A passion to see Friesians achieve their potential

Jason and his wife Nikki moved here three years ago after managing dairy farms in Manawatu. Jason (35) was born in Pahiatua, a sort of townie who began in dairying when he left school. He also worked in a butter factory and did the typical Kiwi two-year OE in the UK, working in a bar. 

At age 25, realising he needed to upskill to go places in the dairy industry, he went to Massey University, taking a bachelor course in applied science, majoring in agriculture.

Armed with a degree and passion for the industry, Halford began to start to set goals and made a  plan to succeed. Three years ago he won the title of ‘farm manager of the year’ in the national dairy Industry awards.          

“I now understand what I thrive on and that is on wanting to win and aiming to and wanting to be the best I can be. I realised in that first attempt at the awards that I needed to better understand dairying and agriculture. It made me look hard at myself and what’s important to me in farming. 

“Other people who have been through the dairy industry awards say it’s helped them too. It’s not rocket science, it’s just focusing on your goals and making them achievable because you have to realise you’ve got a short time in dairying because it so hard on you.”

Halford is goal focused. He has long and short terms plans and makes sure they’re always there in front of him. He goes as far as making up passwords to remind him of the goals every day. He makes lists and ticks off what he’s achieved and he constantly sets new challenges for himself. He sees himself as positive and solution focused and develops strategies to deal with problems on the farm. And he is driven by the excitement and desire to see his animals perform to their potential and to give them whatever it takes to be the best.

 “We tend to underestimate how much a cow can eat given the opportunity. They can eat a lot of food after calving. I think it’s a matter of feed feed feed . We tend to put our cows into winter grazing and we spend a lot of money on that and then the cows come home and we feed them a little bit less because it’s spring and we are a bit tight. But we shouldn’t do that; we need feed our cows and front-end our milk production.”

Halford says he never accepts a drop in his milk production. “If I peak at 2.8 I’m not accepting a  drop of 7-10% a month.  I am challenging myself to a drop of only 2-3% a month.”

Feeding his cows well is one of Halford’s key goals.  He believes cows can be so much more productive if they are fed better. 

“If the BW and PW is increasing, our cows are becoming more efficient. That’s fine, but are we producing any more milk from those efficient cows? I don’t know. I tend to think we may be missing the boat a bit when it comes to getting the best out of our cows.”