Increasing numbers of Scottish farmers are trying out rotational grazing, according to Murray Rohloff from New Zealand. The sheep genetics expert gave a number of talks to Scottish farmers this month about how better ram selection and grassland management can improve farm profitability.

“We used to breed for the same traits as you do in the UK at the moment; fleshiness, looks, whatever would win a prize at a show,” Rohloff told Farmers Journal Scotland. “But when the crash came in the 1980s and our equity went down to 30% of what it had been, our balance sheet was shot through the middle. We had to change our system.”

Rohloff said it was an awful time for Kiwi farmers, causing awful mental strain.

“The lessons our survivors learnt was that we just have to talk all the time and that women are great at managing money – I see some marvellous couples running farm businesses together.

“We found that the only thing we could control was cost, not income. The first thing you can do is close the chequebook, but farmers that didn’t spread maintenance fertiliser hampered their farm productivity. That meant that they weren’t in a decent position to make decent incomes when prices returned.”

With the insecurity of Brexit and farm supports beyond the term of the current government, he believes farmers in Scotland have a great opportunity to establish more profitable enterprises that will see them through potentially tough years.

“My message is one of hope. The pasture growth curves here are virtually the same as in New Zealand. Your demand is slightly different because your sheep are 15% heavier and your cattle are half as big again as New Zealand cows.”

The ending of farm support payments in New Zealand in 1984 coincided with a new movement: computer technology. Farm land prices fell by 60% and fertiliser used declined by 50%.

Farmers started to measure animal traits and use computer technology to sort the difference between animals.

“Our breeding was very fractured with commercial farmers pulling one way and pedigree societies another. When the crunch came farmers quickly realised that less problematic sheep were less labour-intensive and that a ram had more influence on profit than originally thought.”

Doing more

Going from having one labour unit to 500 ewes to 4,000 ewes became a matter of helping the sheep to do more themselves. Harnessing nature rather than fighting it through breeding for ease of management traits (easy lambing etc) became the way forward.

“It’s a matter of recording everything, drawing a line in the sand and deciding who makes it into the gene pool and who’s out. We now have a farmer-owned recording system, called Sheep Improvement Ltd, that is used by 578 ram breeders. Almost all of our rams sold are performance recorded and a total of 70 ram breeders supply 80% of the rams used in the country. Farmers vote with their chequebook at the end of the day.”

The output of lambs per ewe has doubled since the 80’s, he said. Half of this is down to pasture management and half due to genetics.

“60% of your profit comes from days to slaughter. An animal that grows fast uses a lot less pasture to get there.”

The population of sheep in New Zealand fell sharply from 70 million in 1983 to 40 million in 2004. Despite that, the volume of sheepmeat produced has only fallen by approximately 6%.

“I am surprised at the number of farmers I see in Scotland that are trying out rotational grazing. Most of them are telling me that the increase in grass growth means they are having to up their stocking rates,” Rohloff said. “When I first started doing talks people thought I was from Mars, but at the end of the day nobody owes you a living.”