Entering the 2018 Dairy Industry Awards has just proved to Sam and Kate Moore that they are on the right track. The couple was named runners up in the Share Farmer of the Year competition at the Central Plateau Dairy Industry Awards.
Neither comes from a farming background and it was milking cows for his uncle and neighbouring farms while at high school that marked the start of an interest in farming for Sam. “It planted a seed and I realized I quite liked farming,” he says.
Sam completed a fitter and turner apprenticeship after leaving school then he and Kate headed to Australia to work in the oil and gas industry.
After they returned to New Zealand they started approaching key people in the dairy industry to seek an opportunity to break into farming.
Sam secured a farm assistant position on a farm in Edgecumbe and got involved with Primary ITO straight away completing level four of a national certificate of agriculture while on that farm for 18 months.
Kate, who had just had their first child, completed level five of an agribusiness diploma. In the 2015/16 season the couple took on a second in charge position on an 850 cow farm in the same area.
Sam was also in charge of pasture management, gaining good experience in this key area, and also completed a level five production management course.
The following season they moved to their present 50:50 sharemilking position for Menso and Tina Van Der Laan on a 100ha Reporoa property, milking 300 cows.
The predominantly Friesian herd is milked through a 30 aside herringbone shed with automatic cup removers and the recent addition of an automatic teat sprayer.
They say they decided to enter the awards to benchmark their business and were pleasantly surprised with how well they did.
“We really wanted to delve deeper into our business and network with people,” says Sam. Some key areas they will now focus their attention on are fertility.
With an empty rate of 20% (the area average is 17%) Sam says they are not willing to sit on their laurels and are trying to improve this.
They have been liaising with their vet but have seen no improvement so are currently exploring other avenues. Their six week in-calf rate is 69% and this is another area they’d live to improve further.
They are focusing on heat detection and will take on a labour unit during the mating period to free up Sam so he has more time to concentrate on the mating.
They seek to calve cows at the correct body condition score and dry them off at the right time to achieve this. They will also continue to improve the genetics of the herd by selectively breeding and not keeping progeny from the bottom 30%.
Both Kate and Sam are hands on farmers taking equal roles on the farm and parenting Jackson, 4 and Arie, 1 ½. Kate is also an AB technician so takes on this role on the farm.
Sam says they have a good relationship with the farm owners who live off farm and the Van Der Laan’s are there for support whenever they need them.
This season they achieved the farm’s best ever production of 119,500 kilograms of milk solids and are targeting 120,000 kilograms next season. Sam says they aim to farm a low cost system (currently $1.45 farm working expenses) and farm sustainably.
Sam and Kate’s next goal is farm ownership and the next step will either be a larger 50:50 sharemilking position or an equity partnership.
“We came away from the awards after reviewing our business objectively pretty happy with what we’ve achieved. But we’re always looking for areas to improve and for the next step in our careers.”
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Awards an opportunity to benchmark business
