"It's chicken city here."
Next to a quiet country back road, fourth-generation poultry farmer Tim Craig is outlining his family’s extensive free-range operation.
Herbert-based Craigs Poultry produces eggs under the Bowalley Free Range brand, which are stocked in every supermarket in the South Island.
The farm’s origins are just 8km north of the free-range farm at Maheno, where Tim’s great-grandparents, Ivan and Joyce, started with a flock of 200 hens nearly 70 years ago.
Each successive generation has made its own stamp on the business and now members of latest generation are keen to grow it further, helped by technology their great-grandparents could have only dreamed of.
It has been selected by the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority as one of the first 32 farms to demonstrate the benefits of solar energy systems and batteries as part of the government’s Solar on Farms initiative. The aim is to provide on-farm insights about how solar and batteries can cut power prices and build on-farm resilience.
After a national search for a spread of different farm types and locations, 40 farms were selected and a variety of farming types are covered.
The first 32 — including the Craigs — will receive funding to cover 40% of the cost of an inverter and battery and 20% for the rest of a solar system.
The Craigs already use solar with panels on each of their free-range sheds, which have been designed to be low impact and off the grid.
The solar provides their power needs during the day and battery covers the night.
Tim’s grandfather David and father Brent Craig came up with the design of the sheds, which Tim said he believed were the only ones of their kind in New Zealand.
He said the sheds, which each held 5000 hens, were movable and each had two sites and were switched yearly for biosecurity purposes as threat of disease was the primary concern in such an operation.
The EECA initiative would be at their other site in Herbert, where they had a rearing shed, feed mill, egg-grading floor and grain storage facilities.
Production was full circle on the farm: the grain, which they grew and milled themselves, was fed to the hens which then produced manure which was then used to grow the next crop, and so it continued.
They already had a good baseline of power needs as they always had to make feed and grade eggs and there were seasonal peaks, which followed the solar curve, such as increased ventilation in the rearing shed during summer, Tim said.
He said he was keen to be involved in the information-sharing — "you share info, you learn more" — plus there was the ability to be insulated from power costs by generating power for their own electricity needs.
It was also about enabling them to do other projects, or invest in more technology or systems that needed power, and there was potential for exporting power as a revenue source.
He said the future was something he and his sister Anna, who also works in the business, were excited about as they continued the family’s feathery foray.
While no longer operationally involved, their grandparents David and Linda, who joined Ivan and Joyce in 1969 and raised their son Brent and daughter Paula on the poultry farm, maintained a keen interest in the business.
Brent moved back to North Otago in 1995 with his wife Bridget and joined his parents poultry farming, while Tim and Anna were also raised on the farm.
Tim said he always had an inkling he might join the family business but had also wanted to "go out there and see a few other things first". He headed to Lincoln University to study agricultural science, followed by honours in consumer behaviour.
Both those topics were to provide him with key insights into both farming and how consumers thought, while a study tour to Indonesia proved inspiring as he saw innovation and forward-thinking there first hand. He then spent two years working for Rabobank, based in Ashburton.
He decided to come back to the home farm five years ago and he and his wife Jess now had two young children. Anna Craig also went to Lincoln, studying agribusiness and food marketing, before also returning home.
Brent still worked in the business, which had 35 staff, day to day and he acknowledged he was "pretty fortunate" to work with his family, Tim said.
Both he and his sister were also very fortunate their parents and grandparents had worked so hard, enabling them to take the next step which was all about the Bowalley brand and sharing that story with consumers.
Much had been learned since the first modern free-range shed was built in Bowalley Rd in 2015 and, last week, the "garden" outside the sheds was being refreshed, with fresh clay and soil along the side where there were also rocks for the hens to sun themselves on.
Those rocks also helped clean their feet when they returned from pecking around the pasture. There was also a "winter garden" inside the sheds if they preferred to stay inside and have a dust bath.
Tim said transparency was also important for the family, who had introduced live cameras which were trained on the birds 24/7. A QR code on each box of eggs took consumers to both inside and outside the sheds, and there was even sound so the clucking could be heard.
— All solar and battery systems are expected to be installed and running on the 32 properties by July. Data collection will continue for up to three years to understand the full impact of the systems over time.
An EECA survey of 220 farmers found almost 80% had not yet installed solar but were open to exploring the option.
