New opportunity unearthed

Resource: Mike Dinneen holds powdered top-quality agricultural lime ready for spreading. Photo/Warren Buckland

HEADING into retirement, Puketitiri farmer Mike Dinneen wanted enough land to support his sons Nicholas and Daniel.

He bought back an adjoining block from Matariki Forests, sold 25 years previous.

As they returned the land to pasture they noticed lime deposits in the forestry tracks cut into the steep country, but it took two years before they got around to sending a sample for testing.

The results showed top-quality lime - more than 90 per cent purity - and the volume estimate vast.

Agricultural lime is a source of calcium and magnesium for pasture, improves the uptake of plant nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and corrects acidic soils.

The nearest lime quarries are in Poukawa/Havelock North and Pakipaki.

Knowing little of the fertiliser business, he approached farmer co-operative Ravensdown.

"They came down and tested it and were very keen," he said.

"They wanted to get resource consent and build the shed and take the whole thing over. They were only prepared to pay me $1 or $1.50 a tonne."

Of more concern was the possibility Ravensdown might mothball the resource.

"They said they if they didn't operate it they would pay me $5000 a year for the ownership rights. We weren't interested in that."

His daughter Jane Ormsby searched online and found a Waikato company that agreed to partner with the family.

Waikato-based HG Leach & Co supplies the crusher and is no stranger to new enterprises. It operates quarries, waste management, compost production and general cartage.

With an improved deal in hand the family began the "long-drawn-out-process" of obtaining resource consent and spent $120,000 on consents, a shed to sore crushed lime, a widened road "and away we went".

The road is key to the operation. The farm is close to the Napier-Taupo road in Te Pohue. The forestry company granted use of a 9km road to the highway on a per-tonne tariff, bringing Waikato farms near Taupo into Puketitiri Lime Company range.

Farms in Puketitiri and Patoka were already supportive of the new resource, so he went door knocking on the Napier to Taupo road that includes major stations such as Tarawera and Lochinver.

Tarawera has 2623ha, much of it on the nearby banks of the Mohaka River.

Lochinver has 3,800 hectare on the Rangitaiki Plains, 32 kilometres from Taupo.

So far he hasn't received any orders, but he has faith with up to $12 a tonne in cartage cost savings and a high-quality product. Some farms on the road use lime from Te Kuiti.

"I don't know if there is going to be a real fortune in it for us, but there is a great saving for everyone in this district.

"I hope they support it and I'm sure they will. It is a great saving for the Taupo-road farmers.

"Our biggest order has been about 300 tonne. Those big stations on the Taupo road would put on 1000 tonne a year.

"We just have to keep at them - it would make a big difference for the quarry and a big cartage saving for them.

"The main reason to setting up was the huge cartage saving for people up here. Why chuck it out from Havelock North or further afield when we have good-quality lime in our district?"

Son Nicholas operates the quarry.

If the quarry business continues to grow there are plans to increase shedding to accommodate more than the current 1000 tonnes.

Another plan, Mike Dinneen's retirement to Taradale, is failing dismally.

The farm is in a trust, leased by sons Nicholas and Daniel's partnership.

"One day in Taradale is enough for me before I come up here. I'm the unpaid maintenance man and I also help run the quarry - whatever is going."