Jono Bavin is sending out a SOS for an Auckland duck pond after winning, with his wife Kelly, the 2015 Southland-Otago Sharemilker-Equity Farmer of the Year title. The win means the couple will spend the opening weekend of the duck shooting season in Auckland at the national finals, which are on May 2.
“They could have organised it for another weekend,” the keen duck shooter said laughing after their win on March 28 at the MLT Events Centre in Gore.
About 550 people attended the formal event with the winners announced during a thunderstorm.
For the second year the Otago and Southland regions were combined for the award and again the winners of each category and most of the merit winners were from Southland.
The Bavins are in their third season 50:50 sharemilking 480 cows for Blair and Rachael Evans at Tussock Creek between Hedgehope and Winton after progressing from farm workers to managers and lower-order sharemilking on farms in Otago and Southland.
“We’ve been in the industry 15 years and it’s pretty satisfying to win this award. We’ve put in the hard work,” he says.
Jono, 32, grew up in Wellington but spent holidays with his older step-brother on farms in the north and always wanted to go dairying. He left school at 16 and went to Telford Rural Polytechnic near Balclutha. He was lower South Island Dairy Trainee of the Year in 2007.
Kelly, 29, is from a 160ha Tapanui sheep farm and was at Telford in 2002. The couple met at the end of 2002. They have two children – Brooklynn, 8, and Jacob, 5.
“We had our kids when we were really young. Kelly was only 20 when Brooklynn was born, but it’s been rewarding having the children along with us dairying,” Jono says. “It’s meant we’ve grown our family and our business together and it’s been great.
“We strive to be the best at what we do with what we have to ensure a good future for our family. It’s important to us to keep a good reputation for ourselves and our company.”
Tussock Creek is the couple’s first 50:50 sharemilking position and they have another two seasons there. They are steadily building cow numbers, using AI for 11 and a half weeks, putting heifers to AI and using sexed semen. They are aiming to own 600 cows by the time their contract ends.
“Increasing cow numbers is pretty easy maths and it’s the way to do it,” he said.
“Cashflows are going to be tight for at least the next year and who knows what will happen after that but if we can keep building equity without impacting on cashflows then we are still going to go forward.”
‘We strive to be the best at what we do with what we have to ensure a good future for our family. It’s important to us to keep a good reputation for ourselves and our company.’
Their six-week in-calf rate was 77% and their estimated empty rate is 8%.
With no automation or grain feeding in the 30-aside herringbone dairy, keeping it simple and doing the basics right are all-important for Jono and Kelly and their two full-time staff, as well as keeping capital costs down.
“We’re still using the same tractor we had when we went lower-order sharemilking seven years ago. We have a tractor, a mower, a silage wagon and a fert spreader – that’s all we need.”
About 200kg of silage a cow is fed to the herd in the season’s shoulders and 300 cows are wintered off on crop at a 50ha runoff next door owned by the farm owner. The other 200 stay in a wintering barn on the farm and are fed silage.
“We don’t feed any grain, no palm kernel, it’s all grass and it works for us,” he said.
Five hundred cows are wintered, with 480 milking for most of the season.
Youngstock spend their first six months on the runoff then go to May-to-May grazing near Winton.
In their three years at Tussock Creek, the Bavins have increased production from 170,000kg milksolids (MS) to 206,000kg MS last season with only 10 extra cows.
“We concentrate on pasture management and having quality cows,” Jono said.
Farm owner Blair Evans is lower South Island rural manager for ASB Bank. The Bavins say excellent communications and a good working relationship with him have helped them get the farm to where it is today.
“We are strong communicators with the farm owner and other key stakeholders, and like to keep everyone informed on what is happening on the farm so there are no surprises.”
Jono also enjoys getting off farm as a Fonterra networker.
“It’s great to be involved in that side of the industry, to rub shoulders with shareholder councillors and directors and let them know what is happening on the ground. It’s something I would like to become more involved in.”
He is also passionate about sharemilking and encouraging young people into the industry, especially those like him who grew up in the city.
“We need more 50:50 sharemilking jobs. It is still the way of the future and a good 50:50 sharemilker is hopefully going to make a farm owner more money than an average contract milker or a manager will.”
The Bavins won most of the merit awards in the competition – leadership, health and safety, recording and production, farm environment and risk management.
Clydevale 50:50 sharemilkers Russell and Tracy Bouma were runners-up, and Mokoreta equity sharemilkers James and Fleur Worker were third.
