The Ellisons are silent investors in the farm and Robertson runs this and other farm business activities. Notable here is the quality of the infrastructure, the attention to detail and the commitment to excellence and sustainability. As an equity partnership the operation is very businesslike, with an office separate from the house.
The 218ha runs 620 cows producing 278,000kgMS. It’s flat highly productive soil, 60% irrigated. The stocking rate is 2.9. Cows are wintered off and supplements are bought from local suppliers. In the past year Robertson has used 350 t of PKE, the farm now verging on system four.
The owners bought the farm in 2007 from local farmers Hew and Roger Dalrymple who’d used it for cropping.
Says Robertson, “This property had to be converted to a dairy farm. All the fences had been taken out to allow for cropping and we reset it up as a dairy farm. We put in all the races, fences and water supply and extended the irrigation. We wanted to have an industry best farm, using industry best training of our three staff.”
Their professional approach to the staff shows in modern, well appointed housing, and clear work plans and key performance indicators. Being valued and respected is something staff look for in employers.
Robertson has an absolute commitment to farming in a sustainable way.
“We have a lot of water under this country: you need only dig down 1.5m to find a constant seam of water running through the gravels. We are conscious of our environmental footprint here so we are not going for a high stocking rate. We want to make our mark by high production from a sustainable farming system.”
An extensive network of drains runs farm-wide, well mapped. The owners have a big riparian planting programme along streams and drains.
“These drains run all year, so there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong if we don’t manage it well. We are planting all native trees from the Wanganui Prison, planted by the prisoners from the Manawatu Prison. Our aim is to plant and fence this whole 2.5km river corridor that runs through the farm. We are about half way through that now. It creates a good habitat for bird life and we like to encourage the tuis and pheasants. There is a no hunting policy on the farm so plenty of ducks fly here in the hunting season.”
Robertson is a busy person who sees his role as operations manager, leaving day-to-day herd management to the farm manager. He has other business interests and is now vice-chairman of Federated Farmers Dairy section in Manawatu/Rangitikei.
