Regarded as a pioneer of irrigation in the lower reaches of the South Island’s MacKenzie Basin, Doug McIntyre has helped turn thousands of hectares of otherwise barren tussock country into highly productive dairy pasture – and cultivated a liquid gold mine in the process.
Before moving into the area in the late 1990s, McIntyre was an established dairy farmer near Oamaru. But as the story goes, he saw the potential in a 2600ha block of unfenced and rabbit-infested land on the Twizel-Omarama Rd that no self-respecting sheep would graze on.
Having bought the land, McIntyre joined the farmer-owned Benmore Irrigation Company in 1998 and spent seven years battling bankers and bureaucracy to obtain the necessary funding and consents to build a 25km canal to the Ohau River that now provides precious water to eight shareholders.
Using some of the southern hemisphere’s largest pivot sprayers, McIntyre has progressively tamed the wilderness and in the process turned his huge property into a highly economic dairy unit with a rateable value of $30 million.
Farmed in partnership with the neighbouring Williamson family since 2003, Twizel Dairies consists of 1500ha of irrigated pasture milking 4000 dairy cows. With two 80-bale cowsheds at either end of the property for efficient operation, the farm produces 1.7 million kilograms of milk solids, which will bring in about $11 million in the 2017/18 season.
According to sustainable milk plans lodged with Dairy NZ, the property is capable of sustaining a peak herd size of 5400 cows on 2427ha. And, while it is not incorporated as a company, the so-called McIntyre Williamson Partnership is recognised in Fonterra’s top 20 shareholders list with 819,888 shares worth $4.7m.
In a submission to Canterbury Regional Council requesting a resource consent to discharge nutrients, Twizel Dairies business manager David Gordon said that the business employs more than 20 staff and has provided a significant financial boost for the Twizel community that would not have been possible without irrigation.
According to Gordon, additional irrigation would allow the property to develop a more efficient and potentially more profitable farming business. However, moves by the Benmore Irrigation Company to almost double the total land under irrigation hit a stumbling block in late 2016 when Environment Canterbury commissioners declined its resource consent application on the grounds that it “would not be consistent with the purpose of sustainable management.”
McIntyre’s sprawling property portfolio includes 3300ha of dairy farms and 5500ha of supporting pastoral land with a collective rateable value of $68m. He also owns numerous residential properties and sections in the likes of Twizel, Oamaru and Mt Pisa and holds a quarter share in Twizel’s High Country Lodge and Backpackers, which was built in the 1960s to house dam workers.
Photo: Stuff