As New Zealand follows through with carbon reduction targets, billions of dollars are being committed to wind, solar and geothermal projects – but some rural communities are frustrated by what they are calling a lack of community consultation by investors. 

Dean Rabbidge, a West Catlins sheep, beef and dairy farmer and spokesperson for the West Catlins Rural Preservation Society, said there has been an overwhelming sense of anxiety and stress in his small community fuelled by the proposed Southland Wind Farm, previously known as the Slopedown Wind Farm. 

The proposed wind farm is one of several across the country – including similar projects in the South Auckland and Tararua regions – awaiting resource management consents. 

Rabbidge said the community’s concerns lie partly in preventing unwanted noise and light pollution, but more importantly protecting what he calls the “outstanding natural landscapes” that surround the community, which he said will result in the local tourism industry becoming “dead overnight if these things go ahead”. 

“The guts of the issue is that Contact Energy has lodged a resource consent to build a wind farm, consisting of 55 turbines which are 220 metres tall. Which is the Auckland Sky Tower observation deck height,” he said.  

“We’re all for decarbonisation, and the rural community is for that matter, but at what cost?  

“And the public and the residents in the community surrounding this wind farm have had no say in what is going on.” 

The issue placed Rabbidge, “by default”, he said, in the spokesperson role for the West Catlins Preservation Society, a group opposing the wind farm. 

He said the group has been working to create awareness about the issues they are facing in their community. 

Similar rural preservation groups have been set up by communities across the country, including in Waiuku, a small rural town south of Auckland which, if the recently lodged resource management consent is successful, is set to have an 18-turbine wind farm constructed.   

Rabbidge and the Waiuku Rural Preservation Society have voiced concern that the previous government’s covid fast-track consenting process negatively affected the consultation process by rushing things along. 

But chief executive of the New Zealand Wind Energy Association (NZWEA) Kevin Hart said the consultation process is adequate, and that responsibility for this mainly falls with the resource management consent process, and not with investors. 

Hart did not agree that the covid fast-track consenting process had a negative impact on the consultation process. 

“All the fast-track process does is take out a lot of the bureaucracy, and it creates a one-stop shop for consenting,” he said. 

“It doesn’t avoid or deter any form of consultation, so you still have to go through the consultation process, but it just strips out some of the bureaucracy that was built into the process over however many years.”  

He said investors follow a process to secure land rights from landowners, and from there the process is handled through the Resource Management Act (RMA). 

“Investors will identify land that has a suitable wind resource, and if that wind resource looks appealing then they approach the landowner, and then investors would secure a licence to occupy rights to specific parts of the land, which allows them to both construct and operate the wind farm,” he said. 

“Once the land use rights are secured between the two parties, the investor will then go and seek resource consent.” 

Through the resource management process, Hart said, the community and other stakeholders are then engaged. 

“The resource consent process is quite convoluted and complex, it takes a long time, you’ve gotta go through all the various stakeholder engagement processes.  

“Even though you might have a landowner that has consented to having a wind farm on their land, you still need to consult with the wider community, the local iwi, and any associated stakeholders that might be impacted either positively or negatively by the wind farm.  

“Once all that consultation process has been undertaken and there is general agreement – and I’ll add you’re never going to get 100% agreement from all the stakeholders that they are good with the proposal – then the resource consent is granted by the relevant authority.  

“From there, once the investors have consent, then they will embark on a construction phase.” 

Asked how nearby landowners and local communities can benefit from wind farms, he said that aside from various local community funds provided by energy companies, in the case of financial reimbursement, that will depend on whether nearby landowners are what is considered an “affected party”. 

The only party that gets financially reimbursed is the landowner. Although if you are an adjacent landowner then you can become what is called an affected party under the RMA,” he said. 

“And that’s where they start to assess how close is the wind farm to their house, what are the effects of noise, and a whole lot of assessment of effects are undertaken as part of this consenting process to make sure the impacts, be it real or perceived, are minimised.  

“If they are then determined as an affected party, and for whatever reason, be it the noise, or they might not like the look of them if they are that close, then the investor could approach that party and say ‘Okay I get why you’re being impacted, would financial compensation make this go away, or would that alleviate your concerns?’ 

“So we’ve been asking for an open public meeting for a long time now. And they are refusing to do that because they think their consultation is adequate.”

Dean Rabbidge, West Catlins sheep, beef and dairy farmer.

“Most of the time those adjacent landowners that don’t want them, no money is going to change their mind, they just don’t want them next to their land for a number of reasons, which is when these things end up in Environmental Court and then a judge has got to basically make a decision by weighing up all the facts and evidence. 

“But again, that is all up to the RMA, so that is out of the developer’s control, and it’s governed by the Resource Management Act.  

Given the divisive nature of the issue in rural communities, Hart said he still believes the benefits of wind turbines to the farming sector outweigh the negatives. 

“So there is an opportunity here for landowners to increase the value of their farm, because they can have 30-35 years of locked-in revenue on their less-productive farmland just by signing a bit of paper. 

“Can it inhibit farmers? I think the area that it could inhibit is obviously through lost utilisation of the land, but that can also count as a benefit. Because if you don’t get the benefit because you have underutilised land, then you obviously don’t progress.”

“So there is a negative side but there is also a positive side as well.” 

Hart is also convinced that, given on-shore wind farms are much better suited to NZ’s economic and environmental landscape over offshore wind farms, the impacts wind-turbines could have on our natural landscapes are again outweighed by their benefits. 

“They [wind turbines] are synonymous with green energy and reduced carbon emissions,” he said.

“Visual impacts are of course a factor that may contradict this statement, but in NZWEA’s view, the benefits to our climate and green economy are considerably greater than the visual impacts, which can be mitigated through various landowner and stakeholder consultations. 

“Not everyone will agree to the mitigations, but the RMA in NZ provides for some of the most stringent consultation and mitigating requirements when compared to other countries.”

Meanwhile, Rabbidge said he has been asking for an open public meeting from Contact Energy to discuss the proposed West Catlins wind farm. 

“So we’ve been asking for an open public meeting for a long time now. And they are refusing to do that because they think their consultation is adequate,” he said. 

Contact Energy’s head of wind and solar Matthew Cleland said the company “works hard to be a good neighbour and a positive part of the community”. 

“Since May 2023, we have hosted six community open days and meetings; kept our website up to date with information, and our project team have made themselves available for any questions via phone and email.”  

When Manawatū dairy farmer Scott Jimmieson decided the traditional path to farm ownership was out of the picture, he looked to chicken farming as a way of getting on the land on his own account.  

Now, six years on, he and his wife Emma have grown the operation from the corner of his parents’ leased deer shed to 40,000 hens across eight sheds providing free range eggs to customers all the way to Wellington’s CBD. 

The eggs are sold through their company, Local Food NZ, which was initially formed solely as a means of selling their eggs – but now, Scott said, is part of their mission to “be a part of something bigger than ourselves, connecting fresh local food with customers”. 

Alongside the eggs, produce from other local farmers and growers, such as asparagus, honey and olive oil, are now sold through the  Local Food NZ platform.

To rewind back to the beginning of the Local Food NZ story, the initial idea for eggs began while Scott was on his OE in the United Kingdom, discovering what he thought was a great opportunity. 

“I was dairy farming here and then I decided to take two years and go live in London, and so while I was over there I noticed there were a lot of free range eggs in local Tesco and supermarkets,” Scott said. 

“And by living in places like the UK you tend to get exposed to what you could call the future, as we often follow along behind the UK and US in some way or form, so I got thinking if I went home then that wouldn’t be a bad thing to get into.  

“When I arrived back I bought 500 chickens, and continued working on a dairy farm, putting all the income from that job into the business, slowly building up to around 2000 birds, and eventually got enough funds to build the first big shed, which is 5000 birds.

In the beginning, Scott said, it was tough balancing the early mornings of dairy farming with trying to start a business – one of the main reasons for eventually choosing to change careers. 

“I was working on this dairy farm in Linton, and I was getting up at 3.45 and driving 45 minutes to Linton to milk cows, and then sometimes I would come back during the day and do work and then back in the afternoon for milking, then back at night to carry on working.” 

“At that time, Dad was really good because he was doing a lot of the work with the eggs during the day while I was off earning income and plugging it back into the business.  

“So we decided something had to change there, as although it was a great short-term solution for growing the business it wasn’t a sustainable long-term solution.”

This was when a job came up in town selling cars for McVerry Crawford, which would allow Scott to hit two birds with one stone, starting his working day at 8am and learning valuable sales and negotiating skills. “That was something that got me into the business world of how things work behind the scenes, giving me that experience with customer service, negotiating, money, finance and what not. 

“And so all the skills I learnt there for four years I just portrayed back into the egg industry.” 

As the egg business grew, Scott decided to quit his job in town and go all in with Local Food NZ, taking on more staff for various different roles and expanding the business. 

Once the business was viable, Scott and Emma also began purchasing the 35 hectare lease-block from Scott’s parents, and further down the track bought into a much larger operation in Himatangi with seven sheds on 30ha, with another 45ha on a lease agreement. 

They now both lead a team of 15, with around six full-time staff and the remaining part time, including Scott’s father, who handles most of the deliveries. 

Scott said the process is as efficient as possible, with orders right through to the deliveries being automated using technology, meaning a customer can often place an order and have their produce delivered overnight. 

“What it means for the consumer is that they can get eggs fresher, so instead of them being a week old by the time they go to the shop and are bought, they are getting them the following day, or two days after. 

“So we’re just using technology that is available to everyone to speed up that whole process.  

“And also one of our drawcards is that not only are we local, but we’re competitively priced, because direct to consumer is the best way to capture the margin.” 

Both Scott and Emma were brought up in rural NZ – much of the reason that they both want to help bridge the gap between consumers and how food is produced. 

Emma said understanding where and how food is produced was something she took for granted while growing up on her family’s Taumarunui sheep and beef farm, and so she hopes Local Food NZ can do good in this space. 

“Growing up on a sheep and beef farm, I thought everyone must know farmers, and everyone must understand how food is made, but you then realise a lot of people don’t, which is quite sad,” Emma said.

“That’s not anyone’s fault, it’s just what’s happened over time. But what we’ve found with Local Food NZ is that all the people we’re involved with absolutely love being able to understand who is making their food.  

“So they’re getting to know who we are, and what’s happening on the farm, and we’ve really enjoyed that aspect.” 

Young leaders in the New Zealand sheep industry are invited to put themselves forward for the Next Generation Sheep Farmer Programme. 

Set to go ahead in Australia between August 3-10, it will bring together young sheep farmers from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, offering a platform for knowledge exchange, collaboration and skills development. 

The programme, which is part of the Global Sheep Producers Forum (GSPF), will be made up of two interlinked parts, with the first part having participants form groups with other participants from partner countries to decide on an area of sheep farming they want to focus on. 

Throughout the programme they will meet online with their group to work on the project, and will present their findings to GSPF online following an in-person visit to Australia. 

The second part of the programme includes a visit to a GSPF partner country to understand their sheep farming industry, with this year’s visit hosted by Australia. 

This will involve visiting farms, processors and sheep industry members before attending Australia’s LambEx conference. 

Applicants must be under the age of 35. They must have demonstrated leadership and be actively involved in sheep farming in NZ.

Applicants can express interest by emailing their CV and a cover letter to Nicholas.Jolly@beeflambnz.com, including an explanation as to why they are the ideal participant and details of how they have demonstrated leadership in the NZ sheep industry. 

Applications close on February 15 2024. 

Ivan Holloway, the production animal business manager at VetLife Timaru, says there are stark differences in the way heat affects cows compared with sheep, but most issues are manageable with careful planning.

With cows, predominantly dairy, heat stress has been highlighted through technology in recent years, Holloway said. 

“What we’ve been seeing with the advent of technology is a lot more wearables on cows, things like cow collars, measuring rumination rate and that sort of thing, and a lot of farmers last year were getting heat alerts,” he said.

“So if temperatures are going to increase and become more extreme then we are going to have to keep an eye on things.” 

Holloway said this is concerning in some areas of Canterbury, where dairy farms are reliant on centre pivot irrigators at the expense of trees, which would normally provide shade for stock. 

“One of the things you do with heat stress is seek shade, but there isn’t any shade in these areas. 

“And with the cow you’ve got to remember with the rumen it’s a fermentation chamber and they actually create heat and they can’t dissipate it when the temperatures are getting higher and higher, when they would normally seek shade.” 

With limited options for shade on some dairy farms, Holloway said, “we need to be thinking about different ways we can mitigate this”. 

“In a crowd you get 600-700 cows all together in the middle of milking. They all generate heat and while in close proximity generate more and more heat.

“In America they run shower lines under the pivots and that sort of thing so the cows can be damp. So maybe in cow sheds we could be thinking about shower lines in there,” Holloway said. 

He said the No 1 thing is having plenty of drinking water available for stock.

Sheep, on the other hand, tend to do well if it’s dry  – as long as they have access to plenty of water and feed – because the heat often fries parasites.

“The worm burdens are not as bad throughout the warm periods,” said Holloway. 

However, even though “they are often sitting redundant in dung pats, as eggs or inhibited, they’re still there building up in numbers, probably because they are still breeding in the animals so the eggs are still being put out”. 

This is why, among other reasons, it is important for farmers to keep an eye out for rain after extended dry periods. 

“If and when it does rain, and you have a low pasture cover, you get a film of water across, which makes the dung pats break down and spread larvae,” he said. 

“And of course with that lower cover, the majority of the parasites live in the first 1-2cm, and with only 1cm or 2cm there the animals are ingesting the larvae in great numbers. 

“So with the parasite breakdowns during rain following a dry spell we often see people get caught out, so watching for that rain and acting accordingly is essential.”

Holloway said in combination with an increase in parasites, for some regions that are prone to things like facial eczema, rain following a dry period can create the perfect storm. 

As well as this, one of the most prevalent issues in NZ over the summer months is flystrike, with 2-10% of the national flock being affected every year. 

“Watching out for flystrike is important, as when it’s hot and humid, flies, particularly the Australian green blowfly, will have a ball,” Holloway said. 

This can be prevented and managed through dagging and crutching, and the application of preventative chemicals using well-functioning gear and following instructions carefully. 

This article was one of the most popular articles on farmersweekly.co.nz in 2023.

Since arriving on NZ’s shores in the early 1970s, the self-shedding Wiltshire flock has remained relatively small compared with other breeds – that is, until recently.

Breeder Will Morrison said he’s seen demand skyrocket. 

At a dispersal sale in Hawke’s Bay at the beginning of this year, for example, some pens of Wiltshire 2-tooth ewes went for as much as $530 per head. 

Morrison’s family has been farming Wiltshire sheep since the ’80s, when his father John bought New Zealand’s three existing Wiltshire flocks and aggregated them on the family’s now sixth-generation Rangitikei sheep and beef farm, which Will now farms alongside his second cousin Graham. 

He believes the latest surge can be credited to staffing issues and general discontent with the low price of strong wool for such a long period of time.

“Farmers are always really optimistic and they know how to weather boom and bust cycles, but with the price of wool being so poor for so long, people have just gotten sick of it,” Morrison said.  

“Another thing has been staffing. What we’ve seen is with workload pressures it’s come to a tipping point where people have come to us and said, right we’re gonna have to change something in our system.”

Once farmers have transitioned part or all of their flock to Wiltshires, Morrison said, it has allowed them to reduce their shearing to once a year, and eventually through effective breeding programmes eliminate the need for shearing altogether in their Wiltshire flocks. 

As well as this, maintenance around crutching, dagging and flystrike is lessened or eliminated, reducing a good chunk of the usual workload on farms. 

Morrison said that although the rise in popularity since 2018 is exciting for the breed as whole, there has also been a downside. 

“Their dramatic rise in popularity has seen a lot of compromises made, with regards to the quality of sheep being bought and sold, by both buyers and sellers,” he said. 

“Wiltshires have been farmed by a big range of farmers including typical sheep and beef farmers, organic farmers, lifestylers and low/no input farms. All of these people now find themselves selling breeding rams and females.  

“As a consequence, there is a massive range in the quality of Wiltshire sheep and a massive range in the presentation of Wiltshires for sale. There are some fantastic Wiltshires being bought and sold, as well as some terrible ones.” 

As well as this, terms like “100% shedding” are being thrown around, carrying the assumption or requirement for all Wiltshires to naturally lose all their wool – something that requires careful breeding from both breeders and commercial farmers post-purchase. 

Despite this, Morrison believes Wiltshires and the range of alternative no-wool breeds will benefit hugely from the increase in performance recording that’s been seen. He said the sheep will make significant genetic gains in the next five to 10 years. 

Someone who has been working hard to achieve these genetic gains is AgResearch’s sheep genomics team senior scientist Dr Tricia Johnson, who has been studying the breed for 17 years. 

She said there is huge potential for the breed in the NZ farming landscape, but getting breeding programmes right is crucial. 

“You actually need to be quite disciplined to come to a full shedding outcome. It’s absolutely possible, but you can’t expect a miracle overnight to get to full shedding and it is actually a little bit of a journey to get there. 

“There is a really strong genetic basis to it, and the issue we are having in the industry is for breeders or commercial farmers in particular who are starting to incorporate shedding genetics is that it isn’t just a single gene.”

To ensure the shedding trait is consistent across the entire flock, Johnson said, it’s important to keep going back to Wiltshire rams for a period of time, or have a very dedicated cross-breeding programme that focuses on selection of the trait. It can take multiple generations before they are most of the way there, she said. 

It’s also important to ensure the breeder is making good genetic progress with their Wiltshires, as well as considering that the other fundamentals of a good sheep are there, something she said is often overlooked. 

“One of the things we also have to think about is that it is wonderful to have shedding, but you still have to have the underlying productive capacity to ideally have twins, good milking, be able to wean good lambs and everything else. 

“Also, in the upper North Island we also have a relatively limited number of Wiltshire breeders at the moment doing the RamGuard programme, breeding for facial eczema tolerance. 

“Commercial farmers just need to make sure that they’re actually still thinking about the other traits that are important to their system as they start to think about these Wiltshires.” 

A strong-wool sheep farmer herself alongside her husband in Otago, Johnson is confident that strong-wool breeds will always have their stronghold in the industry, but said the no-wool breeds will serve an important role in the future of sheep farming in NZ. 

She is heavily involved with the new Sheep of the Future initiative launched this year by Pāmu’s Focus Genetics, with funding from the Ministry for Primary Industries.  

“The basis of that initiative is that we’ve identified that we have our current strong-wool market in NZ, and that’s going to be the mainstay of what some commercial farmers want. But there are other parts of the country where strong-wool animals are not the best option moving forward.  

“And one of those areas, for example, could be Northland, where, if we think about climate change, they have been experiencing subtropical conditions that mean sheep have been displaced out of that region by beef cattle for a number of years.  

“But if we can actually have the right genetics that suit that Northland environment, which includes thinking about things like heat tolerance, it might be that no-wool on its own is enough for them to have improved heat tolerance.”  

“So it’s about recognising that in the future we need to maybe get some different specialised breeds for different parts of NZ.” 

On a Manawatū lifestyle block tucked under the Ruahine Range sits an old hay barn converted into a spacious, light-filled art studio. 

Inside that hay barn you’ll find depictions of just about every scene ingrained in the minds of those some way or another involved with rural New Zealand. 

The artist behind these depictions, Graham Christensen, picked up the paintbrush late in life, and fell in love with the craft right away. 

“So some 12 years ago my wife and I were talking about retirement, we were thinking about what we are going to do when we retire,” Christensen said. 

“My wife suggested that I ought to take up painting and I had no idea why because initially I had absolutely no interest. Prior to 12 years ago I really couldn’t care, but she then bought me some vouchers to go to lessons. 

“I gave it a shot, and the tutor must’ve been an exceedingly good tutor and gave me lots of encouragement, and after I finished these lessons I was absolutely obsessed with art.” 

After a while Christensen found himself at an important crossroads, having to decide on the focus of his work.

“At some point, probably about six years ago, I started to worry about what I would like to focus on, and another artist said to me, ‘What have you enjoyed most in your life, what do you like doing?’

“Then I said, ‘Well I like farming’. And so he said ‘Paint farming pictures’.” 

“Then it all came to me at that point and I started painting woolsheds and sheep yards and stockmen and the guys leaning on the Cheltenham or Halcombe pub and those sorts of things, which I absolutely enjoyed.”

He traces this passion for rural environments to his upbringing on a sheep and beef farm north of Feilding, alongside his own career on the periphery of the sector.  

“I guess that goes back over time to when I was at school working on farms, then I worked in shearing gangs for several holidays, on hay trucks and all those sorts of things,” Christensen said. 

“I liked going back to all those sorts of areas, the likes of the woolsheds, the likes of shearers and shearing gangs and I feel so much when I paint those sorts of pictures. 

“For example when I paint a shearer, I can smell the wool from the shed, I can feel the vibrations of the handpiece and I can hear the different sounds of the woolshed.” 

After attending Lincoln University, Christensen worked in sheep and cattle breeding research throughout the 1960s and ’70s, leading a research team in Canterbury, as well as spending a year on Mana Island as manager of a sheep breeding research centre. 

He also farmed deer on a block of land in Manawatū, while working in degree management and career advisory for agricultural and horticultural students at Massey University.

He says he has always enjoyed the characters and scenes in rural communities, explaining that it’s like he’s painting a memory with each piece, whether that is of his own or the person who is viewing it through their own lens.

“I enjoy the rural community, and farmers generally. You know, you talk to farmers and they are a different group of people from the rest, and the whole environment and the people I just enjoy.” 

Christensen said an example of this was when an elderly, retired farmer came through his gallery recently and purchased a painting as it brought back memories of her late husband. 

“She and her husband had been farming in Hawke’s Bay, and they had sold their farm and retired and he had passed away. 

“And the shearer I had painted was an old guy, he was bald with a little bit of hair around the side, bending over shearing, and she said ‘That looks just like my husband’.  

“So often people see something I’ve painted as a memory. 

“What has also turned out to be unusual when I’ve done a painting is that somebody will come up and say, “Ooh well I would quite like to buy that’, and that surprises me. 

“I do it because I enjoy it, but the spinoff is that occasionally people like to buy them.” 

In support of the local farming community, Christensen donates a painting every so often and promotes it. When the painting sells the proceeds go to the Manawatū Rural Support Trust. 

 You can see Graham’s latest exhibition at the Coach House Museum in Feilding running throughout December, January and February.

A century ago a fertiliser production process paved the way for increased food production across the globe through the use of ammonia-based nitrogen fertiliser.

Called the Haber-Bosch process, it works by combining nitrogen from the air and hydrogen using high pressure and heat, and its efficiency over other methods resulted in 50% of the world’s food producers relying on ammonia fertiliser. 

However, despite its many benefits, the process isn’t cheap or environmentally friendly, accounting for 1-2% of global energy consumption and CO2 emissions. 

In response to this, scientists from Germany’s Helmholtz Institute for Renewable Energy claim to have pioneered a new ammonia production process that could provide an alternative to the Haber-Bosch process, using off-the-shelf lasers to break the chemical bonds, a process needed for ammonia production. 

They say it could be used with renewable energy to produce sustainable fertiliser, offering hope for an alternative to traditional methods at a time when traditionally produced fertiliser is both unsustainable and expensive.

The new process has broken all current energy use and yield records, Huize Wang, from the Helmholtz Institute for Renewable Energy, told chemistryworld.com.

“We have achieved an unprecedented yield under room temperature and atmospheric pressure conditions, notable when compared to other methods,” he said.

Victor Mougel, an expert in electrochemical transformation at ETS Zürich, said being able to be made at room temperature means the ammonia could be produced where it is needed, also saving on transportation costs. 

“These alternative methods are potentially more sustainable than the Haber–Bosch process, which is very energy intensive as it operates at high temperature and pressure and contributes to carbon dioxide emissions,” he said.  

“As the process works in ambient conditions it offers operational flexibility, as well as the environmental benefits with that.” 

The next step is understanding how the method could be scaled up to be commercially viable, something Ifan Stephens, an expert in electrochemistry and nitrogen fixation at Imperial College London, is sceptical about. 

“I’m not certain [these] high rates can be sustained for long periods of time,” he said.

“Moreover, the fact that it is a batch process, as opposed to a continuous process, would pose significant limitations to its viability.”

Researchers are trialling several different methods for scaling up production. 

Where others saw the issue of bobby calves in the dairy industry as a serious problem, the winners of this year’s Silver Fern Farms Market Leader award at the 2023 Beef+Lamb NZ Awards, Alan McDermott and Julia Galwey, saw an opportunity. 

The co-founders and business partners joined the dots between Kiwi dairy farmers and leading chefs in New Zealand and Japan, and set out to make pasture-raised veal a staple on their menus – and eventually those of chefs all over the world. 

Pearl Pastures contract farmers to pasture-raise dairy calves and have the animals processed for veal. Alan said although veal is sometimes viewed as a second-class product, he has yet to meet a chef who doesn’t love the ingredient.

“It’s actually a beautiful product, it’s absolutely incredible,” he said. “Anybody that eats it says it’s amazing. People have even told me it’s the best meat they’ve ever tasted.”

Through an agreement with dairy farmers, after the calves are weaned they are either kept on the dairy farm where they were born to be pasture-raised, or they are sent to another farm to be finished.

They are taken right through to 9-12 months, or 150kg carcase weight, after being reared and finished on a mixture of cow’s milk and pasture. From there they are processed and packaged at two different meat processors to be marketed and sold through Pearl Pastures. 

Alan said there have been negative connotations around veal stemming from the coverage of bobby calves and poor practices around the world, but he thinks NZ is well-positioned to be a market leader. 

“There’s this perception that veal is a bobby calf and so from a customer perspective that is terrible, and then the other one is ‘Oh veal, that’s where you store little calves away in the dark in small pens’ and that’s also terrible,” he said. 

“But we [NZ dairy farmers] have incredibly high animal welfare outcomes, our calves are incredibly healthy, and as well as that the farmers that grow them just cannot believe how healthy they are compared to calves reared on milk powder.” 

Animal welfare is front and centre for Pearl Pastures, with Alan saying it was the catalyst for the business. 

“It gives the dairy farmers an opportunity to do something a bit different, and for the calves to have a life worth living,” he said. 

“Our focus is all about animal welfare, and that’s what drove us to do this. It’s that there has to be a better way. We can’t keep sending bobby calves to the factory at four days old, or killing them on the farm at zero days. 

“And then if we can create a beautiful product during that process, we should definitely do that.”

Silver Fern Farms market leader category at this year’s Beef+Lamb NZ awards celebrates commitment by an individual or farming business to drive value by meeting market needs. Charlie Williamson spoke to the finalists.

Alan McDermont and Julia Galway – Pearl Pastures

Where others saw the issue of bobby calves in the dairy industry as a serious problem, Alan McDermont and Julie Galway saw an opportunity. 

The pair joined the dots between Kiwi dairy farmers and leading chefs in New Zealand and Japan, intent on making pasture-raised veal like Pearl Pastures’ a staple on their menus and, eventually, those of chefs all over the world. 

They contract farmers to pasture-raise dairy calves and have the animals processed for veal. McDermont says although veal is sometimes viewed as a second-class product, he has yet to meet a chef who doesn’t love the ingredient.

“It’s actually a beautiful product, it’s absolutely incredible,” he says. “Anybody that eats it says it’s amazing. People have even told me it’s the best meat they’ve ever tasted.”

Through an agreement with dairy farmers, after the calves are weaned they are either kept on the dairy farm where they were born to be pasture raised, or they are sent to another farm to be finished.

They are taken right through to 9-12 months, or 150kg carcase weight, after being reared and finished on a mixture of cow’s milk and pasture. From there they are processed at two different meat processors to be marketed and sold through their Pearl Pastures brand. 

McDermont says there have been negative connotations around the product stemming from the coverage of bobby calves and poor practices around the world, but he thinks NZ is well-positioned to be a market leader. 

“There’s this perception that veal is a bobby calf and so from a customer perspective that is terrible, and then the other one is ‘Oh veal, that’s where you store little calves away in the dark in small pens and that’s also terrible,” he says. 

“But we [NZ dairy farmers] have incredibly high animal welfare outcomes, our calves are incredibly healthy, and as well as that the farmers that grow them just cannot believe how healthy they are compared to calves reared on milk powder.” 

Animal welfare is front and centre for Pearl Pastures, with McDermont saying it was the catalyst for the business. 

“It gives the dairy farmers an opportunity to do something a bit different, and for the calves to have a life worth living,” he says. 

“Our focus is all about animal welfare, and that’s what drove us to do this. It’s that there has to be a better way. We can’t keep sending bobby calves to the factory at four days old, or killing them on the farm at zero days. 

“And then if we can create a beautiful product during that process, we should definitely do that.”

Reon and Wendy Verry – Verry Farming Ltd, Waitomo

Caring for the environment has always been a big part of Waitomo farmers Wendy and Reon Verry’s successful careers on the land, with this focus extending well beyond the farmgate. 

They are the owner operators of a 1400ha total, 1260ha effective sheep and beef operation, with the 140ha ineffective either retired native bush or in forestry. 

Reon says that using the words “effective” and “ineffective” may be the correct terminology, but after a recent conversation he thinks there could be a better way of explaining land use. 

“I don’t actually like the way we say effective and ineffective when talking about the land. I was talking with an old Māori guy the other day on the east coast and he was saying every piece of land has a purpose,” says Reon. 

“This resonated because there is no point saying it’s effective or ineffective because the stuff that is fenced off still has a purpose.” 

The Verrys have been farming on their own account since 2007, and although they are both from farming families they say they are “just starting the generational farming journey on this property”. 

An impressive operation, it’s home to a mob of 4500 Coopworth ewes, 1400 hoggets, 150 beef cows, 700 bulls and 300 dairy grazers. It employs two managers, one shepherd and two Growing Future Farmers students. 

Across the property, the Verrys have undertaken extensive work fencing off waterways and carrying out projects to improve biodiversity, with Reon saying it’s always been about figuring out how they can have the most impact. 

“So with fencing off waterways, we’ve done about 21km, fencing off bush around the place we’ve done about 15 km. There is some work that predates us, but we’ve supercharged it in the last seven or eight years especially,” he says. 

“Our priority with all our projects is where it’s going to have the biggest impact, so making sure that the water that comes off of our property is as good as we can get it.” 

Reon credits Wendy’s record keeping for them cruising through their NZ Farm Assurance programme, ultimately gaining a gold standard. 

“With the NZFAP+ it’s important because there is actually a bit of a carrot with it, unlike a lot of other requirements. 

“With the work we had already done around the environment we didn’t think it would take too much to achieve it, and so you can either achieve it to a silver or a gold standard, and thanks to Wendy we managed to get to the gold standard. 

Reon and Wendy have also concentrated these efforts beyond their own property, launching alongside other local farmers what would become King Country Rivercare (KCRC) in 2016, a catchment group covering a catchment of around 350 farms, with well over half of that heavily involved. 

Reon says they went all in from the start, and it was a matter of learning along the way, but it has paid off so far. 

“The advice initially was to stay small and focus on one little area, but in 2016 we decided that we were just going to have to go large and see if it can be successful at a larger scale and learn as we go, says Reon.” 

“There were some challenges, but everyone shared the same goal, and we figured if 60% of people want to do the right thing then it could lead to some big changes.” 

“King Country River Care is also a great vehicle for farmers to share their stories.”

Jimmy Taylor and Shane and Lynette McManaway – Ongaha Station, Wairarapa

Two and half years ago, Shane and Lynnette McManaway became only the second family to be custodians of Ongaha, an historic Wairarapa sheep and beef station. 

Together with their manager, Jimmy Taylor, they have overseen an unprecedented transformation of the farm’s infrastructure and biodiversity profile.

Today the 580ha, 520ha-effective station runs a terminal mob of 800 to 1,000 ewes, finishes lambs and hoggets and, through a partnership with Wairere Rams, grazes ram hoggets. It also grazes dairy heifers for local dairy farms and runs a cash-cropping enterprise on the 100ha of pivot-irrigated land.

When the McManaways assumed stewardship of Ongaha they and Taylor quickly determined that the infrastructure needed a significant upgrade and immediate work was required to protect the waterways. This has resulted in an extensive development programme, including planting 65,000 native plants and erecting extensive riparian fencing.

The Ruamahanga River running around the property presents a significant threat, owing to regular flooding, but also an opportunity for remediation. Consequently, Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) agreed to contribute labour and shared funding to the work. It collaborated with the McManaways and Taylor from the outset to transform Ongaha to the property it is now. 

In addition to 35km of replacement fencing undertaken by the McManaways, GWRC funded an additional 9km of fencing along the Ruamahanga and its backwater system, resulting in retirement of 9ha of marginal land. This is in addition to a 12ha stand of native trees the McManaways chose to retire as a priority, with permanent fencing and fill-in native planting.

Ongaha Station has completed the NZFAP-plus programme to a Gold standard, something Taylor says was hard work, but “bloody good to complete”. 

“We want to farm at the highest level, whilst improving the land for the next generation who farm it,” says Taylor. 

“The Gold standard reflects what we do on farm already, so it’s a terrific way to pull it all together and be recognised for it,” he says.

A significant focus for Ongaha, Taylor says, is to protect its soils, given its climate and soil types. 

“We’re always trying to preserve our soils, drilling crops wherever possible, minimising heavy cattle and preventing pugging over the winter.” 

Taylor says he understands the importance of programmes like NZFAP-plus, and is grateful for the work its processing partner, Silver Fern Farms, has done alongside the team while completing the assessment.

“Everything we’re doing at Ongaha speaks to our collective values, which align to Silver Fern Farms’ premium programmes. They do a great job of opening up markets and opportunities that recognise what we do.”

Disclosure: This article was sponsored by Silver Fern Farms, in the lead up to the Beef+Lamb NZ awards on the 19th October, 2023.

Around midnight on September 17, Hawke’s Bay farmers Max and Lucy Tweedie found themselves trying to decide whether it was safe to stay inside their house as severe winds began blowing the windows in. 

Max said they are used to some pretty hairy weather around this time of year on their Tutira property, but they had never seen anything like this. 

“The wind was coming from all angles in the middle of the night, and it was a wee bit tornado-like,” he said. 

“We were sitting in bed and bits of the house were flying off, there were four broken windows which the wind blew in. Part of the conservatory flung off and came into our room, and a big bit of guttering came off the house and broke the window. 

“We always expect it here to an extent, we get pretty bad spring equinox winds, but this was amplified.” 

The Tweedies run the Hallmark Angus stud. Their well-known bull sale shed was relatively unharmed, but they suffered extensive damage to several other buildings. 

“We lost the best part of a four-bay implement shed. Some timber pines came through one shed, and that wiped out our walk-in freezer and took out most of that shed,” Max said. 

“And then another one came down on a two-bay shed and broke through the roof and wall of that. It also pulled a whole lot of iron off of our covered cattle yards and wiped out about 10 pine trees.” 

The Tweedies are no strangers to severe weather and the recovery that follows, having dealt with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle earlier in the year. 

During the cyclone recovery, Hallmark organised a charity bull sale alongside Havelock North’s Koanui Herefords, raising funds for cyclone relief. 

Max said that through it all he has learnt the importance of focusing on the controllables. 

“We had to move as quickly as we could to get everything weatherproof because we had 140ml of rain following all that wind,” he said. 

“We just had to make things happen, ’cause I guess we’ve had a fair bit of stuff out of our control lately, and you’ve just gotta control the things that you can.” 

WeatherWatch’s Phil Duncan said there are a number of factors influencing the increase in severe weather across the motu, especially in these east coast regions. 

Spring is traditionally a time of rough weather  and “this year is the closest to normal we’ve seen in years, and on top of that, El Niño, and some of the marine heatwaves that are going on in our part of the world, are all adding to the extra energy that we’re seeing”. 

“Then you have places like Hawke’s Bay, who have been caught up in these weird low-pressure zones through all of this that have put extra pressure in that area with wind.  

“So between that, and the mountains and ranges near Tutira, that’s a reason why we’re seeing weather events like this.”