Winter grazing practices evolving

• Published date: 22 June 2022
• Publication title: Central Rural Life

Before taking on the role of Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s environment capability manager, Tom was part of AgResearch’s soil and water team which undertook the first farm-scale project looking at the impact management changes could have on the environmental outcomes of intensive winter grazing

Carried out on Telford Southern Institute of Technology’s commercial-scale farm in Otago, the project was looking for the low-hanging fruit — changes that were low cost and relatively easy for farmers to implement, he said.

‘‘We were looking at what low-cost but high-reward changes could be made at farm level.’’

During the course of the four-year project, the research team collected data which showed conclusively that strategic grazing practices such as the protection of critical source areas, directional grazing and back fencing could all significantly reduce overland flow and nutrient losses and help protect the soil.

‘‘We knew that if we were going out to farmers, we needed informed messages and several years of data collected at farm scale.’’

While there was an initial reluctance among some farmers to change their wintering practices, in the past four or five years the changes have been massive across all farming types, Tom says.

‘‘Amongst dairy, sheep and beef and deer farmers there is a lot more awareness that there are environmental risks associated with winter grazing and a willingness to mitigate them.’’

As part of his role at B+LNZ, which includes developing and supporting catchment community groups and developing and delivering B+LNZ’s farm plan resources, Tom has noticed...