Summer and Garth Foote at a recent Farming Diversity Field Day held on their farm to demonstrate their longer-recovery grazing management. Photo / Steve Macmillan
Puhipuhi beef farmers Garth and Summer Foote are embracing the use of diverse pasture to produce sustainable high-value Wagyu stock.
They hope to supply local butchers with the marbled meat, with animals finished at a consistent rate to provide a regular cash flow.
The transition is not complete, and they have had to reset the traditional way they have farmed in the past. An intense drought in the early summer of 2020 did not help, as they had to allow their stock to graze the plants they had hoped to allow to go to seed.
But Garth and Summer have started to see evidence of their plan beginning to work, and they are determined to pursue their dream of a sustainable lifestyle for themselves and their young daughters, Nella, Cleo and Avalon.
Garth and Summer lease a 38 hectare beef block from Garth's parents, Barry and Judy Foote. The block is part of a 394ha dairy goat farm.
Garth said the impetus for change came when their block never performed as a high rainfall volcanic soil block should.
"Something was missing. It became clear that the biology in the soil was minimal and needed attention."
They sought help from Avoca for soil tests and suggestions to rebalance the pastures with a mineral-balancing fertiliser mix.
From originally farming about 140 mixed-age animals, they now carry about 80, which cuts their potential income but means the cattle do well.
"That's why we have chosen to farm Wagyu, which has a higher value, to offset the reduced number of animals,'' Garth said.
"It hasn't been too bad, because beef prices have been strong and so we didn't suffer massive financial losses. We can see the land responding to less pressure from overstocking.''
Summer said the success of diverse pastures depended on minimal tilling, minimal spraying and the maintenance of as much plant cover as possible to protect the soil.
"To start with, in the spring of 2020 we chose 10ha of flattish to rolling land that had been cropped in the past. We had a really hot summer, so although we had to use the new pasture for grazing, the drought meant some of the plants produced seeds earlier than usual, so we were happy to have had some plants reseeding.''
In spring 2021, seed from Pastoral Improvements had been directly drilled into the paddocks, with a full 160-day growth window before the cattle were put over the area in March this year, achieving a much better result thanks to regular rainfall.
Garth had worked on the family farm for about 14 years, rearing feeder calves with Summer after hours.
While he had been brought up on the dairy goat farm, there had always been beef cattle, starting from a gift of a calf from his grandparents, based nearby in Whangaruru.
They both work off the farm for their main sources of income. Garth works as a fencing contractor and Summer is a nutritionist who has worked in a number of jobs, including for the Ministry of Health and as an artificial breeding technician for LIC, and most recently with the Ministry for Primary Industries' M. bovis disease eradication programme.
Summer's AB technician skills came in handy, as she was able to inseminate the 27 Murray Grey breeding cows with Wagyu straws for the first season.
"The AI progeny are over two years old now, so it's going to be exciting to see how well we have done,'' she said. The famed marbling of the meat is not produced until the animals are about three years old.
They now own a full-blood Wagyu bull, which is so placid that at first they thought he was sick.
"He's just a placid and cruisy animal, but he gets the job done,'' Garth said.
They chose Murray Greys as the breeding cows as they had some on hand, and because "they are a breed that does well on our Northland farmland and can run on the smell of an oily rag, as well as being easy calving'', according to Summer.
"Our Murray Grey animals are also not too heavy for the hill country, as our contour and light soil type doesn't suit a massive animal. Avoiding pugging is crucial for the health of the soil.''
While aiming for low-stress farming, they still have to deal with the weather, which includes phenomenal rainfall in winter and dry summers. They have had about 750 millimetres of rain over 30 days in June/July of this winter. Puhipuhi is renowned for a small growing window for spring seeding before the dry times of summer.
Garth said he was looking forward to the better-quality soil structure being able to absorb and hold more water to replenish the plants throughout the year.
The couple praised the Whangārei Diverse Pasture Group for reliable advice on any topic.
"They are a high-energy group and there will always be knowledgeable answers to any questions we have,'' Summer said. "Along with Avoca and Pastoral Improvements, the Diverse Pasture Group has been a great support structure in our quest to increase resilience in our farming system.''