Travel notes on New Zealand pastures

If a cow has worldly desires like human beings, its happy expression should be like the cow in the Harrison couple's ranch. Under the blue sky and white clouds, these black and white cows leisurely stroll on the endless green grass, basking in the sun and eating grass. These healthy cows are all due to the return to the bio-animal husbandry in New Zealand!

New Zealand dairy farm

July is the beginning of summer in China, but it is the beginning of spring in New Zealand. The plane hasn't landed in Hamilton. Looking out from the window of the hangar, there is already a fresh coolness. Hamilton Hamilton, located in waikato river Valley, North Island, New Zealand, is the fourth largest city in New Zealand with a population of1.2000. Looking down, the clear blue waikato river separates Hamilton from it. Waikato Valley is a traditional pastoral area in New Zealand. Therefore, in addition to the graceful waikato river, what you see is the intoxicating light green, which always reminds you that spring is coming.

In New Zealand, I usually stay in youth hostels where backpackers are concentrated. Dinner was simple, but the taste of milk left a deep impression on me. New Zealand is the largest producer and exporter of milk in the world. Milk, mainly in the form of milk powder, has occupied the dairy market all over the world. Before I left, I imagined whether the milk here would be particularly fragrant in this big milk country based on animal husbandry, but the answer was the opposite. The milk here is not as thick as domestic liquid milk, but it has a sweet feeling. Compared with domestic milk, New Zealand milk feels like newly brewed chrysanthemum tea. Compared with paper-packed chrysanthemum tea, the former is fresh and refreshing, while the latter is sweeter and thicker, but it is vulgar. This wonderful feeling makes me look forward to the next day's journey-living in a farmhouse.

Bio-animal husbandry returns to New Zealand

It is more than 50 kilometers from Hamilton to Otto Hangar and Otto Hangar. Along the train, there are green pastures. However, most of these pastures raise sheep and rarely raise cattle. This really puzzles me-where are all the cows in the big milk-producing countries?

Just out of the train station, Anthony Harrison, the head of Harrison Ranch, is already waiting for us. In less than twenty minutes, we arrived at their pasture. Harrison and his wife have been running a dairy farm near Otto Rohanga, a tourist town in New Zealand, for 40 years. Husband Anthony is 60 years old and Sally is 57 years old. If a cow has worldly desires like human beings, its happy expression should be like the cow in the Harrison couple's ranch. Under the blue sky and white clouds, these black and white cows hang leisurely on the endless green grass, enjoying sunbathing and munching on the new spring grass.

New Zealand dairy farm

Settle down the luggage, and Sally will take us to see the happy cows. Anthony and Sally are ranchers who insist on traditional organic grazing. The grass here is not only a single rye, but also rich and diverse. Cows know to choose the best grass to eat, and they all eat with big mouths. A few years ago, cows needed to fight with each other for good grass, but now, there is enough grass for them to eat. This pasture was once on the verge of soil erosion, pasture degradation and healthy decline of cattle. Now, the Harrison couple and the cows in the pasture are refreshed by "bio-animal husbandry". The so-called "bio-animal husbandry" refers to the pasture management that conforms to the biological principle, which is contrary to the factory centralized captivity.

"Compared with industrialized management, using biological animal husbandry to manage pastures will not keep up with the speed? Moreover, you need to do it yourself. " For my question, Anthony is full of confidence: "I can let the people in the town enjoy high-quality nutrition, not just products." My efforts are worthwhile. "

At 3 o'clock the next morning, everything was still quiet. Occasionally there are birds singing, and I vaguely hear the Harrison couple get up. But in New Zealand in July, the cold has not dissipated, and it is still quite cold at night. It was not until half past eight that I got up lazily from the warm bed. By this time, Harrison and his wife had finished the milk collection of the first batch of cows and started grazing. The cycle of animal husbandry in New Zealand begins in July each year and ends at the end of May of the following year. And from July to September, that is, the calving period of dairy cows. In recent months, both husband and wife have to get up early and check the cows one by one. If there are cows about to give birth, they need special care.

Good milk comes from the heart.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison finally managed their ranch in the way of their great-grandfather. They not only take care of cows, but the Harrison couple have been paying attention to the land from the beginning-they won't use chemical fertilizer to make the land grow more grass. For those industrialized pastures, Anthony is very disdainful: "They have forgotten the art of running pastures. They only know to invite experts and blindly listen to instructions; For the health problems of cattle, they are helpless and have to listen to the chatter of veterinarians selling various drugs to you like salesmen; There are chemical feed companies and so on. Invite whoever they want, they can't think anymore. Even if they patrol their pasture, they won't see anything, just to show it. "

However, after seeing the Harrison couple busy around the cows, they seldom mow the pasture. Although I don't know much about weeds and grass, I can see that there is more than one kind of grass on the grassland as long as I take a look. Anthony said, "Only those companies that sell pesticides to you will tell you that you have to get rid of all weeds." Only when you know what kind of grass those so-called "weeds" are, can you know whether to remove them. ""Cows only know what they need. They know what food will supplement the nutrition it lacks. In the past, we deprived them of the right to save themselves, and now we give them this right back, "Sally said proudly. The cows in this pasture no longer eat rye, which is considered as the best pasture for cows. They like grass as rich as salad-chicory, plantain, ladder grass and duck grass. "

In fact, Mr. and Mrs. Harrison used to use fertilizer to run their ranch. But since three years ago, Anthony and Sally have stopped applying nitrogen fertilizer and calcium superphosphate to their land and used organic fertilizer instead. These natural grasses also make the milk produced by cows more pure. Because the forage grass planted with chemical fertilizer is eaten by cattle, the toxin of chemical fertilizer will eventually flow into cattle and be integrated into milk.

What makes them turn to biological animal husbandry is the conscience contract between New Zealand ranchers and consumers: "Now there are more and more large-scale pastures, most of which are non-biological animal husbandry. Small pastures are part of New Zealand culture. We must give people one more choice. " Anthony believes that most of New Zealanders' health problems now stem from low-quality but mass-produced food: "At our age, there are more and more funerals. How can we really regain the right to choose food? Fortunately, there are more and more conscientious herders now. They regard it as their duty to produce high-quality products that are really beneficial to consumers' health. "Harrison and his wife believe that industrial pastures need to be responsible for environmental degradation, such as water pollution, land erosion, nitrous oxide emissions and so on.

Like the Harrison couple, in recent years, more and more small pastures have begun to get rid of the so-called "modern industrialized" farming and return to the traditional chemical-free feed grazing. Most of these small farms are family farms with less than 100 people. There are about 8000 to 1 1 000 herders in New Zealand, of which about 3000 herders are employed by investors who manage pastures remotely.

In this era when everything is fast and demanding, it is not uncommon to have a ranch with thousands of cows and a large dairy factory. What is rare is that under this trend, there are still a few herders who stick to the tradition and honestly run their own family pastures. They care about really healthy cows, not profits. Thanks to Harrison and his wife, thanks to the ranchers who stick to their beliefs, so that we can choose better dairy products and cleaner green grass and blue sky. On this night in the pasture, I slept soundly and sweetly, because I know that everything here is really pure, whether it is milk, land or people's hearts.

Farmstay, New Zealand

Tangowain farm

Ranchers: Hugh and Pauline Ross

Address:1078 Tango Wahine Valley Road, RD2 Dargaville.

Tel: +64 9 439 1570

Price: log cabin 2 10 Australian dollars a night; Suite 135 Australian dollars for one night, plus 25 Australian dollars for one extra bed.

cloud

Rancher: Julia Olgilvy.

Price: 40 Australian dollars a night, including meals.

Address: Hamilton Road 150, AWH ITU Center.

Tel: 09 235 1 186

Pepper tree farm

Ranchers: Felicity and Steele Ellmers

Price: double room 1 10 Australian dollars a night.

Address: No.25, Cookson Road. Rotorua.

Tel: +64 7 345 37 18

Woodsea forest farm farmhouse. host family

Ranchers: Peter and Linda Sink

Price: A double room is 90 Australian dollars a night, including breakfast.

Address: National Highway 58 in Hayward

Tel: +64 4 238 2400

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