Colin Grainger-Allen is a tweeter - @NZcows. He's also a New Zealand farmer milking 550 cows. He has a passion for grass and social media. I met Colin at the annual Fieldays exhibition in Hamilton (equivalent of the National Ploughing Championships).

Farming

The farming first. Colin went to New zealand 16 years ago from Gloucester in the UK and went milking for a farmer for one year. He enjoyed it but was young and went travelling and ended up back on a 100-cow unit in the UK. Life in the UK dairy industry was nothing like life in New Zealand so he spoke to his wife-to-be and headed back to New Zealand.

For the initial two years, he was on the first step of the dairy ladder as a "dairy assist". Next up he became a herd manager in Tepuke. He stayed with this herd for six years progressing from a salery manager (two years) to a variable order manager (two years). In this role, he received 21% of the milk cheque in return for providing the labour.

Sharemilking

When the farm owner offered him the option of buying the 300 cows on the farm for $1,200 NZ dollars per cow he was anxious but it was an opportunity he couldn’t miss. With some very good mentors who encouraged him, he took the chance. By now he had moved up the dairy ladder to become a 50/50 sharemilker. Colin provided the cows, labour, machinery and all running expenses of business. The farm owner supplies land and buildings as well as maintenance of major capital items, for example a broken water pump. They share the milk cheque 50/50.

After some years as a sharemilker, cow prices had doubled and milk price was at an all-time high. This was 2007 and Colin had made a very significant equity gain and wanted to become bigger sharemilker. He sold the 300 cow herd and moved to 550-cow herd. He continues to farm this herd today.

The next steps for Colin and his family is farm ownership. There are multiple ways to get into farm ownership, from equity partnerships, to setting up a company with investors. Colin is confident about the future and said that "dairying in New Zealand is a breath of fresh air. I wasn't born into farming in the UK, which made it very hard to get into". This is a recurring theme amongst Kiwi farmers.

Social Media – an extension of discussion groups

Like a lot of people who join Twitter, Colin never used it for the first year. This was 2009. He began using it in 2010, but there were no New Zealand farmers on the social media platform at the time. Colin started speaking to farmers from all over the world. He became the go-to-guy for social media in farming.

In 2013 he founded “#AgChatNZ” with three others.

It is a non-profit charitable organisation that organises agri chat sessions each Wednesday evening at 8.30pm. The benefits of social media from Colin’s perspective are the sharing of knowledge and networking. He gets to meet a range of people and while he knows many farmers are still sceptical, he sees social media as an extension of his discussion group. He estimates only 300 to 400 farmers are tweeting in New Zealand but this is growing.

Technology on his farm

One page of Colin’s phone is full of farming apps (see picture above). The key apps include:

• Minda Calving, Lookup and Pasture
• FDE dairy effluent rates
• Geomeasure to measure paddocks
• Smart tools distance, etc.
• Farmhelp - very useful for staff with some basic instructions on putting up strip wires for example.
• An app to record water used in dairy for the plate cooler
• Farming show podcast from NZ radio
• Grazing calculator
• Fencepost from frontera for all milk results

He finds the phone is a key part of his farming management and commented at the amount of agri-tech at the Fielday’s exhibition.