| 45 T T Kelly Deeks Challenging season for cartage firm Swains purchased 50% of Culverden based Amuri Transport in 2021 to grow its livestock division. E.D. Swain CONTRACTING robin@totalstockcrates.co.nz www.totalstockcrates.co.nz Manufacturers of superior stockcrates ∙ Proud to support E.D. Swain Ltd Multi-Deck Stockcrates • 5 year guarantee 06 323 0202 Contact us today Rural contracting and cartage firm E.D. Swain continues to support Canterbury farmers with a lifetime of experience and a personalised service that ensures reliable and efficient outcomes no matter what the weather or the economy is doing. E.D. Swain is a small family business in Dunsandel, owned and operated by Eddie and and Sandra Swain, with their children Brad, Stephen, and Anna all heavily involved. Eddie comes from a Southland sheep farm while Sandra is from North Canterbury but moved to Dunsandel aged 14, where her father owned and operated his own trucking firm. Eddie and Sandra bought their first truck in 1987, a 1970 Mercedes Benz 1418, and established E.D. Swain, growing their transport division to a fleet of five Scanias carting a mixture of livestock and flat deck cartage. Baling services were added to Swain’s in 2006, when Eddie went looking for a more reliable service for his own farm. He ended up buying his own baler and before long, local farmers were asking him to do baleage contracting on their farms as well. Swain’s contracting division expanded in 2015 with the purchase of a local contracting business, and today specialises in grass contracting including mowing, baling, raking, and wrapping services. February 2021 saw another expansion to the transport side of the business with Eddie and Sandra purchasing 50% of Culverden based Amuri Transport. “We bought it with the idea of growing our livestock division in Dunsandel, because we only had four livestock trucks and Amuri Transport had about nine,” Eddie says. “Now that Amuri is involved, it has really helped us to streamline the logistics of moving stock around the South Island and it’s working well. Most of Amuri’s loads come south, so once they’re down here we can give them a Swains load to take north.” With so much experience on board, it has still been a challenging season for Swains and its customers, who have faced a wet season with a low milk pay out to compound their challenges. “When the dairy pay out is good, farmers will buy more supplement in the form of grass which we do a lot of, so it does have an effect on our operation. But in terms of cartage, it still has to be done.” Bobby calves still have to be moved and with Fonterra suppliers no longer killing bobby calves on farm, this is a growing market for Swains. The amendment to the Animal Welfare Act 1999 last year which stated no live animals may be exported for slaughter from New Zealand, and the cost of rearing calves continues to increase, there are a lot more calves in circulation and Swains is there to move them. “There is still a bit of dairy beef around but because everyone’s costs have gone up so much, it makes it pretty marginal on rearing calves for beef, so there is less of that going on as well. We see a lot of beautiful big calves going on to our trucks and a few years ago, we never would have seen them, they would have been reared.” Adding to farmers’ expenses is the ever expanding level of compliance and regulation they have to adhere to. Eddie is sympathetic, as the transport industry faces similar problems. With 30 trucks and drivers between E.D. Swain and Amuri Transport, he is overloaded with compliance issues. “Transport has its challenges, put it that way, but we do it because we choose to.”
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