About a year ago, three Southland families ended their three-year stint as monitor farmers .
Kaiwera farmer Robert Young is effusive in his praise of the monitor farm program that he was involved with for three years, reports The Southland Times.
"When it finished, there was a big sigh of relief of not being in the fish bowl and we were quite happy to not have any of that stuff happen for a little bit."
But with the benefit of time, he and wife Stacey realised they had got a "huge amount" out of the Meat & Wool New Zealand scheme, Young said.
"It improved our farming out of sight and was worth a lot of money to us." Their profit more than doubled, he said.
The growth did not just come from a rise in lamb prices – returns were up in the third year even if the lamb price from the first year was used – but from a significant rethink on farm systems and diversifying where the farm income came from.
Many monitor farms had focused on lifting production levels to generate more income, but the Youngs wanted to lift the farm's profitability by finding other ways of making money from their 460ha. Production was a factor in boosting profit, but a change in the mix of products and the way they farmed helping achieve the most benefits.
Better pasture management did bring production gains, and to a lesser extent a shift in breed from romney to grow bulk ewes, a romney-texel-poll dorset cross.
This shift in breed was starting to pay dividends now but it was looking beyond his traditional land- use mix that made the biggest difference.
The lambing percentage did not lift dramatically, with salmonella brandenburg a problem last year, but average growth rates improved.
Even though they were killing at the same time, average weights had lifted from 16-17.5kg to 17.5-18.5kg, Mr Young said. They had been understocked and were letting the spring and early-summer grass get too long and lose quality.
By getting on top of that feed, they were able to produce better feed through the rest of the summer and that helped keep lamb growth rates up, he said.
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