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It is Plain Commonsense
After five minutes with John King one can be forgiven for mistaking him for an evangelist. However, instead of preaching about God he is spreading the word on holistic management to farmers. “My passion is bringing entrepreneurship and the environment to farmers by using holistic management.” At first holistic management may sound like a “born-again” religion or idealistic movement that attracts people with long hair wearing “out-there clothes” and sandals who plant seeds by moonlight. It is not. According to King, it is common sense farming that balances relationships, profit, and the environment in a structured way. “It reduces risk in business by planning and monitoring towards the future of the business. It opens minds to opportunity.” He gets people to put on paper where they are trying to go. “All holistic management does is to help you work with greater authority. Who you are and what you are about.” Nelson-based King’s enthusiasm for the programme sees him travelling around the South Island and rubbing shoulders with some of the top farmers and businessmen. He says while some of his clients want to focus more on the economic, the social, or environmental aspects of their business/lives, most want to bring all three into balance. Most want to bring together entrepreneurial flair and look after the environment. “After all, the wealth of the nation is in the land.” King says setting up a shared encompassing goal like the holistic goal is very different from conventional goal setting. “I ask, what is the essence of their business? Is it profit? Is it cashflow? Is it market share?” He says it is usually not, but something far deeper and when families find it the courage surfaces to make changes in their businesses and lives. “It defines the quality of life a farmer and his family wants while looking beyond their farm to what opportunities and circumstances will generate it. “How will the family and business function to be sustainable over the long-term? What is their circle of influence?” For example most farming families’ value prosperity, therefore the business must have profit. By building the biological capital of the property through changing grazing practices, stock policies, and chemical and machinery use, the lower production costs increase the flexibility to be profitable. This is where the grazier meets the greenie, and both win. Born and raised at Kings Bend near Winton, King holds a Masters in Agricultural Science from Lincoln University. The last of his family recently sold up after 120 years on the property. King believes by being more in touch with their environment allows farmers to be more entrepreneurial. Clients have changed their grazing practices and are leaving pastures longer. This leaves litter on the soil surface so when it does rain after a drought more water is trapped and utilised. Their pastures come away faster without any fertiliser creating confidence to be in the store market early. Their pastures also continue to grow in drought conditions. Most have timothy and red clover reappear without sowing. He says because farmers can’t tell the difference between symptoms and problems they become reliant on technology and packaged solutions to solve their problems. They are using up investment, labour and other resources that could be used elsewhere in the business. For example to catch market premiums, farmers feed prime stock at the expense of breeding stock, or pump supplementary feed into animals only for the market to go belly up. The high input, high risk system can make a lot of money very quickly, but often makes the business addicted to expenses creating the treadmill effect. By going back to basics, building biological capital farmers have a greater ability to synchronise feed with demand. Furthermore, biological capital is not taxed. “The problem with business is that we measure growth by volume not quality. Farmers have only one indicator for success, market price.” King argues that organic matter and water credits could help farmers focus on improving land productivity and reduce run off, something that would benefit entire communities. It is not just farmers thinking that King tries to change. Environment Southland is using chemical sprays to stop the spread of wilding pines in the high country. King has told staff they are tackling the problem the wrong way. He argues that a species can only invade an area if the conditions are right for it to establish and thrive. Low pH and a lack of grazing animal may be the real problem. If so the answer is lime and better grazing management, not wasting money on spraying. King believes taking farmers out of the high country will be long term detrimental. With good grazing practices, animals can be used as tools to improve the water absorption and holding capacity of the brittle tending high country. “Animals are the only tools that can restore bio-diversity, recycle carbon, and feed humans. With no soil disturbance, the amount of bare earth will increase, as will the rate of erosion and the biological wealth of the high country will decrease.” “Overgrazing is a function of time, not animal numbers: Species disappear when overgrazing occurs by leaving animals in one place too long or having them return before plants have recovered from severe grazing.” He says such grazing practices lead to invasion by annuals and weeds. Sustainable farming is a catch phrase that annoys King as there is more to it than planting trees. “Farmers can regenerate resources without having expensive, labour intensive solutions,” he says. He tells the story of an Australian farmer who concentrated on building up the organic matter in his soil to stop it moving into creeks and streams. Neighbours doubled fenced waterways and planted trees yet their creeks were dirtier than his. “The problems are not found in the riparian zone but over the fence in the paddock. Planting trees may help the environment but is not going to stop overgrazing and the movement of soil across a paddock.” He says sustainable farming is good land and grazing management that avoids the need to renovate pastures. That is unless the renovation is part of a long-term rotation and the biological capital from five years of pastures is cashed in to take advantage of high wheat prices. King is critical of the Meat and Wool New Zealand’s Monitor Farm Programme because it doesn’t consider the whole ecosystem and bring balance. That is why more and more fertiliser is going on but pastures are not lasting more than eight years when with good management should go 40 years and still have a high ME. “As long as you deal with the middleman, you’ll never be
rewarded for innovation in the market place. The promise of bigger
profits through incremental increases in production is nonsense, ask
any business guru. If you really want to get quantum leaps change the
way you do business.” However, not every farmer wants to be an entrepreneur and King
acknowledges this. He says there are people who will help farmers
form a closer relationship with consumers. King says holistic management helps to develop robust
relationships between employer and staff as 95% of all problems is not
financial or technical, but social. Staff can be brought in on
the process allowing them to take greater ownership within the business
making it more successful. Published in Country-Wide October 2004 southern edition and then in the northern edition in May 2005. Reprinted here with the kind permission of Country-Wide |