68 | nzdairy Team members take Richard Loader DAIRY PEOPLE » Waka Dairies While Southern Hawke’s Bay farmer Michael Philips readily acknowledges that dairy farming is not his great love, he is deeply passionate about the land, protecting the environment and the people who make the magic happen on the farm. With a strong focus on governance and staff culture, Michael is the business manager for the family farming operation known as Waka Dairies. Located in the lush pastoral farmlands of Dannevirke, Waka Dairies embraces 235 effective hectares along with 50 hectares of support land, and peak milks 650 autumn calving cows through a high-tech 54-bale rotary shed. For the last six years, a key tool in the farm’s operation is a large composting shelter that sits adjacent to the feedpad and cowshed. Measuring 60 metres wide by 90 metres long, the shelter provides each cow with over eight square metres of covered compostable oor space to loaf in during those signi cant summer and winter weather conditions. The structure oor is lled with woodchip, fed with the cows faeces and urine and constantly aerated over an average period of 12 months, after which the composted oor is excavated and stored then applied back to farm at the appropriate time, as organic matter extremely rich in valuable nutrients and minerals. “We’re a hybrid system between 100% pasture and 100% free-stall barn system,” explains Michael. “We still manage all our pasture the same, but we bring the cows into the composting shelter during signi cant weather conditions. “In the winter they’re not exposed to cold temperatures and rain and when they’re calving the The farm team is an integral part of the farming operation and staff culture is a key focus for Hawke’s Bay farmer Michael Phillips. calves aren’t exposed to the elements. We use the shelters heavily in the summer time too, to stay out of the sun and heat stress. When we have the cows off paddock 24/7 in winter or summer they will spend twenty hours in the shelter and four hours eating on the feed pad.” While the cows are not fed in the composting shelter, when they use the shelter during the winter they only need 8 kilos of feed because of signi - cantly less energy demand, whereas 14 kilos would be required if wintered on the paddock. “We’ve found the shelter provides a range of bene ts including animal welfare and increased milk production, along with savings on feed. The other side is the all-important environmental bene ts. We can meet and exceed our nitrate leaching requirements because of the time off-paddocks, plus we can grow and manage our feed a whole lot better because we’re not damaging the ground in wet or stressed conditions.” Another integral part of the farming operation is the farm team, and staff culture is a key focus for Michael. “We have a big staff including a Business Manager, Operations Manager, Apprentice Farm “We’ve developed more of a family culture to better understand the needs and personal goals of our staff. My focus now is on the inhouse apprenticeship system that I have been developing over the last six months.” PHONE: 0508 TRAIN ME WE OFFER TRAINING IN: · Bee Keeping · Farming · Horticulture · Pest Control · Sustainability · Short Courses · www.landbasedtraining.co.nz Land Based Training Breaking down the barriers to learning, Land Based Training has been looking after the training and educational needs of the men and women who work in New Zealand’s primary industries for over a quarter of a century. From its beginning as an agricultural trainer, Land Based Training has evolved to include agriculture, horticulture, pest control, apiculture, and sustainable land practices in its diverse suite of short and qualifications-based courses. Training is also oered in civil construction and residential property maintenance, along with intensive literacy and numeracy. Delivering programmes from as far north as Kaitaia down to Garston in northern Southland, Land Based Training works closely with industry and iwi to provide courses that meet industry needs cand in a way that works for the students. “We’ve always been focused on making sure training is accessible to the people,” says Operations Manager Tim Snape. “We have a large volume of students who come to our training sites each day, or we can take the programmes to their location. So rather than always expecting people to come to us, we take training to the people. If we have a group that is keen to participate in one of our courses, but is not in an area where we have a learning site, we can work with them to set a course up. One of the barriers to learning is people getting to a course, so we also provide transport to the vast majority of programmes that we deliver.” Not feeling comfortable in the learning environment is another barrier to learning, says Tim, with many students having had little or no experience in educational success previously. “Delivering training programmes in their own place provides a level of comfort to overcome that barrier, so we can also deliver programmes on a marae, where people from that marae feel most comfortable.” Hungry minds are not quenched when mouths are also hungry, and students attending a course on site will get fed - another example of removing learning barriers. Theory and a high level of practical work are the two learning components to all Land Based Training’s programmes. “While some training sites are based on farms where we deliver both theory and practical learning, we have other sites that are purely classroom-based sites, and we take students from those sites onto practical sites to learn practical skills. The tutors we engage are mostly industry practitioners, with passion for sharing experiences and knowledge, and seeing their students experience their own success.” Tax Preparation Business Planning General Accounting www.mcia.co.nz Dannevirke:(06) 3747059 / Pahiatua: (06) 3767476
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