58 | nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Jamie Lyons Keep on ne-tuning their approach Virginia Wright Jamie and Lu Lyons farm the Lyons family farm where Jamie grew up. With their three children aged 10yrs, 8yrs, and 7yrs ensuring life is busy, and having reached their 40’s, they know, as they continue to ne-tune their approach through the years, that they want to establish a farming system that is both environmentally and economically sustainable, and that might also encourage one of those children to be the fth generation on the farm. The 270-hectare farm includes a 90 hectare milking platform for their 240 cows in a relatively low stocking rate which balances out in terms of economic sustainability when you look at their balance sheet and factor in their current 400kg’s of milk solids per Kiwi-Cross cow. “We’re more about production per animal rather than running a high stocking rate,” says Jamie, ‘and we’re also not interested in a high input system here, we’re more of a system 2/3. We’re trying to track upwards , so it’s just nding the sweet spot.” Which is where the remaining 180 hectares comes in. Run as a sheep and beef unit come support block it provides dairy grazing and gives them the means to grow enough additional feed on-farm to save them from being at the mercy of market uctuations. “It’s gone crazy at the moment on the feed side,” says Jamie. “We grow 90% of our own feed I’d say. With what’s going on with shipping and freight and everything else that’s going on in the world it makes sense to grow your own and to source as locally as you can and be very careful in the decisions you make when you are buying off farm because it seems to be changing every week.” Sited as they are just south of the Bombay Hills being summer dry also factors into their planning as the summers, in Jamie’s experience getting longer and hotter, mean they’ve had to change their farming system to adapt. On the plus side the hours of sunshine mean that the solar powered water-feed and heating system they installed for the milking shed 10 years ago, conscious that they wanted to reduce their environmental footprint, continues to give them for free what is one of a dairy farmer’s highest costs: daily hot water needed to wash the milking plant down, in their case 10 months of the year. On the other hand they have to plan carefully to have the feed they need to get through the lowest on-farm growth months which are only getting hotter: January, February and March. “We looked at irrigation but the regulations and the capital cost involved was rather scary, so we decided to use the tools we’ve got with summer crops and trying to summer safe the farm by getting lots of supplement around us in the spring,” says Jamie. PO Box 18, TUAKAU 2342 Phone 09 236 8693 Mobile 0274 968 800 Fax 09 236 8647 Email account@collettelectrical.co.nz www.collettelectrical.co.nz Aaron Collett REGISTERED ELECTRICIAN INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICAL CONTRACTORS Their summer safe tool-box currently includes: spring grass silage grown on the support block, then summer turnips grown on the milking platform and summer sorghum (a temperate grass sometimes known as sweet sedan), and home-grown maize. If need be they have an in-shed feeding system through which they can add meal bought in as required. “That’s our buffer. When the paddocks run out of feed in summer and you’re relying on supplement it’s just one more string you can pull.” Jamie and Lu are careful in the decisions they make, knowing they want to set things up in a way that might in turn encourage their children’s interest in eventually making a better lifestyle choice. “We’re looking to create a system that is low stress on the animals and on the people running it, and we’ve looked at technologies going forward to make farming not quite as hands on,” explains Jamie. Whatever form that technology takes it’s clear that both its risks and rewards will have been thoroughly considered before any decision is made. “We looked at irrigation but the regulations and the capital cost involved was rather scary, so we decided to use the tools we’ve got with summer crops and trying to summer safe the farm by getting lots of supplement around us in the spring.” Jamie and Lu Lyons are working towards establishing a farming system that is environmentally and economically sustainable. Paul Ingram AGRICULTURAL CONTRACTING Regrassing & Undersowing Silage, Hay & Straw Baling Bulk Grass & Maize Silage Full Ground Cultivation
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