Ashgrove Coopworth Field Day draws big crowds

There was standing room only in the woolshed when the field day got under way at James Parsons' farm in the Tangowahine Valley.

James Parsons drew a big turnout of farmers and agriculture industry officials to a field day on his Ashgrove Coopworth stud in the Tangowahine Valley last week soon after stepping down from the chairmanship of Beef+Lamb NZ.

The 478ha hill country farm is 80 per cent owned by James and his wife Janine and 20 per cent by James' soldier brother Brigadier General Chris Parsons and his wife Hayley. Chris is Deputy Chief of Army and is serving in London as Military Attache with the NZ High Commission.

The brothers grew up on their parents' 370ha Broadwood sheep and beef farm. After leaving school James was a shepherd in the South island before attending Lincoln University, from where he graduated in 1998 and took up shearing. He bought the Broadwood farm off his father Donn in 2001 and with Janine, a registered nurse, farmed it until 2013. James became a Beef+Lamb NZ director in 2009.

With Chris and Hayley and family friends Ross and Joy Cleary, the Tangowahine property — which had been farmed since the 1950s by three generations of the Ruddell family — was acquired and the Ashgrove Coopworth Stud was bought from David Hartles, of Maungaturoto.

Ashgrove Ltd was created in 2014 with Northland Federated Farmers president John Blackwell as chairman, accountant Nigel Brereton as a board member, Chris as a shareholder director and James as managing director. Ashgrove employs Ed Long as farm manager. He lives on the farm. James and his family have moved to another property they have at Maungatapere.

A summary of stocking rates, production, soil tests, fertiliser applications and much more technical data was provided to all field days visitors. It explained how the farm's physical performance is above average for the Northland region, despite its challenging contour.

The farm has 415ha effective — 30ha flats, 85ha easy/medium hills, and 300ha steep.

Total sheep in 2016/17 was 1969 while in 2017/18 there were 1802 sheep to open and 1859 to close.

Total cattle in 2016/17 was 354 with 328 to open in 2017, but only 219 closing because 80 R2 steers were bought in July to replace former breeding cows and sold 11 months later in June.

Gross revenue was $1035/ha in 2015/16, $1078/ha in 2016/17 and $468/ha for 2017/18. Economic farm surplus is $131/ha for 2015/16, $395/ha for 2016/17 and $468/ha for 2017/18.

Farm revenue is high compared with the average and the top 20 per cent from B+LNZ Economic Service benchmarking data for Northern North Island Hard Hill Country farms.

The high EFS indicates the farm is performing well compared to the benchmark, generating the equivalent of $115,000 more profit per year than if the farm was performing at the average of the benchmark group.

The field day included a convoy of all 4WD vehicles to carry everyone to the top of the Ashgrove hills via one of the roads on which Hancocks Forest Management engineer Geoff Gover said his company spends $20 million annually to provide access for equipment and trucks to harvest pines.

Up high enough to almost see both coasts, the field day visitors watched a fixed wing light aircraft from the Ballance Agri-nutrients' topdressing subsidiary SuperAir drop fertiliser on the hills using Spreadsmart technology which involves the aircraft's GPS location system automatically shutting the plane's fertiliser hopper when predetermined boundaries are reached.

After the aerial show the crowd returned to the farm for a Beef+Lamb showcase lunch followed by a presentation by King Country farmer Martin Coup, who has replaced James Parsons as the Northern North Island representative on the Beef + Lamb board.

Woodnet principal Stuart spoke about land-use options, there was a session on stock exclusion and riparian fencing, optimising the return on capital fertiliser was discussed and an examination of the drivers of profit wrapped up the day.