Friday, March 29, 2024

Small footprints

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Educating and engaging staff on environmental policies ensures better compliance and can encourage staff to come up with practical onfarm solutions. Farm manager Joel Leef and farm owner Mark Keaney told Sheryl Brown they worked together through a Sustainable Milk Plan to further reduce the farm’s environmental footprint.
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Farm manager Joel Leef has taken it on himself to write up effluent policies and irrigator maps for his staff to refer to, as part of the farm’s strategy for managing its environmental impact.

He has developed an effluent management plan to ensure farm policy is followed, written checklists for the effluent pond, sump and irrigator for what needs to be maintained and when, along with listing the hazards to look out for.

There is a guideline on when to store effluent or irrigate, depending on the weather. He has drawn every irrigator run on the farm map and has asked staff to keep a record of where the irrigator goes every day to ensure each run is only irrigated once a year.

Starting out as a relief milker and working his way up to manager, Joel knows firsthand how important it is to give staff responsibilities and let them be involved.

He has been working for Mark and Donna Keaney for eight years and now manages their 195ha milking platform at Atiamuri.

He gives his two full-time staff turns as duty manager in charge of effluent recording and maintenance.

All irrigator runs are marked on the farm map and recorded daily by staff.

Involving staff in the decision process, rather than just telling them what to do, gives them the opportunity to come up with the solutions, he says.

“Getting them involved makes them feel like a contributor, not just a labour unit.

“They are more aware of what we’re doing and how to utilise our effluent more.”

One of the staff has designed a flag system for the stormwater diversion at the farm dairy. A red flag indicates the diversion is off and effluent is going into the storage pond, while the green flag indicates stormwater diversion is on and it must be changed over before milking.

There is a set of flags visible at each end of the farm dairy for staff to clearly see when they are setting up for milking.

Mark has been impressed with how Joel has stepped up, developed a farm effluent management plan and got the staff onboard.

“It’s the way Joel’s handled it, he’s got his staff involved and we’ve had good buy-in.”

Mark and Joel saw the opportunity for better effluent management last year when they completed the Sustainable Milk Plan (SMP) as part of DairyNZ’s Upper Waikato project.

The voluntary SMP process outlines areas where farmers can make further improvements to the environment, setting a list of actions for farmers to achieve.

Mark and Joel completed the SMP with Farmwise consultant Bridget Ray, who has been their farm adviser for the past three years.

The farm had a good headstart, with Mark’s father John Keaney having fenced and planted all the farm waterways in the past 10 years, and the riparian plantings are now well-established.

It’s good to reflect on the importance of that work and how it’s contributing to the farm’s environmental impact, Mark says.

The main action has been to increase the effluent irrigation area from 40ha to 56ha. The areas they highlighted for improvement are all very achievable and affordable, Mark says.

They’ve extended the area with extra hose for now, but plan to put in new permanent lines and hydrants to make it easier for staff.

‘We are not going to stop growing turnips. We would struggle here without summer crops.’

They’ve also bought a more efficient irrigator. The old irrigator had to be blocked at one end in order to speed it up, while the new irrigator spreads effluent at a depth of 16.9mm at a rate of 8.59mm/hour.

A 60-day effluent storage pond was already being built when they did the SMP last year. Before the new pond, they were irrigating every day from a sump. With the storage pond, a larger effluent block and Joel’s checklists, they will have peace of mind going forward, Mark says.

“We want to be totally compliant.”

The new storage and extended effluent area has reduced nitrogen leaching from 64kg nitrogen(N)/ha to 43kg N/ha.

The cropping block, where they grow 10ha of turnips every year, still has higher levels of nitrogen loss and an action from the SMP plan is to find out why that loss is so high and how it can be reduced.

Without turnips the nitrogen leaching for the overall farm could reduce to 33kg N/ha, but they couldn’t function without them, Mark says.

“We are not going to stop growing turnips. We would struggle here without summer crops.”

Soil tests are done every two years and fertiliser applied based on recommendations and using GPS and calculated spreaders.

They currently apply 150kg N/ha/year, and 120kg N/ha to the 20ha of sidlings onfarm. They apply 40kg of phosphate (P), with a current loss of 4.5kg P/ha on the pumice soils. Olsen P levels are above optimum so they are being dropped by seven units a year to decrease phosphate runoff.

Mark started adding ProGibb to the nitrogen application in spring and autumn a few years back, which has allowed them to grow the same amount of grass with less nitrogen. The farm grows an average of 13.5 tonnes of drymatter every year.

Smart water use has been another action on the farm’s SMP. Mark has installed water meters on both water bores, as part of Variation 6 of the Waikato Regional Plan, which governs water use. Staff now record water use in the farm dairy as well as stock drinking water to detect water leaks faster.

The SMP is an excellent tool for farmers and consultants to use to look at the overall farm system and make sure the business is sustainable and profitable, consultant Bridget Ray says.

Most farmers are hesitant at first because they think it will highlight everything they are doing wrong, but in most cases it does the opposite and highlights all the work farmers have already done to improve the farm’s environmental footprint.

Mark has an equity share in a farm at Kaharoa that is under new regulations to drastically reduce nitrogen leaching into Lake Rotorua.

He knows how valuable it can be to go through these processes. Once you understand a nutrient budget, you can use it to make your farm more profitable, he says.

Key points
Owners: Mark and Donna Keaney
Manager: Joel Leef
Location: Atiamuri
Area: 208ha, 195ha effective
Farm dairy: 41-aside herringbone
Herd: 660 crossbred
Production: 287,302kg milksolids (MS) (three-year average)
Farm working expenses: $4.08/kg MS
Nitrogen leaching: 43kg N/ha
Phosphorus leaching: 4.5kg P/ha
Crops: 10ha turnips, 3.5ha fodder beet
Supplement: 390 tonnes palm kernel, 225t biscuit meal (three-year average).

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