('COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME) - (WHISTLES) - Always a favourite on every rural road. - Jersey cows ` got a lot of character. - And this Waikato family says the milk they produce is something special. - We're organic, it's Jersey only, and it's A2, so there's attributes that make it stand out. - Knowing your customers is top priority. - Good time to tell them what's happening on the farm and make it clear what dairy is about. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 (LAID-BACK MUSIC) - My great-grandfather walked what we believe are some of the first Jersey cows in the district up from Taranaki. Took him a while. Can't imagine how many consents and things you'd have to have to try and do that now. - That was nearly 100 years ago, and John Vosper's family's been milking Jersey cows near Matamata in Waikato ever since. - We converted to organics in the early 2000s because the way we were farming wasn't producing the results. We looked at farming in a more biological way, and on a small farm that wasn't going very well. So we sort of slipped into the urea usage, and that looked good for a while. But then it became quite a repetitive thing and the soils seemed to be degraded. - Fonterra was encouraging farmers to go organic, and John's wife, Liz, was intrigued. - She went off to this field day, came back all enthused and dragged the rest of us along. (CHUCKLES) - John's a big fan of the Jersey breed. - They have, uh, really tasty milk. It's about 20% higher in protein. Don't want to upset any vegetarians, but their the meat is very tender as well. It's got a very low shear strength, so when you're crossing with beef breeds, the resulting animal is very tasty. Sorry, girls. Didn't have to hear that. - John dried off his cows in late summer and took a break from milking. - Now that I'm back in the shed, I'm really enjoying it. But we haven't hit winter yet, so when it's a bit frosty, I might not be thinking the same thing. When things are going smoothly, it's quite relaxing. It's a good time to sort of think. You can have a yarn for the cows. - This is A2 milk. - A2 milk means it's got A2 beta-casein in it. A lot of people who have had issues drinking milk have found that A2 milk, they can cope with it, and they buy it in preference to other things like lactose-free or goat milk. Farming organically has a few challenges. There's sort of often no quick fixes, so you've got to be quite proactive. When we've been in a feed crisis because of a drought or the organic prices have been a bit low, sometimes I've been thinking, 'why are we doing this?' My bank manager probably thinks the same thing. And then I go to the farmers' market, meet some customers who just tell us how much they appreciate us making the effort to get there, and I think, yep, it's worthwhile. - The Vospers started the Jersey Girl Organics brand a decade ago. At first the milk was bottled on the property, but these days they process only yoghurt here. John's son Michael Vosper's in charge today. - We're heating it up to basically scald the milk. We've hit that temperature, and now we're gonna start our incubation process by lowering the temperature. Then we will add our culture, agitate it, and then we're ready to start filling and labelling. Sweet. That's us for half an hour. We'll go have a coffee. - John says yoghurt was an early diversification. - We decided to make yoghurt because we were looking at a product that had a better shelf life than white milk, and that had a bit more of a margin because it's a very competitive market. So we thought if we can make a premium product like this ` A2 organic yoghurt set in the pot ` we'd be on to a winner. I don't think there's a different taste because it's A2 milk, but there's definitely a different taste because it's Jersey milk. There's a lot more protein in the milk and more cream, and it just is a lovely mild yoghurt. - We're moving from our 400g pots to our 700g pot. So there's just a couple of adjustments needed to accommodate the bigger jar. The bigger seller is the bigger jars ` just more price effective, I think. Yeah, send one. - It's a growth area for us, I think, because more people have tasted it and say, 'Wow, what a great yoghurt it is.' I think also fermented foods are a growth area anyway because people are realising how important the gut biome is for health, you know, boost the immune system. And it's meant to be good for your mental health as well. (PLEASANT GUITAR MUSIC) - Growing berries in tunnel houses is a more recent diversification. This venture is driven by John's son-in-law Craig Jager. - It all arrived flatpack less than a year ago, and it's been pretty fun putting it up. This isn't my background, but I've learnt a lot and had some great people help me. Generally the strawberries are grown in grow bags, which are the same substrate but in a bag, which, you know` it's a bit less handling. But at the end of the season, you end up with a big pile of plastic and strawberries and substrate. So with these pots, we can just tip it all in a pile, and we're just left with organic matter in that pile, and we can start again. There's a lot of literature available, especially out of the States, on how to grow strawberries with hydroponics, which we're doing here. Like this, we get the heat, we can push the season. We don't have frosts or rain or anything else that can really damage the fruit. Also, it brings the plant up to a really ergonomic level for pickers. The downside is a lot of extra cost, probably 10 to 20 times cost to set this up under this to go on the ground. - Strawberries fruit year-round in these conditions. - We thought strawberries are delicious. If we can get them right then people will buy them. And you know, we could capture that market over winter where the prices are much higher. I'm looking for ripeness and shininess, really. We didn't used to put quite as white, but it gives us a better time between picking and eating. We're just having trouble moving the product as quickly as we were. So now it's gotta last for a few days to get to the farmers' market. There's a perception that once summer's over, strawberries aren't in season any more and won't taste good, but we're still producing really delicious fruit. - And while strawberry production's still small, Jersey Girl Organics' milk production is on a growth curve. (GENTLE MUSIC) - Waikato is home to boutique dairy producer Jersey Girl Organics. The Vosper family runs one herd near Matamata and a second 20 minutes away in the foothills of the Kaimai Ranges. Michael Vosper says having two farms means a year-round milk supply. - We've got the spring calving farm there, which makes more sense cos of the weather, so it's summer-safe, essentially. So it supplies the milk when Dad's farm's dry. - This farm also supplies extra organic feed. - Mum and Dad turned organic when I was still at school, and they needed to find somewhere to graze their heifers. It was sort of the next thing in sort of securing the future for them. The heifers come out here and any surplus feed is turned into silage and saved for when you need it. (COW MOOS) Organic feed's as common as chicken teeth, you know? It's, um` yeah, there's just` there's not much of it around. - Michael's son Carter helps with the decision making. When do you think we should dry off? Do you think we...? - Right now. - You reckon? Is that... - Yeah. - Is that cos we're running out of grass? - It's too cold. The grass can't grow. Especially we're covered by the Kaimais. - It's pretty bad, eh? - Yeah. - Yeah. - And we're out of hay. - All the hay's gone. We've got to make a case, eh? Case to dry off. - Yeah. - Then we can go on holiday. Smells nice, eh? What good quality silage. - I know. - Do you know how I know you're a farm kid and not a town kid? - How? - Cos you like the smell of silage. - The weather here is a constant challenge. - Right underneath the Kaimai Ranges. Winter is very wet, winter's cold. I think the sun comes up about 9.30. Frosts stay, clouds are there, winds there. So it's just a different aspect of farming to the plains. Dad will have a sunny day at his farm, and we've got sideways rain. With the tanker, there's separate compartments. We're part of a big run, but there's a portion of the tanker that's split off, and that's where Jersey Girls' milk sits, and that's unloaded first and put through the plant first. - And first means bottling's underway by 5am at Green Valley Dairies near Pokeno in North Waikato. Mark Pulman's the manager. - When the tanker pulls up, first of all, we do a sensory test to make sure the milk is good. We also test it for inhibitory substances to make sure, once again, it's all clean. And then after that we put it through a pasteurisation process. Basically, it's heating the milk up to about 72 degrees and holding it for about 15 seconds at that temperature. - John Vosper says they've tried different options for bottling the milk. - ...we processed this morning. - We started off processing in a container next to the cow shed at home. We found after nine years that it was very expensive to process small amounts of milk yourself. You know, the high labour costs, high compliance cost per litre. We've looked at outsourcing it. Been here for a couple of months now. We've started off in glass bottles only, and in terms of trying to transport that around the country, we've ended up on PET plastic bottles, which are fully recyclable, and we've got two sizes ` 750ml and 1.5 litres. - Out of interest, which is the better seller for you? - The 1.5's by far the biggest seller. But we do sell a few 750ml bottles. People that live alone or don't drink as much milk. - Health and safety is a top priority. - Dairy products do seem to attract a lot of attention from food safety, and rightly so. So quality and hygiene is very important here. - Bottling at a bigger plant is good for the Vospers in other ways too. - One of the things that's become evident is that when you have got size that you get a bit better service and better prices. So we've found that they're already cost savings of coming here. It's very hard when you're a little company to get distribution. Some people aren't interested because of the small volumes. So yeah, yeah, we're fortunate enough now to have found somewhere that can pack and distribute around the countryside. (PLEASANT MUSIC) - Back on the farm, it's feeding time for the little ones. A calf's prospects here have changed over the years. - We haven't sent bobby calves from this farm for about four years. We had some concerns from our customers, and it made us sort of think about our calf rearing policy. It's a thorny issue. You have to have a calf to get milk. (CALF MOOS) All going all right? Cool. - Very good. - How's that new one going, Lil? - It's so good. It's over here. - Yeah, I see, uh, Jason's been and marked the ones he's gonna take. (EAR TAGGER CLICKS) There you go. We've found a buyer who takes our Jersey bulls, which are often a hassle to get rid of. And he rears them on for service bulls, so that's been a great thing. The dairy industry is working to reducing the number of bobby calves. They` A lot of farmers use sexed semen so they get more heifers. And then they can use beef sires over their cows to get animals suitable for the beef industry. Hang on, this yellow one's a ticket to a good life at Clevedale. - Having extra hands on deck for calf feeding is a big help for John and the family. - This year, we've been getting Willing Workers on Organic Farms, or WWOOFers, to assist us. Lil was here before Christmas, and I offered her a job to come back and help rear the calves because at this time of year it is extra work. And Coco had been here after Christmas, and so we offered him a job as well. We feed them twice a day, and if you get sort of seven or eight new ones to teach how to drink, it's a bit of a handful. - And running a busy farmers' market stall can be a bit of a handful too. - Yes... - It's great milk and it's so fantastic to avoid the plastic. - Thanks very much. (GENTLE MUSIC) - This dairy farm near Matamata has been organic for 20 years, and they've been selling milk under the Jersey Girl Organics label for a decade. John Vosper's Jersey cows wear smart collars to guide them around the farm. The Halter system means he can move the animals using a phone app. - I'm using Halter to keep the cows in place so I don't have to use a fencing reel and put up fences. I use it to move them to the cowshed, which is great, especially on hot summers' days or cold, rainy wet days. This is our farm. I want to move the cows in this paddock down to this paddock here. So we set up a break. Add break. I'm gonna do it today and make sure they get water from here. Cross to there, down to about here because I want to give them about 10kg of dry matter a cow. When it's time for them to move out of the paddock, they get a vibration. You sort of see them look around. It's a bit like Doctor Who with the cyborgs. They all sort of stand up at the same time, turn around and walk out of the paddock. - John reckons cows are clever animals. - When we first started we spent probably a week training the cows. We put a tape a couple of metres out from where the virtual fence was, and the cows would sort of see the fence, but they'd start getting the signals from the collars. They seem to have it sussed within a couple of days. Since then, when we get new cows in and we put a collar on them, I just chuck them in with the herd and they seem to be with what's happening within a couple of days. - The collars also give health alerts. - As an organic farmer, catching disease or when an animal's in discomfort early increases the chances of us being able to cure it using organic treatments. If a cow has to have antibiotics or any other restricted product that is not allowable in the standards, we have to sell the cow. So you don't want to do that too often because you don't get a lot for a lone cow in the middle of a season. The collars are very light. I don't think it would be any heavier than a cow bell that Swiss cows wear. - Early starts are not just about milking for the Vosper family. Every weekend they sell their products at several different farmers markets. - When we started the business, we had a couple of vending machines, and we thought it was important to get people to taste our milk to see how different it tasted. And so we went to the farmers' market in Tauranga. So it sort of started from there. We got asked to go to the Waikato Farmers' Market, so we went to Hamilton and Cambridge, and then after that we went to Grey Lynn and Parnell. So we do five markets in a weekend. We've been doing that for about eight years now and, you know, we enjoy going there, even though sometimes on a Friday night it just seems like a bit of a drag. I'm good. - Today John's at the Grey Lynn Farmer's Market. - It's usually a really busy start. People want to get in early. Thank you. Yeah, it's really neat to come to market and talk to the customers. To me, it's a way of bridging the gap between town and country. We had quite a few conversations about what's happening on the farm. - How's the cows? - The cows are... all right. But we're due to start mating soon, so there's a lot of cows on heat, so that keeps them distracted. - (CHUCKLES) - For some people, the organic is really important. For other people, the packaging is important. Some people, it's the taste of our milk and A2. - Graham Gulbranson's been coming here on Sundays for years. - It's great milk, and it's so fantastic to avoid the plastic. Really good flavour and, uh, the creamiest milk that I've ever had. Fill up a few litre bottles, uh... and... it lasts until next week quite nicely. And you just know that it's good stuff that you're getting. - We've also got the produce from the farm, from the tunnel houses. We've got strawberries, passionfruit, strawberry jam, feijoas from the number of feijoa trees we have around the farm, and we've also got some habanero chillies on here that I forgot about. I'll have to uncover them. - Thank you. Oh, I haven't paid you. - Yeah. $7, um, for... for the, um, bottle and the milk, and it'll be $4... from then on. - Yup. - Our milk is not cheap. It's probably at the top end of the market, but, um, we've tried to keep it as low as we can. Unfortunately, as a small producer, we have really high overheads, and we can't dilute it with a large volume of sales. We've got very narrow margins, and it's, um` it's a tough business competing against big players. - Yeah, well, that's... - Carol Gunn from the Farmers' Market is a big fan of Jersey Girl Organics milk. - The Grey Lynn Market is mainly locals. We've got a big organic following, so being able to get organic milk is really great. We generally get people at our market who are wanting to have a lighter footprint, and also a less chemically intense footprint. This is a great opportunity for people to learn, you know, actually what it takes to bring that to their table, yeah, and to their home. (COW MOOS) - Back on the farm, John's quick to acknowledge that organic dairy farming has its challenges. (COW BELLOWS) - Feed budgeting and provision is really important because, yeah, you just can't go out and buy a ton of palm kernel. Even just getting organically certified feed can be quite hard. Weed control is another issue. We can't use herbicides, and we have weeds like blackberry and gorse that are particularly hard to get rid of. I believe it's a sustainable way of farming. It's got its challenges, but they're not insurmountable. And when you look at some of the difference in the soil now in the pastures and the cows, you know, I'm happy with where it's going. When you put a lot of effort into farming organically, you are reluctant to let it go. Or I am, anyway. - This thing's heavy. - Push! - I like to think that we get into a position where Michael will be able to continue dairy farming. It might not be on this farm. Town's getting pretty close, but, yeah, might be able to carry on somewhere else. When you look at all the attributes of organic milk, it covers a lot of bases in that it's antibiotic free. There's no pesticide residues or herbicide residues, there's increased biodiversity. So there's a lot of reasons that I think it's sustainable. - Next time ` - I think it's a real win-win situation. It's a win for the viticulture sector, farmers, environment. - An innovative solution to recycle broken vineyard posts. - I'm not OCD, but you know, to go from a messy pile over there to a tidy pile, it feels really good. - Instead of going to landfill, they're destined for farms nationwide. That's next time on Hyundai Country Calendar.