Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well kia ora and welcome to Shared Lunch, my name is Asher, I'm one of the producers here on Shared Lunch and today we have a special live recording from Field Days. This was a tent talk we did called Farming Unfenced and it was all about the future of farming.
We had an all-star farming panel featuring Gus Hewitt of Holter, Shane Gillaroy of the New Zealand Young Farmers Association and 2024 FMG Young Farmer of the Year, George Dodson. hosted by co-founder and co-CEO, Brooke Roberts. It was recorded live, so there is a little bit of atmosphere. We had helicopters taking off just behind us, and we've done our best to clean up the sound for you.
I hope you enjoy. Investing involves risk. You might lose the money you start with. We recommend talking to a licensed financial advisor. We also recommend reading product disclosure documents before deciding to invest. Everything you're about to see and hear is current at the time of recording.
Kia ora koutou. Ake tēnā whiua, koutou mana whenua. A tēnā rohe.
Chapter 2: Who are the key panelists and what are their backgrounds?
Tēnā koutou. I just want to acknowledge the mana whiua of this man who gets to be on here for field days. It is pumping out there, isn't it? It's been such an incredible, you know, few days and it's great to be here on stage talking about farming unfenced. which we'll get into a bit more. But it's great to be joined by George.
George is a, we didn't actually explain this episode, but you're right into farming down south at the moment. We've got Shane from the Young Farmers Association and also really lucky to have Gus with us too from Holter. So we're going to dive quite a bit into the
what are on the minds of farmers at the moment, how they're managing their farm, talk a bit about how they're thinking about finance, especially young farmers who are trying to get into owning a farm themselves, and then hopefully answer any questions you might have today too. And why are Sharesies doing this?
So Sharesies, we partner with Ontario to help farmers manage their shares through using the Sharesies app along with LIC. And it's really great to help more people in Aotearoa access their wealth using today's technology and enable them to also develop wealth over time too. So that is, it's very exciting to me, yeah.
But hey, George Waupin, so tell us a little bit about you and what you get up to down in Canterbury and what farming and fence makes to you.
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Chapter 3: How are young farmers redefining land ownership and equity?
Yeah, so I'm a dairy farmer down in Canterbury. I've been managing dairy farms for the last three years and dairy farming for the last six. And I've just gone 50-50 share milking in partnership with my parents out at Leaston. So we share milk 400 cows there. Farming and fence to me, well, we're actually going to put altar on this season. So that's probably in a literal sense.
But it's about trying to push the boundaries of what we can achieve and utilizing technology and stuff to try and drive our business forward.
Awesome. And Shane, tell us a bit about the Young Farmers Association. The recent updates too this week, you've already had a few announcements in partnership with the government. And what does something like this mean to your organisation?
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having us here. It's been a good week. We've had some good wins with some government support coming through to help us with our 100 champions, Boca Reina and also Islaid, allowing us to give away a whole bunch of memberships into the regions, which for New Zealand Grand Farmers, we turn 100 each year.
And the thing that's kind of kept us going all the way through this pretty much almost a century is has been helping people find their purpose and their place inside rural farming. And so that's just an adequate way to keep doing that, which is really cool. The unfeeds side, I don't know if we've ever tried to control a year old farmer. It is impossible. So we might need to go hold it.
Being seen differently doesn't work. They're all over the place there. They're just excited with life and giving it a go. So that's, yeah, they're unfeeds as they are.
Fantastic. And obviously you can very much talk about the Unfest and, you know, virtual fencing is just an incredible innovation that Unfest is leading around the world, which is awesome. Can you tell us a bit about, you know, Gus, a bit about you and how you're talking about what Unfest is up to these days?
Yeah, kia ora. Great to be here.
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Chapter 4: What innovative technologies are transforming farming practices?
Gus, obviously, VP of sales at Holta, which is an operating system for farmers. It really has two parts to it. One, a collar, which goes on every cow. That's solar-powered, and it now moves farmers too.
virtually fence shift and monitor their animals and they do all of that through an app which they also have which contains land and animal data so and we're currently obviously a New Zealand business but expanding through the US now in three eight states and and also expanding through Australia, and you're about to touch down in South America over the next couple of months.
So it's pretty exciting times out of Umahota. Yeah, pretty going on, but also seeing the growth across Louisiana is also probably the thing which gives me the most satisfaction.
It's an incredible key success story. I'm really intrigued on the innovation we're driving with and using more technology in the farming sector. For you two, Shane and George, let's start with you Shane. How are you finding young farmers adjusting to the technology? Do they see it as an opportunity? Do they see it as quite scary or a bit of both? What are you noticing?
There's definitely an age divide. I think the organisation, I was going to say I'm on the young side, but I'm definitely not. The organisation represents the young self. And they've grown up around technology, so they're not afraid of it. It's interesting, like most COVID, I think the people that have kind of grown up there have a little bit more wariness around how they use technology.
And so it's not just an actual quick adoption. They actually do a lot more research. They understand what it is. They ask a friend. They see how it's being used elsewhere. And so they are a cautious early adopter, I think is probably where we're seeing the current generation coming through. Okay, this generation is the first generation that has grown up in a fully socially enabled digital world.
And they've seen the downsides of that. They've seen the massive upsides of it. And I think you see it through our membership and we see it through the industry.
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Chapter 5: How does solar energy play a role in modern farming?
They are some of the most globally created, socially aware farmland set that we have. They know what their consumers are looking for. They understand where their products are going like nobody else before them. But they've also seen the cyberbullying. They've also seen the downside of not being able to switch off.
And the other part of it is the reality of the situation for a young farmer coming into
either get into a farm management position or hopefully get into a purchasing position they're not going to be able to walk on for the best far years here they're going to have to buy one that's probably in the lower core power performance and technology is the way that they're going to bring their equity up and then start getting those returns and so they're ambitious about things like solar like alpha anything that can actually bring on farm productivity up they'll buy straight into it
So productivity is a big focus, that makes sense. And for you, George, you know, we just got up with this new family and you're giving a badge to your father. How are you adapting technology? How are you finding bringing your family along with that journey too?
Yeah, look, I think Shane's 100% right on the difference in generations there. My generation, I think we're real hungry for it. We've seen our heart, the previous generation, we've seen our heart. My dad worked when he was a young farmer many years ago and what they had to do on a day-to-day basis and stuff that we can do with technology now, you know, a click of the fingers.
So I think young farmers are really hungry to see what we can achieve with technology. If you listen to the communists and that sort of thing, talking about New Zealand's GDP and productivity, it's something that really is important to productivity. I think technology is the main lever we've got to pull to get in the right direction.
Yeah. Now, I guess we talked about either spiritual things. Can you actually explain what we're talking about and how that works?
Yeah, I mean, I'd start by saying I think every generation of fathers, you know, has been innovative. They've just used different tools to do it. Granddad, you know, it was just self-dividing back in the day. But yeah, Holter's, I suppose, providing a new tool for farmers at the moment.
Like on Tuesday, I was just out of John and Fiona Sherlock's, and they were at Marginal Country that ran a few mixed-age cows on it and predominantly sheep, but they were probably
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Chapter 6: What challenges do young farmers face with technology adoption?
And, you know, Shane, can you explain a little bit more too in terms of how important productivity gates are, especially for young farmers when they might be in that gravity query fund that we mentioned before?
The old model of going into South Africa, you haven't been more than kind of looking your way through. Those footsteps are still there, but they are harder and harder to achieve. And what we're seeing, so we've got a partnership with the Seaman County Equity Fund. That allows us to raise property equity around the purchase of a farm. We can then put a young farmer onto that farm.
The exiting farmer that's going out and the average age of farming now is in the 60s. And so they need a good equity exit as well, but they don't have any hope of retiring.
um and sorry they can leave some of the uh shears in the in the fund and they can pass that down to their kids um and then the yarn farmer who comes on um using at the end technology uplift putting some solar on and so restoring some um they're putting some of the pasta back into into um degenerative farming and things like that um allows us to get that productivity uplift
And if we're getting a 20% to 30% productivity uplift, that goes straight down to the borrowing line, which means we can pay the investors back quicker. The young farmer can pay in equity a hell of a lot faster. And so it's kind of adopting what has worked well in the tech industry, where for decades the tech industry has been all about share equity.
We're now bringing that to the next generation of federal farming companies as well.
It's really interesting looking at share performance and ownership of shares compared to house prices, compared to wage growth, you know, and being an owner is so important for people across New Zealand to really own assets because it seems pretty hard to be able to get access to the capital buy to get the land you need.
Yeah, that's the other big generational shift that we're seeing at the moment where this younger generation of farmers that are coming through, the concept of owning the farm or owning the land that the farm sits on is actually really important. So if you look at the current landowning, they're very, very aware. They want to hold onto that land.
Whereas for most of the younger guys coming through at the moment, they want to share in the farming business. They don't actually really care so much about the underlying land asset. because they see that the returns that are able to drive this from the farming business, the land that returns are actually relatively marginal at the moment.
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Chapter 7: How is AI expected to impact farm management in the future?
So I'll probably just work on incremental habits, whether it be growing your own skill set or growing your wealth to root on the upper echelon every day.
It's so important, and it's something I wish we were taught really early in life. Our habits really do determine the opportunities you have later in life. So, Gas, looking to the future, what are some innovations you think farmers need that they don't have yet or ways that we could drive innovation even faster here and more cost-effective ideally?
Yeah, I mean, there's so much that we can and should and need to do as an industry. I suppose one problem I'm really excited about, I suppose, is we still don't, under a pastoral system, understand conversion efficiency about cows very well. And the highest performing cows convert grass at
about a 40% higher rate than the lower performing cows so that's something we're working towards a lot and that would have a massive impact on the New Zealand economy if we were able to understand that problem because the same feed and the same inputs is going into all of our cows but yeah. Some of them are doing a much bigger job of turning that into murder.
Here's Pekka Palvikenkku, and today we're going to look at the food industry's domesticity. The delivery line has just received Valjo Aimo's delivery. Hey, driver, where are your products going?
Valjo is owned by Finnish dairy producers, and that's why Valjo Aimo's products stay in Finland. I'm Aimo, a partner of food industry professionals. When you choose me, you support domestic dairy producers. Valio Aimo, onnistumisen ainekset. Kyllä, kyllä.
With your technology, these increasing productivity gains, hopefully also farmers are getting more time back. Are you noticing that? And was there any stats on that? And then what are farmers doing with their, you know, full-time earnings?
Yeah, I mean, we see such a big range. For some people, it is actually a succession tool and allowing them to, you know, get off the farm more often while staying close enough or across it. For others, it's actually the tool that's enabling them to exit George. You know, maybe they're expanding more and they're taking on another business with Holter. And then for others, it's actually...
just reimbursed that time into more important tasks on the farm. And so we see a massive range of how farmers re-induce their time. I think it's one of the more exciting conversations we have with farmers is actually challenging them to go, well, getting hold is not just enough. You actually need to think about this next chapter and what you'd actually like to achieve with that extra time back.
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Chapter 8: What are the future trends in food production and farming?
And, you know, for some of the extra time, that shame may be that I'm using a new dating app. But it's like, what are you noticing in terms of the engagement in the community?
So we, yeah, almost 100 years. So we are technically New Zealand's oldest dating agency. The balls, the bar caps, the spill chair and your VXR, they're still really part of the rural ethos of New Zealand and we just see them back at you to come here and do them. which is really, really cool to see. But it is hilarious.
We were down doing one of the skills days down in South Canterbury, and in the break, they were all dropping on their phone on their hats. Some of them were swiping on the dating apps, and some of them were swiping and moving cars between pivots. And it was just really cool to see that they embrace all aspects of what it means to be part of the world.
Yeah. And George, what are some of the practical tips or differences you see in terms of how you farm compared to other generations before you?
Yeah, I feel like it's the same principles, right? Well, for me anyway, Derek, I mean, we're pasture-based, so try to get the max amount of milk out of cows for...
very profitable margin and that doesn't really change how we do things change the inputs we use change a little bit and just making tweaks to our system I suppose and those technologies like we've already said add to the maybe the complexity but also the simplicity of the system and in different ways and actually making things more efficient and just easier I suppose you probably use a bit more brain care now with all these technologies and stuff but the actual physical labour is quite a lot less than it was so
And so talking about it evolving, I'd be keen to know each of your answers to, you know, 10 years time, 2036, like what does thunder look like?
I just think we see more and more technology to be fair. I think electrification is going to be a big thing over the next decade or so. We are already solar farmers as pasture farmers because we're using the sun to forest synthesize to grow grass.
So it's going to be putting on more solar panels, I think, trying to drive our energy inputs a bit lower and using the electricity that we generate ourselves. And that will help cut our bottom line, I think, to be fair, with less inputs. And then hopefully that will help some of the energy prices the country is having as well. And then we have technologies like Holton.
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