The Country 12/02/25: Blair Drysdale talks to Jamie Mackay

We ask a Southland arable farmer to come off the bench to fill in for Professor Julian Paton and his Series 1 Land Rover.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to the country, professor Julian payton on or
peyton on tomorrow. I'll get his name right by tomorrow
as well. Blair Blocker Drysdale coming off the bench, arable farmer,
high profile, arable farmer, bit of a social media star
where he was back in the days down in Southland.
How's your season going, Blocker?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
You good afternoon, Jamie. You look like I said you
offer here, we're having a pretty good season with somewhat
of an oasis in south and once again for you know,
third or fourth in a row when we look at
the levels of seed and and I've got rainfall up
until now and you know, reasonable manda heat. So now
I think you're sticking along pretty well, aren't here? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
So what returns like for grain farmers like you at
the moment? Surely you'll be ripping the dairy farmers off shortly,
Blocker with a ten dollars.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Payout, Look would always like more for our grain. Jamie's
no doubt about that. And look to be fair. Ah, yeah,
I guess we're always making a little bit of money,
but like most other industries, their margins continue to be
trimmed by in pot costs I bring pretty stagnant, if
not still increasing some of them, and you know, grain
price is being stubbornly not moving, so prices are all

(01:09):
over the show, but none of them are good enough.
So yeah, it's challenging. It's really challenging, and it's not
a problem that's unfortunate and to go away anytime soon.
I don't think we heard.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Craig Wiggins talk about that the challenges some of those
arable and seed farmers are facing in mid Canterbury. Another
challenging harvesting season. I know, I hear it's getting a
bit dry in Southland, which is bizarre after the spring
you had, but I assume that's good weather for someone
like you.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, look, it's made to start a harvest pretty good
in comparison to what we had last season. So we've
already done, you know, we're well into wheat already here
back into that afternoon, so we've I know what I've done
sort of five six hundred and ten the most that's
gone straight off the combine to milk. So now it's
been a pretty good start. The rest of this week
looks pretty good up until Tuesday, so you're gonna be
a lot of these have been burned and combines up

(01:55):
until when it rains on Monday night Tuesday morning. That's
for su Also, that's been pretty good so far, and
you were just starting to dry out a little bit.
I've got the option of taking lambs on and grazing,
so I don't have to have that capital outlay for them.
But I'm just a little bit nervous about doing some
until we see some rain. So it has the ability
to change very quick here as you will.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Are you taking lambs on for grazing rather than buy
stores and take the pump because they're pretty expensive at
the moment.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Ah, you know, far too extensive for me to take
that punt at the moment. I would rather not outlay
that money. So if we can take them on for
grazing and keep some grass growth under control. We've got
more young grass in here than we've probably had for
the last twelve thirteen years, so there's a lot of
that to get some mouths on in a hurry. So
buying any sort of livestock in the moment using a
tongue to get that grass off is pretty expensive. So

(02:40):
if we can do it for grazing, it's a good
cash line. Does a job for us.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Well, good on you, hey Blair Drysdale, thank you very
much for coming off the bench at very very short notice.
I hope you have a season goes well.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
No good ass, cheers Jo