Reasonable Grazing Rate

Hi all,

We have bought in the Whangarei region. We have about 2 hectares that is available to lease out. My question is how much should we be charging per hectare per year? Should we be charging something for fertilisers, fencing, weed control etc or is that all in the hectare rate? Is there a different rate for Cattle or sheep?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hello and welcome from me. I have grazed many life style blocks over the last 25 years, but none as small as 2 hectares. For a real farmer that area is way too small to be bothered with the hassle of bringing in and taking out animals, and splitting the herd of cattle or flock of sheep, even if you do have good yards with good truck access. So that small you have to rely on your neighbour wanting to graze it.
But, I pay on the basis of what the animals growth rate is, so half the growth is ours and half theirs in the dollar value of meat, when the animals are there. So a daily rate on number of animals that are there If the land owner controls the weeds, fertility and drinking water so that I can graze more animals then he will be paid more. If restrictions are put on so that I can't run the cows with a bull for 4 months, then that reduces the amount of pasture I can use so reduces both my interest in their property, and the payment they will get for it. When I am renting the land I do not want the land owners to do anything on that land without informing me. So just like if you rent a house you don't want the owner to wander through any-old time, and using the house sometimes without telling you he is going to.
The rate is whatever you can negotiate. This will depend on what you are going to do to help, what you do to hinder (we underpay an owner quite a lot because she can be very rude, so we might just have to walk off one day, which will mean we will have to buy food which is much more expensive than the grazing: another told us he was going to turn off the stock water because watering their plants was much more important to him than watering our stock), your pasture and weed species, your fencing including electric fencing, your yard facilities, and the kind of stock that the tenant has, and some other things. Cattle eat about 10 times as much as the same number of sheep, horses eat about the same as cattle but ruin the pasture.
I hope this helps.

Like LR, we also have various lease/grazing agreements with different owners. For that size property, I would say graze your own food, biggest saving ever!

If that is not possible, then I would consider asking a neighbour if they would mind co-grazing yours as a favour to you in keeping the grass down. If it's looking to be a long term proposition, then if they would fertilise and spray it as part of their annual plan or improve fences etc, then you are on a winner until you are in a better position to take it on for yourselves.