![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JRJ2UP_David_Clark_7_JPG.jpeg\")
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\nDavid Clark inspects his radish seed crop.
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Anisha Satya\n<\/p>\n
This year’s carrot seed crop should have been David and Jayne Clark’s money-maker.<\/p>\n
“Establishment was very good,” David said.<\/p>\n
“Our weed control through the winter was exceptional … our plant height is very even, and then our umbel (flower cluster) numbers going into the pollination season [were] also very good.<\/p>\n
“The bit that we were missing out on was typical hot, dry Canterbury weather.”<\/p>\n
Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, iHeart<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n A wet summer costs a lot for an arable farmer in the plains.<\/p>\n It prevented bees from pollinating crops, which meant fewer seeds, and less product to sell.<\/p>\n And if the rain turned to hail, a year’s work could turn to compost overnight, a reality many Canterbury farmers had experienced over the past three years.<\/p>\n “There’re some farmers here in mid-Canterbury who had no crops to put through their combine harvesters after the hail.<\/p>\n “That’s years to recover from.”<\/p>\n The weather is one of several reasons why the Clarks will leave the arable industry, and farm something else.<\/p>\n \nJayne and David Clark say it isn’t feasible for them to continue cropping with the current markets and climate. “We’re all on a no-exit road in arable at the moment,” David said.<\/p>\n “The return on capital is less than the cost of capital.”<\/p>\n They haven’t decided yet what they’ll farm next, but dairy cows were a major contender.<\/p>\n “The faster all of us can exit the arable industry and move to cows, the better.”<\/p>\n Greendale farmer Rod May has already made that move – and he’s excited about it.<\/p>\n \nFarmer Rod May outside a new dairy shed being built on his farm. “We’ve always looked across the fence at the dairy industry, and been a wee bit envious of their farm succession plans,” he said.<\/p>\n He began converting his farm two years ago, when Environment Canterbury (ECan) enabled a consent process to change farmland use.<\/p>\n In the past two years, 43 dairy effluent discharge consents had been approved – that meant 43 new properties have been permitted to send their cow runoff onto neighbouring land and waterways.<\/p>\n Twenty consents were for farms in central and north Canterbury; 23 were for farms south of the Rakaia river.<\/p>\n A further 17 consents were in progress.<\/p>\n ECan said the approved 43 consents would allow a maximum of 37,367 cows to be introduced to the Canterbury plains.<\/p>\n \nRod May is swapping crops for cows this year – and that requires infrastructure, like a dairy shed. “We were the second consent to come out, and the second shed to be built in this area,” May said.<\/p>\n “There’s a wave of them; there’s a belt running from Greendale to the [Waimakariri] river.”<\/p>\n With dairy conversions making headlines<\/a> throughout last year, May said some people thought arable farmers were jumping from one cash cow to the next.<\/p>\n “But it’s not like that, that’s not the reality,” he said.<\/p>\n Like the Clarks, succession was on May’s mind – to keep the land for his children, it had to be profitable.<\/p>\n “We just want a small, reliable business for the family.”<\/p>\n Federated Farmers arable group chairperson David Birkett said it was understandable why so many Canterbury croppers were leaving the game.<\/p>\n \nLeeston arable farmer David Birkett. Machinery was expensive to fix and replace, and hikes in fuel prices following the conflict in Iran had added more strain, he said.<\/p>\n “We were just filling up the tractor this morning; before the war, it was probably costing us $450-odd. Today, that’s probably going to cost us $1100 to fill up for the day.<\/p>\n “You don’t see that same issue in dairying.”<\/p>\n \nDavid Birkett inspects his pea crop. Birkett is one of several growers who would be impacted by the Heinz Wattie’s processing plant closure<\/a>, although he said there were other plants to turn to in the south.<\/p>\n![\"Jayne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JRJ2VS_David_Jayne_Clark_4_JPG_1.jpeg\")
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\nPhoto: RNZ\/Anisha Satya\n<\/p>\n![\"Farmer](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQV1TU_CLife_Rod_May_1_JPG.jpeg\")
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\nPhoto: RNZ\/Anisha Satya\n<\/p>\n![\"Rod](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQV1VW_CLife_Rod_May_4_JPG.jpeg\")
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\nPhoto: RNZ\/Anisha Satya\n<\/p>\n![\"Leeston](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQT95F_CLife_David_Birkett_1_JPG.jpeg\")
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\nPhoto: RNZ\/Anisha Satya\n<\/p>\n![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQT92L_CLife_David_Birkett_6_JPG.jpeg\")
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\nPhoto: RNZ\/Anisha Satya\n<\/p>\n