Friday, March 29, 2024

Topsoil tomorrow, profits today

Avatar photo
Converting to organic production is often driven by personal beliefs, but as Erin Hutchinson found, profitability was a major driver for Tararua couple Gray and Andrea Beagley.
Reading Time: 5 minutes

For Tararua dairy farmers Gray and Andrea Beagley, one of the biggest drivers of change to an organic system was profitability.

Environmental and lifestyle factors also played a role in the final decision, but it was the search to improve the profitability of their 70ha milking platform just north of Woodville that sent them down the path of organic certification.

The couple moved on to the farm in 2006, purchasing 46ha of the platform and leasing the balance from Gray’s Auckland-based brother. They started out milking about 210 cows through the 16-aside herringbone dairy.

With fertile silty soils, a strong conventional fertiliser history, and a summer-safe climate averaging around 1250mm of rainfall annually, they felt they were well set up to reap the rewards. But after three years, they were disappointed.

A good first year was followed up by a drought. In the third year, they achieved record production of more than 1200kg milksolids (MS)/ha by introducing a bit of maize silage and moving up to a System 3 operation. Yet they still could not afford to make a principal repayment on their mortgage.

Through some serious soul searching and number-crunching, they ran budget scenarios looking into different farming systems – low input, high input – but could not get the numbers to work.

There had also been growing concern with the farm’s apparent reliance on urea. Previous sharemilkers on the property had made extensive use of nitrogenous fertilisers and Gray says it seemed like the pastures were addicted to urea.

“We weren’t using as much. Every time we did it would turn nice and green. The cows would eat it and then it would turn yellow again.”

“It was a constant battle, to keep grass ahead of them you had to put urea on.”

They purchased a 20ha runoff block across the road from the milking platform which had a history of being farmed along biological tenets and they noticed a much higher clover content. The pasture sward appeared to be healthier than their home block.

“We thought, we’re separated by 10m of road here and we’ve got no clover – something’s wrong and something needs to change,” Gray says.

A chance encounter with organic agriculture consultant Bill Quinn at the Central District Field Days in March 2009 further fanned the Beagley’s interest in biological farming. At the time, Fonterra was pushing to grow its organic milk supply and was offering a 45c/kg MS conversion premium over the three years it took to achieve organic certification. At that stage milk certified as fully organic received a premium of $1.05/kg MS.

The higher milk price combined with a lower cost of production made the switch to organic farming financially compelling, despite having to drop to 170 cows. They started their conversion period on June 1, 2009 and are currently in their second season of full organic certification.

Andrea says they have a biological farming approach but are certified as organic to ensure market access for their milk, crucial to obtain the milk payment premium. Under the organic system, milk production in a normal year has stabilised at about 1000kg MS/ha. Gray describes this level of performance as “acceptable”.

“We didn’t get into organics for the feel-good factor, economics came first but now we farm this way, we love it.”

Securing feed – both baleage and grazing – is critical for success. Any spot market for organic feed is patchy at best. As well as their neighbouring runoff they have another of 13.5ha about 30km away near Dannevirke and have a good relationship with a few organically certified graziers.

Gray says the biggest change in the system has been the transition from focusing on growing grass and getting it into the cows to focusing on getting the soil balanced. Fertiliser decisions incorporate the Probitas system. Soil samples are taken at 450mm depth and tested at Brookside Laboratory in the United States to generate recommendations and monitor changes.

They no longer measure Olsen P but the testing shows good levels of phosphate present and improving levels of organic matter, increasing from 9% pre-conversion to close to 12%.

For Gray, the bottom-line indicator is what he observes happening on the farm. He says they dig a lot more holes and are noticing a lot more life in the soil. Soil structure has also changed, becoming more friable, something the Beagleys attribute to the new regime aided by the increasing use of forages with longer taproots.

The current fertiliser programme relies on a single spring dressing (weather permitting) of 1500kg/ha fertiliser mix made up of 1000kg/ha of lime, 150kg/ha of Probitas, and a mix of other trace minerals like copper, zinc, selenium, cobalt and boron – everything is certified as organic.

They are targeting a soil pH of 6.4 but despite the annual lime application, soil pH has so far remained constant. Gray and Andrea believe this is due to a sort of dilution effect as the soil profile increases in depth.

The other major soil input is the dairy effluent. The farm has a two-pond effluent system allowing for around four months of storage.

The Beagleys have a resource consent to apply the effluent over the entire milking platform as well as the next-door runoff. They own their own slurry tanker allowing for a low application rate with minimal farm infrastructure.

The composition of the pasture sward is another key change. Chicory, plantain, Timothy, cocksfoot, red and white clovers, annual ryegrasses – the focus has been on building a mixed sward with minimal open space to allow weeds to establish. Older pasture species developed in low-urea contexts are also used.

Gray and Andrea says they are still learning and developing their system. They are constantly seeking out ideas and weighing up if they would fit in. For example, Andrea – who works off-farm fulltime as well as being the relief milker and responsible for human resources and financial record-keeping – has recently attended a four-day course focusing on sustainable agriculture.

This season has seen them take on a 360-cow 50:50 sharemilking role on another organic dairy farm nearby.

The farm was converted within days of their own operation, but has different soils with a higher clay content and has had a different approach to fertiliser management.

They now have a team of three full-time staff, one at their home block and two based at a property they are sharemilking.

Record keeping and compliance activities are starting to take up more and more time. As well as the annual organic certification audit undertaken annually by AsureQuality – a condition of supply to Fonterra – they have also had an additional audit undertaken by Korean authorities and it is likely they will need to have another to meet Chinese requirements.

Uncertainty around the renewal of the organic supply contracts by Fonterra adds more complexity.

After a push to grow national organic milk supply in 2009, it was announced in 2011 that lower North Island suppliers, among others, would not be having their contracts renewed. That stance has since softened but has damaged the relationship between the affected suppliers and Fonterra.

Despite these clouds in the silver lining, Gray and Andrea are happy with the farm’s performance under the biological system. Gray says the animals are healthier, requiring fewer inputs and the empty rate has halved to sitting at about 4-6%.

“Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy animals, healthy humans,” Andrea says.

Their approach now is to “grow the topsoil for tomorrow while banking the profits, today”.

Key points
Location: Pinfold Road, Woodville, Tararua
Owners: Gray and Andrea Beagley
Area: 70ha
Herd: 170 crossbred cows
Production: 70,000kg milksolids (MS) average.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading