Ngāi Tahu Farming Limited

2016 Dairy Finalists

Ngāi Tahu Farming Limited

Ngāi Tahu’s dairy farming operation currently consists of seven dairy units – of which Te Ahu Patiki and Maungatere are located side by side near the Canterbury township of Oxford. The area is known as Te Whenua Hou and was originally a New Zealand Forest Service radiata pine plantation commonly known as Eyrewell Forest.
Ngāi Tahu made the decision to convert forestry to dairying to get the best economic return and to develop wider opportunities for whānau. The first farm came on line in the 2012/13 season. Full development of Te Whenua Hou will see 13 dairy farms and seven dairy support farms across the property. All the land is flat and most of the milking platforms of both farms are irrigated by water from the Waimakariri River.

The milking platform at Te Ahu Patiki is 355ha and runs 1,251 Kiwi cross high breeding worth cows that last season produced 468,747 kgs/MS. The slightly smaller farm Maungatere has a 290ha milking platform on which 979 Kiwi cross high breeding worth cows which produced 413,058 kgs/MS last season. There are also a number of dairy support blocks owned by Ngāi Tahu where stock from these farms are sent in the autumn.

Being new farms, the soil is still quite poor and there is a focus on increasing the organic matter in the ground to build up fertility. Both farms have 64 bail rotary sheds and include a lot of modern technology and automation designed to improve the efficiency and minimise the environmental footprint.

The pivot irrigation systems that have been installed on both farms have a ‘variable rate’ feature. This is a form of precision agriculture that allows water to be used more efficiently and sustainably. The system can be calibrated to only apply water to areas that need it and to avoid applying it to already ‘wet’ or ‘sensitive’ areas.

One of the features of the Ngāi Tahu operation is the strong focus on ensuring a low environmental footprint. An example is of a strategy currently being implemented is to reduce the amount of purchased supplementary feed being used and to focus on better utilisation of pasture. This will help improve profitability, especially during the current downturn in the dairy industry. They say they are not just trying to meet consent conditions but to be ahead of that and show a genuine commitment to kaitiakitanga and iwi values.

Ngāi Tahu is also looking at how best to utilise the bobby calves produced on the farms. About five staff are employed on each of the two dairy farms, but on its overall dairy farming operation Ngāi Tahu employs about 70 staff. It also helps run a highly successful and popular training programme called Whenua Kura designed to give young Māori from Ngāi Tahu and other iwi the skills to make a career working on their farms and in the wider agri sector.