A Canterbury sharemilking couple are strong on setting goals and working hard to achieve them and say they can attribute much of their success to their teamwork.
Operating as Waterton Agricultural, Glenn and Sarah Jones are 50:50 sharemilkers for Rakaia Incorporation (Hororata) Farm, a hapu-based company based in Mid Canterbury milking 650 cows on the 175ha farm 50km west of Christchurch.
The couple see their combined skill set as one of their strengths.
“I am in charge of the administration side, accounts, payroll, human resources and health and safety while Glenn is hands-on with the cows, grass and people,” Sarah says.
“We’ve built a sustainable business model which has a high staff retention and positive team culture, great pasture utilisation and an excellent herd of cows.”
Glenn has always been a methodical goal-setting type. Early in his career he wrote a five-year plan based on becoming a sharemilker in that time. It took him an extra year but he recalls the sweet satisfaction of landing a role.
“I had a look at that bit of paper as I was standing there unloading my cows that first time onto grazing … that was pretty cool.”
He still has that sheet of paper as a reminder of the achievement.
Glenn says he’s a competitive type and dairy creates the sort of performance benchmarks that get him up in the morning. It is a great industry for information sharing and benchmarking with other like-minded farmers. He is involved with two dairy discussion groups.
This year the farm grew a 23t/ha crop by mid April for 8c/kg of DM. Glenn Jones in the fodder beet crop.
“I grew up in the city and the lifestyle on the farm is just so different to what I had. I am so grateful that my children get to grow up in a rural lifestyle,” she says.
“I was so grateful to be on the farm during lockdown. The kids and I went out every day to shift the herd off the fodder beet crop – something they loved doing.”
During their time at the Camden Group they built up enough equity over five years to pursue their sharemilking goal. They did it by raising calves through to rising one and two-year-olds.
As part of the trading before Mycoplasma bovis changed the way many farmers trade stock Glenn would sell the animals on May 1 and pay a grazing fee on May 20.
He would then buy calves from a variety of sources and rear them on farms he was managing. He also leased a couple of mobs to the farm group and bought weaned dairy calves, which he leased to another sharemilker.
In spring he would do a morning’s work on-farm then take a car and trailer to another dairy farm to pick up calves. They would be quarantined in a shed next to the house and reared through the Camden Group farm system.
“It was a wee bit of extra work but it paid off,” he says.
While he enjoyed working for Camden Group, the Rakaia sharemilking position offered them a chance to build capital through herd ownership.
After submitting their application and CVs they did a farm walk then gave a presentation to the Rakaia board. The process gave them an insight into what was expected of them on the farm and reaffirmed their decision on who they wanted to sharemilk for.
Rakaia has a great reputation for looking after its sharemilkers, having had long-term sharemilkers on two other farms.
Glenn says while there’s nothing dramatically different about the way Rakaia oversees the business it is particularly interested in looking after the land and people.
“This can be seen in their approach to farm environmental aspects,” he says.
“In the past three seasons 2.5km of shelter belts have been planted and about 500 natives a year around the farm have been planted. Rakaia buys the natives and Waterton Ag plants them. Rakaia delegates oversight of the farm to the farm adviser John Donkers, who works closely with us on implementation of the farm’s management strategy.”
The farm is a System 3 and the aim is to produce 450-460kg of milksolids a cow with less than 500kg supplement a cow with an emphasis on efficiency.
The farm is part of Synlait’s Lead with Pride programme and Grassfed special milk programme supplying Munchkin Milk.
“Since our first season here the farm has undergone an aggressive regrassing programme with 20-25% of the farm being done each year,” he says.
The first tranche is to spray out an older pasture and direct drill a short rotation grass. That is done in late September/early October when soil temperature is still cooler.
As the grass starts to come back into the round the previous year’s direct drilled paddocks are sprayed, left to break down for two weeks before being cultivated and sown in a permanent clover/ryegrass mix. The short rotation grass effectively acts as a break crop and allows two goes at spraying weed grasses like browntop that can start to take over old pastures.
The farm is now starting to see benefits like more grass growth on the shoulders of the season with cool season active cultivars like Shogun.
After the whole farm has been cultivated once the plan is to move to more direct drilling of permanent pastures to minimise cultivation and soil disturbance.
Each year 5ha of fodder beet is planted on the platform as autumn supplement and for transitioning cows from early April, ready for off-farm winter grazing. He says the beet is a fantastic low-cost supplement when yield is good for putting on condition and for late lactation.
This year the farm grew a 23t/ha crop by mid April for 8c/kg DM and this season each cow is getting a maximum 550kg of supplement, all as balage, which is bought in.
In mid January they change from twice-a-day milking to three milkings in two days which results in a 25% reduction in the number of times cows go through the shed from January to May, therefore reducing costs as well as the amount of effluent to store. With more time in the paddock cows have put on more weight.
Staff have responded positively to a 7.30am start every second day when there’s a staff meeting. On the double-day milkings the night milking is at 4.30pm so the team gets home no later than 7.30pm with a four-hour break during the day.
In mid April to drying off they tried the 10 milkings in seven days routine. That is double milking on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10.30am on Tuesday and Thursday, 11am on Saturday and 8am on Sunday. It effectively reduced the workload for staff over weekends and allowed them more free time and kept the milking pattern consistent every week.
By still milking the cows twice a day for three days it was enough to keep stimulating the udders for production, which remained steady after the change at 1.4kg MS/cow and bulk SCC remained under 100.
Though it is a relatively new idea other farmers doing it are seeing similar results. There have been no trials on it yet but Glenn feels it could be an option for the ever-changing industry.
Sarah oversees calving and rearing which begins on August 4. They aim to keep 160 replacements and if they have surplus they might be sold.
That is another aspect of the farming system Sarah is vigilant about.
“Everything has to be cleaned – that is my thing,” she says.
“Calves’ navels have to be sprayed regularly. Iodine is cheaper than antibiotics. Do the basics right, keep the pens clean and allow access to fresh, clean water and feed. All the calf feeders and equipment are cleaned every day and we test the colostrum so they are getting high-quality fresh feed.
“Calves are also blood tested. The total protein test measures the amount of protein in the blood. If the calf gets an adequate feed of colostrum the total protein should be greater than 53g/l because of the increase in antibodies in the blood.”
Target weaning is 85kg from milk and they have to be 100kg when they go off to grazing in December, returning as in-calf heifers.
When they joined Rakaia they owned 240 cows including in-calf R2s and R3s that were leased out. The rest of the herd was bought from south of Timaru, Taranaki and Manawatu, leaving them with a young herd in the top 20% breeding group.
He aims for a high Breeding Worth herd that can turn grass into milk and reliably produce progeny based on an F10-F12 (50% to 75%) Friesian-Jersey cow (F10). The herd has an average BW of 125, Production Worth of 175 and herd recorded ancestry of 99%.
Mating begins on October 26 using a good cross-section of bulls from the LIC Sire Proving Scheme. They do AI for five weeks followed by two weeks of short gestation dairy.
“The bottom 20% of the herd is mated to a beef bull and Speckle Park then we finish of with Angus bulls so we have valuable calves to sell at the end of it.”
They are looking ahead at options for the farm with Rakaia and Waterton Ag involved in the Selwyn Hinds Project.
The five-year initiative launched by DairyNZ in September 2018 focuses on how farms in Hinds and Selwyn can meet nitrogen loss limits and maintain a resilient and profitable business under the Canterbury Lands and Water Regional Plan.
Reducing nitrogen is a key focus as both catchments have reduction targets.
Under the plan, Selwyn farmers must reduce nitrogen losses by 30% by 2022 and in Hinds 15% by 2025, 25% by 2030 and 36% by 2035. The project also focuses on reducing other aspects of the environmental footprint such as phosphorus, sediment losses and greenhouse gas emissions.
The project builds on initiatives they and Rakaia have already implemented and on previous nitrogen loss research. Every paddock on the farm has been soil tested every year for three years to build up a clear picture of nutrient levels. In turn that helps them make correct fertiliser decisions.
The farm effluent area and non-effluent areas are also tested separately. They are mapped by GPS, allowing fertiliser trucks to apply different rates of fertiliser and urea. No urea is applied on the farm in May. Soil temperature is also monitored closely to make sure urea is going on only when the plants can effectively take it up.
Information generated from 50 partner farms is being shared with other farmers to provide a good range of examples and options, which will give farmers the confidence the nitrogen limits are achievable.
He is methodical on biosecurity, too, after having a trace bull and carry-overs tested for M bovis. The results came back negative but as sharemilkers it was a sharp reminder for them that all their equity is in cows.
“We’re a lot more diligent with any trading – we really do our due diligence on any stock we’re looking to buy in. As a rule we try to avoid buying stock in now,” he says.
The farm grazes stock off-farm over winter but has exclusive use of the grazier’s property. Young stock run alongside Camden Group’s young stock but all the animals are subject to tough biosecurity policy.
“We’re just trying to minimise our exposure.”
As for covid-19, Glenn suggests the national emergency might ultimately represent a chance for farming to be a reminder to the rest of New Zealand how much agriculture means to the country.
“We were grateful that we could contribute to the economy and keep the country fed.
“Hopefully, there will be some potential for the dairy industry to attract some new people that may have not looked at agricultural jobs in the past. I hope school career councillors take this on board.”
He is generally confident about dairy’s prospects.
“I think it’s a really exciting space to be. There’s a lot of opportunities there for young people who are prepared to work through some of this compliance and recording detail that’s required.”
He is doing his own bit for dairy as a promoter of the industry through Waterton Agricultural on Facebook and Instagram and as a new committee member for South Island Dairy Event.
The annual mid-year event has been postponed till 2021 because of covid-19 but planning includes an initiative started in 2019, called Brightside, aimed at getting dairy newcomers motivated, skilled and primed to become industry stars.
BrightSide delegates joining the conference will hear from keynote speaker Logan Williams and get financial advice from the sorted.org team and professional development tips from Sarah Howe.
Glenn’s father, David, played a leading role in SIDE 20 years ago. For Glenn the involvement is just another marker of his full-circle journey back to the industry.
Their goal is to continue sharemilking but explore other dairy investment opportunities.
“We are continuing to set our goals and possibly the next step could be an evolving ownership structure where we can take our skill set and experience and apply them in another dairy venture,” Glenn says.
Farm facts:
Owners: Rakaia Incorporation Farm
Sharemilkers: Glenn and Sarah Jones
Location: Hororata, Mid-Canterbury
Farm size: 184ha
Cows: 650 Friesian-cross
Production: 2019-20: 277000kg MS, 425kg MS/cow
Target production: 2020-21: 285,000kg MS, 440kg MS/cow
