Another bit of r&r

A break from farming visits allowed us to visit the temples near Ranakpur. A fantastic cultural experience- but all I could do was hum songs from jungle book!!


Ranakpur Jain Temple is famous for its excellent sculptures and architecture. Surrounded by the Aravali hills and located on the banks of 'Magai' river this grand & gigantic four facet structures was erected in the 14th Century. The Temple is three storied, 102 ft. high and its spread over an area of 48000 sq. ft. The present structure of the temple came into being after the hard works of 50 years by various artisans & sculptors.

The nearby Jungle (behind left) is a Leopard reserve and the picture on the right is James Peck my best Leopard hunting buddy.

Sheep?

I'm with tony and michael who are sheep farmers. We visited a group of nomadic sheep farmers on Sunday as they were having their shearing festival. Apart from the outfits I don't see much difference between the way these guys farm and sheep farming at home about 30 years ago. Prices seem ok but they felt their way of life was threatened.



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25kilos of flies!!!

After a frightful experience involving a hotel bathroom with blood up the wall, our trip to see Indian agriculture took us to a couple of dairy farms.




The cow is a sacred animal in India, although religious it is based on the fact that while alive the cow produces milk, fertilizer and the lovely poo logs for fuel above.



Harinder Singh has a 50 cow herd but is doubling in size (see his development above) and Harinder is a member of the punjabi progressive dairy farmers whose plan is to have 2 large dairies in each village- there are 2500 villages in the area!!



Indian has a population of 1.14 billion people: the government has a policy to double milk production to feed the nation. We visited a corporate farm which has 1100 animals on a development farm using embryo transplant technology to provide quality genetics to a network of farming ladies who each owned 5 cows each on large units collectively managed by the ladies on a rota.
Their brand tru milk has a unique selling point that the milk is sold to European standards; they told us in Indian dairies 25kg of flies are filtered from the milk any one day!

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Camelama-ding dong

Now what has camel farming got to do with consumer attitudes to milk. Well if you've ever drunk warm camel milk in the middle of nowhere you would know about presentation.
These guys were nomadic again, but in a much bigger way; again they felt their way of life was under threat.
We watched a technique to get a camel to come to milk by inserting spicy leaves up it's jacksie and tying it in for a few hours. Ouch.


The turbanator

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Look at these babies!!

The new cows have finally arrived, after many weeks, the paper based plan for global Jersey domination has come to fruition.

And now after waiting so long- I am going to begger off and leave them for two weeks in John the cowmans very capapble hands.
Tomorrow I am flying out to India to meet with Michael, Tony and Rona (and maybe an injured James) to look at how they do stuff there.

It's a little bit chilly !!

Back home on the farm it has been difficult to get back in the swing of things- however, it seems that in general I am not needed around the place, except when bills are to pay.

The dairy herd has done tremendously well this year thanks to good management by the staff on farm and a better milk price from our milk purchaser.
We have supplied Caledonian Cheese Company in Stranraer for the past 3 years, they have been very good to us, but our payment this time last year was about 5ppl lower than it is now, this is a whopping £60,000 difference if applied to all our production.
The "swing" in price is something that seems endemic to the cheese price and so I have made the momentous decision to move away from this buyer and supply milk to Grahams Family Dairy in Stirling- the only thing is I need to change the breed of most of my cows from what we have now, Jersey x Holstein cows (see here)

To completely Jersey cows like these (but a bit better)

This change is all set for January so they will be settled in nicely before I head off on my next trip to India on my next Nuffield Trip.

I am really looking forward to supplying Grahams and I hope this is the start of a long and fruitful relationship for both companies.
www.grahamsfamilydairy.com

The end of the middle bit

I am writing the end of this travelog back in the UK.
Its funny how you can lose internet when travelling and then with all the best intentions completely lose time whne you return home.
The weather doesn't help so memories of warmer places come flooding back.
After my very tiring fly around the Lincoln University and Synlait milk plant in Canterbury, I spent a couple of well earner rest nights (and one day) in Christchurch.
I managed to meet up briefly with an old mate Andy Fox, I went to the Canterbury Show (met up with fellow Nuffield Arwyn from Wales who is still over there!!) and did a bit of culture seeing the Ron Mueck exhibition as well as a visit to the theatre. Excellent fun all round.

                                                   I resist the temptation for a joke. This is art.
After my little jolly in Christchurch ( did I tell you I love Christchurch?) I spun off down the road to Temuka to meet with David Ellis who has a large scale farming operation in the sensitive MacKenzie Country.
The area is of outstanding natural beauty and was used in the Lord of the Rings films. It is very much on the tourist trail but with a little irrigation this relatively cheap sheep grazing land can become very productive grazing.
An application has recently been lodged to build (shock horror) CUBICLE housing for cows in the area for about 18000 cows. This has caused a similar debate (or is that furore) to the one caused in Nocton. There seems to be a similar theme of farmers who for their own very good reasons are planning a big operation but are trying to impose it on a community rather than negotiate it in. There really is a lesson in public relations here.

                                          Look at this picture postcard view. Mackenzie NZ
After this I traveled down to meet Les Keeper a fellow Nuffield from a few years back. He has very conflicting ideas on NZ Dairy structure, and sold out his industry shares to invest in property in Queenstown; (a bit like Keswick only better) Sitting in his hot tub discussing the merits of his actions while looking over to some of the most expensive real estate in NZ I can't help thinking he may be right.

                                               Les lives in Queenstown- look at my little pot belly...
After leaving Les's millionaire pad in Queenstown I travelled back through some of the most stunning scenery in the world.
I arrived in time for tea at Desiree and Paul's house in Temuka on the East coast. I last visited this area 23 years ago and there are lots more cows there now. The average size of herd in NZ is now 300 cows but many in the South Island are well over this. Des and Paul have big plans to increase their herd and buy more farms... they are doing a great job so far.
Des took me to meet other farmers in the area including her Dad who has a very tidy operation in partnership with another couple the farm was brand new and was very professional. He is also a very clever inventor... I must remember to ask about his electronic ID kit. The prototype in his garden looked a little like a clothes dryer , but it seemed to work well at a fraction of the price.
Andy and Rachel Morris had worked their way from very little to owning 2 herds of cows each about 400 cows. They got there via hard work on hill stations, joint venture with sheep and beef, selling shares in businesses at a personal loss, but all in the name of moving forward at all times. They are an inspiration and are currently working on ideas to help water management, which will improve farmers efficiencies as well as their image!

Andy Palmer who lives on Muff Road (why did I remember his address) is also working hard to improve farmers image by planting natural vegetation back onto parts of his farm not used for grazing.
My time in NZ is nearly up, and so is this part of my Nuffield Research (I know it looks like a jolly, but honestly....)
Thanks to Des and Paul, Les, Sarah, Andy, Andy, Andy, David and The Court Jesters.