Pukehina farmer is helping ch
Regenerative, traditional Maori methods being used to reinvigorate the property
Poor pasture and long hours forced Pukehina farmer Mohi Beckham to rethink conventional farming. Mohi was raised in a big family and learned from his late mum to appreciate the mauri, or life force, of soils and the food that comes as a result.
His brother’s 208-hecatre Scylla Farm reaches into an open valley of mixed volcanic ash, pumice and gley soils that when purchased in mid-2019, were covered in a thick blanket of nutrition-deficient kikuyu grass, and cows that were losing weight.
“They looked like toast racks.”
The Bay of Plenty farmer believed a reliance on constant fertiliser application and animals in less than optimum health wasn’t good for the land or the people on it.
“About two years ago I got myself into an ugly spot and didn’t know what was wrong with me.
“I got myself checked and, with the support of my wife, made changes to my team,” Mohi says.
Scylla Farms has been selected as one of 10 farms in a two-year National Science Challenge Our Land Our Water trial, under the Government’s Revitalise Te Taiao research programme.
The $2.7 million Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai trial has the potential to transform New Zealand’s farming industry. It tests whether using farming methods that enhance the mana and mauri of the soil create healthier, more resilient, more profitable farms that are better able to withstand environmental, societal and regulatory pressure. It is hosted by Agrisea New Zealand.
The first public display of Rere ki Uta Rere ki Tai was at Fieldays, Mystery Creek Hamilton.
The farm is being transitioned with regenerative and traditional Maori methods, and in October 2021 Mohi stopped applying agri-nutrients as the default, using nitrogen now only as a top up.
He extended the milking season and let the animals chew through the poor pasture while he got a pasture renewal programme under way.
Supplementing the production from 480 dairy cows with 3ha of avocado, 6ha of gold kiwifruit and 6ha of red kiwifruit, he also switched to a seaweed-based biostimulants programme on trial paddocks that were planted in 25 to 30 different species.
Conventional farming might see four or five species in a pasture, whereas Scylla Farms has a salad bowl that’s regularly left ungrazed for several weeks to set seed again.
The data captured in the trial is well beyond what’s normally calculated for farm soil health in New Zealand.
A normal farmer does a basic soil test down to only 75mm and many rely on the measure of Olsen phosphorous to tell them how much phosphate is readily available for a plant to uptake.
In this project, researchers from Lincoln University, Manaaki Whenua, Agresearch, specialist social science research consultants and farm economic consultants measure metrics across soil health from a much wider perspective — including animal and human wellbeing.
Running concurrently with the study of 10 farms is research on 10ha of Lincoln Research Farm to investigate the connection between sheep milk and meat quality and soil and pasture health, including the impact of biostimulants and fertiliser use.
Mohi says he is already noticing positive changes from cutting fertiliser, using biostimulants and diversifying the paddock crop.
A core sample at the time he stopped applying fertiliser measured roots 500mm deep compared to 1.2m a year later, and potassium has risen despite adding none.
“We went from 160 units of nitrogen to 30 last year which was a big saving, and we were probably the greenest farm in this area for most of the summer.
“It’s all about drawing down carbon, helping fungi and soil bacteria. I think farmers use milk as their be-all and end-all and cut corners, and I’ve done