Powder plant triples yield
Fonterra says its $231 million upgrade to its dairy processing plant at Pahiatua in the Tararua district will give the company more flexibility in the products it can produce at other plants.
But in the best tradition of Kiwi ingenuity, Walker has found a way of being part of the success story of dairying, without making a lot of changes to his existing farming operations.
He and wife Louise run 3000 romney breeding ewes and 100 angus beef cows on his property called Ross na Clonagh. They are the fourth generation to farm the property.
It has an interesting history and its name dates back to Walker's great grandfather who left Ireland in the 1880's at just 17 and soon found himself gaining the property initially by way of ballot.
The place is as beautiful as the name Ross na Clonagh sounds.
But about 12 years ago he decided to diversify and as he puts it "got to be part of the great white milk wave without milking a cow''. He has succeeded and his method is pretty simple. He buys in 3-month-old weaner heifers, mainly jerseys, from a local farmer, mates them and sells them on as in calf heifers 18 months later.
"I was also sick of farming fresian bulls. They used to annoy me. The profitability went out of it and about this time the nuisance factor went up. So I made a change. I buy the weaners from a very reputable local farmer. He's a neighbour who's got a very high performing jersey herd. I use a bull to mate the heifers rather and AI them. This is because mating usually occurs at docking time which means we are very busy," he says.
The heifers are mated in mid-October and are then sold in May of the following year when they are about 18 months old. Walker says while most of weaners he buys are jersey he's also bought fresians and some of these have been sold to Fonterra for their newly developed farms in China.
"For the most part we sell mainly locally. We've got a stock agent who's become a mate and he's worked here and has got pretty good connections locally so most of the animals are sold in this district," he says.
A key factor in the success of his operation is feeding the heifers. "They have taken priority for many years because they have been the most profitable class of stock. We feed them like dairy farmers do – it's not rocket science. However there are a bit of conflict at the moment with lamb finishing, because lamb prices are so good," he says.
Walker says the move to raising the heifers has been good, especially given the expansion in the dairy industry.
He says the market has been both strong and profitable and made it worthwhile to be a part of the "milk wave''.
