| 29 Hugh de Lacy They realised the dream of farm ownership three years ago, but in June of last year Amy and Steve Gillies finally got to move onto their 97 hectare dairying block south of Te Awamutu, leaving their contract and share-milking days behind them. Since 2017 they had been working on Marian and Peter van der Heayden’s 180ha farm near Putaruru, first as contract milkers then, for the following five years, as sharemilkers. They bought their current farm in 2022 and had a contract milker running it while they continued working with the van der Heaydens. At that stage the new farm was running only 220 of Steve and Amy’sKiwi Cross cows, but with a vision of increasing cow numbers to 300, so they set about extending the cow-shed and building a feed pad. With the move to the new farm, Steve sold off 450 of the 550 cows he had been milking at the van der Heaydens’ and settled into farming the block in his own right with the help of one staff member. “The soil here is Maeroa ash which makes a very good milking platform, topography being flat to rolling with a few steeper sidings that we’re planting in native trees,” Steve says. “We supply Fonterra with around 150,000kg of milk solids a year, and we’re taking up a 55ha lease block that we’re using to support the dairy farm by harvesting grass silage for raising dairy beef calves. “We’re milking twice a day, 365 days a year, still doing split calving, though we’re transitioning to calving the whole herd in autumn this year.” As well as the silage from the 55ha block, Steve and Amy’s cows are fed bought-in maize, and 300 tonnes of palm kernel. The Gillies still run the hire shop and engineering supplies business that Amy has been overseeing with three trips a week to town to do the book-keeping. Originally from Scotland where he trained as a mechanic, Steve got into dairying during a visit to New Zealand in 2010 where he met Amy, who has RURAL PEOPLE » Broadmeadows Farms Ag Ltd Amy and Steve Gillies taking up lease block Son Arran playing in calf meal. an agricultural science degree from Massey University, when she showed up with her AI technician mother Lyn at the farm he was working on. Before his New Zealand visit he’d never set foot on a dairy farm. And while the farm ownership plan that is the goal of most share-milkers has been realised, Steve’s not resting on his laurels. “This farm is just a step on the way to developing a chain of smaller blocks like it that are ideal for sharemilkers making the move into farm ownership in this corner of the country,” Steve says. “I really like the area, land prices are good and it’s easy to make a good investment.” For all your Agricultural Contracting needs www.sansonagriculture.co.nz 027 277 7993 Te Awamutu *ÕÌňÀÕÀÕ İÌÀ >}> Steve and Amy’s Kiwi crosses each weigh on average 500kg and produce 504kg/ms annually. Feed pads have been a key to the Kiwi Crosses’ productivity: though that’s changing with the switch to autumn calving, he used pads to facilitate the pasture management.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=