A dairy farm’s evolutionary journey over the past seven years has seen it become the low-intensity yet profitable dairy operation that it is today.
Owl Farm, the 160ha dairy farm at St Peter’s School in Cambridge, has been operating as a demonstration farm – a joint venture between St Peter’s School and Lincoln University – since 2015.
It has moved from an inefficient farm in a slightly rundown state, to showcasing an extremely high level of farming practice using a system endorsed by the wider community.
The goal from the outset was to demonstrate the latest in good, sustainable commercial dairy farming practice – and it has not changed.
“The whole overarching theme still runs true that sustainable profitable dairying can be achieved while protecting the environment,” demonstration manager Jo Sheridan says.
The demonstration farm’s early years were spent bringing its infrastructure up to standard and deciding its strategic direction.
Key to this was decided on allowing it the flexibility to adopt practices to help Waikato farmers trying to navigate tighter rules around freshwater and the environment.
That direction was unveiled in 2018 and centred on six areas using a wagon wheel-style managing system, where each focus area forms a wheel spoke and has its own KPIs.
Those areas are animal wellbeing, farm performance, quality workplace, healthy environment, business health and community.
The wheel has become central to the farm’s planning and monitoring, with each of the areas considered when making decisions that impact the farm, Jo says.
The farm has several staff, including La Arni Bayquin, manager Tom Buckley and demonstration manager Jo Sheridan, and is overseen by the Farm Management Committee made up of technical representatives of each of the funding partners.
The KPIs have also evolved and been streamlined over time to meet where the dairy industry is heading and wider expectations of the community.
Progress is then monitored via the farm’s weekly notes, which is then publicly available on its website.
“What we do every week when we do our weekly notes is that we report on each of these areas against these goals,” she says.
“It’s created a bit of a focus for linking practice to strategy and whenever we’re doing decision-making it allows us to see very clearly how we can achieve our goal in this area.”
It has become an important tool in the farm’s decision-making process.
“It was born out of the need to have a balanced approach to what we do on the farm. What it has allowed us to do is tell stories in all areas.”
Last season, for example, was a great year and after the farm hit all of its production targets, it was then discussed whether the farm could take advantage of the good conditions and make more profit.
But in doing so, it would mean increasing the farm’s environmental impact.
“We knew that if we brought in a whole lot of feed and kept on milking, we knew what would happen with our environmental footprint. We knew the impact on N loss and we knew the impact on greenhouse gases.”
The farm has always been part of St Peter’s School, starting out as a produce supplier to the school before switching to a conventional dairy farm.
Prior to it becoming a demonstration farm, it milked 450 cows and relied on maize and imported feed to sustain it through the dry summers.
As well as Jo, the farm has Tom Buckley as the farm manager, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the farm along with two staff.
Sitting alongside Jo is the Farm Management Committee, chaired by former Fonterra Shareholders’ Council chairperson Ian Brown.
This 17-person committee is made up of technical representatives of each of the funding partners, the demonstration manager and representatives from St Peter’s and local farmers.
Overseeing that committee is the 12-person Governance Committee, chaired by Aksel Bech.
Jo says there is a healthy relationship between the committees, allowing them access to expert knowledge across all facets of the industry and issues the industry faces.
“We’re always thinking five years ahead of where most farmers are, and the farm management committee are really insightful and aligned with their thinking,” she says.
The committee helped create the wagon wheel system and take a balanced approach in making decisions.
Having that level of oversight does not mean the committees manage the farm by remote. Both Jo and Tom are still able to bring ideas forward to be discussed.
The most recent of these was introducing Halter collars to the herd. Both Jo and Tom identified an opportunity for wearable collars on the cows and it took the committee nearly 10 months of investigations to approve.
The cows were given the collars in January and so far, she says the investment has been a success.
The collars fitted into the farm’s push for better workplace outcomes for its staff as using the technology enables their staff to reduce hours contributing to their annual goal of a 45-hour week.
Other farmers observing the new technology could adopt it for their own farm by using a different company or other labour-saving technology or actions such as robotic milkers or employing more staff.
At the beginning of October, 11ha of land is taken out and sown for summer crops of turnips and kale.
“This is just a means to an end so when we tell the story, we don’t talk about the product, we talk about the barriers in our system to achieving our workplace goals and our workplace flexibility, and the fact that we needed two people milking when one person can operate a shed for 400 cows,” she says.
The technology enables the cows to move to the shed and can take away needing a second person during the milking.
It will also mean they will reduce the number of staff for the new season with one less full-time staff member in response to the labour-saving technology.
Farm walks are undertaken every week with the results uploaded to the farm’s website.
That data, along with the performance of every paddock, is used to help guide decisions around what paddocks will be used for summer crops the following season and regrassing.
The typical season has calving beginning on July 1, with the herd fed mostly grass and a small amount of silage and palm kernel if needed. That silage is made on the farm every spring, as well as bought-in silage used in the summer.
The herd is bred using 100% AI, starting on September 22 and running until Christmas.
At the beginning of October, 11ha of land is taken out and sown for summer crops of turnips and kale. A 7ha block is also set aside for chicory, which is fed to the calves after weaning around late November, staying on the crop until late April.
It’s been an effective strategy to grow their young stock, with the calves growing at 0.7kg a day and the empty rate for heifer falling from 10-2%.
From there, the calves go to a grazier in May where they stay off-farm for 12 months.
Just before Christmas, milking switches from twice-a-day to ‘three-in-two’ in response to the dry, hot summer, as well as reducing work hours.
Reducing heat stress among the cattle is a big priority on the farm and removing afternoon milking allows the cows more access to shade in the paddocks while reducing walking.
The summer crops are opened up to the cows; first the turnips and then kale through to late March.
At that time until the end of the season, more silage and PKE is fed out and zinc is used in the troughs to keep facial eczema at bay.
The cows are switched to once-a-day milking and will be dried-off according to their condition, starting around mid-March.
During that month, body condition score and calving dates are used to calculate when the cow will dry-off so it can get back to its target condition for calving.
At the same time, staff also monitor the rising two-year-old heifers to ensure these cows are well-grown when they return to the farm from the grazier.
Jo says there is no temptation to milk longer due to the high payout. Instead, the focus now is setting up the farm for a successful next season.
The farm received a new effluent system in 2019 and has been since upgraded in October 2021. Effluent can now be applied to 61ha or 42% of the farm, further reducing the N loss.
N usage over the years had decreased from 161-138kg. This will be reduced further to 120kg for next season.
Since Jo joined Owl Farm as demonstration manager in 2019, the farm has heavily focused on continuing to create a system where it is valued by the wider community and is meeting the needs of its milk and meat processors.
Inside the farm gate that means aligning with Fonterra’s Co-operative Difference framework around milk quality and sustainability.
The framework allowed her to see where they could add further value to their milk, including somatic cell counts and its FEI index.
Around 85% of the milk Owl Farm has sent so far this season has been sent at that premium value and are on track to hit 90% by the end of the season, which will qualify for the premium.
“We have set up our system to achieve the extra seven cents of value added,” she says.
That involves having plans in place for animal health and the environment.
“We were doing that already. The next part of it was to extract the value from the milk quality criteria,” she says.
The type of supplementary feed used on the farm changed, so there was less reliance on high feeding levels of palm kernel and selective culling to keep on top of the herd’s somatic cell count, particularly when the farm switches to three-in-two milking.
The farm also has a comprehensive farm environment plan that has all been actioned and it is currently in the process of adding a GHG mitigation plan within it.
Owl Farm has also worked hard on achieving its environmental goals. The farm’s paddocks are analysed to determine which would get the best response from using N fertiliser.
This has provided a more strategic use of nitrogen.
The farm was also a partnership farm for DairyNZ’s Partnership Farm Project, which looked at ways the dairy industry could reduce farm emissions inside the farm gate.
From 2015-2020, the farm has reduced its emissions by 16% and its N by 24% without altering its profit.
Jo says the results showed it was possible to reduce a farm’s environmental footprint while remaining profitable.
“We’re still committed and we’re still on that journey. From an N point of view, we understand better how we are using it within the total system. We are reducing our total N use, we are using it more strategically,” she says.
It has changed their pastures with three different clovers sown into their swards as well as Ecotain plantain, which will help reduce N loss in the soil.
The farm’s wetland removes around 63% of the nitrates that enter it and they are trying to farm the most N-efficient cows that they can.
The farm’s wetland removes around 63% of the nitrates that enter it as the goal is to try and farm the most N-efficient cows.
The farm needs to be well-positioned when new research or technology comes along that can further reduce their footprint.
At the moment, the focus remained around reducing cow wastage and improving cow efficiency. Once technology, such as methane inhibitors or rumen modifiers are confirmed and proven, Jo wants the farm to be in the best position possible to take advantage of it.
“At the moment we are measuring and telling the story and making sure that our system is not producing any more methane, but we don’t have any more tools to reduce methane at this stage,” she says.
“We are already one of the lowest producers of methane for a farm producing the amount of milk that we do. We have already made all of the changes to get to this point.”
The farm has followed best practice for the past four to five seasons while trying to remain profitable and while it was one of the lower-emitting farms, there was still a cost involved to achieve this.
Other farmers could have a lot more work to make similar gains, she says.
Education is a huge part of Owl Farm, given its location at St Peter’s School.
It has had almost 10,000 people through its gate since it started as a demonstration farm. Even with the disruption of covid-19, the farm ended up hosting 72 events last year with around 2000 people entering the farm.
Its educational goals include engaging and inspiring student learners into primary industry careers. In 2015, there were 82 students studying agriculture or horticulture at St Peter’s, which has leaped to 324 students this year.
The school has fuelled this growth by increasing its resources for agricultural learning, including increasing staff numbers and classrooms.
At the same time, Jo says the covid pandemic has improved people’s perceptions of the industry.
“Once of the most exciting things is that the students are really intent on problem-solving. They’re not afraid of tackling climate change issues head on, they’re not afraid of tackling animal wellbeing issues head on,” she says.
Farmers could also take heart that there are students wanting to learn about agriculture.
The student learning went beyond just St Peter’s. The farm hosts Year 11 students from schools in the greater Waikato for practical lessons.
“The ag teachers that we have been talking to at secondary level have all reported increases in students studying ag-based degrees,” she says.
“Even here, we are now running modules with the Year 8 students because so many of them are choosing ag at Year 9 that we like to give them exposure and pre-learning at Year 8.”
Another part of meeting its wider community needs is meeting expectations around animal welfare. Part of this was the creation of the farm’s purposeful ‘life for calves’ strategy.
When it started three years ago, 34% of the calves born on the farm had purposeful lives.
This season, it has lifted to 71%. That means that 71% of the calves bred on the farm have been bred with a purpose in mind for when they are sold. Surplus heifer calves are sold to other farmers, while dairy-beef calves are contracted or sold to growers.
“What that is for us is recognition that we wanted to have purposeful breeding objectives and move away from bobby calves,” she says.
Owl Farm has moved away from looking at breeding as just a way of getting a cow in-calf so it can be milked, to one where value is added to the calf.
“We’re saying let’s value this calf and find a purposeful home for it. Our aim is to get to 100% and part of that is that the public needs to recognise the many pathways that a calf contributes to,” she says.
The farm was already 100% inseminating the herd, with 12 weeks of AB mating. They started using sexed semen, which is now into its third season. The semen is used on their top cows for replacements, with Wagyu or short-gestation semen used on the balance of the herd.
Heifer synchrony is also used to get the heifers in-calf with sexed semen.
“The only areas where we have calves that aren’t fit for the market are the heifers after that first round of synchrony and any later calving cows, which are given short-gestation semen,” she says.
The results have been noticed in the wider farming community and more were starting to follow similar strategies around using sexed semen.
Shifting from 34-71% came from taking a more planned approach and having systems in place when it came to mating.
The Wagyu calves are kept on the farm for an average of 13 days. The calves stay longer in the sheds and are more closely monitored to ensure they are healthy.
“They have become a very well-cared for and valued part of our system. We have been changing our thinking and supporting other farmers to change their thinking around that,” she said.
That calf policy will become more important as Owl Farm looks to reduce its replacement policy and greenhouse gases.
Financial-wise, the farm has paid off a large portion of its debt to the extent it was now below $18.20/kg milksolids.
“We are really focused on having a resilient business. We’re focused on having a strong operating profit margin, so we want more of our revenue to be held as profit,” she says.
As that revenue increased, Owl Farm focused on paying down debt, which will give them options in the future.
The farm’s March budget will for the first time include a line which calculates its cost of emissions.
“Even though there’s no actual value on it now, we can start to say that we produced [for example] 9000kg/ha of CO2 equivalent, if [offsets] were at $50, this is what it would cost us,” she says.
It will also start conversations around possible mitigation strategies the farm could invest in to offset those emissions.
“The story we’re trying to tell farmers is that there are things you can do, let’s plan for it, and there is a really positive future out there. You just need to understand where you are at and the tools you have moving forward,” she says.
The farm’s response to climate change has been the biggest influence on its day-to-day operations over the past five years. Drier winters and summers and lower annual rainfall has forced the farm to adopt a more climate-resilient system.
The calving date has been brought forward to help manage the drier winter and plan for a dry summer, using supplementary feed crops to make up for the feed deficit, using turnips and kale over the past three seasons.
The pastures have also evolved, with summer-resilient species such as cocksfoot and plantain sown into new swards.
In the past, the farm used maize and brought in palm kernel as summer feed. Initially, this caused herd milk production to fall, but per-cow production and cow efficiency has gradually increased over time to 440kg MS/cow.
Annual production still has a degree of variability because of the dry summers. The average rainfall has fallen from the traditional 1200mm to 800 over the past few years.
The farm’s production target is more of a tool to use to help balance the budget. The budget is set on a predicted production and the subsequent income value. The challenge this season is the variability of value on a per kilogram basis, which has been more than the kilograms of milksolids produced.
“This year, for example, we have an extra predicted $400,000 in income just from the change in payout,” she says
“We budget to do 175,000kg milksolids every year and we set up our system to achieve that, but we wouldn’t do it at all costs. If we were at risk of not achieving it, we wouldn’t spend a lot of money to achieve it if it was going to increase our environmental footprint,” she says.
The herd produces 175,000 kilograms of milksolids each season and last season hit all production targets.
“It’s not all about production. It’s just one of the metrics that allows us to plan and set up for the season ahead.”
Looking ahead, a fresh farm systems review is underway with N usage within that system a major focus.
The farm has a high purchased N surplus because of its use of grass silage and lack of maize in its system.
“We are quite intent in looking at how we can grow and adapt our farm system that meets the needs of a hot, dry summer, some of the heat stress challenges that we have and meets the needs of reducing the N surplus that we have within our dietary system,” she says.
They are also considering whether there is a place in this new system where methane inhibitors could be used.
A key focus for this revision was ensuring the system stayed in line with Fonterra’s requirement for 80% of its feed being home-grown and pasture-based.
The review will also allow them to more accurately determine where Waikato Regional Council’s Plan Change One might land and what central government’s emissions reduction plan might look like – and how Owl Farm’s system could change in reaction to that.
That review should be completed by the middle of the next dairying season and put in place by 2024-2025.
It will coincide with the farm losing 32ha, which will be subdivided and converted to residential housing, as well as commercial construction.
It will reduce it to 120ha effective and reduce the herd size to around 350 cows.
The downsizing came as no surprise to Jo as urbanisation puts pressure on land-use close to town boundaries.
“It’s another reason why we have a re-focused effort on how we use technology,” she says.
The land was also hard to get to and is poorer-producing. If it was not being subdivided for housing, some of it could have potentially been planted as an offset for the farm’s emissions.
“Nothing’s changing from a farm system point of view, we’re just descaling slightly and the stocking rate will stay similar,” she says.
“Having the wagon wheel approach to the future of our farm system, it means we have a very clear plan and purposeful direction. You don’t get sidetracked by the little bits because you know where you are heading.”
It also means they are less fazed with any future uncertainty around pending legislation that could impact the farm, she says.
“We know that every year, if we make gains and bank those gains and maintain them, and position ourselves to make the next step, then we know we’re heading in the right direction,” she says.
“This uncertainty doesn’t really scare us because we have a strong financial business and we know we have made good gains in the past and will continue to make them.”
She is very optimistic about the future, believing that now is the right time to get positioned for the changes that are to come.
“Don’t be afraid of them. I think we need to embrace them and move forward with them and have a balanced approach with how those systems have evolved,” she says.
