Role reversal keeps the farming motivation high Anne Boswell
meets a husband and wife dairy farming team who have been unconventional but successful in the way they work.
Kaharoa dairy farmer Chris Stevens has some advice for salespeople visiting her farm. ‘‘If they come to the door and ask to speak to my husband, we are unlikely to do business,’’ she laughs.
Stevens, who grew up on a Gisborne dairy farm, admits she never had a great desire to run her and her husband Chris Haworth’s three dairy farms, but it is a role she has grown to love.
‘‘I’ve really gained confidence in making decisions over time,’’ she says. ‘‘At first, I would ask Chris, ‘shall we do this, shall we do that’. After a while he really didn’t have the time to discuss everything with me so I became more confident at making decisions myself.’’
The couple has taken turns working off-farm over the 36 years they have been dairy farming. Currently Stevens runs the three farms – neighbouring farms Tawa Ridge and Highview at Kaharoa, near Rotorua, and another at Okoroire in Waikato – and Chris works off-farm as branch manager of Rabobank Rotorua.
Stevens says having one spouse work off-farm has had myriad benefits. ’’It has helped us progress financially,’’ she says. ‘‘And being a farmer is quite a solitary job, and by having one of you work off-farm you can bring some of the outside world back with you at the end of the day.’’
The couple was living in Waikato – Stevens working at the Waharoa dairy factory and Haworth as a schoolteacher – when they decided to give share milking a go.
They share milked 120 cows together for a few years before buying a rundown 57 hectare dairy farm at Tirau.
‘‘Chris worked really hard to develop that farm - it was quite difficult,’’ Stevens says. ‘‘We had that farm for 10 years and during that time we started our family. I was able to continue consulting back to the dairy company with flexible hours to suit my role as a mother.’’
After the Tirau farm was developed, the couple looked to expand. After much searching they settled on a 160ha farm at Kaharoa. They sold the Tirau farm and set about developing the new farm.
‘‘We improved the property over time – some areas were quite scrubby and there were piles of trees stumps,’’ Stevens says. ‘‘Despite it being rundown at first, it’s a great place; it has great rainfall and great locality, close to Rotorua and Tauranga.’’
The couple equity farmed with Stevens’ parents for the first four years and bought them out when they retired.
‘‘They remained living close by, which was great for us,’’ Steven says. ‘‘AndMumstill supports us today.’’
After eight years at Kaharoa the opportunity arose to buy the neighbouring farm.
‘‘We weren’t looking to buy but the land agent suggested we consider it,’’ Stevens says.
‘‘We discussed it with the kids and explained to them that it was going to be a big thing – that we were going to be broke for awhile - but they said go for it.
‘‘There are definite advantages to having the two farms side by side – we can move stock freely and staff can relieve on each farm when required.’’
After they bought the second farm, Haworth was looking for some ‘‘outside stimulation’’ and was offered a position at ANZ bank. The couple swapped roles and Stevens stopped her work offfarm.
They later bought a third farm at Okoroire, and after a brief stint back on the farm Haworth returned to banking.
‘‘All farms are 500-cow farms and are run pretty much the same, so it is a good exercise in benchmarking,’’ Stevens says. ’’We farm to produce a friesian herd. The two Kaharoa farms are becoming more and more friesian, whereas at Okoroire we are mating to friesian but would still be considered a crossbred herd.’’
Stevens says they like working with friesian cows.
‘‘They are quite hardy, and we get more money from the meat side of the business as we use hereford bulls and get the white face advantage when we sell the calves. We just like friesians as a breed.’’
The Stevens have gene marked two of the farms, which has helped them to make the right breeding decisions.
‘‘You can be confident of the parentage of the calves and make sure there is no in-breeding,’’ Stevens says. ‘‘One of our goals is to improve the genetic worth of our herd.’’ They also use sexed semen. ‘‘We took part in a Fonterra programme where they were looking for more friesian calves to send to China,’’ Stevens says. ‘‘It has been quite beneficial in that we can make more out of the calves, and it gives us more scope when choosing which calves to keep and which to market.’’
The Kaharoa farms begin calving on August 3, while Okoroire starts on July 21.
‘‘Because of our altitude the grass doesn’t come away as quickly so I’m not so worried about having calving as condensed as in some areas,’’ Stevens says. ‘‘We have used short gestation bulls this season to try and tighten the tail end of our calving but we don’t want to condense it too much.’’
Artificial breeding (AB) starts on October 24 and runs for six weeks before the bulls go out for four weeks. Finally, the farm goes back to more AB - short gestation semen. The farms are medium input farms that use in-shed feeders.
‘‘Our philosophy is doing minimal work with machinery, which is why we went with the inshed feeders – we don’t have to take the wagons out into the paddocks,’’ Stevens says.
‘‘All the boys have to do is pull the cord. We use a PK and biscuit meal blend throughout the spring and continue to blend something else with PK in the autumn to help it flow through the feeders.’’
They also farm with profit in mind rather than production. While production stands at an excellent 429kg/MS cow (or 1138kg/MS ha), farm working expenses are a low $3.01 per kg/ MS.
Stevens has been involved with Dairy Women’s Network since 2001, when she became a founding member of the Rotorua branch.
She became a regional convenor in 2003 and then a trustee in 2010.
‘‘I think it’s an amazing organisation - it inspires women and connects them with other dairying women,’’ Stevens says.
‘‘As much as you get inspiration from outside speakers it’s often the other dairy women who you get some of the best ideas from.
And now the organisation offers a lot of leadership and training opportunities at all sorts of levels, which is great – it gives women the confidence to get out there and develop their skills while still looking after their families and farm businesses.’’
The couple hopes their two sons will eventually join them in the farm business, but both have offfarm careers currently.
The Stevens’ are big goal-setters and attribute their success to making goals, writing them down and focusing on them.
They also applaud the staff on all three farms.
‘‘We just couldn’t do it without them,’’ Stevens says. ‘‘We really appreciate their effort. Farming can be awesome on a good day but awful on a bad day, and the staff keeps pushing on. We’re very lucky.’’