Family is important to Mark and Jane Chrystall, which is reflected in the way Spring Farms operates. Photos: Alistair Thom
Spring Farms is run under what farmer director Mark Chrystall describes as a hybrid model, which he says acknowledges the importance of family to the people behind it while picking out what they see as the best aspects of a corporate model.
“Family is really important in our business,” Mark says, of the operation he runs with his wife Jane, his brother Richard and sister-in-law Ju, and Rob and Amanda Collier.
Part of that is the three couples either have or have had kids at university and they always make a point of employing them during that time.
“If they want a job, we find one for them. That’s important to us,” he says.
However, they also recognise that bringing in aspects of the corporate model, such as a focus on governance and financial management, has its advantages.
The couples, who farm 2531 hectares across six properties, meet four times a year as the Spring Farms board, planning early on, then working through challenges and opportunities, revised cashflow, as the year unfolds.
The family approach extends to looking after the people who work on the farm, which includes four full-time staff who all have young children.
“We run a very flat structure,” he says.
“You’ve got to treat your staff as an asset.”
He says in their farm production meetings there’s no ‘I’m the boss’.
“To run this business we need to get the best out of our staff and give them a voice.
“We’re really adamant about that, hearing from them.”
He says traditionally run workplaces often have a pyramid structure, with bosses and 2ICs at the top, with other staff down the bottom.
“We invert that, we put ourselves down there,” he says.
“The reason behind that is if anything goes wrong with those guys, then it’s probably our fault because we haven’t explained something properly.”
One of the couples’ goals is to leave the land in a better state than when they received it and they use the three-legged stool sustainability model to achieve that – financial, environmental and social goals are all important and have to work together.
“We come back to that concept quite a bit, asking ourselves: what are we doing around those three things?” he says.
The brothers are the third generation of their family to farm in the area, but the business has changed a lot from their forefathers’ times.
Mark says when he and Richard took over it quickly became apparent that he would need to get outside his comfort zone and develop skills that would complement his brother’s, for the good of the overall operation.
When they first started the business Richard was working for Brownrigg Ag in Hawke’s Bay, while Mark was working on the farm for their father.
“Richard had the experience on the production side but we needed more on the finance side,” he says.
“So, I had to upskill on that.”
That led Mark to completing Rabobank’s Executive Development Programme for Primary Producers in 2005. He’s since completed an Institute of Directors NZ course.
Some of the benefits of strengthening his business skills were not immediately obvious but have become more apparent over time, he says.
“Instead of looking at your attributes and your positives, you’ve actually got to look where your weaknesses are,” he says.
“I remember speaking at an event since then, where I said the biggest inhibitor to our business growing was not the weather, not the size of the operation or where we were, it was me.
“It was about upskilling myself and growing, thinking outside the square.”
The homestead and yards at the Spring Farms Tikirere block, north of Taihape.
The brothers’ combined skills led them to changing the business farming system between 2008 and 2010, with class 1 country switched to focus on lamb-finishing crops, the hill country stocking rate reduced and specialist crops utilised to weight-gain cattle over winter.
Today, Spring Farms is a sheep and beef enterprise running about 27,000 stock units, with a sheep to cattle ratio of 70:30.
It’s a breeding/finishing operation, with that ratio 65:35.
The cattle policy is broad, driven by what type of animal suits individual blocks, along with margin return.
Production crops include about 120ha of chicory/clover, 95ha of winter/summer brassicas, 15ha of triticale for whole crop cereal silage and 90ha of annual ryegrass.
The farm system changes have helped them move towards a focus on adding value and being part of branded programmes.
They are part of an Alliance handpicked beef programme that’s based on eating experience.
“We’re producing an animal that’s got a big focus on the marbling side of it,” he says, with buying bulls through Te Mania Angus showing its worth in building intramuscular fats (IMF).
He expects that to continue.
“Once we start to see that come in the female progeny, then we’ll start to get a double whammy and we’ll see that rise even more,” he says.
“With that product they have an even nutritional plan from the day they are born to the day they are processed.
“When you have a dip, the first fats you lose are the intramuscular fats, so we have a big focus on growing animals through the winter, trying to achieve the magical kilo mark on brassica crops and baleage.”
Sheep go through Anzco in Marton and the business was earlier part of the Waitrose Producer Group.
“That’s come to an end but we’re still focused on delivering a quality product, so all of our lamb comes off a crop-based system, whether that be chicory or brassicas.
“We’ve really lifted our yields, probably about 5% since 2008 when we ran a high stocking rate in our hills, and gone to more of a consistent supply.”
A key change to the business focus has been a change in its hill country policy so that it’s now set around the resource, rather than making the resource fit the policy.
“We use our hills as a cost centre and the flats as a profit centre,” he says.
“It’s about not having heavy cattle on wet country over the winter months.
“With the hill country it’s probably more around sustainability and simplicity, while our flats a lot of it is around sustainability and cents per kilo returns.”
Spring Farms also has a goal of having the whole operation under a reticulated water system within the next five years.
Mark says they are probably about halfway there, with two big solar reticulated systems that have been installed working very well.
That focus on the environment, which also makes good business sense, began in 2008, with all the farm’s blocks now mapped into Horizons Regional Council’s Sustainable Land Use Initiative (SLUI) system.
On top of that about 50-55km of waterways fencing has been completed in what’s an ongoing project, while a wetland has been established just below Mark’s woolshed, in an effort to improve waterways.
“A lot of the issues within our catchments are around woolsheds and yards,” he says.
“Because of the nature of the hill country a lot of the sheds and yards are down the bottom.”
That means rain coming down the hills flows through those areas into waterways.
“So, we decided to put in a wetland below the woolshed to capture the run-off from the yard,” he says.
As part of the project, they planted 4000 native trees, with another 5000 planned for this year.
“And we’ll probably do another 7km of fencing (this year), mainly around waterways and streams,” he says.
The focus on the environment includes rodent trapping, with plans to potentially liberate some whio (blue ducks) in the future.
Mark is also deputy chair of the Rangitīkei Rivers Catchment Collective, which covers 700,000ha, basically incorporating the whole Rangitīkei basin, along with the Whangaehu and Turakina basins.
Lambs grazing on a chicory/clover paddock at the Spring Farms’ Tikirere block.
Around 65% of that land area is under sub-catchment groups, one of which is the Upper Moawhango River Catchment Group, which Mark chairs.
He says the latter group has been running for about three years, starting with water analysis for nutrients, the main ones being phosphorus, nitrogen, E.coli and sediment (turbidity).
But there’s more to being involved in catchment groups than just water quality, he says.
“It’s not just about water and it’s not just about the environment, it’s also biodiversity, it’s mental health, there’s a whole range of things that come into it,” he says.
“It brings people together, so they can have a chat, have a cup of tea or a beer afterwards.”
That sense of community is part of the social aspect of the three-legged stool.
“For us as a business, community is big,” he says.
“My brother Richard is chairman of the local hall committee. They’ve got a fundraiser, the Moawhango School 4WD, which has been going for 17 years.
“It’s very successful and brings a lot of money into the community, the school and the hall.”
Which is all part of helping to look after future generations.
“We need to have families coming back into Moawhango to keep the school going, not only for the community but also for us, for employment,” he says.
“We’re pretty passionate about our local community and do everything we can to bat for it.”
Also helping to look after future generations is Spring Farms’ involvement in the Growing Future Farmers (GFF) programme, which aims to attract more young people into the red meat sector and provide them with the skills to thrive on-farm.
Mark says they have two GFF cadets working for them, one out of Feilding High School and another from Napier Boys’ High School.
His initial involvement with GFF was through the Rabobank Client Council, which funded the programme in its first stages.
He chairs the bank’s regional client council, but says he didn’t take the cadets on just because of that.
“We haven’t done it as a business because of my involvement, we’ve done it because as an industry we need to get these young kids into farming,” he says.
“We just said from the start, ‘we will support this 100% and we will find a way to make it work’.”
GFF has more than 160 first- and second-year cadets working on sheep and beef farms around the country and Mark says that has got to be good for the sector’s future.
“It’s an investment in the future that’s got to be incredibly advantageous for the industry,” he says.
“It takes some commitment from us, but we’re right behind it.”
Mark says he and his wife Jane are very proud that their two children see their future in agriculture, with their daughter working as an agronomist in Hawke’s Bay and their son studying towards a B Ag Com at Lincoln.
Back on the farm, he says a large amount of time is put into planning with their five Ps approach of ‘prior planning prevents poor performance’, which is not only good for the farming business, but also makes for a more positive experience for everyone involved.
“One of the most important things in business is to enjoy what you are doing,” he says.
“We all have a passion for farming in this business. We very much enjoy the team environment and by working together we can get the best out of everyone.”
SIDEBAR
Head: A lasting relationship
The Chrystall family’s long-standing relationship with Rabobank has led to its wool contributing to the carpet on the floor of the bank’s Hamilton office.
When the bank built the new office they wanted carpet made from wool from their clients around New Zealand, which included the Chrystalls.
After it was shorn the wool went to be spun, made into yarn and then into carpet.
“So it’s our wool in the carpet, which is pretty cool really,” Mark says.
