The Taranaki Dairy Industry Awards Share Farmers of the Year for 2016 could be forgiven for feeling a little down, with their feed wedge flatlining on their Waitotara sharemilking farm after a hot dry summer and the Fonterra payout forecast dipping to new lows.
But the indomitable pair have picked up many skills in their eight years of sharemilking and they put optimism and healthy thinking at the top of their list of useful habits, followed closely by budget monitoring and giving back.
Production is suffering at 6% below last season and dropping by the day, despite a feedpad diet of 10kg drymatter (DM) of silage, palm kernel and maize, and they expect to reach 230,000kg MS for the season, having recently culled 90 cows from the 660-cow peak-milked herd. Cows have been on once-a-day milking for a week in one herd and a month in the other, and drying-off is imminent if they don’t get significant rain soon.
Still Ben is smiling when he acknowledges the double whammy blow, and the key to it might be his confidence in Belinda’s conservative budgeting attitude that sees them always “planning for the worst and hoping for the best”.
“I like to be conservative,” Belinda says.
Getting her business head from her father, who encouraged them into rental investments to build equity to buy a herd, Belinda loves to measure and monitor and was thrilled when she won the region’s Westpac Business Performance Merit award.
“I love that part of the business – it’s like my baby.”
The couple are also proud parents of nine-year-old tractor-nut Hayden and budding All Black Tobi, 7.
Upskilling 10 years ago with the Diploma of Agribusiness Management gave the former travel agent the skills to fast-track their business to sharemilking and to constantly plan, monitor, run sensitivity analyses and make the hard decisions when necessary.
They also did the DairyNZ Mark and Measure programme twice, raising eyebrows in the process, but after upscaling their business from 250 to 660 Kiwicross cows they felt it was well worth taking time off farm to revisit their business goals and strategy and develop their skills.
“We also finally cracked our vision statement at the second go,” Belinda says.
It was hard to get something that really suited them, so they crafted a vision referencing a tree, with roots relating to where they have come from and being the foundation to growing the tree over time, and a wide canopy that shelters and shades their family and provides a place to play with their family and friends and farm team – who are all part of their community and share the fruits of their tree.
Only two years into the Waitotara job they are aware that cost-cutting decisions now mustn’t impact negatively on the future production capability of their biggest assets – their herd and their staff.
“We have decided not to cut wages and did AB all through the season with short-gestation semen, so saved $5000 on bulls,” Belinda says.
The result was a slightly higher empty rate of 11.8%, still below the district average of 13-17%, and they managed to shorten calving by a couple of weeks.
Herd testing has remained on the table but after a cost analysis they opted to cut cow numbers slightly and grow half their own maize, saving 9c/ha on the total silage bill while still maintaining the long-standing relationship with neighbours who grew the other 6ha.
They have also been proactive about searching out better deals on services – asking multiple suppliers and giving locals the chance to pitch for their business by fronting up and starting a conversation about their business.
While this season is one where they are financially treading water, the couple are pleased they are not going backwards. They’re able to contain their costs and will progress when the opportunity arises.
“We live comfortably on drawings of $25,000 and put any spare dollars against our debt.”
Having the support of their farm owners, David and Adrienne Hopkins, with long-term stability and a chance to invest in the land in the future has made a huge difference with their bank, they said. They put together a fortnightly report for the Hopkins’ showing a feed wedge (more of a “sand wedge” this last month, they laughed) and the couple decided they would frame it and put it on the wall.
“If we can get through this we can survive anything.”
Despite Waitotara having a mixed reputation as a dairying area, with a perception of being isolated and hard to staff, the Prices are enjoying the community and making an effort to include local school children in their business.
Supporting the Hopkins’ passion for the farm environment, developed from a blank canvas as a dairy conversion in 1993 with fertiliser, fencing and planting , they have included locals in the development and planting of a 0.5ha wetland area and other farm plantings – and were surprised that it was the first time onfarm for some town children. The Hopkins and Prices also won the Supreme Award in the Horizons Ballance Farm Environment Awards for their environmental work.
“We have learned heaps about wetlands and want to showcase it to the community,” Belinda says. The wetland gets natural runoff from the farm drains and then runs into a dune lake at the bottom of the farm, and the Prices are keen to monitor the quality of the water leaving the property.
Giving back to the industry and community is high on the Prices’ matrix of goals and values, proudly displayed on the kitchen wall, with business goals, community and mental wellness all feeding into the overall vision.
Belinda has plans to establish a fruit orchard in the hospital paddock and plant pumpkins and other veges for a community garden.
Planting sweet corn and $13 worth of sunflower seeds on the outside row of the maize this year resulted in $50 worth of sunflowers sold to local florists and the money donated to the school, along with sweetcorn for the school community.
Winning the Federated Farmers Leadership Merit Award this year confirmed the Prices’ belief it is important to be able to share skills and knowledge.
After completing the Diploma in Agribusiness Management Belinda was approached by Primary ITO to tutor their Level 4 and 5 production management classes and she is involved in mentoring students through this.
The couple have recently joined the Dairy Connect programme to help others facing issues within their businesses and as FarmStrong Ambassadors they have relished the chance to help others employ Healthy Thinking and to understand the importance of getting out, keeping active and thinking about how they deal with situations.
The couple are determined to use their positivity and healthy thinking to ride out the industry lows because they have long-term plans in the industry and hope to help others realise their dairy dreams as well.
The runners-up in the Share Farmer competition were Manaia 50:50 sharemilkers Dion and Johanna Bishell, and third were Eltham 50:50 sharemilkers Alastair and Nicola Wicksteed.
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