The jute rolls work 'out of the box' in most balers Photo: Supplied
A Orepuki deer farmer, who invented a non-polluting, edible bale netting, says he has been "overwhelmed" by the response to his product.
Southland farmer Grant Lightfoot is the man behind Kiwi Econet, a type of bale netting made from jute.
While Kiwi Econet does not replace the outer plastic wrapping used for baleage and silage, it provided an alternative to the plastic-based netting inside which stock have been known to eat.
"You can't recycle it, you can't do anything with it. Some farmers bury it, some burn it. It's a serious problem," Lightfoot said of the plastic netting used.
He came up with the idea of an edible-alternative while working as a commercial diver, thinking of the farm back home while waiting in a decompression chamber.
Grant tugs on the jute netting Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
Returning home, Lightfoot and his partner Colleen Quirk hand-knitted the first 50m of the 1.25m wide netting out of jute twine. It took weeks at a rate of about a metre per night.
"Then we put it in the baler and it held together. It went through like piece of cake and I thought, wow, we're onto something here and the old goose bumps started."
The prototype bale net won the open section in the Southern Rural Life Farm Innovation Awards last year, and the first two shipping containers, filled with hundreds of rolls, have just arrived in New Zealand.
"I've been doing this for five years now just about and I can guarantee it works, it does, it works 100% on baleage."
The inventor with a bale wrapped in his netting Photo: Supplied
Since his story was shared on Country Life last week, he received dozens of calls and even more emails from farmers interested in his product.
He said the interest had come from "all over the world", with several farmers from Texas getting in touch.
"One guy wants a shipping container already."
He said the response was "mindblowing" and left him feeling "pretty emotional".
Lightfoot said it was still too early to tell what the overseas interest will mean for the business, with the nets currently manufactured in in Kolkata, India.
In May, the entrepreneur is heading to the United States and Europe to further promote his product.
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