How long have you been farming?

My wife Sharon and I have been farming together since 1983 and we are both from farming stock, Sharon from dairy and myself from dry-stock. We share-milked for 10 years prior to purchasing our first farm.

What are you running on your properties?

We have two small dairy farms running between 170 to 180 cows each plus a drystock unit running dairy replacements and dairy beef. Also leased out is some land to a forestry nursery.

We retain calves on the dairy platform till 9 months old and run relatively low input systems by industry standards.

How are you finding current business conditions?

Climatically the extreme variations in the weather has meant that we need to be both more conservative in our approaches to feed management and more nimble on our feet.

Milk prices are at record levels, which is great but inflation pressures are eating significantly into that. There has been substantial cost increases in fertilisers, fuel, wages, contracting  costs and significant upward movement in interest rates. However, we are still positive about the future for our businesses and industry.

How do you make improvements on your farms?

We make improvements on the farm based on the concept of trying to future proof the businesses while working towards meeting changing consumer/public expectations and legislative changes. 

We endeavour to as a minimum to be at good practice and ideally at best practice when it comes to product quality, staff management and environmental impacts. 

We have a stated goal of endeavouring to design and manage our businesses to the benefit of all involved/impacted  – so that is staff, environment and wider community through involvement and taxes paid through profits. 

By way of example, we have consciously been managing our nitrogen losses for over a decade now and have been working to reduce greenhouse gases for the last 3 to 4 years.

We use zero cultivation if cropping or establishing new pasture. Effluent ponds have been lined for a decade or more. Infrastructure, plant & machinery are upgraded as opportunity arises.

We use consultants both around HR and farm operations to ensure that we are on track with continual improvement and refinement. It is journey and not an end point.

We use new technology where appropriate like collars on cows to monitor their health and reproduction etc. But it is expensive.  

You into tree planting?

We have targeted the small areas of steeper less productive land and have planted those in natives. We have increased and will continue to plant more trees as shade for the cows as the summers get hotter. We are trying to understand what a two tier farming operation might like with pasture under some trees crops?

You spoke to me about more efficient cows. Please explain this to our readers.

Part of the continual improvement for our business is about producing the same or more from less inputs.

There is an ability to increase output by just increasing the level of inputs whether it be purchased feeds, more cows, more fertilisers  etc  but with that the is the risk of increased environmental impacts, namely greenhouse gases.

To effectively manage the increased inputs would require us to invest more heavily in infrastructure. Our strategy is about trying to achieve gains through efficiencies. Science tells us that for a given quantity of feed  fed to individual cows, there is variation in the amount produced, a classic bell shaped curve.

We are targeting through genetics those cows that can produce more milk from that limited feed source. With genetics we can potentially lock in over time those gains and incrementally build on them. Think how more fuel efficient today’s vehicles are compared to the past.

Environmental conditions; how are you dealing with carbon?

Carbon along with other greenhouse gases has been on the radar for us for about 4 years now. Carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change, accounting for 74 percent of global warming.

Carbon per se is not a big issue for our pastoral type operation. The issue for us is  Methane and Nitrous Oxide, both powerful GHG’s, with methane being the biggest challenge by far for us making up about 70% plus of our total profile.

Methane per hectare is hugely correlated  to the amount of feed consumed per hectare and hence gives it a very strong correlation to milk produced and potentially profit.

This is one of the key reasons for targeting efficiencies with the cows – a significant part of a cow’s feed is just to keep her alive and therefore if we can produce that same from fewer cows we can achieve a methane reduction.  

Methane is also unique in that it is a very short lived gas relative to most of the others and does not accumulate in the atmosphere as others do.

Something that is both recognised in the government’s Zero Carbon bill, the ag sector’s  He Waka Eke Noa (Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership).

And also in the last report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

For us, it is about chasing incremental gains not only through cows but by also ensuring that in terms of nitrogenous fertilisers we put on the right amount at the right time under the right conditions.

To this end we use soil moisture probes, proof of placement technology and urease inhibitors to reduce the amount of nitrous oxide lost to the atmosphere.

Over time (20 years) we have about halved the amount of nitrogen use. We soil test annually to again ensure that we are using the right amounts and minimising losses.

Reporting from our supply allows us to bench mark ourselves both against our peers and against targets set by the milk companies which in some cases are incentivised. 

We use software such as Overseer and Farmax to both understand our footprint and mange it.