But Peter and Anna Steedman, who have milked cows here for 30 years, have recently faced two potential restrictions on their operation.
First, when Rodney Council became part of the Auckland super city about 600ha of South Head was targeted to become a rural conservation area, meaning potential restrictions on farming.
And now sites of value to mana whenua proposals could mean farming activities such as digging a fence post hole or cultivating land trigger a cultural impact assessment (CIA) from any one of 19 different local iwi.
When the rezoning change was suggested two years ago it would have affected farmland surrounding two freshwater lakes at the tip of South Head, Lake Rototoa and the much smaller Lake Kuwakatai, which are in the Te Rau Puriri Regional Park, acquired by the Auckland Regional Council in 2005. In 2000 the Steedmans were part of the local landcare group that gained grants to put in 3.5km of fencing around native bush surrounding the lakes. Working bees were held to plant native seedlings grown at the South Kaipara Landcare Nursery.
A meeting was held in nearby Helensville where farmers were told by Auckland Council planners that nothing would change for them if the area was rezoned as a rural conservation zone. But Auckland Federated Farmers’ president Wendy Clark was still concerned about the ramifications. She organised a meeting of local farmers in February last year where they decided to put in individual submissions.
“We would have had to get a resource consent to farm,” Peter says.
However, the council changed the proposed rezoning before the issue got to the hearings stage, bringing relief all round.
“Then sites of value to mana whenua started turning up,” he says.
The first they knew about the potential effect on their farm was when they started looking at an Auckland Council publication of maps showing sites of cultural significance. They realised that a Maori pa site on their farm had been surveyed in 1958, but no one had ever come to them about the survey or to tell them why the site was important.
There is now nothing visible in the paddock of what was previously on the land.
“The cows were walking over it,” Anna says.
Peter and Anna Steedman at the mana whenua site.
Within a 2km radius of their farm 22 similar sites of value to mana whenua were initially identified by the council, because there were numerous pa on the hills. But these sites have now been reduced from 3600 to 2227. The council has also pared back the area around them which could be subject to a CIA from 7ha to 0.8ha, or a 50m radius.
Landowners who are affected can’t easily check the status of sites on their land online. And while the council offers a facilitation service for iwi to decide whether a CIA is needed, farmers have to negotiate the cost. This can cause delays in going ahead with any planned work on their property as they wait for the CIA to be completed.
The Steedmans say they support the recognition of significant cultural sites but that protection shouldn’t be at the expense of landowners’ property rights.
“All this stuff is drawn up in ivory towers,” Peter says.
“How can you put an imposition on someone’s property then demand payment to discover if it is important or not?”
Anna, who is on Auckland Federated Farmers’ executive, made a submission to the independent panel hearings on the proposals earlier this year. They’re due to finish in early 2016 and findings are expected to be released next June, with the federation already warning they might set a precedent for other areas.
Peter’s father, who was from Whangarei, won a Lands and Survey ballot and was settled on 53ha in 1946 as a returned soldier.
“It was originally three paddocks but he slowly fenced more off, applied fertiliser and put in races,” he says.
Peter began work for him in 1980 after driving milk tankers for the local Kaipara Dairy in Helensville. He and Anna went on to a 39% sharemilking agreement with his father, then later bought cows and the land.
In 2005 they bought a neighbouring 30ha block and lease another 27ha across the road. They now own 110ha with their milking platform 90ha. They built up their herd to 210 cows but with the severe 2013-14 drought production only reached 63,000kg milksolids (MS).
“Our first cows were dried off at the end of February,” Peter says.
Last season was kinder, resulting in production of 72,000kg MS.
“By January we had the same production as the year before,” he says.
“We had a good summer and got rain when we needed it. All the extra milk came in autumn.”
But this season they’ve decided to reduce cow numbers to 180.
“The payout is low and we want to try and make ourselves as self-contained as possible. A few less cows should mean less worries.”
They’ve culled on production, mastitis or lameness issues but kept all their AB heifers.
The Steedmans have experimented with palm kernel over the past few years, feeding it out in trailers in the paddock. Contractors last year took two cuts of silage with 130 tonnes going in the stack. They steer clear of maize silage, reckoning it to be too expensive and have never grown a summer crop, preferring to use up silage if needed.
They AI their herd for five weeks then rotate six Hereford bulls for six weeks at the end of December. Their calving date is July 10 for both cows and heifers and lasts for 10 weeks.
Their concern 15 years ago about an empty rate of 15% led them to putting second-calvers on once-a-day (OAD) milking for their whole first season. That’s seen the empty rate drop to between 5% and 7%.
“In the OAD herd we’ve only had four empty cows in the last three years.”
Palm kernel will be fed at the rate of 3kg per day in the build up to mating and in dry conditions if required. A lot of kikuyu in their pasture has seen them direct drill about 50ha.
They’ve tried Tama and Tabu and have experimented with high-endophyte varieties like Shogun to help control black beetle. They also use a short rotation to keep the kikuyu as palatable as possible.
Farm facts
- Location: South Head, northwest of Auckland
- Owners: Peter and Anna Steedman
- Area: 110ha (90ha effective)
- Herd: 180 straight Friesians, Breeding Worth 141/45, Production Worth 170/61, 97% recorded ancestry
- Production: 2013-14, 210 cows, 63,000kg milksolids (MS) because of drought, 2014-15, 190 cows, 72,000kg milksolids (MS), 2014-15, 180 cows targeting 72,000kg MS
- Supplements: 130t of silage made onfarm, palm kernel as required.
