 About Us Success Stories Articles Sustainable Environment How Does the Process Work Contact us FAQ |
0800 433 276
22b Duke Street |
By: Richard Bentley
| » Back to list of Members Stories |
Source: Rural News - Management 4 December 2007
The couple has used goal setting, measurement, analysis and action - the basics of strategic planning - to achieve these outcomes. Over the past decade they have applied the eCOGENT strategic management system to their own business, and since 2001 David has used the same approach on a 400ha conversion property near Geraldine, in which they have an equity holding.
Use of daily profit indicators has enabled them to challenge some mainstream farming practices, such as high use of nitrogen and high supplementary feeding levels, and has led to some major changes in management that have raised farm profitability to exceptional levels.
"Initially we had many metabolic and other stock health problems, and we were putting on 200kg of nitrogen as well as substantial amounts of super. I wasn't happy with the way things were going so we split the property into six and asked six suppliers of mineral fertilisers to recommend what we should put on," he says.
"We were milking three herds, and so each herd grazed two treatments. We chose one supplier, based on stock health and contentment. It wasn't highly scientific, but it was a good decision and it has paid off."
Six years down the track, pastures, stock and profit levels are all looking very healthy indeed. Regular dressings of the right minerals have got the "biology" going, according to David. The soil's water holding capacity and plant root depth have both increased, clovers persist throughout winter, pastures keep producing longer in dry spells and recover quicker when rains come, and metabolic problems have all but disappeared.
"We are growing the same amount of grass now as we were on the traditional fertiliser regime, but the stock are telling us it is better for them. Health costs per cow have almost halved," says David.
"We've reduced fertiliser costs to $250 per hectare, which was what we were previously spending on nitrogen alone - nitrogen use is down from 200 units to 24 this spring. We don't make any supplementary feed on the platform although we do feed grain to the herd early in the season."
Around 1450 cows are milked at the peak of the season - 1300 spring calved and 200 in the autumn. As well as producing winter milk the autumn calvers give some flexibility for drying off later in the year when the lighter soil starts to dry out - a solution thrown up by eCOGENT, which also highlighted the profitability of calving two weeks later than the district norm.
The farm is dead flat and consists of 80 ha of very light Waimakariri stony soil, 150 ha of Templeton soil in the middle, and the rest is silty Waimakiriri loam. David says that mix provides a useful balance between light and heavy soils, but irrigating it can be a bit of a juggling act.
"The big irrigator covers at least two soil types at any one time so in spring we apply enough to keep the lighter ground growing grass, and in summer the heavy ground is more productive so we favour that," he says.
"We use moisture monitoring probes to avoid over-watering and also minimise pumping costs."
Farm profit per kilogram of dry matter eaten was 12c last season, and eCOGENT forecasts that it will increase significantly this season. Predictions also indicate that biggest gains in the future will come from breeding replacements from the most profitable cows, a strategy that David believes should lead to a doubling of profit. Earlier this season, milk meters were installed in the 80-bale rotary dairy to help identify high-profit stock.
"We now know the production from each cow each day and the cost of the feed she is getting, so we are working on finding the most profitable cows per season and per kilo of dry matter they eat. This will form the basis of our breeding programme," he says.
"We are also recording somatic cell counts so we will know the stock that are most resistant to mastitis. This will be especially valuable if we get the opportunity to supply organic milk in the future."
That is something David is keen to do, for if mastitis can be reduced, converting the farm to organic production would not take a great deal of effort - the fertiliser products used are all organic certified.
The strategies that are now working well on this property are likely to be repeated on a larger conversion that David has also been managing - a further 830ha at nearby Mayfield are coming into full production this season with over 3000 cows being milked in two dairies.
The remarkable increase in the size of the enterprises they are involved with has grown the Drake's equity 200-fold since 1995 when they left secure city jobs to take on a lower-order sharemilking position in Culverden, North Canterbury.
David is convinced of the value of creating a vision for the future, and then using the today's data to determine how you can get there and whether you have to do things smarter or differently. Daily recording of rainfall and soil temperature along with regular pasture covers are the basics, and analysing those in combination with production and financial information, will show what is needed in terms of cow numbers, buying a farm, and growing equity, he says.
"The most important thing for me has been the discipline of strategic planning, gathering all our information together in one place and having it analysed to show results and trends," says David.
"Using eCOGENT has made us focus on where we want to be in five years and where we want to be next year and how we are going to get there, whereas I used to just worry about tomorrow and not think further ahead."