WORDS BY ANNIE STUDHOLME, IMAGE SUPPLIED BY BALLANCE FARM ENVIRONMENT AWARDS
Following on from their overall success in the 2022 regional Canterbury Ballance Farm Environment awards earlier in the year, the Everest family received the National Ambassador for Sustainable Farming and Growing award at the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust National Sustainability Showcase last November.
Driven by an unwavering passion for farming, Phill and Jos Everest, together with their son Paul and his partner Sarah, are leading the way in successfully reducing greenhouse gas emissions and Nitrogen losses on their 270-hectare dairy farm at Willowby.
Born in Methven, Phill graduated from Lincoln University with a Bachelor of Agriculture Science and became a respected f arm consultant. Coming from the Waikato, Jos came from a farming family.
In the late 1980s, they sold their Ashburton home to buy a 130-hectare farm at Willowby. For the next 20 years, they leased the land to a cropping farmer and raised 100 bulls annually, leaving Phill to continue working full-time as a consultant. When a neighbouring farm came up for sale, they effectively doubled their area.
“I consulted my way into farming,” says Phill. From the outset, the Everests were committed to improving the environment, planting thousands of trees and shrubs covering more than 20km along drains and fence lines to enhance the quality of water and provide shelter for stock from mainly the southerlies in the spring.
When they converted to dairy in 2010, they remained committed to minimising the environmental impacts of their farming operation. They used the best technology of the day to establish their 225-hectare milking platform. Key considerations included having a grass-based system, having one person in the shed each milking, minimising water use and treating effluent as fertiliser.
Phill became an active member of both the Hinds Drainage Working Party and the Hekeao Hinds Lowlands Catchment Group, which, although a lot of work, had been rewarding for the community. He is also collaborating with Synlait, AgResearch, and multinational food company Danone to test a mixed species pasture, as advocated by regenerative farming proponents, in yet another effort to add facts and evidence to environmental disputes.
As a Climate Change Ambassador for Dairy NZ, Phill has been actively trying to reduce greenhouse gas losses on-farm. Last year they reduced their nitrogen losses by more than 36 per cent from their baseline, meeting their 2035 loss target for the Hinds Catchment. They chose to reduce their nitrogen fertiliser application meeting the 190kg/hectare cap a year ahead of the Government deadline. Previously they had been using 230–240kg/hectare of N a year, depending on the season. “That decision cost us; we grew less grass, put more supplement in and produced less milk,” he says.
But it also taught them some valuable lessons. The focus from now on is on improving pasture growth with greater clover growth in an attempt to maintain milk production. Other changes included developing an annual nitrogen application plan and using a coated urea product which reduces greenhouse gases and nitrogen losses.
Plantain and chicory have also been added to their pasture mixes for over six years, and an extra 1kg of plantain is spread annually with capital fertiliser to help it persist. They also feed up to 5kg fodder beet during April and May.
“Fodder beet is much lower in protein which equates to lower autumn nitrates,” says Phill.
The Everests have also installed a variable rate irrigation system on one pivot, allowing water to be applied at different rates across a paddock, reducing draining and nutrient losses and keeping areas around troughs, lanes and gateways dry. They also have Aquaflex water monitoring under each pivot. No effluent is applied in the autumn, with the farm having enough storage to hold it through until the spring which again avoids the high winter leaching period.
Phill says that no one thing makes the difference; farmers needed to be trying a few of them. It’s about balancing your environmental aspirations with being a profitable business. “It’s a whole lot of small things, and cumulatively, they do add up.”
“There are lots of farmers out there trying hard to reduce environmental impacts,” Phill said. “We are trying to leave the property better tomorrow than it was today.”