Business

New Lincoln University research has found many small dairy farmers are content with the size of their operation, despite the constant calls for economic growth. Dr Victoria Westbrooke and Dr Peter Nuthall, from the Faculty of Agribusiness and Commerce, surveyed 330 randomly selected farmers running small dairy farms for the small farmers’ organisation (SMASH). The project was funded by DairyNZ via OneFarm. “It was clear from this research, and similar previous work, that the farmers were content to simply carry on working their current farm,” Dr Westbrooke says. “They did not want to buy more land, or sell and buy bigger, or use other expansion possibilities.” She says small farmers were shown to be more family and friends oriented than their larger farm colleagues and to have a laid back attitude. They were getting on with enjoying life even if not having a lot of spare cash, she says, and take a balanced view. While they scored ‘making maximum sustainable cash returns’  at 4.4 out of a maximum of 5 they also scored ‘having reasonable time off and holidays’ at 4.3 out of 5. “Clearly life has other objectives than just profit for these farmers,” Dr Westbrooke concludes. They rated ‘I don’t sleep at night worrying about decisions’ a low 2.1 out of 5 as a score on the truth of the assertion. Succession was not an issue either. “Overall, many of the small dairy farmers were not interested in having their children take over from them”, Dr Westbrooke says. “Perhaps they believed their farm was too small and the children would be better off in another profession”. However, a sub group of younger farmers were interested in expanding. They tended to be looking for extra land such as a bigger farm on which to expand their share milking business. […]

Lincoln University researcher Dr Peter Nuthall has a question for farmers. “How many times do you find yourself thinking about how can you make your farm more successful?” His answer lies in developing your ability to understand or know something based on your ​well- informed intuition. Dr Nuthall says farms are run on intuition every day: every farmer makes a myriad of decisions based on it. “Successful farm management is totally dependent on the quality of the farmer’s inherent intuition.” He has written The Intuitive Farmer – Inspiring Management Success. It’s not a textbook, but a novel. It tells of Ben, who farms in rolling country in New Zealand, and some of his colleagues. Tom, a management researcher, guides a research programme in which the farmers take part. They face many management dilemmas universal to any farming system in any country. Successes and tragedies emerge from the farmer centred experiment, and a multitude of lessons. Farmers aren’t always the best at formal study, Dr Nuthall says, so the novel is a painless way to embed the lessons into a story about farmers and farming. “It is clear where efforts to improve intuition should be concentrated,” he says. “Self-reflection is critical, and also the critique of decisions and outcomes by friends and colleagues. Careful observation is also important, as is extensive experience and a knowledge of the technology. These three go hand in hand, and can all be improved with concentrated effort.” In conjunction with colleague Dr Kevin Old, he has recently released the results of a study into farmers’ intuition which used information from over 700 farmers of all types. The variation in profit, and other output, was used to isolate key factors in intuition. At least 60 per cent of a farmer’s intuition is due to environmental aspects, in contrast to genetic influences. […]

In the picture: Bostock New Zealand owner John Bostock (left) and Mr Apple CEO Andrew Van Workum. Two of Hawke’s Bay’s biggest apple exporters have teamed up to store apples, today opening the regions largest single rooms coolstore.  Bostock New Zealand and Mr Apple have officially opened their new 8600m2 coolstore near Flaxmere, which has the capacity to store 30,000 bins. Bostock New Zealand Owner, John Bostock says it’s very exciting to be opening a state of the art facility, which has the technology and innovation to provide customers with full traceability from the Hawke’s Bay orchards to consumers across the world. “The apple industry is growing to meet international demand and every day we are working to ensure we have cutting edge technology to deliver premium apples to our customers. “We are also happy to be offering more permanent and seasonal jobs, with 9 staff needed to run the new facility,” Mr Bostock said. The new coolstore has a unique, advanced scanning system, which ensures each bin is identified and each apple can be traced back to the orchard where it was grown. This is the first stage of a two-stage development, which will see another coolstore built with a further capacity to store another 13,000 bins. “It’s taken months of planning and project management and we take our hats off to Gordon Kinnear and his team for the wonderful job they’ve done to ensure the coolstore was completed in a short timeframe and in time for the busy apple harvest,” said Mr Bostock. Mr Apple CEO, Andrew Van Workum says it’s positive to be working in partnership with Bostock New Zealand to ensure Hawke’s Bay apples are stored and delivered in top quality. “Both companies, and the NZ industry in general are establishing very strong sales and linkages into […]

A group of Hawke’s Bay food producers have launched a campaign to keep Hastings GMO Free as the Hastings Council prepares to go head to head with Federated Farmers and the Government. Pure Hawke’s Bay has put its first stake in the ground, putting up billboards around the region to raise awareness and gain support in the fight to keep Hastings GMO Free. Pure Hawke’s Bay President, and sheep and beef farmer Bruno Chambers says having a GMO Free region creates more economic and marketing opportunities. “It means as Hastings producers we can tell buyers and customers that produce grown in our fields is officially GMO Free. If we can’t claim this, we loose our competitive global advantage. We need to tell the GM Free story and officially show the world that we grow produce naturally. “It adds more value to our exports and creates significant economic benefits for Hawke’s Bay.” Last year, backed by leading Hawke’s Bay food producers, Hastings District Council became the first in New Zealand to secure the territory’s GM Free food producer status under the local plan. While this initiative enjoys overall support from producers and the wider community, Federated Farmers is challenging the Hastings decision in the Environment Court. As well as this, the councils move is also threatened by proposed changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA), which would see the government take away councils powers to establish GM Free Zones. “Hawke’s Bay food producers and the Hastings Council are best placed to know what is right for our local economy. We shouldn’t have this democratic right taken away. We need the government to work alongside us to keep Hastings GMO Free and help position Hawke’s Bay as a premium food-producing region in the competitive global market place.” Mr Chambers along with over […]

A labour shortage across Hawke’s Bay is causing major concerns for Bostock New Zealand Apple Orchard Managers. The Hawke’s Bay grower and New Zealand’s largest exporter of organic apples, held its annual open day this morning to attract workers to ensure they can get the apples off their trees in time. Bostock New Zealand Orchard Operations Manager, Craig Treneman says they currently need over 200 people and are desperate to find labour. “We work with WINZ, we advertise and the open day is all part of our attempts to attract workers before the apple harvest starts in just a few weeks. “The key for us is getting New Zealanders into full time employment rather than just seasonal jobs and we are helping up-skill our seasonal staff to give them more opportunity.  We are challenged by a labour shortage and there are just not enough Kiwi’s available to meet the peak season demand.” Bostock New Zealand also provides transport for any New Zealanders keen to work in its orchards. “We are keen to work with people to ensure they have no barriers to employment. Drivers licenses are one of the biggest challenges, so we will do everything we can to help get people to work.” About 60 people, including locals and tourists signed up to work for Bostock New Zealand at the open day. “We were hoping to attract more people as we have plenty of work, both seasonal and permanent jobs. This was the lowest turnout rate we have seen at an open day for five years,” said Mr Treneman. Flaxmere woman Te Aroha Toa Toa was quick to sign up with Bostock New Zealand, excited by the employment opportunity. “I have been unemployed for some time, so the orchard work gives me the opportunity to get into some seasonal […]