Chris Biddles: Rage against the pine machine

Northland-based Chris Biddles is grumpy that pine trees and carbon farming are taking precedence over stud cattle farms.

I WRITE THIS WHILE SITTING IN A hotel room in New Plymouth on a rather cold and wet day in early April. The beer is cold and enjoyable. I have attended the Angus New Zealand AGM and conference which has been hosted by the Taranaki/King Country ward. This conference and farm tour was cancelled last year due to Covid-19.

There is considerably more grass in this part of the world than in the North where we have had a much better summer than last year but are still very deficient in soil moisture. We also have less than adequate grass. I understand it is raining at home as I write this column which will be good for the grass seed we have drilled, although we have another 20ha to do.

We are experimenting with a completely different mix of seed. Using cocksfoot, fescue, chicory, plantain and red and white clovers.

We have had excellent success with chicory and plantain over the last 15 or so years. We are tired of ryegrass not persisting and also coming with its various problems. We tried fescue and cocksfoot 25 years ago but it was not successful. They tell me it is much improved now. It is a very expensive exercise coming in at around $500/ha. Hopefully it will be a rewarding and successful experiment.

At the conference, I met a couple who have two breeds of stud cattle. They describe themselves as the biggest stud breeders with no land. They have all their stud cattle grazing with other farmers. They are both professionals working within the farming industry, although the wife is a full-time mother. They want to own land and thought they were nearly there. But no, because of effing pine trees. They now believe they will never be able to afford to buy a farm because pine trees and carbon farming has pushed the affordability beyond their reach. This is not good for our industry when young, keen people do not make it on the property ladder because of badly thought-out Government policy. We need the calibre of these people in our industry and we need their relative youth but we are losing them. This is not good enough. It makes me grumpy.

An update on my recovery. It is now just over two years since my quad bike accident. This time two years ago I was still in a wheelchair. In October 2020 I had surgery number seven to have the ankle fused with the expected outcome that eventually I will be able to walk without pain. I was making good progress at Christmas time but still use my knee scooter and crutches. Out of the blue in early January, I got an extremely serious infection which had me back in hospital for eight days and surgery number eight to clean out the rubbish that had formed and attached to my 15 items of steel work.

We should all have a C-reactive protein (CRP) reading that is less than five. At my worst in hospital my reading was 313, it was not pretty. I left the hospital with an IV line in my arm that travelled through my shoulder and stopped just above my heart. I had to change the antibiotics bladder daily. I also had a big suction pump to carry around for the first few weeks and now a small battery-operated vacuum pump. In February, I got a second infection (different bug) which bored a hole into my ankle and eventually exposed the steel work. So, I take two types of antibiotics and having been taking them for 13 weeks I now have some kidney difficulties. That will hopefully improve once I cease the antibiotics.

I am able to do some work now but once in a tractor I need someone to open gates and strip bales of the plastic coverings. I am capable of contributing a little on the farm albeit very inefficiently. I am immobile again as I undergo surgery number nine. This is to remove all steel work from the ankle to allow the last remaining hole in the flesh to finally heal. When I will be weight bearing again will depend on how much progress the fusion from six months ago has progressed.

So, my recovery continues as a marathon not a sprint, all this because of a super dumb arsed decision made as a result of severe fatigue.

Think about your wellbeing, farmers.