NZ Dairy Winter 2021

102 | nz dairy Farm experience Kim Newth Waikeria Prison Farm aims to better equip prisoners to deal with life’s challenges on the outside. “Employment and training is a big part of that,” says Stewart Morgan, who manages the prison’s on-site industries. DAIRY PEOPLE » Waikeria Prison Farm years 42 40 W aikeria Prison Farm is making a real dif- ference to the lives of prisoners who work and receive training on the award winning farm operation. Last year, it won three awards at the Waikato Ballance Farm Environment Awards in recognition of sustainable farm practices and outstanding environmental stewardship. The prison farm scheme has been reorganised over the past year, with one of three dairy farms transitioning to beef. The number of cows being milked has dropped from around 2400 to 1800. Stewart Morgan, who manages the prison’s on- site industries, says the beef-dairy/dairy support combination is easier to manage around prisoner availability. What finally clinched the reorganisation decision was that one of the dairy units also had a very old cow shed that would have been costly to upgrade. “Having a beef farm represents another valuable learning stream for the prisoners,” he observes. “When the decision was made to close one of the dairies, we took the 400 lowest performing BW animals and mated them to Herefords so we would have white faced calves. They then calved on the beef block and reared their calves. It is not usual to leave calves with dairy cows but it actually went very well. The old cows were really adaptable, reared the calves and got on with it.” Stewart’s role includes overseeing not only prison farm and tractor training but also grounds and maintenance, the prison’s engineering workshop and two horticultural nurseries. Before joining the Department of Corrections/Ara Poutama Aotearoa in 2001, Stewart had a career as a farm worker and farm manager with this background paving the way to him becoming a farm instructor at Waikeria and leading the industries’ scheme. “The goal is to send men back into the commu- nity on completion of their sentence better equipped to deal with life’s challenges than when they came in. Employment and training is a significant part of that and our farms are the biggest industry we have at the prison. “A lot of the men we’re working with and training won’t necessarily go on to be farmers, but we’re instilling a work ethic. In many cases, the guys have never worked before. The skills they learn around driving vehicles, animal handling and fencing are also good transferable skills.” Success stories include a former prisoner, who trained on the prison farm, now working as a farm manager. He returns to talk to inmates at Waikeria Prison Farm field day events, along with farmers who have employed former prisoners. “We encourage people to consider employing a former prisoner…I can honestly say that we’ve had some better work parties come through the prison system than guys I’ve employed on the outside.” Waikeria Prison Farm has a strong environmental focus. All streams are planted and stock has been fenced out of waterways. “We see it as important to be good custodians of the land and industry leaders.” The dairy farms used to milk twice as many cows – and on a twice a day system – with high feed inputs, but today cows are milked once-a-day and maize is only fed as a means of getting minerals into them. “We have seen huge benefits from switching to OAD: in the initial year that we did it we saw a 26 per cent reduction in animal health costs and repro- ductive performance is now way better too.”