The entrepreneurial 38-year-old milks his cows on the back of a purpose-built trailer – a mobile dairy that allows him to milk cows in the paddock on land he leases just north of Christchurch.
There are no concrete yards and no backing gates – just a small mob of cows milling around in a grassy paddock patiently waiting for their turn to board the seven-bail mobile dairy.
His herd has recently grown to 57 cows, some calving in spring, some in autumn and some year-round – it doesn’t really matter.
They run with Basil the bull and calves stay on mum until weaning – no bobbies.
He has two lease blocks, a 12ha dryland block at West Eyreton and another 12ha irrigated block at Ohoka. They’re not certified organic because of the difficulty in doing that on lease land, but he runs the operations with no artificial fertiliser or sprays.
He’s aware of people’s fears about nitrate in groundwater and grows catch crops of oats or wheat to use the nutrients left behind by his cows, which graze more extensively than intensively.
With a backdrop of snow-capped mountains, the gentle pace of walking 50 metres to bring in the cows with the sun on your back is a far cry from the typical 4.30am dark trek back from a distant paddock.
It’s a great picture and it’s exactly that romantic rural idyll that’s behind Glen’s $32/kg milksolids milk price.
While he can rightly claim differences between the milk he sells and most of the milk sold on the supermarket shelf it’s the whole story of the little guy, happy cows and a one-with-nature ideal that his customers love – and are willing to pay more for.
Glen’s made it his business to really understand what those customers are looking for, who they are and what’s important to them.
“I could probably tell you how they vote and what their views are on a whole range of issues that aren’t remotely related to dairy,” he says.
In a way Glen’s turned the tortured subject of the rural-urban divide, the misunderstandings and myths about mainstream dairying into an opportunity.
Milk is pasteurised during milking, chilled and bottled or put into urns for cafes.
Glen says it’s difficult to be precise about the working costs of running the business because he’s still refining systems and processes that incur one-off development costs.
He has a better idea of the tipping point when it comes to production levels, in that he estimates the business would need to be producing 500 litres a day to make it worthwhile.
Apart from lease costs the typical onfarm running costs aren’t high. There’s the usual repairs and maintenance on dairy plant and rubberware. There are also electricity costs if the plant is plugged in or fuel costs if a generator is used.
Stocking rates are low because the aim is to work with what nature provides and minimise bought-in feed costs. The land leasing costs are in effect the feed costs.
The cost of getting the product from the farm to market makes up a significant proportion of the overall business costs with labour the greatest cost. Glen says the 500l/day model needs three full-time people if each works five days in seven.
A minimum of two people are needed each day to milk, process the milk, make the deliveries and manage orders and marketing.
A typical day
• 6am – Milk urns and bottles from the previous morning’s milking are collected from the chiller and delivery to cafes and stores begins. Empties are collected from cafes and stores. This takes until about 11am most days.
• 8am – Cups-on in the mobile dairy. Cows’ teats are washed and dried before milking and each cow is teat-sprayed after it’s milked. Milk is pasteurised during milking.
• 9am – Cows are put back in their paddock. Milking plant is washed down. Pasteurised milk from that milking and the previous afternoon’s milking is put into urns or milk bottles and put into chiller.
• 11am – When the delivery person returns, used urns and bottles are washed.
• Noon-2pm – Farm work, maintenance, and food safety paperwork done.
• 2pm – Afternoon milking. Milk is pasteurised and put into sterile buckets ready to be put into urns the next day.
More:
Sprout Agritech: www.sproutagritech.com
Blog: milkingonthemoove.blogspot.co.nz
Website: www.naturematters.co.nz
Facebook: Nature Matters Milk Company
Twitter: @GlenHerud
