Just six years ago John Gregan was the face of meat industry reform. He headed up the Meat Industry Action Group fighting to resuscitate the flagging red meat industry by calling for major structural changes.
While he gave it his best shot, he didn’t succeed and the sector continues on its own path with its internal struggles and depressed returns.
Meanwhile he and wife Cara have taken a whole new tack and are now invigorated and excited by farming – albeit that farming for them now means dairying.
Turning away from the sheep industry didn’t come without its own risks, not least of which is the pile of debt conversion brings. But carrying on farming 7500 ewes on the rolling slopes of the Hunter Hills, inland from Waimate, would have put their inter-generational farm at even more risk.
They’re now in their fifth season since their first conversion and already they’re innovating, using lucerne, a fescue and clover mix, fodder beet and turnips on the milking platform of their two dryland farms.
They’re also buying in empty rising two-year-old heifers instead of rearing their own replacements and bringing their own brand of management to the human resource side of their business with job-sharing for dairy assistants and shying away from housing all staff.
Before conversion the couple was farming the home farm and leasing two other nearby blocks. Cara was then working as a banker, developing her own career in the finance sector but also importantly bringing in off-farm income.
When one of the lease blocks came up for sale they did the numbers on buying it to convert and found that, while tight, it stacked up.
They put in a 40-aside herringbone dairy and milked 450 cows while continuing with the sheep operation on the home farm, Brookdale.
It was a tough start as milk price took a dive but two years later the decision was made to convert the home farm too and spread the debt over more kg milksolids (MS)
They put in a 46-aside herringbone again bucking the trend towards rotaries, mainly because of cost, but also to create a positive working environment as the pit provides great communication opportunities for staff. It also gives staff longer contact with each animal, allowing more of a chance to pick up any animal health concerns.
Brookdale is now in its third season and is milking 550 cows with the unit managed by Peter Peneameane. Gregans is managed by Josh Hines while Wayne Pritchard has stepped up from managing that unit to overall operations manager enabling John to pursue interests in the wider industry as a member of Fonterra Shareholders’ Council.
The farms are close so synergies have been achieved by doing things such as calving all cows down at Gregans and not starting up the home farm dairy until Gregans is full. At the other end of the season Brookdale milks later. It means most of the people resource can be targeted at Gregans in the early part of the spring.
There are also no heifers to contend with as the policy is to sell all heifer calves at weaning. Selected empties are bought and wintered before mating.
John says they’re managing to achieve an empty rate after three weeks artificial insemination and five weeks with the bull that’s just a percent the rest of the herd in that first mating. In subsequent years they’re not finding any significant difference.
He was alert to the fact he could be buying in infertility so is careful to select rising three year animals from high Breeding Worth herds that hadn’t been grown out properly. In that way they buy in other people’s mistakes not their problems.
They’re used as a tool to clean up behind the cows and laneways so serve a purpose while they’re waiting for the next calving.
John’s heifer calves are well reared and recorded so fetch a price similar to the price they pay for the empties. It means they don’t have the hassle or cost of heifer grazing and also means animals milk to 100% of their capacity right from when they enter the herd rather than 80% as it would be if they were heifers.
Occasionally he’s topped up the herd by buying in a few rising three year in-calf cows too.
John and Cara have a huge focus on costs and look for ways to minimise them while striking the right balance between low input and production targets.
The aim is to be as self-contained as possible in terms of feed and on the dryland farm it’s meant making use of crops and alternative pasture varieties. They harvest about 200t drymatter (DM) of grass or lucerne silage off the milking platform that’s then fed to cows with a bare minimum of feed bought in.
They do have a grain feeder in the farm dairy and this year, with the exceptional payout, they admit they’ve used it to push production a little.
That’s probably been the main contributor to farm working expenses sneaking up over $3.50/kg MS to about $3.65/kg MS, John says. It’s still exceptionally good figure. They planted 12ha of lucerne two years ago and are looking to increase that to 18ha.
The current stands have yielded well at about 16t DM/ha/year. John expects them to last about seven years and they’ve never had any animal health or bloat issues grazing the high quality legume.
It’s a crop that’s probably under-used in dairying, John says. He grazes it carefully putting cows into a break that allows them an allocation of about 2-3kg DM/cow about two hours before the afternoon milking. That way they’re not gorging.
With the area he has on the platform it’s about 24 days before the cows are back into the same allocation area. By adding in another 6ha he’ll be able to extend the round to 36 days and expects it will cope better at that grazing interval.
The cows are always back-fenced and if it’s raining or ground conditions are wet they don’t go near it.
He starts grazing the lucerne about December when some of the grasses are heading and so keeps quality feed up to cows to help slow the drop from peak milk production.
He gets about five grazings off it each season but also takes a cut of silage in the spring when grass growth rates are high and covers need to be controlled. The only issue he has come up against is the impact it has in Overseer 6 on total nitrate leaching.
Because it fixes nitrogen it adds to the inputs although there’s evidence emerging that suggest its active growth and deep rooting system could cut that effect considerably.
The farms are in the orange zone according to the regional council’s categories for nitrate leaching sensitivity so there is some leeway for about a 5kg/ha/N/year increase in leaching levels compared with the average of the farm’s last three seasons.
“It’s something we have to keep an eye on.”
Another 25ha of the home farm is in fodder beet which has an average yield of about 25t DM/ha. John’s prepared to compromise some of that yield by moving cows onto it slowly in late March.
It helps extend the round in autumn and conditions cows to the crop slowly so, by the time they’re dried off, they can go straight onto a diet of about 8kg DM/cow/ day of the crop.
They’ll also come back onto areas of the crop that haven’t been eaten when they return in spring.
The third string to the cropping bow is the use of Easton Max-P fescue and Klondike white clover on 7ha. A good weed spray programme means that fescue’s slower rate of establishment – often cited as a negative – becomes a positive in that it allows the white clover to establish well. Its upright habit also helps keep more ground open for clover to come through.
John sows the fescue at a rate of 15kg/ha with about 3-4kg/ha white clover. Its longer taproot means it holds on well when soil moisture conditions are less than ideal for ryegrass and the strong clover content keeps overall pasture quality high. It’s a vigorous grower and cows can be back into it within 20 days.
John and Cara continue to look at their dairy business with fresh eyes albeit tempered with years of experience farming the rolling country, so expect plenty more innovation from this pair.
Key points
Location: Home Farm, Brookdale
Area: 210ha
Cows: 550 cows
Farm dairy: 46-aside herringbone
Production: 1100kg milksolids (MS)/ha
Costs: 2013-14 farm working expenses (FWE) $3.65/kg MS.
Farm two: Gregans
Area: 160ha
Cows: 450 cows
Farm dairy: 40-aside herringbone
Production:1850kg MS/ha
Costs: 2013-14 FWE $3.65/kg MS.
