She and her husband Adrian bought Tinwald Farm at Mt Pisa as an investment about a decade ago.
A section of State Highway 6 between Cromwell and Wanaka runs through the 750ha farm, which stretches from the Clutha River to the foothills of Mt Pisa.
When they bought the farm, it was mostly dairy grazing.
The couple then lived in Christchurch and the farm was managed "conventionally" for the first six years of their ownership.
They visited the farm every quarter, its paddocks were ploughed and synthetic fertiliser was applied to grow as much grass as possible.
"We were just watching — we didn’t know anything about farming so I couldn’t do anything else, but over time I came to think maybe there’s a different way."
She questioned the profitability of a high-input system and decided to "lift the bonnet" and investigate if different methods could improve the farm.
The first input she scrutinised was the use of synthetic nitrogen.
"Everyone told me you can’t grow anything unless you apply it."
Despite the advice, three years ago she decided to "get off the merry-go-round" and stop using any fertiliser, insecticide and pesticide.
She wanted to use fewer inputs than allowed on an organic farm.
"I’m aiming to see what lies beyond organic."
Farmers usually moved slowly from a conventional system to a regenerative one, by "dialling back" inputs over time, but she decided to make an instant change and went in "boots and all".
"I just had to stop. If I was 20 years younger I might have done that but I thought ‘what the hell, I’ve got to get on with it — if it’s not going to work I need to know quite soon’."
Her main objective was to leave the farm in a better condition than when they bought it and to make it more resilient.
She had a background in accountancy, and the farm needed to be able to "pay its way" and would turn a profit this year, she said.
"We are very comfortable with the level of return we are getting from this enterprise, given we’ve only been doing it for two full seasons, and I know my soils are still quite sleepy and not really woken up yet."
She found inspiration in Zimbabwean farmer and scientist Allan Savory and his holistic planned grazing model.
Under the model, stock was only brought into a paddock after its pasture had fully recovered to avoid pasture damage because of overgrazing.
Overgrazing resulted in patches of dirt without pasture cover, exposing soil to the sun, increasing its temperature beyond 24degC, she said.
Soil functioned best between 10degC and 24degC, and pasture cover helped keep the soil temperature in the preferred range.
Cattle were given a day to graze in a paddock of recovered pasture, before being moved on.
The farm had a diverse range of pastures, which performed differently in a range of conditions. Some species liked "super hot" and dry conditions.
"If you’ve got a lot of things, you’ve got more opportunity to be a bit more resilient when the rains don’t come."
The pasture resilience could reduce the need for irrigation.
At present about 300ha was irrigated.
She tested the soil every quarter, counting worms, measuring the ratio of bacteria and fungi and deciphering its ability to filter water.
For the first time since they had owned the farm, no winter crops had been planted in response to concerns about the negative effect strip grazing had on the health of the soil.
Stock would be fed bales of hay this winter.
She had no baleage — "I can’t stand plastic".
A "super return" on their investment had never been the major motivation for owning the farm.
It was more about providing a safe and enjoyable workplace for staff, where stock were well-fed and cared for.
"We are trying to be the best we can be, with what we’ve got."
A grazing plan required daily monitoring and proactive adjustments, such as knowing when a pasture had fully recovered, and having stock available to eat it before it was past its nutritional best.
"We dialled back on our stock numbers, dialled back on our input costs but are paying a lot more attention to the pasture and using the sun to grow it."
When Southern Rural Life visited, she was using the condition of cocksfoot to identify if a paddock had reached its optimal recovery. When cocksfoot had four leaves, the paddock was ready for grazing.
"It took me a long time to figure out what leaf stages were," she said. "Now I can stand in a paddock — I don’t even have to pull a tiller out and I know where it is."
Dairy grazing stopped in 2019.
Now there were 200 cows — a mix of beef breeds including Angus and Speckle Park — and the calves were reared up to 30 months old. In addition, there were about 2500 composite ewes and 150 East Friesian milking ewes.
In another move to build resilience on the farm through diversification, she began milking the Friesian flock to make Roquefort blue cheese.
She bought a milking plant, a cheese-making plant and the flock from a retired farmer in Kerikeri in February last year.
In another move to make the farm more resilient, 20ha of the farm was planted in pinot noir grapes, some in 2015, the rest in 2017, because the variety thrived in "super hot and dry" conditions.
The grapes were sold to Matua Wines in Blenheim.
She had a team of five Clydesdale horses, the latest joining last month.
The plan was to use the horses for farm work such as mowing thistles.
The merits of using Clydesdales for farm work, rather than machinery, was they did not require any fossil fuel and at the end of their life, they composted rather than rusted.
Clydesdales were also more beautiful than farm machinery.
She laughs about a friend calling her a "lunatic" for her approach to farming.
"At the end of the day you’ve got to do what feels right by you. I’m sure lots of farmers have different systems they can make work — I just can’t make it work for me."
Holistic grazing plan
Ms Griffin, of Milton, recommended the number
of mobs of stock grazing on
the farm be reduced to give pasture more time to recover.
She suggested reducing the 14 mobs by a third.
Mrs Currie and Mr Sutherland decided to run two mobs — one of cattle and one of sheep.
"They went in head first," Ms Griffin said.
The move meant the farm’s 12 paddocks could have a longer recovery time to grow pasture than they did when there were 14 mobs.
The two mobs were shifted daily so they had access to feed.
Consequently, the lambs weaned 2kg heavier than the year before.
"All my clients want to heal the world and I try and teach them how to increase their stocking rate and make more money. There’s nothing sustainable about a farm that doesn’t make money," Ms Griffin said.
Hands-on learning
When Southern Rural Life visited, the tasks the students were learning to do included testing bulls for bovine tuberculosis.
Of the 10 students on the course this year, nine were females, she said.
She and her husband Adrian opened the farm to the students for the benefit of the industry, Mrs Currie said.
‘‘Farming is so important, so we’ve got to do what we can to help.’’REPORT/PHOTO: SHAWN MCAVINUE
SHAWN.MCAVINUE@alliedpress.co.nz
