Baled

The grass was cut on the communal ground at our Tūmai farm park today.  Unfortunately, only some of it could be sucked up and vacuum packed in those giant round bales before rain set in and forced a pause to the harvest.

Our farm park subdivision is a hybrid model of private and communal ownership.  Sixteen families each own a large section within about 32 hectares of communally owned farmland in-between the house lots.  Each family owns and undivided 16th share of the communal ground which is managed collaboratively by a “Body Corporate” governance group. A condition of establishing the farm park was that around half the former farmed pasture must be replanted in native forest.  No grazing stock can be kept on then communal land, and the grass is “cut and carried” to the neighbouring farm as hay or baleage, or to form ensilage. Farm stock are not housed indoors like in much of Europe, but the preserved grass is crucial for feeding the animals in the winter when natural pasture growth slows.  The Tūmai residents charge the farmer a modest sum for the grass and the proceeds are used to pay for road and water reticulation at Tūmai and to help fund the planting of native forest in the steeper areas of Tūmai where the baler cannot harvest grass.

I love the patterns of lines and tones of the landscape during harvest and wonder why so many New Zealanders seem to miss the beauty of our farmed landscapes – our iconic forests and nature reserves sure are beautiful, but so too are our managed landscapes.