Price changes from September 1st

As stated in previous newsletters our prices are reviewed monthly and unfortunately we can no longer sustain our current prices. The reason for the price increase this month is that local grain prices have increased. It's hard to get a clear picture of what is really happening, autumn reports showed there was a good harvest and farmers still had 2012 grain in their silos which meant there was an excessive amount of grain available. However reports now indicate this has disappeared and a shortage is possible although one grain trader tells me activity has been lighter than last year and a local transport truck driver tells me they have carted very little.

September prices

High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $720 + GST and Delivery
Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $680 + GST and Delivery

Soybean prices are also of concern and while a few months back the commentators were all saying it was going to be a record harvest and we would see prices continue to fall, the opposite has actually happened. The prices are set and traded on the futures market in USA which means it can change very quickly from a bear market to a bull market. I suspect most of the increase in price is profit for traders rather than farmers. The prices we pay in NZ are adjusted daily, based on movements in USA. We are currently still using soybean meal we contracted in April. The chart below shows the price in $USD and doesn't include shipping costs.

Freight Companies

At our feedmill we are currently taking on and training extra staff to cope with the extra workload that happens from mid-September on. It's not so easy for the freight companies to do the same. They simply don't have extra trucks available for the two months when it's really busy (busiest day last season saw 83 tonne go out the gate). Our local freight company does a fantastic job of keeping up with the demand. However it does put a lot of extra pressure on them so it's important that farmers are ready for their delivery, as when they get held up on one farm that makes them late for the rest of the day (disrupting other farmers). So please do what you can to help out in this area. Sometimes when the truck driver is busy they are also reluctant to bring back the empty pallets however we need them back ASAP otherwise we have to use less desirable pallets (harder to use with the tractor), so please have them ready and encourage the truck driver to take them. We do not charge for pallets but we do rely on you to send them back.

Future Farmers

Every year we make improvements at our feedmill, always fine tuning as well as increasing our production capacity. This year some of these improvements needed a small amount of concrete. So for the first time in a long time we decided to mix our own concrete. I borrowed a mixer and Daniel my youngest son, age 13, volunteered to do the mixing. Daniel enjoyed the experience and it made me think of the things we did as kids growing up on a farm that are no longer done. Like plunge dipping sheep, carting conventional bales of hay, feeding out that same hay with the Bedford truck. The list of jobs we did then that are no longer done today is long. And I am sure that work shaped us for our adult lives. So what jobs can our kids do today that will teach them good work ethics for later in life? I'm not sure but I'm glad I borrowed the concrete mixer.

When we were in Sweden last year we visited an agricultural training college (Telford on a much larger scale) they had their own dairy herd (photo shows part of the dairy shed), fully equipped cropping farm and a large commercial forest. Sadly though, the two most popular courses were domestic dog handling and equestrian for personal purposes.

The actual farming courses were short on numbers. There doesn't seem to be much interest in making farming a future career in Sweden.

Feedback

We had one customer comment on the fineness of the meal and I have been trying to make it a bit coarser this week. It's always a balancing act between too fine (can make it dusty) and too coarse (where you see grain particles in their dung). At times you will also see some brown nuggets in the meal this is from the molasses building up inside the mixer and auger and then breaking off. Think 'chocolate' for calves! Both the mixer and auger are cleaned down in the weekends (twice a week during peak weeks). We do welcome your feedback (both positive and negative) so please don't hesitate to contact me. Also if you have any photos you think I could use for a future newsletter please email them to me.

Cheers

Ken Buckingham