Necessity wife of invention

By ELLEN READ

Robin and Carol Fagan have farmed sheep and cattle near Te Kuiti for 30 years.

They managed the farm successfully as a couple, but when Carol got a job off the farm to bring in extra money Robin was left to manage the stock single-handed.

The move prompted an invention which is now earning significant export dollars for the pair.

The invention was an electronic cattle and sheep-handling system, allowing one person to do a job previously needing two.

"It's the world's first infra-red automatic animal drafter," Carol Fagan said.

Compressed air systems, some also using infra-red scanners to read animal tags, mean stock can be weighed, handled and sorted by one person. The stock can also be sorted into nine categories.

Ten years ago, the Fagans had two partners in the scheme but when Carol left her job in 1997 to work full-time for the new business - called Racewell - the couple decided to go it alone.

They raised money against their farm and set to work.

"It was a pretty scary thing to do because had it tipped over, we would have lost everything. And like lots of small businesses we were grossly under-capitalised," Carol said.

The gamble paid off and Racewell now manufactures the control system from a Te Kuiti workshop.

The company makes about 200 sheep units each year, with the cost ranging from $3700 to $17,000 for top end, complete with hydraulic trailer systems.

Racewell exports the sheep systems to Australia, Canada, Britain and Sweden and is negotiating to send some to Uruguay.

Cattle system numbers are more variable as the target market is top end and the systems - ranging in price from $6000 to $20,000 - are usually customised. The Fagans' technology is now to be applied to another national pastime - rugby.

The company has patented and launched a new era in scrummaging practice - a machine that closely simulates a live scrum.

External controls allow the coach to vary the pressure of the push against the forward pack and, if required, skew the scrum left or right.

The idea came from discussions with the Piopio College First XV coaches who wanted a training machine and approached Robin Fagan to see if he had some ideas.

Initial tests with Piopio College and the King Country pack were positive. Feedback from the coaches and rugby legend Colin Meads told the Fagans they had come up with a unique and powerful training tool for rugby teams.