A further 7500ha of the total 9400ha at Balmoral near Culverden is also earmarked for conversion but is waiting for final consents and, importantly, iwi decisions.
The Hurunui/Waiau Catchment has a total load limit and it’s not yet clear how or if the Balmoral development could be accommodated within those restrictions.
At Eyrewell though, on the northern banks of the Waimakariri River three of the planned 14 dairy farms for the complex are in operation with another three due to come into production in time for next season.
All up, within eight years, there will be 20 farm units at Eyrewell with six of them dairy support blocks.
About 16,800 cows will then be grazing under 57 centre pivots on 5700ha of irrigated land.
It’s a huge transformation from the vast strip of pine forest that Ngai Tahu has been systematically taking from trees to pasture since 2006.
The transformation is going on at a measured pace with a three-pronged sustainability focus at the heart of everything the farming company is doing.
“Toitu Te Marae o Tane, Toitu Te Marae o Tangaroa, Toitu Te Iwi – Land sustained, water sustained, people sustained.”
That’s also the mantra for Ngai Tahu Farming general manager Andrew Clayton, a triple touchstone that’s being supported by the use and development of technology and precision farming.
Clayton said the suite of dashboard-style computer- and mobile-accessible tools allows the farming company’s management to monitor performance closely and ensure its own self-imposed limits and key performance indicator targets are being met.
It allows farm managers and staff on the units to monitor as well, but they’re also more directly using the tools to lift productivity and profitability.
The company uses existing technologies such as MilkHub, Protrack, IQ Irrigation, Precision Farming, NIWA weather stations installed on-farm, Fonterra’s Fencepost and Aquaflex soil moisture monitoring to collect and manage data across each farm.
On their own, each gives information about a select area of the farming operation but Ngai Tahu Farming has gone further drawing that information into its own data warehouse.
Within that warehouse the information is cross-pollinated with financial and physical records for each farm along with other data collected by the farm managers and the company to create a whole new range of data screens and reports, Clayton said.
One such report shows, at a glance, how profitable feeding supplement is based on the farm’s own data.
Clayton said that kind of information helps managers review their decisions and quickly adjust what they’re doing. Presented in a user-friendly, glance-able, graphic style, the data becomes a powerful tool managers are more likely to use.
But even the act of setting targets and KPIs is powerful, Clayton said.
“It’s amazing, once those numbers are there, once the benchmark is set, just how quickly the managers and their teams move towards them.”
The information is shared between farms, creating competition. It also creates learning opportunities with staff and managers able to quickly see where they differ from another farm and then look into why.
Another report combines soil temperatures, soil moisture and irrigation information with the fertiliser and effluent application information.
As well as creating a report that is used by the regional council to check consent compliance, a report using the same input data shows managers and company management how effectively and efficiently nutrients are being applied.
Soil moisture and soil temperature have to be sitting in the right bands before fertiliser is put on.
The environmental monitoring being done on the farms is a big focus.
“It’s a huge thing for Ngai Tahu, who we work for as we would shareholders. We’ve got to get that aspect right. We’ve got a big development ahead of us and they have to be assured we are farming as sustainably as we can and with water quality at the forefront of our operations,” Clayton said.
Ngai Tahu Farming regularly consults its Mana Whenua Working Party. It’s made up of members of the Ngai Tahu hapu that hold authority or mana whenua over the Hurunui and Waimakariri catchments associated with the farming developments.
To ensure the best information and planning an advisory group made up of Lincoln University scientists and industry experts was engaged at the start of the development.
They helped determine best practice targets for the farms given their soil types and location and, based on the environmental focus, helped set what’s become a self-imposed stocking rate limit of 1800kg liveweight/ha as well as other input restrictions relating to aspects such as fertiliser use.
But Ngai Tahu Farming has gone a step further, creating a partnership with Lincoln University to carry out a high-tech environmental, water resource and biodiversity monitoring programme.
It will include direct measurement of nitrate leaching using 40 lysimeters containing soil columns from the Eyrewell complex. They’re being installed on Dairy One with Lincoln University professor Keith Cameron overseeing the work, at this stage to be carried out over three years.
Remnants of native vegetation have also been identified and more than 150ha has been set aside for biodiversity work that will include restoring native flora.
Technology is fully embraced by the Maori farming company. Soils have been extensively mapped and variable rate irrigation installed on the pivot irrigators so that sprinklers are switched off over troughs, lanes and areas known as skids where previous logging work creates patches where pasture growth and water infiltration are reduced.
Technology in the farm dairy is used to monitor cow weights, cow health and milk production but it’s also used to make life easier for the staff and ensure the people sustained part of the company’s ethos, Toitu Te Iwi, is achieved.
The in-dairy automation means milking can be a one-person job and allows a five days on, two off roster after mating. From calving to the end of mating the roster is six on, two off.
Since the first cows were milked on the complex in August 2012 the systems have been fine-tuned with new tools being added.
As more farms emerge from the forest they’ll become even more instrumental in how the large-scale operation is run.
