Booming horticulture nudges dairy farmer on
One door closes and another opens. Where I am located in the Far North, horticulture is booming and there are a few dairy farms I know of on the market, but the owners are not selling as a going concern – rather selling their dairy shares and selling the farm for horticulture. Avocados are the flavour of the month up here at the moment.
Unfortunately, the farm I lease is one of them, so I am hoping to find another dairy farm to lease, preferably in the Far North, as I have an extremely early calving 200 cow herd but I am open to relocating if necessary.
I love milking my cows and despite the obvious climatic challenges posed by the Far North, I have really enjoyed learning how to manage kikuyu grass successfully, transitioning my herd to a oncea-day milking regimen and even how to survive on a expensive lease under a $3.90 payout a couple of years back.
I have had great success with broadcasting plantain and chicory around the farm and also learnt how strategic use of annual ryegrass helps with kikuyu management.
You may recall six years ago that I came to Ahipara off the back of a contract breakdown with a 50/50 job in Whangamata¯ .
One year into a three-year contract, the farm owners decided to lease the property out from under me, which was a big shock and saw me out on the road desperately looking for another farm for the 200 cows.
I stumbled across this farm to lease near Kaita¯ ia on the Internet and I took it on only because it was the only thing on the table.
The farm is on both sides of the main drag between Kaita¯ ia and Ahipara, so the cows have to wait until milking is over and then be herded across the road.
Another challenge is that one side of the farm is a huge steep hill with limited water, so steep that the cows are reluctant to go up there.
Those two factors alone would put most people off the place; however, I decided I’d have to give it a go.
The property has been leased or run by an endless stream of sharemilkers for years and the cowshed was a depressing sight. Instead of a roller door, the vat room had a sad faded-blue tarpaulin dangling desultorily in the breeze.
I asked the farm owner why that was and he said something like, The tanker drivers don’t like opening roller doors.
One of the first things I spent money on was installing a proper roller door on the vat room.
I could not have stood looking at that tarpaulin every day.
At the beginning of this contract, I was stressed out, as the system that ran the farm water supply was so terrible, it was taking 10 or more hours a week to micro-manage.
This had undesirable impacts on the milk cooling system at the cowshed. In other words, the capacitors on the chiller unit blew up quite regularly at $500 a pop.
If this happened before the tanker came, the milk would be rejected for being too warm.
So I eventually replaced the water pump causing all the issues and suddenly everything became much more manageable and enjoyable.
But now the farm is on the market and I have to walk away.
I am still very keen on dairy farming, so if you know of an opportunity for 200 cows and a leasee with a can-do attitude, please let me know.
One of the first things I spent money on was installing a proper roller door on the vat room.