SPECIAL REPORT: Mating
44 Collaring the heat
47 Targeting heifers
48 Breeding for milk and beef
50 Tech lets farmers get closer to the cows
54 Ovulating in synchrony
56 Going frozen with sexed semen
ENVIRONMENT
58 Living with the big wet
61 Freshwater Farm Plans: reversing past damage
63 Birds of a feather
STOCK
66 Wagyu puts a twist on dairy beef
70 Vet Voice: Black mastitis, toxic mastitis - is there a difference?
72 Lameness: Foot patrol
Page 43
N2O CH4
YOUNG COUNTRY
76 Farms with school attached
WELLBEING
82 Life is change, growth is optional
RESEARCH WRAP
84 Soil health: The beneficials micro-organisms
DAIRY 101
86 Casual staff: When you need a helping hand
SOLUTIONS
88 Developed here: The DR200 Trojan
OUR STORY
90 50 years ago in the NZ Dairy Exporter
Page 71
WIN A SUZUKI DR200SE Page 89
Please
March 15 – DairyNZ is running a field day near Dannevirke that includes the Tararua Plantain Project and Horizons update. It will be held on a farm where the owners have progressed from sharemilking to multiple farm ownership. For more visit https:www. dairynz.co.nz/events/lower-north-island/letstalk-farm-plantain-and-horizons-feild-day
March 16 – Northland Dairy Development Trust Conference 2022 is a series of online sessions over four weeks. To find out more and to join the sessions visit www.dairynz. co.nz/events/northland/northland-dairydevelopment-trust-conference-2022-scienceupdate/.
March 17 –How to run a bloody good business is a Dairy Women’s Network workshop being held in Taranaki. Other dates/locations: March 29, Ashburton; March 31, Winton. More about each event visit www.dwn.co.nz/events.
March 22 – A Wearable Cow Tech field day is being held in North Taranaki by DairyNZ. A chance to hear from a farmer using technology and find out about costs, management and financial benefits. More? visit www.dairynz.co.nz/events/taranaki/ wearable-cow-tech-field-day-north-taranaki/. Other dates/locations: March 23, Coastal Taranaki; March 24, South Taranaki.
March 30-31 – DigitalAg is the rebranded MobileTECH Ag and will take place in Rotorua for the 2022 event. It will showcase agritech developments and provide a platform for the sector to come together, discuss the issues and encourage collaboration. The programme will be split into five sessions: technology trends post Covid, ag-data digitisation, applying machine vision and Al Smarts, rethinking agritech business models and ag-climate technologies. To view the two-day programme and to register, visit digitalag. events/digitalag-2022-programme-is-outregistrations-open/. It will also be streamed online.
March 31 – Entries close for the Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year award which recognises an outstanding woman who has contributed to the dairy industry with passion, drive, innovation and leadership. Check closing date and make a nomination at www.dwn.co.nz/fonterra-dairy-woman-ofthe-year/.
March 31 – Entries close for the Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award which recognises dairy farmers demonstrating leadership in their response to responsible dairying, have proven results and are respected by their farming peers and community. To make a nomination go to www.dairyindustryawards.co.nz/responsibledairying-award/responsible-dairying-awardnomination/.
April 6 – The 2020-21 season’s DairyBase benchmark information for Taranaki will be presented by DairyNZ at a workshop in Stratford between 10.30am and 12.30pm. More? visit www.dairynz.co.nz/events/ taranaki/regional-benchmark-presentation/.
April 7 – DairyNZ is holding FarmTune workshops in Otago/Southland on April 7, April 27, May 11, June 14 and July 6. FarmTune is a lean management programme aimed at taking waste out of your business, empowering your people and growing your bottom line. For dates and locations contact Lynsey Stratford on 021 165 2004.
April 21 – SMASH holds a Spotlight on the System field day at Hukerenui in Northland which will tackle lameness and how to fill the summer gap with diverse pasture and crops. For more contact Anna Kalma on 0275 183 133.
April 22 – DairyNZ runs a Lameness and Mastitis Management field day in North Taranaki between 10.30 am and 12.30pm. Hear from farmers who have made improvements and from vets for the latest tips and tricks. Other dates/locations: April 27, Coastal Taranaki; April 28, South Taranaki. More? Visit www.dairynz.co.nz/ events/taranaki/lameness-and-mastitismanagement-north-taranaki/
check websites to see if events are going ahead under the Covid-19 Protection Framework and what restrictions apply.
Staying strong onfarm portrays an innovative programme run by Reporoa dairy farmer and cancer survivor Sarah Martelli, who helps other women find their balance and build strength and wellbeing to be the best they can be.
Strong Woman is an online community for women to work on their fitness with a workout to do at home, find quick and easy healthy recipes, goal planners and to connect with other women on the same journey.
Her philosophy is to help women create healthy, sustainable habits around moving and feeding their bodies and their families.
If women can prioritise their own health and fitness, they can inspire their partners, their children and their community around them, Sarah says (p82).
She is an inspirational woman creating a moment of lift for many women.
In this issue we take a look at the regenerative agri journey some NZ farmers are already on, and that the government has signalled they want others to join in on, in our Special Report.
Just as we thought the world couldn’t get any weirder…this week we have the police breaking up a three-week ‘antivaccine mandate protest’ in Wellington, 1-in-1000 year floods in Queensland and Vladimir Putin starting a war on Ukraine, while the dairy milk payout forecast is at an all-time high and the GDT broke all barriers yesterday.
(p42). We also cover the Heald family of Norsewood (p52) who have transitioned to organics, OAD and philosophies and are enjoying the less intensive more resilient system they have moved to, along improved profitability.
There is more research to be done in the NZ farm system context, says MPI’s chief scientist John Roche, figure out what will and won’t work, but he encourages farmers to engage and learn more, and to embrace regenerative as a verb - saying all farmers could be more regenerative, more resilient, lowering carbon and building carbon storage.
Waka Eke Noa consultation. Anne Lee has delved into the two suggested farmgate and processor options and provides a good breakdown of what they mean to farmers and potentially their bottom line - and it might be as much as dropping EFS by up to 5-6%.
The regen debate has divided the farming community in a big way - many scientists are affronted that NZ would need regenerative methods from overseas countries with highly degraded soils - would that then infer that our conventional methods were degenerative?
If you are interested in getting into farm ownership getting out but retaining an interest, read about Moss’ innovative idea for a speed-dating weekend potential partners (p11). We think it could be a
The average price index shot up 5.1% with average prices reaching above the US$5k/tonne mark - with the latest Rabobank GDT analysis citing the effects of dwindling milk supply (New Zealand) year-on-year down 6% in January and United States production down 1.6% also. The other part they credit to the ripple effect of conflict in Europe and causing dairy commodity prices to ride a wave of uncertainty.
They say the methods won't work, and that research has already shown that, and also our farmers are already following regenerative practices. Others say that the methods are not prescribed and each farmer can take out of it what they want. It has been called a social movement rather than a science and the claimed benefits of improved soil and stock health and building soil carbon through diverse species, use of biological fertilisers and laxer and less frequent grazing practices along with less nitrogen is something that resounds emotionally with many.
Overall, they suggest there is further upside to come for dairy prices - we might yet see that magical number of $10/kg milksolids (MS) glowing at us through the crystal ball. My boss has been predicting it for a few months now - I think his sentiment is wishful thinking rather than some prescient ability to predict the future.
Make sure you get up to speed and get along to a consultation meeting to make your opinion count. This will have big ramifications for all farmers. (pg36).
It’s heartening to read our special report The Mating Game, highlighting great work leading farmers are doing to increase sixweek in-calf rates, reduce bobbies, increase genetic gain and ultimately increase efficiency and drive down GHG emissions. By embracing new technologies, using sexed semen and having lower replacement rates, farmers are saving cost and driving improved BW scores. (pg43). That’s a good news story.
JULY 2021 ISSUE
In the next issue:
We have taken a snapshot of thinking by scientists in MPI and DairyNZ (p46) and portrayed what farmers using the practices are finding, including ongoing coverage of the comparative trial work by Align Group in Canterbury
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | June 2021
It’ll be his shout if we get there though!
But before you start spending the proceeds, remember the flip-side for prices is that fertiliser and fuel costs are likely to follow the same trajectory as rising oil and gas prices and farmers will not be immune from the rises.
Bear in mind also, that extra cost is coming at you - either in the ETS or under a scheme thrashed out through the He
April 2022
• Special Report: Farming/business investment – if you are starting out or bowing out.
• Wildlife onfarm
• Ahuwhenua winners
• Dairy Industry Award winners from 11 regions
• Sheep milking conference coverage
If all the bad news and industry change is getting to you, check out how Dr Paul Wood helps frame change and being the best person you can be, by giving three strategies to help. He says life is change but growth is optional. (pg82). @YoungDairyED
• Surviving extreme weather: how the Haldanes from Golden Bay cope with 4.5m annual rainfall
• Part II: the Mating Game.
New Zealand Dairy Exporter’s online presence is an added dimension to your magazine. Through digital media, we share a selection of stories and photographs from the magazine. Here we share a selection of just some of what you can enjoy. Read more at www.nzfarmlife.co.nz
The Woodhouse family’s irrigation improvements are creating resilience. Good data and investment into spray irrigation that allows lower rates to be applied at shorter return intervals will help maintain pasture production levels as nutrient inputs reduce with regulation.
Take a look:
https://youtu.be/bivsGOWbM9Q
Factum Agri is dedicated to New Zealand’s primary industry, working with the Rural Support Trust. Each week Angus Kebbell talks with farmers, industry professionals and policy makers to hear their stories and expert opinions on matters relevant to both our rural and urban communities.
Sinead Lehy
Interview with Sinead Lehy, principal agricultural science adviser at the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre.
Emma Taylor
Interview with Emma Taylor, general manager of Vineyard Plants in the Hawke’s Bay about viticulture. The company supplies vines, predominantly sauvignon blanc, to the New Zealand wine industry.
Fiona Bush
Interview with North Canterbury sheep and beef farmer, Fiona Bush. Fiona is giving her perspective on MPI’s Primary Industry Advisory Services available to the rural sector as well as the key issues farmers face today such as the environment and the rural/urban divide.
Find these episodes and more at: buzzsprout.com/956197
Canterbury farm manager Barry Flynn has 100% confidence in collar technology for picking cows on heat. It means he can get off the vet stand and focus on managing pasture, easing staffing pressure. The Trutest Datamars collars are giving him other key data on individual cows that’s helping in other ways too. Check out NZ Dairy Exporter’s special report on reviewing mating to read Barry’s story.
Take a look: https://youtu.be/jQOeNaMG4DA
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A hot and dry January sandwiched between the wet meant a challenging month for George Moss.
It’s been a tough January. Good rain in early December set us up well for allowing for the rotation to be pushed out to over 25 days from about 14 days. We were told by the Met service people to expect warmer than average temperatures, but did not expect what we got.
We did not get the usual Christmas rains and had only 16mm for the entire January but the real killer were the soil temperatures that held over 25C for an extended period, peaking one day at 27C.
Without the rain very little of any type of grass or clover grew. I have seen it drier but not this early.
Needless to say we have been feeding out large quantities of silage, chicory and some palm kernel/dried distillers’ grain mix.
Unfortunately this season we failed to harvest the quantities of silage we have liked, so silage fed now is out of our winter reserves which will need to be replaced with purchased feed. We had 70mm rain on Waitangi weekend and another 36mm as I write resulting in a green and growing farm but it is a long road back – had one farm at 1500-ish kg drymatter and a farm walk had the other farm just on 1600kg dm/ha. Significantly more rain is needed to get us to the 2200kg DM/ha plus cover we need.
Back in January we booked good numbers of culls to go straight after PD’s next week. I fear that we are going to have a disappointing empty rate where we did not use bulls, just AB - a mixture of long returns and some cows that just keep cycling.
We intend lining up the results from scanning, milk tests and collars with a view to making some changes for next season. We are benchmarking the farms’ performance against both Scott Farm and Owl Farm with a view to constant learning.
Despite the January thumping and lower spring peak both herds will have 400kg out by the end of February and if we hold the 1.60kgs or better we should finish okay. We are consciously targeting short and sharp lactations to get us to that ‘sweet spot’ for people, animals, environment and profit. Time will tell.
I attended both online and in person He Waka Eke
Noa meetings to discuss the alternatives to entering the ETS and was impressed with quality and relevance of the questions asked by farmers and my take is that farmers are keen to start off with a processor hybrid model and transition to farm level pricing over time.
Clearly, it is the pool of money collected that is going to drive greenhouse gas reductions within the Ag sector and that pool presents a real opportunity for the Ag sector to “socialise” the benefits of any reductions paid for from the pool.
Given the amount of pastoral land being retired to other land uses, whether it be housing, horticulture and/or trees and the continual efficiency gains on farms, I believe it’s not a question whether we will get to a 10% reduction in methane by 2030 but by what degree we exceed it. Doing the maths I believe dairying is well placed to meet the challenge.
Every season I take time to scan the CVs of people looking for positions focusing on those with significant time and experience in the dairy industry.
I have to say it frustrates me so few CVs demonstrate the candidates’ ability to progress in their the own lives and/ or to take a farming business forward in what is now a complex world. Most CVs list the basic skills and positions held by the candidates, which is of partial interest.
What many farm employers are looking for are people who actively have and are upskilling themselves, who can add value to the business through the ability to think, analyse and come up with options. Level 5 AGITO or a degree always impresses.
I am naturally drawn to CVs where the candidates are “avid readers of the Dairy Exporter or similar, attend industry functions and conferences/webinars etc” because it demonstrates a ‘brain’ looking forward. A CV giving clarity of what the candidate expects from an employer and how they see the future gives one a sense of their own self worth.
I mention the above because for the right people with the right headspace there is going to be some serious opportunity for wealth creation in dairying as has been demonstrated in the last two “Exporters”. After all, prior to the last decade’s property boom, dairying created more millionaires in NZ than any other sector.
With maize higher than an elephant’s eye, Nic and Kirsty Verhoek were looking to a great harvest. Then came Cyclone Dovi’s wind.
As farmers, we have always accepted that we are at the mercy of the weather – however the increasing severity of extreme weather events is making it harder to plan and prepare. It’s almost on par with trying to interpret the Government’s intentions for the farming sector.
Here we were thinking we were on a home run with a phenomenal four-metre-plus high maize crop. Only a few weeks out from harvesting, we were putting rough numbers in the feed budget of anticipated maize yields and whether we were going to have to contract additional feed.
At 17.5c/kg drymatter (DM) for us to grow, harvest and stack, maize is our best option in terms of feed quality and price. Insert Cyclone Dovi; showing that counting your chickens before they have hatched, or in our case, estimating maize yields before harvest, put to bed any plans we had in place. So, while many other places in the country had horrendous rain, we had the wind, flattened trees and maize crops.
More predictable has been the summer dry for us in North Waikato. Now into our second season, we had a better understanding of what we were in for.
So, this season we increased the area planted in chicory. Not only did this help the rotation planner, but it was good for the cows in that they had something to eat outside of the
feed pad. It was also good for our mentality - cows going into something lush and green among the desert brown.
So, wind, sun, and into the mix we finally got some muchneeded summer rain. The kids had a great time catching frogs who also seemed to be enjoying a reprieve from the heat of the sun.
So, wind, sun, and into the mix we finally got some much-needed summer rain. The kids had a great time catching frogs who also seemed to be enjoying a reprieve from the heat of the sun.
We also managed some time off-farm for Christmas and were well looked after by family and friends. We are fortunate to have a good farm team holding the fort while away. It is hard to put into words how much getting that break and having the chance to recharge our batteries meant for our mental health. It reiterates the importance of having a good team behind you.
Part of our long-term plan is to attract and retain good staff. We see technology playing an important role in this – especially for getting the upcoming generations into the
dairy industry. Technology gives the opportunity to change the way we farm and do things that have never been done before. This month we have put another rung on the goal ladder with the installation of Halter. We are excited about the lack of a ceiling in terms of what the technology could potentially do for us onfarm. Just the time-savings and lower staff hours are already a big win.
Looking forward; we are continuing to monitor our outgoings carefully and get some detail into next season’s budget. There is always the risk of blowing out given the way expenses have rocketed. The planning for winter is well underway and hopefully there will be some predictability with autumn rains. With new technology being implemented, there are high hopes that planning for the coming months will become a lot more manageable.
In February, Westport was once-again inundated by its mighty neighbour, the Buller River. Farmer John Milne writes of the devastation caused.
July 17, 2021, has been and gone. What can you remember from that day? The people of the Buller town of Westport won’t forget it in a hurry, history won’t let anyone forget that day either.
This was a once-in-100-year flood; 95 years ago, in 1926 was the last time the Buller River showed its nasty side to our town, our community and those that drew the short straws on that day with their houses which had flood waters go through them. We all saw the images on the TV. People helping people and so on. The one blessing was no lives were lost.
As kids we grew up swimming, fishing, tubing, and camping next to the river. All the time we got reminded by our parents and elders to always respect it. How fitting these words would be in later life.
As kids we grew up swimming, fishing, tubing, and camping next to the river. All the time we got reminded by our parents and elders to always respect it.
My family have farmed with the river for many years now, as we grew up with this, the respect remained all the time. You just had to, there was too much to lose otherwise. Westport is built on a flood delta. The catchment for it starts up in the Nelson Lakes area. Lake Rotoiti is the starting point, with many tributaries in the catchment making for one mighty river.
Infrastructure has been built over time to help Westport survive such flooding events in the past and they have worked well. Then February 9, 2022 arrives. We flood again, with the river readings in the Inangahua area reaching levels never before recorded. When the water receded this time, the questions started becoming a lot more urgent from residents. What can be done?
The secret to the whole flood relief system working properly is what the locals call “The Overflow”. Well named and extremely important. It allows water to bleed off the river around the North of Westport through the Orowaiti Lagoon. When this engineering feat was built it immediately set Westport’s future as a town that could live next to the Buller River, and trade very successfully through the Industrial Revolution with a booming port.
So now comes the time to ask the real questions on where to from now, for this town?
The locals can see that the “Overflow” isn’t doing what it used to do properly. The Orowaiti Lagoon is clogged with sediment and sand. The capacity of the Orowaiti Lagoon has been seriously reduced. From the estuary to the mouth of the Lagoon is now about 4.5km, it runs parallel to the Tasman Sea before exiting. In earlier days the estuary part of the Orowaiti Lagoon was virtually self-cleansing. Some older people tell stories of jumping off the Orowaiti Bridge at low tide and not touching the bottom; standing on the Orowaiti Bridge and looking straight out to sea. These things don’t happen today.
There are two arguments at the moment for a remedy – floodwalls or get in and clean out the Buller River/ Orowaiti Lagoon. I’m against floodwalls except in extremely vulnerable places. I’m no engineer but went to school long enough to understand you won’t get 10 litres in a 10-litre bucket if it’s already 1/3 full of sand.
If the “Overflow” does not work properly the Buller River will make its own way to the sea. That is an outcome none of us want to witness.
Then the politics come into play, who will fund this?
The Buller District Council say it’s a West Coast Regional Council issue and vice versa. So straight away communication is going to be hindered.
It’s too big of an issue for any single entity to take by the horns and get it sorted. Collectively the councils and central government need to get their heads together. Bringing along the community with them. Get the whole district behind it for the future of the town. Because in the meantime the Buller River will wait for no-one.
Last week I attended a He Waka Eke Noa consultation meeting, and on reflection, am very glad I did.
I know the endless stream of emails imploring you to voice your opinions or submit feedback on the latest proposal for additional legislation to tie farming up in knots can seem overwhelming at times, and I considered not going along at all.
I was coming hot off the heels of my second farm audit for the month; was part way through recruiting a new contract milker for one farm and listing another one for sale; had an email inbox that was starting to look like Mount Everest in terms of conquering it; and like everyone else was struggling to keep abreast of the ever-changing Covid settings brought on by the incoming Omicron tsunami.
It was really tempting to just put aside the booklet about the proposal when it came in the mail, with the idea to just have a cursory glance through when the deadline for voting on my preference was due, and then quickly tick a box based on what seemed like the least-evil of two expensive options at the 11th hour…
But had I not gone along to the roadshow meeting in Ashburton, I would never have grasped what I now believe is one of the most important aspects of He Waka Eke Noa, and that is the context in which this consultation sits.
I knew rural New Zealand had a fair bit vested in the outcome of how our legislators decide to manage the ETS – but didn’t appreciate just how much and how unique we are. Agriculture accounts for very nearly half of all NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions, while the next closest economy is Ireland at around 32% and most other developed countries in the world struggle to make it to double digits!
As well as this, we are the only country in the world to have our government grant us the opportunity to consider a split-gas approach which treats the short-lived gases linked primarily to agriculture differently to the longer-life gases associated with industry and transport.
Read that again. The ONLY country in the world.
If that’s not all the incentive you need to make sure we don’t squander this opportunity, I don’t know what is.
Cynics amongst you may well say I’m just the ideal consumer, lapping up the information being sold to me by industry bodies.
Goodness knows there were a few glass-half empty farmers in the room at Ashburton - grizzling about the science involved in the calculations, accusing dairy of getting a subsidised ride compared to other sectors and generally alluding to the fact they thought it was all a waste of time because the government likely wouldn’t be held accountable to what we vote on anyway…
I’m going to go out on a limb and say we’ll never keep those people happy and I can’t be bothered wasting time arguing with them. I’d rather accept it is what it is, choose to understand the options available, and then focus my energies on how I can best position myself to work within their parameters.
Had I not gone along to the roadshow meeting in Ashburton, I would never have grasped what I now believe is one of the most important aspects of He Waka Eke Noa, and that is the context in which this consultation sits.
By the time you read this, the roadshow meetings in your region may well be done, but online information and feedback opportunities will still be open, so I implore you to get involved and don’t squander this opportunity we all have to work TOGETHER to capture an outcome which will be far more beneficial to us than the alternative if we do nothing.
It’s time for all the various agri-sectors to stop sounding like victims, accept that we may need to trade-off some things to get a good outcome for ALL of us, and speak together with one clearly unified voice. This is a world-first shot we have at getting this right, and it would simply be arrogant to squander it – and that’s not the way Kiwis behave is it?
He Waka Eke Noa roadshow meetings are an opportunity for rural New Zealanders to get things right with emissions policy, Frances Coles writes.We are the only country in the world to have our government grant us the opportunity to consider a split-gas approach.
Dutch farmers are being coaxed into significantly reducing stock numbers to combat nitrogen pollution. Kiwi farmers face similar moves for climate change reasons.
By Phil Edmonds.Not very long ago a farm stocking rate was little more than a concept in a textbook. But in next to no time a stocking rate has become a proxy for how adaptive and forward-thinking farmers are on the environment, and most recently it’s been used in Europe in an attempt to signify a straightening out of farming’s domestic and international reputation.
Should we be taking any notice?
Late last year the Dutch government unveiled a 13-year, €25 billion (NZ$42.8b) plan to significantly reduce the number of livestock in the Netherlands in an effort to address its excess nitrogen problems. The initiative will start as a voluntary programme with farmers compensated to leave farming. By the end of the term, livestock numbers in the Netherlands are anticipated to have fallen by a third.
As would be expected, there was some opposition to the plan in the Dutch farming community, but the new directive had been years in the making, and eventually gained a coalition of support within the government.
Nullifying arguments that it would permanently damage food production which the Dutch led the world in, a government
party spokesperson for agriculture said the Netherlands had been good at feeding the world, but it hadn’t worked for the country so change was necessary, and that change would be something other countries will be able to learn from. Several voices, including Greenpeace New Zealand, insisted there is already plenty to learn from it and called for an identical approach to be adopted here. But opponents to such a destocking measure have pointed out, at a basic level, you can’t compare the Dutch and NZ farming systems.
As it is, the Dutch stocking rate (which includes pigs and chickens) is four units per hectare of agricultural land. This compares with DairyNZ’s measure of average cow per hectare of farmland as 2.84. Not like-for-like data, but enough to create a sense that NZ farming is less intensive, and therefore less in need of radical overhaul.
Nevertheless, the premise of destocking for the betterment of the environment remains a live issue, and one that will continue to generate attention in NZ, regardless of how different we position our farming systems to those in place in Europe.
Possibly partly influenced by the Dutch government’s move, Newshub Reid Research included a question in a February poll on the need for New Zealand to reduce livestock numbers to combat climate change. This reason is not quite the same as the motivation that has driven the Dutch move (nitrogen pollution), but the result found 50% of those surveyed did not believe this was necessary, compared with 38% who said yes. The balance of respondents was unsure.
Farmers will have taken some heart from this – that they have more support than not to continue farming to the extent they do. This perhaps reflects an acceptance that NZ does not farm ‘industrially’ as is insisted by those pushing to curtail the dairy sector’s footprint. And it may also reflect an acknowledgement that export revenue generated by our primary
industries is critical to the NZ economy (especially recently).
At the same time though, the poll result does not represent an overwhelming ringing endorsement of the status quo and suggests there is a lot more to do to maintain the case that we’re on the right track.
The trajectory of NZ’s stocking rate has become a barometer of farming’s ability to adapt to environmental pressures. When the Climate Change Commission made its assessment of how agricultural emissions are projected to change over the next 10 years, it anticipated herd numbers would fall nearly 14% by 2030. So, stocking rates will be continually watched, and like it or not, be a marker of progress.
It is a blunt tool to use in judging the adaptation of our farming systems, and even Minister for Climate Change James Shaw has been reluctant to be specific on a necessary drop. In response to the Newshub poll, for example, he said it wasn’t his decision to determine how many cows there are, only to find solutions to reduce agricultural emissions. Yet of those solutions, the easiest one to understand and remediate the problem is by lowering stock numbers.
Even if farmers consider this to be a simplistic answer to cutting methane emissions, it was supported by the Agricultural GHG Research Centre report on options to reduce ag emissions in NZ, which showed that reducing stocking rates (in conjunction with) improving productivity per animal consistently reduces GHG emissions by up to 10%. This action was noted as more effective than other operational changes considered (for example switching to once-a-day milking or using low-protein supplementary feeds). It was also said to be more effective at reducing emissions intensity.
Unlike in the Netherlands however, the NZ government is very unlikely to mandate a reduction in herd sizes. For a start there are seemingly obvious reasons cited above as to why it would be difficult to justify. But at the same time the Government is not ignorant of the need to make sure NZ is still seen among the world leaders in environmental stewardship of the land that delivers the food overseas
consumers pay a premium for.
Shortly after the Netherlands launched its plan to cut livestock numbers to help restore its environment, the European Union announced a €13.4 million (NZ$23m) campaign to run over the next three years to promote European dairy as the ‘sustainable choice’ and European beef and lamb as ‘working with nature’ in Asia and the United States. This will be the first time the EU has invested in a coordinated, sustained push of its dairy sector. Based on the stated focus, it’s inevitable that the marketing will draw on the kinds of proof of commitment to support the environment that has been shown in the Netherlands.
Is this a big deal?
Director of the Lincoln Agribusiness and Food Marketing programme Nic Lees says it is something NZ should take note of. If the EU is able to build awareness among consumers in markets (that NZ trades in), that shows it is measuring its agricultural environmental footprint, and is able to point to it falling, we will have to consider how we respond.
“To date, NZ has tended to rely on our reputation rather than validating claims.”
For a brief perspective, we’re clearly not going to be losing sleep over the prospect of a war of words in Asian supermarkets and foodservice companies on which country has the best stocking rate. No matter how engaged overseas consumers are with the provenance of their food, no consumer research done to date shows stocking rates as the factor that tips the balance in a purchasing decision. But there will still be a need to do something. Over the past couple of years, the Government has been investing energy in understanding how NZ’s farming system could be defined as regenerative in order to marry up with the ‘on trend’ interest in Regen Ag.
The Government’s blueprint for the future of our food and fibre sectors – Fit for a Better World references it in its vision (developing modern regenerative
production systems). It conveys an expectation that regenerative farming systems will leave behind a smaller environmental footprint. You could say this implicitly means a lower stocking rate. Will this be enough to outfox a big budget EU campaign to elevate its dairy products?
Unlikely. There’s some scepticism that regenerative agriculture is not much more than this year(s) thing, and what is needed to be credible is more rigour in a message that points to verified measurements. To be fair, measuring performance is at the heart of what the Government is recommending, but while regenerative agriculture remains undefined, we can’t sit around waiting to see if we are officially regenerative or not.
Lees suggests rather than persevere with regenerative agriculture as a means to combat rivals in market (and avoid discussions about stocking rates) NZ has an opportunity to create its own, unique brand of ag,
which could incorporate a range of provenance factors including our sustainable biodiversity.
Adjunct Professor at Lincoln University Jacqueline Rowarth says ‘grass fed’ still has traction that we should be making more of.
“It is more important to consumers than organic, which is used synonymously with regenerative agriculture by some proponents”.
Like Lees, Rowarth suggests NZ use a different but aligned term to explain what we do, acknowledging that the hype around regen is loud, and presumably makes sense to have some association.
For NZ farmers it’s tempting not to see any dots to join here – that herd size (and its ramifications on the local environment) has no place being documented on a product packet in a foreign supermarket. Instead, what still really matters is being able to produce what’s required more efficiently and cheaply than others. It would appear, however, that Dutch farmers have given up on that focus. We’ll need to watch and determine whether their move turns out to be salvation or death knell.
The dairy boom is well and truly over in the south. From the flood of conversions in the early 2000s, which saw hundreds of new dairy farms established in Southland and Otago, there is not even a trickle.
Since the start of 2018 only three consent applications have been lodged with Environment Southland for “Land Use to Establish a Dairy Farm”.
One was granted in July 2018 for 50 cows on 21 hectares and another, for 20 cows on 20ha, was approved in April 2020.
The third was for 450 cows on 227ha and was declined in May 2020.
Asked if there would be any more dairy conversions in Southland in the next five years, environmental consultancy company Landpro answered with one word – no.
Southland dairy conversions have required consent since 2011.
Back then, Environment Southland consents manager John Engel said the new rules would not cause concerns.
“Most of the work farmers need to do to get the consents, they need to do for the banks anyway,” he said.
“It’s part of the due diligence. In areas where dairy farming is pretty normal it’s not a problem. All we are requiring is good farming practices.”
However, the proposed Southland Water and Land Plan introduced in 2016 tightened the rules further and the government’s National Policy Statement for Freshwater which followed shortly afterwards was the beginning of the end of new conversions in Southland, for now at least.
“The 2020 National Environmental
Standards for Freshwater introduce a further regulatory obligation for those considering a conversion to dairy anywhere within the country,” Landpro’s national manager farm environmental Kim Reilly says.
“These standards also set a very high bar in terms of protecting the environment and will require any person wanting to convert to dairy, which is different to the expanded dairying requirements in Southland, to obtain additional consents to those that may also be required by the regional council.
“For regional councils to be able to grant a consent, they need to be satisfied that the change in land use will not result in an increase in contaminant load in the catchment,” she said.
The 2020 National Policy Statement for Freshwater places an obligation on regional councils to manage natural resources to ensure there is no over-allocation of nutrients from a water quality perspective in the same way they must also manage allocation in a water quantity sense.
“It effectively says an applicant needs to be able to demonstrate that water quality will be maintained or improved as a result of the proposed activity.
“That is a very high threshold or bar to pass over.”
The door was still open for farmers to apply for consent but applications had to show evidence there would be a better environmental outcome as a result of the conversion.
“For many farmers, it will likely be too uncertain at this time, and therefore seen as too difficult or expensive to progress.
“That said, there may be some situations where the case will stack up, and feasibility could be worth investigating, but this would likely be the exception to the rule.
Southland Federated Farmers dairy chair Bart Luyten says there is still land in Southland which could be converted to dairying.
“There are still sheep farms that would make great dairy farms but under the current regulations it seems impossible,” Bart says.
It had created a difference in land prices – between those which had existing dairying or dairying support consents and sheep farms.
“The few conversions that have happened have cost a lot of money to get consents and taken a very long time to process. It’s definitely turning people away.”
While dairying has been a consentable activity in Southland since 2011, it remains a permitted activity in Otago.
An Otago Regional Council spokesperson says it is aware of 10 new farms lodged with the compliance team as operating dairy farms under permitted activity rules since the start of 2018.
“Four farms were added to the list in 2018, five in 2019 and one in 2020.
“The number of cows on these farms totals 5430, based on counts at our most recent inspections, however this number does not distinguish milking from nonmilking cows.”
The council is not aware of any new dairy farms in the past year.
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In late February, Fonterra announced that they have struck an agreement of partnership with both the New Zealand Exchange (NZX) and the European Energy Exchange (EEX) in ownership of the Global Dairy Trade platform (GDT).
This may come as a bit of a surprise to most, potentially from two angles: not knowing Fonterra owned the GDT platform, to the fact that Fonterra divested two-thirds of its ownership in GDT itself.
Let’s dive into why this partnership helps to build the GDT platform, and why the two exchanges would be interested in GDT in the first place. The bi-monthly GDT auction settles the dairy ingredient commodity futures contracts for the SGX-NZX Dairy Derivatives market. So, if a futures contract is struck between buyer and seller on the SGX-NZX Dairy Derivatives market for a certain month, let’s say a March whole milk powder (WMP) contract, then during the March GDT auctions, a market price for the WMP is calculated.
This is derived using the average of the second contract period price for a particular grade of product from each auction. So, in this format, the GDT auction is being used as a transparent way for both sides of the marketplace to see what the true market price of WMP is, and thus fairly settling the futures contract that both sides entered.
This means exchanges that list the dairy derivatives are relying on another company’s auction platform to settle their financial instruments, potentially creating
some misalignment, and creating problems for the exchanges. So, for the exchanges involved, it helps to bring some certainty to their own operations, but also to the customers using their listed financial instruments.
Secondly, this partnership allows the two exchanges to potentially create new dairy derivatives, to add to the list of ingredient derivatives already on offer.
The GDT auction allows the entire market to understand the direction and magnitude of the dairy complex, by having regular insight into what is happening to physical prices, something that would normally happen behind closed doors by salespeople and the buyers, and not see the light of day.
This means the marketplace can register a potential risk to their own business from a rising or falling market and decide if they need to mitigate their risk through a derivative contract, be that a futures contract or an options contract. This obviously helps the exchanges, as it helps derivative users decide if they need to trade financial instruments.
How does this help Fonterra, and why would Fonterra sell the GDT platform?
Fonterra is the biggest seller of dairy commodities on the GDT platform, while also owning the same auction platform, which could create a touch of distrust to some buyers in the marketplace. So, this new partnership hopefully creates more trust from the buy side, as they now see it’s not just Fonterra involved in the GDT platform and can trust that this auction place is always going to be trustworthy.
Secondly, Fonterra is the biggest seller of dairy derivatives via the SGX-NZX Dairy Derivatives market, purely due to Fonterra’s market size in NZ. These futures and options contracts are then settled via its own auction platform; not really ideal if you start looking at it with some skepticism. However, it is extremely important to Fonterra to be able to manage its risk via the SGX-NZX Dairy Derivatives market, thus why it needs to keep the GDT auction at arm’s length, while also hoping for the auction, and the derivatives market, to grow to allow for more risk management.
Through this new partnership, where Fonterra doesn’t own the entire platform, Fonterra realises the potential for more volume to be traded through the GDT process.
Other processors can also offer large volumes of dairy products on the regular auctions, which allows for more price discovery for the marketplace.
NZX and the EEX can now help to bring this new volume to the GDT platform, through trusted partnerships, along with geographical locations. EEX is ideally placed to be able to bring more European dairy to the platform, which would provide massive price insights into the largest dairy exporting bloc in the world.
All of these factors combine to create a very exciting future for the dairy industry, potentially reducing volatility in the market, increasing the availability of risk management tools, while helping all businesses exposed to the global dairy industry see what the market is doing.
Stu Davison looks at the Global Dairy Trade partnership and what this means for New Zealand dairy.
If your new seed is safely in the ground, congratulations. It’s always feels good to tick that job off for autumn. Now you’re ready to start the next stage of successful pasture establishment.
Oats are a great crop for winter grazing. But if you want to go one better, add Italian ryegrass as well. After researching this combination for three years, we’ve now made it easy for you to reap its benefits, with a special seed mix called Catch-crop+.
Compared to oats alone, our field trials show oats and grass together give extra flexibility and better forage quality, with no downsides in winter dry matter yield or nitrogen uptake. What’s more, you won’t end up with a bare paddock that needs to be resown straight after oats have been cut or grazed!
Keeps giving
Instead, you’ll have a productive pasture, with good feed quality and excellent yield through spring. That saves you the time, cost and tractor work needed to immediately re-sow the paddock after oats are finished. It also eliminates the risk of not being able to re-sow promptly if the weather is wet in early spring. And because Catch-crop+ grows through spring, and will keep going into 2023 in summer mild or irrigated areas, you have more time to plan for your summer crop, or keep grazing it for the coming year.
Made for each other Catch-crop+ contains Hattrick oats
and Tabu+ Italian ryegrass. Each is well-proven, but we wanted to make sure they worked well as a team before recommending they be combined.
What did we find when we mixed them? Dry matter yield from Hattrick and Tabu+ over the first one to two cuts or grazings was not compromised compared to straight oats.
From the second grazing on, the mix had better re-growth and metabolisable energy than Hattrick alone.
Latest industry research shows catchcrops can utilise up to 40% of the nitrogen deposited on winter grazed crops.
The sooner they are sown after grazing, the more nitrogen they will soak up.
Because it grows strongly in the cooler, wetter months of the year, when the risk of leaching is highest, Catch-crop+ will lighten your farm footprint.
The first grazing is a major milestone for any new pasture. Your future self will thank you for getting it right, because 12 months from now, it will help ensure your ‘new’ grass looks strong and healthy after its first summer.
Emerging ryegrass seedlings need to be nipped off to promote further tillering and growth, and thicken the new pasture. They also need to be grazed to allow light to reach clover at the bottom of the pasture. Clover is slower to establish, and essential for nitrogen fixation and feed quality. We need our clover plants to thrive. Without sunlight, they really struggle to get going. The right time to graze is when the little grass plants cannot be plucked out of the ground between your finger and thumb. Young stock, and dry weather are best.
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UPFRONT | GLOBAL DAIRY
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Words by: Wagner BeskowSPull quote: An estimated 60% of farmers will not make a return on equity this season and about 40% are unlikely to cover their depreciation fully
Headline: Weather challenges hit Brazilian dairy farmers
Standfirst: Drought and floods have combined to challenge Brazil’s dairy farmers, Wagner Beskow writes.
ince last November, Brazilian farmers have faced a major drought in the South region (temperate climate) and torrential rains followed by floods in the tropical Central and South-eastern regions, brought about by the La Niña weather phenomenon.
Since last November, Brazilian farmers have faced a major drought in the South region (temperate climate) and torrential rains followed by floods in the tropical Central and South-eastern regions, brought about by the La Niña weather phenomenon
Despite the challenges, excessive rain has not yet hampered milk production, but drought has, so far, reduced supply by 15% in the South and is evolving
Despite the challenges, excessive rain has not yet hampered milk production, but drought has, so far, reduced supply by 15% in the South and is evolving.
Compiled by Transpondo (2021) from 70 dairy farms, predominantly in the South region.
La
Additionally, high input costs since mid-2020 combined with limited farmgate milk prices are putting unprecedented pressure on the country ’s dairy farmers Converting figures from BRL per litre, as payments are made, to NZD per kg milksolids (MS), their average milk price is equivalent to $8 28 and feeding costs alone account for $4 55 per kg MS
The total cost of producing the equivalent of 1kg MS in Brazil is now $8 76 An estimated 60% of farmers will not make a return on equity this season and about 40% are unlikely to cover their depreciation fully The best performers, however, had a feeding cost of $2 90 and a total cost of $5 80 per kg MS before drought and flood effects, running intensive grass-based systems
Additionally, high input costs since mid2020 combined with limited farmgate milk prices are putting unprecedented pressure on the country’s dairy farmers. Converting figures from BRL per litre, as payments are made, to NZD per kg milksolids (MS), their average milk price is equivalent to $8.28 and feeding costs alone account for $4.55 per kg MS.
The total cost of producing the equivalent of 1kg MS in Brazil is now $8.76. An estimated 60% of farmers will not make a return on equity this season and about 40% are unlikely to cover their depreciation fully. The best performers, however, had a feeding cost of $2.90 and a total cost of $5.80 per kg MS before drought and flood effects, running intensive grass-based systems.
When margins get tight or even negative, most farmers tend to cut expenses and they usually cut harder on items they spend the most. One of these is fertiliser, with prices more than doubling in the last two years.
To survive, risk-taking farmers have been attempting to increase productivity and scale of production, thus reducing their cost per litre (unit cost) as a consequence instead of worrying about their costs per year. These are represented by a group of “assisted farmers”, shown in Table 1.
Unassisted farmers spend far less on fertiliser per year but produce only 9.8 tonnes drymatter (DM) of grass/ha/year and harvest only 62% of what they grow. In contrast, assisted farmers use more fertiliser, but grow from 14 to 21.5t DM/ ha/year and harvest more efficiently what is produced (85-89%).
The net effect of combining adequate fertilisation with good grazing management practices (high animal intake while allowing the return of nutrients and organic matter, preservation of soil structure, and plant regrowth capacity) is a lower, not higher, expenditure of fertiliser per tonne of drymatter effectively used, especially amongst progressive and advanced farmers with technical
assistance ($97 as opposed to $130/tDM). Supplements such as maize silage and concentrates are used to balance the diet and allow cows to add extra production on top of that provided by the grass. A common mistake is that the more supplements are relied upon and the more complex is the infrastructure offered to cows, the less rigorous the farm becomes in applying basic grazing management principles and tools, leading to a regress in pasture production and utilisation, thus increasing feeding costs.
This year most farmers will not have maize silage, pastures are overgrazed, soils are deteriorating, and concentrate prices have doubled, so even after rainfall normalises, the scenario will be challenging. To understand how dairy farms are run in Brazil, see Dairy Exporter, Aug. 2020 issue (p.21).
Galatea is a region entrenched in dairy farm progression. Farm owners Larry Wetting and Raelene Allen are keen to offer the same opportunities that helped them to farm ownership. Sheryl Haitana reports.
Getting your foot in the door as a contract milker, sharemilker or farm owner can often take somebody opening that door for you.
Larry Wetting’s first sharemilking job was in the Galatea valley in 2000 for the Edelsten family farm at Lake Aniwhenua. The third bank he approached finally said yes to lending him the money and three of Larry’s friends also kindly helped him with lease cows to make up numbers in his first year.
“Ann Edelsten and her partner Ross Davies have a wonderful history of hiring and supporting first-time sharemilkers so it was a great start on the journey to farm ownership,” he says.
After three years Larry had met Raelene and they moved to the Tararua District to sharemilk 470 cows. During that time they also bought their first 80-hectare farm at Opotiki and employed a farm manager while they kept their sharemilking position.
They leased some neighbouring land at Opotiki and went from milking 180 cows to 280. Going up in numbers they quickly realised a lower order sharemilker worked better than a manager in regards to the level of responsibility while they were living and working off the farm themselves.
The couple then got an opportunity to return to Galatea to sharemilk for Peter and Pat Ilsley. They took the contract with the knowledge that there could be an opportunity to buy the farm in a few years’ time.
“In the interview they were talking about an equity partnership, or that something
was going to happen. We really liked the farm and wanted to stay in Galatea so potentially purchasing it was an excellent motivator,” Raelene says.
They sharemilked for seven seasons. It took a few years to sell their farm at Opotiki to free up the capital to buy the Galatea property.
“We were always talking to them and they waited for us while we got our ducks in a row,” Larry says.
“They were great. They had themselves also come up through the sharemilking system.”
Two years after buying the farm, Larry and Raelene got an opportunity to buy 108ha of the neighbouring farm to the north. They sold off 38ha of the original farm which they had been accessing through the neighbour’s farm on the south side.
“We used to have to walk the cows through his farm (with very kind permission) to access that 38ha. It was a bit of a pain but we made it work. Peter and Pat had always talked about buying that neighbour’s farm which would have linked the land together but it was the other neighbour who ended up selling which came up out of the blue.”
Buying that land pushed them from 140ha up to 200ha effective and they increased cow numbers from 380 to 580.
“We thought we would milk 600 cows.
Owners: Aniwhenua Farms/ Larry Wetting and Raelene Allen
Contract Milkers: Tim and Nicole
Shepherd
Staff Member: Rikki Apiata
Location: Galatea
Area: 200ha effective
Cows: 575 peak, crossbreds
Production: 230,000kg MS
Empty rate: 5-9% average
Farm dairy: 24-aside herringbone, 30-aside herringbone
Average rainfall: 1300-1400mm
Effluent irrigation: 50ha
DairyNZ System: 3-4
Supplement: 0.5 – 1.0t/cow palm kernel,1-1.5t grass silage/ cow, 10ha maize
Runoff: 100ha effective leased at Waiohau (five separate blocks), have just taken on 25ha at Te Teko
BW: 172/56
PW: 233/66
Ancestry: 99%
Farm working expenses: Dairybase 2021 $3.36kg/MS
Operating expenses: Dairybase 2021 $4.14kg/MS
Debt/Assets%: Dairybase 2021
50.2%
Return on Asset: Dairybase for last 3 years between: 6.17 – 8.7%.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT COPPER ― OR THE LACK OF IT. NZ’S COPPER DEFICIENCY IS COSTING NZ AND YOU.
Copper is vital for life and essential for growth, reproduction and immune function. Naturally occurring copper is low in New Zealand agricultural systems and it’s because of this that it’s vitally important to supplement copper in livestock. This is particularly important with your young cattle to ensure they enter the herd in peak condition with strong bones, a strong immune system and ready for a productive life.
Talk to your vet about everything you need to know about NZ’s copper deficiency and the best way to manage it for long term gains.
Dr. Abi Chase
We bought yearlings to bump up numbers and 35% of the herd were heifers last year. We actually produced what we wanted to produce with 25 less cows than we budgeted on so we’ve stuck with that,” Larry says.
“The problem in Galatea if you’re not irrigated is you grow a huge amount of grass for six months and then in two weeks you can go from growing 80kg drymatter (DM)/day to 10kg DM/day.
“It’s always difficult to find the correct stocking rate. Being slightly lower-stocked works well, the cows produce a bit more, and it’s easier on everyone.
“We have got good fertile crossbred cows and they eat a lot. We don’t need 3.2 cows to the hectare and we don’t pump supplements into them until we need to.”
When the Dairy Exporter visited in late January, the farm had been without decent rain for almost two months and was very dry.
“Despite what you’re looking at out there at the moment, it works well for us. We have fantastic winters and springs,” Larry says.
The farm is not irrigated so they pump as much milk as they can early in the season because of the threat of dry periods and produce more than 250kg MS/cow by Christmas.
“If we have a good summer we produce lots of milk, if we have a bad summer we dry off early and have a good spring.”
The sharemilking pathway helped Larry and Raelene to buy their own first farm and they want to offer other young people opportunities to progress.
Farms are cheaper in Galatea which makes it easier to afford to put sharemilkers on. The couple have also always focused on debt reduction so they are in a position to offer progression pathways to the right staff even two years on from buying the extra land.
“Around one in four farms in the valley are sharemilking jobs. For me it’s a proven track record of success for this industry,” Larry says.
They have employed Tim and Nicole Shepherd as contract milkers, who are in their second season, and have open conversations with the couple about progression opportunities.
“We are pretty traditional. We see people buying the herd first, then buying the shares and leasing, then buying the farm,” Larry says.
“I’ve seen a lot of equity partnerships that have been very complicated and haven’t always worked out and they are hard to exit.”
With the new farm came a second farm dairy just 500 metres from their own cowshed. Nicole milks the heifers and a few others through the 24-aside herringbone, with Tim and their staff member Rikki Apiata milking the mixedaged cows together in the 30-aside.
“Two sheds can be a disadvantage, but it could also be an advantage if they wanted to buy one herd first.”
Raelene says the best piece of advice she got was when a bank manager totally rejected one of her budgets and said ‘that’s not going to work, you need to make some changes’.
“It was a low payout, we were overstocked and it wasn’t looking good, he didn’t hold back. It was the best guidance - sometimes you can have the blinkers on and we had to alter some of our farming practices to get back on track.”
Her advice to young people wanting to get ahead is to constantly do their budgets and plans for where they need to be in the future. There are lots of industry people and farmers who are willing to share their figures with you and give advice, she says.
“We’ve opened up our financials to
‘In the interview they were talking about an equity partnership, or that something was going to happen. We really liked the farm and wanted to stay in Galatea so potentially purchasing it was an excellent motivator.’From left, Cooper, 7 and Parker, 4, with Nicole and Tim - the next generation for the dairy industry.
several young farmers where nothing is off the table for discussion – things like our drawings, interest rates, our debt repayment and bank balance are all discussed openly.”
DairyNZ has also run several seminars in the area aiming to help younger farmers into contract and sharemilking through budgeting and mentoring advice.
Using information like Dairybase is also key to monitor your performance, both onfarm and financially.
Dairybase’s Jenny Ritchie is excellent and is a valuable resource to them – she throws around some great ideas and sees the good and bad trends in our farming financials, Raelene says.
Dairybase also provides robust historical data – which is very useful.
The farm is one of the DairyNZ monitor farms for the Bay of Plenty which provides other farmers with weekly information including pasture growth rates.
Raelene says when employing contract milkers, doing due diligence and having documented farming policies and setting expectations is key. Larry and Raelene have 12-14 pages of farm policy in conjunction with the contract, including set targets.
“You’ve got to talk about things before they accept the job. It’s just basic stuff like cows will get X amount of magnesium in the spring or what the empty rate should be, back fencing, SCC triggers, cowshed standards etc,” Larry says.
“We’ve never had a high empty rate here so we expect they won’t have a high empty rate - and if it is we are going to want to know why and we would sit down with you and work out what’s going wrong.”
They are not impossible targets to achieve, they are all normal, he says. Having an open dialogue with your contract milker is essential to keeping the farm on track.
“We sit down with Tim and Nicole every couple of weeks for a korero to see how things are going,” Larry says.
The contract milker rate is set at $1.15/ kg MS, with the only expenses being labour, petrol, and vehicles. Tim and Nicole don’t pay for shed expenses or power. Raelene and Larry still work onfarm, doing some relief milking, and are always there for herd testing, Raelene still rears the calves, and Larry looks after the runoffs. They have acquired five small lease blocks at Waiohau, which have been a labour of love to clear of blackberry and gorse and install fences and water.
They run the youngstock there, make grass silage and grow maize. The late calvers are also wintered there, with the heifers coming home to the farm early July for July 10 calving, the mixed aged cows start 10 days later. Last year they did quite a bit onfarm to help as it was Tim and Nicole’s first season, and it was their first season with the new farm, higher cow numbers and running two sheds.
“We were never going to throw them in the deep end,” Larry says.
This season they are trying to be more hands off which can be easier said than done, Raelene says.
“It’s really hard to adjust from being hands on, especially when you live in this house and can hear what time the shed starts up - it certainly keeps you in touch with what is going on.
“The best advice someone gave us when employing staff was that they might not do the job the same as you, but if they get the same result that’s fine.”
The couple admit they still think too much like sharemilkers sometimes and their cows are still very much their passion.
The herd is an LIC Sire Proving herd and they still AB their yearlings. It’s more work, but they have quality surplus stock to sell every year. This has been vital in getting from sharemilking into farm ownership and then paying down debt.
“We’ve also enjoyed the extra contact with the LIC team and being part of several successful LIC trials over the years such as pregnancy diagnosis through herd test, facial eczema detection through bulk milk samples and short gestation AB beef breeds. We are currently participating in another exciting trial,” Larry says.
They do six weeks AB with no intervention, four weeks of bulls and Tim and Nicole initiated another two weeks of SGL semen - to condense the “tail enders”.
In their first season with a herd that included 35% first calvers Tim and Nicole achieved an excellent empty rate of 7.5% and this season’s results will be similar.
Larry (49) and Raelene (46) have had some big challenges along the way and financially, at times, it has been hard, however they believe if you have got the drive and ambition there is no better place to be than in dairying and would encourage anyone wanting to progress to get a good mentor, have a well thought out plan and be prepared to do the hard yards.
The team on Owl Farm, the demonstration farm owned by St Peter’s School Cambridge and run as a joint venture with Lincoln University, have their eyes firmly fixed on the future and all the signs indicate that costs are only going to rise. However, planning, while utilising the KPIs set in place in their “wagon wheel” framework, is helping them to set a viable direction.
The “wagon wheel” is central to planning and monitoring on Owl Farm. Jo Sheridan, Owl Farm’s Demonstration Manager, is an enthusiastic supporter of the wagon wheel approach.
“I strongly believe all farmers should be implementing it in their business,” she says. “It is a simple tool for visualising and categorising your farm’s KPIs. Profitability is fundamental for all of our businesses, but, equally for us on Owl Farm, taking care of our animals and the environment, providing a quality workplace, and meeting community expectations, are also central to the way we operate and have an impact on our decision-making process.
farmers (based on their operating profit). Their 2021/22 budget provides an in-depth breakdown of where they are investing their funds and the outcomes they aim to achieve in each of the key areas identified in their wagon wheel. They have divided their goals up into categories, each with an attendant impact on their cost of production (see diagram 1).
is predicted to produce 175,000kg MS at a cost of $4.09/kg MS.
The next category, rising input costs, incorporates the impact of increasing costs, including inflation. This season increasing costs are having a larger impact than in a typical year, and are estimated to add an extra $33,300 of costs to the budget ($0.19/kg MS). The main areas affected are: labour costs, supplement and fertiliser prices, and fuel and freight costs.
A recent analysis of current and future business costs has given the team a good feel for how they are progressing, and the impact of their plans on Owl Farm’s profitability.
They use DairyBase as a benchmarking tool and the 2020/21 analysis showed Owl Farm’s farm working expenses (FWE) were $4.60/kg milksolids (MS) – compared to $4.62/kg MS for the top 20% Waikato
The first category, Baseline, includes the costs of running a well-managed, compliant business, with the main emphasis on achieving profitability, without focusing on environmental or animal wellbeing outcomes. It includes the costs of, for example, purchasing the supplements needed to achieve production targets, and meeting basic fertiliser, cropping and regrassing requirements. If the business is simply run at this level it
The third category, increasing industry standards, is where Owl Farm is meeting the wagon wheel KPIs which aim to cement their licence to operate and remain profitable in the more stringent regulatory times ahead of them.
Jo is keen to encourage farmers to take a good look at this area on their farm.
“There is anxiety in the industry about what regulations will mean for the viability of farm businesses,” she says, “but we feel that as long as farmers prepare early there is scope to still operate profitably and room for optimism about the future.”
Investment to meet increasing industry standards will be an ongoing cost for the farm, but they are looking for a win:win
“The wagon wheel helps us to get a firm fix on the direction we want to head.”
Profitability is fundamental for all of our businesses, but, equally for us on Owl Farm, taking care of our animals and the environment, providing a quality workplace, and meeting community expectations, are also central to the way we operate.Jo Sheridan and Tom Buckley at Owl Farm.
situation, where the strategies they implement will also provide financial benefits. Included in this category are:
• Tackling lameness issues. Improving the race infrastructure and implementing a range of another initiatives, under the auspices of the Healthy Hoof programme (which is administered by DairyNZ). The outcome to date is a reduction in lameness from 34% to 13% of the herd, with a target of reducing it to below 12%.
• Purposeful lives for calves. Using sexed semen and heifer synchrony, and offsetting the cost by reducing the replacements reared and selling any excess high BW heifers. Wagyu semen has also been used to produce high value beef calves for sale at around 13 days old. This strategy increased purposeful life levels from 34% in the 2018 season to 70% in 2021.
• Grazing heifers at home. Using chicory and supplements to feed calves optimally so they meet target liveweight gains, which has the knock-on effect of
reaching reproductive and production targets, decreasing replacement numbers, and decreasing grazing costs. Only 2% of the R2yr heifers were empty in 2021, in comparison with 6% in 2020, and 10% the season before. On average, the heifers weighed 224kg at 9 months old this season (210kg in 2020) and 327kg at planned start of mating (322kg in 2020).
Environment
• Reducing biological GHG emissions. A range of strategies have been implemented including: reducing the
Primary KPIs:
• Less than 15% involuntary culls (includes empty cows, those culled due to health reasons, or who die)
• All cows are mated with a clear breeding objective to provide a valuable calf reared past 4 days of age
• Replacement rate of heifers entering the herd is 21% of the total herd number each year
• All calves receive adequate colostrum within their first 24 hours, as shown through blood protein samples
Environment
Primary KPIs:
• Biological greenhouse gas emissions (nitrous oxide and methane as carbon dioxide equivalents) trending down
• Modelled nitrogen loss trending down.
Primary KPIs:
• Farm working expenses (FWE) of $4 per kg milksolids produced
• Operating profit in the top 20% of Waikato Owner Operator farms in DairyBase
• Return on Assets of 6% every year
Primary KPIs:
Community
Primary KPIs:
Community perception on how Owl Farm:
• provides social and economic wealth
• takes care of stock and the environment
• provides educational opportunities.
Primary KPIs:
• 15 t dry matter (DM) of pasture and crop harvested per hectare
• 850 kg milksolids per hectare produced by 31st December each year.
• Achievement of 100% of the Workplace 360 assessment criteria (includes balanced and productive work time; competitive remuneration; health, safety and wellbeing; effective team culture; and rewarding careers).
• Average hours worked per person per week is 45 or less over the whole season.
stocking rate (from 2.95 to 2.8 cows/ha) and increasing cow efficiency through breeding high BW cows, with per cow production increasing by 2.5% over the last six seasons (to 440kg MS/cow/year); reducing imported supplement levels; using no-till cultivation for crops; and retiring unproductive land and planting it up. The result has been a reduction in biological emissions of 7% over the course of the last six seasons.
• Reducing annual nitrogen fertiliser use. This is down from 161 to 138kg N/ ha, alongside increasing the amount of clover planted.
• Decreasing nitrogen loss. The strategies here have included: extending the effluent spreading area and installing a larger effluent pond (which gives application timing flexibility); improving the fertiliser strategy by using different products, and optimal application timing, placement and rates. These strategies have decreased the nitrogen loss from 40 to 34kg N/ha/year over the last six seasons.
• Wetland development. Owl Farm has two natural fenced wetlands and a constructed wetland. NIWA water quality measurements from the constructed wetland showed a 63% removal of nitrates from its catchment area.
• Two key goals in this section of the wagon wheel are to meet Workplace 360 requirements, and to ensure each employee’s average working week sits at 45 hours or below for the year. To this end, there has been a significant investment in technology, including: automatic cup removers and teat sprayers, Protrack, and most recently Halter; alongside shifting the spring peak which has reduced the work load during the busy time of the season. To date the working week has reduced from 50 to 46 hours.
The changes in this category are budgeted to cost about $117,030 ($0.67/ kgMS). It is expected that many of the strategies included in this category, and their costs, will become part of business as usual for Owl Farm which is why they have focused on debt reduction and improving business resilience. They have updated their long term FWE target ($4.60/ kg MS) to reflect the rising cost of meeting industry standards and are driven to ensure the farm continues to deliver across all of its financial metrics.
The fourth, and final, category is future proofing. The strategies included here may not have associated benefits in
cost reduction or increased profitability, but are considered part of meeting the wagon wheel KPIs and fulfilling the farm’s demonstration role.
This year’s excellent payout is allowing the team to tackle some of their discretionary farm goals without jeopardising the business’s financial health, and these strategies include investing in:
• DNA sampling the calves which will allow selection for specific traits in the future.
• Introducing Halter to allow improved animal management.
• Planting ecologically diverse species and trees for shade. The planting plan spans three years at a cost of $15,000/year.
• Including Ecotain plantain in all new pastures and oversowing it into existing swards.
This category of strategies is budgeted to cost $46,700 ($0.27/kg MS).
Drilling down into the costs in this amount of detail has given the Owl Farm team the ability to move forward confidently into the future and is a worthwhile exercise for all farmers to undertake.
More information about each of the strategies and their outcomes, which will be regularly updated, can be found on the farm’s new website: www.owlfarm.nz.
Despite the media hype surrounding alternative proteins, pastoral farmers are not a threatened species, Dr Jacqueline Rowarth believes.
“The good news is that increasing demand for protein is not going away,” the Adjunct Professor at Lincoln University, and farmer-elected director of DairyNZ and Ravensdown said. “Most people want ‘natural’ and that’s the most soughtafter label,” she told the 34th Farmed Landscapes Research Centre virtual workshop in February.
Her message; “Alternative proteins as part of future farming: the claims and the reality” appears contrary to headlines in the media in 2019 which claimed 33% of New Zealanders were ditching meat and another ‘2020 a record year for plant-based cultivated meat and sustainable protein companies’ by Oliver Morrison, published in May 2021 on the Food Navigator website. However, by November 2021 news sites were reporting that ‘Beyond Meat’ shares on Wall Street were falling. “It appears people might have had enough of plant-based meat and the category has already peaked.”
There may have been ‘greenwashing’ and many synthetic meat producers could
have ‘over promised and under delivered’ in their environmental claims, Jacqueline said. Creating laboratorygrown meat requires the use of animal stem cells and sugar to create the medium in which to grow them. This may come from beet, cane or maize all of which will be grown under management practices involving cultivation and fallowing of land, nitrogen inputs, weed and pest control and harvesting.
Trillions of dollars would be required to build the facilities and technologies needed to provide just 15% of the world’s meat demand, she said.
A 2019 report from Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems; ‘Climate Impacts of cultured meat and beef cattle’ showed that initially the cattle system produced greater peak warming than cultured meat because of methane production, but that warming declined and stabilised.
“In contrast the CO2-based warming from cultured meats persists,” the report said. Plant-based proteins require significant processing, including fractionation, soaking, heating, acidification, fermentation and
pulverisation, plus time and the process produces greenhouse gases. A social media photo from a Texas supermarket where shelves were virtually cleared of food before a hurricane in 2017 could be an indication of just how popular vegan food really is. The image showed the only foods left were vegan, Jacqueline said.
Each year the International Food Information Council looks at what drives the purchase decisions of consumers. The 2021 finding show that top of the list is taste, followed by price, healthiness, and convenience with environmental sustainability the bottom of the list.
When it comes to intention versus reality, further research showed that in 2019 only 5% of people who intended to go completely meat-free in the United Kingdom, succeeded. In 2021 less than 2% of intentions became reality.
“New Zealand animal-based protein produced by farmers caring for their animals and the environment, which needs hardly anything done to it to be edible, is exactly what people want,” she said.
New Zealand’s land and natural resources cannot support further significant intensification, Dr John Roche chief science adviser, Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) told the 34th Farmed Landscapes Research Centre virtual workshop in February.
“We can’t continue to rely on volume growth. We need to strengthen New Zealand’s position as a world leading source of sustainable and high value food production,” he said in his address; ‘Research opportunities for Regenerating Aotearoa New Zealand’ to the workshop hosted by Massey University.
In 2020 the Government launched the plan Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, to boost primary
sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs.
The plan also aims to help meet climate change measures, the population’s aspiration for the quality of freshwater and to involve more New Zealanders in the primary production sector, helping to break down the urban/rural divide, he said.
All of that involves ‘Regenerating Aotearoa New Zealand’. MPI’s technical advisory group of 25 people from across different science disciplines had decided that instead of a definition of what that would be, a vision should be established.
That vision is: ‘Regenerating Aotearoa –a set of Primary Sector principles that, in isolation or collectively, result in improved outcomes for our productive landscapes, rivers, coastal and marine environments,
biodiversity and natural ecosystems and animal welfare, promote health and wellbeing for humans and animals and ensure we can grow and consume our food and fibres sustainably”.
New Zealand farmers should be recognised for their ‘continuous improvements on a journey to revitalise Papatuanuku (the land)’. These include minimum-till farming, rotational grazing, fencing waterways, riparian planting, planting of native species, wetland restoration and programmes for staff training and welfare.
However, further improvements are required, and these may include increasing the number of plant species in the pasture sward. Research out of Ireland highlighted the benefits of biodiversity beyond rye grass and clover, showing that in swards which also included plantain, on average
milk production increase while urinary nitrogen decreased.
‘Rye grass and white clover pasture may not be the best for New Zealand,” John said.
Consumer perceptions and behaviours provide both opportunities and challenges for NZ in finding ways to continue to produce high quality foods.
Because of the world’s growing population, the food challenge for humanity is significant.
“We must produce as much protein in the next 30 years as we have since the time of Christ – the last 2000 years. In the past when more food was needed, we had more land to produce it, but we reached peak land use in the late 1990s.”
Available productive land is likely to continue to decrease as areas which probably should not have been farmed are allowed to revert to natural states such as wetlands.
“We have a malnourishment paradox in that more than 800 million people go hungry and more than 2.1 billion are obese or overweight.” These people are suffering from a different type of malnutrition caused by a poor diet of processed foods. The Covid pandemic has highlighted the fragility of the food supply chain.
“For the first time in my lifetime there has been a shortage of food in developed countries and in New Zealand we saw gaps on our supermarket shelves.”
The pandemic has also led to significant transition in how people interact with food.
“The number of people eating out dropped, with the vast majority cooking at home. The awareness of health, wellbeing and the immune system is at an all-time high, as is interest in natural healthy foods.”
There is a new generation of consumers with a strong belief in the importance of sustainable food production.
“We may scoff at consumers and their gluten-free water and GE Free air, but they are on the next stage of a journey which we all started a long time ago.”
Research shows that these ‘2020 consumers’ are driving change.
“Internationally, sustainability-marketed products grew five times faster than conventionally marketed products and three times faster than the consumerpackaged goods market.”
Surveys show 57% of consumers are willing to change their purchasing habits to help reduce negative environmental impacts. Research also shows the majority of consumers (41%) are value-driven and want good value for money.
Purpose-driven consumers (40%) seek products and services which align with their values.
“A significant proportion of food products produced in New Zealand are sustainably marketed. We can capture those shopper segments.”
NZ is on the right path to change but John ended his address with a quote from Will Rogers; “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” (Will Rogers was one of America’s favourite cowboys known for his witty, salt-of-the earth anecdotes and pithy quotes.)
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‘For the first time in my lifetime there has been a shortage of food in developed countries and in New Zealand we saw gaps on our supermarket shelves.’
Droughts, floods, heat stress and livestock disease and wine grapes which ripen weeks earlier are among possible impacts of climate change facing New Zealand, Linda Lilburne, principal scientist (spatial data science) with Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research says. In an address to the 34th Farmed Landscapes Research Centre virtual workshop in February entitled; Challenges and opportunities for agriculture under climate change, Lilburne summarised the work by a team of scientists from across the crown research institutes.
Climate change modelling shows the risks to farming in NZ are many, she says.
“Extreme weather, drought in particular, will impact on reliable feed supply and water for crops. This has implications for stock management and may require transport of stock to other regions or destocking.”
The future for pasture-based dairying in the West Coast of the South Island may be at risk as the region is predicted to get even wetter. There will be an impact on animal health including increased risk of facial eczema, heat stress and tightening of feed supply. The changing climate is also likely to increase NZ’s biosecurity risks from pests and diseases. There will be impacts on the environment from weather extremes too.
Internationally the impacts of climate change are likely to be felt through increased commodity market volatility. Collectively, all these changes could place increased financial stress on farmers.
To counter those impacts, Lilburne says increased farm system and commodity resilience is required. She referred to long-term projections from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) based on the IPCC climate change model; with a focus on the high atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration pathway known as RCP8.5. This pathway is based on ‘do nothing’ in terms of our collective response to the threat of climate change. It shows that by 2090, the temperature increases everywhere in NZ, with the increases
tending to be larger in summer, and in the North Island, and at higher altitudes.
The modelling shows summers will be drier in the North Island and upper South Island and in winter, it will be wetter in the West Coast of the South Island, and Southland. While climate change poses many risks, Lilburne says there will also be opportunities for farmers, including a gradual increase in feed supply in cooler regions such as Southland.
The changing climate will lead to land use diversification which may see kiwifruit being grown further south of the Bay of Plenty and some crops may become less marginal in Southland. More areas becoming frost-free could present an opportunity for growing high-value crops.
For the viticulture industry, modelling of different stages of flowering showed sauvignon blanc vines could flower earlier, leading to harvests two weeks earlier. The harvest for Central Otago pinot noir could be four weeks earlier.
“There are potential risks of hotter days causing stress on plants and higher drought risk.” Growing different varieties and using technology to manage the impacts may be required. In the livestock industries, genetics and breeding will also
be important to produce animals, pasture and forage crops which have increased tolerance to drought and heat.
For drier regions the questions include ‘is irrigation an option?’ with issues to be addressed around water supply and storage, the construction of dams and the economic, environmental effects of the changes. Digital agriculture and the use of sensors including those to monitor soil water use, and pasture growth and improved weather forecasting will also be important in helping farming adapt to changing climatic conditions. Climate change will bring compounding effects, including long-term shifts in the weather and extreme events.
“Increased variability in extreme events requires an integrated approach to assess future risks. The need for adaptation strategies is now to prepare for the future.”
The report: ‘Challenges and opportunities for agriculture under climate change’ was a summary of the work of a team of scientists from across the crown research institutes including: Linda Lilburne, (Manaaki Whenua –Landcare Research), Tony van der Weerden (AgResearch), Abha Sood (Niwa), and Edmar Texiera (Plant and Food).
It has been great hearing what farmers think during the roadshow so far. Check out answers to questions they have asked us.
Government has wanted to price agricultural emissions since the establishment of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in 2008. In 2019. Government passed the Zero Carbon Act and proposed to bring agriculture emissions into the ETS.
The agriculture sector and iwi/Maori convinced Government to listen to a better solution. So, we set up the He Waka Eke Noa partnership to develop an alternative framework which is practical, effective, and fair for all.
If our sector does not come up with a credible and workable alternative to the ETS via the partnership, the Government has the legislation in place to bring agriculture into the ETS before 2025.
Yes, the partnership considered a wide range of alternative options. When starting this process 140 options were considered. These were all assessed against a set of criteria developed by the 13 partners (agriculture sector, iwi, Government). The partnership had to ensure the options put forward are simple, practical, and fair for all. The two options put forward by He Waka Eke Noa are the best alternative options to the ETS currently available that have been agreed upon.
The ETS takes control out of the agriculture sector and farmer’s hands. Farmers would not be recognised for their individual actions on farm and would face a price that is linked to carbon dioxide and emissions from other industries.
He Waka Eke Noa has been designed to improve on the ETS in four key ways, it:
1. Gives farmers choice and control over how they manage their emissions
2. Recognises the different warming impact of methane
3. Recognises carbon sequestration from a range of onfarm vegetation not able to be entered in the ETS
4. Reinvests revenue raised from the sector back into the agriculture sector.
Going into the ETS would mean farmers risk losing many of these important and hard-earned positives.
Metrics like GWP*, along with methane reduction targets, are not within the scope of the partnership.
Don’t miss your opportunity to have a say, register to join a regional online meeting today at dairynz.co.nz/roadshow
The primary industry climate action partnership - He Waka Eke Noa - has proposed options for pricing greenhouse gas emissions in farming.
By Anne Lee.
Farmers have until the end of this month to get their heads around and provide feedback on proposed policy options to put a price on agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Two options have been discussed at a round of workshops and online webinars with a third option - a combination of the other two.
Legislation already has a means to include agriculture in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and from 2025 farmers will start paying for their emissions.
If it’s through the ETS, methane emissions will be priced at the rapidly climbing New Zealand carbon price.
The Government has set a target of 10% reduction in methane emissions by
2030 with further reductions required by 2050 and all other long-lived gases at net zero by 2050.
It has given the agriculture sector a chance to come up with an alternative way to price its emissions with the aim of bringing those emissions down.
The alternative must be presented to the Government by May 31 and from there the Climate Change Commission and Government will consider it before legislation is drafted.
Sector groups and farmers will then have the usual opportunities to submit on the draft legislation.
That alternative proposal to the ETS is being developed through He Waka Eke Noa.
He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN), We’re all in this together, is the Primary Industry
Climate Action Partnership and includes representatives from a range of farming sector groups including DairyNZ and Beef + Lamb NZ along with the Government. HWEN has come up with the options farmers are being asked to provide feedback on.
We’re taking a look at each option, showing what it could mean for farmers and answering some frequently asked questions.
• No split gas approach
• Methane priced at CO₂e – 1t methane deemed 25 x 1 tonne CO₂e
• Price of carbon NZU set by market
• Emissions calculated based on national average figures
• Plants eligible for sequestration credits limited
• No commitment on full revenue going back to research and technology for emission reduction
If agriculture emissions were to be priced within the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) all farm GHG emissions would be priced based on the NZ price of carbon.
That price is set by market demand – the supply is capped.
The price of carbon in the NZ market has been on a rapid rise.
Initially the price was $25/NZ unit (NZU). In early February it was $77 and by late February it was $82.50.
By 2030 forecasts put it at $136/NZU but at the rate it has been climbing it could be higher.
The point is, farmers have no control over that price – it’s set by the market. Methane would be treated just like other long-lived gases such as nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide and farmers would pay for it based on carbon equivalents (CO₂e) as they would all types of farm emissions.
Initially farmers would pay for 5% of farm emissions – 95% would be termed free allocation but that free allocation is likely to reduce by 1% per year.
It’s not all cost though - they could
also receive a payment of 1 NZU for every tonne of carbon sequestered based on the area of ETS eligible forests on their property.
The important note here is “eligibility” and at the moment riparian planting and many natives aren’t eligible.
The biggest issue for livestock farmers is that by far their largest emission source is biogenic methane – burped from their ruminant animals – largely dairy cattle for dairy farmers.
At the moment the standard way of converting methane to CO₂e is to use the greenhouse gas warming potential over 100 years (GWP 100).
GWP100 puts methane at 25 times CO₂ so the CO₂e of a tonne of methane would be 25 times a tonne of CO₂, making it an expensive commodity.
The payment system for the ETS would be through the processor.
The processor would calculate the emissions based on the national GHG inventory – so the average emissions estimated to produce a kilogram of milksolids.
That means every farm is treated equally but there’s no recognition of onfarm efforts and reductions.
The dairy processor would report on the emissions and purchase the equivalent NZU and it is expected they would then pass that cost back to the farmer.
The fertiliser sector will also pay for emissions and will have to purchase NZU. Costs are expected to be passed back to the farmer.
“The Government has given the agriculture sector a chance to come up with an alternative way to price its emissions with the aim of bringing those emissions down.”
A($) B($) C($)
Methane
Farm’s own methane emissions (KgCH4) X
Unique price of methane ($/KgCH4)
Long-lived gases
Farm’s own long-lived emissions carbon + nitrous oxide (KgCO2e) X
Unique price of long-lived emissions ($/KgCO2e)
Farmers would pay a price for their emissions based on their unique emissions profile.
A central calculator will determine what the farm’s emissions are, based on inputs to a model.
The advantage is that a farmer making efforts to reduce emissions through available technologies and practices will have lower emissions.
Methane emissions will be calculated separately from nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide and an equation will be used, multiplying the weight of the gases times the price and subtracting the sequestration credits.
To calculate the price farmers will pay
A + B – C = Price. A is the weight of methane multiplied by the unique methane price.
B is the weight of long-lived gases –such as nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide, multiplied by the unique price.
C is the sequestration emission benefits multiplied by the unique price.
The model to calculate the weight of each farm’s emissions is being built.
An implementation or advisory board will set the unique prices for onfarm
Farm’s own sequestration in eligible areas including riparian planting (KgCO2e) X
$$
- =
Unique price for sequestration ($/KgCO2e)
methane emissions and long-lived gases – which will be a discounted rate of ETS carbon price.
The implementation board will also set the CO₂e rates applied to sequestration.
The revenue collected is recycled back to farmers which could be through incentives and rebates for taking up technologies and practices that reduce emissions.
The model to calculate the emissions is being worked on and there’s no set decision on how the rebates and incentives would be structured or what prices would be put on these.
One option for setting the rebate or incentive price could be to use a multiplier of the price paid for the emissions in the first place.
For example, a farmer could be paid 2-2.5 times the methane price per kg of emission for a reduction resulting from a specific technology compared with the price they paid for the emission.
As farmers reduce emissions they’ll effectively be paying less per kg of emission.
There’s more detail on possible rebate and incentive systems in the discussion document.
Cost to farmer
CH4 CO2
The advantage is that a farmer making efforts to reduce emissions through available technologies and practices will have lower emissions.
Just like the ETS, under this option the emissions cost will be determined at the processor level.
Like the ETS the emissions weight is determined by the national average emissions factor for the quantity of milksolids sent. So, it’s an average not the actual weight of emissions produced by each farm.
It uses a similar A + B – C = Price method but there are two key differences to the ETS. One - there is a unique price set for methane and the long-lived gases.
Two – the -C comes in after the Price is arrived at through A + B = Price.
The processor pays the Price to what’s called the Implementing Agency and will also pass that Price back to its suppliers to recoup the cost. The net cost to farmers can be reduced if they enter into either an emissions management contract (EMC)
which shows how a farmer has reduced their emissions using a technology or practice, or they can enter into a sequestration management contract (SMC) which shows the farm has sequestered additional carbon compared to a businessas-usual situation.
Price – C = Net price where C is EMC +/or SMC. The implementing agency holds the money paid by the processor and can use it to reinvest back into new technologies and research to help farmers reduce emissions. If farmers want to enter into an EMC or SMC they will do so with the implementing agency. The funds collected from the processor paid charges will be used to pay the “rebates” for the contracts. The details of the contracts are yet to be finalised but the consultation document shows they are likely to be set for three or more years and may only be paid at the completion of the contract.
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So how do these options stack up when it comes to their effects on farm profitability and of course their key purpose –emissions reduction?
That’s where the devil really is in the detail because the unique price put on each emission will be critical as will the amount returned to farmers as incentives, rebates, sequestration and emissions contracts.
The consultation document shows results of modelling carried out for 2025 and 2030.
In the 2025 model calculation methane is priced at 11c/kg, nitrous oxide is $4.25/t CO₂e (a 95% discount on predicted NZ ETS carbon price) and carbon is $85/t CO₂e.
In the 2030 modelling methane is priced at 35c/kg, nitrous oxide at $13.80/t CO₂e (a 90% discount) and carbon is $138/t CO₂e.
By 2030 the models suggest an 800-cow Canterbury dairy farm could be paying out $55,290 a year under the Processor Level Hybrid Levy and receiving emissions and sequestration credits of $6697.
Carbon sequestration is recognised as a means to offset and reduce emissions.
He Waka wants to recognise more onfarm plantings and long-term native areas than what is recognised in the ETS.
The baseline year has been set as 2008 to recognise plantings across a number of categories because satellite imagery can help verify additional plantings, regeneration and additional protection or management from that point.
Woodlots, shelter belts and riparian plantings can all be recognised in He Waka Eke Noa options although some conditions apply.
The concept of “additionality” has been taken into account – meaning new or above business as usual sequestration.
Vegetation that’s recognised under He Waka Eke Noa would need to be maintained or face liability if they are cleared – in the case of permanent vegetation or not replanted – in the case of cyclical vegetation.
New Zealand farmers are already low emitters. Why are we being included in this? Many customers who buy New Zealand’s primary products such as milk powder are working towards net zero carbon emissions and want to know what suppliers of those products are doing to cut their emissions.
New Zealand dairy is a low emitter but other countries are close behind. They may have the ability to adopt new feed emission reduction technologies more easily than us and could overtake us on that claim.
The costs of both options look high in the models and not far off the ETS costs so what’s the point?
After 2030 the modelling shows the costs under an ETS model taking off in a much steeper trajectory as the New Zealand carbon price is expected to rise significantly. Under both HWEN options the price of emissions is managed rather than based on the market. Both options call for the price of long-lived gas emissions and methane emissions to be kept low and the expectation would be that as methane emissions declined towards the targeted reduction the price would drop too. So in the longer term both options would be cheaper than the expected cost through the ETS.
DairyNZ has collated and answered many of the frequently asked questions at the roadshows and online webinars. Click here to see more https://www.dairynz. co.nz/environment/climatechange/he-waka-eke-noa/hewaka-eke-noa-faqs
The unknowns in the detail of He Waka Eke Noa options are raising red flags for some farmers including Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard.
“I’m hearing a lot of mixed messages from farmers at the moment – there are those who say yes we have to do something otherwise we’ll go into the ETS and they’re favouring option one because it recognises individual farm efforts.
“Then there are those in the camp of ‘get stuffed - let’s go and pitch a tent at parliament’ but then there’s a whole range of views in between.”
One of the biggest concerns has been the lack of detail on how the price of emissions would be set under option one.
The suggestion is it would be up to an implementation board.
“Who sets any price by committee? Who’s going to be on this board? What will their criteria be? Can the price be responsive enough?
“There are just so many questions there.
“I’m more of a fan of a market mechanism for setting a price than a committee but a lot of work has to go into that to make sure you’re not having unintended consequences.
“And that’s what I’d like to see a lot more work on – what will the effects be on how we run our farming systems, on our regional economies, jobs at our processing facilities, our exports, currency?”
Under both options the money available for sequestration payments to farmers and research into technologies to reduce onfarm emissions comes from taxing farmers in the first place, he says.
Farmers are looking at some of the costs being put up in the current round of feedback meetings and seeing big
numbers in terms of their annual payments (more than $55,000/year for an 800-cow Canterbury farm example).
“The numbers being talked about here are very significant.
For example, the processor level, hybrid level could cost farmers up to 16c/kg milksolids (MS) before any rebates from emissions reductions or sequestration – at $9 plus/kg MS that’s one thing but at a $4/kg MS payout it’s quite another.
“The backstop to He Waka Eke Noa is the ETS and we’re being told it doesn’t have recycling of money back into research and technology to reduce onfarm emissions, that it doesn’t have a split gas approach and it doesn’t recognise onfarm sequestration.
“But what if it did have those things?
“Farmers wouldn’t be the only ones funding the research and new technology development, we’d have a market approach to setting the price.
“If we could break methane out and have a cap and trade market for it running within the ETS we wouldn’t be dependent on a committee.”
“There has been talk from officials more recently about an ETS backstop putting money back into agricultural research and technology, looking at sequestration and I’m picking up smoke signals that there are even thoughts on how they could do a split gas approach.”
Federated Farmers had pushed for more time so a thorough job could be done on analysing consequences of all options and more detail could be developed on how the emissions pricing under He Waka Eke Noa would be set but the government is holding firm, he says.
“The consequences of this will be very farreaching, rushing it now puts a lot at risk.”
He urged all farmers to get to grips with the proposals, ask questions and give their feedback.
Words by: Karen Trebilcock productivity, animal health and welfare, the environment, food safety and product qualities as well as keeping our market access open and customers happy.
Having greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions calculated onfarm under He Waka Eka Noa will not only provide farmers with a fairer way of paying for emissions but will drive continuing research and implementation into ways to lower them.
Session Four speakers of the 34th annual Farmed Landscapes Research Centre Workshop, held in February by webinar due to Covid-19 government restrictions, grappled with the options which farmers can give feedback on by the end of March.
Speakers pointed out the processor-level NZ ETS would affect different farming operations unevenly as not all sent produce to processors.
As well, the processor levies would be a “blunt tool” which would not recognise what farmers were doing to lower GHG emissions. However, administration costs for the processor levy system are estimated at $10 million per annum while other options, where farmers claim rebates due to utilising GHG mitigation tools, are as high as $90 million.
Farmers would also be required to do more auditing of their farm systems, which may require consultants to complete.
But conference speakers pressed for farmers to vote for carbon sequestration to be recognised as well as GHG targets they could work towards using a variety of tools, many yet to be found.
Livestock GHG Research Consortium manager Mark Aspin, based at Beef + Lamb New Zealand, said so far the only mitigation tool available to farmers to lower GHGs which was suitable for widespread adoption were urease inhibitors with feed additives for ruminants likely to be brought into the mix shortly.
“Some of these tools will take time to work once they are available such as lower emission sheep genetics.”
The tools must have a neutral or enhanced impact on animal and/or pasture
They must also have the capability and capacity to be delivered onfarm and be measured as part of a farm’s GHG accounting. Mitigation solutions which fitted farm systems, were economically viable and were efficient, and would be the game-changers.
“When we’re talking about efficiency, we mean the potential to reach all emission sources, how much it will reduce emissions by and our confidence in them – how sound and relevant is the evidence that they work?
“There is also the time it’s going to take to make the tool adoptable and are there veto or red flag issues stopping its use.”
It was only if farmers were rewarded for lowering GHGs that enough investment would be pushed into these tools to allow early adoption, he said. A possible model of recognising carbon sequestration using vegetation currently outside of the ETS such as riparian plantings and shelterbelts was outlined by AgFirst ManawatuWhanganui’s Erica van Reenen. Using 2008 as a baseline year, which is the first year with good satellite imagery of rural New Zealand, plantings of native vegetation
more than one metre wide could be shown to offset GHGs and be rewarded.
“Areas of native trees planted prior to 2008 could still be included if they were shown to be actively managed such as by stock exclusion,” she said.
Non-native plantings that did not fall under the ETS could also be included until they reached maturity and no longer sequestered carbon.
So far it’s estimated more than 60% of farmers know their GHG number and 23% have a written plan to reduce them.
“I get asked a lot ‘what should farmers be doing now?’ and the answer is to know your GHG emissions and benchmark them,” New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Centre outreach manager Laura Kearney said during the session.
All farmers are required to know their GHGs by the end of this year. Online free calculators are available on a variety of producer group websites.
“There are a lot of strategies for farmers to lower emissions such as land-use changes but there are implications on profitability and the environment that have to be thought through,” she said.
“If you document your GHGs now then you can show if your practices are reducing them.”
Technology, including Tag collars has helped boost in-calf rates on a mid-Canterbury dairy farm. Anne Lee reports. Photos by Holly Lee.
Canterbury farm manager Barry Flynn doesn’t hesitate even for a split second when asked if he’d put cows up for mating based solely on the collar technology he trialled last mating.
“Absolutely – 100% I’d be prepared to let the collars make all of the decisions,” he says.
The 29-year-old Irish-born farmer first came out to New Zealand in 2015 and spent two and half years here before heading back to the home farm.
He only lasted 12 months though before he was back.
“Once I was home for a while, I just knew New Zealand was where I wanted to bewhere the opportunities were.”
He spent a year working for Rob and Kim Turney near Methven as a 2IC on their dairy operation, adjacent to their piggery before he took up the reins as manager on the couple’s new dairy conversion not far away, near Mount Somers. The 190-hectare milking platform was sown straight out of pine trees and Barry was involved in the conversion process. It was amazing to see the transformation, he says.
The majority of the cows came from the North Island in time for the 2019/20 season.
“We’re still a work in progress – the ground was pretty hungry coming straight out of trees but it’s really benefiting from the pig effluent we can bring in from the piggery at the other farm,” he says.
It’s helping build organic matter naturally together with the breakdown of the wood material left behind in the soil.
It’s applied by Ashburton contractor Matt
Lovett using a 28,000-litre slurry tanker and 18-metre dribble bar set-up that lays the pig slurry directly on to the soil rather than covering the plants.
The cows, too, have been a work in progress.
“Most of them came from a high input, system five farm and we’re still working on a number of approaches to improve mating results.”
This last mating, he worked with Tru-Test on a validation of their Tru-Test Datamars Active Tag collars and while he can’t say definitively they were the sole reason for the improvement – early scanning has shown a 4% increase in six-week in-calf rate and an 11% boost to the in-calf rate out to seven weeks.
“What I can say definitively though, is I could not fault the technology.
“We still had K-mars and tail paint so I was picking cows too as part of the validation.
“There were a handful of times when a cow was on the heat list on the app, based on what the collar was picking up, and I’d look and think ‘nah maybe she’s not on’ – you know I’d be a bit doubtful.
“But I’d draft her off and later ask the AB tech what they thought and sure enough she was on.
“It worked the other way too a few times when I thought a cow was on and she wasn’t on the list.
“I’d look up her previous heats and decide on waiting and she’d come up a few days later with a very obvious heat.”
Barry says he’d done some research and knew the technology and algorithms being used were backed by a lot of data so the accuracy should have been good – but it really met and even exceeded his expectations.
“We moved our mating earlier by a week this last mating so we’ll start calving on August 1 this year instead of the second week in August.
“We still had 62 cows to calve at the start of October last year so we knew we needed everything in our corner helping us.”
They AB’d for six weeks, ran the bull for four weeks and then AB’d for a week using short gestation length (SGL) semen.With the collars, Barry says it could now be possible to drop the bulls and mate for 10 weeks.
“They talk about mating fatigue – especially if you’ve been doing premating heats.
“By the time those last couple of weeks come you’re having 600 cows go past you and you’ve got to spot the four or five that are on.
“Collars don’t get mating fatigue.”
The collars give a level of comfort too when putting cows up that have returned.
If you can see that strong heat on the app – it’s disappointing to see she hasn’t held the pregnancy but it takes away any fear of causing a loss by inseminating unnecessarily.
The sensor tag on the collar measures:
• Standing
• Resting
• Lying
• Ruminating
• Feeding
• Group behaviour and 22 other gestures that include chin resting, sniffing and riding. When first fitted to the cow each sensor builds an individualised picture of the cow’s behaviour for a week – setting a baseline because every cow will have its own “normal.”
Data readings are automatically uploaded to Datamars Livestock Live when the animal is within 1km and line of sight of the gateway reader set up at the farm dairy.
For Barry that applies to most of the farm, so there are only a couple of paddocks where the data, which is still continuously monitored and recorded by the tags during the time they’ve been out of sight, is being synched to the reader as the cows are coming in for milking.
“I never had a time where I was waiting for the information to download – the mating list was always there ready and fully updated by the time the cows got close to the shed even when they’ve been in the paddocks beyond the reader sight.”
Algorithms from millions of data points and machine learning have been used to inform the software that interprets the data from each cow.
It’s presented on an easy-to-read dashboard that’s available via an app on a smart phone, computer or device with clear graphics indicating rumination and heats along with screens showing other behaviours.
“You can clearly see the heats and if you
Owners: Rob and Kim Turney
Farm manager: Barry and Chelsea Flynn
Area: 190ha milking platform
Cows: 615 cows
Production: 500kg MS/cow target this season
Supplement: 500kg palm kernel
Irrigation: Pivots, K-line, BCI scheme
Take a look at the video: https://youtu.be/jQOeNaMG4DA
‘By the time those last couple of weeks come you’re having 600 cows go past you and you’ve got to spot the four or five that are on. Collars don’t get mating fatigue.’
look at the other behaviours, you’ll see changes that correspond with that.
“For instance, there will be a heat spike and a dot on the graph to indicate a heat and that it’s time to inseminate her but you’ll also see her rumination has gone down, her standing time is up but her time feeding has gone down.
“I get a heat report each day – so as they come into the shed I have the report with the list of cow numbers on it.”
The system can be set to automatically sync with most automatic drafting systems or the numbers could be put into the drafting system manually.
“So at the end of milking there they are – all the cows waiting, drafted out ready for the AB tech.”
The system is integrated with LIC’s MINDA adding to the ease and power of recording information.
Like so many farms Barry was short-staffed through the early part of the season.
“That’s one of the huge advantages in having this kind of system and another reason why we’re using it –it means you can have a less skilled person in the shed over mating, it doesn’t always have to be me.”
Getting cows in calf and pasture management are where the profit is in dairying, he says.
“I might be able to pick cows somewhere around the accuracy of the collars – although I think people probably overestimate their skill there.
“For me – if I can have the collars do that job – my time can then be spent making sure cows are being wellfed and we’re getting pasture management exactly right
“It’s all about quality – and getting the allocations and residuals right. I do a pasture walk every week – every five days when we’ve got rapid growth.”
Barry says it is fascinating having access to all the
information in the palm of his hand. Other staff members have the app on their phones too. It creates interest and is a great tool to spark discussion and those teaching moments. The data being measured and monitored has strong correlations to animal health too. Health reports and alerts can be sent as soon as the Tru-Test system’s analysis of the data sees negative variance in the animal’s activity compared with its “normal” state.
For instance – if rumination is down or feeding time drops an alert can be sent so the cow can be drafted out and checked over, often allowing early treatment or actions. Again it’s a tool that could also help when staff aren’t skilled in spotting issues especially over the busy periods such as calving and early spring, Barry says.
“We have 25ha of kale on the farm – 10ha we use through the autumn and the other 15ha is used in spring.
“It’s allowing us to move that calving date forward because we’ve got more feed available in those early weeks.
“Once we have 200 calved, we start using it with the spring rotation planner.
“Cows are going out to grass after milking in the morning for about four hours and then we open up the kale break.”
Cows are also fed palm kernel in the farm dairy with up to 500kg/cow used over the whole season.
“Milkers aren’t pushed at all over August and September – we bring the springers in if we need to nail the residual.
“I’ve got a great 2IC I completely trust in the shed monitoring the cows but having the health alerts is a backup for her and I can get on and manage the grass and feed allocations – it’s a big focus for me.”
LIC sold 201,000 sexed semen straws last season, up from 110,000 the year before, 95% of which is fresh semen. LIC expects to sell 300,000 this season and up to 500,000 by 2025.
The increased appetite from farmers for sexed semen technology has several drivers, including improved herd genetics, reducing bobby calf numbers and the farms’ environmental footprint and the ending of live heifer exports.
The overwhelming key driver, however, is farmers’ desire to get heifer calves out of their top cows and improve their genetic gain, LIC general manager NZ markets Malcolm Ellis says.
“The good news story is that there is a lot of focus on the increase of genetic gain, which I think is really positive when you think about the peak cow mentality.”
Farmers are using the principle of selection pressure to identify the top 20% of their herd to mate to sexed semen, and mate the bottom 20% of the herd to beef, with a difference between those two groups of animals is in excess of 100 Breeding Worth (BW).
A lot of farmers are saying their BW is going through the roof because they are making better use of their top cows, Malcolm says.
“Straight away on every calf you’re getting at the top at expense of the bottom, is 50 BW. “When the national average rate of genetic gain is around 9-11 BW it puts it into perspective.”
Farmers putting a premium focus on the top end of their herd can put a more deliberate focus at the bottom end and can use short gestation length (SGL) dairy semen and SGL beef to get extra days in milk (DIM).
“One of the things we are noticing is that because the feeder calf market has been so fickle, we’ve sold a tremendous amount of extra SGL dairy semen this year, up 35,000 inseminations.”
Farmers using sexed semen means their absolute breeding expense has gone up, but the sexed semen is funded by the result of the breeding choices they can make, including SGL dairy and beef options.
“They are paying more for AB, but if they have a good plan out of what they can get for extra milk revenue or beef revenue, it makes it positive, and they get extra genetic gain.”
LIC has a dedicated sexed semen premier sires team for
each breed, with 8-12 bulls in each breed, and the bulls are now of comparable BW team weighted average to other premier sire teams.
Farmers no longer have to select sexed semen from a B team of bulls, Malcolm says.
LIC works off a non-return rate for fresh sexed semen of -5%, and the early data this year is showing that is accurate.
“The difference between non return rates for fresh sexed semen vs fresh forward pack, was -4.7%.”
Farmers in general are using higher BW bulls to breed more efficient cows for the future, Malcolm says.
There has been significant growth in the use of the forward pack over daughter-proven premier sires.
“There has been a significant change over the last two to three years. Last year 58% of premier sire sales were to premium products (Forward pack and A2) and this year it went up to 68%.
“We are seeing significant growth. Farmers are taking the extra BW that’s on offer and that is able to be validated by tracking the performance of those bulls.”
To meet the increasing demand for sexed semen, LIC has a laboratory facility solely for the production of sexed semen and is working in collaboration with Sexing Technologies, a United States-based company contracted to sex-sort semen from LIC’s top dairy and beef artificial breeding bulls.
“Bringing Sexing Technologies onsite has made a massive difference.”
Expanding LIC’s capability in this area is part of being a responsible cooperative to be ready for any changes in the market, Malcolm says.
“If all of a sudden they take the bobby calf away as quickly as they took the plastic bags out of supermarkets, we’re going to need to be really ready.”
Globally, New Zealand is behind the world in the use of sexed semen.
“The EU has already strongly regulated the bobby calf aspect. This year, LIC will hardly sell a conventional straw up in the UK and Ireland, it will be all sexed.”
The advantage for Kiwi farmers is they have access to fresh sexed semen, rather than frozen, he says.
In their first offering of male sexed beef straws, LIC sold “just shy of 1000 straws” last breeding season, LIC genetics business manager Greg Hamill says.
The breeds, Angus, Simmental and Hereford, will be joined this season by Belgian Blue, Profit Maker and Charolais.
“Our overall beef sales continue to increase with a 10% gain in beef and non-replacement semen on last year and we should finish out the season by ticking over around 650,000 straws of alternative AB semen.”
Fresh short gestation length (SGL) Hereford made up 184,461 of the figure with the semen having a similar gestation length as conventional dairy.
“Premier Sires SGL Hereford is our most popular beef product with the popularity driven by you only pay for what you use as it’s fresh.
“Also farmers can capitalise on days in milk at the current milk price and a white face calf in the sales yard is still the most sought-after beef animal,” he said.
“But our biggest moving breed this year was Charolais with sales tripling.
“This was due to the consistent colour marking and with the Charolais bull that was being marketed doing very well in the LIC and Beef + Lamb New Zealand Genetics dairy beef progeny test scheme.”
The two joined forces in 2020 to improve the quality of dairy beef animals suitable for the dairy industry by identifying and enabling widespread use of superior bulls.
The aim is to offer genetics which are easy calving with shorter gestation lengths to dairy farmers, rapid growth for the finisher and superior carcase attributes for the processor.
Taranaki dairy farmer Aaron Waite used 80 frozen male sexed Hereford straws in the spring for the first time. Although he hasn’t scanned yet, he says so far the results seem up to expectations.
“Our empty rate looks to be about the same as usual.”
The sexed straws were used on the bottom 30% BW of his 540 Friesian cross cows for the first two weeks of AB.
“Anything that looked a bit Jersey we didn’t use it on. We’re wanting that black calf with a white face. That’s what the market pays for,” Aaron says.
To get around the slightly longer gestation period for the sexed Hereford, he started AB a week earlier for those animals.
“It will just bring the cows into calving in week one instead of week two.”
In the past he’s run his low BW cows in a separate herd with Hereford bulls during their five-week AB season.
“Using sexed male Hereford means we don’t have to do that plus we’re going to get a male calf. It’s probably more tweaking our breeding, not an overhaul of it.”
The Hereford cross calves will be sold through stock agents and Aaron says the figures stack up on paper financially.
“It’s well worth us doing it. We usually sell them as four-day old calves but, depending on how the season is going, it’s also worthwhile taking them through to 100kg weaned calves if we want to.”
While dairy beef fills the Trade Me website, with lifestyle farmers looking for attractive-looking and quiet animals, PGG Wrightson Southern South Island dairy livestock manager Mark Cuttance says there is also good demand from commercial beef rearers.
“Animals have got to be of good type so that’s well-marked, good conformation, well-boned and showing they have the ability to grow,” he says.
PGG Wrightson sells dairy beef animals from four-day old calves to weaned and heavier heifers and steers.
Demand is higher for 200kg animals rather than weaned 100kg animals.
“It suits some rearing operations to replace animals going to the works in the autumn with larger stock.”
The number of bobby calves slaughtered at meat processors is continuing to climb with 1.891 million killed in 2021 compared with 1.882 million in the previous year, Stats NZ figures show.
The bobby calf kill increased steadily for several years reaching 2.136 million in 2015, roughly matching the growing number of cows milking in the country.
However, for the following two years, when the payout dropped to near $4, it fell sharply to 1.782 million but since then has been steadily rising again, even though cow numbers are falling.
While between 2005 and 2014, about 35% of calves were bobbied (in 2010 it was 32%), since 2017 the figure has been closer to 37%.
The 2016/2017 bobby calf-kill fall also matched a historic low for the number of beef cattle farmed in the country coupled with high prices for export beef.
Since 2016, beef cattle numbers have risen 14% and at June last year numbered 4 million.
Dairy beef cattle which are broken-coloured or have too much Jersey genetics are harder to sell.
“The Speckle Parks and Belgian Blue Friesian crosses that have come on to the market in the past two years have certainly sparked a lot of interest. And the Charolais as well.
“But a good white-faced calf, an Angus or a Hereford cross is still very saleable.”
However, beef calves still hold the premium.
“They’re the preferred animal. Rearers know they can
In the past two years the Friesian bull market has dropped, possibly increasing the number of bobby calves.
“Friesian bulls can be difficult to manage, especially as two-year-olds and we’re finding people are looking for easier options now.”
Judging when a cow is on heat and whether she is at the optimum point for artificial insemination is a lot easier these days with the help of technology relaying information from an ear tag, collar or even a bolus in the rumen.
It is possible to know the exact hour a cow comes on heat so farmers can time AI to achieve optimal results. They can buy sexed semen with more confidence of success because they know exactly when to inseminate a cow and they can pick up those cows with silent heats or those with problems that need to be resolved before they can get in-calf.
Dairy farmers using various technology talk of lower empty rates, higher six-week in-calf rates, more replacements and saleable stock, and less bobby wastage.
Senztag’s CowManager monitoring system uses ear tag technology which gathers information through its ear sensor on fertility as well as health and nutrition. For mating, it has a 98% accuracy for predicting a cow’s heat, based on information it collects from the cow such as its level of activity and ruminations.
About 250 farmers around the country now use the ear tag technology which has had algorithms developed for New Zealand’s different environments including South Island versus the North Island to better use the information.
General manager, Jared Bekhuis, says a big plus for the technology is the live repeaters that send information to a smartphone or device 24/7. That means farmers can see a cow in the early stages of heat in the morning and plan ahead for the best time to inseminate her.
He says farmers using CowManager in NZ have
averaged an 8% increase in their six-week in-calf rate and a 5% decrease in their empty rate. Most of those farmers no longer use bulls, are breeding more replacements to keep or sell, often via sexed semen, and putting fewer or no bobbies on the truck. On average, the ear tag technology is costing farmers about $36/ cow/year.
Kaylene and Bill Aubrey have been using CowManager technology for the past four matings on their 300-cow herd near Tirau in the Waikato. They have recently bought another property to milk another 230 cows and factored the cost of the technology into the purchase because they want to use it for those cows as well.
Kaylene is also an artificial breeding (AB) technician and says they looked at other technology several years ago before settling on the ear tags because they were unobtrusive for the cows which were already used to wearing ear tags.
The empty rate in their three-year-old cows was 2% this year and the rest of the herd has been between 6% and 9% for the past two seasons. At this season’s mating they used sexed semen for more replacements, then used dairy beef semen including Charolais followed by shorter-gestation Belgian Blue so that they had no bulls. Instead of bobbies, they had sought-after beef breeds to sell.
For the sexed semen, she says it is so important to get the timing right and the technology gives them continuous updates so they know exactly how many hours a cow is on heat so they can inseminate exactly when they want.
“It’s all about optimising the straws you have by
getting the timing right and the right cows.”
It also gives them information such as when the cow last cycled, how strong the heat is and a pattern of irregular cycles that may highlight ovarian problems.
Kaylene says the technology is displayed via graphs and colours which makes it quick and easy to understand what is happening out in the paddock. Cows coming into heat show up as light blue, moving to a light green as the heat progresses and finally dark green when they are fully on heat and ready to inseminate.
“It’s really good for heifers which sometimes only display heat characteristics for a few hours and those that are shy or don’t want to be dominated. We wouldn’t be without it and have a lot of people come and look at the system.”
The farm is not entirely flat so they now have six repeaters spread around the paddocks to capture information from cows in every corner and hollow. Each repeater costs just under $1000 each but it is a one-off cost and they all talk to each other to relay information back to the computer at the dairy.
As technology pinpoints the optimum time to
inseminate cows, Kaylene says the challenge now is having enough AB technicians to visit farms more regularly to get those cows at the right time and thereby improve mating results across the industry.
If ear tag technology is not your thing, a bolus in the rumen may be the answer. SmaXtec produces boluses to administer down the throat of the cow into the reticulum where it measures core body temperature, muscle activity in the rumen and also the animal’s activity. It has been available in NZ for three years and about 100 farmers are now using the boluses in their herds to monitor cow health and improve reproduction.
SmaXtec project manager Neil Gladden says the
cost of putting boluses down the throat for a 400-cow herd is about $60,000. The boluses have a battery life of four to five years and if cows are culled to the works before then, the boluses can be retrieved and put into another cow. Collars are more widely recognised and there’s several choices now available including the homegrown technology, Halter, a GPS-enabled, solarpowered smart collar fitted to the cow and coupled with a simple app. The technology enables farmers to not only detect a cow’s heat, but also remotely shift cows by using sound and vibrations to guide them around the farm.
The company kicked off on Waikato farms two years ago and is steadily getting collars on more cows throughout the country. Business manager Steve Crowhurst says the solar panels have been designed to withstand the rigours of being on a cow traipsing around a farm and provide the collar’s own power source for collecting data.
Halter’s ability to remotely guide cows and set up virtual fences takes farming to another level. Vibrations and sounds to each ear guide the cow and Crowhurst says the cows cooperate because it is a consistent set of cues to move them around the farm. Cows learn to walk forward to vibrations and sounds provide a warning when they are nearing a virtual fence. For mating, it means farmers can bring cows out of the paddock and to the yard for insemination when the timing is right with their heat, rather than draft them out of the herd at milking and leave them on the concrete. That saves time which can be spent on other things and cows can be guided to a paddock by the yard to graze while they wait for the technician. He says it should also make it easier for technicians to get around farms at different times of the day to inseminate cows that can be remotely drafted from the
paddock, rather than the pressure of getting to cows standing in the yard after milkings.
While the ability to monitor a cow’s heat is important for mating and being able to remotely draft them out of the paddock is handy, he says it is the ability to differentially manage a herd of cows to set them up well for mating that really makes the difference. Instead of one or even two mobs, farmers can split the herd into three mobs with virtual fencing and feed each mob accordingly to tighten the herd’s body-condition-score spread.
“Then you see better mating results because farmers are managing their stock better upstream.”
Pete and Ann Morgan’s Waikato herd has been through one mating with the Halter collars and learnt more about each cow than they had ever known before. Rather than farming from a computer or phone, Pete says he has got to know the cows and the farm better.
“What I love is the insights into the secret life of the cow,” he says. “The irony of it is I’ve never been closer to the farm or more importantly, closer to the cows.”
Though it is still too early to have the final results for this season’s mating, he says the empty rate has dropped a few percent and much of that can be attributed to the ability to manage grazing better with virtual fences.
From autumn last year, virtual grazing information translated into virtual break fences that allocated pasture to each animal and the result was the body condition score across the herd was more even. He says that led to better mating results. It takes about 30 seconds to create a virtual break fence on the phone which means they can give the herd a smaller area at the beginning and easily shift it out further to ensure every cow and not just the dominant girls get their allocated feed.
In the past, the Morgans headed into mating by identifying the five-week pre-mating heat and monitored the cows from that. It was simply best practice and problems were discovered early and dealt with before mating. But it was also a lot of work, Pete says.
This season was different. They could monitor every heat for each cow from calving right through to mating. It gave them a complete picture of heat frequency and the strength of the heat for each cow which meant they were “super organised” going into mating. By then
they had accurately identified any cows with problems and solved them, usually through intervention.
Once mating arrived, they had a list of cows on heat to bring to the shed each morning with the timing right down to the hour and they had all their historical heats to view. They didn’t have to worry about false positives and they picked up the quiet heats in the younger, less confident cows.
It has also removed the busy period around milking when they usually draft cows on heat that will be inseminated that day.
“Our milking is busy enough to draft them, so let’s bring them in just in time for the technician.”
They have six people on the farm using the technology on their smartphones and Pete says it is a good, simple tool to use. For mating, it has given the team consistency on heat detection that was hard to achieve from a range of people judging animal behaviour. Plus, the technology has motivated staff.
“Staff truly understand all the vagaries of reproduction in the cows. Their enthusiasm is so much higher.”
They lease the collars at $16 each per month which gives them heat detection, health and drafting ability. Pete hasn’t got a solid figure, but says they are getting a good return on their investment. He acknowledges it will be some years and a range of milk payouts to prove the technology stands up functionally and economically. But he’s pretty happy with the results.
‘It’s really good for heifers which sometimes only display heat characteristics for a few hours and those that are shy or don’t want to be dominated. We wouldn’t be without it and have a lot of people come and look at the system.’
Smart technology has its role in the quest for improved in-calf rates and so do staff, says Waikato clinical veterinarian Scott McDougall, of the animal health research organisation Cognosco.
“Never underestimate the value of well-trained, motivated human beings when it comes to understanding when cows are cycling.”
Scott acknowledges that with increasing herd sizes, staffing issues and new entrants to the industry, there is huge pressure on senior people on farms to get cows in calf, which is where technology which helps save labour and provides useful information comes into play.
However, there is no silver bullet, and no one solution to improving in-calf rates across all New Zealand farms as the factors which influence cow conception are complex and variable.
“There are opportunities from improving in-calf rates. Currently about one quarter of New Zealand dairy herds achieve a six-week in-calf rate of 73% but among the other three-quarters of the herds, there is room for improvement.”
The 2019-2020 national average six week in-calf rate was 67.8% up from 67.5% the previous year, but still well below the industry target of 78%.
“One of the best tools to help identify why sixweek in-calf rates are not as high as they should be is DairyNZ’s InCalf programme which guides farmers through herd management in a structured way to ensure nothing is missed.
“It can be overwhelming if empty rates are high, and farmers feel they don’t know where to start. That’s where the InCalf process and talking to a vet or farm adviser they trust can help work through the issues.
“It requires taking a hard look and doing an honest appraisal of herd management.
Acknowledge the areas where you are doing a great job, but the best bang for the buck will be focusing on those areas which are not going so well.”
Synchrony programmes are an important tool,
but Scott says synchronisation in and of itself is generally not the solution to poor reproduction outcomes, if for example the heifers are poorly grown, there is poor nutrition or other animal health issues.
“It is not a band aid but is one of the tools farmers have to improve performance.”
Research into synchronisation of beef and dairy herds has been going on for the last 70 years with the result that today there is far better understanding of cow physiology, hormone levels and how ovaries, the uterus and brain interact. That knowledge, along with advances in diagnostic techniques, has led to incremental gains from treatment programmes over time.
“In the past 20 years our basic understanding of how follicle waves work has also improved. We now know that every 10 days or so a new group of follicles form on an ovary with one becoming the dominant follicle which at the end of the cycle will go on to ovulate.”
When a cow ovulates, the site of ovulation develops a structure known as a corpus hemorrhagicum, which within four to seven days develops into a corpus luteum (CL), a mass of cells that forms in an ovary and is responsible for the production of the hormone progesterone during pregnancy. The role of the corpus luteum can influence whether or not the embryo survives.
“In a synchronisation programme we need to control the follicle waves, so the modern programmes are built around understanding how the hormone system, follicles and corpus luteum work. Using natural hormones to mimic the normal oestrus cycle of a cow allows us to predict when she will ovulate and the best time to inseminate.”
Gonadotropin-releasing hormone, or GnRH, is a key hormone used in synchrony programmes. It is a hormone made in a part of the cow’s brain that acts to release more luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) vital for successful follicular development and ovulation
in the ovary. Another key hormone is prostaglandin F2 alpha which removes the corpus luteum (“luteolysis”) allowing the dominant follicle to develop through to ovulation.
While synchronisation works on about 85% of cows, 10 to 15% fail to undergo luteolysis and hence fail to ovulate at the end of the programme. To address this Scott says the recommendation has been to increase the dose or give two treatments of prostaglandin one day apart.
“The latter strategy is a biologically better way to go and achieves a better response but does mean an extra yarding and cost, but leads to a 5% increase in conception rate and a 4% increase in six-week in-calf rate, so it is worth the effort.”
Modern synchronisation programmes mean that now it is possible to know precisely when a cow will ovulate and based on that, make decisions when to inseminate without relying on oestrous detection. “This works well in beef and dairy cows, even those which are not cycling.”
Scott says other research is highlighting the impact of genetics in reproductive performance.
“The Irish and Scandinavian industries, and more recently New Zealand, have put increased emphasis on reproduction in the breeding objectives with resultant improvements in in-calf rates.”
DairyNZ has carried out research into Fertility Breeding Value (BV) to identify new traits. The work centred on a unique herd of 550 heifers with high (+5%) and low (-5%) Fertility BV. Their fertility and other traits were studied during rearing (2015-17) and their first (2017-18) and second (2018-19) lactations.
A key finding was that animals that reach puberty at a younger age and at a lighter body weight were more fertile. A much larger DairyNZ study validating the results of that study is underway with Cognosco and other groups involved in assessing the long-term effects of age of puberty on fertility.
“Over time more precise measurements earlier in animals’ lives should improve the ability to select animals with high fertility which will bring long term positive benefits for the industry.”
DairyNZ’s
edition for
Dairy Farmers is a practical easy-to-use reference to help farmers as they strive to achieve measured improvement in their herd’s reproductive performance. To find out more go to https://www.dairynz.co.nz/ publications/animal/the-incalf-book/
641,649+
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Even with all the latest technology on offer, breeding results still come back to the quality of the bull, CRV managing director James Smallwood says.
“Irrespective of the technology whether it’s fresh or frozen sexed semen, it’s the bull that impacts fertility.
“The bull is going to do what the bull is going to do.”
New Zealand farmers will be able to buy frozen sexed semen straws from the majority of CRV Ambreed’s top bulls this season.
CRV has collaborated with Genus IntelliGen Technologies to bring a new, less-invasive, sexed semen technology to its Bellevue facility.
Providing frozen sexed semen instead of fresh gives Kiwi farmers the option to get the bulls they want to use across their top cows, rather than using fresh sexed semen from what bulls are on offer on the day, Smallwood says.
“That’s the difference between our product versus a fresh one, is that you’re getting what you ordered.
“If we are truly committed to genetic gain, it’s actually making sure we identify the good cows and spend the time identifying the bulls you want. Otherwise your rate of genetic gain is going to be compromised.”
There are not enough disadvantages for NZ farmers using frozen semen, with Genus guaranteeing a minimum of post thaw motility.
The benefit of this Genus technology is less damage to the cells, which creates greater degree of survival, mobility and better fertility.
The laser-ablation¹ semen sexing technology is gentler on the sperm cells than traditional sexed semen processes.
A sperm cell containing female DNA is heavier and more dense than male DNA. When cells are passing by detection laser, the software can then detect the difference in DNA content.
The system will then identify the female cells and use another laser to inactivate the unwanted cells.
“This cutting-edge technology does not subject
semen cells to the high pressures, electric currents and shear forces that are used in the traditional sexed semen technology, which reduces stress on the cells as they are processed.”
Demand for sexed semen continues to increase in NZ, with CRV receiving triple the amount of orders last year.
Farmers need to look at spending more money as the investment rather than an expense, because they are building an asset, Smallwood says.
However, NZ is still lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to using sexed semen technology.
The NZ dairy industry is using only about 5% of sexed semen, compared to Australia’s 15%, the European Union’s 30% and the United States up to 50%.
“If we are serious about doing more with less animals, we really need to ramp up the genetic gain. This is one way to get in there and do it really fast,” he says.
Technology available in the dairy industry has come a long way in the past five years, for sexed semen, genomics reliability and DNA testing. The technology is also becoming more accessible, more reliable and more affordable to farmers.
CRV is not far away from customised breeding solutions, where they will be able to provide farmers with genetic profiles of the top animals in their herd, giving them a profile of what animals work best in their system, Smallwood says.
Kiwi farmers run dairy cows under different systems, from DairyNZ System 1 up to System 5, and identifying the best cows and bulls to use for their tailored system will become even more important.
“That means we can accelerate your programme and make sure you’re getting the efficiency you want.
“That’s where we are heading very fast.”
This customised breeding solution is in the Netherlands and will be coming to NZ shortly, he says.
Farmers have a lot to consider when selecting genetics going forward, it’s not just about production,
‘If we are serious about doing more with less animals, we really needBy Delwyn Dickey.
Evan and Sherleen Smeath have lived with the steady rise and fall of flood waters on their Hukeranui dairy farm for more than 40 years. And while it can get a bit soggy at times, it’s a life they love.
Their 189-hectare farm is on the northern edge of the Northland’s 5670ha Hikurangi swamp, just before the Whakapara river joins the Waiotu river to form the mighty Wairua River. On average there’s one flood a year. During a flood 5500ha of the swamp flatlands can be affected Evan says.
Before the 1970s when the Hikurangi Swamp system of flood banks was built and pumps installed, the floodwaters could stay up for three or more weeks. The swamp scheme cut that by a third. The farmers in the scheme are specially rated by the Whangarei District Council to cover costs including operating costs, maintenance, and a whopping $260,000
annual power bill. Evan and Sherleen pay a special rate of $30,000 annually for the scheme, with Evan the spokesman for the farmers in the Te Mata group and their pump station. The seven pump stations are able to pump out 39,000 cubic metres of water a second and can reduce the flood levels by 25cm in 24 hours.
Eels flourish in the drains, ditches and wetlands in the area, but are killed if they go through the pumps. A new protocol initiated by local hapu Ngati Hau now sees the pumps left off for the first eight hours to give the eels a chance to move with the waters away from the pumps.
“The water comes up quickly but also goes down quickly,” says Sherleen. “The back end of the farm is where it sits and lies. It can lie there for two weeks.”
The total farm area includes a 72ha run-off, with the milking platform at 95ha. Smaller floods will see up to 20ha under water for a few days. A normal flood will
For a Northland couple, flooding is just part of everyday farming.
see 25-30ha underwater. The big floods can take out more than 60ha of pasture.
And the flooding isn’t consistent.
“We can have three floods in an exceptional year and then nothing for another three years,” Evan says. In 1988 they had a really big flood from Cyclone Bola and were then hit by another big one three months later.
The timing of floods also affects how damaging they are, with summer floods the worst, he says. From November on a flood lasting three or more days will kill the grass. In the middle of summer with three days of temperatures over 25C the water is too hot and the plants die.
While the grass will also die in the colder months, if under water for more than 10 days, winter floods generally don’t do too much damage.
“It makes the grass dirty and brown and yucky for a few days, but doesn’t generally kill it,” he says.
Experience over the years has seen them develop management systems on the farm to deal with the flooding.
After trialing, Evan now uses a “salad mix” of seed which goes on the paddock as soon as the floodwaters go down. Containing ryegrass, chicory, clover, cocksfoot, fescue and a bit of lucerne the pasture goes from “seed to feed”
in five to six weeks, he reckons. It has to grow quickly but being mindful it may also be in the ground for two or more years before another flood. When flooding hasn’t killed the grass, Evan puts on a little bit of fertiliser – nitrogen and sulphate of ammonia, to get the grass going again.
One of their key mitigation initiatives is to always have a store of maize on hand as feed for the cows, as “insurance” should paddocks be out of action. This is grown at several different sites around the farm each year, so if one patch doesn’t survive should it flood, the others will.
A large covered concrete feeding pad is also part of this. Here the cows can be fed and stay dry under cover during the cold of winter, and cool during the heat of summer.
Experience tells them when an approaching weather system is likely to cause a flood and gives them time to get things ready. Knowing which paddocks will flood first sees Evan moving the cows on to them to eat off the grass before the bad weather hits. From there they are moved off to paddocks that don’t flood.
Having been through so many floods, they are just part of their farming experience. Rather than frightening Evan and Sherleen find them annoying.
The flood waters here don’t flow, says Evan.
‘The water comes up quickly but also goes down quickly. The back end of the farm is where it sits and lies. It can lie there for two weeks.’Left: The cows will come to the Smeaths, through the floodwaters, when called by Evan and Sharleen. Below: Farming on a flood plain has seen some challenges for Sherleen and Evan Smeath.
They come up and then they go down, so aren’t dangerous like fast-flowing river flooding. This is reflected in how little silt is left behind on the grass after a flood.
And should they get caught out their cows and bulls will also come to Evan and Sherleen when they call them, and will follow them out through chest high water. They also have peace of mind knowing the cows are also excellent swimmers.
But they are noticing more frequent, smaller floods happening. There is no doubt weather patterns are changing, Evan says.
‘Weather bombs’ that seem to come out of nowhere are also happening more often, he says which can catch them out.
For the first time a year ago the calf shed, along with the cow shed, was flooded with the calves having to be rescued, most of their bedding material swept away.
The amount of rain coming off the hill was a torrent and was pushing the farm bike sideways on the track, Sherleen recalls.
Northland Regional Council recently released new upgraded maps for Northland showing, for the first time across the entire region, where river flooding happens –through a normal year, as well as a 10-year, 50-year and 100-year flooding event.
See: www.nrc.govt.nz/environment/ river-flooding-and-coastal-hazards/riverflooding/river-flood-hazard-maps. The data in these maps is very accurate, Evan says, and sees the maps as an important tool for farmers across the north, especially for those looking at buying land or their first farm.
Clearly still loving the experience of farming on the swamp and hugely optimistic about the future of farming in the area, he also offers some advice for farmers moving on to new land which may be prone to flooding.
• Look at the maps
• Talk to your neighbours about their experiences
• Get a plan in place to keep you and your animals safe
• Don’t go out until the peak of flooding has passed
• If you don’t know if a farm is going to flood and it comes at night don’t go out – it’s too dangerous - unless you really know your way around, he advises.
While they have reduced flooding by a third, the flood banks regularly overflow.
In large floods the Hikurangi Swamp flood plains can be underwater for a couple of weeks.
The simple answer is yes, says Nava Fedaeff, climate scientist and forcaster with National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).
As the atmosphere warms with climate change, it is able to hold more moisture, she says.
This is going to increase the amount of rainfall in any extreme event like atmospheric rivers and cyclones, but also thunderstorms generally, leading to more flooding. Research has shown atmospheric rivers have been behind the country’s worst floods over the last few decades.
These are long, narrow, air currents bringing moisture-laden air from the tropics. They can be thousands of kilometres long and are more easily seen from satellite images. They dump a huge amount of water in one event when they make landfall as has been seen on the West Coast of the South Island recently.
And while the north doesn’t have alps for the atmospheric rivers to hit
and dump their moisture, Northland still had two of the country’s 10 most expensive flooding events during this time, caused by these high-flying rivers.
As climate change becomes more pronounced it’s uncertain if there will be more tropical cyclones, but they are expected to become stronger as ocean and air temperatures warm with more category 4 and 5 cyclones. Needing at least 26.5C water temperature to maintain their structure, and with ocean temperatures rising, cyclones will be able to travel further south - but not as far as New Zealand.
But as they will be stronger, the tail end of the ones we do catch will be more powerful, holding more rain, and likely affecting northern NZ more than the rest of the country.
Niwa also has current and past daily forecast videos for river flooding. These animations show daily river flow forecasts for 24-hour periods across NZ. See: niwa.co.nz/climate/researchprojects/river-flow-forecasting#daily
The government’s Essential Freshwater policy aims to reverse past damage within a generation so that all New Zealand’s waterways are in a healthy state, and Freshwater Farm Plans will be part of the solution, Bryan Smith, chief advisor for the Ministry for the Environment says.
In a keynote address to the 34th Farmed Landscapes Research Centre virtual workshop in February, Bryan said the policy also aimed to stop further degradation of freshwater and to show material improvements in quality within five years.
Eventually all commercial farmers and growers will be required to have a Freshwater Farm Plan (FW-FP) which is certified and audited by accredited professionals.
“The plans will allow bespoke solutions tailored to each farm and can avoid lots of rules and the requirement for resource consents.”
Waikato farmer
The FWFP will “provide a new regulatory tool under the Resource Management Act (RMA) and any replacement for the act”.
“The Minister for the Environment is clear that he expects Freshwater Farm Plans to transfer to any future new planning system or RMA reform, so we are working under the assumption that this new tool is here to stay. It brings all relevant national direction and regional plan requirements together in one place and relates them to the farm,” Bryan said.
FW-FP plans will allow for national consistency, inter-regional operability and bring economies of scale to farm planning.
“The infrastructure, systems and relationships created by the regulatory system provide many future opportunities outside of freshwater solutions. They can link up with climate change responses and biodiversity measures and provide information the marketplace expects including assurance of environmental performance.”
New FW-FPs will build on the work many farmers and growers are already doing. “The primary sector has played a leadership role in the development of industry assurance programmes (IAP), many of which have an environmental component.
“These programmes would need to be updated or adapted if they are to deliver a freshwater farm plan that meets the requirements of Part 9A of the RMA,” Bryan said. No programmes meet all the requirements of that part of the RMA yet, but some are closer than others.
“We propose a system where industry programmes can be assessed and recognised as being appropriate to deliver freshwater farm plans that meet the requirements of the RMA and many sectors have already engaged on this.”
Bryan said the FW-FPs provide for orderly transition. “But more importantly, allows sectors to integrate FW-FP requirements into their food safety, consumer assurance and environmental systems.”
Regional councils will be developing regional freshwater plans that implement the National Policy Statement for Freshwater 2020, to be notified by December 2024.
“Councils must set visions and values; environmental outcomes aligned to those; set resource use limits to achieve the outcomes; timeframes and milestones; then establish rules, programmes and action plans, to achieve the milestones.”
The FW-FP need to reflect regional council rules and where they are more stringent than what would otherwise be in a plan, (especially in heavily overallocated catchments eg for nitrogen) then the more stringent rules will apply.
The ministry is designing a system to establish a national body to accredit people with the necessary competencies and experience to become FW-FP certifiers.
“Regional councils will appoint certifiers in their region. The national body will also manage the quality assurance of the certification system. Certifiers will be able to work with farmers, as advisers, to develop the FW-FP, although there will be no requirement for farmers to use an adviser.
“Plans will be certified every three to five years. In the case of significant farm change, plans may need to be redeveloped and certified.”
Auditors, who will assess whether a farm complies with the certified FW-FP will be appointed by regional councils and farmers will engage and pay the auditors. Audits will be conducted on a regular basis with shorter periods for re-audit where issues are found.
Bryan said FW-FP will need to reflect the context of the catchment in which a farm or orchard is located, and any council can set rules and limits.
“The plans can include farmers’ broader aspirations and vision for their farms, but these elements of the plan are not enforceable. The system is more tailored to unique farm situations rather than fixed rules and is also better suited to diffuse discharges than current tools.
“The plans allow farmers to understand what they need to do, with information all in one place. They provide key implementation too for councils and compliment resource consent and plan rules.”
Bryan says the FW-FPs can build stronger links between research and innovation and onfarm actions, and there are opportunities for their application to extend to other environmental issues.
The implementation of the FW-FP will take time with the roll out starting this year with building a workforce, capacity and capability.
“There are lots of opportunities and challenges here and this is an exciting field to be involved in which will bring material changes to fresh water going forward.”
FARMERS
All farmers with:
• 20 hectares or more in arable or pastoral use
• 5 hectares or more in horticultural use
• 20 hectares or more of combined use.
When farmers need to have their freshwater farm plans in place
• Freshwater farm plan regulations are expected to take effect in 2022.
• The requirement for certified freshwater farm plans will be phased in from mid-2022.
What freshwater farm plans are They are a legal instrument established under Part 9A of the RMA (sections 217A to 217M).
Freshwater farm plans will identify practical actions on farm that help improve your local waterways. Actions will be tailored to a particular farm’s circumstances, the physical environment and what is important in the catchment that farm is in.
Freshwater farm plans will build from existing plans but are not the same as farm environment plans.
Website: environment.govt.nz/ acts-and-regulations/freshwaterimplementation-guidance/freshwaterfarm-plans
They may have trained as vets but, after working through the sharemilking system, when Kirsten and Don Watson had the chance to buy a 123-hectare dairy farm on the shores of the wild and rugged Kaipara Harbour they leapt at it. Their three sons Riley, George and Josh have thrived there in the six years since.
The farm is on the interface between the vast expanse of water – the largest natural harbour in the southern hemisphere - and the hills of the South Kaipara Peninsula.
Low lying, tidal wetlands and mangrove stands separate the farm from the water, with the paddocks drained by a series of ditches. Eels and whitebait abound in the Taumara Creek that runs through their place, and while there is no beach as such, being able to launch a ‘tinny’ into the creek sees them fishing and netting on the harbour.
The flats are also home to different varieties of resident and migratory
shore and wetland birds, who share the paddocks with the cows. The largest number of birds in the paddocks during summer are immature and old South Island Variable Oyster Catchers – left when the main flock flew south to breed.
During winter after they have returned, around a thousand of them become part of the pasture rotation, moving into paddocks as the cows vacate them. They are joined by godwits, Caspian terns, spoonbills and others.
Permanent residents include ducks, pukeko and lots of kingfishers.
Seeing all of these birds really captured their middle son George’s imagination when they first moved on to the land.
He went along with his grandfather to a trapping workshop at Waioneke
A Northland family have got the trapping bug in a bid to protect local native birdlife.
Delwyn Dickey.Above: Josh, Kirsten, George and Don Watson have transformed their dairy farm into a wildlife haven through extensive predator trapping.
Primary School run by The Forest Bridge Trust in association with the South Kaipara Landcare Group.
There the kids were shown how to protect the local native birdlife, by trapping for stoats, weasels and the like. Eight-yearold George was hooked.
The trap he was given at the workshop was thrashed and more soon followed. His enthusiasm and perseverance made him a minor celebrity for a time with a couple of articles written about his trapping, and an appearance on iconic rural TV show Country Calendar.
Like most kids his enthusiasm has waxed and waned over the years, Kirsten says, depending on how much he’s caught recently. This saw his brothers and parents step in to fill the gaps, so that trapping and baiting – for rats - to protect the birds, is now just part of their family culture.
Being a dairy farm they’ll periodically see wild cats about, especially around the milk room looking for milk. If too many ferals start turning up they’ll borrow a live cat cage.
“We’re close to lifestyle blocks so we have to be really careful with cats. We know who the neighbours’ cats are and you can tell which are the wild ones. We caught one neighbour’s cat in the middle
of our farm once, and had to drop it back off to them.”
But some wild cats can be wary of the cages.
“We’ve got one wild cat we’ve never been able to catch – he’s called Big Lion. He’s huge and has been around for a long time.
runoffs next to the dairy farm. Don drives past them almost every day.
The wildlife on the farm has a much easier time of it these days with predator catches few and far between. This has seen a big increase in the numbers of ducks and pukeko on the property.
“You’re never going to catch everything, you’ve just got do your best.”
This is one of the best pieces of advice Kirsten says she can give anyone thinking of trapping on their own place.
Acknowledge you’re not going to feel really enthusiastic all the time and just make it as simple and enjoyable as you can, she says.
One of the biggest ways to keep the momentum going is to put the traps in places you drive or walk past every day.
They have about eight traps in all and five or six bait stations and put some of these along the creek on one of two 95ha
It has also seen one of their biggest hopes from the trapping in the last couple of years come to fruition this spring.
When they first moved on to the farm they’d occasionally see a large heron about – an Australasian bittern. Dan would see it more often on the 95ha runoff block – one of two connected to the farm - which has a wetland in it.
While once abundant there are now fewer than 1000 Australasian bitterns left in New Zealand and it’s rare to see more than one at a time.
Over the years another two bitterns have turned up.
‘We’ve got one wild cat we’ve never been able to catch – he’s called Big Lion. He’s huge and has been around for a long time.’Left: The farm in the edge of the Kaipara Harbour is a refuge for wildlife including migrating birds.
Then a month ago Dan spotted a couple of rather goofy and gangly looking birds in the paddock – bittern chicks!
Thrilled, their enthusiasm is back in spades and they are determined to keep them all safe.
Although, with George and Riley both now at boarding school and only home weekends and in the holidays, Josh may have to step up more.
The flow-on effects from that original
trapping workshop, organised by The Forest Bridge Trust and the South Kaipara Landcare Group have had a big impact on their family and farm, and the lives of several other families in the area who have also become regular trappers, Kirsten says.
The positive benefits for the wildlife in the area should also make it easier for more people to come on board over time and see this grass-roots farm conservation effort grow.
Clockwise from top left: George was the first to take up trapping to protect the birds and now all the family do it. George checks the Timms possum trap before resetting it. Josh uses meat from a rabbit shooting trip for bait in one of the traps. Only one ferret has been caught in these traps which makes Kirstan think they need altering. A possum is likely behind this set of tracks.
The Forest Bridge Trust started life around the kitchen table of Kaipara beef farmers Gill and Kevin Adshead.
Long time conservationists, their predator control efforts saw kiwi released on to their farm in 2013. The vision is that the kiwi on their Kaipara Harbour farm sanctuary could eventually move safely through healthy native forest and connect with other kiwi at the mainland Sanctuary at the Tawharanui Regional Park on the Pacific Ocean.
To do this a forest bridge of fenced off bush remnants on farmland and other land holdings would be needed with predator control at its core.
This has seen them connecting willing landowners with groups interested in funding these fencing projects, showing the owners how to control predators or organising through community groups to do it for them. Educating and encouraging youngsters to get involved with pest control through school workshops and programmes is also part of the deal.
www.theforestbridgetrust.org.nz
Reducing the number of bobby calves is part of the aim of NZ Wagyu’s operations, plus there’s the extra income. Story and photos by Karen Trebilcock.
New Zealand dairy farmers are increasingly becoming part of a high-end beef trade.
NZ Wagyu contracts will see 28,000 Wagyu-Friesian cross calves born this spring, doubling the number of the company’s cattle in the country.
Barn-raised after 18 months on grass, the end product is marketed as Black Origin Wagyu and goes not only to Japan where Wagyu is a prized meat but China, SouthEast Asia and the Middle East.
It’s also on the menu at some of the best NZ restaurants.
Southland dairy farmer Scotty Cochrane, NZ Wagyu’s head of production, says the aim is to lower the number of bobby calves and to increase the payments the country gets for its beef exports.
“There is a place for everything – highend, quality beef plus commercial beef run on hill country but at the moment we can’t fill demand.
“We’re producing a high quality meat that everyone can enjoy and as well the animal has had an extended life, and a good quality of life.”
Scotty has been in and around the dairy industry for 20 years and with his wife Jeannie and her parents in 2014 bought a dairy farm in Eastern Bush, Western Southland, milking 320 cows, as well as running an 800-hectare dry stock farm near Tuatapere, 18km away.
This is their first season running the Oreti Plains family farm, the third generation on it. It also marks a century of the family ownership.
The dry stock farm was run as dairy support and traded beef cattle and lambs, and it was through it Scotty was approached by NZ Wagyu director Arato Tsujino from Kobe, Japan.
Intrigued by their fair-trade values, Scotty could see working with NZ Wagyu was going to align well with his personal values.
They started by grazing 100 Wagyu cattle and now there are 2000 there, including a pure-bred breeding herd, and Scotty spends more time off farm than on it as the company’s head of production.
“It’s a very enjoyable change of pace. I’m talking to farmers all around the country and looking after NZ Wagyu farms in Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury and in Southland.
“It gets me up each morning.”
NZ Wagyu is in control every step of the beef production.
Dairy farmers use NZ Wagyu semen in their F12 or better cows and last spring were paid $180 for a five-to-10 day old Wagyu cross calf and $530 for a 100kg weaned calf plus $2/kg liveweight over 100kg, whether they were heifers or bulls.
Costs for debudding, castration and vaccination were covered by NZ Wagyu with payment 14 days after pickup on invoice. Further contracts are available for farmers rearing the weaned calves to 400kg and 520kg liveweight when the animals go into barns and are grain fed.
NZ Wagyu differs from First Light Wagyu as it only wants calves from F12 or better dairy cows and while First Light beef is grass-fed, NZ Wagyu finishes its cattle on grain.
“We’re providing a way for dairy farmers to stop having bobby calves. We’re producing high quality beef from what previously farmers may have got $20 for,” Scotty says.
“On our own dairy farm, stock sales have gone from being 11% of income to twice that so for us, changing has not only been
an ethical decision but also a financial one.”
To protect their breed, Japan has imposed a ban on the live export of the cattle and genetic material so NZ Wagyu has imported embryos from the United States and Australia and is focusing on breeding quiet animals that can integrate the hardiness of Friesians.
“We’re also concentrating on shortening their gestation period which is about five to 10 days longer than a typical Friesian.
“They have low birth weights and are known for their ease of calving which is another advantage for the dairy industry.”
On their own 320 dairy cattle, they used sexed semen on the top cows for three weeks with everything else going to Wagyu. Wagyu bulls are used to clean up once AI ends.
Last spring they raised 65 Friesian heifer calves and 230 Wagyu heifers and steers.
Jeannie, as much as their three children, Mac (6), Charlie (5) and Ted (2) allow, assists with calf rearing and says there is no difference in getting the Friesian calves to feed than the Wagyu.
“They’re just as competitive as the
Friesians,” she says. “They all go outside on grass together when we get a good 10day forecast, which can be a bit trying in Southland.”
The couple are careful to make sure all their cows have been vaccinated for Rotavirus and they have a Brix tester at the dairy to make sure the calves get the best colostrum.
“When I started dairying 20 years ago we left the calves on their mums as long as possible so they got enough colostrum,” Scotty says.
“Now we don’t leave it up to chance. We’ll pick up calves up to five times a day, depending on the weather and how many calves are getting born, and we make sure every calf gets two feeds of two litres of the highest quality colostrum we’ve got.
“We’re careful how we store it and the high quality colostrum is in its own vat with a stirrer.”
Calves that refuse to suck are tube-fed for a maximum of two feeds but after that Jeannie says if they don’t suck for the next feed they’re given a few hours before trying again.
“That’s how we get a bullet-proof
animal,” Scotty says. “Two feeds of the best colostrum.”
They’ve also found focusing on feeding from weaning to the first winter when they go on brassicas in Southland sets the animals up well.
“They’re getting up to 2kg of grain a day plus as much grass as they can eat at the moment. If the grass isn’t there they’re getting balage as well.
“Post weaning I think is really key to growing a good animal and if we look after them well then the following year, when they’re 18 months, they’ll be up to 520kg and ready for barn entry.”
When other breeds of beef will be sent to the works, NZ Wagyu animals go into barns where they are fed solely on a grain and mineral mix that Scotty says is as secret as the Colonel’s blend of 11 herbs and spices.
“It’s all New Zealand-grown – we’re not importing feed but I’m not saying anything more than that.
“The grain and precise management of
using different mixes at different stages, as well as how happy you can make the cattle, gives the meat the Wagyu flavour, scent and marbling.
“And we make sure they have the best water. That’s really important too.”
Their stay in the barns is between 200 and 420 days. Although raising cattle in barns has not been the NZ way, Scotty is ready for the criticism.
“At the age other beef cattle are getting killed, ours are going into comfortable barns to be fed their favourite grain. There is no stress. They’re not getting cold and they’re not out in the rain or the sun.
“Instead they get daily interaction such as pats and scratches, which makes the Wagyu feel safe and happy.
“We’re learning how Japanese traditionally treat animals with respect and care. Simply, we’re trying to provide an equally comfortable life to that of a human being. It’s an eye-opening experience.
“It’s a change of mindset. It’s a different concept for Kiwis for raising beef.”
The barns are well ventilated with composting floors and no stalls. Animals are in groups of 80 to 100 and kept in age groups. Each animal has eight square metres or more.
“The composting barns are really warm – it’s like having an electric blanket under
their feet. And there’s no smell and the cattle are clean. In a normal barn, or even out in the paddock there is always muck on their coats. It doesn’t happen in a composting barn.”
NZ Wagyu uses Vetlife throughout the country and plans are in place for each animal to have its own health passport tracked from birth to plate.
With barns already in Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury, the first one is being built in Southland at Scotty and Jeannie’s family farm on the Oreti Plains.
“It’s 8000 sqare metres and we’re going to add a few extras to it if we can. I really want to capture the methane so we can use the energy from it.
“It’s also going to be automated for feed, water and temperature control.”
And the regional council so far has given it the thumbs up.
And yes, Scotty and Jeannie do have a freezer with Wagyu beef in it.
“We probably don’t eat as much beef now but it’s better quality beef. And it’s healthier.
“It’s hard to go back once you’ve tried Wagyu.”
• For farmers interested in using NZ Wagyu semen, or for grazing contracts, email contact@blackorigin.co.nz
a high quality meat that everyone can enjoy and as well the animal has had an extended life, and a good quality of life.’Topped up on balage with the summer dry, these 18-month Wagyu are almost ready to go into a barn for grain feeding.
Severe mastitis cases are frequently a topic of discussion among farmers and veterinarians, but it is apparent that there are a lot of people who don’t know the difference between black mastitis and acute toxic mastitis. There are similarities between how to approach the treatment of these two types of severe mastitis however the outcomes can be quite different, so it is worth being able to differentiate between them.
• Black Mastitis is caused by a severe Staph aureus infection
• Acute Toxic Mastitis is caused by a severe E. coli infection.
The names don’t matter much early in the disease process - both types of mastitis will affect the cow in the same way when she first gets sick.
Initially you will find a sick cow in the herd. She will show up as slow or sluggish at shifting. I would describe them as being ‘off’ in the eye, and they will often have drooping ears too. If you find a cow like this it is essential to get her in for examination then and there – doing so may just save her life.
When doing a basic onfarm assessment of a cow that is sick from mastitis, often they will have a fever over 40C – have a thermometer available onfarm to do this simple check.
Dehydration is common to both black mastitis and acute toxic mastitis, but it will be more severe and prolonged in acute toxic mastitis cows.
Palpate the udder for hard and/or swollen quarters and strip them to identify clots or watery milk. If you are really good at picking out sick cows and find her early enough, the milk may not yet have gross visible changes, but you can use an RMT paddle to confirm if a suspect quarter is inflamed. During your examination, don’t forget to collect a milk sample from the affected quarter. Knowing the causative bacteria means you can refine the treatment to suit the individual, and it helps with deciding on her chances of recovery. I would always recommend taking a milk sample from a cow that is sick from mastitis for this reason.
When treating these cows, either case needs:
1. Anti-inflammatories on board as soon as possible.
Fluid therapy – at least 30 to 40L of fluids using a stomach pump, with added electrolytes.
Antibiotics - as the cow is sick and you don’t know what the bacteria is for about 24 hours, giving antibiotics in the early stages of disease is essential. There are a number of suitable antibiotics – your vet will advise you on which one they think is best.
Following the first 24 hours of treatment, black mastitis and acute toxic mastitis begin to separate in their ongoing effect on the cow.
With black mastitis the blood supply to the quarter is damaged and the skin over the quarter and the teat will go cold to the touch – if this happens, it is almost guaranteed she will lose the affected quarter. If left to their own devices, over a period of about three weeks the quarter will abscess, burst open and fall off. Rather than allowing this to happen, the welfare of the cow should be considered. Many vets are now recommending euthanasia – it is a long, painful and debilitating process for the cow to go through simply to try and salvage her for the works.
Once E.coli is out of the cow’s system they can recover, however, the care given in the first few days while she is really sick makes all the difference to whether she survives or not.
E.coli cases need ongoing fluid therapy and anti-inflammatories for a few days in order to recover – in some cases I have cared for I have given 50 litres of fluid two or three times per day for three days. The infected quarter may be damaged and end up being a light quarter for the rest of the season, but not always. Affected quarters often recover full production in the following season.
• Lisa Whitfield, is a Manawatu production animal veterinarian.
A retired Taranaki vet has turned his focus to lameness among cows. By Delwyn Dickey.
Be kind to your cows – it’s the cheapest and easiest way to prevent lameness in your dairy herd, says lameness expert Neil Chesterton.
The Taranaki vet, now retired from general practice, and fully focused on his training business Vet Education Transfer Services, has made a name for himself here and overseas. Over the years he has not only treated the various types of lameness but also figured out what’s causing them. He can recommend changes to tracks and milking sheds, along with onfarm animal management, in efforts to reduce or prevent it recurring. Tracking down the cause of lameness in a dairy herd is often like being a detective, he says. His best tools for the job are understanding both dairy cow behaviour and farmer behaviour.
There are four types of lameness and the cause of the most common –whiteline lameness - is usually the result of putting pressure on cows to move faster along tracks than they would naturally, and their moving and turning quickly in the milking shed which is usually a sign they’re anxious or afraid, he says.
Hooves slipping on surfaces like the track or on concrete can see the separation of the nail - the wall on the side of the hoof – to the sole, at the back.
Cows’ heads will be down when they are calm, watching where they’re going and where to put their front feet – the back feet moving into the same spot. An anxious or frightened cow will have her head high and not be watching her feet, Neil says.
Cattle have a healthy respect for electric fences. Aside from milkers being impatient or lashing out in frustration at the cows, one of the issues in the yards and shed on the big farms in the south can be top gates. When lowered, chains hanging down carry low voltage electricity giving the cows a mild shock to hurry them along.
Most farmers only put electricity through the top gate at the beginning of the season so the cows learn to move away from it, keeping animal flow steady. But some farmers turn on the power once a month which keeps the cows in a heightened state of anxiety all season, and sees them moving away from them quickly for months, putting pressure on their feet.
Neil recalls one Northland farm with a lot of whiteline disease which
he initially couldn’t find the cause of. The tracks were excellent, everything else looked really good.
But when he stayed for milking - he was shocked. All of the cows’ heads were up.
“While the farmer couldn’t see while he was milking, the whole herd surged forward whenever he moved his backing gate.”
The gate was motorised but wasn’t set up for a low voltage. Looking closer Neil spotted a stray electrical wire to the motor was touching the gate, making it live. When the motor was turned on the cows were getting a real belt of electricity from the gate.
“He had good flow because the cows at the back were getting electric shocks.”
But getting to the bottom of shed problems isn’t always easy. If Neil’s not sure the shed behaviour of the milkers is ‘usual’ as he’s watching them, he’s been known to come back, unannounced, to see what a ‘normal’ milking actually looks like.
Neil recommends all farmers keep records of their lameness. Some action on the farm may also be leading to the lameness, but you may not connect the two without records, he says.
The second most common injury is footrot and often seen in wet weather.
This is caused by stones getting jammed up between the claws of the hoof, the wet
soil keeping it there with rubbing breaking the skin, which then gets infected. Visible swelling above the hoof is commonly seen from this.
The wet weather sees the surface of the paddock (or track) getting soft and the cows’ hooves go through it into any underlying stones. Neil looks for where new stones have just been laid, usually at gate entrances or around water troughs especially in the north where there is a lot of clay.
Warm northern weather sees minerals washing off rocks more readily and over eons has led to a lot of fine clay in the Northland region.
This sees northern paddocks and tracks often a mix of clay and stone. And, while a dry clay track is very easy on a cow’s feet, once it rains the clay turns to mud and the cows feet sink into the stones.
Rain also washes the clay away at the edges of the track exposing the stones that cows will walk through if under pressure.
To counter this, farmers often also use smaller-sized good quality lime rock on the race. Rolling it in sees the finer lime locking the bigger stones in place.
Neil recommends using GAP 6 lime for
this where the biggest chunks are 6mm wide.
Lameness tends to show up three days after the stone injury.
“You can track back to which paddock the animals were in and if there was anything new going on in that paddock.”
One lot of footrot recently came from the farmer putting new stone down around his troughs in five paddocks with the stones being just 1.5cm across.
The stones were jamming up between the cow’s claws.
“He was doing the right thing but with the wrong material,” Neil says.
With spring calving herds and the end of mating, cows can have a tough time of it, with most lameness showing up before Christmas.
The cows are riding on each other, or the bulls may be in the paddock with the cows putting pressure on them, or holding them up from getting to milking on time so then pressure comes on the cows from the farmer to walk faster to make up time. Neil recommends separating the bulls before milking and putting them in the paddock the cows will be going into after milking to stop pressure on the track and in the cowshed.
Whatever the terrain, if cows are allowed to walk at their own pace they will naturally look after their own feet, Neil advises.
But good camber on the track is
important, he says. Too high in the middle and the cow is always walking on an angle. Put pressure on them to walk faster and their hooves start slipping or they’re forced down into stones.
A typical Northland track will be 4m wide. The fall on the track shouldn’t be more than 16cm from the middle of the track to the edge or 8cm per metre, with less being better.
Neil recommends lime on all the tracks although if that’s not financially possible for a young farmer starting out he suggests liming before the points where the track meets concrete like the yard or concrete bridges on the track, and lime more of the tracks each year.
Stones on the cow’s hooves from the track, fall on to the concrete with cows coming behind standing on them and causing sole injuries – the most painful injury. Walking in the lime should see the stones staying there and not coming off on the concrete.
The axial is between the claws of the hoof. Around half of axial lameness happens a few months after a bout of footrot when an animal goes lame again on the same foot, advises Neil.
The hole in the skin that caused the footrot infection may also damage the claw
at the top which then moves down as the claw grows. When it gets down to the sole of the foot the extra pressure on that claw can crack them making it uncomfortable to stand on.
The other axial problems are on cows with poorly shaped claws – long or curly toes.
If a cow has issues with an axial crack, and she’s an otherwise good producer Neil will recommend to the farmer that he amputate the claw rather than thinking about having her culled. The cow can manage with one claw gone.
Neil recalls one canny Taranaki farmer who would turn up early to clearing sales and look for these cows, and make very low offers – “to take them off the seller’s hands” - ending up with 12 of them in his herd.
His reasoning was this took some of the guesswork out of buying new cows. They were all good producers, always got in calf and had low somatic cell counts. They had to have been good animals for their owners to go to the trouble of amputating claws in the first place – and he got them for a song.
While covid has put a temporary end to overseas travel, a refund for a cancelled booking to the United States to run some training events is unlikely, Neil has been kept busy running training days here, showing groups of farmers how being kinder to their cows can help their bottom line.
A move to robotic milking has spearheaded the reinvigoration of the FAHS Feilding High school farms, growing the participation in the agriculture programme and getting back to profitability for the second 100 years of the agriculture and horticulture programme. Jackie Harrigan met the young manager putting her stamp on the programme. Photos by Brad Hanson.
When Mary Bartlett took on the role of Farm Manager at the Feilding High School farms almost three years ago, she gave principal Nathan Stewart a promise of five years in the job and thought that would give her time to figure out what aspect of the job she loved the best to inform where to take her career next.
“There are three really different aspects to the job - a small dairy herd milking through a robotic milker, a small breeding flock of ewes and larger trading lamb enterprise along with dairy beef finishing on the sheep farm and wrangling four students four days a week on ‘farm duty’ and facilitating the wider curriculum needs of over the half the school that are involved in the agri/hort faculty programmes.”
“I thought it would be easy to figure which aspect I loved bestthe kids, - the dairy farm Ngakaunui, or Manawanui the sheep farm - or could I go into a wider industry role - but I haven’t been able to choose between them all yet because I enjoy them all!”
Coming from working through the previous three (dry) seasons on an extensive Western Australian beef station, a 26-hour drive from Perth, 3 million acres of red dirt and 25,000 Droughtmaster
cows, was a huge change. But Mary is a Feilding High old girl, (although only 25 years old), she went through the farm duty system back in her day and comes from a local dairy farming family - so coming back to school was an easy transition and she is grateful for all the help and support she has received from the community and her family.
Mary laughs that she has lots of ‘farm dads’.
“My Dad helps me out on the dairy farm, along with Lindsay Rowe the farm adviser,
Juan the vet and Dave Reay from DeLaval - who is the robot Dad, and Darrin Holm from Carrfields sources replacement cows…
“And then I have another set of Dads for the sheep business - Duncan Thomas from H&T is the agronomist for the lamb trading operation, Cam Waugh the Carrfield stock agent picks and organises the finished lambs and Mike Osborne helps me organise the breeding programme.
“They are all so helpful - I can ring them up and ask them anything - they are all happy to help and have put hours of time
into volunteering their services.”
Six years ago the school farms were functioning but losing ground in the efficiency, best practice and profitability stakes and talk at one stage even came to selling them off and buying a bigger unit, school principal Nathan Stewart says.
“Thankfully there was no appetite for that, because the farms really help define who we are as a school. They are so handy to the classrooms (the dairy farm is literally across the rugby fields and over the back fence) allowing them to be used extensively by teachers all across the curriculum.
“Half the school students (of the now 1600-pupil student body) are involved in the ag and hort programme, including the 180 boarders who largely come from farming families - but we realised that some extensive upgrades needed to be made to expose our students to the latest best practice and technology revolution that agriculture was undergoing.”
The upgrade programme, that Leon Dale, the executive manager refers to as the ‘50-year infrastructure catchup’ was accompanied by an aggressive depreciation schedule that has seen the operation achieve a $24,000 cash surplus in the 2021 year - and Leon dreams of when the book profit happens after 10 years of depreciation.
“We have been so lucky to have had the support of community and sponsors - it's been a whole-community effort.”
The first tranche was the purchase and installation of a De Laval VMS (Voluntary Milking System) robotic milker in 2018, with a move to year-round milking, and accompanied feeding of pellet supplement alongside homegrown supplement of grass balage and chicory cropping within a grass renewal programme.
The 16-hectare dairy farm was partially refenced with new lanes and subdivision allowing easy implementation of the A/B/C rotational grazing programme that sees the cows trafficking themselves through the robot or yard up to three times a day on their way to a new break.
Despite early worries that students would no longer learn the art of cupping a cow, Mary says no one has ever complained, as the ‘digital native’ students have embraced the technology of robotic
and
understanding the data collected.
The time freed up from twice-a-day milking also gives her time to teach the farm duty kids other skills, like shifting fences and effluent irrigation, learning the basics of pasture management and feeding out supplementalong with the thrill of learning to drive the new tractor or the satisfaction of being trained on safe use of quad bikes.
“I tell the kids that if they really want to learn the art of cupping I can find them heaps of local farmers to teach them to do it - but that that’s the boring bit - it's much more fun feeding calves and doing other jobs,” she said.
Mary says she loves spending time with the students, teaching them things and exposing them to agriculture - even if jobs take a lot longer with a couple of kids in tow.
“I wouldn’t be able to do this job without the robot,” she says. “It just gives me so much more time to fit in jobs and to take the kids up to Manawanui and do jobs up there - as well as trips off-farm to field days, and the odd trip to Farmlands!”
Visits to Farmlands are usually worked in around lunchtime and necessitate driving past Feilding’s best pie shop (Mary still laughs at the parents who thanked her for introducing their farm duty offspring to the Beresford Bakery, saying that it’s now their family favourite!).
Hand in hand with the robot, retrofitted into the old herringbone dairy shed and yard reconfigure was building the Fonterra Seminar Room (with a grant from the Fonterra Grass Roots fund), a new effluent sump and pump, upgraded implement shed, new calf rearing shed and last year a 180-square-metre covered feed pad made from two pole sheds.
While it has been a big investment, the 50-year catchup has the farm now looking tidy and modern, with an emphasis on efficiency and productive cow flow.
“We can protect our clay soils while milking through a wet winter and follow latest animal welfare best practice - and importantly we are operating profitably,” the principal says.
Feeding pelletised feed as an enticement for the cows to come into the robot and improved pasture management has lifted per cow production from around 275kg milksolids (MS)/cow and 16,000kg MS to 480kg MS/cow and 24,000kg MS for the season.
The target is consistently 25,000kg MS, but on a small unit the production can be very weather dependent with a dry summer hammering pastures and pushing up the cost of balage.
The feed pad has worked well to
minimise pugging and control cow intake while reducing wastage. Mary is talking to advisers about looking at using maize silage rather than balage.
One of the changes to the farm strategy was to buy in replacement cows and have a simple policy of using Hereford bulls over all cows and carrying the progeny on to finishing on Manawanui farm.
“It's been a great policy change to move away from bobby calves, but the genetics of the replacement cows is really important for us to keep improving the efficiency of the cows. We are reliant on sourcing good cows when we need them, and also cows that are quiet enough to train easily to the robot,” Mary says.
“We budget for up to 15 new cows e ach season, but last season we only bought 10. We usually try to source second-calvers so they are quiet and used to a milking routine, although they still need to be trained for the robot. They also need to have great, uniform udders and good genetics… luckily we have a great stock
“‘I TELL THE KIDS THAT IF THEY REALLY WANT TO LEARN THE ART OF CUPPING I CAN FIND THEM HEAPS OF LOCAL FARMERS TO TEACH THEM TO DO IT - BUT THAT THAT’S THE BORING BIT - IT’S MUCH MORE FUN FEEDING CALVES AND DOING OTHER JOBS.”
agent and a really supportive community of farmers who are happy to sell us great cows.”
The 81ha sheep farm is rolling country on clay soils on the edge of Feilding in the past running a 300-ewe flock and the dairy youngstock. But a radical overhaul cutting the size of the ewe flock and introducing cropping forages has made room for a lamb finishing enterprise while also carrying and finishing dairy beef stock.
The Romney ewes are mated to blackfaced Suffolk and white-faced Polled Dorset rams, lambing at 160% and providing great trial fodder for students to track the growth and finishing rates of black-faced vs whitefaced lambs through the chicory, plantain and clover mix pastures using the EID weighing platform. A further 3000 lambs were traded in the last calendar year.
“The ag teachers love getting the students out on the farms to tie hands-on learning into their classroom learning. They are always coming up with trials we can run and activities the students can get involved in - and we try to accommodate them all,” Mary says.
“We have a pretty playful attitude to getting the students involved and are always looking for ways to make agriculture more of a centrepiece in the school.”
Principal Stewart says the 180 boarding students are very involved in the farm, many coming from rural backgrounds, and a number visit and help out on the farm after school.
The De Laval relationship includes training four students each year in the workings of the robotic milker and there is room for a senior student to do the training and go on to be a paid intern at the farm, providing holiday and weekend cover for the farm manager.
Ex-pupil Scott Harrigan was employed part-time for weekend work during his senior year and now works weekends and holidays and manages the dry cows while studying at Massey University for a B Agri Commerce degree.
“It's a great stepping stone to a career in the sector,” Stewart says. “And the farms and our close industry relationships have the effect of opening the farm gate to the town kids at the school to consider those industry opportunities too.”
Manawanui Meats: Branded Manawanui lamb cuts are about to be launched, selling at Feilding Farmers’ market or to staff and school families. Beef may follow.
Ngakaunui Honey: 250g pottles of honey sold out quickly, processed and marketed by Year 12 Gateway students who harvested 23kg of honey from the two school hives.
Beeswax candles: Made from wax from beehives
Kawakawa balm: Made by Enterprise students
Sheep manure: Bagged and sold from under the Manawanui woolshed at the Feilding Farmers markets by Enterprise students
Forestry programme: 12ha of production forestry pines are planted ranging from two to 25 years, silviculture covered in the curriculum and sponsored by JTL Forestry company.
Shearing schools: The Manawanui ewes and lambs are used for three annual shearing courses, two junior level and one advanced course for students interested in learning/ developing their skills.
Maori medicinal plants: Looking into developing an area of planting alongside the farm.
Wetlands and farm beautification: With a boarding hostel full of willing workers, fences have been erected and trees planted around dams on the sheep farm and along races with support from Horizons Regional Council. One dam has been developed into a canoe polo court practice area for the school’s canoe polo teams.
School cross country events: School and inter school events are run around the farm.
Kellogg programme: Mary has been working her way through the Kellogg study programmeenjoying her wider exposure to the agri industry and drilling down on to the wool industry and appreciating building her confidence and knowledge of the sector.
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Dr Paul Wood has studied change and the challenge of change - it’s his area of study in psychology - along with growth and development, which he says is finding the path to grow into the best version of yourself possible with a meaningful life.
“Its about how to stay on the path to being the best person you can be when in times of great change.”
Not only has he studied it, he has lived it, changing his whole mindset and life from being an angry and violent young man doing time in prison for being involved in a murder.
He grew up with drugs, alcohol, gangs and violence believing that the level of violence was the measure of the man.
Losing his mum and trying to deal with his emotions drove him to more alcohol and drugs and violence - the way he dealt with many situations, and he ended up in prison for 10 years and 10 months.
Wood told farmers on the Federated Farmers webinar series on wellbeing and resilience, that the way he dealt with prison life contributed to extending his prison experience, he eventually changed his life, came off the drugs, educated himself and came out with university qualifications.
One of the key mindsets to allow him to change so radically was he eventually saw all the challenges as something to be overcome rather than a negative thing happening to him.
“We dislike change because in times of change there is uncertainty and we have evolved as a species to want predictability because predictability means safety.”
Spending a year over the term of his confinement in solitary was meant as a punishment to break his spirit, but instead he took it as a challenge - “come at me! Whatever you’ve got - I am up for the challenge - you are not going to break my spirit”.
“That mindset makes a massive difference neurologically to the ability to cope with challenge and change.”
When you choose to think of something as a challenge that you are up for, dopamine is released in your brain and counters the balance of the adrenaline in the brain and gives you more ability to carry on,Wood said.
“We are all capable of massive transformation and growth, but we need help navigating uncharted terrain and finding the most meaningful life possible.”
The point of this is to help you find your way back to being present if you find yourself wandering off.
Wood says when people are interacting with each other we need to feel seen and valued - it’s a fundamental need.
“Being present with other people makes them feel valued - it’s money in the relationship bank and that means you are in credit when you do need to engage with that person and lean on them.”
Are you open to the world? By this he means are you curious enough to stop and listen and think about something from a different perspective? To take on different views? And the big one - am I prepared to change my mind?
Wood says we need courage to engage with others and be vulnerable to them - by talking about where we are at and listening and being open to changing our minds.
“In the world I grew up in I thought courage was never backing down from physical confrontation and being prepared to take massive physical risks and not show any fear.”
Now he says he understands the hardest type of courage is social courage, to be more real and open to each other.
“The more you exercise that muscle of opening up to others - the easier it gets.”
Think about what is important to you and what is in your control - and what you can do to change your life if you are not doing what you think matters?
“Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you.”
If you need to make changes, Wood says the goal is to be getting better - not necessarily nailing it all the time.
“I look at the daily fails and think, how I can make tomorrow be a little bit better than today?”
Try to make tomorrow’s version of you a bit better than today’s version.”
Wood also offered a life hack that he says is a gold nugget to help navigate the inevitable struggles in life.
This cuts through the self deception and noise and helps you concentrate on the big stuff.
“If you want to win in all areas of your life that are meaningful, to cope with the stress and pressure of work, and stop the procrastination, you need to think ‘What’s Important Now?’ and to do that.”
“Life is change, and growth is optional.”
Change is hard because of uncertainty, but if you see it as a challenge to be embraced, your brain will respond by giving you more of what you need to be effective and to flourish through adversity rather than just having to deal with it.
Watch more:
YouTube: Federated Farmers of New Zealand Search: Speaker Series EP 2: Dr
Enhancing soil health and boosting its existing communities of beneficial organisms is one way pastoral farmers can attempt to counter the adverse impacts of soil-borne plant pathogens, AgResearch scientist Bryony Dignam says.
Bryony is one of nine scientists who late last year released the findings of their research in the AgResearch report; “Impacts of soil-borne disease on plant yield and farm profit in dairying soils”.
“Our results suggest that root pathogens on New Zealand dairy farms are most prevalent and damaging in the Waikato region where economic modelling estimated clover and ryegrass root disease to cost 211kg milksolids (MS) per hectare per year in milk production, and $909 per hectare per year in farm profitability. Given the scale of these costs, targeted management of soil-borne disease could present an economically viable approach to improving the resilience of these multiplant multi-pathogen ecosystems,” the report says.
Bryony and fellow researcher Nigel Bell, Science team leader · AgResearch, say further research is needed into the role of
By Elaine Fisher.
beneficials and how they are managed. There are few chemical options for controlling soil pathogens. Pasture management and working with the soil’s communities of beneficials might be the best solution.
In fact, the management of soil microbial communities and the role they play in disease suppression and potentially helping reduce constraints on clover and ryegrass pastures is the subject of Bryony’s postdoctoral research, commissioned by Agricultural and Marketing Research and Development Trust, (AGMARDT).
“Introducing beneficial micro-organisms into the soil is not easy. They would need to compete with existing communities to be able to establish and do the job we want them to do. Finding ways to boost existing beneficial communities and promote their positive activity may be part of the answer,” Bryony says.
The report’s authors believe future research should explore the quantification of key forage root pathogens using molecular based techniques. Nigel says this methodology has been successfully developed for predicting soil-borne disease risk in arable cropping systems in Australia.
“Next-generation DNA sequencing is allowing us to sequence, in theory, just about everything in the soil. That means we can see entire soil communities and so see the bigger picture of the interactions between pathogens and beneficials.”
Although the technology is expensive and developing it for use on mixed sward pastures is complex, Nigel says in future it may be possible to create a test for organic biomarkers which would enable farmers to not only test for NPK nutrient levels but also for the biological health of their soils.
The latest research was partly prompted by a recognition that while the economic impacts of soil-borne diseases on potential yield have been studied extensively in arable cropping systems, that information was lacking for agricultural grasslands in New Zealand and elsewhere. Bryony says
changes in land use, intensification, the doubling of the national dairy herd and the increased value of pasture production in the past 25 years in New Zealand meant further scientific investigation into the resilience of highly productive pasture plant species was required.
The research report says soil-borne plant pathogens are known to form diverse and dynamic pathogen complexes under pasture, hindering both pasture establishment and persistence. In NZ, surveys have identified a range of ‘generalist’ and ‘specialist’ nematode, fungal and oomycete pathogens as being present and damaging in pasture systems.
Identifying exactly what pasture issues are caused by soil-borne plant pathogens is not easy, Bryony says. That’s partly because the damage is going on, out of sight, underground. Complex interactions with other factors, such as climatic conditions and pest damage, often disguise the impact of soil pathogens on pasture performance.
“Although direct production losses attributable to soil-borne diseases are difficult to quantify, the consensus of early studies from New Zealand estimate production losses to be between 40% and 50%,” the report says.
“As the pastoral sector has undergone increasing intensification, associated changes in soil fertility, botanical composition and livestock grazing from this process has led to new abiotic and biotic environments within which additional soil-borne disease pressure may develop over the life of a modern pasture. As such, increasing concern regarding the impact of soil-borne diseases on pasture growth and persistence is driving industryled calls for increased investment in this area of research.”
An earlier AgResearch-led study highlighted the importance of defining
an economic ‘baseline of soil biological constraints’ to pasture productivity to provide a foundation from which appropriate decisions regarding soil-borne disease control can be made.
The aim of the study was to determine the extent of soil biological constraints to the growth of three common pasture species (ryegrass, white clover and plantain) from three regions in NZ (Waikato, Canterbury and Southland).
The report estimated the economic costs of soil disease to pasture production on dairy farms for regions in which disease pressure (i.e., % increase in plant growth in pasteurised soils compared to original soils) was significant. To identify putative root pathogens, nematode groups were extracted from soil and microbial plant pathogens isolated from diseased plant roots. Relationships between region, environmental, soil physicochemical and biological properties and disease pressure were then investigated.
The study surveyed the soil-borne plant disease pressure of 30 farm sites across the three main dairy regions. Of these regions, Waikato had the most consistent and prevalent soil-borne disease pressure, where regional average disease pressure is estimated to limit white clover and ryegrass drymatter production in dairy soils by 35% and 19%, respectively.
At individual farm sites, disease pressure identified in the study showed that limits on white clover and ryegrass production could be as much as 74% and 38% respectively.
The differences found between the impacts of soil-borne plant pathogens between the Canterbury and Waikato farms in the study may be due to geographic location and climate with colder winters in Canterbury possibly reducing pathogen numbers. However,
Bryony says some individual properties in Canterbury recorded populations not dissimilar to those on Waikato farms.
“The fact that the Waikato has been a dairying region for longer than Canterbury, giving soil plant pathogen communities a chance to become well established, may also be a factor.”
Nigel and Bryony hope the research may help farmers gain greater understanding of the impacts soil borne plant pathogens may be having on their pasture and so production. “We welcome contact from farmers who want more information,” Bryony says.
The full report can be found at: https:// onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ sae2.12009#.YbpkE8QPS2g
‘Targeted management of soil-borne disease could present an economically viable approach to improving the resilience of these multi-plant multi-pathogen ecosystems.’Top: The effects of soil borne pathogens on ryegrass roots. Above: Clover grown in pasteurised soil on the left alongside that grown in soil containing plant pathogens.
Farmers needing short term help on the farm will often cover a role with casual staff. But it’s got to be done right. By Karen Trebilcock.
Whether it’s for helping to rear calves, relief milking or letting a full-time staff member have a few days off, employing casual staff should always be done the same as employing anyone else – the right way.
Long gone are the days of a spouse or teenage son or daughter of someone on the payroll helping out when they can and being slipped a few dollars in return.
But it is these people, plus the retiree looking for an interest, a student needing some extra dollars, or the person who lives down the road that can fill the employment gaps on farms until things
return to normal, if they ever will.
Casual employment differs from permanent employment and both the employer and the employee needs to understand the difference.
A casual employee has no expectation of regular work at a set time.
The employer knows the employee can say no to any work offered.
Employing calf rearers, and relief milkers may better suit a fixed-term employment agreement.
These have an end date and set hours that the employee agrees to.
The employment agreement should state the reason for the fixed term and when the
fixed term employment will end and why.
Fixed term employment works well for calf rearers, to cover staff on maternity or ACC leave, or when a permanent employee has left before the end of the season and you don’t want to recruit a new person until the next.
Employers have to be careful that casual employment doesn’t become part time work without a change in the employment contract.
If the employee has regular guaranteed work hours, a regular work pattern, or an ongoing expectation of work then they are not casual staff.
So if your mate milks every Sunday
evening for you during the season then he is a permanent, or fixed term (until the end of the season), worker and not a casual.
However, if he wants the opportunity to say no every now and then to the Sunday milking, not for sickness, then he is still a casual.
Confusing? It’s probably why it fills up our employment courts. If a casual employee believes they should be on a permanent contract and takes out a personal grievance against you it could cost you thousands.
The best thing is to discuss with the person what both of your expectations are and have it in writing in an employment contract and signed.
But why does it matter whether someone is casual or permanent?
Two reasons – holiday pay and the ability to dismiss them.
Because casual workers don’t work set hours, it is difficult to give them holidays so instead you and they can decide to add 8% to their pay instead. However, there may be changes to this coming in the Holidays Act so keep up to speed on them.
Also, you don’t have to pay casual staff KiwiSaver but check that one with your accountant or lawyer. If they’re working
for more than three months for you, especially if it is on a daily basis, then you probably should be paying KiwiSaver.
Sick leave, bereavement leave and other types of leave might have to be paid to casual staff depending on the number of hours they work each week – again check with your accountant or lawyer.
Dismissing a casual worker is easy – just tell them there is no longer work for them.
As each time a casual employee accepts the offer to work, it’s considered a new period of employment, it’s actually not a formal dismissal if you don’t offer them more work.
However, if an employer sends a casual worker home, say, in the middle of milking and does not pay them for the full milking, when the expectation was that they were to be there, this could mean that they were dismissed. So be careful.
If your casual employee is on a roster, has regular hours, feels they can’t refuse to work for you if you ask them, been employed for longer than six months, and has the expectation of future work from you then they probably are not a casual and should be on a permanent contract.
Even if you are employing kids as casuals you still have to abide by all the rules. You just don’t have to pay the minimum wage
for those under 16, although you probably should, especially if they are doing the same work as a 16-year-old would.
Just like for all employees, an employer must keep accurate wage and time records for young staff and if an employee is under 20 their age must also be included in those records as well.
If your employees are under the age of 16, their work hours must be outside of school hours and they must not be between 10pm and 6am so forget them getting the cows in for you for morning milking.
These rules are to make sure, however farm-mad a kid is, that school and exams always come first.
And if you are found out, employers and parents get fined. Don’t be the person who is both!
As well, under 15-year-olds can’t be employed in any area where the work could possibly harm the employee or if the work involves using any machinery.
However, there is a special exception for the agricultural sector which allows young people who are over the age of 12 to use tractors provided they are fully trained or being trained, or they live on the property. There are lots of grey areas here, obviously, so be cautious. Ask the experts.
If your casual employee is on a roster, has regular hours, feels they can’t refuse to work for you if you ask them, been employed for longer than six months, and has the expectation of future work from you then they probably are not a casual and should be on a permanent contract. If your employees are under the age of 16, their work hours mustbe outside of school hours and they must not be between
10pmand 6am so forget them getting the cows in for you for morning milking.
It’s not hard to see why Suzuki Is a market leader in two-wheel farm motorcycles when you consider the durable DR200 Trojan has been a mainstay on many farms for nearly 20 years.
The DR200 has proven to be a tough and reliable two-wheel farm bike, cementing its popular place in the hearts of farmers.
Developed by then Suzuki New Zealand service manager Tom Peck, the DR200 was not only constructed with Kiwi farmers in mind, but was also tested on farms around the rugged Wanganui hillsides and flatlands. Starting with a road legal trail bike, the DR200 project grew to encompass not only engineered features, but also mechanical modifications designed to ensure longevity on the farm.
For example, the four stroke electric start DR200 engine received a special CDI (ignition control) that managed the advance curve to prevent detonation when
heavily loaded. The ignition system also has a lower redline than the road version so that enthusiastic revving of the engine won’t result in immediate damage.
An oil cooler was fitted to assist with keeping engine temperatures down when the motorcycle is operated at low speeds and a change to the gearing meant the Trojan could easily be ridden behind cattle in the race, or up a tricky hillside.
With corrosion a leading cause of early failures on NZ farm motorcycles, quality features such as the stainless steel exhaust header pipe were fitted as part of the development work. With a reliable engine, the chassis and running gear came in for some special attention. A 12 volt, large diameter headlight was considered an absolute must for dairy farmers, along with dual side-stands and reshaped guards to equip the Trojan with the best mud protection on the farm.
Aluminium handlebar guards, along
with a steel headlight protector and engine guards, meant the Trojan could survive the odd knock or drop without damage.
A large rear carrier was developed to safely carry more than the competitors’ bikes, while the seat height has been reduced to be the lowest in its class.
The long seat means riders can shift their weight to safely manage steeper terrain and this, in conjunction with the long aluminium swing-arm, ensures that uphill the Trojan is arguably the most stable in this category.
Combine this with motocross-derived suspension technology and the Trojan is a go-almost-anywhere motorcycle with a great combination of comfort and safety.
All new and existing subscribers to the NZ Dairy Exporter at the end of April this year go in the draw to win a new Suzuki DR200 SE, supplied by Suzuki New Zealand.
If you’re not a subscriber, visit nzfarmlife. co.nz/shop and sign up today!
Simmentals are a meaty, moneymaking part of the Knauf family’s drive for sustainable production. Operations manager Lewis Knauf and his family milk 1800 Friesian and Friesian-cross cows on 430 hectares at Maraekakaho, working off a total platform of 995ha, including a 320ha adjacent support block for crop and drystock.
The property is owned by Ivan and Sue Knauf. Lewis’ brother Carl is livestock manager and together they work alongside 12 other staff. They use Simmental bulls as terminal sires and sell the progeny as 100kg weaners. One of their strengths is record-keeping in the dairy beef operation, comparing the performance of their Simmental bull genetics to their Friesians. They’ve lifted cow numbers to make the most of the extra production capacity and the Simmentals are proving their worth, Lewis says. Every couple of years the Knaufs buy Simmental bulls from the family-linked Kerrah Simmental Stud in Wairoa, keeping
them onfarm for three or four years, and collecting semen off them along the way. The family continues to keep a close eye on the Simmentals’ performance indicators, as recorded in the breed’s Progeny Test results.
The Progeny Test growth data is backed up by what the family see onfarm. The calves are weaned at 100kg “and we’ll get them finished to 100kg 10 days earlier than the Friesian bulls, and that’s with all the same feed. The guys that we sell them to say they keep on growing well, and those guys keep coming back for the progeny.”
They usually earn a sale yard premium of $100 with the Simmentals compared to Friesian bulls or any other beef animals.
The Knaufs calve twice a year, and the Simmentals performed strongly in the last calving round in April last year, where Lewis had them ad-lib feeding milk and hay. He found the Simmental progeny were drinking 50% more milk and putting on a lot more weight.”
The Knaufs also use Friesian bulls “and
every year I’ve sat down to analyse the results, and every year I’ve had higher rates of calving assists and dead calves with Friesian bulls than I’ve had with my Simmentals. And Simmentals came out 5-10kg bigger.”
The family sell about 400 to 500 Friesian bull calves a year and 200 to 300 Simmental-cross, depending on the number of terminal Friesian cows they have at mating. Running a ruler over income sources, Lewis says proportionately the Simmental and Friesian calves contribute a total combined equivalent of $0.50/kg milk solids to the farm’s revenue.
As NZ Dairy Exporter counts down to its centenary in 2025, we look back at the issues of earlier decades. 50 Years Ago – March 1972.
Consolidate and diversify. These are key elements in a $12.25 million dairy manufacturing complex being built at Hawera.
It is a big project with Kiwi Cooperative Dairies Ltd and the Dairy Board combining in developments likely to have far-reaching influence on a rich corner of Taranaki and on New Zealand’s dairy manufacturing industry.
In simple terms, the project is to build a manufacturing complex on a new site 1 1/2 miles southeast of Hawera.
The complex, due to be ready in July, 1973, will give Kiwi Dairies scope to diversify.
The new factory will have the plant to make hard cheeses, butter, milk powders and brine-type cheeses such as Gouda.
The Dairy Board is deeply involved and its interest has enabled Kiwi’s directors to expand and accelerate their original plans to develop the complex in stages.
On his return to New Zealand on March 11 from the butter and cheese quota negotiations in the United Kingdom and from talks with British ministers and senior officials on the pricing clause in the New Zealand protocol to the UKEEC Treaty of Accession, the Dairy Board chairman, Mr F. L. Onion, affirmed his confidence that Britain within the EEC would do all they could to secure the best possible terms for New Zealand dairy products in the future.
“Whether that will be good enough remains to be seen,” he said, “but I found
Ministers and officials sympathetic and understanding in their views.”
“It is almost exactly 10 years since the butter quota system was introduced by the British Government, largely for the protection of the New Zealand dairy industry against dumpers. Throughout that whole period we have had the benefit of annual discussions with British Ministers and officials. Since we are now, it seems, at the end of an era, I must say how greatly we have appreciated their courtesy and consideration,” Mr Onion said.
A system of payment for milk by dairy companies on a fat plus protein basis has been approved in principle by the Dairy Board provided a satisfactory system of testing is introduced by companies.
The Board agreed at its February meeting that implementation of this basis of payment would reduce inequalities among suppliers but it reaffirmed that basically the question was one for companies to decide.
The committee also recommended, as a matter of urgency, that data be collected to assist the Dairy Division in approving testing procedures for use by companies.
Some companies, such as the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company and the Rangitaiki Plains Dairy Company, are already using protein testing equipment on a trial basis but none are paying on a formula that recognises protein content.
Semen from the first two Simmental bulls imported into New Zealand may be
available in August or September. This hope was voiced last month by the man in charge of Wright Stephenson’s semen section, Mr J. T. S. Caulton, when those bulls were released from the company’s animal quarantine station at Ngauranga near Wellington city.
The bulls, born last August and September, are now at the Dairy Board’s AB centre, Newstead, at Hamilton.
Will animal scales become commonplace equipment on many dairy farms with the growing emphasis on cows’ liveweight gain before calving?
The answer lies in the future but there have been suggestions that scales are useful in helping determine cow condition.
Mr J. B. Hutton, head of the nutritions section of the Ruakura Animal Research Station, is among those who say that animal scales can help dairy farmers refine their farm management further. But he adds that scales would be beneficial primarily in circumstances where a farmer had reached an efficient level of farm management and had production of about 400 lb of milkfat to the acre or better.
Scales would certainly be an aid to determine cow condition and also in helping a farmer decide whether he was feeding his cows correctly, he said.
• Thanks to the Hocken Library, Dunedin.
The Government has legislated that agriculture greenhouse gas emissions will be priced by 2025 to meet emission reduction targets.
