Align has five dairy operations in the region totalling 1131ha, along with a support block of 500ha.
Two of the farms, Clareview and Longfield, along with the Hinterlands support block, have been undergoing a transition to a regenerative system.
Align chief executive Rhys Roberts says the plan is to run two herds on both Clareview and Longfield, one conventional and one regenerative on their respective pasture type, from June 1.
The 50:50 split will run through the 2021-22 season and by 2022-23 the farms will be completely run under a regenerative model.
The Hinterlands transition to regenerative is largely complete.
Two other Align properties, Emilius and Jacawanada, will keep running as conventional dairy farms.
Align’s head of environment and innovation and chief of the regenerative trial Clare Buchanan says the aim of the project is to be able to take the average of the three previous seasons’ baseline figures on production, profit and environment and compare them to the regenerative model. From that it will be possible to quantify the differences between the two approaches, allowing for seasonal variations.
“This information means we can give the New Zealand dairy farming community realistic, unbiased and informed data on how successful our regenerative project has been, and some approaches other farmers may wish to adopt within their own farm system,” Buchanan said.
Key data collection and comparison areas are financial, environmental, human health, animal health and social impacts.
Financial data will include milksolids production per hectare, farm working expenses per kilo of milksolids, item expenses and pasture quantity consumed, while environmental data takes in water quality, organic matter changes, water holding capacity of soil and bacterial activity in soil.
Data collected on each of the parameters will help demonstrate whether a regenerative dairy farming system can be as profitable as a conventional dairy system, whether the practices will reduce the environmental impact of dairying, result in healthier animals and milk, and generate a positive community response.
Roberts says one of the biggest challenges so far has been ensuring the teams working on the properties involved in the switch to regenerative have the necessary support in an approach that is new to them.
“We’re running our own race to a degree,” he said.
He says they have learned a lot so far, but making the transition from conventional to regenerative has been a little harder than they thought it would be.
Buchanan says there is not an accepted clear definition about what constitutes regenerative agriculture, but they are basing their approach not on targeting a specific system but instead on working with the environment, not fighting against it.
Roberts says within the first 18 months there has been significant improvements in soil quality on the regenerative properties.
He says close to 50ha on one of the farms has not seen any synthetic nitrogen fertiliser during that time, with fish fertiliser among other forms of fertiliser being used instead, adding that initial results have indicated non-traditional approaches could be worthwhile.
They plan to hold their first field days in November to share their findings.
That will give them four months of milk production and financial data that they can compare with baseline data from conventional farming already collected.
