Scholarship winner - and Harper alumna - highlights trip to New Zealand

Fortunately enough, I came across the Gareth Raw Rees Memorial Scholarship, supported by NFU Mutual, encouraging young individuals with interests within farming to apply for financial assistance towards their travels. I was extremely grateful and honoured to have received the award alongside another six young farmers across Wales, and I will be forever grateful, as receiving this award allowed me to follow my dream of venturing and farming in New Zealand.

My ambition was to see and experience as many sheep and beef farming systems as I possibly could within my time in New Zealand, which spanned from the end of October through to the beginning of February.

During those three and a half months, I visited and worked on 11 diverse farming enterprises across both North and South Island, consisting mostly of high-country sheep and beef stations, but also top performing ram studs and bull breeders.

Work on farm consisted of tailing lambs, marking calves, weaning, docking ewes and all the required livestock husbandry practises associated with these periods (drenching, vaccinating, dipping etc.). All farms differed from one another, offering a new experience and lesson each time, whether farming on unique terrain and landscape, using various breeds of livestock to achieve a specific breeding objective (maternal or terminal), or livestock management and production. Nevertheless, each shared the belief that prioritising developments in animal health, genetics and nutrition together is paramount to enhancing livestock performance and productivity, which goes hand-in-hand with environmental improvement and farm profitability.

Having farmed without subsidies for nearly 40 years, it was very clear to me that the farmers I visited in New Zealand have embraced the technology available to increase productivity and farm sustainably and self-sufficiently, something we British farmers must grasp as UK payments phase out.

Whilst working on the various farms, I also gained valuable knowledge of grassland management and maintaining soil health and fertility to ensure pasture longevity. With beef and sheep systems commonly grazing animals extensity all year round, maintaining lush, nutritional grass is vital and managed carefully.

I learnt about strategies such as rotational grazing on 4-day paddocks and grazing multi-species pastures and herbal leys including lucerne, plantain, chicory and clovers, and how these approaches can improve yields as well as animal performance, helping to reduce reliance on costly supplementation. These experiences have been very valuable to me when working on-farm at home in Wales, and have encouraged me to be more aware and receptive of research and articles discussing these topics.