There are no grey areas when it comes to their bulls. “Our bulls aren’t pumped but they do the job and continue to grow on, and we stand behind our bulls,” he says.
Temperament is key with a keen eye on structure and phenotype. The rest should follow.
The land they are on today was partly where Grant grew up. His parents Hugh and Gwyneth were farming in Oxford, in the South Island, and keen to buy more land. Those were the days when no one sold their land outside of the family, so they came north and bought Omana at Nuhaka. It was 1971 and Grant was just 14 but very much involved in the farm.
The original Kenhardt stock came from Pine Farm which was started in 1945 by Gwyneth’s parents Arthur and Ina Cross and dispersed in 1949. Beverley Hills Stud bought some of the Pine Farm stud cows and in 1957, Grant’s parents bought some from Beverley Hills, registering their first calf in 1962. For the Beverley Hills stock it was somewhat of a homecoming as they had previously been owned by Gwyneth’s parents. Hugh and Gwyneth also bought foundation stock from the Mangatoro Stud.
“Grant’s parents loved the contour of the land at Nuhaka and the accessibility to the state highway,” says Sue, who grew up rurally in Gisborne.
The couple have since added to the original land and now farm 1200 hectares at Nuhaka, but also have 669 hectares at Tuai and a further 1358 hectares at Frasertown.
The Nuhaka property may be the backbone of the operation, but Grant is strict on each standing on their own feet.
He’s also adamant that land stays out of forestry. “I worry for the future of farming,” he says. “The latest farm we bought came because I was approached to make sure it did not go into trees. As a country we may export food but the way things are going, we will have to import to feed our own people if we keep planting at the rate we are.”
New Zealand may be one of the biggest sheep and lamb exporters in the world, but Grant says that won’t last if the current trends aren’t halted.
Stock numbers across the farms are growing but currently the Tuai block has nearly 7000 units, including breeding ewes and cows, Frasertown has 9000, and there are 13,000 at Nuhaka. They continue to supply lambs 12 months of the year.
But it is the Angus breeding programme that they are all most proud of. The current herd sires are Cricklewood Pandemic P056, Blue Duck 1824, Rangatira 20-1034, Kenhardt Noble N898 and Turihaua Eastern Star.
“I may buy a couple of cows now and then,” says Grant. “When I do I am looking for a strong cow family and a sound animal that will give me above average on EBVs.”
Kenhardt has a 60-strong pure New Zealand base too that can be traced back to Scotland with no American influence.
He also brings in offshore semen but not a lot. “We have to make sure they work first. Often you don’t get the temperament and you do get feet issues. You are bringing cattle in that you are buying off figures which don’t necessarily mean anything about structure.”
Any decisions these days are made alongside Nancy and Patrick. Patrick, who recently competed in the New Zealand Young Farmer final, farms at Patoka in Hawke’s Bay with his wife, while Nancy has recently returned home from Australia.
All three of the Crawshaw children – Patrick, Nancy and Annette – have previously been successful in stock judging nationally and internationally.
Sue credits their involvement in the Future Beef New Zealand programme with giving them the grounding. She was its first chair and says the programme is as relevant now as it was 21 years ago. The aim of Future Beef New Zealand has been to provide exposure for youth to the beef industry so it can be viewed as a possible career option, and the East Coast has many agriculture career industry people who are past contestants of Future Beef New Zealand.
Nancy always wanted to come home and help on the farm but pursued a career in the beef industry offshore first. “It was a huge learning curve working in the meatworks for five years,” she says. There she learned to understand a far broader picture. “We spend so much time in breeding but that helped me understand the whole supply chain and how it affected the end consumer requirement. It was very eye-opening.”
More recently she started working for Angus Australia. She has always been interested in breeding and has kept a meticulous Kenhardt studbook since she was very young.
She says she, Patrick and Grant each bring a different perspective to the table when discussing the breeding programme. “We all talk about which cow goes to what bull. We use all our bulls in our commercial programme so a lot are finished and sold to the works.”
They have done a little embryo transfer too and while it isn’t usual in the cattle industry in New Zealand, they’ve been pretty successful.
Grant loves having his children involved in the running of the farms. He’s a strong advocate of nurturing the next generation too and loves nothing more than mentoring young farmers in the district to help them into farming and land ownership. “Seeing those I have mentored buy their own land and succeed and grow their own farming careers really is something else,” he says.
The name Kenhardt goes back a long way in the Crawshaw family. History has it that Grant’s great grandfather, a general in the Boer War, captured Kenhardt in South Africa. All Grant’s uncles and father carry the Kenhardt name but his mother drew a line and said he wasn’t to follow that tradition and instead named the stud Kenhardt.
