A “fantastic” year of pasture growth has helped Alcuin Station on the Motu River, 100 kilometres west of Gisborne, recover from the 2023 disaster that was Cyclone Gabrielle, according to owner Mark Johnson. “We’ve got more grass than we’ve ever had, and what with prices bouncing back for meat and even wool, it’s been an especially good year,” he says.
“We couldn’t be happier, but we weren’t as badly affected as farmers in the coastal Gisborne regions, mainly because we’re in a high rainfall area, so the damage wasn’t as bad as it could be. We lost a lot of fences and it took three or four weeks of concentrated work to get them rebuilt, but everyone pitched in, and we’re well and truly over that problem now.”
Up in the Alcuin Station hills, the Motu largely kept within its banks, and such damage as did occur was fairly readily fixed, while the stable nature of the country meant that all tracks remained passable. No less importantly, Alcuin was able to maintain its pre-cyclone stocking levels on its 2,400 hectares, of which 1,600 hectares is effective, carrying 15,000 stock units of sheep and cattle at a ratio of about 40%-60%.
“In short, this past season has been fantastic, and we’re able to stick with the status quo stock-wise and concentrate on maximizing returns,” Mark says. “I’ve heard from a lot of different quarters that the next couple of years are really positive for meat, while crossbred wool, which has been dragging the chain for years, is up nearly a dollar a kilogram and showing signs of continuing on that trajectory too.”
“If nothing else, Cyclone Gabrielle demonstrated the constructive role that farmers play in protecting the environment.”
“You have to feel sorry for the dairy farmers facing a bad drought up north, but the record milk payout will soften that blow for them, and it offers opportunities for the likes of meat producers to get weaners at a more reasonable price.” High on-farm and regulation costs remain a burden, but with a bright outlook and prices strong for everything from forestry to horticulture, the farm profitability balancing act is easier to manage.
In terms of the environment, Mark, who felt a year ago that the public was pointing the finger at farmers for global warming and the weather bombs it’s bringing, now feels that the public has developed a more positive perception as a result of the cyclone.
“If nothing else, Cyclone Gabrielle demonstrated the constructive role that farmers play in protecting the environment, and that message finally seemed to get through as we got a huge surge of support during the clean-up,” he says. “The thing about the state of emergency that followed the cyclone was that an unbelievable amount of things got done in a very short period of time: everybody seemed to weigh in and offer help by everything from donating fence posts to getting out and helping get things back to normal.”
“We can’t just keep looking back on an event like Gabrielle: we can learn from it, but not look back,” Mark says.
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