Latest news with #TimCronshaw
Otago Daily Times
29-05-2025
- Science
- Otago Daily Times
Farm sustainabilityfund to help farming family trial biostimulant
Dewhirst Land has eliminated synthetic nitrogen from its Canterbury soils which are about to get a bacteria and fungi boost, Tim Cronshaw writes. A Canterbury dairy farming family with a herd of 1700 cows is about to go deeper into soil health after being free of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser for three years. Dewhirst Land has just won a $35,000 grant from The a2 Milk Company's farm sustainability fund towards a project testing bacteria and fungi added to the soil with a tailored pasture mix. The supplier of a2 milk for Dunsandel-based processor Synlait Milk will foot the remainder of the bill for the $90,000 project on part of the 435ha property in Selwyn. As a structural engineer by trade, managing director Isaac Williams takes an engineering lens to the farm he jointly manages with his wife's family. He said the family had been running regenerative, diverse multi-species pasture for three or four years on about 85% of the milking platform. This had been producing good results and they looked to push this further with a trial based on a RespondBio biostimulant system. "We are a farm trying to push the boundaries a wee bit and be innovative in sustainability and regenerative pastoral farming. "In doing so it's a bit of a space where there's no real hard and fast research or evidence supporting it, not because it's not working, but because it's just that nobody has put the money into it." Mr Williams said they initially dismissed RespondBio as another "sales pitch", before revisiting its fungi and bacteria-enriching potential to test it for themselves. "We had always known with the soil health on Canterbury dairy farms it is a challenge to maintain high populations of fungi and bacteria, particularly fungi as the bacteria we've still got. "For us, we have been very much on that journey with agronomists and soil specialists Agrownomics and AgResearch who have been doing some trials on our farm as well. Time and time again the fungi side of things had come up." Fungi helped to breakdown organic matter and spread and mobilise nutrients within the soil and between the root systems, he said. "We asked ourselves how we could get more fungi and nobody really had an answer and I recalled this conversation that RespondBio had floated to us about fungi and bacteria and we picked up the phone. The prices were a bit up there and as a structural engineer by trade I'm all about numbers ... The numbers they had were relative to a North Island system which didn't really relate to our system here in Canterbury. So I told them if we are going to do this I wanted to substantiate it with our own measurements and track it, but by the time you factor in the product cost and the time doing the recording I didn't know if it would stack up as a trial." However, the claims for substantial increases in dry matter yields were appealing as it would mean they could reduce their supplementary feeding of palm kernel extract by growing more pasture on the farm. About the time they were toying with canning the idea, they came across a2 Milk Company grants. Mr Williams said they were pleased to get the funding to progress the project after preparing a proposal with input from their agronomists and AgResearch. Dewhirst Land will begin the trial over one year on 40ha in about October. This land will be split into two parts of four paddocks each, with one of the paddocks in conventional multi-species pastures as a control site, another sown in a customised dairy seed mix with no biostimulant and the other two paddocks sown in the seed mix with the biostimulant. This will be repeated at another site. "The idea there is we get a feel for whether it is the dairy seed mix or the bacteria and fungi which are doing wonders. So we can control for those two things to get some idea of what is giving us the best bang for buck. If it's successful we will look to roll it out across our farm and if it's not we carry on." Dewhirst Land is part of several benchmarking groups as the only farm with zero nitrogen and growing and feeding well above average pasture rates. Mr Williams said the farming system was working and he credited his father-in-law for making the change. "I don't think anyone's excited about removing nitrogen from the system when it has for so long been associated as arguably almost an additional feed as you just put it on and get new grass. From a mathematical production point of view I understand it, but we've been on a journey with a focus on soil health for five years now and the soil health has come a long way." Nutrients are added to plant leaves via foliar applications by PFA Contracting rather than the soil at Dewhirst Land, with pastures added with fish hydrolysate soil improvers, seaweed, amino acids, potassium humate and fulvic acids which are tailored every grazing round. Depending on the time of year they might do a pre- and post-graze spray of paddocks to get trace elements and nutrients into feeding cows, and follow this with a nutrient mix to improve soil and plant health. Over the past two years they have been harvesting about 16.2 tonnes of dry matter to the hectare compared with an average 15t/ha to 16t/ha in central Canterbury. "This season coming up we will be more than that." Only 15% of the farm remains in conventional ryegrass and clover pastures, which also go without synthetic nitrogen. Nor are their nearby 220ha support blocks fertilised with nitrogen. Mr Williams said there were still costs involved as they had to pay for other products and higher spreading costs, but they were at a point they could reduce some of this soon on balanced soils. "We have also partnered with Synlait and are doing full farm soil testing and they are helping support us to do that. Every paddock will be tested every season. The idea is Synlait's milk has a sustainable market placement adding value to their customers." Other ongoing projects are soil carbon measurements, methane inhibitors via the seaweed and technology measuring cow health in the rumen. Another interesting part to Dewhirst Land's system is it operates Roto Rainer irrigators instead of centre pivots which partner well with multi-species pastures as they respond well under moisture stress. Leaching losses monitored via modelling remain relatively high as the farm has a lot of nitrogen-fixing clover in the system. "This is where we hope the fungi and bacteria will help redistribute that nitrogen to the plants that need it, rather than just having it fixed in the clover and immediately around it. So we do lose a bit and we are still very much learning." Multi-species pastures include three different clovers, Italian and other ryegrasses, tetraploids, plantain, chicory, fescues, lucerne and timothy. A trial of sunflowers in a paddock was not repeated because of the mess left after grazing. The cows complete about 10 grazing rounds per paddock for the season. Three plate meter readings will be taken of the pasture's dry matter cover before and after each grazing round, followed by a pasture cut which will be bagged, then sent for the testing of herbage data as well as plant sap testing for the nutrient uptake. Then the dry matter percentage is monitored with the initial wet weight gathered for each cut compared with the residual result to get an exact picture of each yield. This is repeated for each paddock over the season for a total of 80 herbage and 80 plant sap tests. On top of this will be the trial's 16 soil tests with the soil's microbiology also to be analysed by Soil Foodweb for a micro-organism count in the soil before and after the trial. As a larger farm, Dewhirst Land typically runs its cows in four herds with paddock-to-production performance also to be tracked. Some of the split herd are winter-milked with the herd generally milking twice a day during the peak of the season. Up to 30% of the herd is reduced to once a day in the shoulder of the season if they need their condition improved or for animal health reasons. Mr Williams said the family was grateful for the support of The a2 Milk Company to do the work. "This project aims to enhance the farming system, improve the profitability of the farm to ensure the land is protected for future generations and also maintain the welfare of our cows. Through this project we hope to produce beneficial results that can be shared with the wider industry." A total of 19 projects received grants from the $575,000 fund, including 12 in Southland and Canterbury, with the rest in Australia. They included initiatives reducing greenhouse gas emissions by replacing diesel operated machinery with electric machinery run through solar, and building calf sheds to provide shade and shelter. The a2 Milk Company chief sustainability officer Jaron McVicar said it was encouraging to see the impact the fund was making for positive environmental outcomes on farms.
Otago Daily Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
Dairy award fast-tracks farm-ownership dream
A Canterbury dairy farming couple with three children sharing a birthday on the same date are ready to find their first farm, Tim Cronshaw reports. Nobody told Braden and Brigitte (Biddy) Barnes that buying their first farm would be so stressful. The 50:50 sharemilkers on a 1150-cow farm at Eyrewell Forest have worked and saved hard to get into a position to progress their dairy farming business into buying an entry level property. After scouring the market for their next home, preferably without equity partners, they have their eye on a few farms. Finding the ideal property is not easy as they are competing with cashed-up buyers. Then there is the legal, due diligence and counter-offer process to navigate in a high-payout season of $10 a kilogram of milksolids when cow and land prices swing upwards. Nonetheless, they take the view their perseverance will be rewarded in the end. So they have set their sights on something as close to perfect as they can find with compromises intermingling with non-negotiables and must-haves. "Yes, it has been stressful because we are running a business and family and it's a whole load of more work that's out of the norm," Mrs Barnes said. "It's not like buying a house where you go and look at 10 houses in the weekend. You have to be flexible all the time while sticking to your goals, and also knowing you can't get everything you like." Mr Barnes said the limited farms on the market were soon narrowed down after being ruled out for being too big or too small. "Everybody said your first farm isn't going to be perfect. But your second or third farm isn't going to be perfect either. We will just have to find something that is as perfect as it can be. Then there is the stress of multi-offers and the market at the moment has probably just gone berserk because of payout, cows and people trying to get in, but you have to stay positive." They joke they are happy to buy a farm anywhere as long as it is in Canterbury which is where their hearts are set for a new home. The Barnes have managed to get into a farm-buying position by working up the dairy ladder from the bottom and through savvy investing. Their dream has been "fast-tracked" by the couple in their late 30s becoming one of three Fonterra and ASB First Farm winners at the Dairy Industry Awards. Within the prize package is a loan facility of up to $1million fixed at a 1% per year rate for three years. Putting the generous loan to one side, the award was gratifying for another reason, Mrs Barnes said. "It's been incredibly validating to be recognised and celebrated by the industry because it confirms we are on the right path and we have a place in dairy farming in New Zealand. The award removes some of the biggest barriers of farm ownership like financing and start-up costs and gives us the confidence to take the next step. It's not just a financial boost, it's a vote of confidence in our vision, work ethic and our long-term commitment to the industry." In 2021 they narrowly missed out being a top three placegetter in the Canterbury North Otago Sharemilker of the Year competition, after winning three categories. So, feeling slightly out of their league, the big win was a special moment. Mr Barnes said the judges recognition of their potential had given them momentum. They were at the South Island Field Days at Kirwee talking with milk suppliers about the ins and outs of signing up as a new farm owner when they were put on to the new award. A visit to the ASB tent confirmed the competition was at the closing stages of accepting entries. "Anyway, we sent in our application and got an email we might want to rethink this to next year as there is quite a bit of work to do," Mrs Barnes said. "I asked how much time we had to do this? We got given to midnight and that's what we did. Luckily, we were already in the process of running these numbers so we just needed to package it." Among the other prizes are $20,000 of Farm Source account credit to invest in their first farm and a tailored package including mentoring and special offers by Fonterra to transition into farm ownership. She said they were already close to financially being in a position to buy a farm, but would not have got there this season because of the high payout. The award had made it more possible, she said. "So, it has fast-tracked us ... we would ideally like to stay here, but we are realistic and it's probably not going to be the dream farm right away. We are open to compromises like run-down infrastructure and just something that needs a bit of love. But we don't want to compromise on things that you can't change so it needs to have good soils and access to water and eventually have the potential to become a very efficient, profitable little farm." Mr Barnes said they were trying to avoid being too prescriptive. "We have to be realistic that a 300,000kg milksolid farm is probably going to be another couple of million dollars, whereas a 200,000 milksolid farm will be cheaper and more realistic if we want to buy it ourselves. It would be ideal to have a farm like here, but we are not there yet." He said a first farm in Canterbury would need irrigation, possibly with an older system which could be improved later. Budget-wise, they could not afford a 1000-plus cow farm unless they found an equity investor. They were not dismissing this option, but their first choice was to go it alone. "So 500 to 800 cows seems to be do-able on our own, but anything beyond that we would need a partner." A visit to a herd home had convinced them a pasture management property was for them, he said. He said the rural real estate market was competitive. "A lot of people want to stay in Canterbury or own a farm in Canterbury because it's profitable and reliable. And then the other reason is there are a lot of buyers out there because somebody might own two or three farms and can just leverage that and go buy another one and that's why it's competitive. If the neighbour's block pops up you don't get a shoe in because they can just go in with a higher price." Everybody wanted to be in dairy farming during a $10/kg payout because of the better return on assets than other investments, he said. The Barnes met on a Culverden farm. Returning from overseas travel, he worked on the family farm before heading south in 2012. Over four years he progressed from being a farm assistant to a manager in the North Canterbury district. She moved to work on the same farm as him in 2013 and rose through the ranks to become second-in charge on another farm. A qualified veterinary nurse, she had worked previously in the horse racing industry in Singapore for three years and then six months in the United Kingdom. "I had always wanted to go farming but didn't come from a farming family and every advertisement I ever saw you needed a team of at least three dogs and dairy farming seemed a way to get my foot in the door. As long as you are keen most people will take you on." A challenging contract milking role was taken on at a 1500 cow herd farm with two sheds, 10 staff and K-line irrigation in Duntroon in 2016. To build on their farming leadership they signed up to as many courses as they could and learned how to work on the business rather than in the business. Returning to Culverden, they took on another contract milking role for two years before heading to Eyrewell Forest. This is the Barnes' fourth sharemilking season with another season to go. Their large herd on 351 effective hectares will complete 546,000kg of milksolids when they are dried off this week at about 475kg per cow. A Friesian dominant herd being bred into a Kiwicross base is milked twice a day and then three times every two days from January onwards and then once-a-day towards the end of the season. They are shaping the herd towards more compact-framed cows with high production and less of an appetite. A pasture-based 3 system is topped up with grain in the shed, canola added in the spring, alongside a mineraliser and silage with maize brought in during the shoulders of the season. While they own the herd, their closed system contract stipulates they had to buy the cows on the farm and will have to sell them back. That means they will have to start up again, aside from potentially being able to take some surplus replacements this coming calving. They had already invested in 1000-plus Allflex cow collars, Mrs Barnes said. "So we will be able to take those and keep up with technology. The cows have been on them for one season and it's opened our eyes up how it saves you all that time in the shed and it's invaluable." They have managed to build up equity and pay down debt as fast as they can by accumulating cow numbers and investing in residential rental housing. One of the properties is in Rangiora and the others are in Katikati between Tauranga and Auckland. The northern houses were inherited from Mr Barnes' dairy farming family and remortgaged to help them buy the first 960 cows and in-calf rising-two-year-old heifers when they entered sharemilking. Another 230 leased cows have since been paid off for a debt-free herd. "It's part of our succession planning and using our inheritance by leveraging to pass it on, " Mr Barnes said. "We want a succession plan for our children. It's not about buying more and more farms, but more about being financially secure to give them an opportunity when they are ready if they want to farm, buy a property or start a business and not being stretched when we get to that point." They want their children, Heidi, 6, Jock, 4, and Ginny, 2, to enjoy a rural upbringing. Against the odds, all of them have the same birthday on November 16, more by plan than coincidence. "It's very suitable for rearing calves," Mrs Barnes said. "It's a busy time of the year anyway when you're not being sociable between August and November so you may as well be pregnant." With Mr Barnes' birthday three days before them, they came close to beating the trifecta and both of their fathers were November babies. Over the past 14 years their nest egg has also grown by trading stock and rearing surplus calves and selling empty cows. Breeding up their herd with LIC premier sires has been another way they have increased equity. "We've improved our herd since we've owned it," Mrs Barnes said. "It was below national average for Breeding Worth when we started and now it's in the top 10% over four seasons. We really honed in on the younger animals and breeding replacements from them and breeding our low BW cows to beef." Over time they have recognised each other's strengths and divided roles accordingly. With the arrival of three children Mrs Barnes has spent less time in the milking shed, but fills the gap on occasion to put the cups on, get cows in, drive a tractor or test the herd. Other than that, she is in charge of calf rearing, administration, finance and the contracts. The life of a sharemilker or contract milker means they live in farm accommodation and always have the Gypsy Day shift at the back of their minds. They cannot wait to put "roots down" on their own farm with their own family home, hopefully soon.
Otago Daily Times
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Former farmer's story a boost for charities
A retired Lowry Hills farmer has just signed off as an author after a successful book run raising money for charities dear to his heart, writes Tim Cronshaw. Doug Archbold's self-published memoir More Than Just a Farmer has sold nearly 450 copies after three editions. If the Christchurch retiree had known it would have been this well read he would have printed more, but he has ruled out a fourth print run. After covering production costs, he raised more than $12,000 for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter, Cheviot Museum and North Canterbury Rural Support Trust from his walk down memory lane. In a "tremendous gesture", a man he met at a funeral bought the entire run of 150 copies in the first edition when he heard it was for the latter charity. The bulk buyer kept one for himself and gave the rest back so they were sold twice over. Mr Archbold said many people gave more than $20 for their signed copy. There would be no further editions as production costs would require a larger cover price and they had reached the charity target, he said. "The feedback was just amazing. After reading the book, the two main things people couldn't get their heads around are the fact I was very shy when I was a boy and that I'm still alive — because I've had some horrendous car accidents in my early years and quite serious medical events including a broken neck and cardiac arrest. But I'm still here and I've been blessed." Mr Archbold can literally credit his wife, Jill, for everything he has achieved in his latter years as she saved his life in 2011. Early one morning she woke up to find him groaning. Dialling 111, she was told to start CPR which she did, until three ambulances arrived. "It took 35 minutes to get the heart started and I was in a coma for a week. It was touch-and-go and later they put a defibrillator in me." When his aortic valve packed up seven years later this was replaced with the pericardium of a cow — he jokes it came from a stud Angus cow. Surgeons had to put this up his femoral artery because open heart surgery was ruled out because of too much scar tissue. And before all of that, while still living on the farm, he had had a triple bypass. The neck injury arose when he broke his C6 and C7 vertebrae at the top of the spine after he lost concentration on a quad bike towing a light trailer on a hill. As he jumped off the bike, the trailer came around and struck him on the neck. Somehow he stumbled to the manager's cottage about three-quarters of a kilometre away and the ambulance crew took one look at him and called in a helicopter. Confined to a specialist trauma unit, he had a titanium plate successfully inserted by a surgeon. Grateful for a second or third lease on life, his run of ill health forced him to rethink life. "I've just been so lucky. Having a broken neck and a triple bypass in 18 months was probably the catalyst for me thinking it's time to leave the farm. Looking back, technology was starting to get beyond me. I had a farm of 5000 stock units, didn't have a tractor and I got everything done by contract with an old guy with horses and dogs working for me. It was a low-cost farm, but probably not sustainable. Farms were getting bigger around me, so at 57 I sold the farm and came to Christchurch and had another career and did a lot of other things." In the book he described driving out the gate the last time and leaving their Heathcote-Helmore designed home and surrounding farmland in 2001, as an emotionally draining experience. This was shortlived. They built a home designed by their architect son and a builder offered him work as a casual labourer. So he happily worked in the inner city on tilt slab apartments for $11 an hour with not a care in the world. That still left him time to help get the Ballance Farm Environment Awards off the ground in Canterbury and volunteer his services for the Rural Support Trust which progressed to him being trust chairman for 10 years. A challenging two decades included the big drought of 2014-15 and the Kaikoura drought, as well as market and political upheaval. When he started there was a six-person team and today its numbers have grown to include 20 facilitators who go out to farms after an 0800 call. Easily the biggest change he has seen is the de-stigmatising of mental health and farmers more open to getting help. Visits by All Black great Sir John Kirwan helped to break this down. "If you went to a funeral 50 years ago and showed any emotion at all, that was a sign of weakness supposedly. But now it's OK to show emotion and that macho thing of people being told to pull yourself together has changed and it's talked about and come out a lot more which is great." Mr Archbold wanted to be a political scientist, but in those days there was pressure to stay on the land from his father who had run 731ha Lowry Hills west of Cheviot since 1955. The reluctant farmer made the most of his unchosen career and ended up pursuing his first choice after becoming involved in farmer politics. Immersed in the Cheviot community, he was a local Federated Farmers leader, a councillor for Hurunui District Council and spent eight years on the Meat & Wool Board's 25-farmer electoral committee. The committee screened farmers wanting to become a director on either of the two producer boards and put them through a probing questioning session. For him it was a sad day when the committee was disestablished, replaced by direct elections and high-profile candidates without the committee grilling. He said it was telling that both boards had since disappeared. If he had his time again, he wouldn't change much. "If you go right back, I'm an academic at heart and fortunate that my parents in difficult times could send me to Christchurch Boys' High School. I always hankered for a university career, so in a way I was a reluctant farmer. But when I look back it's ironic now because all I wanted to do at university was become a political scientist and of course they only come out of the woodwork every three years if there's an election coming up. So I was better doing what I have done." Mr Archbold is immensely proud of their architect son Richard and veterinary daughter Kate, both of whom excelled academically, and a 14-year-old grandson who's already showing promise in competitive cycling. He keeps busy on Burlington's residents' committee and one of his jobs is to welcome every new arrival. Time is found to be part of a men's book club and a member of the learning group U3A. Two other Cheviot farmers are in the village and they've organised full bus trips to their home district, stopping at Lowry Hills and the domain where his great grandfather designed the mansion for "Ready Money" Robinson in the 1860s. "You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. People say 'do you miss the farm' and I always say I probably miss the people more than the farm, because we were so involved with the community." For Age Concern he's an approved visitor, including for 93-year-old Ngai Tahu woman who lives on her own and he sees her weekly, often calling her on the phone two or three times a week. He's also a pen pal with an inmate in the women's prison and she's finally opened up to him about her tough background after three years of correspondence. It was also Mrs Archbold who suggested he transcribe 60-odd years of diary entries into a book to keep him busy over the Covid-19 lockdown and retain matrimonial harmony. He did this by longhand and she typed it out. Good friend Cheryl Colley was brought in to give it some order. Mr Archbold was awarded the Queen's Service Medal in the Queen's Birthday honours list in 2014. He acknowledges it was only possible with the support of a woman he met on a blind date who became his wife. "Several people have told me it's Jill that should have got the medal, not you because she saved my life. She woke up and I was literally dead and [she] started CPR until the ambulance arrived. I couldn't have done all this without her."
