18 | RURAL PEOPLE » Richard Webby Helping the next-generation of farm workers The sheep stem from Moto-nui Romney and Kelso Maternal. Kim Bowden Richard Webby has his hands full managing a 12,000-unit farming operation, but he still manages to make time for a next-generation of farm workers. Richard is manager at Ruakaka Station, 60 kilometres inland from Gisborne on the road to Wairoa. The property covers 1,900 hectares of medium to steep hill country, with a roughly 50/50 mix of sheep and cattle. It is seeing some solid stock results. “We were pushing 150 percent on our lambing and our calving percentages were 93 percent, up from last year’s 92 percent. That comes alongside getting heavier weaning weights with our sheep and our cattle as well,” Richard says. “It’s all these factors coming together – the development programs that we’ve done in the past, the feeding, the fertiliser, the genetics.” The sheep stem from Moto-nui Romney and Kelso Maternal. “I’m using my Romney to manage my ewe flock size, and combined with the Kelso sheep I feel we get quite a complete genetic package,” he says. “The things I like about the Moto-nui sheep are they are robust, consistent in their type and moderate sized, with good bones and meat.” Richard says he had wanted to be a farmer since he “could talk”. He got his start “on a mate’s old man’s place out of Gisborne” at 16, fresh from a polytechnic course. Fast-forward a good few decades, and Richard is now a strong advocate for Growing Future Farmers, a scheme that puts young people on farms for a couple of years to give them hands-on experience and training. He reckons people are “always bemoaning the fact that there’s no good staff and there’s not young people out there”. So, when the opportunity came for him to be part of the development programme, he jumped at it. “I’ve got a very well-balanced property that allows for these young guys to come through and be quite useful contributors to the industry.” He finds it satisfying to be a part of. “You bring them along on a journey,” he says. “I just love watching these young people, from where they start, to where they finish, and I enjoy the learnings that I’ve got out of it.” It is less of a ‘throw them in the deep end’ experience than he remembers at the same age, and the cadets are given opportunities to learn with plenty of guidance in a low-pressure environment. Richard has kept several of his graduating cadets on as first-year shepherds. “The goal is to set them up for success,” he says. The operation at Ruakaka is, technically, carbon-neutral, but Richard is a pragmatist when asked about this sustainability credential. “It depends on what calculator you use,” he says. Pine plantations help the equation – the farm has 130 hectares of them, although Richard points out the decision to put the trees in the ground happened before his time. Take the pines out of it, he explains, and the carbon neutrality tips slightly to the positive. Another 570 hectares of Ruakaka Station is covered in natives. “There’s a lot of regeneration going on. All the major waterways are fenced off,” Richard says. “There’s also a lot of scrub - I try and leave it down in the creeks and the gullies to help the water quality and erosion.” RICHARD WEBBY PROUDLY SUPPORTING TOUGH SHEEP THAT PERFORM Rams put under high parasite pressure Cull what doesn’t handle the burden Strong emphasis placed on structure Cull those that don’t meet our fit Indepth DNA sampling Quantify our strong genetic traits CALL BEN TO ORDER YOUR 2024 RAMS MOTU-NUI ROMNEY & FE ROMNEY MOTU-NUI CROSS-BRED & FE CROSS-BRED MOTU-NUI ROMTEX Motu-nui Rams, 9263 Route 53, Weber Call Ben on 0273502424 | Ben.Morrison@xtra.co.nz admin@motu-nuirams.co.nz www.motu-nuirams.co.nz
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