Friday, March 29, 2024

Voice for farmers

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With environmental and sustainability issues at the fore, it can be difficult to keep up and have a firm understanding of rules and regulations, but Canterbury farmers are being given a helping hand, with one lending his voice to other farmers and working hard to help them stay ahead of freshwater regulations.
Reading Time: 4 minutes

A Canterbury farmer says farmers should be proactive and not wait for regulators to impose rules that might prove economically disastrous for farmers.

“In essence, it’s taking ownership of the issue, realising that if we leave it up to regulators to fix these problems, we end up with some very poor outcomes for farmers,” Cameron Henderson says.

“We end up with politicians doing what’s popular, not what’s effective, (and) end up with science that’s got gaps in it because policy is delivered in a rush.   

“Inaccuracy of 10 or 20% in models could be costing farmers millions of dollars because we’re forced to go further than we need to.”

Cameron and wife Sarah farm at Oxford where they milk 730 cows. He is well versed in the environmental issues facing farmers in the Waimakariri district he lives in, having served on the Waimakariri Zone Committee, now as deputy chair, and working his way up into a leadership position with Federated Farmers. He is also a member of the Dairy Environment Leaders Steering Committee and an associate directorship with DairyNZ.

“Once you get into farming roles outside the farm gate you run into all sorts of opportunities. The networking is fantastic; you get to meet a lot of great people, spend a lot of time networking with other regional and national farming leaders and get involved in a variety of projects,” he says. 

He joined the Waimakariri Zone Committee, one of 10 formed in different Canterbury catchments to formulate freshwater policy under the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, to help give farming a voice in the negotiations. 

“The regulatory function of what the committee was delivering was a really critical three years for farmers in this district,” he says.

“There are water quality issues we need to fix, but we need fair solutions that respect farmers’ ability to keep farming, their financial viability and that decisions are based on science and reason and not on a whole lot of perception and marketing, which can tend to dominate the conversation.”

Much of his time with the zone committee has involved working on what’s known as Plan Change 7, which was about water quality issues in the zone, particularly nitrates, as well as mahinga kai and biodiversity, changes to minimum flows and consenting how much water could be taken from various water bodies to maintain environmental flows.

The new plan called for reductions in nitrate leaching of up to 80% for some farmers, something he says would be impossible to achieve without land-use change or new technology, so there was huge concern in the farming community.

Contract milker Pete McPherson runs the dairy farm on a day-to-day basis and will soon take over the operations manager role. Pete brings the herd in for milking.

The farm’s effective area, under irrigation, is 221ha and is in ryegrass, clover and plantain pasture, with 7ha of fodder beet grown every year for autumn feed. They milk 730 cows at peak, but are looking to push that up to 750 to take advantage of the high payout.

Per cow production is about 470kg MS and they aim to feed 300kg of supplement per cow per year. The plan next season is to raise supplement to between 500kg and 600kg, and push production to 500kg MS per cow.   

At present they feed palm kernel in the shed but are looking at alternative supplements to take advantage of the 8c a kilo bonus that Synlait will pay for not using PKE.

They have a 10-week mating programme and mate their top Kiwi-cross cows to sexed semen for the first three weeks and then everything else goes to Hereford semen. In the last four weeks of mating they use short gestation crossbred semen to bring calving dates as far forward as possible.

They’re 100% AB, but do run bulls to clean up anything they’ve missed. Calving starts on August 1.

They’re looking to rear the Hereford calves alongside their replacements and will likely sell them at weaning, not wishing to become beef finishers. Cameron says they want to reduce their number of bobby calves.

“It is a trial to see if the economics are viable to be inseminating with beef genetics rather than just producing a low-value animal,” he says.

Though he’s keen to have fewer bobbies, he says it might not be a long-term solution if too many farmers get on the bandwagon and the market gets swamped.

“Currently the market is good at $400-500 for a weaner Hereford, but if that dropped down to $300/head because there were so many of them coming on the market at the same time, that may not be as viable,” he says.

They milk twice a day until the end of March and then change to 16-hour milking for a couple of weeks once production goes down to about 1.6kg MS per cow a day,  before going to once-a-day milking “to lighten the load and fatten the cows up before winter”.

Today a contract milker runs the dairy farm day-to-day, while he looks after the support block where the young stock graze, their cows are wintered along with 900 cows from a neighbour’s herd and they grow barley and oats, some of which is sold.

The support block is owned by golfer Sir Bob Charles who has homestead there but leases out the farm. 

“We have a really good working relationship with them and see them quite frequently. He’ll be out on the farm maybe once a month,” he says.

Cameron has plans in place for contract milkers Pete and Carly McPherson to become operations managers for both farms next year and to employ a unit manager on the dairy farm. 

“It’s a decision to retain great talent. Pete didn’t really want to milk cows anymore but he’s too valuable really for us to lose, so we just needed to come up with a way of keeping him involved and it’s got the bonus of releasing me from a lot of the day-to-day responsibilities,” he says.

That will allow him to spend more time on farming work outside the farm gate, as well as devote more time with his growing family.

Farm facts

Owner: Henderson Family

Location: Oxford

Farm Size: 238ha (221 effective)

Cows: 730 kiwicross

Production: 2019-20; 335,000kg MS

Target: 2020-21; 345,000kg MS

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