Farmer of the Year

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 22

Farmer of the Year

The winner of the Lincoln College Foundation Farmer of the Year for 1985 is Mr Peter Byars, of Merino Downs in West Otago.

The award was for the South Island Sheep farmer who has made most productive use of the total capital available over the past five years. Mr Byars has built up a very impressive 176-ha sheep, cattle and deer unit over the last 20 years and he has just signed a contract for another 80ha farmlet with the idea of developing a full deer unit. He has a flock of 2350 Romney ewes and has gradually moved to an allgrass wintering system. The lambing is 120 to 125 per cent and were sent to the works this year averaging 14.4 kg in carcase weight. The tops were 18.4 kg Romney ram lambs. He has doubled the number of paddocks in the last 20 years, built a new shearing shed and machinery shed recently and diversified into deer. He runs up to 20 stock units per hectare compared with the district average of 15 and produces about 350 kg of meat per hectare (district average 240 kg) and 160 kg of wool (95kg). Peter Byars left school and worked for his father for six years and learned to control expenditure to suit income and to work hard. “I have always tried to make best use of my dollars earned so with a bit of thought and manipulation, this has been my objective,” he said when speaking to the Lincoln College Farmers Conference. ■ Mr and Mrs Byars are passing the farm to their four children and working towards making the farm debt free. Debt servicing now, without the new unit, is only $2 per stock unit.