Andrea Fox meets an inspirational share farming couple who don’t recognise the word ‘can’t’.
Northland-bound Breens: Daryl and Chris with Jordan, 7 and Caleb, 11.
Zimbabwe exiles Daryl and Christien Breen like to say they don’t excel at anything in dairy farming – they just try to be good at everything.
That’s not entirely true. The Auckland-Hauraki dairy awards sharefarmer runners-up have excelled at being resilient while building a new life in New Zealand in an unknown industry after fleeing bloodshed and land seizures in their homeland.
Daryl Breen has had to use all his pasture management skills on the early-drying Waerenga farm.
Andrea Fox
Daryl Breen has had to use all his pasture management skills on the early-drying Waerenga farm.
The couple are finishing their third season as 50:50 sharemilkers on a 82-hectare, 230-cow farm at Waerenga in north Waikato, and will soon start packing for a new sharefarming job near Whangarei in Northland.
They’ve managed to make savings of $56,000 in another dismal milk price season without sacrificing animal or farm welfare, and have shaved their System 2 farm costs down to $2.20 a kg milk solids.
But for this couple that’s still too high. Their budget for the new Northland farm is for costs of $1.60 a kg. Their success with breeding is formidable – their average non-return rate, the percentage of cows which become pregnant after insemination, is 82 per cent. For the first three weeks of AI this season it was 92 per cent.
Given neither had set foot on a dairy farm before arriving in New Zealand – Daryl in 2002 and Christien a year later – they’ve come a long way on a journey not for the fainthearted.
They grew up on farms in the same Zimbabwe district and while their respective parents managed to sell their land before it was seized in that country’s tumultuous social revolution, it was a close call and the memory of living daily with fear is still fresh.
“I remember going into hospital to see a friend who had been shot eight times. He survived but his father didn’t. They were attacked as they were coming home to their farm. The family ended up leaving everything. The farm had been in the family for generations,” recalls Christien, who prefers “Chris”.
“It made you grow up quite quickly.”
Her parents, who eventually also came to New Zealand, farmed drystock, chickens and paprika on a large property. Daryl was raised on a cropping farm.
Once Chris qualified as a software developer aged 21, her parents insisted she leave Zimbabwe for Holland, birthplace of her mother.
But she couldn’t settle there, and with encouragement from by-then Waikato-based Daryl, a qualified diesel mechanic and friend of her brother, she too made the move downunder.
Daryl meanwhile had caught the dairy farming bug.
He started as a farm hand near Cambridge, graduating after his first season to a 550-cow operation at Hinuera where he had what he calls the “glorified title” of herd manager. He began studying for an agriculture qualification, recalling how amazed he was to learn there was a clear and structured pathway to farm ownership.
With the couple both on work permits, which prevented them borrowing money to put down roots, they set about what became a nightmare task of getting the necessary documentation from Zimbabwe to apply for residency in New Zealand.
With his new AgITO qualification, Daryl was now confident enough to apply for a farm manager’s job. He went to work for Tatauanui’s David Sing on a 212-cow property. Chris meanwhile was working as a software developer in Hamilton.
After one season Sing encouraged Daryl to try for sole charge farm manager at the new Waitoa farm of Singh’s Auckland-based brother-in-law.
That year, 2006, turned out to be a big one for the Breens. Daryl got the Waitoa job, the couple got married, and their New Zealand residency approvals came through.
Now they could really get cracking.
Residency meant they could be self-employed – and borrow money.
Chris promptly bought a house in Morrinsville – a home for her parents who the couple were sponsoring to come to New Zealand from Zimbabwe – and their Waitoa boss gave them a big earning break on his 185-cow farm by nominating a target production and offering an extra 50c a kg for every solid over it.
Son Caleb arrived around this time, and Chris, still working as a software developer, had been fast learning to do herd recording and all the technical paperwork a dairy farm needs.
The couple got what they say was “a nice bonus” from the production incentive and were ready to go contract milking.
Back up the road they went to David Sing and a 330-cow rotary milking operation where Daryl milked and did the calving solo.
Chris was still working off-farm. “Daryl was reluctant to let me on-farm because we’d heard about marriages breaking down when couples worked together,” she says.
Besides, she was earning good money off-farm while learning accountancy skills.
In 2008 the couple moved to a new conversion in Waikato’s Tauhei district as 25 per cent lower-order sharemilkers. By the third season the conversion, which started with 260 cows and 80ha, was up to 330 cows and 98ha, and had gone from a System 1 to a System 4 operation.
Daryl recalls he was working from 4am to 7pm and had had to take on a farm worker. Maintaining his high standards was wearing him out.
“I like to keep everything tidy, the tractors clean and tidy. We always try to leave a job better than how we found it.”
Daughter Jordan had by now arrived and the Breens, with Chris an adept relief milker, decided to slow the pace a little.
They took a 26 per cent lower-order sharemilking job at Raglan with 330 cows, which the owner quickly upped to 430. But the bonus was the owner decided to winter milk and despite a severe drought the couple achieved strong production.
They could now take a pitch to be 50:50 sharemilkers to the bank.
Meanwhile, they’d attended any industry training and education course offering and had become diligent farm discussion group and Federated Farmers meeting attendees.
Chris did DairyNZ’s budgeting course and “really started to look at the numbers in our business”.
She also took pasture management and breeding courses.
“I felt I needed to know more. I didn’t know enough. I still don’t know enough but I know enough to be at a farm assistant or even a farm manager’s level. He (Daryl) needs to be confident I know what I’m doing with my calves because they became my responsibility.”
Last year she completed an agribusiness diploma.
The couple made Chris’ upskilling part of their risk management strategy so that if Daryl needed to leave the farm or had an accident she could confidently step in.
On the Raglan job “we really got stuck in and learned about equity”, says Daryl.
They bought 60 yearling heifers, sent them out to grazing and to get in-calf.
“That was our first step to going 50-50. Then we started looking round so we would have the right people behind us,” he says.
“Our bank wasn’t coming to the party. We had learnt how to do budgets but every time we wanted to do something, it was all too hard.”
They fired the bank after hearing a positive ANZ banker speak at a Federated Farmers meeting, and their accountants also got the flick.
Their new accountants saved them $8000 in the first year.
“It made a huge difference. Once we had a bank behind us and the right accountants they said go out and find a job and come back to us,” recalls Daryl.
They won the Waerenga contract over 69 other hopefuls.
The owner of the picturesque and impeccable property south of Auckland is converting in June to drystock, a response, Daryl says, to the low milk price and the costly prospect of having to replace its aged and challenging 20-bail straight-rail, fully enclosed shed.
While excited about the new job at Mangakaramea, the couple will be sorry to leave Waerenga, a traditional entry farm for 50-50 sharemilkers.
It was on this winter-wet, summer-dry property that Daryl’s pasture management skills blossomed and the couple achieved real budgeting momentum despite setbacks.
They had to buy the cows already on the clay-based rolling Waerenga farm due to its established system of early calving to get as much production as possible before the farm dries out by Christmas.
“Because it’s so dry here they had set the farm up to start calving early, from June 18. This meant every new sharemilker would lose money because they were a month behind and they’d have to bring mating forward and by the time the whole thing was synced up they would be leaving,” says Daryl.
This meant they weren’t allowed to bring the 60 animals which had been their equity passport to sharefarming and when a major drought struck in their first season and stock prices plummeted they had to sell animals valued at $1600 for less than they had bought them as yearlings.
“I believe in the law of averages and even though we made a $20,000 loss we got it back with the $8 a kg payout that year. And we wouldn’t have got the job if we hadn’t had the stock,” says a philosophical Daryl.
The couple set a season production target of 82,000kg. They did 78,500kg in that first season with drought, matching the production of the previous sharemilker. The second year they did 80,800kg.
This season a poor spring and lack of substantial summer rain saw the couple dry off early on April 12 with production at 76,000kg.
The property’s average annual rainfall is 1250mm. To the end of March only 881mm had fallen.
The Fonterra supply farm’s dry nature lent itself to a 16-hourly milking schedule.
“We go as long as we can on that and then just before we dry off – normally on April 20 – we go to once-a-day,” says Daryl.
On arrival at Waerenga the couple signed up to DairyNZ’s Farmwatch programme to help them make better decisions.
“We walked the farm every week to record pasture cover, measure rainfall, ground temperature, the condition of cows and what they are doing.”
It proved useful to their dairy awards entry to be able to show three years of comprehensive farm data.
Chris prepares two budgets a season. One for the bank, and one for a worst-case scenario, which is what the couple work to.
This season they set their budget for a milk price of $3.92 a kg and 75,000kg production.
They host discussion groups and Chris recalls that attending farmers “tore it apart”. “They said we were being completely unrealistic.”
Fonterra’s latest milk price forecast has dipped to $3.90.
“It’s (the budget) worked phenomenally well for us, we’ve saved $56,000 this year in farm and living costs. That’s $56,000 we are not in debt. We’ve lost equity with cow prices going down but we haven’t lost in cashflow and debt,” she says.
How they’ve pulled that off is through thrift and hard work.
They approached phone providers and got the cheapest deals going, they asked their accountants to trim their charges, they both relief-milk in the neighbourhood for extra money. They’ve only used a relief-milker themselves for six days this year, and they’ve become a formidable team on the breeding side of their business.
Chris qualified as an AB technician in preparation for their first 50-50 job, which has resulted in big cost savings and flexibility on their own farm as well off-farm income.
And Daryl, she says, is excellent at picking optimum cow-cycling times.
They also got smart about semen.
“We said, ‘Why don’t we look at bulls that were top animals four years ago. We used them then, why not now?'” says Daryl.
“We halved our AB bill but didn’t compromise genetically.”
“We also use herefords. We are only allowed 20 per cent replacements so we don’t want to be putting anything on the bobby truck. We want $200 to $300 a head for those calves.”
They rarely use contractors. If it’s at all possible, the couple do every job themselves, including transporting livestock, spreading capital fertiliser and spraying, and machinery maintenance.
Because of their low empty rates – 5 per cent this season – they’ve been able to rear extra calves which they lease out.
“We come from a culture that doesn’t like debt. Our parents bought their farms with cash,” says Chris. “We don’t waste anything.
“One of our strengths is that we are there for each other. It’s been disheartening this year – Daryl’s out there and not milking for anything. If he was out there alone knowing he was doing it all for nothing ….”
The couple sign up for every course or workshop they can fit in and Daryl is a fan of discussion groups.
“When the weather’s awful, and the grass isn’t growing and the cows are looking thinner than normal and the payout’s just dropped you feel like rubbish.
“Then you go to a discussion group and every other fella’s in the same boat or worse off and you don’t feel so bad. And there’s so much to learn.”
The Breens will take 290 cows to their new job on 148ha in Northland and are likely to free lease another 20 or so.
Their ambition was to have moved up to a 500-cow operation by next season and be well on the path to farm ownership, but two years of low milk prices and the likely cost of labour for a big herd have crimped that.
But they expect to achieve significant equity growth in Northland.
“A lot of things we are paying for here we won’t be there, or we’ll be sharing the cost. We’ll be allowed to keep more cows and one of our main costs has been raising an extra 15 stock every year, and we pay 100 per cent on those animals,” says Daryl.
“That’s why our costs are higher than they should be.”
With two sporty kids needing a lot of taxiing to far off locations, their fuel bill is also high.
That will reduce in Northland.
“Up there everything is close. Our costs will be knocked right back but we will be milking more cows,” says Daryl.
“That is the stepping stone we hope will keep us going forward.”
5 Comments