With many changes in the farming business, Gisborne/Wairoa's Meat & Wool New Zealand monitor farmers Ken and Kirsty Shaw are right on track to achieve their original goals reports The Gisborne Herald. Around 100 people were on hand to hear about and see the improvements to their Matawai farm Elmore Station at the annual field day. Now in the third year of the monitor farm programme, the Shaws have made more than 20 changes to their farming operation and only four have not worked out with other changes making a huge difference on the farm and to the bottom line. The vision for Elmore at the start of the programme was to have an economic farm surplus that was up with the top 10 in the district; to have a farm that was aesthetically pleasing; to repay $100,000 of debt, and to generate enough cash for debt repayment and for the Shaws to have the ability to do what they wanted when they wanted to. There have been many changes on the farm. The ones that did not work included increasing cow numbers, calving the cows among the ewes and fixed price contracts. Parts of the cropping trial have also been a learning curve. However, there were many changes that did work. Going to once-a-year shearing has cut costs and produced good length wool and a big benefit of dropping the deer was that it freed up some good finishing land. The cropping programme meant cattle could be wintered more efficiently and then finished in the spring. Doing a faecal egg count reduction test, monthly faecal egg count monitoring and culturing, being part of a barber's pole trial and a Johnnes trial meant a huge saving on drench and only animals that needed drenching were treated. "We acted on results and information. If ever anyone offers a trial, now I say yes. Information is power to make better decisions." There are now fewer mobs on the farm, simplifying classes of stock and condition scoring and weighing at critical times gives a good measure of breeding efficiency. Pasture quality is the biggest improvement, Mr Shaw says.
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