Few farmers could claim to reframe the NZ farming business model while trying to survive under a nitrogen cap that keeps livestock numbers the same as in 2004.
They have been forced to add value to their beef and now believe the rest of NZ might need to do the same.
Since 2004, when their livestock numbers were essentially capped in perpetuity, farm costs had risen 48% and beef income had risen only 20%, much of the increase during the past year of good export prices.
To help bridge the gap the Bartons launched Taupo Beef in 2009, now called Taupo Beef and Lamb, with an environmental standard backed by Waikato Regional Council.
It was the first regional council accreditation nationwide and was possible only because all farms in the catchment were capped and audited annually for compliance to their nitrogen limits.
A number of Taupo catchment farms now supplied livestock under wholesaler Neat Meat’s Harmony label in North Island supermarkets and meat retailers, to local restaurants and a new relationship with a small Japanese retail group.
By paying a premium for the meat consumers were contributing the costs of protecting Lake Taupo, which already had some of the purest water in the world, even though they might never see or use the lake.
Some of the former adversaries during Taupo environmental hearings were now the best customers. They also suggested the Grown Right Here tagline.
NZ farming for the past 50 or more years had intensified and properties had been merged to combat declining real returns but that could not continue indefinitely, Mike argued.
“Because eating is the final agricultural act, we have effectively challenged the consumer to seek out food that protects Taupo water quality at premium prices they are willing to pay.
“We cannot continue to occupy the commodity space. Instead, we must establish brand values that pay the costs of environmental, biodiversity and greenhouse gas limits.”
It would take a generation to fully convert the consumers, especially older ones who grew up with cheap meat and no environmental consequences, he believed.
A NZ brand with environmental guarantees was also needed because the bulk of production was exported and consumers would not cope with 16 different regional brands.
“How do you certify the behaviour and the environmental impacts of farmers in Kaipara and those in Taupo or the Rangitata River catchment in Canterbury to be meaningful to consumers around the world?”
The Bartons’ Glen Emmreth Farm carried 2000 stock units, all beef, on 128ha effective, including an 8ha lease block.
On an all-grass system with no imported supplements, Charolais-Angus heifers were brought in as weaners and finished as rising two-year-olds.
The business had received several awards, including supreme award in the 2014 Ballance Farm Environment Award in Waikato region and the supreme award for the greatest single contribution to a sustainable NZ in 2015, from the Sustainable Business Network.
Mike also received the Queen’s Service Medal for services to farming and the environment in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2014.
At a recent Beef + Lamb NZ field day in Northland he said the lake protection legislation was gazetted in 2012 after 12 years of negotiating and catchment science.
Every stream in the catchment had been fenced and planted since the 1980s and while that stopped E coli, phosphorus and sediment from entering the lake, nitrogen leached down through the soil profile until it moved horizontally into the lake, taking perhaps 80 years to do so.
Native and exotic forest and unimproved land accounted for 80% of the area in the catchment and farming only 20%.
Yet the unimproved land and forests leached 3kg/ha/year versus 17kg from sheep, beef and deer farms and 45kg from dairy farms. It was not because the farms used excessive nitrogen fertilisers but from livestock urine.
Something had to be done because 93% of the manageable or man-made nitrogen entering the lake came from farming.
There were 105 farms in the catchment at that stage, four of them dairying.
The solution agreed by all stakeholders through the Environment Court was to reduce the amount of nitrogen reaching the lake by 20% through buying back close to 30% of farms and converting them to forestry.
Four dairy farms remained, plus 73 sheep, beef and deer farms with the balance converted to forestry or shut down.
The remaining farms were capped at their 2001-2004 livestock numbers in perpetuity with the option to intensify taken away.
The Bartons changed from breeding cows to younger, faster-growing and more efficient heifers, stocked at 15-16 SU/ha.
“We grow the animals every day of their lives to reduce their lifetime emissions footprint,” Mike said.
“If they are not gaining weight they are still peeing but not making money.”
They had been able to increase the carcase weight production per hectare to 320-350kg and lift the meat returns through branding and promotion but the premiums were not yet paying the full costs of protecting the lake.
“Farmers have never before asked consumers to pay the environmental costs of producing meat so we can’t expect them to pay it all immediately.
“But we have started the conversation with consumers so that over time, as environmental costs increase, we hope to get them to contribute more.”
Barton said the whole of NZ agriculture would need to travel that path becaise farming with environmental limits was not possible on commodity returns.
