60 | nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Miah Smith - Kere-Ki-Uta Another 3 years’ funding is fanstatic news Kelly Deeks This year’s Summer crop. After a two year trial, collaborative research project Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai, which aims to build more resilient, profitable, and healthy farms across Aotearoa New Zealand, has now been allocated another three years’ funding from the Maori Agribusiness Climate Team at the Ministry for Primary Industries and is looking for more interested farmers seeking to revitalise te Taiao on their farms. Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai originated back in 2015 when Agrisea started working with Jenny and Miah Smith’s on their Atiamuri dairy farm and was scaled-up to include nine other Waikato and Bay of Plenty farms in 2022. The project examined how different land- management practices can lead to better outcomes and advocated for strategic nitrogen use and stimulating the living bugs within the soil to do the nutrient-cycling work. Focusing on the mana and mauri of the soil, respecting and honouring it as living, and adopting practices for it to flourish had these 10 farmers reporting more stress-free farming and significant reductions in herbicides, pesticides, fertiliser use, and improvements in efficiencies and emissions. “The results have been really good and the Government must be seeing the value in this project,” Miah says. “It’s great we can now help more people. I’m really happy because I’ve seen the results.” Miah and Jenny started using AgriSea bio- stimulants solution on their 260ha effective forestry conversion in a bid to improve the condition of its degenerated post-forest soil. Applying large capital fertiliser hadn’t had the expected impact but after a two-year trial with AgriSea, the root depth had doubled in the trial paddocks and after five years, the pH went from 5.4 to 6.2 with no lime. Miah and Jenny rolled out AgriSea across their whole farm, continually adding biology and reducing fertiliser. They have put in seven or eight different species of grasses and herbs, the diversity helping to activate essential bacteria and fungi and keep the soil working more efficiently. Miah now has the role of farm advisor on Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai. He says with funding now in place, more farmers in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and Taranaki, and Northland are on board the research project and being supported by the Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai team. “We hold field days where farmers can come and look at the farms and see the results. We’ve seen some of our best results on a beautiful Waikato dairy which would typically be thrashed with nitrogen, and that has gone really well. Another farm that floods a lot, sometimes four times in a year, has come back really good due to the diverse pastures we are using.” Miah’s involvement in Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai has Office: 021 272 3646 Andrew: 0274 909 417 | Clint: 0272 849 875 - Grass Silage - Maze Silage - Cereal Silage - Direct Drilling - Round & Square - Hay & Silage - Precision Planting - Maize & Fodder beet - Supplement Supply - All Cultivation - Mulching - Animal Bedding put him in front of many other farmers with ideas around building resilience and and expanding productivity without increasing emissions, and he is now employing one of them on his own farm. “We want to get some more shade on our fence lines, and through Rere ki Uta, Rere ki Tai we’ve met people who have done it and seen the benefits. Shade is probably more important than people think, not only for the cows but also for your pastures and the the myriad of benefits coming off them and into the paddocks. Catching the dew, keeping the wind off. We’ve been on a farm where every fence line in every paddock has trees, and a lot of them are edible. The cows can get their heads up almost two metres and there’s another food source for them.” Atiamuri Dion 027 2911 269 Hayden 027 277 8626 SPECIALISTS IN: Livestock Cartage • General Cartage • Excavator & Bulldozer Hire
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