Changes for award-winning Tikorangi dairy farm
A new era dawns for Trewithen Farm as its sharemilkers seek a new life. Sue O’Dowd reports.
An award-winning Taranaki dairy farm will enter a new era next season as family beckons for its long-serving sharemilkers.
The couple, who have been herd-owning sharemilkers on Faull Farms’ Trewithen Farm at Tikorangi since 2004, are retiring at the end of the 2016-17 season.
The partnership between Faull Farms and the Penwardens won the inaugural Taranaki Ballance Farm Environment Awards (TBFEA) in 2014.
The directors of Faull Farms Ltd are father and son Gavin and Oliver Faull, whose ancestors settled part of the 371ha property near Waitara in 1867.
Tony Penwarden grew up on a dairy farm near Whanganui and home to his wife was a property with 100 hereford cattle near a logging town in northern California.
After meeting overseas, the couple began their dairy farming career in South Taranaki in 1991 on the Normanby farm of Errol Burke. From there they moved to Te Kiri as managers on Ian and Judith Armstrong’s farm at Te Kiri, where they milked 350 cows. Before long, they progressed to variable order sharemilkers milking 860 cows.
At Tikorangi the Penwardens milk 800 spring calving cows and 400 autumn calving cows in a stateof-the-art 60-bail rotary Dairymaster SuperShed that opened in 2007. They expect to produce 560,000 kilograms milksolids this season from a 282ha milking platform.
Tony said their dual calving system allowed the couple to carry cows through for a second opportunity to get in-calf and a chance to have a useful life. ‘‘There are fewer culls and more options.’’
When the couple moved to the farm for their first sharemilking job as herd owners, they were milking 540 cows in a 29-a-side herringbone shed that has since been converted into an automated calf-rearing facility.
The SuperShed has a viewing area that allows guests to safely watch the cows being milked. It means the farm has become a showcase for the Taranaki dairy industry.
The couple have even hosted British royalty.
A highlight of their 11-year sojourn on the farm was last year’s visit by Prince Charles and his entourage.
The Penwardens and their staff have hosted numerous international visitors, farm study tour groups and school groups of primary and secondary and students wanting to learn about the industry.
Often, their staff became the centre of attention for visitors to the farm. ‘‘But the staff are most hospitable and really helpful towards our visitors,’’ Loie said.
Other highlights for the couple have included a Fonterra certificate of excellence for gradefree production last season and being named regional finalists in Silver Fern Farms’ 2016 Plate to Pasture awards.
They plan to retire to New Plymouth and to spend time catching up with their daughters in Melbourne, Newcastle and Wellington, extended family in Whanganui and the United States and their adopted African family who work and live on a Southland farm.
When the couple were sharemilking at Te Kiri, they employed Zimbabwean Edwin Mabonga who answered their advertisement for farm staff. After meeting him at the bus station in Hawera, they interviewed him at Te Kiri, and he then asked where he could catch a bus to continue his journey.
So the couple invited him to stay the night. ‘‘And he never left,’’ Loie said.
Eventually Mabonga’s wife and two children joined him and now the family is in a Southland equity partnership for which they are variable order sharemilkers. ‘‘They’ve become like our own family,’’ she said.
For Loie, the biggest challenge of farm life has been the 3am rostered start at the cowshed once a week to wash the vat and get the cows in for milking. ‘‘That’s what I’m not going to miss.’’
But she will miss the beauty of the breaking dawn when she’s at the shed for morning milkings. ‘‘It’s very pretty and peaceful at that time of day.’’
The other major challenge for her has been rostering the couple’s four full-time and seven part-time staff.
Working with their staff remains a highlight of their career. ‘‘I’ll really miss the staff,’’ she said.
Evidence of the staff’s respect for the couple was the impromptu haka led by their herd manager, Ron Hough, when Trewithen Farm was named TBFEA winners nearly three years ago.
Loie said she’d also miss the exhilaration - twice each season - generated by the arrival of the first calf. ‘‘It’s exciting when the first calf is born - and when the last one is weaned.’’
For her husband, managing and maintaining a large dairy farm and a large herd have been a constant challenge, as has been the management of the invasive weed known as yellow bristle grass.
After the weed germinates each summer, he and the staff follow a time-consuming but effective strategy of picking and bagging seedheads to minimise seed drop. They also spray the roadsides and in and around maize blocks, minimise the tillage when new pasture is sown and inspect all hay and maize brought onto the farm.
Facial eczema that was rife in Taranaki last season challenged their herd. Although the couple used preventative treatment because Tikorangi is an area prone to the fungus that causes the disease, some of their animals had sub-clinical facial eczema and the long-term effects on them were still being assessed.
‘‘The effects are not visible, except for loss of production. Potentially they could recover because healing of the liver happens,’’ Tony said.
Like his wife, Tony said he wouldn’t miss the early morning starts demanded of sharemilkers and described them as an industry bugbear.
But he will miss the cows and the challenge of building and improving the couple’s friesian and friesian-cross herd, which is in the top 10 per cent of New Zealand for production and breeding worth.
The couple said they appreciated the support they’ve always received from Taranaki contractors and businesses.
Tony said the third successive season of low farmgate milk prices was a factor in their decision to retire. ‘‘It has a part to play in our decision to finish up. We’re certainly not in as good a position as we’d hoped to be.
‘‘But Tony Burgess at Rabobank has been very supportive,’’ he said. ’’He has stood behind us all the way. Likewise, Inglewood contractors Billy and Fiona Moratti have been very accommodating.’’
He said the couple had enjoyed a good relationship with Faull Farms. ‘‘We’ve always run the farm as if it’s our own because it’s owned by absentee owners.’’
Gavin Faull said the two businesses had had a great partnership.
‘‘The last 11 years have been exciting and challenging as Faull Farms have greatly expanded their operations,’’ he said.
The herd had trebled in size as development on the farm, including building the SuperShed, acquiring land and developing sophisticated systems and computerisation, had proceeded.
As competent professionals, the Penwardens had stepped up whenever expansion was undertaken and they enthusiastically supported every new initiative. ‘‘This is a reflection of teamwork and great communication and planning - key elements to a successful partnership.’’
He said Faull Farms expected the end-of-season handover from the Penwardens to Trewithen Farm’s new team would be seamless.
His company was looking to acquire the Penwardens’ herd and machinery and would appoint either a variable order sharemilker or farm manager to operate Trewithen Farm, depending on the calibre and the capital strength of the applicants. He expected the present staff would be retained.