Dean Candy is the farm manager of Oromahoe Trust, a sheep and beef outfit slightly inland from the Bay of Islands in Northland.
Alongside Dean, a general farm hand and two junior shepherds manage the 1,050ha station, running 1,400 bulls through to finishing, and supplementing with terminal rams prepped for the Christmas market.
Dean and the Oromahoe team recently were the 2024 Northland Regional Supreme Winners of the Ballance Farm Environment Award, recognition of their hard work to ensure that the farm performs financially, but also that environmental, cultural and social aspirations are met.
Dean has an extensive agricultural background, having studied at Telford before working on various sheep and beef and dairy operations. He’s been at Oromahoe Trust for four years, the first couple as the head shepherd before moving into his current role as farm manager. He has big aspirations for the farm and is enjoying having a say in how to grow the business.
Oromahoe is owned by a Māori trust, with 1,500 shareholders having a vested interest in the operations. FARMAX and FarmIQ make informing the board at quarterly meetings easy, with the myriad exportable reports helping to keep everyone in the loop.
I do really like FARMAX, it's been a good tool. So handy to use and it definitely makes life easier when you know you're going to be in strife, you can sort of manage your way around it pretty well.
Using the right tools
FARMAX is used on Oromahoe to keep track of pasture records, update weights, sales and purchases, compare seasons and model the season ahead.
“When I started as manager, there were no real records of seasonal stuff, so it has been a little bit tricky because I'm competing against myself – there was nothing to compete against because there was no data kept. [FARMAX has] been really good in that way,” says Dean.
The team inputs data monthly and looks at the pasture curves to see where they can optimise performance.
“As we’re going, we’re getting our trends and slowly matching the moulds and getting better as we go.”
Dean explains that thanks to FARMAX, they know how they are positioned in the current season and what they need to do from there: “having that data from the past seasons we have something that we can sort of go right, this seems to be when we're getting our pinch and this is where we need to buy”.
Once a year, the team sits down to review the past year’s performance and create a formal FARMAX model and budget for the year ahead.
“I do really like FARMAX, it's been a good tool. So handy to use and it definitely makes life easier when you know you're going to be in strife, you can sort of manage your way around it pretty well,” says Dean.
On the FarmIQ side, the tool has been handy for set stock, managing winter rotations, and keeping track of paddocks that have been sprayed.
“We’re used to doing all that sort of stuff on paper, so that is handy in FarmIQ.”
“It's actually becoming more beneficial to us, but it's one of those things that wasn't getting used properly. So it's just about getting everyone on the same page because the staff need to use it too, it can't just be me doing it,” Dean asserts.
The mapping features of FarmIQ are especially useful: “I really do like the mapping and how you can draw up your water lines and stuff like that to keep it all updated. Someone new can walk in the door and spend a fair bit of time on the computer and know [the farm] without going around the farm and taking years to learn a water system.”
An eye to the future
As a Ballance Farm Environment Award winner, Dean knows all too well how much work is needed to merge farm sustainability with profitability, and several issues loom large over Oromahoe: weather and staff retention.
The Northland climate has always been warmer than the rest of New Zealand, but the last few years have shown just how volatile the impacts of climate change can be.
“We seem to be having these pretty big weather events that have been through, whether it's lots of rain or none at all,” explains Dean.
“The last couple of years we had very tropical summers with lots of rain and then this year we had a very late drought that never really ended until the end of May.”
He was grateful that when we spoke in July the grass growth was still pumping, but the lack of four distinct seasons was of some concern as it made it harder to predict what the next year or even the next season would look like.
The location of Oromahoe also makes finding and retaining staff a bit tricky, primarily because the farm is so far north, and Northland doesn’t have the huge, enticing stations like those found in Otago or Canterbury for instance.
Dean notes that it’s hard to find experienced staff and often even when newcomers do go through training, once they’re finished they’ll move south to the big farms or back to their own home farms and Dean is back where he started, looking for staff.
While many things in farming are volatile and unpredictable, Dean and the team have certainly done a fantastic job of marrying environment and income and proving that sustainability and profitability don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
