In his second season managing for Brendan Attrill and Susan Mundt, he thought this was his chance before he enters his first variable-order sharemilking position next season with his wife Hayley, farming 230 cows at Tariki.
After growing up on dairy farms with sharemilking parents, Lance qualified as a builder, but family pulled him back to dairying.
“I missed so much of my first son’s early years because I was working 12-hour days away from home.”
When Hayley’s parents offered a job on their farm, Lance jumped at it. He worked his way up the ranks to 2IC with Hayley working alongside. A thirst for progression prompted their next step.
“Managing this farm was a great opportunity for us to grow skills and push further with our career,” Lance says.
With a herd in the top 5% for Breeding Worth, industry-leading health and safety practices, and a focus on environmental stewardship, Lance has honed his skills, demonstrated by the four merit awards received with his title.
The Opus International Consultants Environment Award is the one he is most proud of.
“There’s good infrastructure here and doing everything right makes farming easier,” Lance says.
“We do a lot of recycling, we’ve almost completed the riparian plantings and we’ve smartened up our nitrogen applications to reduce the leaching in our nutrient budget. We spread the spent woodchips from our loafing pad on new pastures and nothing is buried or burned.”
The New Zealand Farm Management Award also featured in Lance’s haul.
“There’s some great systems in place and it’s great for that to be recognised. It’s important to the business that we keep them going.”
Quality of pasture is a key driver in the success of the farm, with weekly to fortnightly pasture walk data going into MINDA Land and Feed.
“We watch the feed wedge and use pre-grazing mowing and topping to make sure that the cows are in lush, green grass as much as possible.
“We target our gnarly paddocks for cultivation and use our loafing pad to prevent pugging,” Lance says of maintaining the performance of pastures.
Cow condition is a focus on the farm, and Lance has a good grasp on how not just quantity but also type of feed can have an impact at different times of year.
“We use palm kernel, maize and grass silage at different times of year to keep the cows healthy.”
Lower condition cows are put in a once-a-day mob in the lead-up to mating and given ad-lib feeding on grass and palm kernel to give each one the best chance of getting in-calf.
Lance and Hayley like to challenge themselves. The whole herd has a G3 genemarking profile, and parentage verification showed 100% accuracy in the 2013-14 season. They acknowledge the value of the herd and manage the young stock so every animal has the best opportunity to perform. This dedication was recognised with the PGG Wrightson Livestock Best Livestock Award.
Lance also demonstrated that human resources is not all about staff, receiving the Primary ITO Human Resource Management award.
“We collaborate with everyone involved in the farm – owners, contractors, relief milkers and discussion groups.”
“There’s seven RTs [radio transmitters] on the farm and we use them to make sure everyone on the farm knows what’s going on. It’s my main communication with Brendan [Attrill].”
Health and safety is a bottom line on the farm. “We need to keep anybody that walks on this farm safe,” Lance says.
Lance and Hayley have helped their progression along, completing DairyNZ BizStart and participating in the follow-on BizGrow programmes. Lance is also working towards his Primary ITO agribusiness diploma. They plan to complete Mark and Measure and are involved with several community groups.
“I’m absolutely stoked to win this,” Lance says. “It’s great for our family and I’m looking forward to meeting the other finalists at nationals.”
Second place went to Ngawharau Apaapa of Urenui.
