34 | Happy with the way things are going 2022 New Zealand Share Farmer of the Year, Will Green - Canterbury / North Otago. Will Green and his partner Sally Eames. Virginia Wright Will Green and his partner Sally Eames are very clear that their ultimate goal is farm ownership, but in the meantime Will is very happy with the way things are going with the South Island dairy corporate, Dairy Holdings, and on their farm known as Propad. Having started with them on June 1st 2020 as a variable order share-milker, purchasing 40% of the herd in exchange for 34% of the milk cheque, he goes into next season with 100% ownership getting 53% of the milk cheque, a contract he’s very happy with. “Dairy Holdings recognise that with inflation and so on we need a bigger cut of the pie and fairer terms like these. Obviously I’m paying 53% of the shared costs as well, like the urea and wintering rather than 50%, but still it’s a good deal all round,” says Will. From his point of view the more costs you have in the contract the better. “It provides a great opportunity to run a really tight ship and push forwards” says Will. Running a tight ship is one of the things that fed into Will’s being named National New Zealand Dairy Industries Share Farmer of the Year for 2022. He credits the ongoing business analysis and reviewing as a key tool in his success peak milking 1060 cows on Propad’s 270 fully irrigated hectares in Hinds just out of Ashburton. The cows go off farm for the winter, they keep 25% replacements, and Will is allowed to rear any additional animals for himself as a pathway to increased equity. Since he began with Propad the milk price has been in his favour, but as far as Will is concerned the absolute key to his steady increase in equity is his combined focus on their pasture-based system and managing their costs. “Because our system doesn’t rely on a whole lot of infrastructure and heavy machinery for feeding out or making silage we budget for what we need and that’s it. We’re not investing money in machinery, we’re focusing any free money into servicing debt or growing the business with the bank allowing us to re-borrow to keep buying more cows while being in a healthy position.” Will acknowledges that being irrigated with the Canterbury Plains has its advantages but more importantly they focus on their pasture as the conduit to production. “It’s simple. To get the most profitability from our pasture we should be growing as much as we can and grazing it as much as we can.” What this means in practice is a lack of production targets as such, in favour of concentrating on maximising pasture harvested and fertility, with production a by-product of getting those things right. “This year we’re looking to harvest about 16.5 tons of grass which is about a half-ton increase per hectare, and our six week in-calf rate is 81% with eight or nine percent empty. DAIRY » Will Green New Zealand Certified Builders Association CB Construction LTD - New Builds - Additions - Alterations - Farm Buildings Pleased to be associated with Will Green. Proudly supportingWill Green So we’ll have a lot of cows calving early and a lot of milk early in the season which will give us a push on our production as long as we’re strict about making sure we have enough grass on farm in the early spring to keep them well fed,” says Will. This year they’ve moved to a slightly longer rotation on paddocks and, after two years of focusing on spot spraying rather than blanket spraying the thistles, the clover is starting to be really well established, which may explain the increase in pasture. The cows are “good aggressive grazers” which means they make the most of what’s there and it all feeds into their milk production. They may not focus on production figures as such but they still stack up with 365,000 kgs of milk solid in total which breaks down to around 345kgs per cow. It’s a simple system but Will leaves little to chance working hard to hit the targets that will no doubt lead to farm ownership further down the track.
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