Family of farmers win recognition
Jason and Quentin Miller felt they were standing on the shoulders of their parents when they received a farming award in Invercargill.
The brothers, who own a farm in Glencoe, received a Regional Supreme Award this month.
“Much work has been done before us and there will be much work to do after us,” Jason said. “So this is just a point in time.”
The 59-year-old said he was born in Gore and has been on the family farm since he was a kid.
His parents bought a 149ha sheep farm in 1960, he said.
“Back then it was only running about 1000 sheep, it was very rough and undeveloped,” he said.
Over the years the family expanded the farm, until in 2020 they bought a 480ha dairy farm about 4km down the road, he said.
Today, the Millers operate a 1034ha dairy, sheep and beef farm and they run on average 4000 ewes.
They are helped by Chris Henderson, and Jason’s son Andrew with his wife Rachel joined the business, too.
When they bought new land, they noticed the previous owners were running a system with high cows per ha and low production per cow, Jason said.
“We didn’t see that as a sustainable farming option.
“So, we’ve opted for a system where we run a lower stocking rate, about 2.7 cows per ha,” Jason said.
And that required a higher production bar.
He said in the coming years, they were aiming at producing 500kg of milk solids per cow.
Jason said over the years they faced some big challenges.
“We’ve got over 10km of waterways through our property and at that time [about 15 years ago] most of them were unfenced,” he said.
Since then they fenced off most of the waterways on the farm and planted around 10,000 riparian plants along the edges, Jason said.