Daryl Trafford is a man with a plan, clear goals and an infectious enthusiasm. Together with his wife Karen, and their family of four young children, they purchased a 974 hectare property in the Wangapeka Valley and have converting a sheep farm into a productive dairy unit, with plenty of potential for future development.
Originally from eastern Bay of Plenty where he served an apprenticeship as a butcher, he then spent eight seasons shearing in Te Anau before getting into sharemilking, which they have done for the last 14 years. They began milking 220 cows, rearing some calves, and in three years built the herd up to 250. Another job saw them sharemilking 400 cows, and purchasing a 100 acre block next to another job, which took their second herd from 250 to 350. When the move to Canterbury took place, they had 750 cows plus 100 acres.
The following two years were spent milking 1,000 cows for Tasman Agriculture near Ashburton. "Milking 1,000 cows in Canterbury - that was pretty intense," Daryl explained, "we were two years into a three year contract when Tasman Agriculture sold all their farms. It was about time to buy our own place anyway."
They looked at over 30 farms in Canterbury but the price of land, the water issues and the desire to be somewhere good to bring up the kids made them look outside the square.
Wangapeka Downs was a sheep farm running 2,500 ewes and 180 cows on the Wangapeka Plains Road out of Tapawera. Purchased in March this year, the conversion involved working up and re-grassing 200 hectares, irrigating 120 hectares of it, installing 13kms of water line and troughs, 3.5kms of mainline and building a 50 bay rotary milking shed together with 3.5kms of races. The Fonterra Co-operative Group shares, required for the privilege of the tanker travelling the 16kms up the gravel road, added almost half a million dollars to the near $3m price tag.
"We kicked off on the 1st of August milking just under 500 this year, by year three we want to milk 600. This farm would probably take 7-800 if we wanted to push it along, but with the balance of hill country we are breeding up some breeding cows to the Angus bull and plan running 100-150 beef cows on the steepest, and probably ending up with 500 ewes too," Daryl said.
"You've got to have a plan, the A part is complete, the conversion, the B part is to get the hills back into production and we are looking at a manager on the dairy unit in the future to free me up. Money is the limiting factor at the moment to stock the drystock side of things".
A unique attraction was that it would have cost the same to buy a farm of similar capacity in Canterbury and convert it. "But with this one, we got a 200 hectare dairy unit, 250 hectares of easy grazeable hill for the off season, plus 500 odd hectares of rough stuff that we can still graze."
Both Karen and Daryl acknowledged the support and welcoming nature of the Tapawera community. "Really supportive, nothing negative because you move into an area and we ripped this place up and spent a lot of money and people can be negative. But we haven't struck that at all, everyone is right behind you which is good and the kids have fitted in well too. It's a good family move and a good business move as well."
It is all a long way from shearing and Daryl added, "but that's the beauty of New Zealand, it's all there if you want it."
