10 | A very deliberate investment in people The extra person allows staff to break up milking with jobs such as weed spraying, repairs and cleaning. Kim Bowden RURAL PEOPLE » Ben King For North Canterbury dairy farmer Ben King, improving the farm does not always mean investing in the latest technology. As his 650-cow herd moves through its July-toSeptember calving, Ben and his two full-time staff members have been joined by a third, helping the team through one of its busiest periods of the year. When Business Rural caught up with him, 75 percent of the herd had calved, with the season going well. The new staff member is a deliberate investment in the people behind the operation. “We’re a business primarily, but people are number one, cows are a very close second,” Ben says. Ben had been considering Halter, which would allow him to remotely manage grazing across the farm’s multiple mobs, but the cost meant he had to choose between the technology and another fulltime employee. He describes the system as “a square peg in a round hole” for his current setup – something he would like to adopt, but not at the expense of another staff member. With the farm’s 48-aside herringbone shed requiring two people to milk, the third staff member means the team can rotate through other jobs rather than spending every working day milking. The staff work a five-on, two-off roster, meaning 10 milkings in five working days. “It just becomes monotonous and repetitive, and nobody deals well with that over time,” Ben says. The extra person allows staff to break up milking with jobs such as weed spraying, repairs and cleaning, which Ben believes helps keep the team fresh. Jerseys play an increasingly important role in Ben’s herd. The farm is unusually wet – “if you dig a hole, you’ll hit water gushing out of the ground at two metres” – making the lighter Jersey less damaging to pasture. Ben keeps his Jersey and Friesian-cross cows in separate herds – “I quite like looking at them separately” – and is gradually increasing the Jersey proportion, with an eventual goal of a fully Jersey herd. There are other practical reasons for his preference, including the breed’s milk-solid production, fertility, foot strength and ability to handle the farm’s hot Canterbury summers. Ben takes a keen interest in genetics, sourcing bulls from nine companies across seven countries last season and selecting animals he believes will move the herd in the right direction. “If you can affect change on management and breeding, you should do both,” he says. Ben inseminates cows twice a day for three weeks, carefully controlling semen temperature throughout the process, and the farm has recorded North Canterbury’s highest six-week in-calf rate for the past four years. The breeding focus is paying its way. Last year, Ben and his family earned almost as much income from selling stock they had bred as they did from their sharemilking operation. Ben takes a long-term view of the land and the wider future of dairy farming, saying farmers need to “have the least impact we can on the environment we have” and listen to what the public expects of the industry. “We’ve got to continue to get better because the way we were farming had flaws, and the way we currently farm still has room for improvement,” he says. Ben wants more people without a family connection to see dairy farming as a viable career. “It’s nice that some people prove that you can go up if you have the right attitude,” he says. Engineering . Mechanical . Water Leo Dunne Ltd. Please call us for friendly and prompt service: Office: (03) 315 8470 Email : leodunneltd@xtra.co.nz J osh P itt – Workshop Manager : 027 244 5750 Wendy Croft – Office Manager : 021 113 0368 www.leodunneltd.co.nz ® 26 Lyndon Street, Culverden PROVIDING SERVICES IN: Baling/Balage/Hay, Cultivation, Direct Drilling, Harvesting Forage/Silage/Maize, Precision Planting Our Services Include: • Architectural Homes • New Housing • Renovations • Alterations • Light Commercial Builds • Concrete Placing • Decks and Landscaping Earl Builders email: kelly@earlbuilders.co.nz mobile: 027 6609 555 And pretty much everything in-between. “You don’t have to be a family farm to be a farmer.” Ben and Allie are building their business with their young family in mind. While he wants their children to choose whatever path suits them, he hopes farming will remain an option. “If they were to choose this life, I’d like to think that we leave in a state where they can continue to do that,” he says.
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