Prevent weeds competing with your maize crop with this Nufarm trifecta in one tank mix.
• Primiera® and Latro®WG together deliver outstanding broadleaf and grass weed control with excellent crop safety.
• Latro®WG controls perennial and annual grasses including couch, mercer and summer grasses.
• Bonza Gold® adjuvant improves the deposition, wetting, spreading and uptake of Primiera® or Latro®WG.
Having steps instead of a sloped surface drastically reduces slipping when the ramp is wet or mucky. Te Pari Stepped Loading Ramps have sheeted sides for animal safety and a catwalk with handrail ensures operator safety.
The Te Pari Hoof Handler has superb facilities for hoof paring whilst giving excellent access to all other areas of the cow for vet work and general handling.
• Easy to use overhead winch for back legs & belly support
• Multiple removeable side gates for full body access
• Reliable headbail with a lifetime warranty on locking mechanism
Cover
YOUNG COUNTRY
70 Tangaroa and the Hub
80 Free-range chickens - Keeping it local
RESEARCH WRAP
82 Southland Dairy Hub - Where were the farmers?
82 Answering questions on milk
WELLBEING
84 Harriet Bremner has a chat with Farmstrong’s Gerard Vaughan
DAIRY 101
86 Biosecurity - Keeping vigilant at the borders
SOLUTIONS
88 Managing FE, it’s not just about zinc
89 Practical loader tractors
OUR STORY
90 50 years ago in the NZ Dairy Exporter
November 15-17 – The NZ Grassland Association’s annual conference is being held in Invercargill. For more details go to www.grassland.org.nz
November 17 – A SMASH field day in Northland focuses on hitting your heifer targets. Graziers, local vets and LIC will explore factors that go into producing well-grown heifers. The field day will be held at Waimate North near Kerikeri between 10.15am and 1pm. For details contact Stephen Ball on 027 807 9686 or go to www.dairynz. co.nz/events/northland/smash-hittingyour-heifer-targets-kerikeri-november
November 17 – Owl Farm in the Waikato is holding a focus day. More? go to owlfarm.nz
November 18 – The supreme winner of the NZI Rural Women NZ Business Awards will be presented in Wellington. More? ruralwomennz. nz/nzi-rural-women-nz-businessawards-2022.
November 23 – Dairy Women’s Network is running a live webinar, Handing over the reins, to discuss succession planning. It runs between 12.30pm and 1.30pm. More? register.gotowebinar.com/ register/8987649263449846288.
November 24 – Achieving success in your contract milking business will
be covered in a DairyNZ workshop in Morrinsville. Participants need to register for the workshop which runs between 10am and 2pm. The workshop is aimed at farm managers and contract milkers to help them thrive in their current or future business. More? www.dairynz.co.nz/ events/waikato/achieve-successin-your-contract-milking-businessnovember/ or contact Kylie Brewer.
November 24 – The National Sustainability Showcase brings together the regional winners from the 2022 Ballance Farm Environment Awards to name a national ambassador for sustainable farming and growing. This year’s event takes place in Christchurch. For more details and to read about the regional winners, visit nzfeawards.org.nz.
November 29 – DairyNZ runs a Canterbury workshop on achieving success in your contract milking business. The workshop will be held at Dunsandel between 10.15am and 3.30pm and registration is required. For more details go to www.dairynz. co.nz/events/canterburynorth-otago/ achieving-success-in-your-contractmilking-business/ or contact Amy Chamberlain on 027 243 0943.
November 30 – December 3 –Fieldays is a summer event this year at the Mystery Creek Events Centre near
Hamilton. More? www.fieldays.co.nz
December 5 – Entries close for the 2023 Dairy Industry Awards including the New Zealand Share Farmer of the Year, New Zealand Dairy Manager of the Year and New Zealand Dairy Trainee of the Year. To enter go to www.dairyindustryawards.co.nz
December 7 – An Align Farms
regenerative trial field day is being held at the Hackthorne Road farm in Westerfield, Canterbury. The field day is a chance to hear how the trial is going, ask questions and take part in an optional farm walk, followed by a barbeque. For more details and to rsvp go to www.dairyevents.co.nz/ media/2215/regenerative-trial-fieldday.jpg. For more about the trial go to alignfarms.co.nz/regenerative-study
December 7-8 – Taranaki summer groups are holding onfarm catchups between 11am and 1pm. The Kakaramea group will meet at the Roper farm on December 7, Cardiff at sharemilkers John and Kristina Wyatt on December 8 and Coastal High at Dean Simpson’s farm on December 8. For details on Kakaramea and Cardiff summer groups contact Ashley Primrose on 021 246 5663 and for the Coastal High Summer Group contact Katie Starsmore on 027 1800 3707.
Whakapakari is a Maori word that means to strengthen, to mature and to develop people and I thought that perfectly encapsulated what our special report is about this month.
Development is not just teaching people something new, it’s also about lifting them up, helping them mature and grow stronger - and, as individual team members strengthen, so does your team. Because what is important?…he tangata, he tangata, he tangata (It is the people, it is the people, it is the people).
Developing people is part of the fabric at Kairoa Dairies, part of Canterbury’s Rylib group, where Anne Lee found people are championed, whether it’s building the how-to foundations onfarm, learning more about management and governance or even honing skills for a hobby or interest that’s completely outside the farm.
The family values and people development pays off for the group in staff happiness, retention and progression within or outside of the group. (pg42).
Anne Hardie caught up with Jack Raharuhi from Cape Foulwind, a people person and developer who shares (he says ‘over-communicates’) great insights into how he builds the connection with newbies and makes sure they fit and progress within his teams.
And three people-coaching experts share knowledge about finding out what makes your team tick, how to fill gaps in your team with training and development and how to unlock the hidden potential in every
member of your team, particularly with different cultures.
How timely when grass growth is exploding around the country and the mowers are out making silage, to have coverage of the Pasture Summit field days held in Taranaki and Southland over the past month.
Through maximising growth and utilisation of pasture, and careful cost control, Nathan and Courtney Joyce from South Taranaki are tracking to produce operating profits 40% higher than the South Taranaki benchmark. (pg34).
And in Kimbolton, Manawatu, we follow Darryl and Debbie Coleman who are undergoing a transformation to regen, robotics and recording and interpreting loads of data on their journey to lower-cost, lower-input more-sustainable dairy farming. On the way they are solving some of the cow health issues that have irked Debbie for years, and saving her from sitting behind cows on the quadbike for six weeks of the year! (Pg 68)
Watch out for the Dairy Exporter and Pasture Summit Farmers’ tour to Ireland for 10 days in June/July 2023, details released soon from Farm to Farm Tours. If you fancy a kiss of the Blarney, a peek at the Emerald Isle and a wee taste of the craic, start lining up your ducks and saving those pennies.
It’s a bumper issue, hope you enjoy it! @YoungDairyED
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
Young Country is pleased to announce that episode three of From the Ground Up is now live on all of your favourite podcast providers.
Episode 7: Scott Jimmieson has realised his dream of becoming a farmer, and he’s keeping it local with his new online shop business, Local Food NZ, connecting farms with consumers.
Episode 6: Standing on the sideline watching her daughter play rugby in winter, Charlotte Bell thought she’d love to have a warm wool coat to wear. When she searched, she couldn’t find what she was after, so she decided to create her own.
Episode 5: Edward Eaton and Wilbur Morrison talk all things Buzz Club. The 24-year-olds went from experimenting with different flavour profiles, brewing in their garage on the weekends, to launching a range of premium sparkling mead naturally brewed from native New Zealand honey.
Episode 4: Brad Lake from The Brothers Green talks about harnessing the potential of hemp with a range of value-added products, and they believe the crop could have the potential to tackle some of the environmental and agricultural issues faced by farmers in this carbon era.
Episode 3: The Mangamaire Sunflower Field, established by farmer, photographer and mum, turned sunflower entrepreneur extraordinaire, Abbe Hoare, is turning heads for all the right reasons.
Episode 2: Amanda King founder of By The Horns. They say you should never work with children or animals, but By the Horns photographer Amanda King has carved out a niche for herself doing exactly that.
Episode 1: Delwyn Tuanui from The Chatham Island Food Co about how he chased his dreams from the ground up.
We love highlighting positive stories of young agri-innovators chasing their dreams. Listen to From the Ground Up: nzfarmlife.co.nz/podcasts-2 or scan QR code
NZ Dairy Exporter is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740, Toll free 0800 224 782, www.nzfarmlife.co.nz
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If we’re are going to save our own skin, we are all going to have to make some serious changes, Southland dairy farmer Suzanne Hanning writes.
Every dominant species in an environment will have a direct effect on that environment.
Whether you believe in climate change or not, one cannot argue that humans as a species are not only dominant, but are having an effect on our world.
For people then talking about saving the world, the world doesn’t need saving. In the words of John Dutton “There will be a time when Earth sheds us like dead skin.” It’s not the survival of the world that is at stake, it’s ours. Of course, to sell a message like that would come across as selfish, so, the message put out taps into the inner wanna-be hero.
That message is gold to a person’s perceived image and those that market to them. It’s all designed to remove guilt, make people feel they are doing something meaningful and that makes them feel good. It gives a little bit of meaning and purpose in an otherwise too big, meaningless world. People can’t do much about the war in the Ukraine, but they can still be a hero by buying shampoo in a 100% recycled plastic bottle.
This leads me to the biggest hero gig out. The Emissions Trading Scheme with emphasis on the word Scheme. Not to be confused with He Waka Eke Noa, in which funds are intended to be circulated back to farmers.
Rod Carr explicitly advised the New Zealand Government that we cannot plant our way out of this. But our powers that be appear to be strongly supporting just that.
“Any time anyone plants enough trees to sequester a tonne of carbon, we automatically generate an NZU, which is a permit to pollute a tonne of carbon into the atmosphere.
“Which means, technically, unlimited forestry allows unlimited pollution.”
But those trees only sequester carbon while they are growing. The carbon is stored in the wood and once the wood rots or is burnt, that carbon is released back into
the atmosphere. Hence, future generations will need to continue to plant more trees to absorb carbon being emitted historically.
As NZ allows 100% of a companies’ pollution to be offset with forestry, buying a few carbon credits means it can be business as usual for emitters and they can claim they are “carbon neutral” even though they haven’t done anything except a little virtue signalling. Those customers buying their products can then have a guilt-free purchase and feel they’re “saving” the planet when the reality is mere smoke and mirrors and couldn’t be further from the truth.
No wonder it’s easier for the majority to point the finger at agriculture, then they don’t have to do much because they’re buying their almond milk latte in their commercially compostable cup and feeling like a hero for doing it.
The reality is, if we’re are literally going to save our own skin, we are all going to have to make some serious changes. In a literal sense, all the carbon (fossil fuels) that has been dragged out of the earth for the last 100+ years needs to somehow go back there.
Think about all the stuff made from those fossil fuels –it is mind-boggling to think of the sheer volume of stuff consumed, burnt, used and thrown out. No wonder it’s easier for the majority to point the finger at agriculture, then they don’t have to do much because they’re buying their almond milk latte in their commercially compostable cup and feeling like a hero for doing it.
How we climb out of this, I have no idea. But some people will end up paying for it and some will make a lot of money on the way.
In October, I got off farm for five milkings (yes, like many of you, time off is measured in milkings) and attended the Agri-FoodTech Oceania Summit 2035 thanks to AGMARDT. Spending two days with AGMARDT general manager Lee-Ann Marsh and trustee Ben Tosswill, digesting and hearing from international presenters on the topic of agri-food and tech was good for the soul.
In order to feed 9.8 billion people by 2050, the key themes from all the speakers that resonated with me were:
• Collaboration (in fact one speaker said ‘radical collaboration)
• Net zero mindset, full utilisation of the product/circular economy model and reducing food waste
• Understanding your ‘capitals’ (as in not just finance but in six capitals)
• Capturing hearts and minds is vital
• Vision is important and the story of farming is the story of people.
Not one speaker said more regulation would help the planet or people to manage climate effects, a growing population or the myriad of challenges sitting in front of the agri food and tech sector. However, more than one, spoke about the place the government can have to foster the right people to do the right thing with support.
All speakers said farmers were smart and with some help would keep going from strength to strength in the land and farm management practices.
Collaboration (or radical collaboration) is required. No longer can we be all things to all people.
One crown research institute representative stood up and said they have great scientists but who in the room could partner with them on entrepreneurship, venture capital and going to market.
They have new cultivars of products (some already on the market) that could have had accelerated progress with the right collaborations.
The seaweed industry was another. Agrisea have been around for 26 years, and only in the last few years have the rest of the sector realised seaweed could have methane-
reducing properties. They now have great collaboration to bring a product to market.
If we approached everything we did as a net zero or no waste or full utilisation of product approach, then we would move quickly towards reducing our emissions and growing our businesses and communities. Not waiting for legislation or regulation, just us, thinking about how we can mitigate our impacts on the world around us.
Our business capital is far more than just the money we have or the asset in our name. We could have KPIs for financial, intellectual, human, social/relationship (communities), manufacturing (how we buy, use or make) and natural (land/water etc). What if we set our own business plans up to have goals in each of these areas just as we do to have financial targets? Just focusing on one capital will likely have an adverse effect on the others so having a plan on how to manage all capitals will be vital.
Capturing hearts and minds, making ag feel trendy by having the right tools and tech will assist our agri food sector to grow and farm. There are so many tools like digital twins, machine learning, emissions modelling, circular economic tools that will help make better decisions now in order to keep improving.
Finally, the vision. We know our sector has a vision, as do a number of food or tech systems in NZ. I’m not talking about the big visions created by others that we can’t even remember as a one-liner. I’m talking about your vision for your land or farm or business or family.
We all have them, we may not write them down on letterhead (maybe we should!) but we know deep down we want to do right for the people, the land, and the sector.
Maybe if we own our own vision for ourselves, and work on that daily then the flow-on effect will be that we do have improvements in our water, climate, land, business and people outcomes too. I particularly like the mindset of taking sustainability beyond regulatory compliance and turning risk and challenges into opportunities.
(And yes, like most of you, Taranaki has had a terrible spring. I can’t remember what the sun looks like but I didn’t want you to have to read about it when most of you have been living and breathing it too!)
Taranaki dairy farmer Trish Rankin reckons the world has never been a better Petrie Dish to try new things.
Rachel Hammond gets used to shoe-horning daily life into becoming a new mum onfarm.
As I watched my toddler smear his sticky hands across the fridge door, I heard Hamish say “Can you write that article for Dairy Exporter? It’s due tomorrow, and I need to do the GST”. Just as I was collating my excuses of why I won’t have time to do it, the door shuts and he was gone, off to do the rest of his farm jobs for the day.
Initially, I thought I could write a farmer’s scientific review on “how to stop climate change, while still feeding the world”, however I quickly thought otherwise for a number of reasons:
First, I have what is self-diagnosed as “Mum Brain” – commonly referred to as forgetfulness and brain fog experienced after the birth of a child. And secondly, there appears to be few solutions to climate change that will have enough of an impact except, maybe, getting rid of the humans? That, of course wouldn’t win any votes.
So, here goes: an honest review of being a firsttime farm mum, during the busy spring period. Farm mums can be put into two categories: The “working farm mum”, this is the mum who needs to manage daily childcare and house chores, while working fulltime on the farm (these women are superheroes); and the “farm stay-at-home mum (SAHM)”, which I would describe as the townie version of SAHM, but on crack. I would put myself in the latter category.
Since having a child, I have realised the time required to get ready to do a job usually takes as long as the job itself. For example, when feeding the calves in the morning, I need to:
1. Prep a nutritious breakfast for the child grizzling at my feet
2. Let the child self-feed – this can take anywhere between five minutes (to pick each item up individually and throw it on the ground) and 30 minutes (breakfast well enjoyed).
3. Clean up
4. Change
5. Repeat steps 2, 3, 4 (any order)
By this stage the chorus from the calf sheds is getting louder, and the pet lamb is pawing at the door and you realise you are not ready yourself.
Once you have made it out the door, you must expect the job to take twice as long as it did before having the child. Or, if you’re fortunate like us, you can call on the grandparents from time to time. If that’s the case, then all the steps outlined above (and more) may be skipped. In addition to the farm SAHM morning routine, you must not forget the cooking, washing, gardening, entertainment, HR management and the “last-minute” farm call ups.
I am not going to lie, it can be tough and it is easy to compare ourselves with families that have every weekend off and 8am – 5pm jobs. I’m very guilty of this, but we must remind ourselves how lucky we are for our children to grow up with endless space, rural experiences, and opportunities to watch their role models at work. I am only fortunate to be a SAHM because of the farming life we live. It allows me to have the flexibility to enjoy farm jobs (with a special helper), attend playgroups and be present. Here’s to those families that do it with four or more in tow!
West Coast diary farmer Richard Reynolds contemplates livestock emissions proposals.
Well done Tim and Jim, we won, we truly beat Beef and Lamb. I had my doubts about your plans around He Waka Eke Noa. When the climate commissioner’s report was released on the ability of farmers to change their gas production, there were glaring mistakes and nontruths presented around mitigation measures, but you supported the report in its whole.
I thought this was a bit strange, but now I understand you were just waiting your time.
Now you will have so much “levy” recycled for research, mitigation and extension that there will be no need for you to collect any DairyNZ levy. So for dairy farmers on a levy basis I may not be paying any more than I am at the present, very clever. I am looking forward to receiving payments from the rest of the agriculture industry paying me for my mitigation. If science is to save us, as all the reports say it will, feed additives and vaccines will work better for dairy than beef. Very interesting research is coming out around breeding in sheep for lower methane - this is positive.
If it works with cattle with our science-backed and directed breeding companies compared to beef breeders we will be able to prove and breed low methane cattle very quickly.
How did you keep the tweed-jacket wearers arguing over whether Angus or Hereford were better and not looking at how this was going to affect them? You could have suggested that they finish dairy cross stock but that is not real beef farming. Now they will be farming pine trees which are not even stock. You have let them keep on selling their land to foreigners with no restrictions to be planted in carbon sinks for a one-off gain to be of no value to New Zealand after 80 years. But dairy farmers can’t sell to foreign buyers. I know you will work on this.
I also thought it was clever not to educate the minister of agriculture and prime minister. I listened to the whole
announcement. Minister Damien O’Connor said He Waka was not a big deal for farmers, all they had to do was put some solar panels on the roof and have some EV vehicles and change some pasture species.
How did you keep the tweed jacket wearers arguing over whether Angus or Hereford were better and not looking at how this was going to affect them?
The first two have nothing to do with He Waka and the pasture species through regrassing may increase your He Waka tax. The prime minister talked about the premiums Silver Fern Farms is receiving from its carbon-zero beef. The problem is this works with onfarm offsetting that is not going to be allowed.
Take care that the talk of transition payments or subsidies Jacinda talks about don’t affect our free trade agreements. Those two may have been easy to hoodwink but watch that smiling James Shaw.
He is playing the long game - the 10% reduction target by 2030 may be easy for the agricultural industry but he knows the real game is the 2050 reduction target of 24% to 47% is the real kicker. Also keep an eye on that bearded commissioner not wanting agriculture to have offsetting of biological gases with biological tree planting, I don’t know what he is up to but you two will.
I like how you are now complaining how nitrogen is under the ETS and the government sets the level of the tax. You knew you never were going to get these things your way, but it looks good to complain so farmers support you.
Well done, you played the game with a straight bat. And we won!
New Zealand farmers have a long-held reputation for innovation. But a recently released report shows a large proportion of farmers are not yet convinced by the merits of the latest available, innovative farm technologies.
In September AgritechNZ published a ‘baseline’ report of Digital Adoption in Primary Industries, the purpose of which was to better understand the motivations, pressures and barriers faced by farmers and growers in adopting digital tools.
In many ways the initiative was needed as a way of ‘putting to bed’ common but unscientific stereotypes around why farmers do or do not engage with digital technology in NZ. As chair of AgriTechNZ Bridgit Hawkins identified in the report’s introduction, falling back on stereotypes and generalisations are easy but not helpful when trying to support positive change. It was a necessary step to take to help the fledgling agritech sector understand what it needs to do to most effectively serve farmers.
The top-level findings show 59% of farmers lean towards the adoption of digital technology, with 41% not seeing much value in using it to run their businesses. This latter stat represents a sizable chunk and is higher than outside the primary sector, but not unexpected given knowledge levels are low.
In terms of farmer motivations, there were few surprises identified in the survey (efficiency and ease of use are key determinants). The barriers were also predictable - cost, a reluctance to move from manual systems that still work, and (lack of) proof of return on investment.
But several of the considered conclusions and lessons drawn from the survey of 1000-plus farmers revealed under-recognised truths. These included:
Farmers struggle to see the value in the onfarm data and particularly the value of sharing that data; 77% of farmers would be happy to share data if it benefited them, but the fact that only half of farmers do so indicates the benefits are not widely appreciated.
Use of digital technology is prevalent in farm business management (accounts, payroll etc). But there is lower uptake in operational, onfarm solutions. In fact, farmer investment intentions for the shiny gadgets most often associated with ‘agritech’ is low.
Farmer interest in digital technology is not ultimately determined by farmer age, but farm business stage (whether a farm business is growing/ expanding vs. declining/existing).
On the first lesson, Rezare Systems Farm Systems specialist Graeme Ogle confirms failure to see value in data is driven by a lack of belief in its ability to create practical improvements.
While most Kiwi farmers are keen to adopt digital technologies onfarm, a sizeable minority don’t. Phil Edmonds reports.
“There’s a huge amount of data that is flowing around and there to be captured, but the data that will have an effect on production is pretty scarce. Too often developers assume their challenge is just to make sure farmers get the ‘value’ a particular solution will create, and the improvements that flow to a farmer’s business from adopting it.”
Rather than trying to convince farmers on the value of a digital innovation, they should recognise farmers are most likely going to view agritech as a cost. When it comes to software, farmers are probably going to see it as having problems, Ogle says. Using it is going to take longer than the system they use and will require a lot more effort to get used to using it. As a result, farmers will attribute a discount to its nominal value, and determine whether it is worth putting their time into this technology.
“If agritech developers ask a farmer if they’d be interested in their new software, what they are actually doing is asking for a big commitment in time.”
Federated Farmers board member and rural connectivity spokesperson Richard McIntyre not only shares concerns on the time cost of adoption but also the ability of those tasked with using new technology to be willing to do so.
“As an employer, the tech we choose to uptake will be determined by our employees’ willingness to use it. There is no point having technology if no one will invest themselves in learning how to use it.”
Any increase in acceptance that farm data holds value will only come when it can be captured efficiently, Richard says.
“Farmers are frustrated having to input data for reporting requirements but unsure how it is used. There are cases where the same data needs to be entered into different software three or four times. Fertiliser applications are a good example of that. Farmers wouldn’t mind sharing data if they could enter it once. The frustration comes from the inefficiency.”
As noted in the baseline report, efficiency is one of the key considerations in adoption.
Part of the still suspicious view of digital technology among a large minority of farmers is that for many, they have started their journey of adoption by coercion. A good example of this has been the emergence of farm environment plans in parts of the country.
“Being confronted with a need to use a digital portal is a massive hurdle for farmers who might have a computer but have only ever used it for email,”
AgFirst consultant Erica van Reenan says. “There haven’t been a lot of resources available to provide education on digital technologies. This contrasts with other countries where governments have proactively subsidised adoption. When this happens, the chances of adoption will be higher.”
The second lesson identified above (business software yes, onfarm gadgets less so) should be no surprise. The baseline report found that where farmers are willing to engage with digital technology is when it has already been ‘de-risked’ by other sectors (desktop-based admin, for example) and where there are people on hand to support its use (accountants, farm advisers etc).
The successful uptake of the latter can be attributed to having a human able to offer advice and service rather than be at the mercy of a list of frequently asked questions to scroll through. Graeme Ogle says farmers are well accustomed to using financial software but that’s because they feel supported doing so. Richard McIntyre makes the same point.
“Farmers are experts on cows and grass. We don’t intimately know how software works; we just want it to work. If the support is not there, it is going to be so much harder to adopt and bring people on the journey.”
To this point it’s easy for developers to forget that farm businesses are generally family businesses that don’t have HR or IT departments that can be called up by dialling 0. If farmers can’t easily troubleshoot problems, then it’s going to struggle to fly. In terms of the relatively modest appeal of shiny gadgets in the field compared to those in the office, there is a sense that the agritech industry has failed because it has focused on ‘disruption’ where the most successful technology advances are about continuity. Ogle says about 1% of technology is about disruption, and about 1% of that succeeds. If you have 100 disruptor innovations in NZ, one might succeed.
Some of the most talked about agritech advances are those that require whole system changes, van Reenan adds. But what has most appeal will be those innovations that can be built into existing systems to make life better – automatic cup removers being a good example,
rather than large-scale revolutions, such as shifting your whole operation towards virtual farming.
The other ‘truth’ demystified in the baseline report survey around a farmers’ age determining their interest in agritech points to farmers being far more pragmatic than they are given credit for. Ogle says it’s misleading to think of farmers as laggards. It’s more that agritech is not often top of their minds. When it is, they’ll be open to listening irrespective of age. But not all farmers are in the market.
“In my experience, a large proportion of farmers are busy with other hurdles in their business, such as farm succession, farm maintenance, health issues and so on,” Ogle says. “It’s only when these types of pressing issues are taken care of that farmers will be able to seriously consider the value proposition of new technology.”
All told, there are plenty of good reasons why farmers are cautious about adopting new technology. And the baseline report documents what might be obvious to most – that there remains a disconnect around developers understanding farmers’ motivations. But perhaps we need to accept that the agritech industry has still got its trainer wheels on, and it is unrealistic to expect it to have got everything right. A couple of years ago an Australian AgriFutures report on the challenges and opportunities for effective value proposition design in agtech was published, which (possibly reassuringly) identified many of the issues presented in the AgriTechNZ baseline document. It showed there is nothing unique in NZ farmers’ perceived reluctance to see value in digital technology.
It pointed to inherent challenges in gaining trust when an industry such as agritech is new.
“New industries often experience a flood of new products hitting the market simultaneously, and often in unpolished states, because of the potential commercial rewards that come from being first to market. Also, because of how new the industry is, entrepreneurs entering for the first time lack information about their users.
“Further, they are trying to build never-made and never-seen-before products, rather than incrementally better versions of existing products. Therefore, by definition, there is no knowledge about what makes a product good or bad, or what is desirable.
“Entrepreneurs lack the time and budget to go slowly and carefully to ‘get it right’ on the first try. They deploy products rapidly and adapt based on customer feedback: a ‘get it out and see how it goes’ approach.”
With this in mind, farmers might not have more sympathy for obvious agritech industry failings, but it could recalibrate expectations. The disconnect that farmers see between what an innovation says it does on the box, and how easily it is operationalised effectively represents industry growing pains. A lasting, slightly suffering lesson might be ‘give it time’.
The top-level findings show 59% of farmers lean towards the adoption of digital technology, with 41% not seeing much value in using it to run their businesses.Rezare Systems Farm Systems specialist Graeme Ogle. AgFirst consultant Erica van Reenan.
A new generation of dairy farmers is adopting new business models to succeed in red-tape Britain.
By Tim Price.Britain’s dairy farmers dream of a future without the red tape which governs their lives.
It’s why so many farmers voted for Britain to leave the European Union six years ago and now blindly support politicians who promise ‘a bonfire’ of red tape.
It’s also why motoring-journalist-turnedfarmer Jeremy Clarkson has become the farmers’ guardian angel. His forthright style and cavalier attitude to rules has made Clarkson’s Farm a huge hit on Amazon Prime and earned the heart-felt thanks of farmers for ‘telling it like it is’.
Now Clarkson’s latest gimmick, a pop-up restaurant in a redundant farm building, has been closed by the local council for breaking planning laws.
Farmers’ dismay at their hero’s failure to
beat the bureaucrats coincides with the disastrous attempt by recent Prime Minister Liz Truss to transform Britain into a low-tax, light-regulation state.
one throw of the dice was doomed to fail. The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister), only in post for days, was sacked and Truss’s raft of policies and tax cuts reversed, following massive falls in the financial markets. Within days, Truss was also out the door.
The message for dairy farmers is that you can’t beat the system. Rules and regulations will continue to multiply.
Get out or adapt to constant change and ever-tighter regulation are the stark options.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. A new generation of dairy farmers is springing up, ready to take up the slack from an increasing number of traditionally run units exiting the industry.
For a nation with a large ageing population facing massive hikes in energy costs, betting the country’s economy on
Farming in England’s Midland dairy belt, Jimmy Pritt of JWP Farming is one of these, using a flexible business model to help JWP survive in today’s fast-changing
‘OUR GOAL IS TO PRODUCE MILK PROFITABLY, ACHIEVED THROUGH GOOD MANAGEMENT AND UTILISATION OF THE GRASSLAND, 70% OF WHICH WAS RESEEDED USING CULTIVARS SUITED TO OUR SYSTEM.’Above: Jimmy Pritt with cows on his farm in the English Midlands.
marketplace. Jimmy, who graduated from Harper Adams University in Shropshire in 2006, contract-farms Whetstone Pastures supplying milk to a local Stilton cheese manufacturer from a 370-head herd run on 107 hectares. The herd is run on a flying herd basis with in-calf heifers and some cows purchased as replacements (no replacements reared).
Yields average 6163 litres with 3927 litres from forage, at 4.5% butterfat and 3.7% protein. In 2017, a New Zealand-style 24-aside herringbone parlour complex was built to replace the old parlour, along with a slurry lagoon and limestone cow tracks. Furthermore, two buildings were converted to increase cubicle numbers to a total of 346. Maize and grass silage is grown on contract with a nearby arable farm. Regular soil sampling enables them to tailor fertiliser use, and slurry is spread after grazing to reduce input costs.
Cows calve from the end of February to the end of May, with all animals put to short-gestation beef sires.
Boldly, Jimmy has just taken over another 405ha unit nearby with 650 autumn-calving cows. Their milk is sold to Tesco and Mueller.
“Our goal is to produce milk profitably, achieved through good management and utilisation of the grassland, 70% of which was reseeded using cultivars suited to our system.
“Britain’s dairy farmers face labour shortages, huge feed and energy costs. With farmers’ average age now reaching 68, and many dairy units urgently
requiring major investment, the pace of farmers going out of dairy is increasing.
“This offers great opportunities for my generation who have the enthusiasm and resources to meet future challenges while farming in an environmentally safe way.
“Our business model is designed to cope with challenges – we just didn’t expect to be facing them all at once. We’re rising to the challenges and finding alternative ways to stay in profit in our dairy units.
“With fertiliser costing £1000 a tonne we’ve got to use it well and make slurry work more effectively to maximise our grass and clover mixes and maize crops. It’s now possible to measure slurry nitrogen content as it is applied, which helps us to fine-tune how we balance fertiliser use.
“Finding and keeping good staff is a huge problem for many farms. Today’s farm staff live amongst people whose jobs provide good pay and conditions with regular time off and decent holiday provision. People will no longer accept that farm work means the low wages and very long hours.
“It’s a challenge to find and retain good staff, but by offering good remuneration, working conditions and training we’ve got a settled team with good quality housing provided.”
Despite anti-dairy pressures and group XR (Extinction Rebellion) targeting British dairies, Jimmy maintains a social media presence to promote what he sees as a sustainable farm business producing healthy food while working towards carbon net zero. While fully committed
to achieving net zero in the future, Jimmy is pleased to see that the Government’s policy of future subsidy payments only rewarding farmers’ environmental improvements is softening.
Following Eco Zealot Boris Johnson’s dismissal as Prime Minister, the new regime has announced a review of its Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS) - but following multiple false starts and ‘U’ turns, farmers aren’t letting hopes get too high.
Jimmy’s experience and knowledge has been gained through previous positions, such as managing and driving improvements on a high-yielding herd and driving system changes as a partner in a mixed-family farming business.
His next move was to join his family partnership, where he learned more about business finances and managing a grassbased system. He also got involved in First Milk’s development group, giving him a greater understanding of the industry, and introducing him to a network of farmers and contacts. As chairman and member of the local Profiteers discussion group he shares experiences and ideas with a group of forward-looking dairy farmers, including new starters and herdsmen.
Alongside carrying on a small amount of dairy consultancy, Jimmy plans to continue to grow JWP Farming by taking on more opportunities.
“In the future I hope to achieve the dream of farming in my own right, to own a dairy herd and to be proud of a profitable business.”
The pasture landscape is changing...
Inflation remains high in most places In NZ we had a bit of a shock earlier in the month, with headline inflation coming in at 7.2% for Q3 - down only very marginally from Q2, and much higher than anyone had anticipated If it hasn’t yet, inflation must hit consumers’ pockets some time soon, and sellers are therefore concerned about how much demand there will be
102% year on year, with China again taking increased volume, up 350% year on year. Cheese exports were up 58%, with 79% more sent to China in September and 116% more to Japan. Whey was one of few categories to see a fall, down 12% year on year. The United States is NZ’s main destination for whey, and exports to the US fell 20% year on year.
Now to the less-positive news.
Prices fell at both Global Dairy Trade (GDT) events in October. The overall GDT index was down 3.5% at the October 4 event, and fell another 4.6% at the October 18 event. In addition, GDT Pulse events trended down. There’s only one grade and contract on offer at the Pulse events – C2 regular grade WMP – but as a key product, ongoing falls in prices aren’t a great sign for the wider GDT complex.
New Zealand’s dairy exports grew again in September, following growth in August. The total volume of all dairy products was up 32% year on year, though year-todate exports are still down 6%.
Some of the iffy demand lately may be due to reluctance to hold on to any inventory if consumer demand suddenly plummets
September milk production was weak, coming in at -3 8% on a milksolids basis This puts season-to-date production at -4% Pasture growth conditions haven’t been particularly favourable, along with continued labour shortage issues, not to mention the ongoing concerns with environmental regulations NZX expects another negative result for October and that full season milk production will remain quite negative this season In theory this should provide support to prices, but for now demand issues seem to outweigh supply issues
Whole milk powder (WMP) exports lifted 26% year on year. Year -to-date WMP exports remain down 16%. WMP exports to China fell 33% year on year in September, with the lift coming from increased exports to other destinations. NZ sent more WMP to South East Asia, the Middle East and South America.
Skim milk powder (SMP) was up just 2%
year on year. Year-to-date, SMP exports are up 3.6%. Again, exports to China fell, down 25% year on year. The increase was largely made up by more volume sent to South East Asia, with a little more also sent to Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Butter exports lifted 48% year on year. There were increased butter exports to China, up 46%, with increased volume also sent to most of NZ’s other top destinations for butter. Anhydrous milkfat (AMF) soared
The fall in prices seems to be due to softened demand, though outside of GDT, demand is still sometimes being described as ‘firm’. There is nervousness about the global macroeconomic situation. Inflation remains high in most places. In NZ we had a bit of a shock earlier in the month, with headline inflation coming in at 7.2% for Q3 - down only very marginally from Q2, and much higher than anyone had anticipated. If it hasn’t yet, inflation must hit consumers’ pockets some time soon, and sellers are therefore concerned about how much demand there will be. Some of the iffy demand lately may be due to reluctance to hold on to any inventory in case consumer demand suddenly plummets.
September milk production was weak, coming in at -3.8% on a milksolids basis. This puts season-to-date production at -4%. Pasture growth conditions haven’t been particularly favourable, along with continued labour shortage issues, not to mention the ongoing concerns with environmental regulations. NZX expects another negative result for October and that full season milk production will remain quite negative this season. In theory this should provide support to prices, but for now demand issues seem to outweigh supply issues.
While the Government’s recently released proposal for pricing agricultural emissions stops short of stating the likely price for methane (CH4), discussion in the document still focuses on 11cents/kg CH4
That was the price used by the He Waka Eke Noa agricultural sector partnership in its modelling.
The Government commissioned its own modelling that included work on both the processor levy and the farm-level levy.
It looked at three price scenarios for methane to estimate the possible emissions reductions in 2030 comparing the modelled scenarios with a scenario with no pricing system.
The prices used:
• A low price – 8 cents/kg CH4
• A medium price - 11 cents/kg CH4 (suggested by the partnership as the starting price)
• A high price – 14 cents/kg CH4
Even at the low price, the modelling has found total agricultural emissions are expected to reach the targeted 10% reduction from 2017 levels by 2030, with methane emissions alone dropping by 12%, the Government’s consultation
document says. (page 59 of the consultation document)
For dairy farmers the models suggest the farm-level levy will mean a drop in revenue of 6-7%, significantly less than the impact borne by sheep and beef farmers who are expected to lose 18-24% of their revenue. (see table A on page26) Milksolids (MS) production is expected to drop by 4-5%.
For the red meat sector the drop in production and revenue is significant and harsh with sheep and beef revenue likely to take an 18% hit at the low levy price and drop by almost a quarter (24%) at the high price.
Lamb production is predicted to tumble by 16% at the 8c/kg CH4 farm level levy and 20% at the14c/kg CH4 price.
However, beef production is modelled to increase by 8% at the low levy price and 5% at the medium 11c/kg CH4 price but drop by 14% at the high price.
That’s because more cost-effective mitigation technologies are assumed for beef cattle compared with sheep which would allow a degree of switching from running sheep to running beef cattle, the consultation document says.
It’s uncertain what the effect emissions
pricing will have on the dairy sector’s push to cut bobby calf numbers.
DairyNZ says He Waka had recommended emission price levies would be set by Government ministers on advice from a system oversight board, a collaborative governance approach between government, Māori, and the agriculture sector.
He Waka proposed a price for methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide.
“The methane price would be set based on a broad set of pricing criteria which considers progress towards legislated emissions targets, but also social and economic impacts.
“Nitrous oxide price would be set at the level needed to fund sequestration, research and development, incentives, and administration of the scheme.
“The price for methane should be guided by a wider set of criteria than just targets alone.
“It needs to also consider the availability of mitigation technologies, social and economic impacts, and potential emissions leakage alongside target trajectories.
“The price should only collect enough levy to deliver on the scheme’s intended purpose and outcomes.
“Prices should not be linked to the NZ ETS and should be set every three years to provide stability and certainty,” DairyNZ says in its review of the consultation document.” (link below)
At the Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF) focus day in October, just before the release of the Government’s consultation document, Lumen Environmental resource management adviser Nicole Mesman walked farmers through the likely cost of emissions pricing using the LUDF as an example farm.
The calculations are based on LUDF’s 2025/26 obligations using its 2021/22 season results.
They are based on He Waka pricing of 11c/kg CH4 and a nitrous oxide price of $4.25/tonne.
The new Government proposal also has 11c/kg CH4 but uses $10.86/t CO2e for nitrous oxide (N2O) as the 2030 price.
LUDF’s methane emissions, based on cow numbers, milk production and feed
eaten are estimated at 1655t of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
To convert tonnes of CO2e to kg CH4 divide by 25.
1655t CO2e = 1,655,000kg CO2e
1,655,000 CO2e ÷ 25 = 66,200kg CH4
66,200kg CH4 x 11cents/kg CH4 =$7282
LUDF N2O emissions = 539t CO2e
539t CO2e x $4.25 = $2291 (He Waka price)
539t CO2e x $10.86 = $5853.54 (Government 2030 modelling price)
Total cost for LUDF based on He Waka N2O price = $9573
If the Government’s 2030 N2O model price is used the total cost is $13,135.54
Nicole says one of the key issues for farmers under the Government proposal is that the price of emissions is unclear and that the methane price will largely be based on progress towards emissions reduction targets.
Without cost-effective mitigation technologies and the ability to offset cost with sequestration “credits” reductions will require reduced feed inputs and/or reduced stocking rates.
DairyNZ’s view - A good summary of what the sector proposed through He Waka Eke Noa and the Government’s recently released proposal which is open for consultation until November www.dairynz.co.nz/environment/agricultural-greenhouse-gases/pricingagricultural-emissions/governments-proposal-to-price-agricultural-emissions/
The full Government consultation document on pricing agricultural emissions environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/Pricing-agricultural-emissionsconsultation-document.pdf
The Government commissioned report on the impacts of emissions pricing on the rural sector www.mpi.govt.nz/dmsdocument/53632-Imapcts-of-CC-mitigatin-policies-onthe-primary-sector
Nicole Mesman Lumen Environmental analysis LUDF www.ludf.org.nz/assets/Handout-4-GHG-Lumen-NicoleM-28Sep22.pdf
LUDF methane and costs – Jeremy Savage analysis www.ludf.org.nz/assets/Handout-4a-GHG-MRB-JSavage-28Sep22.pdf
The sheep and beef sector is expected to bear the brunt of the hit on profitability because those livestock emit more greenhouse gases relative to the overall net revenue.
LUDF farm consultant Jeremy Savage from Macfarlane Rural Business says at the starting price of 11c/kg CH4 will equate to 2.4c/kg MS or 0.2c/kg drymatter (DM) fed or $20/t DM.
That’s based on it taking 10kg DM to produce 1kg MS and research putting methane production at 0.22kg CH4 for every kg MS produced.
Analysis across Macfarlane Rural Business clients shows that for every tonne of DM harvested, clients lifted profit by $820 in the 2021/22 season and over the longer term they boosted profit by $600/t DM harvested.
For a high-input system where supplements are fed all season to support the higher stocking rate where supplement costs are 59c/kg DM total feed costs for every kg of milksolids will be $5.90 (the response rate of 1kg MD/10kg DM). If cow running costs or core cow cost is $3/kg MS produced the cost to produce that marginal milk (milk produced through supplement rather than pasture production) will be $8.90/kg MS. (see link for cow running cost details)
The methane price will add another 2.4c/kg MS to that.
The additional feed costs are still the biggest cost for that marginal milk but what we don’t know is where the emissions price will go to.
With the aim to use pricing to drive emissions down to reach the target the price could rise but what this shows is that at current milk prices dairy is significantly better placed than sheep and beef to bear the additional cost, supporting modelled predictions of a 16-20% reduction in lamb production compared with a 4-5% reduction in dairy production.
The New Zealand dairy sector may already be among the most greenhouse gas (GHG) efficient in the world but doing nothing is not an option when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Fonterra chairman Peter McBride says.
In a statement to shareholders issued on the day tractors rolled to town in the Groundswell-organised, nationwide protest against emissions pricing, McBride says the co-operative supports the intent of He Waka Eke Noa but the Government’s proposal differs from what the He Waka partnership recommended on a number of key points.
“The primary sector worked on He Waka as a total package, to achieve equity on emissions reductions and pricing.
“The Government’s changes now create an imbalance within the (agricultural) sector that needs to be addressed during consultation,” he says.
Having a farm-level, split-gas levy that aligns with the desires of Fonterra’s customers and communities for low-carbon dairy production is a better outcome than what might have been achieved through the Emissions Trading Scheme – the default outcome - by 2025, he says.
Fonterra’s key concerns echo those of DairyNZ, in particular how the levy price is to be set and the governance of the whole process.
The Government’s proposal for what can and can’t be included in sequestration accounting differs from the He Waka proposal and is a major issue for all farmers, in particular the drystock sector.
McBride says Fonterra will be working with DairyNZ to support farmers to engage in the consultation process and will be seeking changes on sequestration, levy pricing and governance for the process. While he acknowledges the unease the Government’s proposal is creating in rural communities, he says it is important conversations are based on facts.
DairyNZ chair Jim van der Poel says while the proposal has adopted many key recommendations from the He Waka Eke Noa Partnership, that were informed by farmer feedback, the Government has made significant changes that will be a focus for the sector during the six-week consultation.
“The Government has accepted a lot of what farmers told us was important to them during our sector consultation earlier this year,” said Mr van der Poel.
“This includes a farm level levy and a split-gas approach that prices biogenic methane separately – recognising that its warming impact differs from that of long-lived gases, such as carbon dioxide.
“It is still proposed that any revenue generated through emissions pricing will be reinvested back into the sector to
support R&D and incentivise action on-farm, that will reduce emissions – this is significant for farmers too.”
However, DairyNZ strongly disagrees with some of the changes made to limit the recognition and reward farmers will get for their on-farm planting, by removing classes of sequestration like shelterbelts, woodlots and scattered trees.
DairyNZ is also disappointed the Government has removed the ability for farmers to form collectives to work together to report, reduce or offset their emissions – a key mechanism that would drive the change that is needed.
“These are material changes that will be of real concern to most farmers, and we will be raising them directly with the Government on farmers behalf over the coming weeks,” said Mr van der Poel.
“The Partnership’s recommendations to Government were finely balanced so they would work for all sectors, and we stand behind the whole-farm system approach we and our partners put forward.
“We know how important it is for New Zealand to move on climate change, but we also know the importance of moving at a pace that doesn’t leave our farmers, families and rural communities behind.
“Emissions pricing needs to be practical, pragmatic and fair for farmers, and there is still a lot that needs to be improved to make what the Government have announced today workable for farmers,” said Mr van der Poel.
Government consultation is now open and will run for six weeks, with the final decision to be announced in December.
DairyNZ will be making a detailed submission on behalf of dairy farmers but are encouraging dairy farmers to engage with the process too. It’s important that the Government hears from farmers and understands what’s important to the sector.
The Government has released its proposals for agricultural emissions charges as part of climate change mitigations. Joanna Grigg reports on the proposals and their conflicts with the industry’s He Waka Eke Noa suggestions from the standpoint of the sheep and beef industry.
On the table from the Government is a proposed scheme for agriculture. It puts a cost against every sheep, cattle beast and deer on the farm each day, based on their gas output. Farmers are expected to start paying this cost from 2025.
It aims to reduce methane emissions on farms, by 10% by 2030. According to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, it will “carve out a high value space for our exporters”. Nicky Hyslop, South Canterbury farmer and Beef + Lamb NZ Director, says there may be some validity in this claim, long term.
“But our sector must be viable in the short and medium term and changes the Government has proposed to He Waka Eke Noa, puts this at risk.”
“We cannot accept this proposal as it stands.”
This is the consultation doc: https://environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/ Pricing-agricultural-emissions-consultation-document.
This is DairyNZ’s view on the whole proposal. It clearly sets out the differences for He Waka and what the issues are with each. https://www.dairynz.co.nz/environment/agriculturalgreenhouse-gases/pricing-agricultural-emissions/ governments-proposal-to-price-agricultural-emissions/
Commitment to reducing emissions is important for access to markets, she says, and for multinational customers like McDonalds and Nestle, but it may not attract premiums in the short term.
She thinks the scheme should deliver moderate emission reductions that reflect warming impact, while allowing farms and rural communities to be sustained.
“The Government proposal on the table and their modelling, clearly shows this will not be achieved and disproportionately impacts hill country farming.”
To ensure, as she puts it, “the guts of our farm communities are not hollowed out” she wants to keep the He Waka model. This is all farm sequestration recognised, ongoing industry involvement in governance, and emission price setting that reflects progress to targets.
“No-one else in the world is doing this, so a cautious approach is critical or we will simply be replacing New Zealand food with high-emissions food which is counterproductive for reducing global warming.”
Ignoring this consultation (closing November 18) and hoping it goes away with a 2023 election is not realistic. Christopher Luxon, National Party, says: “National supports New Zealand’s emissions targets, including reaching carbon net zero by 2050. And that means reducing agriculture emissions over time.”
National’s difference seems to be that they may allow farmers to earn credit for all forms of onfarm carbon capture. Hyslop says while farmers are rightly frustrated and disappointed, they should not panic.
“All the He Waka industry partners are collectively focused on getting changes to this.”
• First published in Country-Wide November 2022
Words by: Joanna Grigg
Farmer and Beef + Lamb NZ Director, Nicky Hyslop, says the price put on methane must be conservative.
She encourages farmers to tell the Government this by submitting on the agricultural emissions proposal.
“Even the Government modelling shows that at 8c, it will have a significant impact on many sheep, beef and deer farms.”
The model in the consultation document shows that 8c by 2030 would reduce methane emissions by 12% (and meet a total 10% target). See Table A.
It comes at a cost. At 8c (Table B) the model predicts an 18% drop in sheep and beef farm net revenue, from 2020 to 2030. This is likely to be made up of a 16% drop in lamb production, 14% drop in wool, 13% fall in deer, and 4% drop in milksolids. Beef production increases in some scenarios, because more cost-effective mitigation technologies are assumed for beef cattle compared with sheep. The large drop in sheep includes afforestation, the impact of emissions pricing and some farmers switching from sheep to beef, Hyslop says. The Government modelling didn’t include sequestration and any future mitigations, so is a worst-case scenario.
Table A: Model results of emissions reductions in 2030, compared with 2020. It shows eight cents per kg methane would see a 12% methane reduction.
Table B: Ouch: Changes in sector net revenue and agricultural production, if methane levy is at $0.08/kg, relative to baseline.
Note: Mitigation and sequestration are not included in the model, and these are likely to help to some small degree.
Source: Pricing Agricultural Emissions Consultation Document.
‘The Government proposal on the table and their modelling, clearly shows this will not be achieved and disproportionately impacts hill country farming.’
Concern about this drop in production and profitability is the type of comment farmers should put in their submission, Hyslop says.
Farmers may think comments will fall on deaf ears. Hyslop says consultation, along with other actions, are all valid options to get the message across. She suggests making a powerful submission, farmers get together with neighbours or their catchment group and make a joint submission.
“Describe your farm or catchment, your ongoing commitment to stewardship, your plantings, your estimated carbon sequestration (using the calculator) and the likely emission costs.”
“If we lobby and submit and talk to local and central government, we can be effective and get changes.
“This scheme is the farmers’ scheme, it’s our money being collected and reinvested or paid in sequestration, so they need to listen.”
There are 15 questions to answer in the consultation.
Question Five is the guts of how the levy price will be set. He Waka wanted a committee, including farm industry members, to advise on the price. The Government proposal is for ministers to set the price for both long-lived gas levy and biogenic methane levy. When it comes to short-lived gas (i.e: methane) the Government wants to set the price based on whether emissions are dropping. This is quite different to what He Waka proposed, which was a price based on just bringing in enough levy to pay for sequestration, a share of administration, incentives to farmers and research into reducing emissions. The consultation states ministers would periodically assess whether methane emissions were on- or off-track regarding the target. If over- or under-achieving, ministers could update the biogenic methane price. Hyslop says the sustainability of rural communities and local economies must be included in pricing discussions.
“What about the potential loss of rural community, infrastructure, food production capabilities and economic
returns – we can’t ignore these in the single-minded drive for overall methane reductions?”
In Section Five there is discussion on ‘pain relief’ for farmers during the transition. The Climate Change Commission had not finished writing specific proposals on what schemes, payments, they might be, so nothing concrete is here. An example may be methane levy relief if an adverse event struck. But the bottom line from the Government is it mustn’t “undermine the intended price signal”.
When it comes to using the levies collected, He Waka recommended levies collected from Māori landowners (e.g: collective agribusiness) go to a dedicated fund and be administered by Māori. The Government proposes to do this by setting a minimum percentage of overall revenue that must go into the dedicated fund.
What’s unclear is how this would actually help Māori-owned sheep and beef farms, especially as they face the same issues of low profitability/hectare and few mitigation options as non-Māori sheep/ beef farms. If Māori levy income comes off lower-stocking-rate land, then the pool of funds is likely to be smaller than average/
hectare. The minimum percentage may provide some top-up. In the same way, the sheep and beef industry relies on methane levy payments from intensive dairy to create a pool of funds for sequestration, which is largely on sheep and beef farms.
Hyslop says the Government has tossed out the hard work He Waka did on balancing the different farming partners, and the conversations about wealth transfer using sequestration.
“We need to be careful we don’t divide our sector and tip the scales one way.”
If carbon offsets through sequestration are narrowed, there will be more imbalance. Question Seven is where farmers need to put their case for pricing.
Hyslop suggests farmers review their numbers and work out the likely cost at the medium-level price of 11c/kg CH4 as this is important for the submission. Some farmers had very high cost estimates as they used the carbon equivalent methane emission tonnes and plugged in the ETS price of $80/tonne, she says, which is not the right price.
“Eleven cents is a conservative approach and a useful place to start.”
• First published in Country-Wide November
Managed indigenous vegetation (with stock excluded but not necessarily fenced) that can show specific management interventions. Can be planted, regeneration or combo. Additional sequestration only.
Fenced Riparian margin plantings after 2008, alongside waterway of minimum size. Set a reward rate for a specific period.
Likely to be low reward as sequester only about four units/ha.
Pre-1990 indigenous forest at NZ ETS rates. May need to align to current ETS 1ha rules.
Exotic shelter belts. Potentially highest sequestration ability.
Mixed exotic/native shelter belts
Riparian margins fenced before 2008. Early adopters miss out.
Exotic shelterbelts are only eligible for NZ ETS if more than one hectare and the right shape and right species.
The freshwater regulation roll-out debacle, showed up embarrassing government shortfalls in implementation. This 2022 experience is likely to be one reason behind the Climate Change Commission’s push for pragmatism in designing an onfarm sequestration scheme.
The Government has picked up the vibe and taken pruning shears to He Waka’s extensive work on sequestration recommendations.
Out go exotic plantings (mainly shelter belt shapes) even though they can’t be included in the NZ ETS, primarily due to being narrower than 30 metres. Managed indigenous forest and post-2008 riparian plantings are in, although size and age and type specifications are undefined. Those early adopters of riparian planting (pre2008) miss out. Farmers can respond to sequestration proposals in Question 8 of the consultation.
Nicky Hyslop, Farmer and Beef + Lamb NZ Director, says she has just planted a shelter belt with a mix of natives and exotics. The exotics were chosen to provide faster shade and shelter than less-reliable, slower natives.
“This wouldn’t be counted within ETS farm sequestration as the size is too narrow, yet it couldn’t meet the proposed Government/He Waka scheme as the plant choice is wrong.
“I have issues with the Government promoting wide-scale exotic plantings across whole farms through their ETS policy, when they say they want integrated plantings within working farms, yet don’t reward farmers for it.”
She is also concerned that a figure floated for indigenous sequestration is only 0.5 tonnes/hectare – a very low rate.
Riparian vegetation is not known as a high carbon sink. The 2018 Landcare report Carbon Sequestration On Farms, listed riparian vegetation as sequestering about 3.4 tonnes of C02/hectare/year. Exotic woodlots in a shelter belt, for example, would be streets ahead. This pruning of offset options for farms has raised issues of fairness and has become the most disliked aspect by farmers. Ironically, inequity for non-farming landowners was listed by the Climate Change Commission as a reason for their stance. But isn’t this an agricultural scheme?
The commission suggested creating another scheme altogether – where additional non-NZ ETS plantings could be rewarded alongside biodiversity and water quality. Then, add categories to the NZ ETS. He Waka had always batted for as much onfarm sequestration as possible, even if it means a gradual addition of categories, with a full scheme by 2027. The original industry He Waka recognised that over time, if the ETS was reformed, this sequestration could be transitioned to the ETS. The Government proposal followed the commission’s approach, and favours the NZ ETS as the home for sequestration. Into this will go new categories like pre-1990 indigenous forest (previously ineligible).
While the bean-counters get this sorted, the Government proposes a short-term option where farmers can take a contract with the government for additional native vegetation, counted from 2025. This would transition, in time, to the ETS. No modelling is provided on whether the contract cost would be worth the offset. An example price is provided of 75% of the NZU price. After the contract ends, there would be no ongoing liability requiring the vegetation to be maintained as it was for the duration of the contract. The
Government shows some vision here, in that the payment could be designed to align with biodiversity incentives being developed.
Farmers with pre-1990 forest may like the idea of an ETS category being opened for them. They will likely get higher payments per hectare via the updated ETS, than discounted rates through the ag emissions scheme. This reward for managing pre-1990 indigenous forest onfarm as a carbon sink, has been a long time coming and will be welcomed. However, farmers don’t have a lot of confidence in NZ ETS recognising regenerating onfarm sequestration. Any new categories will have to prove themselves to be workable for farms.
The early-movers on riparian fencing and planting (pre-2008) are disadvantaged by the proposed 2008 cut-off. The cut off is because satellite imagery was better from this date. Other methods of proving planting are not discussed.
In 2022, Country-Wide drew attention to problems with the initial HWEN proposal that required full stock exclusion via fencing to get sequestration status for an area of bush/forest. This didn’t recognise that natural boundaries could exclude stock. The new proposal is far more realistic, defining stock exclusion to “include fencing, geographic boundaries and/or dense vegetation that stock cannot access”.
Beef + Lamb NZ said, in their initial email to levy-payers after the proposal release, that there is a lack of detail on sequestration from the Government (including what the sequestration rates could be) and they will be pressing for additional information and clarity over the coming weeks. DairyNZ strongly disagrees with some of the changes made to limit the recognition and reward farmers will get for their onfarm planting, by removing classes of sequestration like shelterbelts, woodlots and scattered trees.
MfE and MPI will host a webinar consultation on the topic on Wednesday, November 9.
• First published in Country-Wide November 2022
Use Bovilis BVD for 12 months of proven foetal protection1. The longest coverage available.
Exposure to BVD could mean your unborn calves become Persistently Infected (PI’s) - spreading BVD amongst your herd. It is estimated that up to 40% of dairy herds are actively infected with the BVD virus at any given time. The convenience of the longest coverage available along with flexible dosing intervals2 means you can protect this season’s calves no matter when they are conceived.
Avoid an outbreak. Ask your vet about vaccinating with Bovilis BVD or visit bovilis.co.nz
Danish dairy farmers have had a hard time in recent years. The trust in dairy cooperative Arla Foods is high, but there are fears of a pending carbon tax and unwilling banks. Sjoerd Hofstee reports.
Denmark has among the highest milk production per cow in the world. An average of 10,518kg milksolids were produced in 2021 at the country’s 2575 dairy farms that are still active. The number of dairy farms has fallen dramatically in the last 10 years, with at least 40% closing.
A major factor for that rapid decrease was the large land price drop Denmark was confronted with in 2007-2008. In the years before, land prices had risen to an average of about €45,000/hectare (about $NZ77,000/ha). In one fell swoop, prices crashed to average just over €20,000.
Many dairy farmers saw their equity evaporate, along with the surety for bank loans they had taken out. In the following years, many Danish dairy farmers went bankrupt. And that still doesn’t seem to be over, with a leading role for the Danish banks. More about that later.
Most remaining Danish dairy farmers are now running relatively healthy businesses. Record milk prices have been fluctuating between €55 and €60 per 100kg in recent months.
Farm sizes vary greatly, but on average farms carry more than 200 cows. In total, the country has about 560,000 dairy cows, of which few are grazed.
Holstein-Friesian is the dominant breed in Denmark, but you will also find many Jerseys, especially at organic farms.
Dairy cows at organic farms must be able to access grazing, but by far the bulk of Danish dairy cows are in stables all year round.
This helps to account for the aforementioned high average milk production. Another reason for high milk production is the relatively high percentage of replacements. That is still above 40% due to the availability of
relatively large farms with feed grown onfarm. Many Danish dairy farmers keep all their young cattle and often select them as replacements as soon as a cow shows problems and suffers a lower milk production.
Dairy farming in Denmark differs greatly from that in New Zealand without the use of grazing. The comparison is large at another point. Just as in NZ, the Danes are the first country in Europe where their government is preparing a law to tax greenhouse gas production.
While the amount of tax to be levied on carbon dioxide emissions is yet to be decided, farmers fear that for their farms would face an extra cost of several hundred thousand euros and bankruptcy of the entire sector. Later this year it will become clear whether the problem is really that big or whether the height of the tax is not that bad.
Where Denmark deviates from other dairy countries, is the way most farms are financed. It is possible to finance up to 70% of the farm from loans via a credit fund. This is the property of the largest Farmers Union. The remaining 30% of
financing must come from equity or a loan through a bank.
Banks in Denmark often finance relatively small amounts for dairy farms, yet their influence is big. Dairy farms are classified as having a high-risk profile. For that reason dairy farmers, who, according to the banks do not perform well enough, can be declared bankrupt overnight, in contrast to other northwest European countries. Danish dairy farmers who have a loan at a Danish bank are often heard to say they fear “the bank can make and break you.”
In addition, a few years ago, Danish banks also worked with loans that were linked to swap financing.
These SWAPs had to protect companies against the interest rate rise, but when the interest rate dropped, a lot had to be paid. Thousands of Danish dairy farmers have lost hundreds of thousands of euros and hundreds of farmers have ended up in bankruptcy.
The structure of the Danish dairy industry is also comparable to NZ, characterised by the enormous dominance of one party. In Denmark that is Arla Foods. About 90% of all Danish milk goes to this large cooperative which is based in Denmark but is active in seven countries with factories and collecting members milk. Arla processes a total of 13.6 billion kg milksolids, in Denmark that is 4.9 billion kg of a total of 5.6 billion.
Four other milk processors of serious size are also active in Denmark - two private companies and two that focus on organic
milk. Arla also collects relatively large volumes of organic milk - Danes consume the most organic milk per person in Europe after Austria.
While in many other countries with a dominant large dairy cooperative is often critically commented on, the Danes are relatively chauvinistic. You don’t hear a lot of criticism of Arla.
What attracts attention in Danish dairy farming is animal welfare. This is reflected in, among other things, relatively low antibiotic use, one of the lowest in the world. This is partly because veterinarians have to provide almost all medicines and dairy farmers themselves are allowed to do almost nothing.
What requires further attention from Danish dairy farmers is the tightening of rules on dairy stables, enlarging the space available.
Many dairy farmers are not yet actively preparing for all these new requirements. But if they have not recently built a stable that meets the new requirements, it probably requires the necessary adjustments and investments.
The expectation is that not all Danes want to meet the new rules and the number of dairy farms will continue to fall steadily in coming years.
• Sjoerd Hofstee is a dairy journalist at Persbureau Langs de melkweg, Netherlands.
In eastern Southland, the Woolseys are sticking to DairyNZ’s mantra of grass only, low-cost dairying.
Story and photos by Karen Trebilcock.
After 20 years of dairying I still don’t know what success looks like,” equity partner Dan Woolsey said at the mid-October Southland Pasture Summit in Southland.
With his wife Emily, he milks 1250 cows at peak through two dairies at Gorge Road with seven full-time-equivalent staff in Eastern Southland only minutes’ drive from the southern coast. Running a system one operation, with fodder beet relied on to put condition on the cows in winter, the Woolsey’s farm aligns to major sponsor of the event DairyNZ’s mantra of grass only, low-cost dairying. The audience, which, apart from industry reps, was mostly young couples, obviously hungry for good pasture and progression knowledge.
Although the Woolsey’s five-year-average operating profit was now $3.08/kg milksolids (MS) and $3933/ha, Dan said their growth had never been in a straight line.
“We started out in our 20s when interest rates were 9%, the payout was three to four dollars and costs were low.
“Our friends were going on OEs but we stayed behind and managed to buy a farm instead.”
The farm was a sheep and beef property and they converted and sold it while they went through a series of positions including management, contract and lower order sharemilking in Southland.
Seven years ago they became equity partners on the Gorge Road farm with Dan’s parents who are fourth-generation dairy farmers looking after 484 hectares with 450ha effective and of that 30ha in fodder beet each year.
Milked through a herringbone is a 525cow Jersey herd and 725 Kiwi Cross cows are milked in a rotary.
The 300 replacement calves once weaned are sent to a grazier and all cows are wintered off farm except for the R3s which are kept at home.
Cows are transitioned on to fodder beet before leaving for wintering and the R2s are first home on July 20 with planned start of calving August 1 with the rest of the herd following and calving 10 days later.
“We find looking after those R2s and R3s a little bit better helps with mating,” Dan said. Heifers are kept separate from the rest of the herd until Christmas following calving, again to improve their mating chances.
Cows remain on a fodder beet and balage
diet until going on to bark pads for calving where there are self-feed silage stacks. From calving it is grass-only.
Cows are milked once-a-day for three weeks following calving enabling all staff to “be home by 4.30” in the spring.
“Our aim is always to feed only grass once they are calved,” Dan said.
“If there are small deficits in feed we hold or increase round lengths, reduce the grass being fed and start once-a-day milking.
“We always have bunkers of silage as insurance and after that we buy in.
“The only reason we would feed supplements such as balage would be to hold condition scores, not to make milk.”
However, last year’s wet spring and dry summer and autumn challenged them and he admitted they used 100 tonnes of palm kernel. This spring they were 13% ahead on production so far and were feeding the cows 20kg drymatter (DM) of grass each day.
Culled cows began leaving the property in February and were all gone by the start of April enabling them to slow the round to build feed into the autumn with covers at 1900kg DM/ha at drying off.
No mating interventions are done with bull of the day used either Jersey for the Jersey herd or Kiwi Cross with the other. The aim is 300 replacements.
“It takes five straws to get a heifer calf so that’s 1500 inseminations which takes us usually between five to five and a half weeks and then we stop.”
Jersey bulls are used afterwards with mating for 10 weeks.
“Our goal is a mid-sized animal which holds its body condition and has good feet. Our Jerseys are about 440kg and our crossbreds about 460kg.
Production is 440kg MS/cow and 1310kg MS/ha with BWs at 226. Empties for last year were 10%.
Dan said while he was not interested in what went in the vat, he did spend time on pasture harvested which last year was 12.5T DM/ha.
“This is not A-class land. We do a lot of work to make sure we can harvest the feed it grows.
“Our golden rule is we never go faster than a 22-day round and we 24-hour-graze so no temporary fences.
“We use the mower as a tool pre-grazing to make sure there is quality grass for the next round. The mower is on the tractor all season. “Nitrogen goes on little and often behind the cows throughout the year. If it gets too wet we have our own gear to put it on, otherwise it’s the bulky.
“Last year we put on 184kg N/ha. We would have put on more but there wasn’t the rain. We’re always looking for that rain window.”
Fertiliser prices were a concern this year and he expected they would be mining some of the phosphate they had built up on the property during the past few years.
“Our Ps are up at 33 so we can do it. I’ve always put 10% more fertiliser on than suggested which is why we can do it now.”
They had soil-tested every paddock and would be targeting those in need.
Almost all of the farm could be reached by the effluent system and each year different sections were targeted as weather allowed.
Their goal of maximising profits from pasture to reduce debt and improve infrastructure had begun with a focus on “needs not wants”, Dan said.
“We’ve never done hire purchase, we only borrow money to make money and we focus on our core business.
“It’s about committing rather than just getting involved.”
He said surrounding themselves with positive people, being open to opportunities, never being afraid to learn and exercising patience had also been important.
“But we still want to have a life. This is a career for our entire lives.
“We are doing this for the long term so our model is to keep things simple, to enjoy it and make sure our staff enjoy it too.”
Running an efficient pasture-based system has allowed a young South Taranaki couple to buy their first farm. By
With a young family and two farms side by side north of Manaia, in South Taranaki, Nathan and Courtney have developed a simple system that works for them and has allowed them to buy their first farm this season.
“We run a simple pasture-based system that we try to keep simple and easy to understand by everyone and with the end goal being to generate high profits.”
At the 2022 Pasture Summit field day in late September Nathan laid out the system that has allowed them to grow and progress in the industry.
In their fifth season leasing the Taikatu Plains farm, running 300 cows, a 30-aside herringbone shed and a simple farm layout, the couple are targeting 130,000kg milksolids (MS) for the season.
“Trying to keep our operating costs as low as possible will result in good profits at the end.”
Nathan said he and Courtney set goals at the start of their farming career, to get to farm ownership and with the support of their parents they have been able to buy the farm next door, which they are very happy about.
Analysis for the field day put the operating profit for the Joyces at $6090/ha for the 2021/22 season, lifting from $5515/ha for 2020/21, which was 40% higher than the median South Taranaki result of $3421/ ha for the 2020/21 season. (See Table 1. Results for the South Taranaki group not yet known for 2021/22 season.)
The couple’s farming philosophy is to run a sustainable and resilient business with low costs, and a simple repeatable system, while enjoying the lifestyle and keeping up with changing farming regulations.
“We want to make sure the farm is running really well so that if opportunities come up, we are in a position to take them.”
Nathan explained that they lease the farm off really supportive owners and are lucky to have the assistance of hugely supportive staff. Courtney takes care of all the accounts and wages and looks after four children.
“Onfarm, the staff play a huge role in the day-to-day operations and we appreciate that they are really good communicators - which helps the business to run really smoothly.”
‘TRYING TO KEEP OUR OPERATING COSTS AS LOW AS POSSIBLE WILL RESULT IN GOOD PROFITS AT THE END.’
• Really focused on harvesting pasture efficiently
• Making decisions at the right timeattention to detail
• Converting pasture into high quality milk
• Having happy staff on farm
• Found a ratio of supplement:pasture that maximises profit
• Managing cashflow efficiently
• Big focus on paying off debt and building equity
• Six week incalf rate is hugely important - get cows in calf early and drive that early season profit - that flows right on through the season
• Maximise the lactation length without eating in to the next season
• Learning about lean management principles
• Staff have taught Nathan to have everything presented well, be organised and be a better communicator - being more efficient, having plans set up and displayed for ease of access
• Looking after the soils - growing maximum grass from the ground up with right pH, right fert at the right time
• Pasture - keeping it in the best shape, undersowing areas when they need it, every square metre of the farm countsso grow grass on it.
Nathan and Courtney are consistently about 20% above the South Taranaki benchmark for pasture and crop eaten, DairyNZ principal scientist, new systems and competitiveness Jane Kay said.
Nathan shared his key driver and targets behind the grazing management and achieving them year in and year out.
• Always start with “what is demand for the cows?”
• Giving cows the right level of pregrazing cover to enable cow demand to be fulfilled and get to post grazing residuals target - that drives quality
• Weekly pasture assessments - do pasture meter drive, meeting, decide where cows are going, always graze the longest paddock is really important
• Be willing to change - review, adapt, change the plan if one paddock has grown faster than others, be flexible
• Feed budget at start of the season - get them well set up, know the feed on farm, what’s in the silage pit? Is there enough to get through
• Be disciplined with spring rotation planner (SRP), staff must be involved, how many square metres are we giving the cows? He aims for a 100-day round at dry-off, start calving and follow the SRP, open up by mid September with 23day round, faster when paddocks shut out for silage, moving into summer 30 days round + supplements and 40 days for autumn
• Rising plane of nutrition, never feed cows cows less day-to-day between calving and mating
• Supplement - only feed when in deficit, no substitution of pasture
• Round lengths - have targets, ‘when the grass grows slow, you go slow’
• 90% pasture 10% supplement - any supplement needs to be competitively priced, easy to feed and store, with minimal wastage.
Nathan said optimising the system is really about managing the inputs and trying to be efficient with anything put into the system.
“We are trying to get a return on investment on all the inputs we put into the system - rather than focusing on a wide range of things, we think about how we are optimising our system, trying to work smarter not harder.
The couple buy in 100 tonnes of maize for the early autumn feeding and 90t of palm kernel to add in Jan/Feb/March. In the past they have harvested silage on the
farm and then bought in a top-up of an extra 50/60t of bulk silage to allow the cows to be fully fed and milk twice a day right through the season. Looking after the pastures has been a focus for Nathan to avoid having to renew whole swards.
“We go through and undersow any areas that need it, but we have just tried to look after the grass we have - we believe the pasture is resilient and if you feed it with the right fertiliser it goes well.”
Even though they are focused on controlling costs, there was a big jump in farm working expenses from 20/21 to the 21/22 season.
“We are not changing our system, but we had a wet spring last year and then managed to stack on almost a dollar per kg MS.”
Based on the breakdown of costs from
the 2020/21 season, Taikatu Plains sat at $4.03/kg MS c.f. the benchmark at $5.21/ kg MS. The supplement cost was half that of the South Taranaki benchmark ($0.65/ kg MS vs $1.20/kg MS) and both the Joyces’ repairs and maintenance (R&M) and depreciation costs for the season were under a third of the cost compared with the benchmark, which Nathan suggested reflects their lower rate of supplementation on the lease farm.
He explained their R&M has been higher in the past but was pretty low in the 2020/21 season ($0.15/kg MS c.f. $0.48/ kg MS for the benchmark.) Fertiliser and
nitrogen costs are also well under the benchmark for the season ($0.22 c.f. $0.39/ kg MS). All cows are wintered on the farm and weaners grazed out from December to May when they come back for calving.
With a 23% replacement rate Nathan prefers to keep the mating simple with bull of the day for 4.5 weeks followed by six weeks of natural mating.
With no intervention and no premating recording of heats, Nathan is happy with the 78% six-week-in-calf rate and 7-8% empty rate, saying their huge focus is on feeding the cows well and a simple tail painting and heat patches system.
A doubling of the cost of nitrogen is something he thinks about all the time, Nathan said, but he still thinks it’s a cheap form of feed so he has been concentrating on making better use of it.
“We need to get the right response, not put it on willy nilly. With the N caps we have dropped our input to 180kg N/ ha and we have a new philosophy to not apply it in Dec/Jan and Feb - we will only apply it when we are going to get the best response.”
While the purchased N surplus metric farmers are given from their milk company is a simple metric to understand in terms of N into the system from feed and fert less N leaving in meat/milk, Ravensdown chief scientific officer Ants Roberts suggested it was a poor indicator of N loss through leaching and related water quality.
“The purchased N surplus metric is not good enough to measure how efficiently you are using the N you are bringing in.”
He asked Nathan to outline the triggers he used to apply nitrogen. Nathan shared they have recently reduced N application to fit under the 190kg/ha/year N cap, applied in six or seven applications during slow growth periods during the shoulders of the season.
“We follow the grass growth curve with a 37kg N application in autumn to stimulate a pasture surplus heading into winter, followed by another application in the winter, then spring and none in the summer.”
Ants suggested that with no N application, the right pastures and clover
2020/21
“We are able to make decisions together, on pasture management and breeding and they are always keen to take on more responsibility.”
“I think it’s a mutual thing - I try to treat the staff as I would like to be treated. I have learnt from them, to be a better communicator and to consider work/life balance.”
“We try to make sure everyone turns up and enjoys their role and adds value.”
“To attract good staff I think it’s important to show them we are very organised, we understand them and we work on the presentation of the workplace, and then to retain them we need to look after them and help them grow.”
mix and good pasture management the South Taranaki area should grow 14-16t pasture/ha if the season was optimal - not dry or badly affected by grass grub etc.
“You could design a profitable dairy system here without any N application, producing 1200kg MS/ha and 3.6cows/ha, but applying up to 190kg N/ha you should be able to produce an additional 2t/ha pasture.”
Some key things from Ants about N fertiliser response:
• If you are using less, you want each application to have the best response possible
• It works fastest and grows the most DM when the pasture is growing fast
• Soil temperature should be 6C and rising
• Up to 50kgN/ha, it is a relative response rate , 1kg N:10kg pasture
• Ideal spring rotation for maximum N response 28-30 days - any shorter round depresses the N response
• Maintain 30% clover in the sward on an annual basis. “Clover is not a cure for N leaching (from cows urine) but helps with the optics of the industry using less N”, he said.
• “Before you even consider using N fertiliser, get everything else right first”i.e. subdivision/pastures/fertility testing/ lime/drainage.
Nathan referred to how important it was to have a great team to work with, and said Jonathan Magnaye and Maria Atlas, who have been with the Joyces for one year as manager and 2IC, are exactly that team. The couple work a 12:2 roster, with every second weekend off.
Knowing your numbers so that when policies are made you can decide which way to go was DairyNZ principal scientist, new systems and competitiveness, Jane Kay’s advice to dairy farmers on the methane emissions conundrum. The key driver for methane emissions is feed eaten, Jane Kay told the Pasture Summit field day. Because Nathan and Courtney Joyce are high profit and have a high amount of feed eaten, their enteric methane emissions are sitting about 11t CO2-e or 450kg CH4/ha/ year.
“I have run some numbers on the He Waka proposal and at 11c/kg methane the cost to the Joyces would be 3c/kg MS, so $3900 in the first year.”
Jane outlined the work DairyNZ are looking at to try and decouple the high feed eaten, high methane emissions equation.
“You will have heard of the 3NOP work, the seaweed, the bromaform, and we are investigating forms of delivery of an inhibitor, for example through a controlled feed machine like a Zeddy machine.”
More work is focusing on the probiotic, inhibitory effect of calf products, to try and modify the rumen at a young age to produce less methane.
Further work on low-methane dairy cattle was also outlined, with LIC testing bulls at the moment to identify lowmethane-emitting bloodlines.
On a feed basis, research is concentrating on how to drop the national inventory, to manage it better in the system and how to use other forages/ feeds as a tool to reduce CH4.
Wintering dairy herds on the West Coast is challenging and little research has been carried out specifically for the region. But now a project is going to assess the range of wintering options and their ability to improve environmental outcomes.
‘How to winter better’ is one of the projects funded by Our Land and Water Rural Professionals Fund and will gather information from farmers in the region who are using a variety of wintering options to cope with the high rainfall.
Farmers already use standoff pads, sacrifice paddocks, herd shelters and compost barns alongside other methods, but there is little information about each system on the West Coast.
Andrew Curtis from Primary Insight says a ton of work has been carried out elsewhere, but the West Coast has often been neglected, resulting in limited research to date for the benefit of farmers in the region. The project will enable West Coast farmers to directly participate in research relevant to their farming and the results will provide region-specific information that will enable them to make informed decisions and meet intensive winter grazing regulations.
Andrew says it will be a very practical project working with farmers who will
be questioned about their motivations, reasoning, any limitations of their wintering systems and whether they are considering changing to a different winter system and why.
The differing wintering options will be modelled through OverseerFM and Farmax to understand the economic and environmental (water quality and greenhouse gases) implications of making changes to the farm wintering system.
Farmers sometimes choose a wintering option because of a good sales job, Andrew says, rather than having the costs and benefits analysed.
The project team will interview farmers using different methods and learn from their experience as well as carry out cost-benefit analysis and work out the environmental footprint.
“The aim is to reduce risks to water quality and soil degradation, in the most cost-effective way for their farm system.”
Rather than simply erect a shelter as part of the wintering plan, Andrew says the project should be able to give West Coast farmers more information to make an informed decision. It is also aimed at encouraging farmers to think about their wintering systems and how they can be improved.
The goal is to get the information out to farmers before next winter, with an on-farm field day to present information from the nine-month project.
A herd test reveals so much more than lactation details and somatic cell counts. It helps shine the light on variations in performance and production within the herd, so you can accurately identify your best cows to create the next generation from.
Breeding from the best helps you gain faster results – cows that produce more and are more emissions efficient. Regular herd testing proves your herd’s worth by giving you more reliable BW and PW figures, and gives you the clarity to make decisions to improve your herd year on year for generations to come.
Talk to an Agri Manager today about setting up regular herd testing.
Put the spotlight on the variations in your herd performance.
There's always room for improvement
42 Championing people
46 What makes you tick?
48 Identifying the gaps
50 Learning with an ‘over-communicator’
54 Learning the ropes
56 Next-in-line for training
58 Uncovering the hidden
59 Tips on creating a good workplace
potential
Developing people is part of the fabric at Kairoa Dairies.
Manager Jonathon Hoets is living it, the team is following it and the wider Rylib Group which owns the farm, is absolutely championing it.
Everyone is on a development course at Rylib Group it seems, whether it’s building the howto foundations onfarm, learning more about management and governance or even honing skills for a hobby or interest that’s completely outside the farm.
The company is a family owned operation founded and built by John and Kelly Nicholls.
Both have been instrumental in growing the Canterbury-based farming business that, while it has significant scale, is run with family values and culture.
It now includes six dairy farms and a support block totalling close to 5000 cows.
Over this past year the next generation has stepped aboard to take on business management roles also.
Son Ryan has taken on the role of general manager and daughter Libby is now head of people, brand and culture.
While they bring their own take on some
things, the long-held priority placed on people is still very much front and centre of the business.
For Jonathon, skill development has been an integral part of his focused progression plan.
Originally from a dairy farm in the Waitaki Valley he went farming straight out of school at St Bede’s College in Christchurch 15 years ago.
He’s always worked in Canterbury and loves the motivation that comes from the competitive nature within the sector and striving to be within the top 5% of performers.
When he was 20, he set a goal of owning a farm with one other entity within 10 years.
It might have taken one year longer but he and wife Stacey realised the goal last year when they became equity partners in Kairoa Dairies.
“I’m very goals focused. I like to look ahead to where I want to be in five years, think about what skills I’m going to need for that and start doing courses and gaining knowledge so I’m ready for it.”
“Ten years ago, I started going to industry events, surrounding myself with people who were already where I wanted to be in 10 years.”
He attended courses run by agribusiness consultant Lynaire Ryan through DairyNZ, went
Building a skill set around governance and leadership has guided the development of a family owned Canterbury farming business. Anne Lee reports.
Photos: Johnny Houston.
along to the South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) and is now on the SIDE organising committee and has completed PrimaryITO courses right through to a Diploma in Primary Industry Business Management.
Over more recent years, alongside buying into the farm, he’s had a goal of taking on a leadership role in the dairy industry.
“So, I’ve been building a skill set around governance and leadership with the aim of taking on an associate director role, building up practical experience in governance before taking on a board seat.”
One of the biggest things he’s learnt along his own development path is the importance of aligning with like-minded people who have similar values and goals.
Jonathon is one of seven children and he and Stacey and have two young daughters.
Family is very important to them, it’s their “why” so the alignment with Rylib Group, John and Kelly and now Ryan and Libby, builds on the family farming association.
It’s also helped to build leadership and business skills too.
Systems and procedures have been standardised on the farms and roles have clear job descriptions.
“People know what skills they need for each role and if they want to grow, they can see what they need to learn to get to their next step.”
Development discussions begin right at the recruitment stage, he says.
“We start out with an explanation of the farm and where that fits in the group, in our culture and values.
“Then we go through the job description and we
talk about what their expectations are and get a sense of their values to make sure they’re going to be a good fit.
“We want to find out a bit about their goals too because that gives you some insight and helps with the longer-term staffing set-up of the farm.
“If you have someone coming in at a dairy assistant level but they want to get to an assistant manager and manager level and you know your assistant manager is aiming to step up to a manager level in two or three years, you can already start thinking about their pathway.
“It’s all about that foresight again.”
The initial training and development process focuses on bringing people up to speed with the skills they need to do the job they’ve come into.
For a start that’s likely to come from the manager and other team members but PrimaryITO courses also play a role.
“Every six months we have a performance review. We
have two copies of a skills assessment form and we give them a copy a week before the review so they can take some time going over it as well as ranking their performance for specific tasks.
“Giving them that time means there’s more value in the process.
“I’ll carry out the same skills assessment, looking at where they’re at, and then we’ll meet and go through both.
“From that we can build a gap sheet – so where they’re at and where they need or want to beand then we’ll agree a training plan with a time line.
“It’s not just the onfarm skills though, we talk about other personal development goals too and we look at what we can do to help them build skills to reach those goals as well.”
For one team member it was about giving them time to do driving lessons so they could get their full licence. “We’re having conversations on a regular basis so we don’t just leave it for those six-monthly formal meetings.
“We’ve got a lot of experience and talent on the farms so we’re working on utilising that and doing more onfarm training in house too,” he says.
Recently they identified the need for some newer team members to gain more skills in riding motorbikes in wet conditions so two of the managers got together and ran a specific motorbike skills course for team members from several farms.
Key suppliers and rural professionals are engaged to help with training too. Vets, accountants, contractors and other suppliers are all happy to run tailored courses and workshops for the teams.
Above: Principles and values alignment is important if you’re going to grow and develop together.
Below: Successfully developing people takes communication – from left Kairoa Dairies equity manager Jonathon Hoets, with Rylib Group general manager Ryan Nicholls and the company’s head of people brand and culture Libby Nicholls.
“We’re quite reflective so we analyse a lot of data, review how what we’re doing is meeting needs and that goes for training and development as well as other things across the whole business,” Libby says.
“If we see a gap, we work to fill it,” Libby says.
As farming changes and new technologies become available, new skill sets will be needed as well.
“We’ve got to look outside the usual pool of people and that means we’re going to have people who haven’t been brought up on farms – they’re going to be really valuable but they’re going to need a lot of training in some of those basic farm skill areas as well as being able to develop and grow skills in areas we haven’t traditionally been involved in.”
Libby says they have several people in the Group who have come to farming with no previous experience.
“We’re not afraid of that. If they have the right attitude and share the same values we can provide them with all the training they need.
“We work in closely with PrimaryITO to make sure what they’re offering is relevant and what our people need.
“We have a policy of you pass and we’ll pay so it doesn’t cost them anything to learn new skills – and that applies to anything really.
“We’re very much about helping people develop not just their skills for work but other passions they might have too because that helps them in their overall wellbeing.
“We have one person who’s keen on photography so we’re supporting that. There’s a genuine culture here of helping people grow,” she says.
It goes a long way to creating an enjoyable workplace where everyone on the team is engaged and happy and
keen to stick around for the longer term. Learning and development isn’t just about formal training and the company runs informal, fun activities such as inter-farm challenges that also include the office team.
“We’ll get people together and run an inter-farm challenge where they have to put the bucket on the tractor and ride the motorbike through a series of cones - things like that so it’s about having fun, team building and learning all at the same time,” Libby says.
“We like to foster a bit of healthy competition and we combine that with our farm performance awards where we recognise success each year,” she says.
The two big awards are the Farm Pride award and the Farm of the Year award based on economic farm surplus with several other awards recognising onfarm performance. Supporting people to develop and grow in a broader sense is important.
“We have people who want to progress and grow in terms of their careers onfarm but not everyone is necessarily going to want to be the manager,” Ryan says.
“That doesn’t mean they don’t get any training and development.
“They still have drivers – it’s a matter of knowing them and what their drivers are to make sure the job and how its structured or managed is enabling them.
“What can we do or provide that helps them –even if it’s things off farm,” he says.
The company has been committed to helping people progress even if that means progressing right out of the business into other manager, contract milker or even equity partner roles.
“We spend time with our managers and talk
through their journey with them and how we can support them.
“For some, contract milking is their next goal.
“As managers they set the farm budget that’s fine-tuned with management and they build a lot of financial skills but there’s more to contract milking and we can help get them in front of an accountant or lawyer and help build knowledge and skills for that next step, whether it’s going to be with us or not,” he says.
If they want to build governance and leadership skills there are a range of courses available through organisations such as the Institute of Directors, Chamber of Commerce, Ice House and Fonterra. Fonterra’s courses include Understanding Your Co-operative and the Governance Development Programme.
“If our managers aren’t interested in governance then they will already have built a big skill set and they’re likely chasing something else.
“Because we’ve been having conversations as they’ve been progressing, we have a better understanding of what their goals are for themselves and their family and we are able to help them build skills to achieve them,” Ryan says.
“If buying their own farm is their goal, we’re there to help too,” says Libby.
Where there’s good alignment, that help has sometimes extended to financial support in various forms including through equity partnerships.
“That’s a real measure of success for us – seeing people go right through to achieve those big life goals like farm ownership, whether it’s with us or elsewhere,” she says.
f you’re starting out as a new employer, developing your new team isn’t necessarily going to be all about them – at least not at the beginning.
Instead, it’s about starting with yourself, understanding your mission and purpose and building your skills as a leader.
Sarah Barr from Rural Coach says if you want your people to be motivated, keen to develop and learn and for the team to be pulling together in the same direction you need to let them know what they’re aiming for.
“There needs to be a sense of alignment between your goals and theirs but if you don’t know your purpose how can you articulate it to others and how will you find that common ground?”
If you’re a contract milker starting out you may have made your decisions on the level of staffing based on growing your own business as fast as you can.
“It’s fine to make decisions for yourself knowing there’s a compromise and you will be working flat out with long hours, but don’t impose that on your team.”
People need to feel valued and that they belong and they need three things for that:
Autonomy – they need to feel they have some influence over how their day goes.
Competence - they want the ability to grow their level of competence and be recognised for that growth.
Relatedness or belonging – they can see how they fit into the team and the business and they feel like they can add value because that’s being reinforced for them by those they work with.
“Sometimes I hear people say they have team members who don’t want to learn anything, but often that’s because they haven’t taken the time to understand what motivates that team member.”
The real motivations for people are the intrinsic rather than extrinsic – motivators that come from within such as the desire to create security for their family or have a tight-knit family unit. If pay is taken off the table as an issue because I’m being paid fairly then what’s going to motivate me the most is the fact you make sure I’m home every night to eat dinner with my children or you let me take the morning off to go to school sports, she says.
“But you’re not going to know what motivates them unless you get to know them and that will mean spending time with them.
“If people say they don’t have time to spend with their team I say it’s not that you don’t have time, it’s that you have prioritised something else above that.
“Schedule time with staff members in your calendar.”
Why is all this important for developing and growing your people?
Because motivated, engaged people are going to show up to work each day eager to do a great job and build on their competency.
Setting up a new team, an employer needs to know where they are going and what their aims are. By Anne Lee.
work out how our goals can be mutually met.
“And if I grow you, that’s going to be beneficial to me because you’re working in my business and I’m going to benefit from your improved capabilities.
“No one is fighting for your business as hard as you are, but if you invest in your people you may end up with four or five people all pulling in that direction with you and that’s a powerful thing.”
Sarah says in helping farmers become good coaches of people she often gives them a skills checklist for different positions onfarm which can be modified to more specifically suit the farm.
“They give a starting point for a development conversation – here are the skills for this position, let’s talk about where your skills are at, what do we need to improve on, how can we do that and by when?”
They can also be used to show the skills necessary for the next position so you can begin helping them work towards that job.
“You might have the big growth conversations quarterly but each month you are checking in with them to find out how they’re progressing with learning the skills you agreed needed development; you’re asking - what else can we do to help you with that?”
It might be they wanted to learn more about animal health around calving but they’ve been busy with calves when there’s been an opportunity to treat a down cow.
Having the quick check-in means you make sure they’re called over the next time a cow needs treating.
“If the time between check-ins is too long things get forgotten and one thing you must not do is raise hopes by having great development meetings and then not follow through.
“I think in many ways that’s worse than if you never had the conversation in the first place.
“If your actions follow through on your conversations, you help them feel like they have some autonomy in their learning, they’re improving their competency and they feel like that matters to you too – they feel valued.”
In the People360 programme she carries out, Sara says she goes through a full circle review process.
The leader and team members all have an opportunity to review what is going well and where there are opportunities for improvement when it comes to how the team and the farm operates.
It can require courage from the leader of the business but it is a powerful tool in creating an effective, motivated, happy team.
“We’ll ask everyone questions that, for instance, relate to how trusted and valued they feel, are there clear systems and processes in place?
“The first step in leading people is being able to lead yourself and if you have a blind spot when it comes to any of these factors your effectiveness is going to be compromised.”
Both positive and corrective feedback to the team members is important.
“Just saying great job team every day soon becomes grey noise. Be specific and responsive – so talk about a specific action and why it was good and how it helped.”
Respectful corrective feedback is important too because without it you set them up to continue to fail.
“And you’ve set yourself up to continue to be irritated.”
If you have a potential leader in the team, give them more responsibility but ensure they are given the tools and skills to be successful in the endeavour.
Accept there is some risk in handing over more responsibility but think about what those risks are and work with them on managing them so that too becomes a learning opportunity.
‘IT’S FINE TO MAKE DECISIONS FOR YOURSELF KNOWING THERE’S A COMPROMISE AND YOU WILL BE WORKING FLAT OUT WITH LONG HOURS, BUT DON’T IMPOSE THAT ON YOUR TEAM.’’
You can’t do it alone – that is why you recruited your team. But remember there is still work to do to help them so they can help you.
No one is perfect. People join our teams with a range of skills and strengths but also there will be areas that need to be developed.
These development areas can be around their skills to do the job, or it may be in the area that some call ‘soft’ skills – this might be with their communication skills, their interpersonal skills, or maybe the way they deal with conflict, or maybe some other non-technical area.
It may sometimes feel like you are too busy to think about, let alone fix, these gaps.
Maybe you just hope things will fix themselves.
However, providing training and development for your team is an important way to support your staff so that they feel valued, and to help increase their job satisfaction. In return your team are more likely to give you their best.
They are also are more likely to choose to stay in your team.
When we grow our people they feel more motivated; they can then contribute
more effectively to the work they do, and to the team. The first step is to discuss the training and development areas that you think are needed, with each team member.
It is important that you ask them what training and development they think they need too.
This conversation is about identifying gaps and agreeing the best ways to address them.
It might be part of a performance appraisal or review process (if you do them), or it can just be an informal conversation.
While it may be easier to focus on the farm-related skills needed to do the job, it is important to also discuss those skills and areas that will help them work effectively as part of the team and may put them into a better position to move up in their career.
Often, we can help our people by training, coaching or mentoring them ourselves onfarm.
However, we can find that we are too busy to do this, or we might be better with the technical job-related skills.
In those situations, we may need to use experts to help us with those other development areas.
Discuss to identify the job skills required to do the job effectively
• These might be identified by the manager or by the staff member.
• These farm skills might be related to livestock, machinery, vehicle or health and safety or other farm tasks.
• You can find help identifying the skills your people need now, or for their next job at www.dairynz.co.nz/people/ managing-your-team/
Training and development of skills is important for staff support. By Carolyn Bates
The first step is to discuss the training and development areas that you think are needed, with each team member.
2 3 4
Agree how best to gain the needed skills.
• This may be through on the job instruction training by yourself, coaching by another manager or by buddying them up with a more experienced staff member.
• When instructing staff make sure you consider what they need to know – and break it down into easy to understand steps.
• When instructing or training your staff do make sure there is an opportunity to explain what to do, how to do it and why it needs to be done. Also ensure you demonstrate as people need to see, as well as hear, how to do things. Lastly, always let them try under supervision before they practice on their own. That way incorrect or bad habits can quickly be identified and rectified.
• You might find the Training planner helpful – it is available on www. dairynz.co.nz/people/managingyour-team
3.
Discuss to identify ‘soft skills’ developmental needs
• These might be identified by the manager or by the staff member.
• These might be more around how to communicate more effectively, how to work in a team, how to work with people from different backgrounds.
• You can identify possible developmental needs by reviewing job descriptions and people specifications, and also by considering the reason people are not behaving as you would expect.
• Some sample job descriptions and people specifications can be found at www.dairynz.co.nz/ media/1915342/people-pub-hrtoolkit.pdf
Agree how best to develop the areas
• This may be via coaching from the manager, by an experienced colleague or possibly by participating in a training course or workshop off-farm.
• There are a range of training courses to consider. Keep an eye open for workshops or courses that could help.
Regular conversations about the skills and development needs with staff will show them that you value them, build stronger working relationships, and help you in running an effective and efficient farm.
• Where can I find more info? www. dairynz.co.nz/people/managingyour-team
Carolyn is the principal consultant/owner at LDT Consulting – an organisation committed to helping managers and organisations with their Learning, Development and Training to ensure everyone is valued and everyone can contribute: www.ldtconsulting.co.nz
Jack Raharuhi has no desire to buy a farm and milk a couple of hundred cows with no staff. He would be lost without people and his career in the dairy industry is all about people management.
At 30, he has spent half his life working on corporate dairy farms and has charged up the ranks to the role of business manager at Pamu Farms of New Zealand’s $65 million Cape Foulwind farming operation. That encompasses three dairy farms milking more than 3000 cows, two support blocks, a machinery business and an 1800-hectare livestock block that is moving from deer to dairy support in a bid to reduce winter cropping and create a bobby-free business.
He oversees 24 full-time staff and four on fixed terms, from school leavers joining as farm assistants to farm managers in charge of large herds and he has learned a thing or two about people. He admits he is a “real overcommunicator” who enjoys people.
It has probably helped him over the years with his success in the Ahuwhenua Young Maori farmer of the Year, Dairy Industry Awards and then Zanda McDonald Award where he rubbed shoulders with leaders in the industry and has “taken all the gold nuggets” from them to add to his knowledge. About 90% of his role now is managing people and he says it is all about communication and keeping staff excited about their role in the business and where they are heading. He talks to the entire team and not just farm managers about KPIs, greenhouse gas emissions and the long-term goals of the business.
It is usually informal conversations as they drive around the farm and it is all part of making staff feel a connection to the business and being interested in the role they play. At the same time, he asks about families and life outside of the farm to create
He’s gained national and international industry awards and Jack Raharuhi sees his career as all about working with people. By Anne Hardie.
bonds that help staff feel connected.
“It’s building that connection early on and saying they can ring any time. Someone won’t ring you if you haven’t got that connection early on.”
Staff go the extra mile if they feel they are supported and their leadership shows empathy, though Jack warns there needs to be a balance between being an empathic leader and professionalism. Otherwise, some individuals will take advantage of an empathetic leader, he says. Finding that balance depends on the individual personalities of staff members, he says.
The industry is changing and Jack says communication is becoming more important than ever to attract staff, retain them and keep them interested. In particular, staff under about 23-years-old are needier than they were 10 years ago and seek more communication.
“They love to be acknowledged and praised and they love to feel a part of something. They love to chat about things in their personal lives. Staff are bringing a lot more to work than they used to.
“I think they’re getting a lot softer. They want to be paid more to work less and lack a career drive. It’s just a job.”
He finds staff older than 30 tend to have grown up with a focus on career, mortgage and family. But when it is just a job and the labour market offers plenty of goodpaying jobs, it’s easy to move on pretty quickly.
“You need a bit of stability and a bit of longevity in the business and the generation coming through doesn’t want to settle,” he says.
“The dairy industry is screaming out for
staff so dairy farming is a good way to hop around if you are a young guy. You can get a job on the phone with a house and good salary and do it for six months and then head somewhere else.”
It takes time training people, so Jack says employers have to cater to what prospective employees want to make them want to stay. That includes making them feel part of something special.
“It’s not just financially. It’s stability, a good home, good working conditions and working facilities. It comes back to lots of little things, like firewood, Christmas functions and presents for the kids and putting on a lunch for all the staff every couple of months.”
The Cape Foulwind farms have 24 homes for staff – which means 24 tenancy agreements – that are part of employment agreements on top of salaries. Jack says labour shortage and rising inflation has lifted wages considerably. In the past, the corporate paid a base salary plus a bonus, but he says it was a hard sales pitch trying to describe what that bonus would look like when it was connected to aspects such as production and mating performance. Now, farm assistants get paid between $55,000 and $63,000 a year, plus a house if they want it. The 2ICs are paid about $75,000 plus a house and farm managers between $85,000 and $105,000 depending on herd size and experience, plus a house.
“There was a lot of debate about the bonus and a lot of people said they just wanted to get paid a figure, so we scrapped the bonus scheme this year and now their pay is highly competitive against the rest of the industry and no bonus scheme.”
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0
Being available for staff to ring you anytime
Good communicationcredit where its due
Spending time training them
Support with off-farm training
A good induction process
Pairing with a buddy
Discussion groups for 2ICs
Offering progression opportunities within the group
Annual performance review with goal setting and personal development plan.
‘IT’S BUILDING THAT CONNECTION EARLY ON AND SAYING THEY CAN RING ANY TIME. SOMEONE WON’T RING YOU IF YOU HAVEN’T GOT THAT CONNECTION EARLY ON.’
Jack says attracting and retaining staff is critical for the business, which is why it employs a cook through the hectic August and September period to cook a hot meal for all the teams to eat at the end of the morning milkings.
Rosters have changed in the past few years and Jack says there will have to be more changes in future to attract and retain staff. Through the year, rosters on the Cape Foulwind dairy farms vary between four days on and two off, five days on and two off, plus six days on and three off.
The herds are milked twice a day through the season and each farm splits the herds so there can be three herds being brought in for milking in the morning and afternoon. For staff, that can mean a 3.30am start to get the cows in and a long day through to about 5.30pm, with two to three hours off in the middle of the day.
Big days, Jack says, but decent days off and a lot better than when he started in the dairy industry at 12 days on and two days off. It used to add up to 160 to 170 hours a fortnight and, he says, that is just not acceptable now.
“It was normal back then and you just had to crack on. When you are young, you have a bit more energy. But you get to your days off and you’re buggered. When you’re young you have a social life too and you can get quite fatigued.”
That becomes a health and safety issue onfarm and brings inefficiencies due to tired staff and they have learnt to work smarter and become more efficient.
“The workforce is changing really fast. We are going to struggle to find people who will get up at three in the morning –unless it is an old-schooler.”
Technology continues to improve and robotics is an option for the future. Flexible milking times is another option and Pamu has been using 3in2 and 10in7 on Canterbury farms. Jack says once-a-day milking in larger herds could lead to a 30% drop in production, so he is not keen on reducing milkings to that level.
Another option is splitting the team into shifts, with a morning shift on the early milking and an afternoon shift taking over for the later milking. All options will have to be considered to attract staff and retain them.
Abuddy system helps new farm assistants find their feet when they join the team at Pamu’s Cape Foulwind dairy farms and Jack Raharuhi says the most important thing you can give them is time. For the first three to four weeks of their employment, new farm assistants with no dairying experience will stick with their buddy to learn the basics around the farm and gain some confidence.
“Someone coming in with no experience needs to enjoy the fundamentals first. They need the basics like meeting and fitting in with the team, riding the motorbike and learning to be punctual.
“In terms of teaching them, it depends on their personality and you pair them with someone who suits. We’ll put a young fella with the wise old bugger of the farm. And if you can’t pair them with anyone who suits, then you’ve hired the wrong person because they don’t fit with the team.”
After a few weeks with their buddy, the new farm assistant will be given minor tasks to carry out unsupervised and Jack says management will slowly loosen the leash over time as the new assistant gains confidence.
The induction process sets the scene for the employee in terms of what is expected in their role on the farm, including health and safety with the highvis, personal locator beacon and radio whenever they are out on the farm. Importantly, they learn they are working as part of a team.
“We want people to enjoy work and who they work with. But we are also a high-performing business and we do expect tasks and quality of work to be to the best of their ability. We don’t want to scare them off on their first day, though.”
Occasionally, there is a manager who loves power and Jack says you have to manage that with new staff. Much of it is about personalities, understanding people and communication.
Employees are encouraged to work through the Primary ITO New Zealand Apprenticeship in Agriculture for dairy farming and Jack says they wrap a lot of support around the trainees to help them achieve their qualifications. Employees new to the industry get one-on-one assistance with information for the course to help them on their way.
In the past, Jack has held monthly apprentice workshops which was useful for getting all the apprentices together and taking them through the performances of the Cape Foulwind farms, then relating it back to their course. Now that he has moved up to the role of business manager, he no longer has the time to run the workshops, though he still tries to take the time to talk with the apprentices about their studies to maintain relationships.
He also ran discussion groups for 2ICs in the past to help them prepare for farm management roles because, he says, they too often go into farm management roles unprepared. It was also a good way of working out the potential of individuals. Discussion groups may start up again in the future, though next time he would select a few 2ICs who are focused on their next move. In the meantime, he works with individuals to make sure they know what is happening within the farm business and why, as they prepare for farm manager responsibilities.
“The 2ICs get dropped in the deep end as farm managers and you have to make sure they have all the support so they float. We wrap a lot of support around them.”
One of the advantages of a corporate
operation is the opportunity to move employees into new roles on other farms when they are ready. Jack says there comes a time when 2ICs want to move up into a farm manager’s role and if they cannot do that within the business, they will leave.
“If you have a really good 2IC working with a farm manager, they’ll start to butt heads. They’ll try to suggest something better than what the farm manager is saying and the farm manager will refuse to do it because they don’t want it to be the 2IC’s idea.”
The alternative is to try and stimulate the 2IC by giving them more responsibilities, so you don’t lose them. Jack says losing a good staff member such as a good 2IC is like losing your investment.
He has lost good 2ICs that he has coached and mentored over the years who have sought job opportunities elsewhere, but sometimes they come back when a farm manager’s role becomes available. It comes back to communication, relationships and trying to be an employer of choice, he says.
On corporate dairy farms where a team works together over time, Jack says it usually causes disruption when a new farm manager is brought in from outside, rather than moving a 2IC up from the team. Part of that is due to the role of 2IC.
“The 2IC role is quite interesting. They’re the sounding board for all the farm assistants. The team is onside. If you’re willing to bring a new farm manager in, you will typically see a high turnover of the team.”
Sometimes that has to happen to bring
fresh ideas on to the farm, especially if performance has been struggling.
“If you aren’t promoting internally, it usually means you want to change things.”
At farm manager level, those who can operate independently make Jack’s job easier. But, he says, it is important to maintain a good relationship with them.
“One thing I’ve learnt is to never assume anything and also keep a finger on the pulse because at some point things won’t go to plan. They have to stay responsible and you don’t want them to take advantage of you.
“Farm managers need to live and breathe it. If they aren’t engaged, they need to look for another job.”
Every year, each employee has a performance review which includes their personal development plan as well as goal setting. Jack says it is not just about their job, because other factors influence their work.
“An older dude may say he wants to build a shed on his block and a dairy assistant wants to be a manager. It’s personal and career goals – their career helps them with their personal goals.”
For Jack, his career path has been within corporate dairy farming and the people management of larger operations. It is a career with multiple opportunities in an industry that is constantly changing and he finds that exciting, albeit challenging.
“There’s some days you want to walk off the place because things go wrong and then you get days when the sun is shining, the vat is full and everyone is smiling.”
The workplace, including a dairy farm, is very much the classroom of the future, says Jeff Wilson, Primary ITO’s National Manager Agriculture and Horticulture.
“People can use new skills as they learn them and much of the educational component of training is demonstrated by what they do in the workplace.
“We’re also told repeatedly by employers that staff respond well to the opportunity to train, adding more value to the farm and staying longer,” Wilson says.
Until the end of December this year, Primary ITO dairy farming training is feesfree as part of the Government’s response to Covid-19, but financial support is still available beyond that date.
“Employers and learners enrolling now will be asked to pay fees for any portion of their training extending into 2023. There’s still significant financial support included for training as Primary ITO receives government funding for industry learners enrolling in training. This covers a lot of the costs of training, with fees also contributing.”
Wilson says it isn’t compulsory for employers to have their staff complete Primary ITO training.
However, many employers find that training helps them manage some of their compulsory requirements such as being a responsible farm business and safety and environmental management.
“We’re about helping farm owners and employers grow their business through growing their people. Building the capabilities of the people in the business is
the quickest and smartest way to grow the business.”
A big part of on-the-job learning is gaining the right skills at the right time. Primary ITO dairy farming programmes are set up so that people can learn skills when it matches what’s happening on the farm – for example calving and milking in the right seasons.
“In developing our training programmes, we rely on a panel of sector experts to make sure they’re relevant for the industry. In dairy farming, a group of around 12 dairy farmers and others in the dairy industry provide that guidance.”
Primary ITO can support dairy farmers at all levels of expertise on the farm from people just starting out to their careers as farm assistants, herd managers, assistant managers, farm managers and beyond. A learner might start out with a programme aimed at giving them the skills to be prepared to work safely on the farm, progress through more training and even a full apprenticeship, right through to a NZ Diploma.
“For most of our training programmes, people need to be working in the industry and their employer needs to be committed to supporting training. Like most types of education, different programmes do have requirements for entry. As an example, to enrol in a New Zealand Apprenticeship in Agriculture – Dairy Farming, learners must be employed
In the past year:
5824
people in dairy farming training
1833
dairy programmes completed (programmes can run over multiple years)
18,000 trainees across all sectors, including dairy
21,000 programmes underway across all sectors (some trainees enrolled in several programmes)
A focus of Primary ITO dairy farming programmes is that people can learn skills when it matches what’s happening on the farm. By Elaine Fisher.
Primary ITO has now become a division of Te Pūkenga Work-Based Learning, along with other industry training organisations across sectors like building and construction, automotive and service industries.
“Te Pūkenga – the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology – is building a national network bringing together onthe-job, on-campus, and online learning that supports learners, employers and communities,” Primary ITO division director Nigel Philpott says.
“Together it has around 240,000 learners making it the thirty-five biggest educational institute in the world.”
“Joining Te Pūkenga will mean Primary ITO staff have more ability to access best practice, knowledge and talent across our vocational education network.
“Over time we’re looking forward to learners around New Zealand getting more and better access to training, whether they’re on a farm in the Chatham Islands, an orchard in Central Otago, or public gardens in Auckland.
“Our learners and employers can expect to see their same trusted Primary ITO people,” Philpott says. “And we’re very much focused on helping New Zealand businesses get the skills they need.”
in the sector and have worked for at least a year fulltime on a farm. For entry-level programmes like a Level 2 New Zealand Certificate in Primary Industry Skills – Agriculture, learners just need to be employed in the sector.”
One specific requirement for work visa holders is that they can only enrol in a training programme that can be completed in the time before their visa expires.
“Primary ITO does have some special support for people whose first language isn’t English. We have training handbooks in Samoan, Hindi, Tagalog and Spanish and also work with English Language Partners New Zealand to support employees to learn some of the Kiwi English that’s useful on the farm. We also have a network of voluntary mentors around the country who help employees with their Primary ITO training.”
Primary ITO works with school students through its Trades Academy, which is the biggest in NZ. Through the academy students gain work-ready skills through practical training in realistic working environments while still enrolled at school.
“Our work-based learning starts at Level 2 on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework. That is aimed at supporting employees who are new to the sector to get the skills and knowledge to be safe on the farm and do their jobs confidently. Some of the topics include the safe handling of livestock and behaviours, fencing, and assisting with feeding and calving.”
At the other end of the scale, Wilson says farmers can complete Level 5 programmes like a NZ Certificate in Primary Industry Production Management, a NZ Diploma in Primary Industry Business Management, or add some specific skills through a micro-credential in biosecurity.
Training, Wilson says, is for people of all ages. “Our youngest dairy farmer in training last year was 15 years old who enrolled to learn about milk quality and food safety.”
‘BUILDING THE CAPABILITIES OF THE PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS IS THE QUICKEST AND SMARTEST WAY TO GROW THE BUSINESS.’
Running a discussion group for dairy farm 2IC team members - the secondin-charge who is above the dairy assistant but below the boss in the pecking order, has shown both a need and a place for the model.
It took a few years of pestering of a lot of people, dairy business manager for Pamu and programme instigator Tony Downman says, but the 2IC progression group has run successfully for the past five years, with a good record of retaining and progressing staff in the Manawatu/ Horowhenua region.
“We got the group up and running in 2017/18 with DairyNZ facilitating and Landcorp 2ICs for a couple of years and then opened it up to 2ICs from other groups around the region.”
Ten to 12 participants in the group was ideal, they found, and the group eventually split into a Horowhenua cluster and a Northern Manawatu group.
Tony sees the group as additional to traditional learning pathways.
“While a lot of the participants were involved in Primary ITO training, they were at all different stages and just ticking away with that, with varying degrees of completion - but to build the capacity of the team members we wanted more ‘just in time’ training.”
“A number of the guys in 2IC positions are part
way through a level of training, but the animals/pastures modules might be 12 months away - we needed to condense the learning so we came up with the just in time model.”
Dowman explains just-in-time training for the 2IC or 3IC group members as covering off the issues that were happening on the farm at that time. Meeting monthly, but skipping the busy calving period until the end of September, meant 10 sessions over 12 months, running through to the last day where they had a field trip to a different property.
• mating
• pastures/crops
• environment/compliance
• personal finance
• BCS/reproduction
• farm systems/ DairyBase
• pasture management
• goals and budgeting
• leadership
Meeting at one of the Pamu farms in the Moutoa cluster meant the discussion groups were held locally and lunch is organised for the group. The programme comprised 60-70% practical onfarm learning and 30-40% in the classroom. The technical learning was always supported with a handout/collateral to take away and usually followed up with homework before the next session. “Sometimes the group members are not keen to do homework, but it opens up channels to what is happening on their home farm, and enables the start of learning conversations with their manager.”
For example after the pasture management module the homework might be to go back to their home farm, talk to the farm manager, do a farm walk with them and do a feed wedge.
“Cementing the learning, engagement with the manager on a job that may traditionally have been the managers - it’s pitching the staff members above their current position and lifting their knowledge and engagement.”
Staff retention and progression is a huge issue and Tony says encouraging the existing 2IC employees and progressive herd managers through making a discussion group available for them helps them aspire to the next level of management.
A lot of staff say they eventually want to be the leader, to be the boss, but aspirations need concrete skills and experience behind them.
Building leadership is hard and the group tries to pull that in on every session.
“We struggle to do it justice - there really needs to be outside leadership training.”
The discussion group helped to equip them for the next level of management, with flow on benefits for the current role.
“Growing your team internally is far better than having to go to the marketbut there is high
turnover in the industry at all levels,” he said.
“As well as the larger corporate farms, there are lots of opportunities on the smaller owner-operator or sharemilker farms.”
Despite the challenges of Covid derailing the progression discussion group for a couple of seasons, Dowman says the success of the group was in seeing a number of 2ICs successfully progress to other positions either up or sideways within the group of farms.
The discussion group format has been used in one other Pamu area, but not been widely replicated around the country although it is something both Pamu and DairyNZ agree would be beneficial.
“The resources are there and can be reshaped each year, depending on who is doing the facilitation.”
Pamu has identified a gap in their business for dairy assistants’ skills training and moved to fill the void.
A skills day in May was run along similar lines to a Young Farmers practical day, with farm managers and 2ICs running modules and demonstrating foundation skills.
“It was a demonstration and coaching day for dairy assistants already in the role, to bring them up to speed and teach them the best and most efficient ways of doing tasks before the new season started.”
In the pre-job experience space, Pamu held an open farm day at the Pamu dairy cluster called Get Go, and invited 110 students from local colleges Manawatu College in nearby Foxton and Horowhenua College in Levin.
Over three sessions, the careers day saw the students learn about agriculture, sit in the side-by-side and do other practical skills in the hope that some of them might be encouraged to take up an agri career.
“We had good feedback from the teachers and figure if we can get a 5% uptake that’s potentially five new recruits for the dairy farm cluster.”
Annual farm performance awards within the Moutoa cluster of seven dairy farms is a great way to reward staff for success over a range of metrics, dairy business manager Tony Dowman says.
The company awards certificates and trophies within each cluster for:
• Dairy Assistant: DA of the year, runner up and rising star.
• Farm teams: best prepared, best repro performance, health and safety record, animals, best silage stack.
• National Top Farm awards are also awarded across the country: judged on metrics around systems, environment, animals, and three finance KPIs: cost of production, return on investment and EBIT/ha.
Teams come in different sizes and shapes. In today’s teams, the cultural diversity is greater than you think.
Too often, our first response to the question: how culturally diverse are your teams? is that we’re not very diverse at all.
While your team may not look diverse, cultural diversity is much more than the visible diversity such as age, gender and ethnicity.
The hidden parts of cultural diversity are the experiences, values, beliefs and world views everyone has. What’s more, these hidden parts of culture are learned from the different groups we belong to. In every team, every member is a uniquely wired cultural human being.
The amazing thing about this is when we realise this, we can unlock the potential of each member of the team to contribute to the team’s potential to be the best team it can be.
When the hidden diversity of all of the team’s members is discovered and valued, they have the potential to become a highperforming team.
When hidden diversity is ignored, it can also result in misunderstanding and conflict within the team. Developing your culturally diverse team requires you to uncover what is hidden and to create space for the diversity of thought and values to contribute to the team.
This happens when we relate to one another.
The time taken to build relationships with curiosity will help us to not only discover the other person’s values, beliefs, experiences and worldviews, but to discover ourselves in the process.
It also helps us to challenge our assumptions and perceptions of the people in our team.
Asking questions to discover what is important as well as why someone does what they do provides the opportunity to interact at a deeper level. It is through these interactions that you will uncover the hidden potential within each member of your team.
Their experiences, personalities, cultural values and worldviews can bring different perspectives and approaches to the challenges and work that your team faces every day.
Knowing about this hidden potential equips you to encourage and empower the members of your team to use their talents.
Creating a safe space to contribute requires trust to be strengthened. This takes time and inter-cultural intelligence to ensure that everyone is heard, seen and respected. Developing intercultural intelligence requires you to create a new cultural space to facilitate win-win solutions. A litmus test for how you develop culturally diverse teams is to ensure that you are doing what is right, what is honourable and empowering all together.
It’s not enough to have one of these three but rather, when all three of these statements are true, you will be developing a culturally diverse team where everyone is heard, seen and respected.
• Shireen Chua is the director of Third Culture Solutions. Email: shireen@thirdculture.co.nz
Through personal interactions we can uncover the hidden potential within each member of your team.
By Shireen Chua.
The team at DairyNZ recently caught up with a leading young Waikato farmer in our Talking Dairy podcast.
Twenty-three-year-old Jimmy Cleaver won the 2022 Auckland Hauraki Dairy Manager of the Year at the Dairy Industry Awards, and also received our DairyNZ People and Leadership award.
Jimmy manages a 360-cow farm in Rangiriri in the Waikato and owns 66 cows in the herd he leases to farm owner Grant Clune.
Creating a good workplace and enabling his two staff and himself to enjoy a good lifestyle, is a focus for Jimmy. He recommends finding out what your team enjoys doing most onfarm, then encouraging them to build their
knowledge. Jimmy focuses on easing staff into difficult tasks, while offering advice to support confidence.
We know finding out what your farm team enjoys doing on-farm and off-farm is a simple but great way to build a positive relationship with them, and support them to achieve their goals.
To support both managers and farm teams, DairyNZ has a guide called Giving Quality Feedback to help with giving employees advice that helps them develop.
We also have resources on coaching and mentoring, and a training plan template to map out the skills your staff want to develop.
For Jimmy and his team, regular team meetings are often held at the local bakehouse. These provide them all with the chance to talk about issues happening on-farm and other things – like the latest rugby or cricket, thereby getting to know each other better.
When he’s not working, Jimmy is hunting and diving. Getting a break from the farm means he comes back refreshed and open to new ideas and different ways to look at things.
He encourages his team to also get off the farm, take part in local activities and get away for regular breaks.
Taking time off is particularly important
now for both farm teams and owners, after coming through the busiest time of year, so you can recharge your batteries for the rest of the season.
Encourage your team to plan some leave and make sure they’re getting good, regular breaks from the farm now that there might be more time available.
To listen to the podcast and hear more from Jimmy, visit www.dairynz.co.nz/podcast
DairyNZ resources to help build a top performing team. DairyNZ has a range of resources to support people management on farm. These include:
• resources to help with advertising and interviewing for jobs
• checklists to support employers and staff when new staff join the team
• templates for performance reviews
• a draft farm policy manual example, and health and safety policy template
• a leave calculator
• Workplace 360 – a tool to help identify opportunities to improve your workplace, for yourself and your team.
To access these resources visit www.dairynz.co.nz/people
• Kent Weston-Arnold is DairyNZ extension partner – Waikato North.
im and Stu Muir arrive with a trailer load of trees from local nursery Farrell’s when we meet on their 200-hectare farm in Aka Aka, Southeast of Pukekohe in the Franklin District.
The Muirs, friends, family, and volunteers have planted 3000 trees this spring, along with 2500 last autumn. Planting is along the Mangati stream, a tributary of the Waikato River delta which runs along one border of the Muir farmland.
“When we got married, instead of getting Tupperware or something, we asked for trees,” Stu laughs.
Claire Ashton writes. Photos: Claire Ashton.
The plants are unloaded next to the 54-bale rotary shed where farm manager Kyle Callaghan and 2IC Matt Farrell, have nearly completed the task of replacing the rubber tubing. Their herd of up to 500 Friesian graze pasture or use the 500-bale wintering pad/feed pad when the land is at its most vulnerable.
The farm has 40ha of stream or bush, with pocket stands of trees dating back to the beginning of the Muir ownership of the land via Stu’s father. Along the way Stu points out an old, felled totara log resting under some kahikatea, from when Hongi Hika invaded in 1821. The Muir family have been farming the land since 1842, purchased Te AkaAka farm in the 1890s, and are sixth generation farmers.
Local Iwi Ngati Te Ata and Ngati Tepi both come under the korowai of Tainui, and
originally there was a tramline built to cart Harakeke (flax) to the Pa site to be processed. Waikato River Authority and Tainui Treaty Settlements means that the co-governance benefits the land and waterways. Stu is part of a group who speak only Māori when they get together and he enjoys this immensely, especially when the teenagers are around and participating.
Construction of the Arapuni dam released 65 million tonnes of silt in the 1920s, which filled up the tributaries throughout the river delta. Drains were then dug out by unemployed men during the depression and in the 1950s they further cleared a tributary out to replace the main one that came through the back of the Muirs’ farm.
Environment Waikato have been offered the bank along this man-made tributary to plant, but that work is yet to progress. Weeping willows are dotted along the banks, and provide some shade - and they don’t break off like crack willow.
“It’s all about getting the right plants in the right place, the only thing that likes willows are wasps and possums,” Stu says.
A diversity of planting is needed along the banks to mirror the work Stu has created in the wetlands as a network of smaller trees provides a more interconnected root network to stablise the banks, prevent erosion, and run-off from farmland.
Planting alongside a tributary of the Waikato River is a labour of love for a family whose ancestors have farmed the property since the 1840s.
Floodgates installed in the 1970s were good for farming - but not for the whitebait as floodgates not only restrict fish access to their upland habitat but killed the fishery on the northern banks of the river within a decade.
With no tidal inundation, the creeks stagnate over summer with huge putrid algal blooms and then in autumn and early winter, water becomes crystal clear as all the oxygen is sucked out turning the water acidic and killing all the fish.
With the wetlands now, however, there are ponds where the whitebait, part of the diverse inanga species, can come and spawn 10km inland. By opening up the floodgates over summer it will allow the system to flush with fresh water and give the whitebait an area to spawn as they did before the installation of floodgates.
The main goal is to open the wetlands boardwalk to the public so they can learn about the local wetlands environment.
Before the 2014 planting project all that was in the wetlands were pampas, glyceria and willows, and when a willow fell it just started growing again so the wetlands was choked with trees.
Stu sprayed first, chain-sawed the branches and trees and pulled them out with a digger, working around the tidal wetlands which at high tide is 4.5 metres.
The co-governance of Tainui with the Waikato
River authority means they are collaborating to increase and enhance the wellbeing of the Waikato River, however he says outdated views and methods by some organisations haven’t kept up with the new environmentally sustainable way of planting for biodiversity and for the prevention of erosion along banks.
The Muir family were the first recipients of funding from the Waikato River authority, Stu, Kim and family started with a small onehectare island to prove what could be done with $10,000 and when that proved successful, Stu says they thought, “Wow what can we do with a $50,000 grant!”
Funding for the wetlands development comes from a variety of groups including; WRA, Waikato and Auckland councils, Foundation North, Whakaupoko Landcare group and the Acclimatization Society.
“Mahoe, karamu, pukatea, kowhai, and those sorts of plants have roots that interlock which holds the bank together plus they create biodiversity. You don’t want to plant on the bank itself, apart from flax, but above the bank which also creates that buffer of riparian planting.”
The trees also shade the stream. Koromiko abound too, a traditional Māori plant used as medicine and taken overseas as a remedy for a variety of treatments during World War I.
“Nature is pretty good at designing perfect forms, “ Stu says. If you observe what grows
‘IT’S ALL ABOUT GETTING THE RIGHT PLANTS IN THE RIGHT PLACE, THE ONLY THING THAT LIKES WILLOWS ARE WASPS AND POSSUMS.’Above: The view of the Te AkaAka farm, streams and wetlands from the vantage point of Stu and Kim Muir’s farm cottage accomodation.
naturally then that is a good indicator of how to plant and where. Stu was always out planting with his Dad, but more in the hundreds than the thousands they plant now. He doesn’t always get it right - there is still room for trial and error.
“Hangehange which has a shiny leaf was a bit of a mistake - as it doesn’t like being planted.”
After clearing the larger plants; willows, glyceria and pampas, the wetlands weeds to watch for are; tobacco plant, and alligator weed. Some consider the larger trees a negative, but they can act as a sub canopy and protect the plants below. Mahoe and karamu are especially important for the mediumsized growth and cover and are now growing fast as their seeds aren’t being eaten by rats, and the leaves aren’t being eaten by the possums, meaning a more uniform growth across the wetlands.
With the wetlands restored, it now provides a healthy living environment for a variety of fish species such as kahawai, koura, mullet, eels, and even kākahi, (freshwater mussels). One mussel can filter 20 litres of water a day and a healthy population could filter an entire lake. These mussels are natural water filters and aid denitrification – but of course they don’t eat them.
There are 2000 bait stations, mainly in trees, and traps on the ground which were originally funded by the Waikato River Authority but are now being funded through a Landcare Group, the Whakupoko and Acclimatisation Society.
Rats, stoats, ferrets, and weasels are local pests, and there is a weasel in the bait station when we visit
the boardwalk, which Stu later adds to the freezer collection which DOC sometimes utilise to track the pest predator population. When a ferret or stoat kills a rat, if the rat is poisoned then the mustelids are poisoned as well, through secondary poisoning. Other animals that disturb the ecosystem are pigs, goats and deer. Pigs root in the edges of the wetlands and disrupt bird nests.
Bird life has noticeably returned due the pest eradication programme; tui, kereru, and rails and crakes now abound - pukeko have always been abundant. Also present are up to 30 bitterns and the short-tailed bat. A couple of kotoku, white heron from the West Coast of South Island, pay a yearly visit.
Stu is particularly thrilled with the presence of the Australasian bittern/matuku which are now rare in NZ and the wetlands species population is estimated to be fewer than 1000 individuals. They’re classified as ‘Threatened-Nationally Critical’ due to introduced predators and loss of habitat.
Stu is so passionate about preserving our wildlife that he became chair of the Endangered Species Foundation, a registered charitable organisation supporting high-priority conservation projects that protect NZ’s most vulnerable indigenous species and habitats from extinction. Governance roles are something Stu relishes being part of.
“Good governance is knowing your role and not getting too mixed up with the operation and management side. As a chair, being able to listen and having a diversity of opinion around the board table is important.”
Stu likes to chair in an open manner, letting all
voices be heard and tries to create an environment around the table where all can participate and share opinions. “In a leadership role you need to keep asking yourself - what is the role of your vision and strategyand keep going back to your purpose.”
In terms of the reach of his message, there is certainly a nationwide audience, for example via the networks of the Dairy NZ Environmental Leaders Forum.
“My farm doesn’t need to look like an English garden.” Stu doesn’t go for uniformity and says farmers need to choose their enemies.
“Carex are perfect for example - but often farmers spray them.” The whole farm has been contoured, and he uses carex and reeds along the drains, which helps to filter sediment, prevent leaching and provides nesting for birds.
“When the farm is really vulnerable for a short time of the year you take the cows off the land and save all the effluent, which goes on to the crops that you then feed the cows when they are on the pad.”
“On 60% of the farm now we don’t need chemical fertiliser – that’s huge. Combined with chicory and plantain you have a better conversion rate of nitrates into protein. Maize takes out more nitrates, and then the herd are on the feed pad - so it is being captured to be used at the right time of year.”
The future is plant-based at the Muirs, and they welcome corporate events as they come out and plant trees which is both team-bonding and soil-binding. A side hustle they have had for years is the Te Papa ecocottage, available on Airbnb and Glamping Hub USA, an eco-cottage which they admittedly used funds earmarked for their kids’ university education to build, but which now earns an income to pay for that education. The eco-cottage is an ongoing business which has been particularly helpful during the farming downturn and perches at the top of the property looking towards the east and across the 40ha wetland.
“Within hours of us putting it online it was booked and we never looked back. Now people after going through Covid really want privacy, just to get away.”
Transitioning to organics has been a learning experience for the team at Pamu’s Tongariro Farm. By Jackie Harrigan.
Photos: Brad Hanson.
Being in a hub of farms converting to organics and being able to share resources and know-how is a good feeling for Tongariro farm manager Josh Millard.
The Foxton Pamu dairy manager has been on the 207-hectare Tongariro farm for the past five years and loves the location, and the close team that he has built. And while the transition to organic supply is not a decision he made, as part of the wider Pamu Moutoa dairy cluster, he can see the opportunities it will bring to his career development and the advantages to the farm.
“It’s a three year process and we start on October 10, but three of the farms in the cluster are already transitioning so we can learn a lot from them.”
His team are onboard with the journey and have been active in discussing the ins and outs of the process, and enjoy debating the strategies to manage cow health, cow nutrition and production without the ability to import supplementary feed, antibiotics and other conventional animal health rememdies. Dropping the stock rate from 3.1 cows/ ha to 2.1 cows/ha (reducing from 650 to
450 cows) has allowed the team to relax a bit through the calving period and the season has started off well compared to last season, which Josh says was a difficult one.
“Now with lower cow numbers we are targeting 400kg MS/cow, with a stretch target of 450kg MS/cow, and we will be dropping the system from 3-4 and growing our own maize silage rather than bringing it in. We have been palm kernel-free for the past six years and will be dropping out the 50-100 tonnes of DDG we have used in the past.”
Josh and his team have put a lot of thought into being able to fully feed the cows, within the constraints of an organic system and have come up with plans to overhaul the forage programme. In the past maize silage has been
Location: Tongariro farm, Moutoa cluster, Foxton
Area: 207ha effective
brought in from within the group but Josh wants to move to being self-sufficient in feed. “We used to grow turnips and maize but we have restructured the whole cropping programme and dropped out the turnips to get away from having bare dirt after the crop.
“We also used to have to cultivate into the crop and cultivate out of it, but by incorporating the chicory the team are able to cultivate into the chicory and then direct drill out of the crop by drilling in a pasture mix.”
On the heavy peat country
Cow numbers: (2020/2021) 630 cows, production: 243,000kg MS (2021/2022) 450 cows, 180,000kg MS, stretch target: 202,500 kg MS
Josh says the property has pivoted from all ryegrass to a fescue, clover, plantain mix, and any new pastures will have the remnants of the chicory crop still in it.
“Ryegrass used to get pulled badly in the summer, because the basin here can get baked hard, but the fescue is much more forgiving - it actually seems to thrive on a thrashing.”
Thirty hectares of chicory sward will be established this season with mixed clovers added to suppress the weeds, as they can’t be sprayed under the organic regime. After a season the chicory gets heavily grazed and pasture direct-drilled into it. And Josh is happy to top the chicory if necessary.
Once the grass is established he gives the cows a wee nip of it.
PAMU FARMING HAS A LONG TERM commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by 4% per annum to 2024, and plans to have each of its 110 farms with Toitu carbonreduce certification by that time.
The farming group has achieved carbonreduce certification across 20 farms so far and has plans to develop tailored emissions reduction solutions for each farm.
The certification process requires each farm to measure all operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions required under the international standard and to develop plans to manage and reduce emissions, which are measured and independently verified each year.
In 2021, Pamu’s 110 farms contributed close to 0.75m gross tonnes of CO2, and sequestered about 0.33m tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
Being committed to transparency around its emissions reductions and supporting other farms in the sector is important to the new Pamu chief executive, Mark Leslie.
Breeding lower-methane animals, changing farms to organic and increasing productivity practices over time to produce more with fewer animals are some of the emissions reduction solutions for the farms.
Top: Flax growing on a protected area of 60ha next to the Manawatu River. Flax harvesting and processing was a huge industry in the Foxton area for Maori and the first Pakeha settlers. Left: 2IC Jai Spalding and manager Josh Millard have lots of discussions on strategies and processes for the imminent transition to organic status on Tongariro Farm, Foxton.
“We did a trial last season to get ready for the transition and it worked pretty well.”
“I don’t find the fescue hard to manage at all - we run the residuals from 2900kg drymatter (DM)/ha down to 1550 postgraze and try to run a 30-day roundpaying close attention to the leaf stage.”
This season 10.5ha of maize will be
grown to feed out and Josh is thinking about moving to build up a store of silage supplement and increase the resilience of the property to a dry summer.
“We should grow 180-200t from the maize area but having more in the pit would be like good insurance.”
Because the farm will be unable to use
treated maize seed when they go organic Josh plans to plough and fallow for 28 days to starve any insects that would attack the seed.
Chicken manure will be used in place of conventional fertilisers.
The Moutua area is surrounded by the Manawatu River and has floodways but the Tongariro property doesn’t flood as such due to the tile draining which is designed for a rising water table.
However, the tile drains are getting less effective as land moves and the tiles become dislodged or blocked.
“We are putting in open drains as they are more effective in relieving pressure off the existing tile drains.”
Some of the drains are planted with riparian planting strips, including big flax bushes, and Josh leaves a five-metre buffer strip to stop sediment running off when he is cultivating next to open drains.
The whole basin of predominantly peat soils was covered in flax in the early days and harvested by Maori and the first Pakeha settlers and the Tongariro farm has a retired 60ha area of original flax swamp left at the back of the property.
The team’s sustainability measures made them a finalist in the 2022 Horizons Ballance Farm Environment Awards.
Thinking ahead to the start of their organic conversion, Josh has begun to ready the team and the herd to transition
to the changes. Last winter 500 cows were wintered on the farm, with just 100 wintering off, working up from half the herd leaving the farm for the winter period.
“We are dropping the numbers of cows/ ha to account for the wintering of the cows, we need to keep them on and still be well fed.”
In order to start the season with a good low SCC the team had the cows walking over the walk-over teat spray station each day through the dry period.
“We just make them walk over the unit on their way to the feed pad through the winter and its paying off so far with the low SCC of 100,000 now that we are half way through calving,” Josh says.
“Last season we struggled with mastitis so I knew we had to get the team on board and be more proactive.
“As well as the teat spraying we have done lots of refresher training - teaching the processes we need to use in the shed - and talking about the ‘why’ of what we do.
“Just basic processes in the shed and being observant and taking extra care - it’s paying off too as we are doing well so far.
“It’s important to minimise and prevent stock health issues, because we won’t be able to use antibiotics and put the cow back into the herd - she will have to be rehomed, so we will want to avoid that.”
Tony Dowman is overseeing the transition of the farms in the Moutoa cluster to organics and outlined the advantages in terms of deintensification and profitability.
Organic farming is a method of farming without inputs conventional farms would typically have available for use (synthetic nitrogen, or acid-treated fertilisers, antibiotics, seed treatments etc), he says. More importantly, the rules are prescribed by the markets for which Fonterra wants to access to sell products (United States, South Korea, Canada, other Asian markets, and the European Union), providing a diversified revenue stream to conventional milk supply.
For the Moutoa farms, conversion to organics has offered a number of benefits although not without challenges, Dowman says.
Conversion has seen a reduction in stocking rate of about 30% from a system 4 to a system 2 with a focus on all feed being grown and harvested onfarm. Unsurprisingly, this offers a direct reduction in GHG emissions by about 30%, without animal production or performance metrics having suffered.
“We have been able to keep milk production levels per cow consistent (and in some cases improving). Through the farm system and grazing management cows can consistently deliver 420-440kg milksolids (MS)/ cow over multiple farms. Productivity per hectare drops, however this is offset by the reduction in purchased feed and grazing costs, coupled with organic milk premiums.”
Somatic Cell Counts (SCC) are another key animal metric, Dowman says.
While intermammary options are no longer available, with the use of observation, good in-shed and paddock management and the use of homeopathy, SCC have remained at mid 200s, being five years with no dry cow or teat sealants.
Whether you’re a grower, a farmer or a commercial business, moving ahead means making changes. And that usually comes with a few risks along the way. But with us as your partner, you can progress with more confidence. That’s because FMG offers the kind of specialised advice and knowledge that only comes from working alongside rural New Zealand for generations. To find out more, ask around about us. Better still, give us a call on 0800 366 466 or go to fmg.co.nz. FMG, your partners in progress.
We’re here for the good of the country.
A Manawatu couple were keen to try regenerative practices on their dairy farm, then decided to go the whole way with a switch to organics. By Jackie Harrigan. Photos: Brad Hanson.
Darryl and Debbie Coleman are Kimbolton dairy farmers on a regenerative and organic farming mission to front-foot changes in the industry and operate a farming system that is focused on cow and soil health and economic resilience.
Always pragmatic and numbers driven, they have introduced robotic technology while also embracing a new farming philosophy.
“We are just going about our operation but are doing a few things that are out of the conventional path and potentially going down the track where the perceived markets are - for our own interest and to front-foot changes in the industry we see potentially coming,” Darryl explained.
The couple have been dairy farming for 30 years and “were just doing the same old, same old,” he said.
The new journey, while not straightforward, is providing a new spice of life and they are enjoying the problemsolving and learning aspects of the new direction.
Several threads led to their change in direction on the 245-hectare, 500-cow North Manawatu farm. The first was a desire to be more resilient and self-contained, and maximise soil and animal health, which led to the regenerative move three years ago.
Transition to organic status started almost three years ago and the operation will be fully certified by January 2023, Darryl said.
“Biogro certification allows us to supply into all of the organic markets that Fonterra wants to sell into - European Union, China, Korea, North America and Taiwan.”
“The number of organic dairy suppliers is relatively small when compared to conventional suppliers but Fonterra are actively growing the supplier base now.”
Debbie remarked they have also noticed
STOCK ORGANICSthat the organic certification and audit process appears to be getting more holistic in what organic means - talking about staff safety, noticing recycling and rubbish disposal, measuring calf pen space and cow welfare, and other metrics beyond the usual checks around the use of fertiliser, antibiotics and chemicals.
“That might be coming through from the markets – consumers are looking deeper into how and where their food is being produced,” Darryl said.
Their regen journey started when they realised they have always had a bent for the ‘healthy soils, healthy animals’ philosophy, but without really knowing the science behind it.
“We have always been low users of nitrogen and synthetic fertilisers and been less intensive than others, but we wanted to improve our soils so went to a workshop with Nicole Masters, from Integrity Soils, and then shortly after that heard Australian soil scientist Christine Jones talk.
“That linked a lot of stuff that we didn’t know about soils and soil life and we felt that for the first time we received advice independent of a sales push. That was the ‘light bulb moment’ for us.
“It put some science around how to get our soils working for us and it really made sense and lit up our interest in doing things a bit differently.
“Then we started to realise that the changes we were making to adopt a regen system was not that far away from an
organic system, so we decided we might as well go the whole way and do organics as well.”
The other thread for change was the desire to cut walking distances and milking times for their cows. Historically, the 500 cows were milked in two herds through a 32-bail rotary dairy shed at the top end of the farm. Debbie calculated she was spending the equivalent of six working weeks a year sitting on the quadbike bringing the second herd of cows up 1.8km from one end of the farm to the dairy shed. That contributed to the decision to build a second cowshed in the middle of the farm with robotic milkers, which would hopefully cut the time inefficiencies and energy losses through so much walking.
The choice to go robotic was also driven from the improved cow health and production data captured, and allow the couple to monitor the herd much better.
Debbie is the animal manager part of the Coleman’s partnership, alongside Darryl’s machinery and infrastructure focus – but, having both initially trained as accountants, they share a love of numbers and monitoring.
“Our interest in the numbers around the farm - the inputs and outputs, led to thinking that robots might be the way to go, and that the two dairy systems could work in together.”
So the robotic milking shed was set up in the middle of the farm, with paddocks fanning out down three laneways around it to allow the cows to voluntarily move from one break to the next, with three automated gate changes occurring each 24hour period. The farm is now essentially split into two grazing zones, one for each cow shed, although all the cows start the season going through the rotary until they are through their colostrum period (PSC 20 August).
The robotic shed starts up about September 1, when there are enough cows calved to make a second milking herd. The robot-trained cows are then transferred to the robot shed. The heifers stay in the rotary herd for the whole season, then a selection of them that are deemed suitable for the robots are trained as replacements for the robots in their second season. The selection criteria for the robots focus on teat placement, milking speed and temperament.
Twice-yearly herd testing all happens through the rotary shed with the robot herd coming back to the rotary for a two-day period. Debbie has taken the
• Kimbolton, Manawatu
• 430 metres asl
• 245ha, 500 cows
• Jersey and Friesian X cows
• 100ha support blocks on periphery
• System 1-2
• 185,000kg MS, 370kg MS / cow,
• 32 bale rotary dairy, four Lely robotic milkers
• Make all own silage, breed all replacements, no grazing off, no feed bought in.
opportunity to test for both Johnes disease and pregnancy testing from the herd test sample. Darryl and Debbie are happy with the way the dual shed system is working and have sorted a system for breeding replacements from both sheds. AI is used for 3.5 weeks using A2/A2 Jersey bulls and then homebred bulls are put out with the herd.
Traditional tail painting and Bulls-i “stickies” are used for the rotary herd, but the robot herd relies solely on the heat detection functionality built into the cow collars and the robotic milking software. Cows in heat are then automatically drafted off by the robots at a set period in the day, so they are ready for the AI technician.
“We found virtually no difference in the
conception rates for the two herds, so it was reassuring that we could rely on the technology to do its job,’” Darryl said.
A cow that is new to the robots takes about a week to learn the system. The bulls also need to learn how to negotiate their way through the robot gates, and seem to do so in a couple of days by following the cows.
“We always knew the cows were intelligent but probably have never given them enough credit for how smart they really are.”
The animal behaviour aspect of robotic milking is fascinating, Darryl said.
The cows begin to act more like individuals rather than following the pack and will come and go from the robot shed as they please. Some also get very canny
Left top: A great partnership: Debbie is in charge of cows, Darryl oversees machinery and infrastructure, they both monitor the numbers.
Bottom left: Darryl and team member David Jensen: the robots provide constant monitoring opportunities.
about the break change times and deciding whether the walk through the shed is worth it.
The 220 cows are given a small amount of organic molasses in the milker, about half a cup as an incentive to come to the shed, but some cows quickly work out when the break changes occur that allow access to a fresh paddock. Some of the eager ones wait in the yard or lane until they see or hear the gate change and then they begin moving.
The robotic milkers have not really saved the Colemans any labour, as they are still operating the rotary shed, but they say there is now more time to focus on and fine tune management, to monitor the pastures and telemetry checking on the cow health.
“We are constantly monitoring something - the pastures, the break sizes, animal behaviour and the robotic machinery.
“The robots have put us in the driving seat with a lot more information and made us more numbers driven. We like the inputs and the outputs of the robot.
“We can see that in the near future there could be the potential to combine robotic milking with virtual fencing - that would be great for cow flow trafficking and pasture control.”
Moving into regen started with diversifying pastures. The Colemans increased the amount of regrassing and direct drilling, using diverse seed mixes with more than 20 different grasses, legumes and herbs.
“It’s taking lots of trial and error, but we are hopeful we can increase the persistence of the pastures through providing the species diversity, improved soil health and optimal grazing.”
Changing the fertiliser regime involved buying a Tow and Fert machine to be able to apply liquids, including fish hydrolysates, seaweed and humates.
Building the diversity in the plant life helps to feed and build the diversity in the soil life, in terms of microbes and fungi, and then they feed the plants, with it all happening through naturally occurring nutrient cycles and pathways, Darryl said.
Independently of the change, the Colemans had been doing worm counts on their pastures over the previous three years, particularly in the cropped areas, where they perceived the soil compaction problems were the worst.
Where there were counts of 15-18 worms in the spadeful on the dairy soils and only three on the ground historically used for cropping, the counts have doubled year-on-year, and are now more like 4560 in the dairy soils and 15 in the more compacted soils.
Debbie said the worms are like the ‘big guy’ in the soil, and she thinks the farm is changing, finally seeing the urine patches receding and the farm looking a more even green. The theory is that the healthy soil microbiome provides all the required nutrients for the plant, eliminating the need for artificial or synthetic sources.
“Being organic, we cannot resort to simply putting on urea or other synthetic fertiliser or products to promote grass growth when required – the soil and the plants need to look after that themselves,” Debbie said.
Ever keen on monitoring progress, they are also testing to check that soil carbon is building and microbe levels are increasing, an indication that the soil is improving and is more able to release the nutrients that the plants need.
“We are utilising the soil biology to release nutrients for the pastures to thrive.”
Part of the regen process is extending the grazing round.
“Traditionally dairy farms sit at 2022 days in spring and we are aiming for around 30 days and can get closer to 40 days later in the season with the robots, which allows a good feed wedge ahead of us for summer.”
Darryl and Debbie aim for high brix pastures through the longer rest period between grazings, which allows the grass to recover.
“The reason that the higher residuals and longer round lengths are a pillar of regen farming - we aim to leave higher
mass residual, so the roots are not compromised and the plant persists better. Because the grass is allowed to go through a reproductive phase, the root mass is encouraged to grows and not reduced, there is more reseeding and it’s better for the soil biology because the plants are feeding the microbes.”
Darryl acknowledges palatability can be compromised in a straight ryegrass clover sward, but he says it is not as much of a problem in a diverse pasture because they have other species that are growing, maturing, seeding and dying down at different times of the year. So there is always something palatable and nutritious for the cows.
“We are beginning to see this now that we are three years into the diverse pastures - we are settling into a bit of a routine now, we have been through an adjustment phase.
“The ultimate goal is getting through to the healthy cows stage - where we have better in-calf rates, less mastitis, fewer downer cows and all those other things that seem to be an accepted part of modern dairy farming.”
Debbie said the ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ system was frustrating for her.
“Every year we seemed to cull high SCC cows, do the same amount of dry cow therapy and the next season we were doing the same - nothing changed.”
“I think this is where we are feeling
encouraged by the regen and organic systems - we are not naive enough to think it can fix everything, but if we can halve the number of health- related issues - that would be a huge thing.”
Going to both conventional and organic discussion groups has given the couple an interesting insight into how practices and results vary across the two farming types.
“Whereas conventional guys might be happy with MT rates of 12-15%, the twicea-day organic guys were reporting rates of around 8%.
“We have managed to bring ours down from around 12% to 8% - so we are pretty excited by that.”
While the Colemans said they have always been a low-intensity and low-cost operation, they hope the anecdotally predicted 10%-20% drop in production from going organic may not happen. Total annual milk production has not changed materially over the three-year transition period to date, and the reduction in cow health issues has resulted in fewer cows dropping out of the system.
The transition to organics and the “closed” nature of their herd placed an increased focus on herd security, both physically and from a biosecurity perspective.
Darryl and Debbie decided to install a cattle stop on the main tanker and farm drive and double-fence the 18km perimeter around the farm to provide a biosecurity and organic “buffer zone”.
They are now planting these buffer zones with native shelter species, including pittosporum, flax, manuka and cabbage trees. They are also planting more internal shelter belts with natives and other fodder trees. Their plant nursery is an initiative to propagate and grow the large number of plants needed for the boundary buffer zones and the internal shelter belts, along with their 35ha regenerating bush area on their 100ha support land, which includes a series of gullies dropping to the Kiwitea stream. Debbie is interested in the medicinal properties and feed values of trees for cow health, acknowledging cows are browsers rather than strict grazers.
Fodder trees include poplars and willows, and subdivisional planting will include trees able to be trimmed or direct-grazed for cow fodder. Tree lucerne, honeysuckle, alders, coprosma and pittoporums, kowhais and other soft-leafed trees, are all loved by the native birds and will also be able to be browsed by the cows, providing vertical grazing, shelter, potential cow health benefits and bird habitat.
The Colemans have a team of three full time staff (David Jensen, Paul Chapman and Maia Karl), along with Donna Chapman, who helps part time with calf rearing and whose role has recently been expanded to run the native plant nursery. The farm is self-contained, with no additional feed or livestock purchased. The farm is also relatively self-contained operationally, with the team attending to all young stock rearing (including rearing their own bulls), attending to all
their own silage making, pasture renewal, liquid fert applications, and all other farm maintenance (including lane maintenance and drainage).
The farm co-owns some of the required silage making, ground-working and regrassing equipment with Debbie’s brothers – Colin and Bruce Jensen – who are also dairy farmers in the Kimbolton area. The farm’s operating expenses (before depreciation, and debt servicing) for the last two seasons are $3.84/kg MS and $3.69/kg MS respectively. Darryl said some items of expenditure will reduce further once the farm exits the transition period and settles into a more routine pattern of costs.
In terms of environmental impact, the farm’s Purchased Nitrogen figures, as calculated by Fonterra, are negative 53kg N/ha in 2020/21, and negative 43kg N/ ha in 2019/20. GHG emissions figures for these two years were 8065kg CO2e/ha and 7923kg CO2e/ha respectively.
The West Coast’s challenging high rainfall has prompted a trial of composting ‘mootels’. By Anne
Hardie.At the same time the project will look at what is happening to all the nutrients and whether the mootels are making a difference to nitrogen leaching across the property.
Collecting data will show whether the mootels are making the business more environmentally friendly.
The difference between composting mootels and other dairy housing structures is the composting process that occurs within the loafing area. Cows spend a proportion of their time in the mootels where they lie on a deep bedding of plantbased material such as sawdust, wood shavings, wood chip or similar.
Aerobic composting aided by daily tilling and ventilation mixes the bedding with dung and urine that composts. The heat generated from composting keeps the bedding dry and usable for a year or more. After that it is removed from the mootels and can be spread over paddocks as an organic fertiliser.
Two West Coast farms will be the focus of a composting ‘mootel’ project that aims to analyse the design, capital costs and process of converting to a mootel system.
The nine-month study is one of 12 projects funded by Our Land and Water Rural Professionals Fund to test innovative ideas. On the West Coast, two dairy farms have recently installed composting mootels to improve productivity with better environmental outcomes and they will be used to collect the data for the project.
Robb Macbeth from Rural Consulting is part of the project team that will produce a transition map for farmers contemplating the move to composting mootels, plus a report on the pros and cons of integrating the mootels into a West Coast farming system.
Robb says composting mootels are relatively new innovations in New Zealand
with little real-world data examining the financial, environmental and biophysical attributes, costs and benefits of the systems.
The project will build on a previous desktop assessment that looked at wholesystems impact of composting shelters in NZ and use the two real-world farms that are using composting mootels. The farms – one near Lake Brunner and the other at Inangahua – have installed the mootels in the past 12 months in a region that Robb describes as a challenging place to farm due to its high rainfall and remoteness.
They will compare pre- and postcomposting mootel data and have a focus on capital costs, design specifications and financing.
“We will look at the financials such as what did it really cost with things like extra concrete and extra machinery. Would the farmers have done anything differently? Is there any more profit?”
Robb says in theory, the compost vapourises much of the cows’ urine if the compost temperature is between 50 and 60C and there is good ventilation. The project will be able to collect data to measure the carbon-to-nitrogen ratios in the composting area.
Other aspects can be considered such as the availability of woodchip or other possibilities for bedding and how long the compost lasts as bedding.
At least two workshops will be held on the farms during the nine-month project for other farmers to find out more about the composting mootels. By the end of the project, they will have initial data on whether there is any increase or decrease in production on the farms, change in somatic cell counts or other aspects that can be attributed to the composing mootels.
That will be based on just one season though and Robb says the team hopes to be able to extend the study if it can secure funding so they can get a longer-term picture of the mootels.
The latest and greatest developments in drones was the topic of a South Otago field day. Over two days more than 80 people came to look and learn about the potential of drones onfarm. A range of drones were on display, from the portable and entry price level to trailer-towed commercial spray drones.
Drone specialist company Ferntech overviewed the capabilities and uses of Mavic, Phantom and AGRAS spray drones. What became obvious was the big leap forward in drone technology over a short time such as the improved high definition and zoom capabilities of cameras along with the developments in thermal imaging and mapping. Drones could capture more precise and accurate information than before, Luke Johnson of Ferntech said.
A growing area of use was for the spraying of crops and weeds. Spray drones have been around for about five years but there wasn’t huge interest initially because of the small payload capacity of about 10kg, Johnson said. However the development of 30kg payload drones made them a more practical option for farmers.
“The more they can spray and faster makes them a more attractive option for spraying.”
He gave a demonstration of how to plot a grid map for a spraying mission which included continuous and spot spray areas.
Drones have come a long way and their capabilities in agricultural use are significantly improved. By Lynda Gray.Photo: www.dji.com
Onlooker and an early adopter of drone technology Brett Sanders (Country-Wide, July 2017) was interested to see the spray drones in action. They’re expensive at about $50,000 which includes necessary accessories to map a spraying mission, but he thinks they could work out on extensive hill properties reliant on helicopters for the spraying of crops and weeds.
“If you’re spending $15,000 a year to spray 100ha using a helicopter, that money might be better invested in a drone which could be used for more spraying around the farm.”
However, he says the big turn-off for most farmers would be the mandatory requirement for Civil Aviation Authority 102 certification which applies to owners of drones used for the application of agrichemicals. Certification costs between $2500 to $3500 and takes about a year to
Brett Sanders is a self-taught drone user. He soldered together his first drone in 2013 from a basic frame with add-ons and bought a DJI Phantom in 2016. It was used a lot for mustering and was especially good at hunting out elusive Merinos from steep schist and briar country.
Brett also used it to accurately map the slope and drainage of land. The Phantom had probably flown the length of the country when it was replaced with a Mavic Enterprise Advanced last year for $10,000.
“It’s a lot of money, but I’m an experienced user and know how to get
the most out of them,” Brett said.
complete. Johnny Bennett, another farmer at the field day was impressed with the improved zoom capabilities of the new drone cameras.
He has owned two drones and used them for checking sheep, water troughs and for picking up obvious issues on regular flights over his Te Houka farm.
The first, a Phantom 4 went for about three years until it went AWOL on a pre-planned mission, never to return. It was replaced with a second-hand drone, but that met with a crashing end due to a burst of speed at the wrong time. Despite the run-ins he’s still keen on them because they saved a lot of time, especially checking ewes at lambing time.
“The drone could do a circuit around the farm in 20 minutes which was enough to uncover any problems. To do the same driving would have taken four hours.
“There’s greater accuracy than with the older drones. Often I’d see there was a problem but not the detail whereas I probably could now. I’ll buy another one at some stage, but it’s not a priority at the moment.”
The field days organised by the Otago South River Care group with MPI funding attracted a lot of interest.
“We asked local farmers about innovations they wanted to know more about, and drones was a reoccurring topic,” Rebecca Begg, group coordinator, said.
“A lot are interested in the technology but not necessarily at the tipping point of buying one. The idea of the field day was to let them see the technology in action and start more conversations.”
The thermal imaging is great for tracking down sheep and pests such as wild pigs and the zoom power of the camera means it’s possible to identify the ear tag numbers of ewes or cows in a paddock without disturbing them.
At the field day farmers were interested to hear about Brett’s dog barking drone which had reduced the workload of Matangi’s working dog team.
“We still use dogs, but they’re probably not on to it as they used to be. When the drone comes out they sit back and watch.”
"If you’re spending $15,000 a year to spray 100ha using a helicopter, that money might be better invested in a drone which could be used for more spraying around the farm."Photo: ferntechcommercial.co.nz
You don’t need a licence to fly a drone in NZ provided it is less than 25kg fully loaded and is not being used for the application of agrichemicals.
However, all drone users need to follow the Civil Aviation Authority Part 101 drone rules.
Go to: www.aviation.govt.nz/drones/part-101-rules-fordrones
Pilots of drones used for agrichemical application need CAA Part 102 certification. This takes about 12 months and costs $2500-$3500. Go to: www.aviation.govt.nz/drones/part-102certification-for-drones
There is a second-hand drone market, but Brett Sanders thinks buying new is probably the better way to go. Newer models have intuitive technology so they’re easier to use. A new release model, a Mavic Mini 3 which retails for about $1400 and includes one battery could be a good option. If a control base and screen were included it would cost $1700-$2000.
“For that amount you should be able to get good quality pictures.”
His advice for buying second-hand is to go with a reputable brand, and check that the batteries are in working order and hold their charge. A Mavic Mini 3 is a possible option but Luke Johnson said it wouldn’t withstand the wind conditions on exposed farms. A better choice was a Mavic Air 2S for about $2500 which would provide quality video and photography.
Farmers wanting a ‘barking drone’ and thermal imagery features would need a Mavic Enterprise Advanced or similar ($9500). A ready-to-go AGRAS spray drone with a 30kg payload and supporting mapping functions costs about $50,000. This would include three batteries which could be rotated to enable continuous spraying.
Covid led to the start-up of Bill Paterson’s drone contracting business. Until March 2020 Bill’s main income was from helicopter flying tourists in and around the Queenstown southern lakes region.
That business dried up with Covid leading Bill back to the family-owned Waikaka Station where he was able to combine helping on the farm with development of a drone contracting business.
In January he started out with a $70,000 XAG P30 which has a 16kg payload. It’s been used for spraying and seeding work throughout Otago and Southland.
Bill’s mapped and precision-sprayed areas for thistles and insect strike, and spot sprayed for particular weeds.
He’s also reseeded areas of crops that didn’t establish due to the dry summer.
There’s potential for more seeding jobs once he gets a bigger payload system in place.
• First published Country-Wide August 2022
The long, wet winter and spring has thrown up a number of different hoof conditions in cows around the country. In many instances lame cows require a shoe to be applied while the lameness heals, but with so many cow shoes on the market, how do you know which one is right for the job?
Cow shoes generally fall into one of three categories based on how long they are likely to last on the cow’s claw when applied correctly – long, medium or shortterm shoes. Additional factors such as how quick they are to apply, the material they are made from, and the thickness of the shoe further differentiate the array of products on the market.
• Take a while to apply, especially in cold temperatures
• Durable – lasting 4+ weeks on the cow
• Likely to need to be removed once the cow has healed
Long-lasting and going by a variety of brand names, they are firm rubber blocks with a thick sole, which enclose the tip of the toe. They adhere to both the sole and the hoof wall which is why they stay on so well. These blocks can easily last for four weeks or more on a cow, making them useful for hoof conditions which are going to require some time to heal, such as white line disease or toe abscesses. This type of shoe takes longer to apply compared to
blocks as the glue takes more time to set, particularly in cold weather.
Claw preparation before application of the shoe is also more extensive. In many cases, shoes are so well set to the claw that they need to be removed after a few weeks once the original injury has healed.
• Quick to apply
• Last two to three weeks on the cow
• Wooden blocks wear down over time
The most frequent type of shoe I reach for is a basic hoof block. Made from either wood or rubber, these are quick to apply. Wooden blocks have the benefit of wearing down over time which means they don’t often need to be removed at the end of the treatment period. It is easy to adjust the position of a block on the sole to suit each cow, as they adhere only to the sole. Each block will fit a wide range of claw sizes making them a good choice for herds which have a variety of breeds. Blocks usually last about two to three weeks on a cow.
• Quick to apply
• Last up to two weeks on the cow
• Fall off readily or wear through if they stay on longer
These blocks could be compared to a jandal. The short-term blocks are either made of dense foam or thin, flexible rubber. These are useful for conditions that require only a brief period of support, such as for cows which have thin soles.
Cows with thin soles are often affected in both claws of a limb and so, in contrast to any other type of lameness, these shoes are often applied to both claws in the same leg at the same time. These shoes provide a cushion between the sole and the ground allowing the cow to be comfortable while the sole grows out. These shoes last up to two weeks on a cow.
• Long- and medium-lasting types of shoe should only be fitted on to non-injured claws
• Ensure you follow the application instructions for each different brand –different types of shoes have different preparation steps which affect the bonding strength of the glue
• Blocks can be set slightly back from the toe, so there is minimal increase in breakover point when the cow walks.
• Ensure blocks and shoes fit the cow – their length should extend slightly beyond the heel so that the cows weight is fully supported, rather than creating a pressure point across the heel.
• A shoe has the potential to cause lameness in itself if they are left on too long. If a lame cow is more lame with a shoe on, or has persistent lameness – check it isn’t the shoe causing the problem. Cows are more likely to experience claw-strains from shoes if they are on heat, or if the ground is very hard.
When a cow suffers lameness from a hoof injury a shoe might help, veterinarian Lisa Whitfield writes.Lisa Whitfield Figure 1: A long-lasting shoe which encloses the toe of the hoof. Penethamate hydriodide. Left: A medium lasting wooden block applied to a cow with an ulcer. Right: Short lasting thin rubber blocks on a cow with thin soles.
interested in seeing farm life.
His social media following has exploded to where he now has more than 250,000 followers and his videos have more than 80 million views.
But Tangaroa’s not just posting to clock up views or followers, he’s harnessed the power of social media to draw attention to and direct people to an online video learning platform called the Farm 4 Life Hub.
It’s where thousands of videos can be downloaded for free with more being produced and uploaded regularly.
They’re instructional and educational, showing both the how and the why, of onfarm tasks and procedures.
Importantly they’re also made with his quintessential humour and energy bringing in experts to share their knowledge so viewers/learners have access to top-quality information and advice.
He calls the videos “edutainment.”
Tangaroa Walker knows all too well how tough it can be to learn in a conventional classroom environment or even being handed a book or manual to work through.
The high-energy, young contract milker, husband and dad of two is best known to many through his social media profile, Farm 4 Life, where he shares the “at pace” comings and goings of farm and family life.
His Facebook page was originally a way to inform the 16 shareholders in the Southland dairy farm he works on but it quickly grew in popularity.
Tangaroa won the inaugural Ahuwhenua Young Māori Farmer Trophy in 2012 when he was just 22 years old.
It was then he set his sights on making the industry a more attractive opportunity for potential farming job seekers.
His lively, upbeat content struck a chord with other young farmers and people
For those who find it easier to learn by doing, watching and listening rather than sitting in a classroom and reading about it, the approach is proving a hugely valuable resource.
“If there was someone delivering this sort of content when I was coming through the industry, I think it would have fast tracked my career by a couple of years.”
They cover topics from shifting cows on crop to dealing with a cow with mastitis and everything in between.
They’re designed to give people the experience, preferably before they need it, but they’re useful for anyone at any stage.
They come with a quiz so knowledge can be tested too.
His work has caught the attention of a big range of sector groups and companies who are coming on board to partner and support.
One of the biggest milestones so far has been the partnership with Southland Institute of Technology.
In May this year a formal partnership was announced with SIT’s agricultural campus Telford so the Certificate in Farming Systems and Equipment (Level three) Dairy strand offered through Telford could be incorporated into the Hub.
That’s meant videos for the course have been approved for the NZQA certificate. A pilot course is running this year with
50 students selected from the Farm 4 Life Hub online subscribers.
The hub has more than 500 paid subscribers and 4500 freemium subscribers using the Hub app as an educational resource.
Tangaroa says another intake of up to 200 NZQA students is planned for early next year and that will help expand and fine tune the video input into the course.
Ultimately the aim is to enable it to be used for NZQA standards by anyone, anywhere.
“We’re designing it so it can be available for people overseas too, that way anyone coming to New Zealand to work on a farm could gain practical onfarm skills before they even step off the plane.
“That would make a huge difference to them and to the farmers employing them.”
That’s where the Hub’s two-level subscription options come in.
The Hub videos are downloaded using the Farm 4 Life app.
The ‘freemium’ subscription, is free, as its name suggests, and is available to anyone.
That allows users to watch all of the videos online anytime or download them to their own offline learning library.
That makes them useful as a reference for later when out onfarm if there’s limited cell phone service or the user doesn’t want to
clock up data charges.
They can take a quiz after watching the video modules which checks how well they’ve taken in what they’ve viewed.
They also have access to the Hub subscribers’ private Facebook group.
Users will be able to create their own digital CV showing what modules they’ve covered and how they got on in the quizzes.
The premium subscription is for each team member and for a cost of $20/ month allows the user, who is likely to be an employer, the ability to drag and drop modules or sections or individual videos assigning them to people in their farm team.
The employer can see an overview of each team member’s viewing progress so they can follow and support their learning journey.
Tangaroa says most people interested in being a part of the dairy sector want to be working while they’re learning and the Hub enables that.
He’s been a champion for the primary sector for many years and his passion and enthusiasm is contagious so he is a huge drawcard when it comes to attracting people into the sector.
“The problem is I’ve been filling up the bath but the plug was out.
“That’s why I pulled back on being a keynote speaker and put the energy and time into developing the app so we could educate and support the people we draw in.
“It’s important we give them that second layer of understanding when we’re making the videos – that’s the why we do things not just the how we do things.
“When you understand how things all fit together, the effects of a task or action on the other parts of what’s happening onfarm then you understand why it’s important to do a good job and it makes it all the more interesting.
“That’s where the passion comes from.”
Tangaroa is working with DairyNZ on the Go Dairy programme so that the Hub can be used to support and educate newcomers through that programme before they go out onfarm for practical experience.
There’s no shortage of ways the Hub can be used to help attract, grow and develop people in the sector so expect to see plenty more from this huge advocate for dairying and the primary sector.
Scott Jimmieson has realised his dream of becoming a farmer, and he’s keeping it local with his new online shop business, Local Food NZ, connecting farms with consumers.
The online farm shop and home delivery service in the Manawatu and Wellington regions offers free-range eggs from Scott’s farm and honey and coffee from other local producers.
The Local Food NZ business started in 2019 and their direct-to-consumer model was amplified by the Covid-19 lockdowns.
They also wholesale a number of eggs to cafes and restaurants. Scott always knew he wanted to be a farmer, going to work in the dairy industry straight out of high school before travelling overseas and coming back to New Zealand to start his egg farm.
Living the dream in London and walking into the Tesco stores, he noticed all the free-range eggs. Doing research, he discovered about 45% of the United Kingdom market was free-range while in NZ, it was only about 14%. He thought it could only go one way here.
Returning to NZ, he approached his father about leasing the 32-hectare block the family owned at Halcombe, in the Manawatu, to base the business. Despite having no experience with chickens, he established Jimmieson Farms in 2015 when he took out a personal loan to fund the purchase of his first 500 chickens.
“I always wanted to be a farmer; it was the essence of who I wanted to be. Obviously, needing financial backing and big deposits to get into dairy farming just wasn’t feasible for me and I had to look at my strategic advantage. I had a bit of land my parents had I could lease off them and I had to look at something I could do intensively on a small amount of land.
“There came a time in my life I needed to commit to something and take that big leap of faith. I was always going to do it, but it was having the courage to take that first leap.”
The chickens have turned out to be a great fit for Scott personally, and for his family. Scott sank everything he had into the venture, working full-time on a dairy farm, and then selling cars, and pouring every dollar he earned into the chicken enterprise, which he ran on the side.
“There was only one way for me, it was committing 110%. I don’t even think I had a personal account, I just put all the money
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straight into the business.”
A stickler for numbers and Excel spreadsheets, he knew the numbers worked, he just needed to figure out a way to scale the business and buy more chickens.
Initially, Scott sold his eggs wholesale to another company, but he always knew his goal was to sell his own eggs. Selling cars isn’t so different to selling eggs, he reckons, and he soon realised people enjoy buying products from people they know.
“I thought selling cars would be a great option to earn a good income and teach me a good skill of selling. That was the first step of becoming a bit more professional. Selling cars teaches you about people’s buying habits and how to act in front of people.”
In 2019 the big turning point came when he could prove the numbers to the bank and invested in building a 5000-chicken shed. He then employed staff, including his father, to run the farm while he was still at work selling cars. In 2020 during the first Covid lockdown a new market of home delivery presented itself, flipping the business overnight, and suddenly he was receiving 100 orders a day. This provided a platform for the launch of Local Food NZ. Scott has finally given up selling cars. He now farms 35,000 free-range laying hens, recently invested in a second egg farm, and has big plans to add more products to the Local Food stable.
“The most surreal moment was leaving a job and going completely self-employed in something I created, essentially from nothing.”
chickens have proved a great fit for a young Manawatu farmer, and for his family.
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A trial of fodder beet wintering at the Southern Dairy Hub has resulted in lots of questions to be answered. Story and photos by Karen Trebilcock.
More speakers, industry reps and journalists turned up to the Southern Dairy Hub’s October field day than farmers, causing organisers to plead to those there to “take the messages from the day home to your clients” who were obviously flat out on farm.
The day included a walk to a paddock where fodder beet was lifted in autumn.
In mid-October, the area was still to
be cultivated and returned to permanent pasture. Where grass wintering had been trialed, the ground was heavily pugged and sealed with water ponding on the surface and remnants of balage still on the ground.
AgResearch senior scientist Ross Monaghan spoke later in the day on research done between 2018 and 2020 at the hub showing autumn-harvested fodder beet, fed elsewhere, leached a similar amount of nitrogen into groundwater as
kale fed to cows in the paddock during winter.
His key message was if lifting fodder beet in the autumn was to aim then to replant the paddock as soon as possible to reduce N loss during winter.
“We think it’s because of the residual N left behind that hasn’t been used by the crop. We could be overcooking the amount of N going on.
“The leakiness of autumn-lifted fodder
Research into the digestion mechanisms of milk and into the nutritional role of milk in a sustainable global food system has seen two Riddet Institute scientists from Massey University win top prizes in an inaugural International Dairy Federation award.
Riddet Institute Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Debashree Roy came second equal and Research Officer Dr Nick Smith was third in the Professor
Pavel Jelen Early Career Scientist Prize.
Debashree’s entry titled, “Composition, structure, and dynamic digestion behaviour of milk from different species”, focused on how milk composition and structure impacts the release of nutrients at various stages of gastric digestion of different mammalian milks, such as cow, goat, and sheep milks.
“Milk is a uniquely designed nutritious food by nature and there
is still so much to discover and learn from it,” she says.
Her research answered some questions about the digestion mechanisms of milk from different mammalian species during coagulation in the stomach, and how that influences the rates of delivery of proteins and fats during digestion in the body.
“The results obtained have important consequences for developing bio-inspired dairy
beet crops was a bit of a surprise for us, but it shows what happens when you leave soil bare for the winter months.”
The research was one of more than 20 projects the hub has been involved in since it started five years ago and summarised at the field day.
However, much of the data from the past years was still being analysed, DairyNZ senior scientist Dawn Dalley said.
With the major kale vs fodder beet trial ended, the hub is only planting beet for wintering.
“The fodder beet systems cost us more to run compared with the kale and some years we got great results from the fodder beet mobs and other years we got terrible results and we don’t understand why, yet, which is why we’re continuing with fodder beet,” Louise said.
“Generally, the fodder beet systems have also been more complex to manage and the cows wintered on fodder beet have produced less milk in early lactation which continues throughout the whole season.”
When the DairyNZ trial was designed, it was expected fodder beet and kale would see an “even profit outcome” but would show which was better environmentally.
“By the end of year one, it was very clear that this wasn’t the case for profit, a trend that continued throughout the four years of the trial.
“We know how to winter on kale. Fodder beet is still leaving us with lots of questions.
“There has to be a way of feeding fodder beet to make it profitable.”
Crop establishment research at the hub and on other farms in Southland last year showed minimum till or direct drilling decreased environmental effects and decreased pugging in winter.
Lower yields and higher weed and insect burdens were measured on the minimum till treatments and the areas still pugged if good wintering practices were not followed.
“The establishment method is not going to be a silver bullet for poor crop husbandry or lack of attention to detail over the winter grazing period,” she said.
“Daily management of stock had the biggest impact on paddock conditions and cow behaviour.”
Farmers should have contingency plans for when soils become saturated such as increasing the area available either by increasing the break size or moving back the backing fence, rolling out straw or moving cows to drier areas such as grass buffer strips or off-paddock infrastructure.
With the first crop of balage coming off the farm already, the farm was enjoying what is proving to be a spectacular Southland spring with light rainfall and few cold snaps.
“We’re offering the cows 19kg of drymatter, 18kg in the paddock and
another kilogram in the shed, and milk production is 20% above season-to-date.”
Other changes to the management systems at the hub this season include going no bull and building an off-paddock infrastructure for a further wintering trial.
products with improved digestion characteristics, for controlling the release of nutrients, and to meet the special dietary needs of consumers of all age groups.”
Nick is working on the Sustainable Nutrition Initiative. His entry on “Understanding dairy’s contribution to a sustainable food system” used a data science and modelling approach to unpick the quantity of food nutrients that come from dairy in the current food system. Nick has been involved in the development of the DELTA Model®, a global food
system mass balance capable of calculating the nutrition available globally from the food system today, and under various future scenarios.
The contribution dairy makes to calcium intakes is significant, with dairy supplying 49% of global food calcium while also making large contributions to vitamins B2 and B12, and indispensable amino acids, Nick says.
“The nutrients provided by milk are currently of major importance to global nutrition. Any change to this status – either increasing or decreasing this contribution
– must take the full nutritional consequences of this change into account, alongside the other considerations of sustainability.”
The IDF Professor Pavel Jelen Early Career Scientist Prize is named in honour of Professor Pavel (Paul) Jelen, a Czech-born scientist and educator who has spent his career based in Canada and the United States, practising dairy science and technology in his research pursuits, and encouraging, mentoring, and educating students and early-career scientists and technologists.
Ifirst met Gerard Vaughan several years ago as I was embarking on my own experience of grief and trauma and about to write my third book, Use Your Voice - an idea that stemmed from my own struggle to find my voice in the sometimes staunch society we live in.
Gerard was instantly supportive of my children’s book idea. This is the kind of person the project lead and spokesperson of Farmstrong New Zealand is.
Gerard was born in Wellington and although he grew up as a city boy he believes his generation was lucky as he spent his weekends and holidays on his cousin’s sheep and beef farm at Ohuka, near
in psychology and knowledge of rural life, Gerard saw the programmes or approaches in NZ were not designed for rural people specifically and Farmstrong was a good opportunity to combine these two things to learn how to navigate life on the farm. This is even more important, Gerard says, because of the way we are all living. Stress + pressure + change = overwhelm.
This correlates with how farming has changed over the years. The unrelenting nature of being a good farmer while running a good business - used to be about muscle and now it is more about your ‘top paddock’.
We had a chat about the regulations that are at the forefront of many conversations at the moment and this is what Gerard says he would ask a farmer regarding this:
• Are you noticing the level of support that is actually around us?
Wairoa. Because of this connection to rural NZ, Gerard was always able to identify that ‘rural’ is a different world. This had a huge impact on him as a child and he has fond memories of having access to the rural way of life.
Gerard loves family values within our farming communities, how we connect with others around us and the practical nature of farming in NZ.
Gerard’s career has always been largely based on having a huge interest in human behaviours and behavioural psychology, working in programmes where things have not been easy. He knows that life happens and throws a lot of challenging stuff at us but we don’t learn that at school, we learn it as we go but if we had the tools to know how to manage these challenges then we would have managed a lot better - looking back at our own lives so far. Taking into account his background
• In psychology, we have a negative bias naturally but how do we change our mindset to look at how we can work out the best solution rather than panicking and buying into a certain sense of threat?
• How do we frame things? If someone was to be negative towards ‘farming’, he suggests trying with a response like; Do you understand our food systems and the production around it? Starting a conversation here makes the person think about things on a deeper level as this question also affects the consumer, not just a grower.
We chatted about helping others and how best to go about it. Gerard talks about the science of small habits. Start with small changes. Think about these things below or ask these questions when speaking to someone to help them or someone who wants to help someone else:
• Do you know what you want?
• Who would you listen to/who might be your best messenger? E.g. Sam Whitelock, Kane Brisco or a friend, doctor, or mentor.
Life happens and throws a lot of challenging stuff at us but we don’t learn that at school, we learn it as we go…
• Do you want to be around for the future, for your family, children, grandchildren and so on?
On an emotional level, Gerard loves that Farmstrong is ‘by farmers, for farmers’ that have honest, genuine conversations and it makes him feel humbled it is helping people.
Secondly, Gerard talks about surveys where they question about 450 random farmers and their feedback shows 21% surveyed have improved
their personal wellbeing due to Farmstrong, showing it does have a positive impact on rural New Zealanders. They want to see farmers turn up to work and enjoy it, not just survive it.
Gerard’s final top tip for you was to read Kane Brisco’s book - Tools for the Top Paddock. It is a fantastic read.
If you know you need some support or know of someone who does, visitfarmstrong.co.nz
Now that foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is only a holiday to Bali away, it’s time to remind ourselves that biosecurity starts at our borders but ends on our farms. Mostly gone are foot troughs at gates from three years ago when Mycoplasma bovis was spreading fast but that doesn’t mean we should be any less vigilant.
Yes, FMD will completely ignore your footbath, as it can be carried on the wind, but that footbath will still stop a whole lot of other unwanted diseases affecting your cattle.
We are a country that takes our animals to the food and not the food to the animals so we are more susceptible to disease than others because our animals, especially our dairy cows, can travel the length of the country, or at least a couple of times around a region, in their lifetimes.
So you should the know the “must-neverdos”, not just for your own farm, but for everyone else’s.
No one wants to be “that farm” which alerted the nation that a disease we were once free of we now have.
But if you ignore a sick animal and do not get advice, your farm will eventually be found out to be ground zero and the repercussions will be worse. Your failure to act quickly will have made an isolated case into an infected region and possibly the whole country.
So if one of your animals is sick and you are not sure about it, ring your vet immediately. Do not worry what time of the day or night it is.
If your vet doesn’t pick up the phone ring the Ministry for Primary Industries pest and disease “hotline” (it’s what they’re calling it) 0800 80 99 66. It’s on their website.
Within four hours there will be someone there checking your animals and samples taken will have a 24-hour turn around or faster in the lab.
So, never, ever, ever (can I say this enough) ever feed raw meat to animals such as pigs. Any raw meat, or products that have been in contact with raw meat, must be cooked for at least an hour at 100C first.
Never ever bring home footwear, wet weather gear or animal health equipment that has been worn or used on a farm in another country
Recent emergence of foot and mouth disease in Indonesia reinforces the need for continued vigilance against biosecurity threats.
Story and photos by Karen Trebilcock.
IF YOU IGNORE A SICK ANIMAL AND DO NOT GET ADVICE, YOUR FARM WILL EVENTUALLY BE FOUND OUT TO BE GROUND ZERO AND THE REPERCUSSIONS WILL BE WORSE.Don’t invite the boys on to your property to have sex with your girls until they’ve had a health check first.
without cleaning and disinfecting it thoroughly before entering NZ. Never ever shift cattle or deer without doing all the NAIT stuff and if you’re leaving it up to your stock agent or saleyards make sure they do the job as they should.
Do everything possible to stop your stock licking, sniffing and grooming other people’s stock. They need to keep their noses and their tongues to themselves.
And that includes licking any of the wildlife on your farm.
Have a possum control programme, shoot as soon as possible any wild deer that have strayed in and those with eartags send them quickly packing back to their owners.
Keep wild pigs, rabbits, hares, geese and duck numbers down. These guys not only eat your grass but spread a whole host of diseases.
Fenced riparian strips are proving the perfect habitat for some of these pests, including rats, so install some automatic traps when you plant the flaxes and trees.
Make sure all your cattle vaccinations are up to date. Your cows will never be anti-vaxers. They know and appreciate their jabs because they stop them dying of Tetanus and blackleg and a whole host of other nasties that once in our cattle can increase their numbers in the soil and affect more animals.
Drench at the right times with the right drenches to stop worm burdens building up. Rotate stock through paddocks especially calves which are more susceptible to parasites. Don’t raise calves in the same areas every year.
Calf grain feeders especially should be moved every day in paddocks.
Rest paddocks and let sunshine and nature do what they do best.
Don’t invite the boys on to your property to have sex with your girls until they’ve had a health check first.
And don’t invite your friends or family with their dogs to roam your paddocks. This is a working environment and no place for a poodle, or a spoodle or anything else that is going to poo.
So keep gumboots used by staff onfarm, and any entering worn by vets, bankers, AI technicians and others going through your footbath.
Have warm water and soap available for hand washing and keeping things clean.
If those coming on to your farm are bringing with them their dirty gumboots and gear tell them to clean up their act or you’re getting someone else.
Check second-hand gear and machinery coming onfarm has been thoroughly disinfected before it’s used.
Make sure all feed is certified, all medicines have labels, all semen used is from a well-known breeding company which has used the correct import protocols. Don’t ever be tempted to use something cheap that you’re not sure where it came from.
But most importantly, always keep looking at your stock. Are they well? Are they happy? Are they walking without pain? Are they all growing as they should and not losing weight?
Are they acting like cattle or is something wrong?
And that includes all your stock, not just the milking cows you see twice a day. Don’t leave calves forgotten about or breeding bulls which are out of the way until mating starts. Visually check all your stock regularly.
Don’t yard or transport stock, especially young stock, in bad weather if you can help it as the extra stress of dealing with rain and wind can make them susceptible to illness.
Mycoplasma bovis and Covid has taught our government a few things about how we farm and how to control the spread of disease and although there might not be the 1pm briefing if we get FMD, do expect regional shutdowns, police checkpoints and a whole host of other measures.
Having FMD in Indonesia has not raised the threat level to NZ, but it has made those in Wellington think about it a bit more.
They say they’re ready. Hopefully we won’t have to find out.
Remember these? Not a bad time to fill them up again but it won’t stop windborne FMD.
Facial eczema is a chronic toxicity caused by the ingestion of spores from pasture and their conversion into sporidesmin in blood. Management of this disease continues to improve with progressive farmers no longer counting it as a non-manageable problem.
Why so?
These farmers have learned to complement grass with supplementary feeding through in-shed feed systems and feed pads. This is targeted at optimising milk yield, but it also allows farmers to manage several nutrition parameters that traditional drenching and water dosing cannot.
1. Dosing through feed means more even dosing.
2. It allows use of safer, more effective zinc oxide.
3. Supplementary feed allows optimum pasture use, minimising fungal growth.
4. Supplementary feed intake dilutes spore intake in severe situations.
5. We can add other nutritional components that help maintain optimum immunity and metabolic activity, including,
• Calcium
• Phosphorus
• Vitamin E and selenium
• Vitamin D metabolites
Since the 1970s zinc in the diet, as a drench, bolus, in water or feed, has been one of the most effective methods of reducing facial eczema impact. However, it’s often thought of as the only tool. When spore numbers are really high, zinc is often not enough to prevent damage.
Also, like many strong medicines, zinc comes with side effects. For example, it can be antagonistic to other minerals, especially calcium, increasing the likelihood of milk fever.
With planning, these side effects can be offset with other means bolstering immunity and decreasing exposure to spores.
Feeding non pasture feeds allows spore intake to be reduced through dilution.
It’s been demonstrated that the right proportion of micro minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants, in particular vitamin E, can further contribute to the resistance of animals to facial eczema (Munday et. al.).
Therapeutic levels of zinc can reduce calcium uptake. However, the vitamin D metabolite, Hy-D, increases active absorption of both calcium and phosphorus, helping offset zinc antagonism and reducing milk fever risk.
For 25 years, RNZ’s award-winning Country Life team has travelled around the motu to meet the growers, producers, farmers and craftspeople of Aotearoa. These days the team make close to 100 features a year that are broadcast on RNZ National and published as a weekly podcast. Country Life also features the essential regional wrap of farming conditions that comes directly from farmers and other industry specialists on the ground and out in the paddock.
Over the years Country Life has showcased the people of heartland New
Zealand as they’ve tackled new farming trends, adapted to emerging technologies, and developed new products.
Producer and presenter Sally Round says that while much of her role is focused on putting stories together and preparing for broadcast, every story starts with getting out into the countryside.
RNZ’s Head of News Richard Sutherland says that Country Life is an important part of RNZ’s commitment to telling stories about regional New Zealand.
“The Country Life team are masters of storytelling and I’d challenge anyone to create features with more layers of rich
We also need to watch copper intake when spore levels are high. Free copper is needed to create superoxide radicals. Organic (or chelated) copper in zinc supplements is sometimes offered as safe. There is no safe form of copper. To date no published work demonstrates a safe form of copper.
Summary:
• Zinc inhibits the generation of the superoxide radical by sporidesmin.
• Copper causes the spore to become toxic.
• There is no safe copper supplement.
• Zinc reduces copper absorption.
• Non-pasture feeds during risk periods will help limit spore exposure.
• Zinc antagonises calcium absorption, increasing the risk of hypocalcaemia.
• The use of Hy-D can improve calcium absorption.
• Vitamin E has been shown to act differently to zinc, helping to prevent damage by free radicals involved with facial eczema.
audio. Country Life’s 25th birthday will be celebrated for a week starting on Friday 4 November with a special online collection from the archives plus some new audio and video features at rnz.co.nz/countrylife as well as with special content and giveaways on the show.
Country Life in numbers
• 47 episodes a year
• 94 features each year
• 86 towns visited in 2021
• 165,000 weekly radio listeners
• 280,000 annual plays on podcast platforms
The MF 5S Series includes five new models ranging from 105hp to 145hp and continue the striking new era design and enhanced operator experience introduced on the advanced, new MF 8S Series.
With impressive visibility and four-metre turning radius, the narrow steep-nosed bonnet and practical features they are supreme loader tractors. Also, their greater payload and higher linkage capacity make them powerful performers in the field and on the road.
All models are equipped with fourcylinder engines, offering maximum powers from 105hp up to a new range topping 145hp model. There is a choice of two levels of specification – Essential and Efficient, plus a range of options including outstanding control from the latest stateof-the-art, easy to use Smart Farming technology.
“The versatile MF 5S series builds on the high performance, comfort and agility we’ve come to expect from Massey Ferguson’s iconic steep bonnet design. This class leading tractor range has been appreciated in the New Zealand market for decades. The new MF 5S makes the best better. Exceptional visibility and special features make them the ultimate loader tractors,” Massey Ferguson marketing product manager Raph Hymus says.
“The MF 5S Series offers the right choice of power and specifications to suit all applications. Building on the success of the MF 5700 S Series, these modern tractors deliver straightforward operation and enhanced features with low ownership costs. The MF 5S blends together the
compact dimensions required by livestock and mixed farmers with the performance and power needed for arable work,” he adds.
No matter the application, from general farming, contracting, or livestock and dairy operations, these straightforward, dependable, versatile and well-equipped tractors deliver the performance, comfort and convenience modern farmers need with low operating costs.
More? https://www.masseyferguson.com/
HIGHLY PROFITABLE TURNKEY IRRIGATED DAIRY FARM Warrnambool District – 1224 Acres / 495.5 HA
LARGE SCALE: 872 Acres freehold, 352 Acres leasehold (4 + 5 yr term) ideally situated 5 km to Koroit and 25km to Warrnambool.
PERFORMANCE & PRODUCTIVITY: 7.3M litres of milk and 553,367kg of milk solids produced in the 2021/2022 FY, from award winning cow herd - Top 100 highest quality milk produced nationally - Dairy Australia, October 2022.
SECURITY: 346 Acres Pivot irrigation - 132 Acres freehold - 214 Acres leasehold. Effective low cost irrigation operation. Situated in the centre of the blue ribbon dairying district - Number 1 nationally.
SUPERIOR INFRASTRUCTURE: Fully automated and computerized one man fifty unit rotary dairy, 19,500L vat, 500 cow yard capacity, 3 phase power. 750 cow capacity feed pads. 13 bay purpose built calf shed and machinery shedding.
QUALITY RESIDENCES: Spacious fully appointed 4 brm grey brick homestead (c.1995) plus 4 brm home and 2 brm cottage.
WALK IN WALK OUT PREFERRED OPTION - 900 head cow herd, conserved fodder, plant and machinery allows purchaser to "hit the ground running". 188 Acre outpaddock available if required.
An exceptional opportunity to acquire a large scale turnkey highly profitable and cost effective operation in a sought after dairying and desirable lifestyle location.
Nick Adamson +61 418 571 589
E:
nadamson@charlesstewart.com.au
As NZ Dairy Exporter counts down to its centenary in 2025, we look back at the issues of earlier decades. 50 Years Ago – November 1972.
A Water Resources Council survey of 22,101 dairy farms indicated that only about half had a satisfactory answer of getting rid of dairy shed waste and of these, 6020 were merely discharging effluent on to “sacrifice areas” or waste land on their farms.
Methods of disposal, apart from sending effluent “down the drain” or on to a sacrifice area, are basically: Honey wagons, lagoons, pumping out to pastures and spray irrigating pastures.
Other methods include settling tanks to separate solids from liquids, manure spreaders and, overseas at least, digging trenches and then running effluent into them before covering it with soil.
Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries farm advisor Mr F. W. Phillips said spray irrigation is practicable on most dairy farms.
Provided the spray area grows good pasture, there is essentially no problem in spray irrigation.
“The bulk of the polluting material is used by the micro-organisms in the top six inches of the soil.
“There’s no problem unless the system is overloaded. You’ll pretty soon know when that has happened.”
Cattle numbers reached 997 during 1971 in a wintering system offered by Mr Bob Wright of Walton in the Waikato.
And they needed 4800 bales of hay, all of which were made on his 396-acre farm.
Mr Wright provided a wintering-over programme for nearby dairyfarmers and
had 400 dairy cows on his farm at 75c a head per week for six to eight weeks. In addition, he grazed 360 heifers on a yearly basis for local farmers at 50c a head per week.
The remaining 237 head were his own. They included Aberdeen Angus stud stock, Angus grade cattle and some Aberdeen Angus crossed with Jerseys or Friesians.
Milkfat production for September was a New Zealand record for that month, and district records were set in Northland, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki.
Milkfat processed in September is estimated at 64.0 million lb, an increase of 3.1 million lb, or 6.7 per cent above the figure for the corresponding month of last year and 0.7 million lb above the previous record September total in 1969.
Conditions for production flattened off a little in some districts during October but well-timed rain boosted the situation again.
With cows generally in such good condition and the feed situation excellent, factory staffs will continue to be kept very busy this season.
A grant of $10,000 to “improve communications between urban and rural residents” was announced by the President of Merck and Co., Dr A. T. Knoppers, at the opening of the new headquarters of MSD in New Zealand, at Auckland.
He said the company had observed that there might be an increasing difficulty in communicating problems and
opportunities that face farmers to the city dwellers.
“We feel that this growing lack of understanding works to the disadvantage of both groups,” said Dr Knoppers.
“We consider it important that New Zealanders of every occupation be aware of the prospects for farming and the importance of farming to this nation.”
The grant is to be administered by Federated Farmers.
A special payment for Tb reactor cattle is being introduced to offset losses caused to the farmers by the export ban on this meat.
Details of the rate to be paid were still being worked out but the Government has approved meeting 75 per cent of the cost. The remaining 25 per cent will come from the meat industry and will be met by a small levy on all cattle killed at licensed slaughter works, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
The special rate will be based on export prices and will be the same throughout New Zealand.
Retrospective payments will be made for Tb reactors slaughtered since the ban was imposed last April.
• Thanks to the Hocken Library, Dunedin.
The Government has accepted the sector’s recommendation for a farm-level split-gas approach, but that’s where the similarities end. In this episode, DairyNZ strategy and investment leader, Bruce Thorrold, explains how the Government’s proposal stacks up, and what it really means for dairy farmers.
