Seddon farm embraces satellite tech

Marlborough farmer Fraser Avery is looking towards technology to help increase the production and efficiency of his 2500-hectare beef operation called Bonaveree Farm in Seddon.

According to Fraser, technology is an important part of the farming industry’s future success.

“I feel we need to farm through a few seasons before I’d talk about results but we’re very confident they will be beneficial,” he says.

“I think we’ll have environmental and human benefits that are always hard to quantify along with production and performance benefits.”

Fraser has 875 of his cattle using the new smart collars through Halter Beef Pro pasture and animal management tools.

“Over the years I’ve learnt that the more measuring and monitoring we do, the better we understand what we’re doing,” Fraser explains.

“Already we’re learning more about managing our pastures better to utilise the grass we have and also grow more grass.”

“We’re able to identify animals that might be unwell before our eyes might have noticed them before getting Beef Pro.”

Time is value for Fraser, who has been farming for more than two decades.

“Being efficient has always been important to us, this tech allows us to do more with less labour inputs,” he says.

“It’s the biggest advancement to our business in my 27 years of farming.”

Fraser signed up with Halter earlier this year but decided to upgrade to Beef Pro for $2 per collar each month, to give him extra functionality.

“The benefits we believe will be farming our cattle to a higher level of accuracy with lower labour inputs,” Fraser says.

“Having accurate pasture cover enables us to accurately set breaks for animals without being in the paddock.”

Fraser sees it as a great tool to help train his team around pasture measurement and feeding of animals.

“We enjoy detail and data and being able to track how our cattle are grazing and ruminating is also great,” he says.

Halter says farmers are already tracking production gains alongside improved grass growth using Halter’s new satellite-powered system.

Beef Pro was rolled out by the virtual fencing company alongside what it describes as a world-first move to connect its smart collars directly to satellite in partnership with One NZ, powered by Starlink.

Halter New Zealand country director Josh Townsend says beef farmers are moving beyond virtual fencing to take advantage of tools long used in the dairy sector.

“Kiwi dairy farmers are world-renowned pasture managers, and for five years have been incredible users of Halter; now for our beef farmers, it’s their day in the sun,” Townsend says.

The product combines feed demand and grazing planning tools, satellite forage signals, grazing intensity heat maps, behaviour monitoring and automated grazing records.

The same system that moves cattle also helps farmers plan, measure and improve.

Using Halter Beef Pro, beef operations can quantify what their herds need against what their land can support, use that data to drive planning and build a record of how each grazing performs.

Already 185 New Zealand beef farms have signed up to Beef Pro. Halter has sold more than one million collars globally, with nearly 400,000 satellite enabled.