Farming trends in Tararua District

What will farming look like without sheep?

Federated Farmers seeks to empower farmers. We want vibrant rural communities, respectful farming practices, and to operate our businesses in a fair environment.

To front for Tararua members we try to reduce misunderstandings about what’s happening on our local farms, district wide, and in some cases nationally.

Today I thought it might be good to try a new approach and see what understanding we all have re animal data for the Tararua District, and what if any changes have taken place over the last 20 years.

Feds' roles are often about helping tell the real farming story.

Before reading try to answer the following three questions.

What animals do we have the most of in Tararua?

Dairy, beef, deer or sheep? Can you rank them in correct order?

Of the current 245,534ha of grassland how much is irrigated?

Trends wise, in 2002 were there more or less dairy cows, sheep, deer or beef cows when compared to 2022?

Qu 1. In 2022 we have

1,191,047 sheep

130,804 beef cattle

110,720 dairy cattle

8630 deer (excludes the wild ones)

Qu 2. Irrigated land 2947ha

Qu 3 In 2002 we had

1,805,483 sheep

177,697 beef cattle

125,565 dairy cattle

18,981 deer

All farmed on 312,212ha of grassland.

Therefore (rounding figures out) we’ve lost:

600,000 sheep

47,000 beef cattle

15,000 dairy cattle

10,000 deer

And 67,000ha of grassland.

Looking at these numbers from an emissions perspective, or if I wanted to fire a few readers up, from a climate change perspective, would everyone be comfortable acknowledging that the Tararua farming fraternity has already taken great strides to reduce emissions from ruminant animals?

Maybe with the monthly climate change marches it would be good to ask:

How many more vehicles are in the Tararua District now compared to 2002? How many residents of the Tararua District take overseas holidays or internal NZ flights?

As always feedback is welcomed.