While looking into options for his Mid Canterbury arable farming operation Darryl Oldham considered the idea of sheep milking.
Then his bank manager put him up for the Rabobank Farm Managers Programme (FMP) and Oldham says it was all go from there.
Selected from a group of New Zealand’s most progressive farmers who were graduates of the 2021 Rabobank FMP, Oldham was recognised for his business management project that highlighted how he has utilised the lessons from the programme in his farm management planning.
Designed for emerging farmers, the FMP focuses on the development of business management skills with an emphasis on business planning, leadership, people management and self-awareness.
At the recent awards ceremony Oldham took out the top 2022 Rabobank FMP award, the business management prize for up-and-coming farmers.
“It was the opportunity to use the sheep milking idea for my project,” Oldham said.
The manager on the family’s 200-hectare arable property at Westerfield, near Ashburton, Oldham farms in partnership with his wife Anna and parents Peter and Gael Oldham.
Dairy grazing and a clover heading contracting business complemented the cropping operation but with environmental regulations coming fast and furious, the Oldhams were considering options.
“We were looking for more environment-friendly options (than dairy grazing), considering different crops and sheep milking came into the mix,” he said.
The farm grows feed wheat, grass-seeds, process peas, maize for silage and now fodder crops for finishing lambs.
“With the sheep milking project on hold we switched from dairy grazing to finishing store lambs,” he said.
“We figured the lambs would be a lighter environmental footprint than the dairy grazing.”
Read: Sheep milking expands to Taranaki
Oldham’s management project assessed the viability of converting all or part of the farming operation to sheep milking.
“Incorporating lessons from the FMP, I looked at the key financial performance indicators for the current system, including with a sheep milking unit added,” he said.
“To do this, I designed a business plan with conversion costs and gross margins to generate some financial information that could be used as performance indicators in the event sheep milking was introduced.”
He also looked at what adding sheep milking to the farming system would do to the farm’s environmental footprint.
“I spoke with a number of other farmers who are sheep milking as well as the local Ravensdown environmental team to get a feel for the environmental impact and the initial analysis suggested sheep milking would have a similar or lower environmental impact than the existing farming activity,” he said.
While his analysis highlighted there were several merits to the sheep milking option, Oldham said the partnership decided to put the sheep milking unit on hold meantime.
“The sheep milk processing plant that was planned to open in the Ashburton district later this year has met with delays and with this factory not expected to open until next year and no other factory near-by to collect sheep milk, the conversion didn’t make sense right now,” he said.
“My analysis also found no strong financial advantage for going down the sheep milking route for our business with the forecast profitability largely in line with that of our existing operation.”
But sheep milking is not totally ruled out as an option in the future.
“We’ll continue to analyse the feasibility of adding sheep milking into our farming system and if we can find a way to increase the yield of milk per sheep, we may well go down this path at some stage in the future.”
Oldham was presented with the 2022 FMP business award and $2000 cash prize at a graduation dinner in Christchurch.
The event was attended by a selection of graduates from the most recent FMP course in 2021 as well as this year’s crop of FMP participants and other agricultural industry leaders.
He 100% recommends the FMP.
“It was a great course with a top line up of speakers from all around the country,” he said.
“The course covered a wide array of topics that I hadn’t had much exposure to before, like leadership, staff management and self-awareness.
“It got you thinking about different ways to look at the business, inspiring you to look outside the square.
“The programme also included some ideas and tools that have helped me to change my mindset when I’m confronted with a problem and this has been really helpful over the past year when I’ve encountered challenges on-farm.
“I also really enjoyed the interaction with other farmers on the programme and learning more about their farming operations and the obstacles they’re facing,” Oldham said.
Rabobank South Island regional manager Michael Dunn and one of the judges for the management project award said the projects were undertaken so participants could put into practice the tools, theories and ideas introduced during the programme and utilise these in the farming operations where they worked.
“Darryl looked outside the box at an option with the potential to add value to the overall farming business,” Dunn said.
“The judging panel was impressed by the high level of detail and thoughtful analysis incorporated within his project and it was clear to see he’d taken a lot away from his attendance at last year’s programme.
“Ultimately, the partnership has decided not to proceed with the sheep milking opportunity right now however, it’s the journey that’s valuable and the groundwork has now been done should the family decide to re-visit this opportunity in the future.”
The annual Rabobank FMP has been run since 2006 and offers farmers from across NZ and Australia an opportunity to develop and enhance their business management skills.
Previous years have seen farmers from both sides of the Tasman joining together on the same course, but over the past two years separate programmes have been run in in both countries due to covid related travel restrictions.
A total 29 Kiwi farmers representing the sheep and beef, deer, dairy and arable sectors attended the NZ FMP programme.
Participants leave the course with new skills, techniques and a commercially driven perspective on farm management while also gaining the ability to put systems and structures in place to manage growth.
