in hard and all is done. Another ramming of the dirt in the summer can be needed if the soil is cracking open.
Cost per tree and protective sleeve is about $10.00. The next easy to grow tree is the London plane (Platanus acerifolia) which can be planted from cuttings and treated like a poplar or willow. I have collected cuttings when the plane trees in Hastings were being pollarded, put them in a nursery bed for a year to grow roots, then planted out. You don’t want plane trees close to buildings with gutters as the huge leaves soon block them. The plane, which can grow 35 metres tall, is eventually a very wide-spreading tree, long-lived (400 years) and tolerates the wind and most sites. I had a 20-year-old tree totally defoliated by spray drift and gave it up for dead. Two years later it was as alive as could be. My next choice is for deciduous oaks, which, although slower-growing can provide spectacular autumn colour. There are about 600 different oaks with about 300 of them coming from Mexico. Some of these Mexicans are growing at about the same speed as poplars but they are evergreen. The American pin oak, (Quercus palustris) is the most commonly seen, and though good for colour has a birds nest of small side branches. The Northern pin oak, Quercus ellipsoidalis, the leaves of which look the same, has a much better branching habit. Livestock and ducks both enjoy eating acorns.
Acer Freemanii ‘Jeffers Red’.
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I have a steep northerly facing paddock dot-planted with about 200 honey locusts (Gleditsia triacanthos) and although the trees are not big they give shade and have long leathery seed pods which cattle enjoy when they eventually fall. Sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) is a broad-spreading tree and sheep will eat the nuts. I’ve heard some say the prickly burrs can get stuck in the wool but I’ve not had that problem. Something I have planted for the first time is Acer Freemanii ‘Jeffers Red’, a fastgrowing maple reaching 25m with good autumn colour and which tolerates dry windy sites. Appletons Nursery in Nelson supplied me with 10 1m-tall plants at about $12 each. Some of the ashes are very colourful but the best Claret Ash, tends to blow to bits in the wind. The Wych elm, Ulmus glabra grow very tall and can provide good autumn colour. Avoid Ulmus procera which can send up suckers at least 50m from the original tree. Though slow-growing the maidenhair tree, (Ginkgo biloba) is tough and provides stunning yellow autumn colour. Fossil remains show it has been around for the last 290 million years surviving ice ages and hot patches. It has learnt to live with climate change without any help from politicians, scientists or bureaucrats and we could try and do the same. Plant some pakeha trees.
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Kim Armstrong: Vet nurse to AI tech.
Becoming a practical Alternating artificial insemination with veterinary nursing keeps Scottish migrant Kim Armstrong busy. Words and photos by Annabelle Latz.
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Kiwi
IT’S A LITTLE BIT OF THE SURVIVAL of the fittest in New Zealand when it comes to breeding cows. Kim Armstrong is an artificial breeding technician in North Canterbury for LIC, a transition from her vet nurse career which she began in her homeland of Scotland before venturing here six years ago. As the place where she grew up on a sheep and beef farm which later was converted to a dairy farm, and where she began her career, Kim has been very aware of the difference between breeding systems in the United Kingdom and NZ. One example Kim used was that NZ farmers might not spend or have the budget for vet expenses like caesareans, compared to the UK where it seems to be common. “New Zealand farmers appear to have a more practical breeding system, compared
to the UK where it’s about bigger and fastergrowing carcases.” Along with seasonal work such as teat sealing and disbudding, AI technician work means the busiest time of the year is upon her, being October to December which can extend into January. The 32-year-old says the key to her job is to respond as quickly as possible to each farmer with precision and speed to get on to the next farm and do it all over again. Speed is important with this job as the window for the heat is only 12-18 hours, every three weeks. As the herd is brought in from the paddock the farmer selects cows that appear to be more active, bulling, wrestling, showing discharge from the vulva, have riding marks, and some may even have small wounds on their pin or tail bones,
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with pre-mating, metri-checking and calving. It all fits in quite nicely for me.” Kim thoroughly enjoys the variation of her jobs throughout the year, which has been a natural progression from vet nursing. “I love it all, the practical, social and physical aspects. It’s quite rewarding.” It was when she was still in Scotland she began helping a friend with AI work in 2014. “I knew the money was pretty good and I could work in New Zealand with that skill. I was also really interested in genetics.” Hailing from south west Scotland’s Wigtownshire in Galloway, Kim began her vet nurse career at the Academy Vet Centre in Stranraer, Galloway, in 2009.
‘New Zealand farmers appear to have a more practical breeding system, compared to the UK where it’s about bigger and faster growing carcases.’
Kim busy disbudding a calf.
hoof marks, mud or slobber on their sides. “These are all signs of a cow on heat.” Bad weather can make it difficult to identify any cows on heat due to their lack of movement in the paddock in cooler temperatures. Tail painting is a method farmers use, which Kim says works well as rubbed off paint is a sure sign. “Some farmers will start with one colour of tail paint, then change the colour after I have inseminated the cow to see how many times she has cycled or been inseminated.” Kim says some farmers with smaller herds will have their own banks of semen and do their own AI work, but a lot say it’s too much pressure and not fast enough. “There are plenty of opportunities if you miss a heat, however it’s ideal to get the herd as close together as possible to reduce
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the amount of time calving.” Kim will AI hundreds of cows a day, and accuracy is vital. “A great deal of AI’ing is about placement, it has to be 100% accurate.” Farmers register their cows on the LIC database, which has a range of bulls to choose from where they look through prices, type, weights and gestation periods. “I think New Zealand has a practical view on their breeding systems.” Outside of her AI technician role, Kim is back at her local vet clinic as a veterinary nurse three to five days a week. During autumn through to June she is kept busy teat-sealing cows, she gets her ‘lull’ during June and July, then disbudding starts in August and takes her through to the AI season. “September and October are busy too
In 2015 she came to NZ for what was initially a three-month trip, based in Gore, Southland, working as an AI assistant. This trip turned into 10 months travelling around most of the lower South Island then moving to North Canterbury where she worked as a vet nurse at Rangiora Vet Centre. In 2019 Kim spent four months back in Scotland for some family time and a lambing season, and looking back now, is so grateful. “I was so lucky to get back home preCovid to see family and friends. I’m not sure when I will see them again.” Coupled with her role as an AI assistant, she further developed an interest and in 2020 undertook her apprenticeship. “It’s been quite a ride,” Kim grins. Apart from a couple of winter escapes, NZ has been her base ever since, and Oxford in North Canterbury is where she now calls home. Slotting into Kiwi life has been pretty straight forward for Kim. She competes and hunts her horse Zeus, thoroughly enjoys Kiwi people and culture, spends much of her spare time hiking and biking in the mountains, and is training for the Two Day Coast to Coast with her partner Joe. “I like to keep fit and healthy, and enjoy a good social life too.”
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COMMUNITY
Profile
Dan Lynch, Ovis Management project manager.
Dan, Dan the Ovis man After nearly 30 years dedicated to education and awareness around Ovis (sheep measles), Dan Lynch is hanging up his boots. He spoke to Rebecca Greaves and reflected on the highlights, achievements and the challenges that remain. Photos: Brad Hanson.
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orking with both the meat industry and farmers to combat sheep measles has been a blast for Ovis Management project manager, Dan Lynch. Involved since its inception, he has spearheaded the Ovis Management approach to educating and raising awareness about this disease – there are not many roads in rural New Zealand he hasn’t driven up on his quest to quell Ovis. Ovis Management is a non-profit organisation promoting the control of sheep measles. It is owned by the Meat Industry Association of NZ(MIA) and
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funded by meat processors. The proof is in the pudding, with NZ having low levels of sheep measles. The rates in sheep and lambs decreased by 66% between 1994 and 2018, largely due to effective dosing of dogs, which carry the tapeworm that causes Ovis. Despite these low levels, there is still a seasonal prevalence of sheep measles, and an outbreak can cause a lot of damage in otherwise healthy stock – and significantly impact a farmer’s bottom line. The on-going challenge is around trade stock and complacency and, with such low levels of Ovis, ensuring farmers remain
vigilant and take steps to minimise the risk of an outbreak. Dan has a background as a meat inspector in both New Zealand and Australia and came on board with Ovis Management when it was set up in 1992. “One of the things that intrigued and frustrated a lot of people at the time was the amount of Ovis going on in plants, and in 1992 sheep measles exploded.” We might take our Ovis status for granted now, but back then, sheep measles was on the cusp of becoming a serious issue for NZ. Container loads of meat had been rejected into Canada and the United States, due to
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Lamb prevalence by year 2008* reintroduction of viscera recording. Around 70% of sheep measles found in viscera.
1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0
* 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 9 97 998 999 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 007 08 00 010 011 012 013 014 015 016 017 018 019 020 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 20 2
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North/South Island Lamb Sheep Measles Prevalence Oct - Sept %
A path of education and awareness
1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0
Ovis, and it had the potential to become a major problem, as the market had become sensitised, Dan says. The industry knew something needed to be done, and fast. As part of his job as an inspector Dan had spent time working with MAF (now the Ministry for Primary Industries) on farmer feedback programmes. He was instrumental in setting up the Ovis Management programme and became the project manager, a role he expected to hold for two or three years. Little did he know it would become an all-consuming job for 29 years, a job he has excelled at. When Ovis Management started out it was the first to explore developing a pest management strategy, and it looked at developing a strategy, similar to NAIT. With an estimated cost of 30-50 cents per lamb processed, this was quickly vetoed.
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The rates of measles in sheep and lambs decreased significantly between 1994 and 2018, largely due to effective dosing of dogs.
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Establishment coincided with finance minister Ruth Richardson’s ‘mother of all budgets’ in 1991, which included the disestablishment of the Hydatids Council. The Hydatids Council had previously been tasked with dealing with Ovis. “The thought was that sheep measles was a meat industry problem, and it was up to them to deal with it. Hence, the industry started looking at a programme, but they didn’t want it to cost farmers millions of dollars for something that was essentially a market risk.” Instead, it was decided Ovis Management would go down a path of education and awareness. A key factor was the development of a central database that all meat companies were prepared to provide supplier kill data into, in order to track farmers with sheep measles. “This was a lower cost option but it did take some convincing to get meat companies to hand over their supplier data. We demonstrated that we would hold it and respect the farmers’ data. I had planned to come to the North Island for two or three years, but once we got started, and the opportunity to build the database from scratch, it became all encompassing.” Since its development, the database has evolved and now also works with the deer industry to track Johne’s disease. “The critical thing is it (the database) is owned by the industry, and the farmer’s data remains the farmer’s data,” Dan explains. Much of his focus has been on collecting data, and ensuring that it is as accurate as possible, which has been an ongoing challenge with 33 different plants providing
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Left: Putting up a dog warning sign. Below: Dan Lynch with Guido Cousins on the farm near Colyton, Manawatu.
data. The other major part of his role has been education and awareness, visiting farmers throughout the country. As well, Dan has been tasked with visiting 200 vet clinics, providing them with resources. A job done well is evidenced by the fact NZ now has an extremely low prevalence of sheep measles. But that means it’s now something that’s not at the forefront of farmers’ minds, and that in itself is a risk. “Farmers do take it for granted. Ovis Management has moved to more of an educational role now. On the whole, farmers have been amazing. The overwhelming majority of farmers are prepared to spend money on dosing their dogs, on something that’s not visible.” Dan puts a lot of the success of the programme down to increased dog dosing.
WHAT CAUSES OVIS? Sheep measles is caused by the Taenia tapeworm, which can be carried by dogs. The tapeworm produces eggs, which are transferred to pasture in dogs’ faeces and then ingested by sheep. The eggs can survive for many months and be spread over large areas (up to 10km, covering 30,000 hectares) by wind and flies. After ingestion, the eggs penetrate the sheep’s intestinal tract, are moved around in the blood and form cysts in muscle tissues.
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‘The thought was that sheep measles was a meat industry problem, and it was up to them to deal with it.’ He also points to changing land use having an impact. The spread of dairying and reduction in sheep farms means there are simply fewer sheep around now, which has helped enormously. Reflecting on his time with Ovis Management, Dan says he is most proud of getting the meat companies to trust the company with their data, ditto for farmers being so responsive to the message. “It’s been fantastic. I’d hate to think
Dogs that eat raw or untreated meat or offal containing live ovis cysts develop intestinal tapeworms, which develop to maturity in about 35 days. Some dogs carry three to four worms and each worm will produce up to 250,000 eggs a day. These are then deposited in pastures and the cycle continues.
HOW CAN FARMERS MINIMISE OVIS RISK? • Make sure your dogs are in a regular monthly dosing programme. That means
how many farm yards or kitchens I have sat down in and had a yarn about Ovis. Getting to meet so many people has been great, I enjoy people. Over my time we have also had great, supportive boards. I’ve only had two chairmen – Roger Barton and Geoff Neilson - both understanding and committed farmers. Bruce Simpson, an epidemiologist who we have worked with over all this time, has also been key in providing direction and support. “The experience has been so enjoyable, meeting so many good people both within the meat industry and across the farming industry.” In his retirement Dan and his wife Sue had hoped to travel overseas, as all their children and grandchildren live abroad, but Covid-19 has put a spanner in the works.
all dogs on the farm, including pets and pig dogs. The highest risk dogs on the farm are usually the pet jack russell, foxy or lab. • Get your partner involved. “That tends to be more effective, I don’t know why. If your partner is on board, it makes a difference.” • Restrict external dogs coming on the farm. “Often I hear of the shearers turning up with a dog, and that dog may not have been dosed.”
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“We want to spend a significant length of time with them, but Covid is a proper pain. Touring New Zealand doesn’t hold much interest as I’ve been all over our country with work. I’m involved with harness racing and the local club, so I’ll continue that involvement.” Dan’s successor at Ovis Management, Michelle Simpson, has been appointed and Dan says he is delighted about his replacement. “From what I’ve seen of her, I’ve been very impressed.” When it comes to managing Ovis in the future, while we might be on the right track, there remain road blocks. One area that needs further work is around store farmers and trade lambs. “Potentially we are telling you, you have a problem, but if you are buying in lambs from someone else, they don’t know they have a problem.” Steps from here will be incremental, Dan says. The Farm Assurance Programme (NZFAP) now requiring monthly dog dosing is a step in the right direction. “Increasing the rate of dosing on farms that sell trade lambs is key. If you are not killing lambs through the works, no data is captured on your farm. With a lot of trade lambs, the origin disappears when they are killed.” Where to next will be a decision for the industry, he says. EID would help, but he acknowledges there would have to be other benefits for farmers, other than Ovis management, to make it a viable proposition. “The objective hasn’t been eradication, it was education and awareness. We’re in a really good place now, it’s just a case of sustaining and hopefully building on what has been done.”
WHY SHOULD FARMERS CARE?
Above: Dan says he is most proud of getting the meat companies to trust the company with their data.
Export markets: “New Zealand farmers are extremely proud of the product they produce. Dare I say it, the strength of our marketing is on our clean, green image. Exporting meat with little pusy cysts is not seen as a desirable outcome.” Financial impact: “Farmers who get hit with an Ovis storm can get lambs condemned. A few years ago I had a single farm with lost earnings of $30,000 from animals being condemned. Each year a small number of farms suffer substantial financial loss, and these are good farms, but something went wrong.”
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Ovis project manager appointed With a background in science, and more than 20 years of experience in the animal health industry, Michelle Simpson is well placed to pick up where Dan leaves off when it comes to Ovis management. Based in the Rangitikei, Michelle has spent the last 10 years working for a privately owned vet practice in Bulls. She has previously worked at vet path labs as well as spending time on the road selling for Donaghys. The role with Ovis Management felt like a good fit for Michelle, who understands the importance of disease prevention. “Sheep and beef is my passion and this is an opportunity to go back to sheep and beef, and get back out in the field, meeting people and spending time outdoors.” Michelle says she has a huge amount of respect for Dan and what he has achieved with Ovis education and awareness. “I feel he’s handing over the torch. He’s done the hard yards to get it to where it is now and I’m feeling privileged to have this role, as it means so much to him.” Initially, she says her focus will be to carry on where he leaves off. “I do intend to make the role my own, but respectfully. I won’t be moving too quickly, but to see where I can contribute, over time.”
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COMMUNITY
Hunting
Pigs’ digging exposes target BY: PETER SNOWDON
Destructive rooting in normally bonehard soil.
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FLOODS HAD TRASHED THE CANTERBURY landscape. Floodwater debris littered riverbanks and roadsides. Scoured culverts, washed-out fences and sodden paddocks meant infrastructure workers and farmers had plenty to deal with in the aftermath of the floods. Rivers were still swollen and discoloured but our intended route for the June 2021 hunt was bridged and our accommodation a snug Department of Conservation hut with a burner. Light showers accompanied our walk in. It was slippery and soft underfoot, debris washed over the track showed the surprisingly high level of the record floodwaters. On arrival we spent a couple of hours filling the empty woodshed. In June the comfort of a fire was a high priority. We had brought a light handsaw knowing the one at the hut was blunt and rusty as they almost always are. There were plenty of standing dead beech and manuka handy. And on gear – daylight for hunting is in short supply in winter. With more time in a hut a decent light is important. Luci lamps are solar rechargeable lightweight inflatable lanterns. They give good light and can be recharged by leaving in sunlight. I’ve had mine for two years, a good investment of $39. On multi-day hunts you can save your headlamp battery for those dark evenings returning to the hut. An afternoon hunt revealed two deer grazing high above a creek about 3km away. Nothing else was sighted despite a lot of time glassing so we made plans to pursue these animals the following morning. Next day in sunshine and light winds we climbed to about 1200 metres. The plan was to move around the head of the creek and approach the deer of last night from above. The approach looked too challenging so we moved further down the ridge looking for a spot to drop into the creek and climb the other side. Dropping to about 1000m on a steep face we found ourselves among fresh pig rooting. Large areas of the damp soil had been well worked over with holes 750mm deep in places. Short snow tussock and fern had been heaved up. Cresting a small rise, we saw the pigs busy in their destructive rooting. The action unfolded in front of us as we waited to each get a pig lined up for simultaneous shots. The mob was at work in
With the region’s soils sodden from recent flooding, a mob of wild pigs’ excavations made them prime targets.
scrub and tussock just 90m ahead. Clods flew in the air as they turned over the vegetation, rooted in the soft damp soil and noisily scrapped among themselves for prime diggings. Two shots and two young sows tumbled and rolled downhill while two other pigs bolted along the hillside. A look over the area showed how damaging their activity had been and how deep and damp the soil was on the hillside. The heavy rains had made their work easy. Making our way back toward the hut we were encouraged by increasing animal sign high in creek headwaters among short snow tussocks. The heart rate bounced as we spotted a chamois gazing down from a rock outcrop 300m ahead. It didn’t hang around to socialise! Next morning after a long steep haul through damp beech forest we spotted three stags in tall tussock about 650m away. The size and shape of the larger stag perked our interest. He was mature with a good spread and appeared to hold at least 10 points. As we watched, the two younger stags tussled and jousted with each other. At the same time a lone chamois was making a steady climb in the alpine vegetation. What a display. Pity we were about to interrupt it. Working to close the gap on the stags was difficult. They had clear visibility in our direction once we left the cover of forest and while the wind was in our favour the contours were not. At 390m we were spotted and a shot from a poor rest went astray. The deer bolted. We lunched in the weak winter sun high above the valley, reflected on a good few days in the hills and made plans to bivvy up in this spot when the weather warmed.
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COMMUNITY
Technology
Fleeceware Fleeceware sounds a lot cuddlier than it is. It’s when fraudsters offer a short free trial period for a new app. When the trial period ends you get charged an exorbitant subscription. They count on you not checking the subscription cost and to forget about cancelling the short trial. Avast’s advice? Be cautious, read the small print and check reviews.
Beware the scammers
Two-factor authentication
BY: KIRSTEN MILLS DURING ANXIETY-INDUCING TIMES LIKE say, oh a global pandemic, we often hear about the importance of mindfulness as a tool for self-care. But security company Avast has put another spin on how to use the term – it talks about being cyber mindful. In its Cyber Mindfulness ANZ Report (released in late August), it said 83% of New Zealanders have received or seen an online scam, although just 10% report being a victim. The report says such scams are getting harder to detect as cybercriminals design scams that are more believable. Avast put together a quiz to see how cyber mindful you are. I consider myself pretty tech savvy but was surprised at my score (I had expected a perfect 10!). You can try the quiz here: https://blog.avast.com/cyber-mindfulness-quizavast. Some of the quiz questions cover dangers that are fairly obvious: • Passwords: do not use the same password on multiple accounts (if an organisation is hacked and you have re-used your password, you have effectively given hackers access to more than one of your accounts rather than just the hacked one). • Phishing danger: do not click on links in emails or texts (they can be a phishing attack designed to steal your data or identity – manually go to the relevant website and type in the website address instead). • Location tracking: turn off location tracking on your devices (so a detailed profile of you cannot be sold to advertisers to create personalised ads). • Sharing data: think carefully before sharing your data in new apps and websites that use your social media accounts. (Avast suggests asking if the app or website is important enough to trade your privacy for its services. You can revoke existing permissions in your device settings.) However, you may not be so familiar with some of the dangers outlined in the quiz.
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Login
I use two-factor authentication for everything that offers the option and particularly for anything involving my finances. It means that before you can successfully log in to your account you have to put in a code generated by your authenticator app or sent to you by text or email. If you haven’t set it up on your bank accounts (or accounts that store critical financial information) stop reading immediately and go do it now. You may have also stored credit card or thirdparty payment (eg Paypal) information with an online store for ease of payment. Avast suggests not doing this – the less information you have online the better. This made me gulp in shame – I have done this, but clearly will not in future!
Free public wifi
Authentication
The next risky behaviour I am guilty of is logging into free public wifi. I would definitely not check my bank account while logged in, but I have used free public wifi on many occasions. Avast says that means someone could be spying on me. If you need to use public wifi, try to use a VPN to hide what you are doing.
Software updates
With two-factor authentication, when you log on to a website on a computer you’ll see a message to check your phone. Your phone will ask if it’s you. You confirm it is and it will let you into your account.
Another failure on my part is not running software or operating system updates on my devices as soon as they are available. I deliberately wait because I have had so many occasions when the latest update has broken something on my device. Avast is unequivocal though – update immediately because updates can include crucial patches for security risks. You can check your email address online to see if it might have been part of a security breach (eg https://www.avast.com/hackcheck/, https:// haveibeenpwned.com/ or https://monitor.firefox. com/scan).
You can tell websites are secure by the padlock symbol and “https” at the start of the URL.
safe secure
https://
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SOLUTIONS
Red meat assurance A NEWLY LAUNCHED ASSURANCE programme reflects growing consumer demand for evidence-based environmental and social standards around red meat production. New Zealand Farm Assurance Programme Plus (NZFAP Plus) is a new voluntary standard which builds on the existing NZ Farm Assurance Programme (NZFAP). To take part, farmers need to have completed NZFAP, the foundation programme. They can then apply to become a member of NZFAP Plus and will carry out an initial self-assessment checklist to determine what aspects of their business they need to work on. They are then given up to three years to meet the required standards and be audited by an AsureQuality independent auditor.
Havoc results from birds’ nests
The cost of the audit is covered by NZFAI member companies with whom farmers have a relationship. A handbook has been developed to support farmers as they work towards their NZFAP Plus certification, along with a number of other tools and resources which are under development.
Birds nesting in spring can wreak havoc when it comes to rural insurance causing $4 million in claims over the last three years, rural insurer FMG says. “The most common claim is tractor fires caused by birds nesting in tractor engines during springtime. The engine sparks up and before you know it there’s a fire,” FMG Manager for Advice Services Stephen Cantwell says. “It’s not uncommon for tractors in these scenarios to quickly go up in flames, endangering lives and putting buildings and other farm equipment at risk. “Looking at our claims data nests have also caused fires in other vehicles as well, including cars, utes, diggers, and quads,” Cantwell says.
• Supplied by Beef + Lamb New Zealand.
• More? see www.fmg.co.nz/
Connect. Grow. Lead. Applications for the Kellogg Rural Leadership Programme close 14 November, 2021. Step up in 2022 as an agri-sector leader of change. Register now at ruralleaders.co.nz/kellogg/ 96
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Valtra tractors earn their keep
Along with its CVT transmission, Spraylink’s Valtra T174D has load-sensing hydraulics, electrichydraulic controls, and a SmartTouch arm rest.
THE FIRST VALTRA TRACTOR joined the Butler family’s busy farming business in 2000. Michael Butler’s parents, Peter and Helen, own several dairy farms in the Waikato area and South Island. Peter and Michael had gone south to work on the conversion of their latest farm in Canterbury. “We needed a new tractor in a hurry. We got a Valtra and it was such a good, reliable tractor that since then we have owned another eight,” Michael says. Michael helps oversee the running of the dairy farms, but he and his wife Shanekea also own and run the agricultural spray contracting business Spraylink, which they bought in 2018. Shanekea is in charge of administration and compliance for Spraylink, while Michael drives and organises staff. Spraylink runs three spray trucks and two Valtra tractors with trailing sprayers. When spraying goes quiet in January and February, Michael and the other two drivers shift to baling.
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The T174D is the latest. The ‘D’ stands for Direct CVT, and is the top of the range option. Its standard features include load-sensing hydraulics, electrichydraulic control and a SmartTouch arm rest. Michael and Shanekea’s T174D pulls a 6000-litre sprayer or runs five-metrewide double mowers. It works on hills as well as the flat and Michael finds there is plenty of traction and power. He says the CVT transmission is great for spraying, as he does not have to think about gears. “You just put your foot on the accelerator and it goes faster. There are two ways to flick into reverse – using the shuttle on the gear stick or the button on the command joystick,” Michael says. “Valtra has been a good tractor for 21 years and they are going very well.”
• More? Contact Peter Scott 0272 708 027 or Peter.Scott@ agcocorp.com
AgImports moves into supplement supply AGIMPORTS IS NOW OFFERING A range of livestock supplements, sourced from Australian company Agricon Products. Agricon, located in the sugarcane region of Queensland, manufactures a wide range of supplements for the beef, dairy, sheep, goat and horse industries. It is one of the most diverse supplement suppliers in the industry. Products include poured molasses blocks, loose mixes, dairy and feedlot concentrates and horse supplements. Agricon’s location allows it to easily access the best-quality molasses in the world. Molasses provides essential energy and encourages consumption, the key to any successful supplement block. Its blocks are made in edible grade cardboard, so there is no plastic or waste to deal with. Leading the team is managing director Todd Wilshire who has 30 years of experience in animal health. “Our customers understand that the use of supplements is essential for optimum production and that supplementation makes good economic sense all year round,” he says. “Agricon Products has been providing market-leading animal health and feed supplements across Australia since 1982.” AgImports manager Edward Simpkin says New Zealand farmers can view the full product range at www.agimports. co.nz or order directly on 0800 024 628.
FarmIQ acquires Farmax FARMIQ SYSTEMS AND CROWN Research Institute (CRI) AgResearch have formed a strategic partnership with the acquisition of Farmax - a decision support tool for farmers. AgResearch will become a shareholder in FarmIQ Systems and FarmIQ’s preferred provider of science and research. FarmIQ chief executive Will Noble says the partnership was long overdue as both organisations have shared the same vision for the agriculture sector since its inception from the Primary Growth Partnership in 2010.
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FARMING IN FOCUS
Top left: Angus bull on Sheldon and Nicola Martin’s Rangiwahia farm, Richwyn. Top right: Sheldon with R2 Angus bulls. Centre left: The farm’s name on the gate. Centre right: Stock water pond on Richwyn. Above left: Raining again. The view from the calf shed at Gaye and Murray Coates’ farm on the West Coast. Above right: The team at Dion and Ali Kilmister’s Homegrown Butcher Deli and Pantry in Masterton.
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Country-Wide
November 2021
Top left: These shoes were made for shearing - at Wharetoa Genetics. Top right: On the boards. Centre: Sharpening the combs. Bottom: Fog on the Rakaia: The view from the Rietveld farm.
Country-Wide
November 2021
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the traditional
Festive Feast
Enjoy a delicious ham on the bone or boneless leg ham. Yours this season, when you purchase selected Boehringer Ingelheim products from your local vet clinic. Only available from participating vet clinics with qualifying purchases.
1/2 HAM QUALIFYING PURCHASES: 1 x 20 L ARREST® C, 1 x ARREST® C Calf Pack, 2 x 20 L ARREST® Hi-Mineral, 4 x 500 mL ECLIPSE® E Injection, 4 x 500 mL or 1 x 3 L ECLIPSE® E Injection with B12 and Se, 1 x 2.5 L ECLIPSE® Pour-On, 2 x 20 L EXODUS® Se, 1 x 20 L FIRST® Drench Hi-Mineral, 4 x 500 mL GENESIS® Injection with B12 and Se, 1 x 5 L GENESIS® Ultra Pour-On, 1 x 20 L GENESIS® Ultra Hi-Mineral, 2 x 10 L or 1 x 20 L Iver MATRIX® Tape Hi-Mineral, 1 x 20 L Iver SWITCH Tape Hi-Mineral, 4 x 500 mL IVOMEC® Plus Injection, 1 x 20 L MATRIX®, 1 x 20 L MATRIX® Hi-Mineral, 1 x 10 L or 20 L MATRIX® Mini-Dose Hi-Mineral, 2 x 10 L or 1 x 20 L MATRIX® Tape Hi-Mineral, 1 x 20 L POLERIZE®, 1 x 20 L SWITCH Oral Drench, 1 x 20 L SWITCH C Hi-Mineral, 1 x 20 L SWITCH Hi-Mineral, 1 x 20 L TRIMOX® Hi-Mineral. 2 x 1/2 HAM QUALIFYING PURCHASES: 1 x 5 L ECLIPSE® Pour-On, 1 x 25 L EPRINEX® Pour-On, 1 x 20 L MATRIX® C Hi-Mineral, 1 x 10 L SWITCH Fluke 10.
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Proudly available from your local veterinary clinic. Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand Limited. Level 3, 2 Osterley Way, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand. All products are ®Registered trademarks of the Boehringer Ingelheim Group. Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997 | No’s A007290, A006417, A010640, A011151, A009270, A010018, A006859, A009888, A009222, A009822, A010120, A011155, A006481, A009544, A009390, A010132, A009418, A011616, A009964, A010274, A009970, A010734, A007191, A010131 & A011138 | ©Copyright 2021 Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand Limited. All rights reserved. NZ-MSP-0066-2021.
*Promotion Ends 22/12/21.2021 While stocks last. Country-Wide November