34 | nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Duncan Smeaton Duncan Smeaton (left) and his son, Andrew milk 500 cows on 190 hectares at Waihi. Photos: Jan Smeaton. Di Malcolm Duncan Smeaton’s education and subsequent career put this Waikato dairy farmer on a de- nitive path for his family business. Duncan and his wife, Jan, have today taken somewhat of a step back on their 190-hectare property at Waihi in the Hauraki District in the Waikato – on the cusp of the Bay of Plenty. Their son, Andrew, 39, runs the 500-cow operation – which is split between two dairies – because they bought a neighbouring property. They milk 250head at each dairy through a 22-a-side and a 20 aside herringbone respectively. They also recently took a 40% shareholding in a 1000-cow dairy in South Canterbury. Duncan’s quali cations are hefty – starting with his Master of Agriculture Science from Massey University. He followed it up by working for AgResearch as a Scienti c Liaison of cer and scientist for eight years until 1985 when his dairy farming career started in earnest in the Bay of Plenty. Duncan – who has also doubled as an independent farm consultant – is the former manager of DairyNZ’s North Waikato extension team of consulting of cers. He has also been interested in farm systems research, authored more than 30 refereed papers, written a book on beef production, and co-authored a second. He is a Councillor for the Hauraki District Council with portfolios in waste management and minimisation, climate change, water, and wastewater. No irrigation in Waihi But rst and foremost, Duncan is a dairy farmer. The farm is a mix of easy, rolling, and steep country. Some of the farm has to be fertilised by helicopter, and making hay is impossible on at least one third of the farm because it is too steep. Annual rainfall of 2000mm can be ckle and cruel throughout the summer, and one of their toughest challenges is life without irrigation. To cover off on that, they buy in 100 tonne of Dry Matter a year in total to get through the shoulders of the season [August and through the summer] when feed is tight. Duncan says their while their best country can produce at least 1100kg MS per ha, that is offset by their tougher country which produces down to 600kg MS per ha. They send away 150,000kg Milk Solids a year. Duncan said he favours a pasture-dominant “System 2” management system, and has complete con dence in LIC’s high Breeding Worth (BW) crossbred bulls of the day for their Jersey-Friesian herd – recently also using fresh sexed semen and Forward Packs. “I rmly believe in the science of breeding and high BWs,” Duncan said. “Once I got to that point, it became fairly easy for me. During mating we’d have say 17 cows on heat every day on average. So, we use ve to 10 straws of sexed fresh semen, and we top it up with the bull of the day. “As long as those bulls have high BWs, they get the cows in-calf, and their resulting daughters don’t kick the hell out of the staff, we’re happy. The answers lie in profitability and return “This spring we’ve had a heap of heifer calves. We are at least a week ahead in terms of heifer calves on the ground.” “On average, our production per cow has de nitely improved. I’m very comfortable with the direction we’re headed in.” They choose herd sires based on BW and cull on Production Worth (PW) using herd test to identify low producing and any high Somatic Cell Count cows. “We don’t take a lot of notice of individual cow performance, it’s total herd performance that we are interested in. I wouldn’t even know the tag number of the highest producing cow in our herd. I doubt any of our staff know it either.” Important measures of success What Duncan does take a lot of notice of is their return on capital (ROC). “The Key Performance Indicator [KPI] for us is our return on capital and pro tability. That’s what you’re in business for – to try and make a pro t on the asset you’ve purchased, isn’t it? In tandem with meeting or exceeding employment, environmental and animal welfare standards. “Production per cow is kind of secondary, but if production per cow is poor, it implies they are being badly fed and then you won’t get them in calf. If you are feeding cows for production, their reproductive performance will be ok, but on a low input system you are on a knife edge all the time between maintaining pasture quality and feeding the cows enough for them to achieve good production and get in-calf. “I regularly look at analyses of pro tability between high input systems versus low input systems – and the pro tability per hectare is the same. But I think it’s easier to run a low to low-medium input system well, than it is to run a high input system well. “I’ve seen some very sad cases where people have tried to run high input systems and they have under-utilised their pasture and they haven’t made anywhere as much money as they should have – sometimes with tragic consequences. “I think the farmers that are good at running high input systems well are more the exception, than the rule.” Buy scales If there was any piece of advice he’d offer a young farmer, it is something he wishes he’d done himself. “Most people don’t have scales. It took me 20 years to work out that I should have, and not doing it earlier was probably one of the biggest mistakes I made in my farming career. Once you have scales you can’t pretend that everything is ok in the heifer rearing world. “We work hard to get our animals up to liveweight at their rst calving, because growing out young stock around this area is bloody dif cult.” Dairying going forward Duncan has an eye on technology that can help their operation and they are also passionate about welcoming visits from school children so they can help educate the next generation about the value of primary industry. He acknowledges that the easiest way to reduce the New Zealand’s herd footprint is to reduce its herd size. “That is happening by default at the moment as farms go out of dairying in some parts of the country,” he said. “Farmers are also generally not stocked as heavily as they were a few years ago, and by farming less aggressively we can improve per cow production which will help our footprint per kg of MS. It’s a slow process but it is cumulative, so it is progress. “And, with regard to greenhouse gas emissions, the solutions are not going to be particularly easy or cheap to nd, but that pressure is not going to go away.” Proud to be associatedwith the Smeaton Farmfor the past 20years 9Victoria St, Waihi 07 863 7050 admin@carterscontractors.co.nz Truck&Transporter Hire • Digger Hire • Concrete Laying • FarmMaintenance &Roading • HIABHire • Aggregate&Garden Supplies • Tar Sealing 65 KENNY STREETWAIHI 07 863 8064 www.waihifarmservices.co.nz admin@waihifarmservices.com 24H ON CALL 021 96 1404 “Proudly Supporting Our Local Farmers” MILK, WATER, FILTERATION, PUMPS, ELECTRICAL, EFFLUENT, BORES AND MORE PAEROA egional ransport 2020 td REGIONAL TRANSPORT • LIVESTOCK CARTAGE 021 790 296 rtlstock@gmail.com
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=