Inside Ravensdown

Shaun Hodges, shift supervisor at Ravensdown, is pictured with some of the fertiliser product that makes it Napier Port's biggest importer.

TICKING irrigators keep the landscaped gardens lush at Ravensdown's Napier headquarters, in contrast to its industrial facade on State Highway 2 in Napier.
Absent from the Awatoto plant is an odour that often greets highway motorists passing the fertiliser manufacturer and distributor. Ravensdown has stinky neighbours.
Regional manager Jamie Thompson points out his window to a neighbouring composting business. "When they are turning it, it smells," he said. "This place shouldn't smell."
Also nearby is a rendering plant and wool scour. The quarry across the highway creates its fair share of dust. He apologises for the "unfortunate" highway frontage but says it will improve.
"We have a big capital programme, a significant spend, on modifying the plant's buildings. Certain buildings have got asbestos that needs replacing and is horrendously expensive. Apart from beautifying the place we are limited to what we can do because of the rail line."
With a billion-dollar turnover, Ravensdown is Port of Napier's biggest importer bringing in 270,000 tonnes of fertiliser products on 15 ships a year from Germany, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, China and Morocco.
Phosphate rock trucked to the plant has sulphuric acid added to make nutrients available to plants.
Phosphate was "the backbone of agriculture," he said. "It increases clover growth and clover fixes nitrogen, which increases grass growth, which stock eat and what they excrete provides stimulus for the micro-organisms in the soil, which creates a better soil that will grow more grass."
Nearly one million North Island hectares are fertilised from Awatoto's production. On the East Coast sheep and beef account for 65 per cent of Ravensdown's business, dairy 30 per cent and horticulture 5 per cent.
Gross revenue from fertiliser manufactured at Awatoto is $105million. Other fertilisers are imported along with a "full suite of products" for animal health, animal nutrition and agrichemicals. Two more phosphate plants are in the South Island.
Until recently rail was a major part of its distribution network but because it was the only company using the fertiliser carriages it was faced with a hefty bill if it wanted to maintain them.
Increased KiwiRail charges proved unaffordable and the rail siding used since the 1950s was retired. Last year there were 180 rail trips on scheduled trains during spring and autumn. From Awatoto, fertiliser was carried by rail to New Plymouth, Wanganui, Utiku and Feilding.
Trucks and ships do the business now, with more trucks travelling Napier's Marine Parade to get to the port, much to the chagrin of accommodation providers. Drivers avoid the road after 10pm, before 6am and during events such as Art Deco Weekend.
While it deals with big numbers the farmer-owned co-operative has strong connections with its owner/customers.
Mr Thompson said membership wasn't a prerequisite to supply but most customers soon signed up.
"Profit is distributed amongst the shareholders who have purchased the fertiliser in that 12-month period.
"Often they become a customer and then towards the end of the financial year, when they realise they bought 100 tonnes of fertiliser and are going to miss out on a $3000 rebate, they pay just $100 to become a shareholder and get the rebate."
It didn't pay farmers a rebate in 2013, the first time it missed such a payment in 35 years, after selling its stake in Australian joint venture Direct Farm Inputs, causing a pre-tax loss of $23million. Ravensdown has since exited all Australian operations to focus on New Zealand.
Twenty of its 100 staff at Awatoto work in its contact centre. It has a matching operation in Christchurch, the decision made to disaster-proof the centre made before the Christchurch earthquakes damaged its building and put the call centre offline.
"Between the two of them phone calls are seamless so they go to the next person waiting. They answer around 200,000 calls a year, with 96 per cent answered within 20 seconds. There is a huge training programme for the customer services representatives.
"Farmers just love the call centre. Somebody answers that understands farming."
Ravensdown owns Analytical Research Laboratories, which processes 70,000 soil tests a year. Ravensdown's field representatives collect most samples.
"It is really important to spend time on the farm so we get an understanding - there are different contours and aspects like north-facing or south-facing slopes and valleys. To offer a sound recommendation we have to understand the farm."
Ravensdown also owns 50 per cent of Sandford Spreading. "We are involved in spreading because we want accuracy in placement - our whole programme is nutrient management."
Through its online Smart Maps tool farmers can view test results, recommendations, invoices and view the "snail trail" of where fertiliser was spread.
Sandford Spreading's fleet includes 17 planes and five helicopters but nothing is airborne in Hawke's Bay due to very competent local operators, he said.
"We try to maintain a really strong relationship with those guys and if we brought a plane in here it would annoy the crap out of them."
A byproduct of making its own sulphuric acid is creating heat.
"We produce steam from that heat which generates electricity. We have a 8MW generator - larger than the Ruataniwha Dam generator - and are totally self-sufficient in electricity. When we are running at full capacity we supply back into the national grid.
"If we fed 100 per cent into the grid we would supply enough electricity to supply an eighth of the properties in Napier."
The proposed dam and irrigation network has made fertiliser a dirty word for those worried about nutrient leaching.
Ravensdown called meetings in Waipawa and Hastings about the Hawke's Bay Regional Authority's Tukituki Plan Change 6, which will clamp down on nutrients leaching irrespective of the Central Hawke's Bay irrigation scheme going ahead.
Ravensdown chief scientific officer Ants Roberts said many Hawke's Bay farmers would be forced to operate differently.
A decision on a High Court appeal by conservationists on Board of Inquiry approval of Plan Change 6 is expected by Christmas.
The approval requires farmers to better manage nitrogen and phosphorus with a phase-in period until the mid-2020s. It applied to farms greater than four hectares, orchards, vineyards and lifestyle blocks of more than 10ha.
Farmers would be required to determine how much nitrogen (N) leached from their property by mid-2018, to be compared with a leaching rate in Plan Change 6.
"If you cannot meet that N loss, then you have to go into a consenting process and you'll apply for a restricted discretionary consent, which means the council can put certain conditions on how you farm," Dr Roberts said.
Being more than 30 per cent over the permitted nitrogen loss would make a farm non-compliant.
Critical to the changes is baseline data which Mr Thompson said Ravensdown "is doing anyway". "If we don't know their baseline data how can we make a sensible recommendation? That is why we own the trucks and the planes because once we make the recommendations we want to make sure it is going on the right places."
He said annual fluctuations in customer demand changed less than 10 per cent. Current demand was "very strong".
"We have got very good red meat pricing with both beef and lamb. Dairy are still strong because they have the leftover of the payout from last year, which is about to finish. We expect there to be a slight drop-off in demand from dairy in the next six months but it won't be significant because dairy farmers know if you want to produce milk then you need to grow grass. To grow grass we need to put on fertiliser."