WORDS & IMAGES BY ANNIE STUDHOLME
Thirty years ago, the Clark family decided to sell their town supply dairy farm at Clevedon, South Auckland, and head south to take on a large, run-down sheep farm in Mid Canterbury. Coming from a long line of sheep farmers, they never anticipated becoming arable farmers.
Today, the 464-hectare property at Valetta, on the southern side of the Ashburton River, has been transformed into one of the region’s pin-up mixed cropping operations. It runs breeding ewes, fattens lambs, and grows a wide range of arable crops. Having historically farmed with his parents, Terry and Pam, David and his wife, Jayne, now operate the family farming business with their boys Sam (19), James (17), and Charlie (13).
“Mid Canterbury has been a great place, and it’s been a fantastic journey for the past 30 years, but if we knew what was ahead of us when we started, we might never have done what we did,” smiles David.
An intergenerational farmer, David’s farming roots go back more than 140 years, beginning in the 1870s when his great-grandfather, Australian-born Joseph Clark, jumped ship in Auckland as a penniless orphan. He eventually bought farmland in the Thames area, going on to set up seven sons, each on small dairy farms during the 1920’s and the family has farmed continuously in various parts of New Zealand since.
After leaving school, David worked on the Cashmore family’s sheep and beef farms at Orere before starting his own fencing contracting business. He later expanded the business to include making hay and direct drilling.
Though his parents had previously been dairy and sheep farmers, they ended up running a small town supply dairy farm in Clevedon, a stone’s throw from Auckland city’s eastern boundary. While it had been good during the farming downturn of the 1980s, they had come to a crossroads. “There was no future for us in Clevedon,” says David. “To be compliant, the dairy farm needed a new shed, but to justify a new shed, we needed more land to make it economical, but we couldn’t compete against life-stylers for additional land. We’d wanted to go to Hawke’s Bay, but the land there had become very expensive. So, we ended up in Mid Canterbury, along with my sister Angela who is married with a family in Ashburton. Compared to Clevedon, Mid Canterbury offered scale, which meant opportunities.”
In 1994, David sold up his contracting business, the family farm was sold, and the Clark family pooled their resources to buy Valetta. Originally part of the old Valetta Estate, it was one of the district’s well-known old homesteads and early runs. The old homestead was later subdivided off and sold.
In their first year, the Clarks ran 3,100 ewes and harvested a small amount of crop, but after striking a few dry years, they soon realised that their viable future hinged on getting water. To justify the cost of irrigation, they needed to ramp up the cropping side of the business and reduce sheep numbers.
Unable to use irrigation scheme water, the Clarks had to dig wells for water. It was the early days of well-drilling in the upper plains of Mid Canterbury and posed a significant risk. “It took quite a lot of convincing to get people to dig for deep wells (120 metres plus). It was eye-wateringly expensive,” says David.
As a way of building momentum and bringing in much-needed extra capital for irrigation development, David went back to contracting, subcontracting mowing silage for a baling contractor. He did this for 15 years until 2010 when he gave it up to focus more on the farm and family. David and Jayne married in 2003. Jayne had grown up on the Crozier family farm at Lauriston.
With an annual rainfall of 825-850mls, the introduction of irrigation proved a game-changer. Over time, the Clarks went from one Roto-Rainer irrigator to two and then three before moving to pivot irrigators. “Once we realised how good pivot irrigators were, we re-developed the farm with another two pivots and one lateral, leaving the three Roto-Rainers to cover 100 hectares of a triangle block between them. It was transformational for the farm.”
David has continued expanding the cropping side of the business. Having started with little cropping experience, they learnt some pretty big lessons. “We knew nothing when we started. It was all brand new.” From initially growing just cereals, the Clarks now produce a wide range of specialist seed crops, including ryegrass, white clover, marrowfat peas, hybrid carrots, radish, spinach, bok choy, and at times have also grown hybrid canola seed lines. They also grow kale for capital stock, as well as greenfeed oats and greenfeed rape for trading stock.
Despite poor sheep returns, the sheep have remained, although in much smaller numbers than when they first started. They still run 1,000 Turanganui Romney breeding ewes, renowned for their easy care, keeping 260 as replacements. They also fatten upwards of 6,000 store lambs annually (the most they have done is 10,000), fattening everything to 25kg. Most are sourced through Alliance or local agents. “While the farm system is in part a reflection of the land use consent, meaning we can’t change to dairy support, the store lamb trading system works well for us,” says David.
To keep costs down, the Clarks have always done everything on the farm themselves, from development to cultivating, baling and harvesting. They also spread all their fertiliser and spray, importing specialist equipment from the UK. They’ve also invested heavily in infrastructure, building silos and custom-built drying facilities.
The use of technology is a hallmark of the Clark’s operation. Over the years, as things have got more complicated and the attention to detail has increased, they’ve invested heavily in technology and machinery to reduce environmental impact, improve yields, and reduce costs. For example, they have installed GPS Section Control on both the sprayer and fertiliser spreader, which reduces driver strain, increases precision, helps reduce overlaps and gaps, saves on input costs and resources, and reduces crop damage and environmental impacts. They also use variable rates and auto-steer. “If there is a technological solution we can invest in, we have tried to do so,” says David.
When it comes to cropping, David’s philosophy is simple— “it’s about using the right piece of machinery for the right purpose on the right crop.” Their primary weed focus is on herbicide-resistant grass weeds. They tend to use a 10-furrow reversible plough when coming out of grassland or to incorporate cereal straw. In contrast, they use a 6m sub-soiler with discs and a roller as a min-till option when cultivating out of winter feed or vegetable seeds. He’s also dabbled in direct drilling.
“Generally, we don’t burn. While ryegrass is baled and sold to our clients in the North Island, everything else is incorporated. We think that is making a huge difference to our soil structure,” says David.
As an intergenerational business, he firmly believes in leaving it in better order than when they started. “I am but a caretaker and would hope that at least one of our children might take our family forward as food producers.”
Operating with such a small team, developing key relationships has been integral to their success, whether it be connections with other successful farmers through the likes of the Methven Young Farmers, where he got an insight into how and why they did things on their own farms or through the use of Roy Evans Farm Consultant, who has been a tremendous guiding hand throughout the journey.
“The depth of the relationships we have formed in Mid Canterbury have been incredibly important, particularly with the firms we deal with. We’ve also been very fortunate that we have had some outstanding staff, some that have stayed a long time. We have a great team of people around us.”
David’s parents, though retired, are still a massive part of the operation. Terry can still be found on the property most days and Pam looked after the farming accounts for 49 years. Their boys, too, are now involved, all helping out where they can. “We are very much a family farming together,” says David.
Looking for business interests off-farm, in 2016 David and Jayne teamed up with Hinds farmers Gary and Rae Wilson, and Grant Stuart and Will Kelly who operate Irrigation Components Australia to establish Pivot Parts NZ, a business specialising in stocking the full range of centre pivot and lateral components directly for farmers and wholesale customers. They are the sole OEM approved after-market dealer of genuine UMC gearboxes and the agent for Senninger Sprinklers, components used in all pivot brands. They also stock Seametrics flow metering products and Agri-Inject fertigation injection systems.
“It’s been a fantastic journey. It’s been really interesting to be a farmer working as a supplier to irrigation companies and understand their needs. It’s something cool to be involved in and it gets me off-farm and involved in the broader agricultural sector. We were never sure where it would take us, but it’s a company that has grown.”
While Jayne has been heavily involved in the community through the Presbyterian church and has been on both the school parent-teacher associations of Mt Somers Springburn and Mt Hutt College, David has maintained an attitude of giving back.
Early on, David joined the local Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers. “I went to a meeting once and never left.” He was involved for almost 20 years, including three years as Mid Canterbury provincial president during challenging times for the district with the Ashburton Floods (2021, MBovis and COVID-19). He also served as Vice Chair of the NZ Arable Industry Group.
David saw his involvement in Federated Farmers as a way to give back to an industry that had been good to him. If there is an issue to sort, he has always been prepared to contribute his bob’s worth for the betterment of the industry. He has been involved with numerous arable industry issues, taking a particular interest in improving biosecurity. He visited Malaysia in 2012 to check out the controversial palm oil industry and, in 2013, pitched in to organise 15,000 bales of ryegrass straw to be shipped to drought-stricken North Island farmers.
But that’s just the tip of his extensive involvement. Admittedly, at times, David found it “never-ending”. It was a stretch with everything going 100 miles an hour on the farm and trying to do all the Federated Farmers responsibilities. It took a lot of doing. There was little time for anything else. Jayne’s focus was on the family, while David’s father picked up the slack on the farm.
“I enjoyed being involved in the issues, but I never wanted Feds to lead me into a political career off-farm. I am a farmer, not a politician. It was never about achieving an outcome for me; it was an opportunity to be the voice of the farmers who couldn’t get to the meetings,” he says.
David says a lot has changed over the 30 years they’ve been in Mid Canterbury. “Mid Canterbury is a very prosperous place compared to what it was when we first came down. It has been great to see how Methven and Ashburton have developed. Dairying has been hugely positive for Mid Canterbury, but there is a real problem facing the financial sustainability of arable, sheep and beef farms.
“In our business, we are challenged to produce food at the lowest price in the world and with the lowest environmental impact. We do so by employing world-leading technology to be some of the most efficient producers on the planet. It’s a fantastic positive story, but a black cloud hangs over farmers.”
David is disgusted by the anti-farming rhetoric. The rural-urban disconnect has continued to widen with huge social pressure created between agriculture, fuel usage, Ag chemical and technological advances. There is no integrated strategy between growing our food and feeding the planet.
Today, there is enormous uncertainty over getting consents approved. David says there are more and more hoops for farmers to jump through. “Over recent years what were, targeted, achievable goals have been replaced by unachievable targets that are simply unaffordable which will have big, severe consequences for the whole community.”
He believes that from an environmental point of view, the country has taken a considerable step backwards in the past six years. “Farmers need achievable goals. We need to encourage them to do better and better so they can continue to bring prosperity to the entire community.”
Hard work, patience and a lot of heart have gone into ensuring that Valetta Farms has a positive future in the family, but with how things are heading, there are no guarantees, says David.
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