On the 3rd April 2011, Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman visited a farm in the Wairarapa owned and operated by Rickie Morrison and Sharleen Hutching. Rickie and Sharleen are the Supreme winners of the 2011 Horizons Balance Farm Environment Awards.
As well as taking the top prize at the awards ceremony, the couple also picked up the LIC Dairy Farm Award, the Balance Nutrient Management Award and the Hills Laboratory Harvest Award. Russel was given a tour of the farm to highlight the features which helped earn these awards.
Rickie and Sharleen run a 201-cow operation just South of Eketahuna. This is the couple's first farm, which they have owned for only three years. But they have made some real progress in this time towards producing an environmentally sustainable farm that New Zealanders and international audiences alike can look to as a model for how dairy farming can be undertaken in a sustainable fashion.
During adverse weather, Rickie and Sharleen make extensive use of a covered feed pad, even if this means getting up in the middle of the night to move the herd. By taking the animals off the pasture during heavy rain events, they prevent 'pugging', which leads to loss of productive pasture and sedimentation of streams.
The rubber floor of the feed pad provides ease of washing down, in addition to insulation for the herd during cold rainy weather. All effluent from the feed pad and the milking shed is diverted into a newly upgraded effluent management system which irrigates the pasture, well away from waterways.
The couple have also made significant efforts to remove weeds, re-grass large areas, plant trees for shade and shelter and protect areas of native bush for regeneration. All waterways in the farm were adequately fenced off, with riparian margins planted. Even those ephemeral streams which only flow at certain times of year were fenced to stop stock from getting into them.
Rickie and Sharleen are humble about their achievements, saying that they operate their farm in a sustainable manner because they believe that's the way things should be done.
Fenced off drain to keep the cows out
Fenced off drain to keep the cows out
Feed pad
Shelter belt
The effluent sump
Rickie and Sharlene explain their new effluent pumping system to Russel.
