Life is busy for Taranaki-based Daniel Holdt, from Holdt Harvesting as he juggles operating a successful agricultural contracting business
while also working on one dairy farm, and overseeing another.
His parents own one herd and he and wife Mackenzie the other. Along with this, the household is busy with three active children, Lachlan 6, Blake 4 and Ella 3.
Not that he would have it any other way though!
Daniel and Mackenzie own a herd of 170 cows on the 55ha effective farm they currently lease, with the intentions of hopefully one day buying.
While Dan helps his father Grant managing the larger 420 cow farm.
"The small farm came about from a good customer who was looking to exit the dairy industry.
He thought we would find use in the land originally as a supplement block and for grazing young stock, however that wasn't going to happen as dollar wise it did not stack up, so now we have our own herd, something we have become very passionate about so we're progressing that side of our business," Dan says.
Dan's parents have dairy farmed in the area now for 30plus years and are well established in the area located along Barrett Road, 12km or so south of New Plymouth. Daniel and Mackenzie also lease another 70 hectares as a runoff and support block.
"We brought the bulk of the herd from down the coast and they came off quite a dry coastal property and have had to adapt to our higher altitude conditions. We then started actively buying more cows from specific herds that met what we were breeding for. I'm proud to see the cows producing really well on a grass based system and looking very happy. They have adapted to the farm extremely well, and the farm to them".
The farm was managed last season by Dan himself, But is now run by Trish Ross, their herd manager.
Dan acknowledges that having the farm has provided him with a more positive work-life balance. He's experienced some challenging years as a contractor and has at times questioned the value of staying in the industry.
"We knew we had to diversify and fast.
My wife's passion is in the breeding side of the dairy cows. Trish looks after our herd and oversees pasture/feed on farm and Mackenzie takes care of the calves while assisting in the cowshed on both farms where needed."
Working with Dan on his parents larger farm are three other staff along with Dad.
Dan's parents herd is freesia- cross while Dan and Mackenzie's is predominantly Jersey cross. The decision, however has been made to move back to straight breeds of Friesian and Jersey, rather than a cross on the small farm.
"We feel when you're working with single breed genetics, you've got a stronger cow. We source our genetics from overseas through World Wide sires and Semex and are finding our young stock are performing really well."
Dan says he saw a definite shift in experience around offering contracting services through the covid years.
He realises now that the assumption of business continuing as usual through covid and not having too much impact on business, with baling grass and supplying feed for cows, wasn't correct.
"I should have looked at it differently sooner
and don't think I acted quickly enough when things became tight. Just before covid came we bought new equipment before the prices went up and we had a lot of work at the time on lease land, we were paying a lot on fertilizer to grow grass and do it well let alone the price of lease land."
Machinery repair pricing skyrocketed and soon did the gear itself. By increasing prices slightly to counteract a changing market and reducing staff Dan managed to make the necessary adjustments, but he admits it's been a challenging time for that part of his business.
With costs increasing from every quarter, impacting his contracting work, some tough decisions had to be made. Something he became quite comfortable with.
"I had to look at what equipment would give me the best return and even where I was sourcing my fuel from.
We started to look at every part of our business to see where we could improve things from an operational / cost perspective."
Basically, as Dan describes it, a rejigging how the contracting business operated was demanded, in order to continue to operate effectively and make a profit to invest back into the business and to purely survive while still finding enjoyment in it.
"For the first time in my career as a contractor I found myself dealing with very angry people from customers being caught out in weather or suppliers not getting their product across the line, and I'm one who hates letting people down, but at the end of the day, we all take a risk on the weather and the changes I made had to happen in order for our contracting work to continue. I became comfortable with just saying NO"
Holdt harvesting continues to this day to provide its clients with a range of services, including cropping, harvesting, hedges, and transport of stock and general cartage.
