Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
So I like the little bit of the competitive thing about it. Yeah and I just love, you know,
trying to grow as much grass and I can. I love having healthy cows. I love being able to feed
them well. Yeah and, you know, and you get a milk docket
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every day which tells you, hey,
you're doing a good job or otherwise (male, conventional dairy farmer).
The funniest thing that makes me [laugh]. Everybody asks you, are you up for the year?
And we're down for the year but we're probably $30,000 better off [than them], but I should
say I'm up, but I love saying I've gone backwards, you know. But that's how they gauge
you. Because the dairy company's got you brainwashed. Every day you're looking at the
ticket to see whether you're plus on last year and plus on last month
And it's just this
big game to get more production. But it does cost - a lot of things - mostly the environment
(male, organic dairy farmer).
:::
Taking on the risk of lower production could be a difficult hurdle for dairy farmers
who would like to practice organically. The model of profitable dairy farming while
producing less is a very important alternative in the dairy industry. As in the kiwifruit
sector, there are many different relationships between ownership and performed
labor on dairy farms in New Zealand, where there is a strong culture of starting
the path to farm ownership by being a share milker. In this arrangement a person
or a group may own a proportion of the herd and has an agreement with the owner
about who pays for what and how the income is assigned. Increasingly too there
are so-called corporate farms, which have very large herds and employ staff to do
particular tasks, and even manage the enterprise.
In sheep/beef farming the culture of the good farmer is even more restrictive and
farmers who appear different can become quite isolated, as the following quotes
illustrate.
I mean my father and some people predicted doom [when I went organic] [
] but you
know it's just carried on. I think it's just as sustainable a system (male, organic mixed
farmer).
Ohhh sometimes, sometimes I'll have a smile to myself, you know, if you drive past a
paddock and there's shitty ewes or something there 'cos you sort of think oh well, it's not
just organic people that have shit on their sheep, mm [
:::
] people tend think that's what's
gonna' happen with [
:::
] organic so, mmm (female, organic sheep/beef farmer).
Ah, and my plan was just go and copy off somebody
:::
But, being like the first year,
that anybody had ever paid a premium for [organic] livestock, um, all the people that were
in it prior to me were doing it for deep, philosophical reasons and, you could hardly get in
the door for leather sandals and, um, kaftans, but there was not many on the case farmers
doing it because there was no reason to do it (male, organic sheep/beef farmer).
You know um, it's a pretty conservative area here so when the farms [are run] through
families and um land gets [passed on], Presbyterian farming stock you know, yeah, lot of
“Mc” names and things, you know, but um and ah some farmers don't wear it, don't ever
talk to us about organics. They pretend we don't do it (male, organic sheep/beef).
We also grow red clover here for seed and that's basically pollinated by honey bees and
the bumbles. Well I know a lot of farmers can have a struggle to do that now, um that they
struggle with the bumble bees - they haven't got them and that's partly to do with the old
tree lines and things they've taken out and [
:::
:::
] not having wilderness areas on their farm
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Each day in the milking season a farmer gets a docket when the milk is collected giving the
quantity of milk solids produced that day and comparing total production up to that time with the
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