Varied activities on small farms

Press, 29 August 1980, Page 14

Varied activities on small farms

Owners of small blocks of land are engaging in a wide range of activities. Last week-end a party of small farmers and potential small farmers spent a day looking at a handful of enterprises scattered around the boundaries of the city from West Melton to Greenpark, and these included a unit producing strawberries, tomatoes and apples, a walnut farm of the future currently concentrating on beef production, a new intensive sheep farm, a farmlet producing weaner pigs and finally a small property with deer, sheep, hens and horses on it.

One thing that was often emphasised by the small holders was the desirability of establishing good shelter and this is something that can be proceeded with as soon as a block is taken over and before final decisions have been made about the sort of activities that are going to be indulged in on the land.. •

Another obvious need of small farmers is information and knowledge to help them with their new interests, and that is something that small farmer organisations • are now helping to provide. The party was also asked to think about and come up with suggestions as to what people who own and - farm small blocks should be called — small farmers is not necessarily a fully satisfactory description. The first port of call was a 3.8 ha block on the western outskirts of the city which was a bare area of land when taken over by a schoolteacher, Mr David Bell, about six or seven years ago. Mr Bell told his visitors that in the beginning he wanted to live in the country and continue to work in the town, but the enterprise was now far from having any retirement sort of connotations. He and his wife were now fully committed and there was work for their three children whenever they wanted it.

After running cattle and sheep Mrs Bell looked after a few strawberries part time. The Bells decided that £.ey wanted to grow plants on their land and now they have glass houses and are growing strawberries for the local and export markets and also for gate sales and tomatoes for the local market and they have also planted some apple trees — Mr Bell’s feeling is that there is quite a good future for apples in Canterbury. Now in summer when the strawberries are in full fruit they require 10 to 12 people to pick them and at the same time they have tomatoes ripening.

After recording the sort of items of capital expenditure that they have had to face, Mr Bell said that there were some depressing factors but if one was realistic they had to be faced. The Bells have erected their own barns and glasshouses ’ using kit sets for the latter. Mr Bell acknowledged that he had initially no knowledge of running a 1a r g e-scale commercial enterprise and had had to learn a new set of skills. He had obtained his information from the Ministry’ of Agriculture and reading what was available and from his own intuitive knowledge and trial and error. People in similar enterprises, he said, were not always willing to part with knowledge because they saw someone like him as a potential competition. Mr Bell said he thought that they would do the same thing again, in

answer to a question as to how they felt about what they had done. Just now they are in the throes of selling out and planning to go to Australia to grow , sub-tropical fruit. His advice to anyone who had acquired such a block and was contemplating what to do with it was to go ahead planting shelter, which would be useful whether the ultimate enterprise was agricultural or horticultural in nature. The whole Bell property is under irrigation, with even the shelter trees being watered after 1500 died from dryness in their first year. On a block of 21 hec-

tares of sandy country, also on the western outskirts, a company director, Mr Mervyn Burbery, is developing what he described as New Zealand’s first commercial walnut farm. Some 4800 trees have been planted, all of which are trickle irrigated, and they are now awaiting' grafting with overseas stock, but Mr Burbery said that they would not be proceeding with this until they could be sure that the success with grafting was a lot better than had so far been achieved in New Zealand. He attributed his interest in walnuts to the fact that New Zealand’s total commercial requirements have been imported. But his walnut project is a long term one and it could; be 16 years away before his trees are producing commercially. A problem with early plantings was with grass competition and cattle have been brought in to try and cope with this. The rows of trees in which they are some seven to eight metres or

25 ft apart are electric fenced and the cattle are run in between the rows. While there are now some 75 cattle on ,the farlet Mr Burbery expects from next year to rur cattle only over the spring, summer and autumn period, and with irrigation of the strips he is expecting to achieve good returns carrying the cattle at about eight head per acre, with a daily shift resulting in the grass having a higher protein content. Meantime, he says that the cattle are of greater importance on the block than the walnuts. Because of the sandy nature of the soil he told the visiting party that they had run into a copper problem with the ■cattle. After 25 years every second walnut tree will be cut out for timber for walnut veneer. In the days when the nuts are harvested this will be done by mechanical means. Mr Barry Duxbury is combining intensive sheep farming on something less than 20 ha with a position as a property officer with a local body and also delivering papers in the early morning! His land lay within the Rolleston town development proposed by the last Labour Government. He has had the block since 1973 and up until recently it has been in lucerne, and now following overdrilling with Nui ryegrass and Huia white clover in the autumn and fencing has just recently been converted to an intensive sheep proposition, on which Mr Duxbury plans to run 400 sheep, with the land being irrigated with a trailer mounted gun irrigator with water from a well about 60 metres deep. He is in the process of learning about the ma- 1 nagement of such an enterprise and told the small farmer group that visited his property last week-end that up until a year ago he had no experience of this sort of thing. Only shortly before the call on his property he had helped two' ewes for the first time to lamb. Now he said they were in the position of being heavily in debt but very hopeful, and if all goes well he is hoping that eventually they may be able to expand their enterprise. Mr Mike Lavender lives in the homestead at Greenpark which was formerly occupied by Sir William Dunlop and is producing about 75 to 80 per cent of his income from about two hectares or five acres of land on which he is running 40

sows with the weaners being sold under a private contract arrangement at about 10 weeks of age after being weaned at five weeks. Mike took over the block about seven or eight years ago and for the first four years continued to do accountancy work in town. Now he is still keeping his hand in at accountancy on a limited scale and as well as looking after his pig unit is doing milking part time every morning and evening. A person who was seeking a country style of life, Mike told his fellow small farmers that his basic problem in embarking on this enterprise was a lack of knowledge, which was perhaps even more important than capital. However, he said that there were many sources of information about like the Ministry of Agriculture and the -Government Bookshop. He suggested that a good course for a person like himself would have been to'work on a pig farm for a time. He said it was also a good idea to get involved in local activities. In referring to the fact that he was now selling his weaners under private contract, he said that he had noted that marketing was perhaps more important than the production side of the enterprise. He also advised his fellows that it was better to make a decision about what they were going to do than not make a decision, and where a small farmer got behind with his programme he said it was better to get a contractor in to do the job in this situation, or else scale down the size of the enterprise until there was the time and capital to do what was necessary.

The party were shown & crop of peppermint at Halswell that was described as being a good one for a small block holder.— the only plant needed was irrigation equipment. And after establishment with root stock being planted through a mint , planter or being spread by a muck spreader and then cultivated in it was stated that the crop would last for seven or eight years. The industry is now under the wing of a joint enterprise company between Mauri Brothers and Thomson and Coalgate Palmolive with a secure market for all oil produced, which goes for export The final call of the day was to the property of Dr R. A. French, a scientist with the Ministry of Agriculture at Lincoln and also South Island vicepresident Of the New Zealand Association of Smallfarmers, and his wife in Trices Road, Prebbleton. It was also of sha in area and was a bare paddock when take up by the Frenches 12 years ago. Today, intensively subdivided and very neat and well cared for, in the words of Mr N. Hart, of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at Lincoln who accompanied the group, it was a real credit to its owners. Dr French noted that their objective was to produce as much as possible from the block while at the same time enjoying themselves while going about it. A relatively new venture on the property is a deer farmlet complete with high fences and yards and dark rooms for handling the diiimals. Dr French said that according to a budget presented to

the visitors the initial return was not very striking, but their long term plans were for breeding for venison production. A higher return could be obtained from velvets but it was more of a fluctuating or boom and bust exercise. The return from venison was rather slower but more sure and also there would be a little revenue from velvets as well.

Mrs French is interested in horses and there are some horses on the property. To give a return of about 12 per cant on the money involved in the land Dr French estimated that the basic charge for grazing a horse would need to be about $5.75 per week, but whether it was possible to get that sort of money, he said, was another question.

Mrs French outlined some of the problems that could arise with horses — paddocks could get sick where large numbers were run. They tended to graze unevenly. She also recommended that only one type of horse should be grazed on such a property.

There is also a small but . very efficient hen house for egg. production with automatic watering and feeding facilities, and in this case Dr French showed that the return on capital invested was 55 per cent, which he added "sounded fantastic” but poultry: authorities might have something to say about it.

There is also a South Suffolk stud on the French farmlet.-