KEY POINTS:
Enterprising Port Waikato family add growing tourism stream to farm income Philip Woodward has spent a lifetime farming sheep but a search for alternative income saw him turn his hand to herding tourists.
Woodward and his wife Anne have owned a 210ha Waikaretu sheep farm for 31 years
but about 15 years ago he commercially opened a tourist attraction on his land, Nikau Cave - a 1km long series of caverns with stalagmites, stalactites and glowworms.
"We didn't sort of burst into it, we thought well we better just take it quietly and get our heads around the management of it, rather than leaping into it," he says.
"Anne rang up a lot of the tour companies and adventure magazines and things like that, talked to a lot of people and it just grew from there."
The tourism business south of Port Waikato is more successful than first imagined - just under 1500 people visited the year before last - and about nine months ago they opened a cafe to feed and water their new stock.
"I enjoy getting out with the dogs and mustering, getting some sheep in and shearing them and then taking people caving, then being behind the bar making them a coffee," Woodward says.
"The cave's pretty awesome and we've left it in its natural state. We didn't want to commercialise the cave as such but we still wanted it to be a commercial entity."
The sheep industry has been a tough place to do business during the last few years with low returns, drought and the conversion of land into what has been a booming dairy sector.
According to Meat & Wool New Zealand sheep numbers fell 11 per cent in the year ended June 30 to 34.2 million and more than 300 new dairy farms started this season.
Meanwhile, sheep and beef farm profit is expected to improve from an average of $19,400 in the 2007-08 year to $53,000 this season.
"The fortunes of farming wax and wane a little and we were looking for an alternative source of income and also to set up something, a stand alone venture out here that if any of the children wanted to they could come and participate," Woodward says.
Woodward's farm is quite a distance from town and he has not taken the plunge into dairying, although there are dairy support operations in the area.
"The modern-day dairy setup I'm not quite sure is a sustainable beast, the way it transforms the land and pumps all sorts of stuff in to get the grass up to get the production," he says. "Running a few sheep around seems to be quite sustainable."
The tourism business may be growing but at 60 years of age Woodward is not turning his back on sheep. Before Christmas he only had about 35 animals but he plans to buy about 500 lambs.
"I think that lamb is a very good meat healthwise but also I just can't get my head around why this natural fibre, everybody isn't wearing it," he says.
"I'm happy to hang in there with the sheep because I believe in the sheep."
Sheep meat prices have improved but not by enough, he says.
Westpac's December Agribiz says lamb farmgate prices are expected to average $5 per kg this season, compared with $4 the previous season.
However, downward revisions to European economic growth will likely mean weaker demand for lamb this year, the bank says.
Westpac's forecast for the 2009-2010 season is for an average of $4.70 per kg, based on softer international demand, a lower New Zealand dollar and short supply.
"We get these people coming through the caves from overseas and they say, 'I bought some lamb in Dubai for such and such, how come you guys are getting so little for it'. I hate that," Woodward says.
"Maybe there's got to be some more attrition and maybe we have to somehow get an amalgamation on the marketing side of things."
An aging farmer population is also a problem, he says.
Sheep can be frustrating and physically hard to work with, he says, but he really enjoys the work. "I reckon I can out-think a sheep."
