Friday, March 29, 2024

Pick your partners well

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South Otago farmers Steven and Rhonda Bamford believe one of the most important steps in setting up an equity partnership is making sure you know your partners well. Steven has known the partners they chose since he was born – they’re his uncle and aunt, Rodney and Pat Bamford. Before Steven and Rhonda went into the equity partnership they leased Rodney and Pat’s 303ha farm, which bordered their land, for several years. The lease is now part of the Hillfoot Farms company. Steven and Rhonda own 72%, and Rodney and Pat 28%.  “It’s all about the people, not about the money. We knew the people we were going into business with and we all knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Rhonda says. “They knew how we farmed, our philosophy and we knew they would trust us,” Steven says.
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“For them, having their land farmed well was very important.

“This is firstly a business and we do farm it that way, but it’s also important for all of the equity partners that it also gives us the lifestyle that we want,” Rhonda says.

“When we set up the equity we could have had more partners, we could have gone with people we didn’t know but none of us were happy to do that.

“I think our success has been because we chose our partners well and we knew them and what they wanted.”

There is no dividend, with any profit going back to paying off debt, even in good years.

Steven and Rhonda get a salary, which hasn’t changed since the equity was formed, for managing the farm and Rodney and Pat, in their 70s and retired, receive the lease money.

“Rodney and Pat still live in their house on the farm and Rodney helps out when we need him. He’s still part of what we do and he likes being part of it,” Steven says.

Directors meetings are held six times a year and financial reporting is done every two months.

“I send them the variance report after I do the GST every two months,” Rhonda says.

Rhonda Bamford with one of the first calves of the season.

Steven Bamford likes to compare practices and said he has learnt a lot from dairying, but he’s also brought a few sheep practices over to the dairy unit.

“You’ve got to always look at your stock, not just open the gate or put the cups on. That’s something sheep farmers do I think better than dairy.

“Also with sheep we always use a terminal sire and we’re doing that with the dairy herd. We use Hereford over the cows we don’t want to keep the calves from and the white faces give us a marker so we know not to keep those calves.”

They sell their Jersey bull calves at four days old to rearers and other dairy farmers, adding an extra $26,000 of income to the business, and can’t fill all the orders.

“We only bobby 100 calves, if that, each year,” Rhonda Bamford says.

When they were farming sheep they used to buy-in Jersey bull calves to rear and sell to dairy farmers for mating.

“I used to think because of that I knew how to rear calves but rearing a four-dayold calf is easy compared with rearing them from birth. Those first four days are so much harder.”

The sheep flock is TEFRom – a Texel-Romney-East Friesian cross – and the Bamfords achieve 159% lambing with half the lambs away at weaning at 18kg.

They are part of the Anzco Waitrose programme and went to the United Kingdom on a study tour for two weeks in winter with other farmers and company representatives.

“We’ve always set goals and we do tick them off,” Rhonda says. 

“One of the goals was to have a contract milker or lower-order sharemilker on the farm by now so we can step back.

That hasn’t happened with the low payout but we are still working towards it.

“We know our strengths and weaknesses really well and our biggest strength is we like having control of everything we do but it’s also our biggest weakness – we have trouble letting go.

“But we will, and we will bring in a contract milker. Steven’s always says he just wants 3000 sheep to look after when he retires.”

FARM FACTS

  • Hillfoot Farms – Balclutha, South Otago
  • Owners – Steven and Rhonda Bamford, Rodney and Pat Bamford
  • Area – 757ha, 330ha milking platform
  • Cows  920 Jersey-crossbred
  • Dairy  54-bail rotary with in-dairy feeding and Protrak
  • Wintering  70ha planted in fodder beet and 2000 bales of balage
  • Six-week in-calf rate  84%
  • Empties  7%
  • Breeding worth-production worth  BW 70/43 PW 73/58
  • Production 2015-16  420kg MS/cow (best production 454kg MS/cow 2014-15 season)
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