Bus trip to Johnny Hogenkamp’s pig farm in Dalfsen and listened to presentation on the EU cap payments. Henk de Lange gave a “virtual tour” of his organic pig farm. I couldn’t end this blog without saying the hospitality we have received has been quite humbling and Johnny’s place was no different with the whole family helping out with lunch and dinner.
We spent Monday at Flora Holland looking at how flowers and pot plants are auctioned and distributed as well as listening to Gijs Kok CEO talk about their cooperative model. There is a very strong value placed on Co-Ops in the Netherlands. Finished the day with a boat cruise around Rotterdam harbor.
After a very tiring day on Sat a couple of us skipped church and rode bikes around Rotterdam.
Pictured below are from left.
Ashley Fraser Aus, Richard Fitzgerald NZ, Myself, Rens Kuijten Netherlands and Stuart Sharman Aus.
Arrived in Rotterdam Sat 25th Feb after flight from NZ with a 4hr stopover in Hong Kong. We arrived at our hotel at about 8:30 am then were on a bus at 11:30am for a tour to a dairy farm that is producing gas in 3 large tanks and using that as heat to a nearby town as well as having wind turbines on his farm.
Craige and Roz Mackenzie have a grain and dairy farm just outside Methven.
Craige also has a precision agriculture bussiness where he works with his daughter. It was really interesting to hear how he uses precision agriculture currently and where he sees the future advancements going and how they can benefit farmers in grains and dairy.
I also had a chance to chat with Carl who is the sharemilker to see how he and his wife have progressed in the dairy industry and his outlook on dairy in NZ from a sharemilkers perspective.
The photo below is the group standing in a crop of pac choi listening to Craige.
Tues 21st Feb: We drove South from Ashburton to Timaru and met with Tony Howey.
Tony farms grain, potatoes, onions, carrots and organic berries on his farm and leased blocks.
We met at his house where he has subdivided and built in a new estate. The rear of the blocks look over a deere farm where it appears there is only a 1 meter high bluestone wall keeping them in but there is a dry moat surrounding them with a feeding area at the entrance to the estate. Just a beautiful outlook.
We drove around Timaru with Tony explaining his different crops and showing us through operations where he either owns or has partnerships in. This included a drying shed, packing shed, seed cleaning business, and grain storage. We also had a tour around a factory that Tony supplies with carrots where they turn raw products into concentrates.
On the way back from Timaru we stopped in at Winslow Grains where the CEO Paul Tocker explained his role in the grain business and an off shoot where they sell the Lely milking robots and where he sees the future of robots and dairy in New Zealand.
On Monday 20th Feb we met with John Wright at his farm at Methven. John explained the history and the possible future of irrigation in this very beautiful area. We looked at a pumping station, Listened to Mandy who represents the Maori people on environment and planning issues regarding agriculture on the Canterbury plains. John is also converting some of his grain farm to Dairy so we had a good look at the shed being built and discussed some of the figures they are working on which led to the decision.
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