Farm walk: NSA South West Region

By Kate White, NSA South West Region Secretary

On the edge of Bodmin Moor in the heavy drizzle, 80-90 farmers descended on a farm to meet Matt and Pip Smith and their families to look, listen and witness the methods, systems and experiences on their farm.

Matt, who set the world shearing record back in July, shearing 731 sheep in nine hours, and his wife Pip kindly hosted the joint NSA and AHDB Beef & Lamb farm walk. The focus was grassland and fodder management and the farming methods Matt has brought to Cornwall from his home country of New Zealand.

Matt and Pip cut back to 900 Romney cross Lleyn ewes while concentrating on the world record, but are set to return to more like 1,200-head on their 120ha. They are strong advocates of rotational grazing – stocking high, grazing hard and moving sheep on every few day. They say this maximises grazing and enables them to keep more sheep.

Over the last couple of years they have been busy reseeding, fencing, making hedges and replacing drains, all in order to enable efficient grassland and fodder management and maximise production. It all goes hand in hand, and their hard work seems to be paying off as there was certainly an abundance of grass to see!

The first field we were taken to was Winfred hybrid rape, planted in April and grazed by lambs in July. Some 600 lambs thrived on the 11 acres for four to five weeks, grazed until just the stalk remained, yet the crop has come back ready for another grazing. Visitors were impressed by the claim that they would generally get about five grazings out of the crop. However, it hasn't been without its problems, as scald hit the lambs hard. This was a setback for Matt and Pip but, as they say, every day is a learning day and farming certainly throws up new challenges to overcome. 
We then continued towards the huge wind turbines dotted around the farm to look at the various clover-rich grass leys and chicory and plantain lots, all chosen for the particular qualities relevant to what Matt and Pip are trying to achieve.

We drove on to look at ewes in a rotational paddock grazing system of a 12-acre field divided into smaller paddocks with the ewes moved every third day. Water was provided using a hydrant and the whole job seemed very easy, particularly when they demonstrated the New Zealand way of electric fencing. A highly decorated (if slightly weird-looking!) quad fixed three strands of wire at once. With a contraption to hold the reels and another to hold the stakes, a little clever threading of the stake (there is a knack to it), you stamp the stake in the ground and up goes the three strand fence.  Once completed, they showed us how another rather nifty contraption enabled the quad to drive over the electric fence without getting tied up in knots and without having to jump off / on the quad opening gates or taking a few stakes down to drive over. It was very impressive indeed, and there were several faces that seemed green with envy.

The farm tour finished with a truly welcome cup of tea and Cornish pasty while everyone attempted to dry out and discuss all that they had seen. Huge thanks to our generous hosts Matt and Pip for a very inspiring and insightful tour. We all enjoyed ourselves despite the soggy weather, and are now looking at how to modify our quad bikes!