48 | MEAT & WOOL » Glenlake Farm: Jim Burrows & Kim Marshall Extensive planting Jim and Ned fencing on the farm Kelly Deeks With their focus on constant improvement, Waipara sheep and beef farmers Jim Burrows and Kim Marshall have taken out the Rabobank Agri-Business Management Award with their first entry into the Ballance Farm Environment Awards. “We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into,” Kim says. “We have owned Glenlake Farm for five years and we really wanted some feedback on our business.” “Setting out our business plan for the competition has really helped to reinforce a lot of our systems around the recording and monitoring of our main KPIs around farm working expenses and net income. With the way costs have gone recently, we are really focusing on that, and stock performance as well,” Jim adds. He says while the business and its stock are consistently high performing, preparation for the competition has shown he and Kim where their baseline sits, and they continue to record and monitor data as they track their progress. Glenlake Farms runs with quite a large trading component of about 65%. Kim and Jim have always run trading stock, even prior to buying Glenlake Farm, including dairy cows they leased out and lambs they finished in vineyards which allowed them to build equity and help them towards farm ownership. More trading at Glenlake Farm gives Jim and Kim the flexibility they need to efficiently farm the summer dry, winter wet property where the climate is neither consistent or predictable. “We only buy enough trading stock that we know we’ve got the feed to finish.” When Jim and Kim bought Glenlake Farm, they did not purchase any capital stock with it, and were not sure what stock would best suit their environment. This allowed them to trial a lot of different classes and breeds of sheep and cattle as they worked their way towards finding the ideal breeds and classes that can shorten the time stock are held on the farm. They have found a winner with the stablilised high performance composite sheep breed Longdowns, which they’ve found to show high fertility, good growth, and good weaning rates. On the cattle side they have run everything from Jersey bulls to the new Angus stud they have recently started up. Their system is designed to mitigate the effects of drought by reducing the amount of stock on farm in early summer, while still being able to take advantage of North Canterbury’s warm early spring. Kim and Jim’s extensive planting was the reason their Ballance rep encouraged them to enter the 2023 Ballance Farm Environment Awards. They have planted more than 22ha of native and exotic species during the past two years to control erosion, provide shade and shelter, and also to offset proposed carbon taxes. “We’re not offsetting our emissions so much as selling our carbon credits to pay our carbon tax.” This year another 15ha of the property will be planted with eucalyptus and pine trees going into marginal, almost unproductive land for both carbon credits and timber. Jim says a sustainable farm is a profitable farm. Their five year business plan is regularly reviewed and updated as the couple continues to learn new ways to improve their farming system. The Ballance Farm Environment Awards have shown them the high standards that already exist in the industry. “You think you’re going really well then you go to these awards and realise you’ve got plenty of work still to do,” Kim says. “We’ve never wanted to be average, we’ve always wanted to be as good as we can be.” Kim encourages other farmers who might not think they are ready for the awards to put themselves out there anyway. “You’ve certainly got nothing to lose!” “You think you’re going really well then you go to these awards and realise you’ve got plenty of work still to do. “We’ve never wanted to be average, we’ve always wanted to be as good as we can be.” CARRIERS OF LIVESTOCK, GENERAL FREIGHT, BULK & FERTILISER CHEVIOT TRANSPORT 2017 LTD 99 Ward Rd, Cheviot 7310 P: 03 319 8644 A/H: 0276 776 787 anz.co.nz/rural WE ROLLED UP OUR SLEEVES AND PICKED UP THIS AWARD We’ve been named as Canstar Bank of the Year for Agribusiness 2022 for providing an outstanding combination of products and excellent service to our agribusiness customers. Looks like hard work does pay o . If you’re in the agri sector, come to the bank that’ll do the tough mahi with you.
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