6 | nzdairy Located in Tahuna the 115ha total/100ha effective unit is milking 300 cows with the aim to increase this to 350 next season. DAIRY PEOPLE » Thomas & Jemima Bebbington Juggling wider business a challenge Karen Phelps As they complete their first season Jemima and Thomas Bebbington say the biggest challenge of first time farm ownership has been juggling their wider business. Located in Tahuna the 115ha total/100ha effective unit is milking 300 cows with the aim to increase this to 350 next season. They also lease a 48ha block across the road, milking off the front part and heifer grazing the rear of the land. Around 15 minutes drive away they are also 50:50 sharemilking Thomas’ mother’s farm, a 200ha total/190ha effective unit milking 560-70 cows. The farm also has a 27ha run off attached. Last season Thomas’ sister Kathleen and her husband Cam took on a lower order sharemilking position on the unit. Although Kathleen had grown up on a farm neither had ever really milked cows before. Thomas and Jemima say extreme weather events have ranged from drought to wet providing additional challenge to the pair. “They’ve done really well considering everything that has been thrown at them so next season will hopefully be easy by comparison,” says Jemima. Thomas and Jemima say, being detail oriented by nature, the biggest challenge has been to apply that to their now much larger business. The farm systems are also different with their farm rolling country and autumn calving and Thomas’ mother’s farm dead flat peat and spring calving. “Thomas is amazing at doing all the little things to get the end result. He looks at every nook and cranny of the business – where the cows are, where the grass is, where the cows are going. Doing things to this detail on all the blocks has been challenging,” she says. “We haven’t hit where we want to in the past 12 months with all the weather events, autumn calving for first time, new farm, operational change etc,” adds Thomas.“It’s about being more proactive and having a good farm management plan in place and we’ve made a start on this.” They both say that it feels good to reach their goal of farm ownership, which has been a journey taking place over many years. “We always focused on paying back debt and always wanted to be ready to take the next step when we could,” says Jemima. They say there was two key factors that helped them get to farm ownership: increasing stock numbers naturally and investing off farm. “We’ve always pushed the limits, raising as many young stock as we could and milking as many cows as we could to allow us to grow bigger so we had more to sell or borrow against,” explains Thomas. “We owned two rental houses and sold one six years ago to make the move to sharemilking and sold the other one to buy this farm. It’s worked quite well for us not having all our eggs in one basket.” The couple are already starting to think about what their next move might be even though they don’t anticipate this happening for five or six years minimum. “We’ve always got that mind-set of toying with ideas and budgets and exploring different scenarios for years in advance so we’re fully prepared for when an opportunity arises,” says Thomas. “We’re always bouncing around ideas because when things happen, they happen quickly. For example we didn’t think we’d buy a farm when we did but by running different ideas we realised it could work for us. 99% of the time nothing happens with our ideas but all you need is one idea that does work and it goes from there.” At the moment that has meant exploring the options of poultry and kiwifruit farming. They will also support Kathleen and Cam to take over family farm in the coming years. Their main goal though is focusing on making their new farm perform to its absolute maximum potential. They have started carrying over empties on both farms to increase cow numbers organically. “I’m not sure if we’ll achieve it but my goal is to increase prod 20,00kgs a year for the next two years without increasing costs too much,” says Thomas. “Tom’s always done record production on the farms he has been on,” says Jemima,“so if anyone can do it I believe he can.” 0274 741 105 Hauraki Plains office@nicholsoncontracting.co.nz For all your Ag Contracting needs
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