FEATURE
Family unit is their natural capital
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Family support is one of the biggest factors in the success of North Canterbury farming business, Zino Holdings. BY KATE TAYLOR
When Mark Zino talks about natural capital, he’s not just talking about sub clover or the farming environment around them. It’s about relationships, working closely with his brother Sam and having the support of extended family. Mark, Sam and their young families have a 1,050 hectare (ha) mixed pastoral based farm at Hawarden.
Mark and Sam’s parents had started farming the original 260 hectare Flaxmere block in 1966 and added another block to bring the total to 535ha, before Mark and Sam bought the 313ha Kanuka Downs and another 164 hectares to bring the total to 1,050ha. Their father died in 1994 (a manager was employed until the boys took over). Their mother Penny still lives in the homestead and has created the three-hectare Flaxmere Garden (recently made a Garden of National Significance by the New Zealand Garden Trust). “We’re all immensely proud of her. She has worked extremely hard there and has also had the utmost support for anything we’ve ever done… backed us to the hilt. She’s driven Sam and me to be the best at what we do.
FEATURE Rachael works part time in the office for a local dairy farm. Sam is president of Hawarden’s United Rugby Club and is involved with their catchment group for nutrient management. Mark is president of the Hawarden A&P Association and involved with the Hurunui Water Project. “We don’t mind doing our share,” says Mark. “At the moment, our kids are at the school so that’s a huge part of our lives, but you get so much out of a community when you put a lot into it.” With five boys between the two families, the noise of motorbikes is reasonably common.
“Our farm vision is to have a stable, multi income business unit,” says Mark. “We have based our business around having a third of income coming from each business unit—sheep, deer and cattle (including dairy support). We believe this will give us a strong platform to weather the bad times and to really succeed in the good times.” Zino Holdings (stock and plant) is owned 50/50 by Sam and his wife Keri and by Mark and his wife Rachael. They lease the land from their family trust – 313ha of rolling tussock country (180ha cultivated) and 820ha of flat country.
“Our farm vision is to have a stable, multi income business unit,” says Mark. Mark looks after the sheep and dairy support while Sam is in charge of the deer and beef enterprises. Long term, the brothers want to expand their business using irrigation from the Hurunui Water Project and by purchasing more land. They are keen to offer their children the opportunity they have had in farming. Mark and Rachael have two boys—Ben is 11 and Angus is nine. Sam and Keri have three boys—Jack is 10, Ollie is eight and William is four. “We have been very lucky to inherit some land. Sam and I have added to that and we will continue to add to it. We’d like to double the size of what we are now in the next five years. Not necessarily double the land area but the business. The whole idea of that is farm succession.” Sam and Mark had been to university, travelled overseas and worked on other properties before returning to work on the farm—Mark in 2000 and Sam in 2005. Mark has a commerce management degree at Lincoln University and Sam has a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture and Masters in Farm Forestry (one of the reasons so many trees can be found on the property).
“Our sister Sarah is married to a local transport operator (Marco Woelders, GVT Landline) and they have always been supportive too. Marco is successful in what he does so he’s great motivation for us as well. When you’re in a group of people that motivate each other, it’s pretty special, especially when that’s a family unit. It’s pretty cool. We have the whole family within 10 minutes of each other and we’re all playing at the top of our games—Marco and Sarah at the transport, Mum at the gardens and us on the farm. We all push each other pretty hard. That motivation is huge.” Community is an important part of life on Flaxmere, especially with young families. Like many rural wives, Rachel and Keri have been involved in organisations such as playcentre, play group, Plunket, school and church. Keri teaches a few days a week at the local school, Hurunui College, which is an area school taking students from primary through to Year 13.
ABOVE: The Zino Holdings Team, from Left Mark Zino, Ezekiel Turner, Ben Zino , Rachael Zino, Keri Zino, Jack Zino, Sam Zino and Will Zino OPPOSITE: Mark (left) looks after the sheep and dairy support while Sam (right) is in charge of the deer and beef enterprises
“They love being on the farm at the end of the day. They’re typical farm boys spending more time outside than inside. Motorbikes, working, helping with tailing, feeding out… we were the same when we were young. They all just genuinely love it. They’re good farm kids.” With the diversity of the business, there are plenty of opportunities for the boys to help. The property carries 3,150 Longdown ewes over a Southdown/White Suffolk terminal sire. They tail at 155–160 percent, and weaning 70 percent to the works at 40kg live weight (after gaining 320g a day on the ewes). One thousand hoggets are mated with 100 percent tailing and weight gain is 270g a day until 35kg/LW at weaning. About 3,500 of the lambs are sold into ANZCO’s Waitrose programme and another 1,500 are sold
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FEATURE into the smaller-scale Kumanu programme, marketing lamb to the Netherlands. Lambs are also traded as the weather allows. One of Mark’s targets is based around efficiency—to have ewes rear a kilogram of lamb at weaning for every kilogram of mating weight. He is consistently achieving about 80–82 per cent. “It’s ambitious and harder to do as ewes are getting heavier.” The Zinos are also trying to improve deer performance. They have 730 in-calf Hungarian Red hinds currently fawning at 83–85 percent. They are put to a terminal sire elk/wapiti. Progeny are weaned at 53kgLW and sold October-December at about 55kg carcass weight. “The focus with the deer is to improve their survivability, fawning rates, and weaning weights in the hinds, as well as targeting autumn growth rates of the weaners in the autumn,” says Sam. “Lucerne has given us the ability to do that, which is driving the next project of increasing the lucerne area in the finishing unit and irrigating it with half the amount of water used by ryegrass, so we are
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pushing the water further utilising the plant’s ability to be efficient with it. Growth rates on their mothers is improving also through the use of lucerne and clovers where the hinds live.” The business trades 250 stags in the summer, while 120 IC beef cows and 20 IC heifers are on pasture clean-up duty. All beef progeny are sold at 350-400kg as yearlings in November/ December into the ANZCO Aleph Programme.
ABOVE: Hungarian Red hinds on the Zino property BELOW: The Zino farm carries sheep for the red meat
industry
About 650 dairy cows are wintered on the farm, as well as 82 R1 and 78 R2 dairy heifers from a neighbour. Thirty hectares of grass silage is sold to dairy farmers with 15–20 hectares of
FEATURE barley grown both for sale and for the farm’s own use. The majority of the flat land on the property is dry land North Canterbury light stony silt loam soil. The farm has 55 hectares of lucerne, 90 hectares irrigated and 80 hectares heavy soils on the flat. The rest of it is sub clover for the ewes with lambs at foot.
“The Zinos are staunch supporters of the red meat sector, particularly sheep and venison.” “It has taken time to learn management techniques for this light ground, it really is a fantastic environment for growing sub clover,” says Mark. Sub clover to us is natural capital because it just grows like a weed when managed correctly. It absolutely suits our environment, our livestock and everything we’re trying to achieve out of this dry land. It’s a pretty powerful tool for us.” The Zinos are staunch supporters of the red meat sector, particularly sheep and venison. They have just completed three years as the Deer Industry NZ Focus Farm in North Canterbury and were named the regional category winner for venison in the 2014 Silver Fern Farms Plate to Pasture Awards. They have been part of Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s Sheep Profit Partnership for three years and were the Blackdale Sheep Industry Supplier of the Year at the third annual B+LNZ Sheep Industry Awards in August. Mark is a member of the Waitrose Producer Committee. The Zinos were named 2012/13 Waitrose Producer of the Year, which Mark says is about producing lambs to specification and time, presenting them well and having a good relationship with their meat company.
“Loyalty and strong relationships are really important to ANZCO and to the way we run our business. We’re very relationship focused. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a meat company or a banker, a seed agent or a fertiliser rep—we’re very strong on relationships… and they are key to any business.” One of those relationships is with advisor Chris Mulvaney and the STOCKCARE monitoring system. “Chris has really helped us get our ewes and hoggets up to a great level of performance.” Working together plays a large part of the Zinos’ success and that includes fulltime employee Ezekiel Turner, who Mark
ABOVE: The Zino’s Hawarden property looks out to a picturesque mountain range BELOW: The Zinos also carry beef cows for pasture clean-up duty
says is encouraged to give input into stock management decisions. Mark says one of the reasons for their production achievements is three minds working together on issues. Mark and Sam have their own blocks and their own responsibilities and Mark says that is a huge strength.
“We’re very relationship focused. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a meat company or a banker, a seed agent or a fertiliser rep…” “We challenge each other. There’s a bit of in-house competition between sheep production and deer production. It’s a bit of friendly banter really but it all just helps the pair of us to drive a better result. It’s a major strength. The natural capital is that we’re not on our own and we get on really, really well. At the end of the day we’re great friends, which is pretty important in business—to get on with the person you’re dealing with.” Mark says they would both like to stay in the red meat industry for the long term. “I’m a passionate sheep farmer and you can’t tear Sam away from the deer shed. We’re here to stay.”
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