{"id":12186,"date":"2014-08-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/hay-a-way-of-life\/"},"modified":"2014-08-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T12:00:00","slug":"hay-a-way-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/hay-a-way-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Hay a way of life"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

John has seen many farming fads come and go around rural Gisborne. Some created new work for contractors. Others took work away.<\/p>\n

Apart from hay, the bulk of John\u2019s work these days was maize and pasture renovation \u2013 cultivation, spraying, planting crops and new grasses \u2013 and cartage.<\/p>\n

Barley and soybeans had come and gone. Given the relative isolation of Gisborne, where grapes and citrus are popular and there\u2019s a scarcity of dairy farming, options are limited.<\/p>\n

John was born at Puha near Te Karaka, a small village 30km north-west of Gisborne.<\/p>\n

His father Russell was a local farmer and had baled hay for locals himself.<\/p>\n

John developed a general affinity with machinery, and in particular an interest in tractors, from an early age.<\/p>\n

He worked for several local contractors during high school. When he completed sixth form, John got a loan to buy a baler, tractor, and two hay rakes from a retiring contractor.<\/p>\n

In the off-season he worked for other contractors and helped his father on the farm.<\/p>\n

He then bought a planter for maize, discs for cultivation, and his equipment collection progressively increased.<\/p>\n

John started drilling peas for Wattie\u2019s, and after five years, bought his first maize and barley harvester. Barley was a popular crop around Gisborne at the time but had become uneconomical to grow in the area, John says.<\/p>\n

Changes in farming since John started contracting in 1976 have had an impact on how rural contractors make a living.<\/p>\n

Farmers had become bigger by buying out neighbours, and corporate or absentee owners were more common.<\/p>\n

Many farming operations were big enough to buy their own equipment and do the work that a contractor was once employed for, or landowners leased their cropping land out to specialist growers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started every farmer who couldn\u2019t do a job themselves would hire a contractor.<\/p>\n

\n

Despite years of contracting John Allison still loves the smell of fresh cut hay.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cYou might have had two great weeks of harvesting maize, only then to have a gear box blow up and all that income is spent on repairing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be easier to meet farmers\u2019 needs if they talked in advance to their contractor about their plans, John says.<\/p>\n

A lot of contractors have made big commitments to buy equipment and had become an \u201con-demand\u201d service but they did not always have the right piece of equipment available immediately.<\/p>\n

Rising costs have also made it harder for people to pay their bills on time. That has a flow-on effect for business.<\/p>\n

It cost 40 cents to make one hay bale when John started out, compared to $3.20 today.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarmers want things done when it should be done but they might not have any money in the bank to pay me until their crop has been sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compliance issues \u2013 accident cover, GST, and Growsafe \u2013 all cost time and money. There is now even a code of compliance for water carrying.<\/p>\n

Enforced break<\/strong><\/h2>\n

John Allison was forced to take a three-month holiday eight years ago to recover from by-pass surgery after having a heart attack on the job.<\/p>\n

Since his heart attack he tries to take time off every year to travel overseas and enjoy a change of scenery.<\/p>\n

He has fond memories of growing up in what was a very different district in his youth and collects and records history of the wider Te Karaka area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Allison reckons there\u2019s nothing better than the smell of fresh-cut hay.\nHay was how he got into rural contracting and 37 years later it remains a big part of his business.\n\n\u2018The new generation of farmers tends to be very impatient. They want their job done now and they also want to see what I call the bling factor. They want to see the man coming to do the job driving the flashest gear.\u2019\n\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":12187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t