Thomas is in his second year managing 500 cows for Bruce and Judy Woods at Whakatane.
The farm working expenses dropped from $5.80/kg MS in 2013-14 to $4.80/kg MS last season, and are on target for $3.40/kg MS this year. Extracting a huge cost in bought-in supplement has been a big chunk of those costs coming down, along with reduced spending on repair and maintenance costs and re-valuating the fertiliser programme.
They also grew an extra 5ha of maize onfarm this year which will give them cheaper feed into the system.
Instead of buying in 300 tonnes of supplement, they bought just 90t this season.
Production has dropped from 450kg MS/cow to 410kg MS/cow, but the profit margin is still more positive. Thomas had sat down with farm owner Bruce at the start of the season and made a strategic plan.
Bruce wanted to cut costs because of the low milk price and Thomas challenged him on a lot of the decisions.
One of Thomas’ suggestions was to wintermilk the late-calvers instead of drying all the cows off together, which would add another 4000kg MS to the farm’s production.
“I like problem-solving, I enjoy that about farming. I’m constantly thinking what else can we do – how can we change it. It’s been good to see the results.”
Thomas won four merit awards at the Dairy Industry Awards dinner, including Westpac Financial Management and Planning, Fonterra Farm Source Feed Management and the Primary ITO Power Play Award – where he chose to focus on the farm’s finances.
“The feed and the financials were the two big ones. They were the ones Bruce and I and the staff had worked pretty hard on. I was really happy to win those.”
The former physiotherapist has only been in the dairy industry for four years, winning the Bay of Plenty Dairy Trainee of the Year in his first season in 2013, and going on be runner-up and win the practical at nationals.
He decided to enter the awards again because of the valuable feedback entrants get from the judges. He has finished his Level 4 Dairy Management through Primary ITO and in his second year as farm manager he wanted to benchmark himself.
He is still learning his craft and the competition ensures he’s thinking about every aspect of the farm and how to improve it. The farm grew more grass this year, harvesting 16t drymatter (DM)/ha this season compared with 14t DM/ha last year.
A lot of that was down to better management of the irrigated block, Thomas says.
“I probably over-watered last year. This year I was more aware of washing nutrients away and was more precise.”
The farm has 70ha under irrigation and another 20ha under effluent irrigation.
One of the non-negotiable costs has been paying staff good wages. Thomas manages two full-time staff, which has pushed the wages up to 93c/kg MS.
“Between the barn and irrigation, two people is not enough.”
Three staff full-time means the daily jobs get done, and farm improvements and general repairs and maintenance don’t fall behind. The 4200sq m covered barn can be a lot of work to maintain to keep the sawdust turned and is part of the reason for the third person, but it’s worth it, he says.
It comfortably fits 500 cows and helps reduce pasture damage and supplement wastage.
“The cows love it and it’s a really nice tool to have in the heat of day or winter.”
Another big change Thomas made this season was taking out bulls during mating and doing 12 weeks of artificial breeding (AB). The empty rate decreased from 13% to 11%. They enjoyed not having bulls on the farm and could use short-gestation semen during the last two weeks to ensure they only have a 10-week calving spread next season.
Thomas wants to spend another year managing the same farm before stepping up to a contract milking or 50:50 sharemilking position, depending on what opportunities come along. Thomas also won the Business Results Group Employee Engagement Award.
Runner-up in the competition were Whakatane farm managers Hayden and Linda McCartie, with third place going to Te Puke farm manager Baljinder Singh.
