Dairy Farmer February 2021

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Learning new tricks Waikato dairy farmer diversifies into sheep milking PLUS:

Helping cows get in calf ➜ Half a million inseminations ➜ Sharing the ups and downs ➜ Meeting environmental regulations

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CONTENTS NEWS 16 Milk Monitor Milk production up despite lower cow numbers

FEBRUARY 2021 | $8.95 GlobalHQ is a farming family owned business that donates 1% of all advertising revenue in Farmers Weekly and Dairy Farmer to farmer health and wellbeing initiatives. Thank you for your prompt payment.

17 Fixed milk price Increased number of farmers using fixed milk pricing

ON FARM STORY 8

Counting sheep Waikato farmers Allan and Toni Browne have added sheep milking to their farm business

20 Dairying through the years Canterbury farmer Marv Pangborn discusses how things have changed in the environmental space

FARMING CHAMPIONS 7

Guest column – Ad van Velde

28 Dairy champion – Dirk van den Ven 36 Women in agribusiness – Stephanie Matheson

FEATURES 52 Effluent 60 Sheep milking 66 Autumn calving

REGULAR FEATURES 34 Industry good – DairyNZ 40 Technology

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42 Research 50 Farmstrong

Editor SONITA CHANDAR

06 374 5544 / 027 446 6221 sonita.chandar@globalhq.co.nz

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February 2021

COVER STORY Waikato dairy farmer diversifies into sheep milking

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GUEST COLUMN

Growing the farming community

By Ad van Velde

Dairy Farmers in the Netherlands and, in fact, all over the world face the same challenges as Kiwi farmers, and that makes us friends and colleagues, the president of Global Dairy Farmers says.

A

s dairy farmers, are we colleagues or competitors?

Maybe a little of both? And do I look at my neighbours differently than I do to the dairy farmers in New Zealand?

I am a dairy farmer in the Netherlands and farming in my family goes back many generations. As an entrepreneur, I am always looking outside the industry, both nationally and internationally. My wife Annette and I run Hunsingo Dairy and have been members of international networks for many years, which has benefited us and our business.

I have been president of Global Dairy Farmers (GDF) since 2017. GDF is a global network of inspirational and ambitious dairy farmers. Together with other leading experts in different fields related to dairy and key stakeholders from around the globe, we exchange knowledge, experience and business opportunities.

In the Netherlands dairy farming has changed in recent years, with new regulations, more requirements, different milk flows and often no direct business model attached. Some farmers like it and some are resistant. Usually I can live with it, see the opportunities and challenges.

Our products have to be consumed and society is constantly changing, so we have to listen to that and try to adapt.

Hunsingo Dairy delivers milk to a relatively small co-operative, which I founded in 2007. At our co-op we can choose between five milk streams.

The basis is the EU stream – standard conditions, basic sustainability topics, but also the lowest price. At the highest price you are not allowed to grow corn, or plough/renew pasture, cannot have too many cows per hectare and face a range of other conditions. This stream received five cents extra, it is the maximum premium.

We receive up to 5c more – we got 3c – per kilogram/milk, which is money in the pocket.

On our farm we are one level lower,

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Ad van Velde, who is a dairy farmer in the Netherlands, is the president of Global Dairy Farmers, a global network of inspirational and ambitious dairy farmers.

“Our products have to be consumed and society is constantly changing, so we have to listen to that and try to adapt.” providing a milk stream specifically for the German market. The most important thing in this stream is feeding GMOfree concentrates. But also grazing, not overcrowding, ensuring cow welfare and more. This makes me quite satisfied.

Milk price in December 2020 was 0.3630 Euro cents per kg milk, ex VAT, 4.33% butterfat, 3.57% protein and 4.59% lactose. This excludes yearly postpayment from the co-operative, which usually fluctuates around 1c. I include this as farmers are always curious about milk prices.

Land is our most expensive production source, land prices are heading towards €100,000 per hectare. That is why we are working on precision agriculture, targeted and accurate fertiliser spreading

to work even more efficiently and save costs. If we apply slurry, we work with sensors, and levels of N, P and K are continuously monitored and corrected.

We work closely with crop farmers in our region; they grow seed potatoes at our farm and we grow alfalfa and corn with them. Plus we exchange manure.

Protein is the hot topic right now. We are trying to increase the protein production of the land. We are succeeding but it is not easy. We now produce 68% of the protein on our land. I would like to bring that to 75% eventually, or maybe even higher.

Fertiliser is becoming more and more of a limiting factor, but there are all kinds of innovations on the way.

Over the past 20-30 years the sector has undergone tremendous development, and it will do so again over the next 10-20 years. Like climate-neutral, antibiotic-free, genetic developments in crops and in cows, for example.

There are challenges though. But I think that is always the case. I can take criticism of the sector, but I am annoyed that often the wrong arguments are used and that knowledge and understanding are sometimes totally lacking. The demand for food is going to rise, including the demand for dairy products.

There are many challenges for farmers in NZ and for us too. Often they are the same challenges – technical developments, society, communication and climate change.

We have pride and passion, beautiful products, we feed the world and are open and transparent – I think we can and should tell our story better and in a modern way, worldwide.

I think we are colleagues, that’s better and that’s what we should do.

Take care, stay healthy, you are always welcome and the coffee is ready. n

MORE:

To learn more go to www.hunsingodairy. com or www.globaldairyfarmers.com

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Counting sheep Farming couple’s exciting sheep milking venture

8

Waikato farmers Allan and Toni Browne milk 1100 sheep for Maui Milk on their Cambridge farm. They also milk 450 cows and run beef and lambs for finishing.

DAIRY FARMER February 2021

By Gerald Piddock

Sheep milking is a small but growing industry in the Waikato, where cows have ruled the dairy industry for decades.

A

fter a lifetime of farming sheep for their meat and wool, Allan and Toni Browne have switched the sheep yards for the sheep milking shed.

They have joined the small but growing number of farmers who are part of the new Waikato-based sheep milking industry.

They carved off 80 hectares of their then 410ha beef cattle and lamb finishing operation near Cambridge, and are in their first season milking 1100 ewes for Maui Milk.

The potential for milking sheep interested the Brownes long before the conversion took place. Six years earlier they converted 160ha of their land into cow dairying and saw the potential in the economic returns.

He attended one of Maui Milk’s open days held on the company’s farm at

Waikino Station near Taupo.

“It excited me straight from the start, as soon as I saw it,” Allan says.

“After being a drystock farmer all of my life, I suddenly realised how much money there is in milking cows.

“There’s just nothing that makes money the way that dairy farms make money.”

The total farm business is an intergenerational farm, with all three of their children and grandchildren living and working in it, as well as Allan’s mother.

Diversifying into sheep milking was part of the Browne’s succession plan to keep the business family-owned, he says.

There was also a personal connection to Maui Milk’s senior staff.

Their farmland borders Maui Milk

FARM FACTS • Owners: Allan and Toni Browne • Location: Cambridge • Farm size: 570ha – 160ha dairy farm run by a 50:50 sharemilker, 330ha beef cattle and lamb finishing, 80ha sheep milking • Herd: 450 cows • Sheep herd: 1100 • Production: 2-3.5l/day

Continued page 10

The sheep are divided into three mobs of 400 and are milked twice-a-day, the tanker collects the milk from the vat every three days.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

9

geneticist Jake Chardon’s property and their accountant is Maui Milk general manager Peter Gatley’s wife.

That connection meant they were the first farmers to lease sheep-milking rams off Maui Milk on September 20, 2018.

They leased 15 rams and mated them to 3000 of their ewes, which were a mix of a range of different meat breeds.

Around 2800 of those ewes got into lamb, birthing 4000 lambs last year.

He is now milking the ewe hoggets from this flock as part of his milking herd.

“I wish I knew more about dairying, but you are what you are.”

Allan Browne “They are making very good milk, well ahead of expectations,” he says.

Unlike most conversions where the infrastructure is built first and then the livestock are brought in, the Brownes did the opposite by obtaining the sheep first and then developing the infrastructure.

Waikato Milking Systems built a new 70-bail rotary to milk the sheep and they utilised the existing infrastructure, converting it into lamb rearing facilities.

The covid-19 lockdown also saw construction of the milking shed grind to a halt.

The Brownes autumn lambed a mob of cull ewes belonging to one of Maui Milk’s farms to be used as a test sheep for the shed.

“I bred them especially to autumn lamb, we were never going to keep the milk, and we just wanted to make sure the shed worked,” he says.

“I never got to do it because the shed wasn’t completed.”

That was one challenge. Since then,

Toni and Allan bring in a mob for milking.

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The Browns milk 1100 first-cross sheep bred using Southern Cross rams over a range of meat sheep, which included a lot of Coopworths.

it has been a matter of fine-tuning the operation.

Another was last season’s drought, where they spent a fortune in bringing in supplementary feed to get their ewe hoggets to mating weights and then to feed it to their lambs.

“We had to hard feed all of those lambs to get them to a weight suitable for mating. But we got our 1000 hoggets up to mating weight, so it worked,” he says.

At the time Dairy Farmer interviewed the Brownes, they were on day 70 of their first season milking 2-3.5 litres a day on average.

They timed their lambing with Maui Milk’s first collection on August 20, so they had enough sheep lambed and ready for milking.

Allan says most of the basic skills around sheep and cattle farming are easily transferable to sheep milking.

The sheep are divided into three mobs of 400 and are milked twice a day. The tanker collects the milk from the vat every three days.

A mob size of 400 fits nicely into their yards and can be milked in about 40 minutes, he says.

One mob are their older ewes consisting of a mix of some bought from Maui Milk, along with some ewes with unproven genetics.

The second and third mob are his hoggets, divided into higher and smaller

DAIRY FARMER

Continued page 12

February 2021

liveweights.

The Brownes or one of their staff collect the first mob for milking. The second mob is collected and by the time the second mob is at the yards, the first mob is almost milked.

The third mob is then collected and milked.

Over time, Allan expects the two hogget mobs to replace the older ewe mob as more of his own sheep are born.

“We expect the genetic improvement at the start to be pretty easy for the first few years. We’ll get some pretty big gains and then it will slow down,” he says.

Effluent from the shed is gravity fed and stored in a bladder system where it is then spread back out onto paddocks.

It is one of the biggest differences to cow dairy farming as the bulk of the effluent is wastewater rather than excrement.

There is also a lot less water used during washdown following milking, he says.

Coming into summer, they have forage rape, chicory and plantain/clover sown for feed crops. They are also fed maize and barley in the in-shed feeding system.

The sheep will be transitioned onto these crops as soon as the pasture quality begins to turn.

During the peak spring flush, the sheep tend to pick out the clover from the paddocks and ignore the ryegrass.

He uses a mob of beef cattle which come in after the sheep to reduce that residual.

“I let the cattle eat it – you can turn grass into meat,” he says.

Some of their plans in this first season have a trial and error element.

They are acting as guinea pigs for Maui Milk by milking one of their mobs once a day and monitoring its performance which they began after Christmas.

They also have maize silage in reserve, which Allan has no idea how the sheep will perform on.

“It’s learn as you go,” he says.

He is still unsure when the ewes will dry off in autumn, and plans to keep milking the sheep until that occurs naturally.

He will then winter the mobs on the hills of the drystock farm.

The sheep have been relatively free of animal health issues, but he is well aware of the potential for the mobs to suffer from facial eczema this autumn with the flock being naïve of the disease.

This is one reason why they have the summer feed crops in the ground, and he will also use boluses to boost the sheep’s defence of the disease.

“They say with normal sheep you have to watch from about 40,000 (spore counts) onwards. I think with these sheep it’s 5000-10,000 spore counts,” he says.

Allan and Toni Browne spent a lifetime farming sheep for meat and wool before switching to milking them.

11

Sheep are fed maize and barley in the in-shed feeding system. Toni Browne gives the sheep a scratch behind the ears.

“With our level of investment by the time we lease rams and build sheds, I couldn’t afford a failure because the sheep got eczema and died.”

The lambs are taken off their mother at two days old and are reared on automatic feeding machines. The lambs are then weaned onto meal feed at 35-40 days.

They are then transferred to pasture but continue to get fed as well.

Farming sheep meant combatting some of the common issues affecting that kind of farming, such as crutching and shearing.

One of the issues they faced was a lack of licenced animal health products that are available for milking sheep.

“You are better to try and dodge having a worm problem than to fix a worm problem,” he says.

“Those things have a 35-day withholding period for milk and if you have to do that, you might as well not bother.”

He makes sure the ewes are wormfree prior to lambing by giving the flock a quarantine drench in time for the withholding period to expire by the time the lambs are born.

While an experienced sheep and

12

beef farmer, Allan admits that his dairy farming knowledge is limited, but on a par to get by.

Their cow dairy farm has always had a sharemilker on it with him having a mostly hands-off role in that business.

“With our level of investment by the time we lease rams and build sheds, I couldn’t afford a failure because the sheep got eczema and died.”

Allan Browne

“The other guys that have come to Maui all have dairy backgrounds, whereas I’m the complete opposite of them,” he says.

“I wish I knew more about dairying, but you are what you are.”

Much of Maui Milk’s financial modelling shared by business manager Tom Wourtersen at its open day in

October are extremely similar to the Browne’s farm.

“Those numbers are solid,” he says.

That model is of an 80ha farm where the farmer is paid $17/total milksolids and has a 30% replacement rate for the sheep.

The model will see the farm’s 1000-ewe flock building to 1400 in years 4-6 of its operation.

It also has 275l/MA ewe being produced in the first year, building up to 350l in years 4-6, but averaging 300l.

The model hand-rears the lambs, meaning its labour costs are higher but its milk production collected is higher.

On a per hectare basis, the farm’s financial model in years 4-6 is $19,656 for its gross farm revenue, its operating expenses was $11,631 and operating profit was $8025.

“It’s a pretty attractive number,” Wourtersen says.

“We’re looking at $600,000 of operating profit on an 80ha property, which is pretty exciting.”

In comparison, the average Waikato dairy farm’s numbers according to the 2018-19 DairyNZ Financial Survey is

Continued page 14

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

The Browne’s farm at Cambridge is 570ha which consists of 160ha dairy farm run by a 50:50 sharemilker, 330ha beef cattle and lamb finishing, 80ha sheep milking.

DAIRY FARM MANAGER ARE YOU A DAIRY FARM MANAGER INTERESTED IN CHANGING FROM COWS TO KIWIFRUIT? TALK TO US TODAY !!

Allan Browne and shepherd Izzy Corke discuss the sheep feed.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Call Lee Du Preez : 021 114 1827 or alternatively email your CV to lee@schort.co.nz

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13

Granddaughter Chloe Browne, 15, and platform manager Jason Rama cup the sheep in the milking shed.

$7778 for its gross farm revenue, $5968 in operating expenses, with an $1810 operating profit.

The farm’s existing infrastructure will play a big role in the conversion. If it is currently milking cows, it is relatively simple to convert to sheep milking.

If it is a herringbone shed, it costs around $300,000-$400,000 to change it to a rapid exit milking shed for sheep. On top of that are costs for other changes, such as fencing, which can cost another $100,000. “$500,000 will do you a good conversion,” Wourtersen says.

A greenfield build was twice that price.

The farm was among those using the first sheep-milking genetics from Maui Milk.

Most of the ewes milked in this first season are first-cross hoggets which is not ideal, but these young animals have exceeded expectations, settling in well and producing between 1.5-2l/day with good udder conformation.

They were bred using Southern Cross rams over a range of meat sheep, which included a lot of Coopworths.

Maui Milk also supplied some secondcross ewes entering their third lactation.

Not surprisingly, this group set the

14

pace and averaged 2.5-3l/day, with some topping 4l.

They are on track for a 350l lactation average, which is exciting given that they are only half Lacaune with the rest of the genetics being a quarter each of Coopworth and East Friesian.

“We’re looking at $600,000 of operating profit on an 80ha property, which is pretty exciting.”

Tom Wourtersen

These mixed-age ewes are run in a mob with an assortment of East Friesian dairy ewes purchased from other milking operations across the country.

Despite a higher proportion of dairy genes, this group has fallen well short of the second-crossed ewes’ performance and has convinced Allan of the value of the French genetics, which also show a clear advantage in both udder conformation and milking speed.

Allan says it’s exciting to be part of an emerging industry.

He is also extremely satisfied at the performance of his milking sheep, which did not even exist until two years ago.

“For something that didn’t exist in this space and now does – it was just an idea at an open day two years ago – having this built and home-bred sheep,” Allan says.

“It’s pretty special,” Toni adds.

“We’re making volumes of milk that haven’t really been seen before in this country.”

That should see the farm make a financial surplus in its first season, despite Allan expecting it to be a deficit as they come to grips with the new venture.

The farm has yet to reach its full potential from a genetics perspective or its peak production numbers, which could mean growing the flock to 15001600 ewes.

“It depends on how far up the hill I can walk and still make good milk,” he says.

“Every year there’ll be an improvement, but it will be substantially different in three years to what it is now and we’ll have a better idea what our sheep numbers are likely to peak at.” n

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

The sheep munch away on maize and barley during milking.

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February 2021

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MILK MONITOR

Making more with less

By Gerald Piddock

Each month the milk monitor delves into the dairy industry and gives us the low-down on the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between.

T

he annual New Zealand Dairy Statistics has highlighted the massive contribution the industry has made to the economy over the past year, as well as throwing up some interesting facts about the state of the industry.

It rounded off a great end to 2020 and many farmers can look back at what they achieved with a great deal of satisfaction.

There is the huge feel good factor with record-high milk production for the 2019-20 season, with dairy companies processing 21.1 billion litres of milk containing 1.90 billion kilograms of milksolids.

That is a 0.6% increase in milksolids from the previous season.

Average milk production per cow also increased from 381kg MS last season to 385kg MS this season, while the latest count showed that NZ has 4.921 million milking cows – a decrease of 0.5% from the previous season, or just under 25,000 fewer cows.

This is again down significantly from peak cow numbers in 2014-15, which were at over five million.

So, per cow production went up despite there being about 56 fewer herds across the country.

From a regional perspective, most of the cow number reductions have come from the North Island, which is hardly surprising given the effect of last season’s drought.

Waikato had the largest reduction with around 13,000 fewer cows, but there were also reductions in Northland, Auckland, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa.

In other words, farmers made more with less – largely down to better genetics and probably better feeding too.

The number of cows being herd tested was the highest on record this year, with a total of 3.689 million cows tested – equating to 75% of all cows.

The stats also highlighted the role the dairy sector was playing in the economy, contributing nearly one in every four

16

Dairy farmers were able to produce more milk with fewer cows in the 201920 season.

dollars earned from total goods exports and services in the year to September 2020.

The analysis by Recent Sense Partners showed the sector delivered $20 billion in export value.

At a regional level, in 2019 the sector accounted for more than 5% of GDP in seven regions – and more than 10% in four of those.

The West Coast had the greatest GDP from dairy, at 16%.

It contributed nearly $2 billion in Canterbury, $2.5 billion in Waikato and is a significant employer in many districts, accounting for one-third of jobs in Waimate and one in four jobs in South Taranaki and Otorohanga.

It marks off what has been a very positive Christmas and holiday period for farmers. The rain in early January came just in the nick of time for many in the North Island as soils started to dry out.

Global demand is also holding up well, reflected in the new year’s first GDT auction, where there was a 3.9% price

index lift and there was an average price of US$3420/ tonne.

Whole milk powder had its fourth consecutive price gain, while butter continued its rise, up for the seventh time with prices reaching levels last seen in June 2019.

The result has put upward pressure on forecasts by the banks and other outlets.

NZX lifted its forecast nine cents to $7.36/ kg MS in early January, while Rabobank lifted its forecast to $7/kg MS prior to the auction just before Christmas to bring it in line with Westpac and ASB. ANZ revised its forecast for this season from $6.70-$7.20/kg MS, which is at the upper end of Fonterra’s milk price guidance.

Its forecast update says that if prices do remain near current levels, then next season’s milk price is likely to be higher than the $6.40/kg MS currently being forecasted.

However, it predicted a stronger NZ dollar would mean it is unlikely to match the current season’s milk price. n

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

NEWS

Fonterra’s FMP proves popular

By Gerald Piddock

F

onterra’s fixed milk price (FMP) scheme is a great tool for protection from the historic volatility seen in dairy prices.

But people need to still do their homework and talk to their financial advisors before signing up to it, farmers were told during an online presentation organised by the Smaller Milk and Supply Herds group.

The tool allows farmers to ‘fix’ up to 50% of their estimated production for the season at a set price, starting from March through to December, Fonterra innovation manager Satwant Singh says.

They could fix all of that in one event or smaller amounts throughout the season.

“The important bit is to make sure you do your homework and talk to your financial advisor before you participate,” Singh says.

She says there has been an increase in farmers using fixed milk pricing with over 1600 signing up.

“That’s around 18% of our farms which have locked in some portion of their milk price this season,” she says.

It was a huge amount, but it had been a rollercoaster of a season.

Waikato farmer Gaynor Tierney used fixed milk pricing for the first time this season. The uncertainty around the covid-19 pandemic, the unease around the direction of the milk price and a new farm purchase led to their decision to fix 30% of their milk price.

She says they wanted a level of stability in their business.

“We were really trying to cover our downside risk. We calculated with the new property and our income coming in from the dairy farm that we really wanted to have a $6/kg MS milk price and we wanted to make that as stable as possible for us,” Tierney says.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

More than 1600, or about 18%, of farmers have signed up to Fonterra’s fixed milk price scheme.

Some banks had predicted a $5.40 milk price for the season and fixing the price offset that risk.

With the benefit of hindsight, Tierney says they probably would not have locked in the price at $6, given how the price had lifted steadily over the course of the season.

Waikato accountant Nigel McWilliam described it as a downside risk protection tool for farmers, rather than a tool for gaining a high milk price.

It was a futures contract where a buyer and seller make a delivery of a product at an agreed date, but the price is decided beforehand.

“The whole point of it is to protect you against price volatility,” McWilliam says.

While the milk price had been largely settled over the past few seasons, there was no guarantee that would continue into the future.

“If there are any jitters in the market, that’s where you start to look at fixed milk pricing,” he says.

It was done to offset the chance of the milk price losing value over the duration of the season. Examples of this occurring in previous years are when farmers were told there would be a $7/kg MS payout and it fell to $3.90.

“The key to it is protection from loss.

If you enter a fixed milk price from that mindset, it’s a tool you can use,” he says.

It took 15 months for dairy farmers to get paid for the milk collected over

“The whole point of it is to protect you against price volatility.”

Nigel McWilliam the course of a season. Over the course of that period, farmers had to consider climate risk, currency volatility, trade restrictions, the ongoing impacts of the pandemic as well as internal risks such as on-farm costs.

“From a risk perspective, things are pretty high when you really drill into it, so hence the need to think about fixed milk pricing,” he says.

McWilliam says it was also a useful tool for those farmers in a high debt situation.

“Approach it like that, then there’s no regret, so if you do go below the market, at least you know you can cover your breakeven milk price and avoid financial distress later,” he says.

For farmers with moderate debt levels, it would likely increase the support received from banks.

“You just get greater confidence with your interest rate. We have certainly noticed that with those who have engaged with FMP,” he says.

“The credit pressure’s come off and they have saved money on the expense side, rather than worrying about what they have locked in on the income side.” n

17

NEWS BRIEFS

New CEO at Miraka

everyone to meet, share ideas and create connections to enhance our future world.

Techweek2021 will be a mix of live, virtual and hybrid events, so there’s

TAMA weighs covid impact

something to suit everyone. Physical events will be carried out right across the country, while virtual events can be attended and enjoyed from anywhere in the world.

Event submissions are now open for Techweek2021.

Grant Watson is the new chief executive of Taupo-based dairy company, Miraka.

Techweek events vary from major conferences to small meetups on niche topics, hackathons, workshops,

Watson is a past winner of the New Zealand Young Executive of the Year and recently led the significant growth of Prior to that he was the director of Tip Top and the former chief operating officer for McDonald’s New Zealand.

Announcing Grant’s appointment, the chairman of Miraka Kingi Smiler said

last year, but still finished down on 2019

have a great idea or want to showcase, be sure to submit your event.

Fonterra’s Global Foodservice business.

Tractor sales rebounded at the end of

networking events and webinars. If you

overall.

n

Animal AgTech Innovation Summit Summit is going virtual.

while 2020 definitely posed challenges

2019.

Tractor and Machinery Association (TAMA) president Kyle Baxter says that

The 2021 Animal AgTech Innovation

for the industry, the current mood of

Participate live online on March 8 to

“Grant’s appointment marks another chapter in our company’s history as we

accelerate innovation in animal health

embark on expanding our consumer

and welfare, sustainability and farm to

products that carry our unique brand

fork solutions.

members is positive.

Overall tractor sales for 2020 were down 15.3% compared with 2019, with sales for the bigger machines (375+ HP)

Bringing the industry ecosystem

stories.”

together is the top priority for the Animal

Watson will take up the new position on February 3.

n

Techweek2021

AgTech Innovation Summit.

From precision farming and connected supply chains, to new frontiers in alternative feeds, breeding and genetics,

particularly affected with a drop of 25%.

Baxter says nobody in the industry was surprised with the reduction in sales for the high-end tractor investments.

“Tractor distribution companies

the summit will address the most important challenges and opportunities

had been envisaging a reduction in

in today’s livestock, dairy and

sales going into 2020, however, as a

aquaculture industries, including lessons

result of the pandemic sales reduced

learned from adjacent industries.

slightly more than expected,” Baxter says.

As we look ahead into 2021 and The theme for Techweek2021 has been

The industry finished 2020 on a strong note, with December sales up 18.4% on

TAMA members are now reporting

beyond, the summit will provide an

announced – Connecting for a better

essential platform for knowledge-sharing

that demand for tractors and equipment

future.

as well as networking, through a valuable

is steadily building across the country,

mix of live-streamed sessions, start-up

as customers are beginning to secure

Techweek is a nationwide series of events, showcasing and celebrating NZ

pitches, breakout discussion groups and

their machines for spring/summer

innovation that provides a platform for

1-1 video networking.

2021.

n

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DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

19

ON FARM

Dairying through the years Seeing Canterbury dairy farming go from a handful of conversions to land-use dominant.

Marv Pangborn emigrated from Oregon in the United States in 1987, and has since established two productive dairy farms.

Photos: Tony Benny 20

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

By Tony Benny

Coming from a long line of farmers, US-born and now Canterbury-based Marv Pangborn’s life did a complete 180 when he traded his office job to go sharemilking three decades ago, and got to witness first-hand how dairy farming boomed over the years.

W

hen Marv Pangborn turned his back on a banking career in the US in favour of a sharemilking job in Canterbury in 1987, it was during a time where dairy farming in the region played second fiddle to sheep, beef and cropping. But, in his nearly 33 years here, he’s seen the farming focus shift sharply to dairying.

Today Oregon-born Marv and his Kiwi wife Jane live near Rakaia on one of the two dairy farms they converted on what had previously been undeveloped, dryland on the north side of Rakaia River.

Their daughter Lauren and son-in-law Liam Kelly are 50:50 sharemilkers on one of the properties and contract milk the other.

Marv was born with dairy farming in his blood, descended from a line of farmers that goes back to the earliest days of European settlement of America.

“They can trace back my male line nine generations,” Marv says.

“The first guy got off the boat in 1664 in New York and we’ve all been farmers since but I ended up down here (in New Zealand).”

Marv got his first taste of Canterbury in 1975 when he took advantage of an exchange programme between Oregon State and Lincoln universities. He met Jane and after he returned home to finish his degree, she went to Oregon on exchange. They married two years later.

Marv worked for a bank as a rural lender for eight years and he and Jane had two children, but she missed home and he didn’t see a future in banking.

Then out of the blue an offer came to go sharemilking in Canterbury. The timing was perfect.

A good friend, dairy farmer Jim Geddes, who Marv worked for when he was at Lincoln, recommended him to an investor who was having trouble finding a sharemilker.

“He’d bought two dairy farms that had been converted, some of the first conversions in Canterbury, with border dykes. He financed the first year at

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

12% (to buy the cows) when the banks wouldn’t even touch us,” Marv recalls.

By today’s standards, 12% interest sounds high but in the late 1980s that was half the going rate and gave them the opportunity to get into dairy farming, but, even so, with the payout at around $3.65/kg MS, there wasn’t much to come and go on.

They bought the herd on the farm for $400/cow and after sharemilking for a couple of years, the owner sold the farm to early Canterbury corporate farming enterprise Applefields, which turned out to be another opportunity for them as Applefields purchased the cows for $650.

The Pangborns bought 80ha of undeveloped dryland on lease from Environment Canterbury (ECan), built a house and he worked for Wrightsons and

FARM FACTS • Owner: Pangborn Family Trust • Location: Bankside, Canterbury • Farm Size: Farm 1: 190ha effective, farm 2: 145ha effective • Cows: Kiwi cross, Farm 1: peak milk 660, Farm 2: peak milk 520 • Production: 2019-20: Farm 1: 346,705 kg MS, Farm 2: 263,433 kg MS • Target: 2020-21 kg MS similar to 2019-20

Continued page 22

The 1180 Kiwicross cows on the two farms produced a total of 610,138 kilograms of milksolids in the 2019-20 season.

21

Marv Pangborn with son-in-law Liam Kelly who is the sharemilker on one of the family farms.

then US semen supplier Worldwide Sires for a couple of years, while Jane and the kids reared calves.

The farm did have a water right consent, but only limited irrigation was in place so in 1991 they border-dyked the rest of it and in 1993 converted the farm to milk cows. While the shed was still under construction, the farm next door came on the market. It was an opportunity too good to miss even if it meant borrowing what seemed like a huge amount of money.

“We had some money, but needed more,” Marv says, adding that their first

22

application to borrow the money was turned down.

“They said there’s no future in dairy farming in Canterbury.”

The next bank he talked to had more foresight and lent them the $250,000 they needed.

“We bought 250ha, sold 100ha off to a developer who put it in five 20ha blocks and that meant we got our 150ha really cheap,” he says.

In their first season they milked 125 cows and increased the herd to 450 over the next four years. The 170ha farm was irrigated by border dyke and K-Line with

water from the nearby Rakaia River, but in 1995 they put in a well to supplement their supply. The farm now runs 670 cows.

In 2005 they bought one of the last dryland undeveloped farms in their district and converted it in 2009, and today 510 cows are milked on the 140ha property.

In the 2019 season, the herd on Farm 1 produced 346,705 kilograms of milksolids and on Farm 2, produced 263,433 kg MS. In addition to grass, the cows get 700-800kg supplementary feed during milking, comprising (depending on the price at the time) barley, PKE, silage, prolick and fodder beet.

The fodder beet is principally used near the end of the season and anything left over is fed in winter. Fodder beet is also used as a break crop in the regrassing programme.

In 2014 they bought a block in Southbridge to serve as a runoff. He is not convinced having the runoff adds up financially, but one advantage is that it makes their operation self-contained, which meant they were able to get through the M. bovis crisis without any trouble and can make most of their own supplementary feed.

About the time they were developing their second dairy farm, he had the first inkling that the restriction-free way dairy farming was booming in Canterbury, might not last.

“I was talking to a neighbour and he said, ‘Have you talked to ECan about nitrogen?’ and I said ‘What are you talking about?’, because I’d never heard about it being a problem,” he recalls.

But within a short time, new limits to protect the environment were signalled as alarm grew in the community about the effects of large parts of Canterbury being converted to dairy farming.

With inefficient border dyke irrigation on the farm, they needed plenty of water to keep their pastures growing but just how big a problem this was, didn’t really dawn on him until he took the time to think about the whole farming operation, its future and the issues it faced.

And he didn’t get time to do that until he got out of the shed and took on some sharemilkers.

“I was overweight and thought now that I don’t have to milk cows every day I’m going to get even heavier, I should do something, so I started walking. For the first time in 10 or 12 years I had time to actually think,” he says.

“I also started teaching farm management at Lincoln University, so I

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

The Pangborns converted and developed two drystock properties into dairy farms, milking a total of 1180 cows.

was exposed to many different ideas,” he says.

“While I walked I thought about farming and thought this isn’t going to last. We had this massive water right because we needed it because border dykes used so much water.

“They said there’s no future in dairy farming in Canterbury.”

Marv Pangborn “We started by measuring how much we were using and learned we had a problem. “ECan was talking then about putting flowmeters in and once they did that, our border dykes wouldn’t work. It was a case of ‘eventually they’re going to wake up to this’.”

In the years since that realisation all the border dyke and K-Line irrigation has gradually been replaced by centre

pivots backed up by soil moisture sensors to ensure only the required amount of water is applied.

Making the changes has cost nearly $2 million, comprising $1.5m for five centre pivots, fixed grid systems and a water storage dam, $33,000 for soil moisture monitors, $175,000 for effluent storage and spreading, and $180,000 for the removal of trees, new tracks and new fencing.

He believes the issue of water quantity has largely been addressed thanks to changes farmers like him have made, along with water metering and restrictions on how much can now be drawn from wells, but the issue of nitrogen leaching is far from being resolved.

“For a long time we denied environmental issues and I’m sure a lot of people would still deny it’s an issue,” he says. “‘The river’s always been like that’, they say.

“The problem is even if we didn’t accept it, we had to deal with it. I’m not an environmentalist by any means but I am a business person and just like other businesses we have to face compliance whether it is environmental or other issues like health and safety.

“They (ECan) said, ‘You’re going to have to get consents to farm’, which we’ve never had before, ‘and prepare farm environment plans and those plans will have to be audited’.

“So, we moved into a whole new realm of things and I think even for me it was like the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, and depression until you get to the point where you just accept it.”

Under the Canterbury Water Management Strategy, the Selwyn Waihora catchment where the Pangborns live was the second of 10 zones in the region where committees comprising farmers, environmentalists,

Continued page 24

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Marv Pangborn came to New Zealand in 1975 on an exchange programme between Oregon State and Lincoln Universities.

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iwi representatives and other stakeholders hammered out policies and set environmental limits, which have since been put in place.

“I think the story of those of us in these areas is probably good for the rest of New Zealand because from the human psychological point of view, how do you deal with these things – there’s a bit of a story there,” he says.

Marv says there was grief – they’re taking away our way of life – and there was anger.

But he says through it all, most farmers worked their way through the stages and came up with plans that allowed most of them to meet the targets.

“We were partially into managing water quality due to the quantity thing. Quite frankly, the thing that improved nitrogen (N) leaching the most is infrastructure, efficient watering systems,” he says.

That development is continuing and today his daughter Lauren and her husband Liam are looking to further improve production, while confronting a new raft of environmental regulations and limits.

“Once I started owning my own herd and doing this stuff, that’s when the real passion kicked in,” says Liam.

“Prior to that when you’re managing you don’t understand because you don’t have that skin in the game.”

Born and bred on a dairy farm near Dannevirke, Liam worked for eight years on farms near home before coming to the South Island “for a look.” He met Lauren and the couple were considering taking a sharemilking job back in Hawke’s Bay. “We were going to buy the herd so we said to Marv and Jane, ‘If we do this we’ll be here for a long time, so if you want us to come home, you’ve got to create that opportunity’.” Liam says.

“It turned out well,” Marv adds.

“Because he was coming, it drove a few things like building a new shed, which was good because it was needed and he pushed some of the development ahead.”

A new challenge for Liam is the rule capping N application at 190kg/ha.

“We can do 190kg but 150kg will be hard — 220kg would have been easier,” he says.

Along with greenhouse gases, the limits to N use have them both searching for answers. They are working to improve the genetic quality of their herd as well as regrassing with new species more often than they used to.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Team member James Quinones hosing down the yards after milking.

“Regrassing, despite the cost, is still cheaper than buying feed. We in NZ can grow grass better than anyone in the world, nobody else can do what we do,” Marv says.

They also soil test every paddock compared with the five or six they used to test and apply fertiliser accordingly.

which cow a calf has come out of and to confirm the sire,” Liam says.

He says they also now take both morning and afternoon samples when they do the four-times-a-year herd tests.

“I think we went from 65% to 95% reliability doing that,” he says.

It’s more accurate than the calculated

“I’m not an environmentalist by any means but I am a business person and just like other businesses we have to face compliance whether it is environmental or other issues like health and safety.”

Marv Pangborn The easiest way to reduce greenhouse gases is by reducing cow numbers, but they don’t want to reduce profitability, so they’re looking for genetic solutions.

Liam says to do that it’s crucial to be absolutely sure which calf came from which parents, but he believes NZ farmers get that wrong at least 30% of the time, either because of record-taking mistakes or cows which have mixed up their calves before they’re picked up.

“We want to get as close as we can to 100% so we DNA test to confirm

estimate with morning testing, so now we’re dealing with the true facts.”

No bulls are used over the herds, which are all put to AI to produce valuable replacement calves.

“Liam has a really intensive mating programme and the calves arrive very quickly,” Marv says.

“He works really hard, makes sure the cows are in good condition and gets good results.”

Continued page 26

25

Sharemilker Liam Kelly in the fodder beet paddock, which is fed towards the end of the season and in winter.

Team member Marven Dungaran in the shed during afternoon milking.

26

His six-week in-calf rate is 79% on Farm 1 and 77% on Farm 2, well above the national average.

For the past few years they’ve been using semen from LIC’s A2 genomic team bulls, which is cheaper than semen from older, proven bulls, which covers the cost of the DNA testing.

“The reliability is quite strong because nine out of 10 are pretty good,” Liam says.

“For us it’s all about being as close as we can get to 100% recording, but also real strong measurement of their performance and we have discussed weighing the animals to find the most efficient animals.

“You might have a big Friesian and then a crossbreed and one might be 550kg and one might be 500kg but it’s producing more milk. So, once we’ve weighed them and put that data against the cow you get more reliability with your BW and PW.” They use sexed semen with some cows to help speed up genetic improvement and AB the heifers.

“The best genetic gain is to AB your heifers because they’re your youngest animals with generally the highest genetics,” Liam says.

“The heifers are coming through with really high BWs because of the most

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

current genetics and you can match that by using sexed semen with the best cows, so the genetic selection pressure he’s putting on is really high,” Marv adds.

Liam only breeds from their top 60% of cows and the rest are inseminated with Wagyu semen. The resulting calves are contracted to finishers with heifers and bulls fetching the same price.

“A lot of people have used beef bulls but some guys couldn’t get rid of their Herefords. I know a few friends who were selling them to lifestyle guys, but with the Wagyu it’s all contracted,” Liam says.

In his more than three decades of farming here, Marv has seen dairy farming in Canterbury go from a handful of conversions to become the dominant agricultural land use, at least on the flat land.

“I thought it was a better place for the kids to grow up than the US and it just happened – I’d always wanted to be a dairy farmer, I didn’t want to retire as a banker,” he says.

“We have been really lucky. It was the old story of ‘when you paint yourself into a corner, sometimes you get pretty innovative,’ and I painted myself into a corner quite frequently. Everything worked which is amazing.” n

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

DAIRY CHAMPION

Half a million babies

By Gerard Hutching

A Southland artificial breeding technician has notched up a milestone 500,000 inseminations in New Zealand and Holland.

A

rtificial Breeding (AB) technician Dirk van de Ven has an enviable lifestyle.

For about three months of the year the Winton, Southland, man works as an AB technician, earning enough to see him and wife Mieke through the year, albeit with odd jobs supplementing his main income.

“Then I do a little hoof trimming, gardening, walks, get firewood – it all keeps me fit. We work very hard for three months, then do a few little jobs,” Dirk says.

Now 60, Dirk hails from Holland, from where he shifted permanently in 2012.

Over a 40-year career, he estimates he has inseminated half a million cows. He has been named the 2019 CRV Ambreed AB Technician of the Year for the Southland region.

The award recognises his commitment, competency and excellent cow return rates, meaning his success at ensuring cows are in calf.

In New Zealand, professionally trained AB technicians do the majority of inseminations. They are responsible for the handling and insemination of semen.

CRV has more than 200 technicians across the country.

An AB technician must understand animal anatomy to ensure correct placement of semen in the cow’s reproductive tract. The job demands skillful handling to ensure the safety and wellbeing of both the animal and the inseminator.

Dirk describes the conditions and pay of the job as “very good.” In 2020 he managed to inseminate 11,000 cows, making what he describes as “a good income.” It was his busiest year ever. But he cautions that he is not a one-man (or person) band as wife Mieke helps to load the pistolets, drives the car and does the administration.

He credits Mieke for his success, saying he couldn’t do his job without her.

“She handles all the paperwork, she drives me, she makes us food and she helps me cool my heels when it gets

28

Dirk van de Ven was named the 2019 CRV Ambreed AB Technician of the Year for the Southland region. In his 40-year career, he estimates he has inseminated half a million cows.

stressful, which it can do when you’re working long hours during the peak of the season.”

Before he and Mieke emigrated to NZ, they used to travel from Holland every October (starting in 2008) to work for CRV during the NZ AB season, which back then typically lasted six to eight weeks.

“I came for four years in a row from 2008 for the first time, starting the end of October and ending December. Then

we went back to Holland where we did the same work, or at least I did, because Mieke was a nurse,” Dirk says.

In 2012 the couple decided to make the move a permanent one. Their three sons were all pursuing successful professional careers – none related to farming – and they felt NZ offered an attractive opportunity, both in work and lifestyle.

Dirk first trained with CRV’s predecessor company in Holland as a 19-year-old. He grew up on the small

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“In NZ you’re very busy for a few months, and it’s hard work for someone who lacks experience, so that’s one of the reasons why it’s hard to find good technicians.” farm his parents owned where they ran chickens and cows, but it was too small to provide a satisfactory return. The exception was when they raised chickens for meat.

“In Holland when I realised I wouldn’t be taking over the family farm, I decided to do the next best thing and learn how to breed good cows.

“I learnt to do that with CRV and I have been with them ever since. I trained as a technician when I left school and I got a job and got into it.

In Holland an AB tech works every day of the year, whereas over here it’s seasonal, starting the end of October

Continued page 30

An AB technician must understand animal anatomy to ensure correct placement of semen in the cow’s reproductive tract. Dirk inseminating a herd on his Southland run.

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Wife Mieke was a nurse in Holland, but now helps her husband on his AB run in Southland.

In 2020 Dirk van de Ven had his busiest AB season inseminating 11,000 cows.

30

until Christmas, and even three weeks after,” he says.

However, he says the seasons are getting longer lasting 9-12 weeks as fewer farmers use bulls in the paddock over their herds.

“Over the last year we’ve been so busy, because the overseas AB technicians who may have flown into NZ to work during the season cannot travel because of border restrictions linked to covid-19,” he says.

Comparing the NZ system to the Dutch one, he says in Holland technicians have more opportunity to gain thorough knowledge and skill at the job because they do it day in and day out. That way they do not have a flood of animals to work with and the smaller daily number allows beginners to become experienced.

“In NZ you’re very busy for a few months, and it’s hard work for someone who lacks experience, so that’s one of the reasons why it’s hard to find good technicians,” he says.

“Still, there are good technicians in NZ but there’s more to the job than just the money – you need a connection with the animals and the land.”

He says the job requires patience, a sense of humour and most importantly, an interest in farming and an interest in caring for animals.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Dirk van de Ven runs a small hoof trimming business in the off-season from the couple’s base in Winton.

Now that he is growing older, he would like to take on an apprentice but there is an understandable reluctance from the younger generation to take up the career. If they live elsewhere and have a mortgage, they are rightly hesitant to up sticks and move to somewhere for two or three months. And if they have a partner it can be difficult for them to find a job for the rest of the year.

The size of NZ herds is a challenge for the dairy industry and the reason why the season is longer each year, with some herds in Southland having up to 1500 cows.

“So it is impossible to get them all in calf in time with natural breeding, you need AI technicians, so there is a future in the career,” he says.

“One of the answers could be more year-round calving but farmers here struggle to get good, reliable people to work 28 days a month, leaving their bed at 3.30 in the morning. How will farmers find these people when they go for yearround milking?

“Also, if you keep milking cows during winter you need to spend a lot of money on wintering barns, winter feed, machines, more cleaning and more lameness. I don’t know how you would do it in the European way.

“A farmer in Holland has about 100

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

dairy cows, which make him and his wife a pretty good living; they do all the work themselves from the time they’re 20 until they retire at 66. New Zealand doesn’t have the same system.”

He says he has been approached by other companies to work for them, but he prefers to stay with CRV, which he says has been a great company to work for.

“Every company wants the best cows, best bulls and best production, and to get that done they follow the same bloodlines, which is very dangerous.”

“When I started 40 years ago there were a lot of small companies, now there is one large one – CRV, which came into existence in 1989. Why CRV? The people who work there work hard and like to do their job in a way that they can be proud of the company,” he says.

Dirk says he is unsure about the benefits of competition among AB companies. In Holland the job used to

be much simpler when he had a limited distance to drive to local farms during a day, but today he might fill all his day with driving to farms further afield. There are now fewer farmers but several AB companies.

“Competition is also a big problem when it comes to diversity. Every company wants the best cows, best bulls and best production, and to get that done they follow the same bloodlines, which is very dangerous. You need crossbreeding because otherwise you’ll get inbreeding. There should be a law that every sire has 30 bloodlines.”

In the off-season Dirk also runs a small hoof trimming business from the couple’s base in Winton. He describes it as an uncommon practice in New Zealand, although he believes it should be carried out more often.

In fact when he applied to immigrate, he had to explain to immigration officials what the job entailed because they had never heard of it.

“They were in the North Island and called around to farmers to ask them what it meant. But in the north and in dry districts they don’t need to perform hoof trimming. However here in Southland, we have more rain.

“In Southland there are heaps of lame cows, it’s unbelievable. It’s hard to say what percentage because it differs month to month, but at an estimate about a fifth on an 800-cow farm became lame,” he says.

“Most of them you can help, but if you do nothing then the problem is solved also because a lot of the cows go to the works and that’s the end of the problem.

It’s a very easy but very expensive solution – and produces poor cows.”

He says he does not carry out as much hoof trimming as he used to, partially because it is hard work, “and I’m not 25 anymore.” A Dutch trimmer has since taken over the job he used to do, although he continues to do some work.

It is another job that he and Mieke are able to do together.

Does he think he might settle permanently in Holland or NZ? At the moment it looks like the latter. About 10 years ago the couple bought an inexpensive property on the outskirts of Winton and renovated it with double glazing and other improvements. It was very cheap compared to Holland – or Wellington and Auckland.

And once they can travel again, they will be able to enjoy two summers a year by dividing their time between NZ and n Holland.

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NEWS

Awards season frenzy

By Gerald Piddock

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he New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards (NZDIA) has been swamped with entries for this year’s competition, with 366 entries received across the three award categories.

NZDIA general manager Robin Congdon says the entry numbers were more than last year and there were notably more share farmer entry numbers, which are traditionally harder to come by.

“Waikato came out on top with 66 entries across all three categories, then Canterbury/North Otago with 54 entries, followed by Southland/Otago achieving 39 entries,” Congdon says.

Awards spokesperson Anne-Marie Case-Miller says there was no single reason why entry levels had jumped this year.

Numbers tended to vary from year-toyear, with factors such as payout, weather and farm conditions playing a part.

“I do know that farmers recognise the integrity of the awards and we have got some fantastic people on the ground,” Case-Miller says.

“Our volunteers are all former entrants and winners and they’re able to say to entrants, ‘this is what entering the awards has done for us’.”

Nominations are also open for the Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award, recognising dairy farmers who demonstrate innovation and passion in their approach to sustainable dairying.

Congdon says it is important to showcase the good work farmers are doing within the industry as it does not always get the exposure it deserves.

“We have excellent, experienced dairy farmers creating and working on wonderful projects that have a positive effect on the environment,” she says.

“We want to hear about the people who are farming responsibly, both environmentally and socially, and showcasing excellence on a daily basis.

“This is a chance for people to nominate their neighbour, their employer or someone in their community.

“This award gives us the opportunity to recognise farmers that have progressed to ownership, demonstrate leadership in their farming practices and are a role model for our younger farmers coming through.” Hawke’s Bay/Wairarapa farmers Nick and Nicky Dawson won the 2020 Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award and received the John Wilson Memorial Trophy.

The Dawsons impressed the panel of judges with their genuine commitment and passion.

“We hear about succession being about family, however Nick and Nicky spoke about succession for the whole industry and dairy farming in NZ,” she said.

“We want to hear about the people who are farming responsibly, both environmentally and socially, and showcasing excellence on a daily basis.”

Robin Congdon Nomination forms are available at dairyindustryawards.co.nz, with entries closing on March 20.

From those nominations, three finalists will be selected and interviewed by a panel of judges at the national final to be held in Hamilton next year with the winner announced at the Awards dinner on May 15. n

Hawke’s Bay/ Wairarapa farmers Nick and Nicky Dawson won the 2020 Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award for their environmental work.

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February 2021

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More than 3500 dairy farmers already have Farm Environment Plans to identify farm environmental risks and solutions to improve water quality and reduce greenhouse gases.

Better is best Dr Tim Mackle DairyNZ chief executive

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his year will see most sectors facing significant change as we all look hard at how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Agriculture is very much part of the solution and as we respond to covid-19, a new government and tackling New Zealand’s future, the daily business of farming is shifting rapidly too.

Dairy farming accounts for 23% of NZ’s greenhouse gases and as we address climate change as a nation, we are tasked with producing our world-class milk while reducing footprint.

Internationally, we stack up well already. Kiwis are some of the most sustainable dairy producers in the world – the emissions created from every glass of NZ milk are less than half the global average. But we know we can be even better.

We need to sustain our success as

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other nations will catch up, so we must do even better to stay ahead of the game.

Right now, we are working on our primary sector climate change partnership, He Waka Eke Noa, which is an industry, government and iwi/Maori commitment to help farmers reduce emissions and build the framework to report and price agriculture emissions by 2025.

The Climate Change Commission assesses the primary sector’s progress against He Waka Eke Noa milestones, which supports our commitment to reduce emissions from farms. Significant research is being undertaken to support how we reduce emissions.

Already more than 3500 dairy farmers have Farm Environment Plans (FEPs), helping identify farm environmental risks and solutions to help water quality and reduce greenhouse gases.

Like many sectors, shifting day-today practices is a journey and it does involve incremental changes that help us maintain viable businesses, which spend locally and provide employment.

Adapting feed and crop use, fertiliser and effluent practices, fencing and planting waterways, and so on, will

reduce farm footprint both individually and collectively across NZ. The Zero Carbon Bill was the start of a new era for all New Zealanders.

For farmers, it means understanding the emissions produced from their farm and tailoring solutions to reduce that footprint.

“We need to sustain our success as other nations will catch up, so we must do even better to stay ahead of the game.”

Over 90% of dairy farmers will receive a farm emission report this year.

Understanding the source of those emissions and how a farm compares to others is the first step in reducing a farm’s footprint.

As dairy farmers we are making great strides in reducing environmental impact and it’s crucial we acknowledge that, as we commit to even more in the next five years and beyond. n

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

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WOMEN IN AGRIBUSINESS

Stephanie Matheson, her husband James and their nephew Bronson on the Southland farm they call home.

Becoming Steph 2.0

By Cheyenne Nicholson

A Southland dairy farmer is out to prove that you should never let someone stand in the way of your dreams – and never let your body stand in the way either.

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hen Stephanie Matheson jumps on the call for this interview, she’s fresh out of officiating a wedding ceremony and hot-footing it to Queenstown to tick a massive item off her list of goals – the Queenstown 10km. It sums up her life nicely. Always on the go, doing the things she loves and generally living her best life and inspiring others at the same time.

Stephanie, or Steph, lives in Southland with her husband James and their seven-year-old nephew Bronson, who they adopted when he was three years old. James manages a 700-cow farm and won Southland/Otago Dairy Manager of the year in 2019. And while Steph’s main jobs are off-farm, she is just as invested in the farm as James. She’s an accomplished marriage celebrant, social

36

media manager, occasional farmhand and runs a successful social media page Project Steph 2.0.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be an international superstar,” Steph says.

“I was really determined to be one too.

I wanted to be the next Britney Spears.

I did a lot of singing and dancing as a kid, was involved in all the local shows and took dance lessons. I jumped on anything I could to be in the limelight.”

When she hit high school, reality set in and she started finding the idea of someone from Balclutha, New Zealand, being the next Britney slightly unrealistic.

Her love of performing persisted and she decided she wanted to go to university for performing arts.

“I was told that I was too big for that, that my body shape wasn’t suited to performing arts. So I was like okay, that’s the end of that unless I lose 50kg. I was

gutted. I’d always looked the way I had and I didn’t see what that had to do with anything,” she says.

During this time she was working an after school job at a telecommunications store fixing broken phones and selling new ones.

After the study knockback, she decided to jump full-time into telecommunications and only left that line of work last year after 10 years. She’d grown tired of the corporate world and was keen to figure out a line of work that she loved and could fit around the rest of life.

She didn’t have to think for long to figure it out. After getting engaged on Christmas Eve in 2018 and going through the process of planning her wedding, she fell in love with the industry.

“I really enjoyed the whole wedding process and I was like, ‘actually, I don’t

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“I wrote it one night when James was away doing tractor work. I was feeling frustrated at the lack of understanding from people who don’t understand how farming works.” want to leave the industry now that I’m married’. So I thought about what I’m good at and the answer to that was public speaking, so it made sense to become a celebrant. If I were a good baker, I would’ve done wedding cakes,” she says.

She became a celebrant in January this year and officiated her first wedding in March. Covid-19 threw a spanner in the works with lockdown, but October marked the start of a new wedding season and she has been in her element.

Not one to rest on her laurels, she has two other jobs that keep her busy; she’s an office administrator for her parent’s agricultural business in Balclutha and runs a social media management company, Twilight Media.

“The social media side of things was really sparked when I was working on telecommunications. I watched smartphones burst onto the scene and spent a lot of time understanding everything about them.

“Then the Facebook app came out, so I guess my passion for social media came through the phone side of things,” she says.

As an avid social media user herself, she started helping out friends and family who had businesses and wanted help with their social media and it kept

growing. Much of her personal social media use is through her page Project Steph 2.0.

Two years ago, she was at a particularly low point in her life. Unhappy in her fulltime job and feeling average about life and within herself, she felt she needed to do something to hold her accountable and help other people.

“I figured I wasn’t the only one feeling like that, so I started social media pages to chronicle my weight loss journey. It’s morphed into my life’s journey over time.

I spoke to my husband about it, and he questioned if I really wanted to put everything – thoughts, feelings, photos – out there for the world to see. And I was like yeah, it scares me but I find it invigorating,” she says.

As a parent and living in the country, one of the things she quickly came to realise was the lack of “influencers” she could relate to.

“Everyone I was following lived in the city and had a gym two minutes away.

I couldn’t relate to them. I started to analyse it from a personal and social media perspective. Why was I following these people, what was I learning from them? I got critical about what I wanted to fill my newsfeed with. I wanted my content to be realistic, relatable and authentic,” she says.

Her pages have gone bigger than she expected to, with over 1500 followers on both Instagram and Facebook, she’s cultivated an engaged and supportive following. Her page is filled with her everyday life, the good and the bad.

Recently she penned a post called The Life of a Farmer’s Wife, which went viral “I wrote it one night when James was away doing tractor work. I was feeling frustrated at the lack of understanding from people who don’t understand how farming works. Don’t get me wrong, I

often don’t either. While I don’t work onfarm a lot, I do live here, and I see what James has to navigate every day,” she says.

“It came from the heart and I think that’s why it was so popular, people could relate. I was really scared to post it, but the feedback was amazing.”

At her lowest point two years ago, her struggle with anxiety and a binge-eating disorder were at an all-time high and are

Continued page 38

Steph recently completed the Queenstown 10km.

faces day-to-day with the support and encouragement from James.

She describes her anxiety like everything is cloudy and moving at 400km/h with every decision being made in survival mode with no time to think. Since starting her medication things have slowed down and the cloud has cleared.

“I have time to think now. I’ve got the strength to make decisions too. With anxiety and binge-eating, it gets tiring trying to regulate things all the time. I think since I started working for myself, it really helped. I’m in control of how my day looks. I’ve learnt a lot about myself since leaving my full-time job,” she says.

“With the bingeeating, what used to happen is when I’d get hungry, I’d panic.

It was a fear of being hungry I guess, so I used to eat like it was life or death because, in my mind, it was.”

Although Steph does not spend a great deal of time on the farm where husband James is the manager, she is just as invested in the farm as he is.

topics she touches on regularly in her social media posts.

“With the binge-eating, what used to happen is when I’d get hungry, I’d panic.

It was a fear of being hungry I guess, so I used to eat like it was life or death because, in my mind, it was,” she says.

As a result, any food that was quick to

38

eat and easily accessible was top of the list, which meant a lot of take-out and quick snacks.

Over time she has learnt her triggers.

A key factor in managing her disorder is making sure meals are planned out, so she always knows when and what she’ll eat next. But it’s a challenge she

Scheduling is hugely important for her to keep on track and to manage everything she has going on, armed with a digital and hard copy diary, there’s scarcely a day that goes by that isn’t busy. As is the support she gets from James. She says they work well together because they don’t hide away from how they are feeling and he helps ground her.

“When we met, we moved quite quickly. But we are really similar, and we’re both loud and verbal. We don’t hide away from feelings. I guess you’d say I’m the dreamer and he’s the realistic one though,” she says.

Reflecting on her journey so far, her job changes and her social media platform, Steph says she has found over time that she’s okay with her weight and how she looks and she wants to encourage other women to feel good in the skin they’re in too.

“I want to take Project Steph global.

It’s really important. There are a lot of women empowerment groups out there, but as I found, not many who are real, authentic and live a farming lifestyle as I do,” she says.

There’s nothing my thighs have stopped me doing and other women need reminding of that.” n

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

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TECHNOLOGY

LIC and Israelibased Afimilk have formed a partnership to market the AfiCollar in New Zealand.

Connected cows loading

By Anne Boswell

T

he global trend of ‘connected cows’ has moved one step further with the formation of a distribution partnership between herd improvement and agritech cooperative LIC and Israeli-based Afimilk.

The companies have joined forces to market the AfiCollar – a cow neck collar that monitors cow rumination, eating and motion – in New Zealand.

Afimilk is a global producer of cow behaviour sensors, farm management software and milk meters, supplying collars internationally to help farmers enhance and improve the health, fertility and nutrition of their animals.

Although a potential investment in Afimilk by LIC failed to proceed earlier last year, the parties recently reached a new agreement regarding Afimilk’s cow collar technology.

LIC chief executive Wayne McNee says its working to build an integrated, collaborative technology ecosystem that makes it as easy as possible for farmers to adopt new technologies.

“Farmers need to be able to choose

40

the technology and products that are best suited to them, and our role is to ensure that proven technology can integrate with LIC’s existing systems and herd management software into the future,” he says.

“AfiCollars will integrate with Protrack, LIC’s farm automation technology, which will allow for increased efficiency and faster, more informed decision-making on-farm.

There is already strong demand for cow wearable technology by our farmers and for it to integrate with LIC’s farm automation systems.”

McNee says cow behavioural monitoring devices like the AfiCollar will deliver on-farm benefits such as more accurate heat detection and animal health and welfare monitoring.

“The AfiCollars are among the best in the world and, we believe, well suited to meet the unique challenges of NZ’s pastoral dairy environment,” he says.

Afimilk chief executive Yuval

“Farmers need to be able to choose the technology and products that are best suited to them.”

Wayne McNee Rachmilevitz says he is excited to be cementing a new agreement with LIC for the distribution of AfiCollars.

“We share a combined commitment to enabling farmers to continually improve on-farm productivity through new technology, and it is exciting to be further enabling this in NZ,” he says.

McNee says LIC is looking to work with other leading NZ and international technology providers to continue to offer the very best options for farmers wanting to utilise new technologies coming to market.

“The ‘connected cow’ wearing this technology will shape the future of the dairy industry and help NZ maintain its world-leading edge in precision farming,” he says. n

The AfiCollar is a cow neck collar that monitors cow rumination, eating, and motion which will integrate with LIC’s Protrack system.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

RESEARCH

Put your thinking caps on

By Gerard Hutching

The Food, Fibre & Agritech Supernode Challenge is about finding new ideas that will benefit and change the sector.

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rganisers of an agri-sector innovation challenge directed at Cantabrians are hoping to flush out latent talent who may have a big idea that will transform the sector.

The Food, Fibre & Agritech (FFA) Supernode Challenge is open for entries until February 14, with the winners announced at a May 11 event. At stake is a $130,000 prize pool.

There are two streams for the FFA Challenge: the Enterprise Stream for individuals, startups, students and businesses, and the Research Stream for staff and students who work at a Canterbury tertiary institution or a Crown Research Institute with a substantial base in Canterbury.

Organised by ChristchurchNZ, KiwiNet, AgResearch and the Canterbury Mayoral Forum, the challenge is looking for disruptive solutions by either generating value-added, high-impact food, fibre and agriculture products; or assisting onfarm automation and decision-making that mitigates environmental impacts; or reduces the cost of production; or captures value-added provenance and credence stories of products.

Solutions could include generating value-added, high-impact food, fibre and agriculture products.

The Food, Fibre & Agritech Supernode Challenge is looking for bright ideas from students, researchers, startups or businesses to find innovative solutions for the sector.

Examples of some of these solutions are by combining different technologies such as AI, machine learning, future foods, big data, or biotechnology.

ChristchurchNZ Food Fibre & Agritech specialist Robyn Cox described her role in organising the Challenge as a “super connector” during an appearance on Sarah’s Country.

“We’ve realised in Canterbury the depth of talent and it’s about capturing it. We want to flush the talent out and take it to the surface, develop it and use it to transform the sector,” Cox says.

She says New Zealanders were often reluctant to go to market until they were really sure of themselves, unlike people in other countries.

The challenge was a way for innovators to be mentored by agencies, such as AgResearch, with ideas they may have struggled with.

One of the aims of the challenge was to guide all participants.

“We’ve had challenges in the past but with this one we’re going to capture all our entrants because though they might not make it through the first cut, anyone who’s brave enough to enter is worth capturing. We can work out where they fit – early stage, pre-commercial or at the point where the idea is very

“We want to flush the talent out and take it to the surface, develop it and use it to transform the sector.”

Robyn Cox

advanced and they need to hook up with a specialist like AgResearch,” she says.

The challenge has a total cash prize pool of over $130,000, plus a range of in-kind support, including access to specialist labs and expert support.

The overall winning team could be awarded up to $44,000 in cash prizes, plus in-kind support from organisations such as AgResearch and FoodSouth.

High-performing teams may also have access to focused business support via Incubators such as ThincLab and Sprout.

The 25 teams selected for the Accelerator Programme will receive an in-kind prize package valued in excess of $20,000. n

MORE:

Innovators should apply through https:// kiwinet.brightidea.com/FFA

RESEARCH

Milk packs punch against flu

By Gerald Piddock

We already know milk is good for the bones, but now research shows that drinking milk could help ward off the flu.

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ew research has found that a protein-based ingredient from milk is an effective antiviral agent against a common influenza virus species.

The study commissioned by New Zealand company Quantec, and completed by an independent US laboratory, found that Immune Defence Proteins (IDP) was 120% more effective against the virus Influenza A when compared to the protein lactoferrin.

Testing on the herpes simplex virus netted a similar result.

The study showed that IDP’s formulation, which contains over 50 bioactive proteins, provided greater antiviral activity than lactoferrin, which contains a singular protein.

Lactoferrin was used as a comparison in the study because studies have shown it to have antiviral activity.

Influenza A is a virus commonly implicated with flu occurrences, and herpes simplex is implicated in the causation of cold sores.

In the testing, IDP achieved IC50 2 based on 9.7mg/ml compared to Lactoferrin’s 21.8mg/ml, making IDP twice as powerful.

IC50 is a way of defining the potency of a substance by scientists. This result showed it would take 21.8 mg/ml of purified lactoferrin to be as effective as 9.7 mg/ml of IDP. Quantec founder Dr Rod Claycomb says the results suggested that IDP could play an important role in protecting cells from influenza or herpes infections.

“These are exciting results for IDP and they support our ongoing development of new products, based on the benefits provided by the powerful synergy in the IDP complex.

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“Nature created the bioactive proteins in milk to work together with the body’s microbiome to support the immune system,” Claycomb says.

“We continue to extend our knowledge of the benefits of the IDP protein complex and its application to support immune health.”

He says rather than killing the virus, it halts its progress by creating a barrier.

Established in 2009, Quantec has developed, manufactured and commercialised IDP, which contains over 50 bioactive proteins that occur naturally in milk to protect the cow from infection and inflammation.

Quantec patented the discovery that IDP’s proteins have significantly higher bioactivity than that of singular milk proteins, such as lactoferrin.

The compound has already been proven to have anti-inflammatory,

Quantec founder Dr Rod Claycomb says rather than killing the flu virus, Immune Defence Proteins halt it.

antioxidant and antimicrobial properties.

These properties make IDP particularly effective as an active ingredient for functional skincare and dietary supplements, due to its ability to work topically on the skin, oral and gut surfaces, Quantec chief executive Raewyn McPhillips says.

“At Quantec we produce and market supplement ranges that feature IDP such as Milkamune, suitable for adults and children, and the skincare range Epiology, which uses IDP to prevent the spread of acne-causing bacteria,” she says.

“IDP is also used as a key ingredient for food and beverage products in the form of powder sachets, protein beverages and chewable tablets that are currently sold in China and other Asian markets.

“A key part of our approach to grow Quantec is to work with strategic partners in key markets. Our 20-year agreement with China-based Holon, a significant player in the Chinese supplement market with their brand Laitap, is an example of this.”

Claycomb says their next step will be to test IDP on more viruses including covid-19. He also plans to begin clinical trials on humans in 2021. n

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Research shows that Immune Defence Proteins in milk can help fight a common influenza strain.

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RESEARCH

Farmers’ work far from done Fencing streams and keeping stock out of waterways has helped water quality, but more work is needed.

By Tony Benny

Farmers are working harder than ever and putting good practices in place to ensure New Zealand’s water quality improves.

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ew Zealand’s rivers would be in much worse condition if farmers hadn’t improved their practices over the past 20 years, according to research findings released recently by Our Land and Water National’s (OLAW) Science Challenge.

Without the mitigation efforts, scientists estimate between 1995 and 2015 there would have been 45% more nitrogen and 98% more phosphorus going into our waterways.

They say this has mainly been achieved through excluding stock from streams, improved effluent management and improved irrigation practices.

That’s the good news. The bad news is at least 43% of NZ’s agricultural land is in catchments that are under pressure from excess nitrogen, meaning more needs to be done to remedy this.

But researchers say that can be turned around within 15 years, and if all known and developing mitigation actions were implemented by all farmers, nitrogen entering rivers would decrease by 34%, phosphorus by 36% and sediment by 66% compared to 2015. For many catchments, this would be enough to meet current water quality objectives.

OLAW, one of 11 National Science Challenges that fund research aimed at solving NZ’s biggest problems, recently

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Our Land and Water chief scientist Professor Richard McDowell says mitigation efforts have helped improve New Zealand waterways.

investigated the impact on water quality of adopting better practices on dairy, sheep and beef farms.

The researchers wanted to understand how effective on-farm mitigations have been so far, by comparing losses of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment

in 1995 and 2015, and what would be possible for future water quality in 2035 if every farm in NZ adopted every known mitigation.

This information is crucial to helping farmers in degraded catchments to decide whether to continue investing

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

in mitigation actions or consider making changes to land-use or land-use intensity.

“When we look at adopting all the established mitigations that we have now, most NZ catchments can get most of the way towards meeting the current water quality objectives,” OLAW chief scientist professor Richard McDowell says.

Despite the efforts of many farmers to care for our water, nitrogen loads have increased over the past 20 years because other farms have changed or intensified their production.

Land area used by dairy expanded 40% between 1995 and 2015, and total dairy production increased by around 160%. The land area occupied by sheep and beef contracted, but the intensity of production per hectare increased.

“Aotearoa’s freshwater quality is degraded, and in some areas much more than others,” he says.

“However, the current situation is much better than it would have been if no action was taken while the same increase in food production occurred.”

Just where nitrogen concentrations are heaviest and how that picture would change if all farmers adopted all on-farm mitigations to reduce nitrogen loss to water can now be seen on an interactive map available online (tinyurl.com/OLWmap), also funded by OLAW’s National Science Challenge.

“This map helps New Zealanders see where meeting limits is achievable, and where limits aren’t likely to be met under existing land use,” he says. n

With the interactive online map, users can drag the slider to the left to see where rivers are under the greatest pressure from nitrates and to the right to see what would happen if all mitigations were adopted by all farmers.

PROTECTING THE FUTURE OF YOUR HERD.

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Map of New Zealand, showing where nitrogen concentrations are highest.

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February 2021

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RESEARCH

AgResearch senior scientist Dr Val Snow says research has shown urban people have a greater awareness of the value of agriculture because of covid-19.

Pandemic’s silver lining

By Anne Boswell

New research has found a positive to come from the covid-19 pandemic is the contribution farmers make.

T

he recognition of farmers’ contribution to New Zealand’s food production system has been identified as a positive aspect of the covid-19 pandemic experience, according to a new study released by AgResearch.

One farmer experienced “a change in attitude among the public around how they value the security of food production and therefore the role of farmers in providing that food.”

Others noted “NZ agriculture is starting to be seen as an important cog in the mechanism again,” “greater recognition of the true value of agriculture and primary producers,” and “governments and communities recognised the importance to our

46

standards of living that agriculture provides plentiful safe food and fibre.”

The study, conducted by AgResearch scientists, New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) and several science organisations in NZ and Australia, surveyed farmers and others working in the agriculture and food systems in Australasia about the impacts of covid-19 in the period through to June 2020, which included national lockdowns.

AgResearch senior scientist Dr Val Snow says that while the survey and interviews did not specifically ask about public attitudes or appreciation for the agri-food sector, a number of people did comment that the pandemic and response to it has resulted in a noticeable

positive change in how their work was perceived.

“There is certainly a view that one positive effect has been a greater awareness in the non-farming communities of both NZ and Australia of the critical value of food and agriculture in maintaining social function,” Snow says.

Although study participants acknowledged overall negative effects, additional stress and pressures from the pandemic and response, only 47% of NZ survey respondents viewed the effect on their farms or businesses as negative over that period. A further 37% says the effect was neutral.

Overall, the study found that “to June 2020, the impacts of the covid-19 control

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“There is certainly a view that one positive effect has been a greater awareness in the non-farming communities of both NZ and Australia of the critical value of food and agriculture in maintaining social function.”

Dr Val Snow measures on the agri-food sectors in both Australia and NZ have been relatively small and that this has been due to the high levels of resilience in the agricultural systems and the people running them.”

“The term resilience is a buzzword that’s probably a bit overused, but it’s clear from our analysis that the in-built ability to cope with adversity through various means, find new ways of doing things and get on with the job, were

important in how farmers and their supporting industries performed so well,” Snow says.

“Many farmers were already dealing with drought conditions, but were able to manage through the extra difficulties.

We’ve seen those in other countries not fare as well.”

She says relatively high technology use and strong connections in the NZ sector also meant it was well placed to respond to the pandemic.

The study also illustrated that not only has the agricultural industry survived the pandemic so far, but has found several positives in the experience, too.

Much of NZ’s primary sector was able to continue working through the covid-19 lockdowns, and overseas demand for its products stayed strong.

Its financial performance was positive, with export revenue from primary products for the period exceeding revenue from the previous year.

Those interviewed in the NZ sector also identified benefits such as better ways of working, including going paperless or conducting online meetings and

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opportunities for new markets for their products.

One Kiwi farmer says the necessity to home-school the kids “meant they were involved in farming life and saw the decision-making process and us discussing real life events.”

“Some Kiwi farmers found being required to stay on their farms through covid-19 restrictions meant they were actually more focused on their core tasks and their family life,” she says.

While farmers have fared well so far, researchers anticipate a follow-up study in 2022 to see if and how those impacts have changed over time.

“It is not yet clear if the current resilience mechanisms can persist under the continued onslaught of the virus.

We indicate the need to capture longer term effects and analysis during the more sustained effects of the virus and through a recovery period, ” the paper notes.

Snow says although the outlook is more positive now with access to vaccines looming, many of those we heard from expect impacts of the pandemic to linger for some time. n

RESEARCH

Genomics promises better grass

I

magine you could double the rate of genetic improvement in your dairy cows – how much of a difference might that make to farm sustainability, efficiency and production?

Now, imagine plant breeders could do the same with the one species of pasture that feeds more New Zealand dairy cows than any other.

This will be the commercial reality in a few years, thanks to pan-industry scientific collaboration and latest advances in DNA-based plant selection.

This autumn, as you’re sowing new pasture on-farm, scientists and breeders based in Canterbury will be sowing up to 50 potential new perennial ryegrass cultivars created using genomic selection (GS).

It’s the third year of a large-scale commercial effort to validate the use of GS for more accurate selection of new grasses. Those involved say results so far are encouraging.

“Proof of concept has been achieved.

We are now using this technology as part of our commercial breeding,” Barenbrug NZ plant breeder Will Clayton says.

Along with AgResearch, DairyNZ, Beef + Lamb NZ, Deer Research, Dairy Australia, Grasslands Innovation and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Barenbrug is part of PG+ (formerly Pastoral Genomics).

This consortium is developing technology to help seed companies breed better ryegrass and clover varieties faster, so farmers can reap the benefits sooner.

A key target is to accelerate genetic gain in perennial ryegrass yield from the current rate, estimated to be 0.8% a year, to 2% a year.

Scientists sequencing perennial ryegrass DNA have already linked DNA-marker combinations to DM yield, allowing them to assign an estimated breeding value (EBV) for yield very early in the breeding process, using leaf samples taken from seedlings only a few weeks old.

But before this technique can be deployed commercially, it must be

48

Barenbrug NZ plant breeder Will Clayton says early results from genomic selection are encouraging.

“Proof of concept has been achieved. We are now using this technology as part of our commercial breeding.”

Will Clayton

validated against results of traditional, phenotypic plant breeding, to make sure an EBV for yield holds true when compared to real-world plant performance.

So far, so good, Clayton says of their progress.

“The plant selections we’ve made based on GS have been on a par with, if not better, than those based on phenotypic selection,” he says.

What does that mean for farmers?

Quite a bit.

Increased speed and accuracy provided by GS could shorten the 1215-year breeding and selection process currently required to improve plant performance.

By genetically screening promising new plants as seedlings, breeders can create and evaluate multiple generations of new crosses without having to wait for them to grow to mature plants, and be evaluated by years of grazing, harvest and disease screening as is the current status quo.

This in turn would compress the existing timeframe from first cross to commercial seed, perhaps by up to half, without compromising critical on-farm testing and agronomy trials nationwide to prove pipeline cultivars will perform and persist, prior to release.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Clayton says the beauty of GS is that yield is only one of many traits for which genetic gain in perennial ryegrass could potentially be fast-tracked.

Others that have already been investigated by AgResearch include heading date, and a wide range of nutritional attributes, including water soluble carbohydrates (WSC).

“Currently we’re validating GS for yield, because yield is easy to measure.

But the plan is to also look at other factors, including persistence, feed quality, disease resistance, nitrogen use efficiency and water use efficiency,” he says.

Barenbrug science manager Colin Eady says the promise of GS must be balanced against commercial risk.

“Our existing breeding process is not broken – it produces brilliant cultivars by skilled breeder knowledge and efficient robust techniques that follow the KISS principle,” Eady says.

“GS requires high throughput trait analysis, huge computing resources, complicated computational scripts, outsourcing processes and skilled bioinformaticists – which is a huge

Leaf sampling for genomic selection.

change to how we have traditionally done things.

“Making sure it is robust, IP is protected and commercially viable

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requires years of beta testing and planning. Changing the bathwater without throwing out the baby is more complicated than you might imagine.” n

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FARMSTRONG

Farmstrong Ambassador Sam Whitelock says eating a nutritious and well-balanced diet will make a big difference to your mental and physical wellbeing during the busy times on the farm.

Eat well, farm well Whether you’re farming or playing sport, having the right ‘fuel in the tank’ gives you the energy to perform at your best, says Farmstrong ambassador Sam Whitelock

P

rofessional sport has taught me that a nutritious, wellbalanced diet means you’ll feel fitter, stronger and enjoy improved energy levels.

You’ll boost your immune system and stay healthier and you’ll also think more clearly and handle stress better,” Farmstrong ambassador Sam Whitelock says.

Farmstrong has partnered with Wairarapa-based nutrition expert Sarah Percy of Tea Retreats. She works extensively with farming families to provide advice on how to eat well, boost energy levels and stay healthy on the farm.

Here are her top tips. You can find more quick and easy recipe ideas and seasonal meal plans at www.tea-retreats. co.nz

to sacrifice regular meals. But running on an empty tank is really counterproductive. If you find yourself coming in after a hard day and feeling irritable and with a short fuse, it may be ‘hanger’ (angry hunger) caused by low blood sugars,” Sarah says.

“For a physically demanding job like farming, try and eat three meals and two lots of snacks a day. For early morning milkers, great pre-breakfast snack options include smoothies, eggs, fruit, cereal, porridge, grainy toast with peanut butter. If you’re busy, prepare snacks the night before.”

“

50

Sarah Percy Don’t work on an empty tank “Sometimes when we are busy on the farm and pressed for time, it is easy

Choose fresh, unprocessed food “The foods you choose will have a big impact on how you feel. The key to eating well is choosing fresh, wholefoods rather than packaged and processed options.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“When you are doing physical work throughout the day regular snacks are important to top up the fuel in your body and maintain your energy levels.”

Sarah Percy It can be tempting when we are busy to rely on fast and convenience food options,” she says.

“However, these quick options often lack the range of nutrients we need to keep healthy and manage the ups and downs of farming.”

“If you don’t have the time to prepare a hot meal, the following can be whipped up in minutes and will fuel you in the right way: poached eggs on toast, muesli/ porridge with milk, yoghurt, nuts and chopped fruit, a smoothie, toasted sandwiches with cheese, onion, tomato, cold meat and chutney.”

Stay hydrated during the day “Hot weather, physical exercise and not drinking enough can all lead to dehydration. Being dehydrated affects physical performance, makes it harder to make decisions and concentrate and can lead to constipation,” she says.

“Prioritise drinking water by keeping water bottles handy in the dairy shed, the ute or on the quad. Take a drink bottle out with you on the farm and take regular slurps. Just like you stop for your dogs to drink on big jobs, remember to provide plenty of fresh water for you and your staff.”

Snack between meals to maintain energy levels “When you are doing physical work throughout the day regular snacks are important to top up the fuel in your body and maintain your energy levels. Keep snacks in the glovebox of your ute, take a backpack if you are heading out on the

farm or leave food at strategic places on the farm, so you don’t get caught short,” she says. “Remember, what you snack on should enhance your nutrition, so rather than grabbing noodles, chips or a chocolate bar when you are hungry, try these healthy alternatives instead: bliss/fooze balls (made of nuts and dried fruit and often rolled in coconut), muesli bars, fresh fruit, snack pack of nuts, dried fruit.”

Keep it social “Food not only provides fuel for the body, it also gives us an opportunity to connect, share and relax with other people.

“The social aspect of food is an essential part of staying healthy and feeling good,” she says.

“If you’re really under the pump, a quick snack or water break can also provide much-needed recovery time.

“If you work/live alone for long periods having a regular meal catch-up with family or friends will help you avoid feeling isolated. Summer’s a great time to roll out the barbie and catch up with mates.”

working hard all day, so I get plenty of carbohydrates and protein into me as well so my muscles have the energy to keep going and my mind’s clear. I also drink plenty of water. It’s really simple stuff.

“I look after myself like that because I realise eating well and staying hydrated means there’s less chance of getting injured or fatigued by the physical side of the job.

“This time of year I try and bust out as much work as I can and then have a longer lunch. That allows me to have a good meal, catch up with the family and properly relax.

“You’ve always got to remember that farming is a marathon not a sprint.” n

Eat well, farm well An increasing number of farmers are taking these messages on board and sharing what they do to ‘fuel up’ with Farmstrong. n

Trish Rankin Taranaki sharemilker and 2019 Dairy Woman of the Year winner Trish Rankin agrees.

“In terms of nutrition, having a good balanced diet is so important. We kill a beast and put it in the freezer. That way we can have a steak chopped up in a salad in 10 minutes. When busy we make sure we have plenty of groceries and food so we can make really nutritious, simple n meals easily,” she says.

MORE: Kane Brisco Kane Brisco, a sharemilker at Ohangai near Hawera, says: “I eat nutrient-dense food. I eat a lot of veggies and I’m

Farmstrong is a rural wellbeing programme that aims to help farmers and farming families live well to farm well. To find out what works for you and lock it in, check out our farmer-to-farmer videos, stories and tips on www.farmstrong.co.nz

Under the pump?

For tips and ideas, visit farmstrong.co.nz

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

51

EFFLUENT

Thinking outside the box

By Cheyenne Nicholson

A system used in Africa for water has provided a Southland farmer with the perfect solution for the farm effluent system.

H

aving an effluent application setup that breaks down, is difficult to move and frequently costs money to repair can quickly leave you up an effluent creek without a paddle.

This was the situation Southland farmer Edwin Mabonga found himself in 10 years ago. Today, he has what he deems “the perfect setup” that saves him time and money. The investment has paid for itself many times over, he says, and best of all, his staff are happier shifting the irrigator as it’s not a big burden on them.

Edwin, his wife Fungai and their two children emigrated to New Zealand 18 years ago, with their third child being born here. The Mabongas are sharemilking for an equity partnership of which they are partners. The 270-hectare farm borders the Aparima River in western Southland. The farm comprises 200ha owned by the partnership, with a further 70ha lease and an 85ha runoff for young stock, and milks around 850 Kiwicross cows.

While NZ might be chalk and cheese with Zimbabwe, where Edwin hails from, it’s his experience with irrigation there that helped him form the solution for his effluent application problems here.

“Ten years ago when I first came to this farm, we were running into a lot of issues with effluent application. We had K-Lines for effluent application, and every time you shifted them something broke, the hose would get a kink or something else would go wrong. They were a right pain, and it got to the point where the staff weren’t happy moving them,” he recalls.

Wanting to decrease the repair bills, make life easier on staff and find a more efficient solution for effluent application, Edwin put his thinking cap on. A hard hose coil irrigator ticked all the boxes for him. The system has a 50m radius

52

Edwin Mabonga works on a farm in Southland, which is vastly different from Zimbabwe, but his experience there has helped find solutions for effluent application.

cover and 300-metre of hose, which allows effluent to be spread over a large area, can be used for water and effluent irrigation and is simple and easy to move – and it works every time you go to shift it.

“Having lived in Zimbabwe, I’ve worked a lot with irrigation. I used this system for water in Zimbabwe so I thought, ‘yep, this should work as a solution for effluent spreading too,’ so I made some enquiries,” he says.

While the idea was great in theory, there were a few hurdles to overcome.

Firstly, the company selling the hard hose coil irrigator weren’t all that keen on

selling it for the use of effluent spreading at the time. Secondly, the shareholders of the farm weren’t keen on investing the money required for a new system. Throw in the low application rate of their council consent for effluent and it started as an unlikely option.

“The shareholders weren’t keen to spend money on another system. I managed to convince them that this idea had merit and better suited our values of good environmental management. They have been happy with the decision and their $26,000 investment,” he says.

While the initial upfront cost of the new system is large, Mabonga says it’s

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“Having lived in Zimbabwe, I’ve worked a lot with irrigation. I used this system for water in Zimbabwe so I thought, ‘yep, this should work as a solution for effluent spreading too,’ so I made some enquiries.”

Edwin Mabonga paid for itself over the past 10 years in savings on repair bills. While he says that K-Lines are cheaper by far, the ongoing costs soon mount up, and he often urges farmers to look beyond the initial setup cost of any system on-farm.

“Maintenance-wise, we’ve had the same equipment for 10 years and have had basic services (done), but that’s it. It’s paid for itself many times over and true to my word, the shareholders haven’t heard anything else about effluent – only how great the system is,” he says.

The farm had council consent for

low application rates of effluent, 10mm instantaneous application, 50m away from waterways. In order to get council to sign off on the new system, Edwin had to put the new system through its paces to ensure it was capable of low application rates.

“We can get it down to 4mm, which is far better than K-Lines can do. We put a GPS on it as well; if it’s within 50m of a waterway the pump won’t start, so it’s a failsafe option. You can mark boundaries on it via GPS to stop it going into areas you don’t want as well,” he says.

The Southland farm had an effluent spreading system that frequently broke down but has been replaced with a hard hose coil irrigator.

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DAIRY FARMER

With a river bordering the farm, good management practices across the board are imperative and having the safeguard of the GPS system gives him peace of mind.

The hard hose coil irrigator is a selfwinding setup that is moved via tractor from one paddock to the next. Capable of effluent and water irrigation, the multipurpose system is utilised heavily at targeted times of the year.

Drawing from the 35-day storage effluent ponds, effluent is applied to paddocks where soil moisture levels are needing a boost.

“We have soil probes in two locations.

One on the light freer draining soils and the other on the heavier clays. We can easily adjust the amount that goes on based on what the soil needs, as long as it’s within our consent. It’s all linked up to a computer that controls the rate that it goes,” he says.

This has been a massive win for them in the summertime, where they can often dry out. Though this season they haven’t had to use it much, with soil moisture levels holding at good levels, the grass is growing well without too much additional help. Another big win has been a drop in metabolic problems at calving time.

“Because we can apply such low levels of effluent we are able to calve in any paddock. With old systems, we’d typically shy away from using the effluent paddocks,” he says.

“The spread of the effluent is wide and at first glance it looks like you’re putting a lot of effluent on, but you’re not.” n

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February 2021

53

EFFLUENT

Stir well, achieve more

By Michael Prestidge Nevada Effluent Management Specialist

E

ffluent ponds and storage tanks are a significant part of any effluent management system, after all, they’re storing all those essential nutrients that will later be used for fertilisation of crops and pastures.

However, to truly maximise the value of the stored effluent there are a few things to keep in mind.

If effluent is left sitting in a pond or tank the solids will inevitably sink to the bottom and crust and debris will form on the top, separating out the essential nutrients.

To maximise the value of your effluent it is vital the effluent is thoroughly mixed prior to pumping to ensure a consistent mix of nutrients is being pumped out and spread evenly over pasture.

For farmers monitoring the level of nitrogen and other nutrients in the effluent, it also ensures more accurate results for testing and analysis.

Additionally, with a well-stirred pond you will also achieve these benefits:

lot less value from your resource.

2. The accumulation of solids reduces the volume of storage available. In some cases this can become a council compliance issue as most councils will have minimum requirements for effluent storage.

3. You will eventually need to drain the pond and get a contractor in, or spend time digging out the solids yourself.

This can be costly, inefficient, and is less effective than simply stirring well.

No solids accumulation at the bottom of the pond There are a number of issues with solids accumulating at the bottom of the pond/tank: 1. As the solids sit at the bottom of the pond or tank they lose their nutrient value, meaning by the time you dig them out to spread you are getting a

Aesthetics Everybody wants to have an enviable looking farm, and a well-stirred pond is a much better look than crust and vegetation.

Tip: It is essential to stir before pumping so the sediment can be mixed with water. It can be difficult to tell just how much is accumulated at

54

Prolongs the life of your pump and irrigator Thoroughly mixed effluent reduces strain on your pump, and you’ll be far less likely to experience blockages, so your entire system is more likely to run smoothly.

Reduced odour Aerating the pond gets the biology of the pond working, which will greatly reduce the odour.

the bottom, and it is too late to mix if you’ve already pumped down to the sludge.

Achieving a thorough effluent mix To create a stirring action that will get the entire pond swirling, you need to create a strong horizontal flow of water with sufficient velocity to carry the suspended solids.

A consistent speed of approximately 0.8 metres per second will stop solid particles from dropping out of suspension, and the only way to do this is by creating a strong horizontal thrust.

This is where a shore-mounted electric stirrer is recommended as they are able to provide the right combination of angle, power and speed to churn up the entire pond.

In the past, floating vertical stirrers were promoted for having low power requirements, however these are not recommended for the following reasons: 1. Having a vertical shaft, the solids are merely pushed away from the propeller and will then slow down and drop out of suspension in the water, so they never end up being effectively mixed.

Moving the stirrer around the pond will only shift the solids from one area to another, so nutrients are not getting mixed in and therefore don’t

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Effluent ponds and storage tanks contain essential nutrients that can be used to fertilise crops and pasture.

end up leaving the pond.

2. While some floating effluent stirrers may have low power requirements, a lot of the time these need to be run constantly to achieve any results.

3. In terms of safety, it is always better to keep electricity out of water, and not have the need for anyone to venture out onto an effluent pond should the

stirrer require maintenance.

Another option, which has been suggested in the past, is using a pumptype stirrer.

In theory these stirrers should work, however in reality you would need a massive pump, or even several pumps to even come close to what a shoremounted stirrer can achieve. n

Bruce’s Slurry Tanker Exceeded Expectations

“If effluent is left sitting in a pond or tank the solids will inevitably sink to the bottom and crust and debris will form on the top, separating out the essential nutrients.”

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Bruce Baggott and his son Lyn run a 850 cow dairy farm in Cust, Canterbury. His underground effluent management system was working well, with effluent being pumped from the concrete storage pond through to a travelling irrigator…in fact, you could say it was working too well!

‘Our nutrient levels were too high from all the effluent being spread to just the one area. We wanted to get the nutrients to all available areas and also to the run-off.’

- Bruce Baggott Essentially, Bruce’s effluent nutrients were going to waste because there was too much for the soil to soak up.

Bruce did a lot of research into different brands of slurry tanker, but he felt Nevada’s features were a cut above the rest, so he ordered a 10,000L tandem axle.

‘The double safety protections are special to these – it’s a great reason to buy one.’

He also liked that Nevada slurry tankers included the unique RainWaveTM spreading applicator, which promised a wider, more even

and controlled spread with minimal wind drift. In fact, since having the slurry tanker, Bruce and Lyn say the tanker has exceeded their expectations.

‘There’s only so many nutrients the soil can take up, and when nutrient levels are too high, the soil becomes locked. This can actually end up causing metabolic problems with the cows.’ - Lloyd Thomas, Nevada Effluent Management Specialist Bruce and Lyn couldn’t be happier with their investment, saying they’re now able to spread under pivots and other areas they couldn’t previously reach with the irrigators.

‘It’s far more versatile. We can spread in areas we couldn’t reach before.’ - Bruce Baggott

‘That RainWave is a huge advantage over other tankers. It’s exceeded our expectations. We were surprised how fast it loaded. We envisioned it being a chore, but it’s a fast, easy job.’

Lyn Baggott

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DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

55

EFFLUENT

Unique set of challenges

By Ross Nolly

A Taranaki couple have peace of mind with their new irrigation system, which combined with their cropping policy gives them a dual strategy for coping with dry summers.

T

he word “coastal” is an understatement when it comes to describing where Taranaki farmers Larry and Caroline Charteris farm.

Their 85-hectare farm at Tataraimaka, 11 kilometres south of Oakura in North Taranaki, is a proverbial “stone’s throw” from the beach. Their property overlooks a stunning seafront with only a narrow country road separating them from the beach.

Their proximity to the coast also provides a unique set of farming challenges. For Larry and Caroline coping with dry summers is an annual expectation. They continually seek out ways to mitigate their dry stress periods and have implemented strategies that help combat their climatic challenges.

They bought their 54ha farm property in 1983 and in 1994, they sold the upper 28ha to buy an adjacent 64.7ha beach block to create their present 85ha (80ha effective) farm.

We merged the two blocks and retained the two cowsheds with the thought of building a new shed in the middle of the farm. The lower 12-aside herringbone cowshed sits on the roadside directly opposite the beach.

The original upper shed is a 16-aside herringbone situated one kilometre up the road,” Caroline says.

“We wanted to milk through one new shed, but it never became economically viable for us to do that. So, right from the beginning we employed a 25% sharemilker on the lower block and it’s worked very well.”

The Charteris’ winter 260 cows and during mid-summer they milk about 245 cows to produce 106,000kgs of milksolids.

They run two herds – a Friesian herd on the bottom block and son Daniel

56

Son Daniel who manages the upper block and the Jersey herd with his parents Caroline and Larry Charteris who milk 245 cows on their 85-hectare farm at Tataraimaka, 11 kilometres south of Oakura in North Taranaki.

“It’s a much-diluted product that’s spread over a greater area and it practically removes any user error. You can barely tell whether any effluent has been applied.”

Larry Charteris

manages a Jersey herd on the top block with similar numbers in each.

When the time arose to upgrade the farm’s effluent system, they attended many field days searching for a system that suited their farm and soil type. They wanted a simple system that would be sustainable and give them peace of mind by knowing that their farm effluent would never enter their waterways.

They chose the Clean Green Effluent System (CGES) and installed the system at the top cowshed in 2018.

The CGES consists of a weeping wall with two chambers (bunkers) to retain

the effluent solids. A centre chamber is utilised as a liquid pump chamber.

The liquid from the pump chamber is pumped to a greenwash storage tank and the effluent in the weeping wall is contained in a concrete lined bunker.

The solids are retained in the bunker and removed with a digger annually.

The system also has two 30,000-litre storage tanks. One is dedicated to containing greenwash for external yarding, and is usually full. The secondary tank contains green water awaiting distribution to land.

The recycled liquid is used to wash the external yard via the automated backing gate system. The wash water and effluent then returns to the weeping wall for refiltration. This has significantly reduced water use and also saves time.

Effluent is pumped from the storage tanks and distributed each night through a low-rate, low-depth application system using K-Line pods. The system allows controlled application to land at low-rate, low-depth application rates of 0.25mm (in 24-hours), thereby eliminating nitrate leaching, ponding or runoff.

“The K-Line flexible hoseline and sprinkler pod system spray is more of

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

a mist than a heavy spray. We use four pods to irrigate our flat paddocks to prevent any runoff or leaching,” Larry says.

“It’s a much-diluted product that’s spread over a greater area and it practically removes any user error. You can barely tell whether any effluent has been applied. “The economies of scale for a farm of our size are perfect.”

The farm has a 30ha irrigation platform and both cowsheds are connected to the system, but the lower shed still retains its singular system and tank for irrigation.

If there is significant rainfall, the lower shed’s system is diverted into the CGES by simply turning a tap.

“Before we installed this system we always worried about blockages. But now we don’t have any, because the solids have been removed and left at the bunker,” Caroline says.

“The system needs minimal maintenance. Our sandy soil is a nightmare for pumps and sand traps.

With this system, the bunker is the sandpit. Our pumps will last longer because the sand and solids are deposited in the bunkers,” Larry adds.

Each bunker is cleared out in March on alternate years, after the turnips and chicory have been grazed off. The solids are applied to the cropping paddocks.

The dry, almost composted effluent is applied before the grass is sown and in Larry’s words, “it’s just like rocket fuel for new grass.”

During summer the cooling water is run to the weeping wall to add water to the pods. In winter and spring this water is diverted for stock water. This reduces the amount of water that needs

The Clean Green Effluent System installed in 2018 is simple and sustainable.

to be pumped and drastically reduces the associated maintenance issues and running costs.

“It’s a simple system because the pods only need to be moved weekly, unless it’s been raining, then we move them more often,” Caroline says.

“During a dry summer we also move the pods more frequently to spread the irrigation. We bought an extra set of pods to have a set at either end of the farm.

Then it’s just a case of turning on the hydrant to wherever it’s needed.”

They believe that solid separation is the best way to lower the concentration of effluent. It also gives them more control as to where and when it’s applied. The full bunker spends the summer drying out, so the contractor has less material that is easier to shift and spread.

The system pumps operate at night

The effluent system consists of a weeping wall with two chambers (bunkers) to retain the effluent solids. A centre chamber is utilised as a liquid pump chamber.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

and use the electricity night rate. There are no bad odours when the effluent is spread on the paddocks, which eliminates any concerns about the system affecting neighbouring lifestyle block owners.

The system provides extra moisture and nutrients, which in turn helps them drought-proof their property by growing more grass. That vegetative cover protects and grows the humus layer, which prevents the soil from drying out and is the key to getting paddocks to last longer.

“Cover is king,” Larry says.

“Surviving on short rounds may be the modern way, but we find that if we have cover during summer along with the other inputs, we can get through any stress period. If you don’t have the cover, you’re really up against it.”

The System 3 farm grows a limited amount of crops as a summer-proofing measure. This season they have put in 2ha of turnips, 1ha of green-feed maize for the Friesians, and 3.5ha of chicory for the Jerseys.

They will also plant 2ha of oats during winter to help them kick into spring. The oats and turnips are for the Friesians. This year they are using green-feed maize to get bulk into their cows during the summer stress period.

Dry summers are something they have had to contend with for most of their farming career. They have previously never been big utilisers of cropping due to their farm’s sandy soil type. Their new cropping strategy combining the newly-installed effluent system is a dual approach at managing summer dry periods. n

57

EFFLUENT

Researcher Grant Rennie shows his cutting and nutritional trial of bananas as a fodder crop.

Bananas idea pays off

By Hugh Stringleman

A Northland trial of growing bananas as a forage crop is showing better than expected results.

N

orthland dairy farmers Graeme and Carol Edwards are investigating bananas as a forage crop with cutting trials and nutrition measurements by AgResearch.

Stems in the small banana plot near the farm dairy are drip irrigated by effluent water high in potassium after an upgrade of the effluent system incorporated a weeping wall to separate solids.

The Edwards’ 125ha effective farm at Opouteke, near Pakotai in midNorthland, runs 250 high BW cows on once-a-day milking on their System 2 property.

A preliminary estimate showed that potentially about 4% of the land planted to bananas could use all the green water, optimise storage and avoid unconsented discharges, and provide a large supplementary fodder source.

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A SMASH field day was held on the farm to highlight the banana trial, possible use of sexed semen in a breeding plan, and provide an overview of the new effluent system.

Edwards said different sources of more reliable supplementary feeding will be needed now it appears annual rainfall has reduced from 1800mm to 1200mm.

The banana plot was first planted in November 2018 with 65 stems of the popular Misi Luki variety, being hardy and disease resistant.

A survey taken 22 months later showed near eight stems per plant and an estimate of 10kg/plant dry matter.

Annual production was then calculated at 16 tonnes/ha DM at planting density of 1600 stems/ha and at 20t/ha for 2000 plants.

This was when Grant Rennie from AgResearch Ruakura got involved with a

grant from Our Land and Water Science Challenge.

He listed the possible benefits of using bananas as a forage crop: -High summer growth rates for increased resilience of forage supply during dry periods.

-High nutrient demand could potentially change whole-farm nutrient cycling.

-Potential for cut and carry or strip grazing for animals.

-Deep-rooting and drought tolerant, with water stored vertically in stems.

In September last year, Rennie began trial cutting and analysing of the banana vegetative matter.

He cut all main stems but left at least four stems per plant over 500mm high, including no more than four over one metre and no more than two over two metres.

Cutting was to harvest the fodder

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Northland dairy farmer Graeme Edwards has a small banana plot nourished by effluent water.

and promote tillering growth, but also mindful of the amount of plant matter that can be harvested before regrowth was suppressed.

Because of their thickness and length, the stem was found to have two-thirds of the dry matter in a plant on average and therefore in any given plantation area.

Figures showed 18% dry matter in the leaves and 10% in the stems, but metabolisable energy has not yet been measured.

The first assay using NIR spectroscopy found that crude protein was low in the leaf and very low in the stem, that NDF fibre was low in both leaf and stem and that soluble sugars were moderate in the leaf and high in stems.

“This is not what we had expected and will require validation with wet chemistry, but this may mean the forage is better than originally anticipated,” Rennie says.

The questions raised were: What does

low crude protein mean for nitrogen uptake from effluent? What are the

soluble sugars and starch and do they have other properties? What proportion of NDF is effective, by promoting rumination with long, stringy fibre?

Edwards says cows were happy eating the leaves, but struggled with the stems.

Local farmer Murray Douglas, who has a family dairy farm in Brazil where many types of tropical fodders are used, says chopping the stems into chunks may help the cows.

The first plan for the bananas included harvesting the fruit for commercial sale, but that required skills and manual labour Edwards did not have.

The change of tack to cattle fodder would mean less cultivation than traditional crops like turnips, lower soil carbon loss, reduced environment risks from effluent irrigation and more reliable cropping in the summer.

“We can set this up in a way that if an organised banana industry develops in the region, we could switch to fruit production,” Edwards says. n

Green water from the effluent system is pumped to a trickle system for the bananas.

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February 2021

59

SHEEP MILKING

A false start to success

By Tony Benny

A Canterbury farming couple tried to do it all from milking the sheep to making and selling their cheeses, but were working long hours so they changed tactics.

W

hen Canterbury farmers Guy and Sue Trafford decided to start milking sheep to make ice cream for export, everything seemed to be falling into place nicely, but those early hopes were dashed and it’s been a long road learning how to make cheese and more importantly, how to market it profitably.

Their Charing Cross Sheep Dairy brand is now well established and after years of doing 90-hour weeks to milk sheep, make cheese, sell it at farmers’ markets and to some supermarkets, as well as both holding down jobs as lecturers at Lincoln University, they’ve now found a way to make it all work – and reduce their hours.

Their interest in milking sheep goes back to when Guy was manager of a 3300ha property near Gisborne, owned

by Māori incorporation, Wi Pere Trust.

They considered sheep milking and went as far as buying some of the first East Friesian sheep embryos brought into New Zealand.

In the end, that venture wasn’t pursued but the Traffords could see a future in it – when the time was right.

That didn’t happen immediately as Guy wanted to finish the agriculture degree he’d been doing part-time from Massey University.

They moved south and he enrolled at Lincoln University, finished his BComAg undergraduate degree plus a masters, then took a job lecturing in farm management. Sue transferred her fire investigation officer job to Christchurch, then took a job at Lincoln teaching communications.

But they pined for more hands-on farming and were looking for a small holding when the 2011 Christchurch earthquake struck. Their home in Christchurch was damaged but liveable and out of the blue someone offered to buy it, so they said yes and bought a 10.3ha block at Charing Cross, about 30

60

Guy and Sue Trafford were milking 220 Awassi-East Friesian cross ewes to make labneh and cheese but have reduced numbers to 98.

minutes east of Christchurch.

“I could see, just from my dealings at Lincoln, that cow dairying was going to be in for some really significant change, compliance-wise and water-wise, so I kept thinking we could do sheep dairying,” Sue says.

“It had to be a whole new paradigm – sustainability, ethicality, new protein, new products, nutritional profiles – and I thought, ‘We can do that here,’ and I thought ‘We could make enough money’.”

Their plan was to milk sheep and make ice cream, but then a story about them was published by the university’s communications department that was picked up by news media throughout NZ. As a result, Deep South ice cream approached them about a joint venture under which the Traffords would produce the milk and Deep South make the ice cream.

They spent money on Awassi-East Friesian cross ewes and infrastructure, Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) compliance requirements and a $30,000

milk tanker, but with a change of ownership at Deep South, the venture didn’t happen.

“So we went to Hanmer Springs, sat in the hot pools and drank a lot of wine and came home and said, ‘We’ll just have to do it ourselves’,” Sue says.

“We built a little production unit – it was far too small but all we could afford.”

They thought yoghurt would be the best product to start with, but they were wrong.

“Cantabrians have an aversion to sheep milk products, particularly the fresher they are,” Guy says.

The thousands of pottles and labels they bought still lie unused. It was clear another product was needed.

“We rapidly realised in the domestic market, I think, that you need to have a scattergun approach – a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of the other – and Sue came up with the idea of making labneh, a yoghurt-based cheese,” he says.

Labneh is a Middle Eastern cheese, and is essentially drained, pressed yoghurt balls.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“Sue made some labneh and took some samples along to the Riccarton Market and people’s response were indignant that we didn’t have any to sell and we realised we were on to something,” he says.

“People won’t buy yoghurt but they were buying labneh by the truckload, which was great.

Sue was learning how to make other soft cheeses, mostly from YouTube videos and admits she had plenty of failures.

“We had a lot of fat pigs to start with because we were feeding them all the bad cheese. Sometimes it was really awful,” she laughs.

But she learnt quickly and her success was recognised with a NZ cheese award and a NZ Artisan Food Producer gold medal.

“All of a sudden we became known.

You can’t buy that marketing really,” she says.

One of their biggest battles has been compliance and getting MPI approval of their Risk Management Plans, for both the milking operation and the cheese production. They say it’s not only costly, but also took an inordinately long time, sometimes threatening the viability of the business.

Their stall at Riccarton Market was thriving but to keep it all going — milking sheep, making cheese, selling it, lecturing at Lincoln, as well as Guy writing regularly for interest.co website — they were having to work long hours and the strain was starting to tell.

Then the market allowed a cheesemonger who sold imported product to set up there, something the Traffords believe was against the farmers’ market principle of fostering locally-produced food. That impacted their profitability but then another opportunity arose with the setting up of the new Riverside Market in central Christchurch.

“The manager said ‘We’re looking for a cheesemonger’ so we said, ‘Yes, please’,” Guy recalls.

“We knew nothing about it, so we made a trip to Australia and watched a whole lot of YouTube videos,” Sue adds.

“And it just went off.”

As well as stocking their own product, their shop has cheese from 13 other producers from as far away as Takaka and Oamaru.

“So, we’ve gone from being cheese producers to now clip the ticket on everybody else’s, but it’s given them a profile that we struggled to get for ourselves.”

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

But they were still on a treadmill with the shop open 10 hours a day, seven days a week and the couple, both in their late 60s, realised something had to change.

It was obvious to them that there was better money in selling cheese than in making it.

“The farm was all money going out, huge running costs, huge compliance costs, a lot of stress, all this working all day and all night, turning cheeses at 3am, and doing all this stuff and we woke up one day and thought, ‘Why don’t we go to where the money is really, in the selling, so why don’t we put life here on hold?’ We just needed a break,” Sue says.

“Then this young couple came into the shop and said they were cheesemakers and asked if we would be interested in developing a relationship in which they made the cheese and we sold it.”

Daniel Bell was a cheesemaker at Barry’s Bay Cheese near Akaroa and his fiancée Kate Crawford works in marketing. Under their partnership arrangement, Daniel makes the same range of cheese that Sue used to, in the MPI-compliant facility the Traffords built on their land.

They’ve put milking sheep on hold and have reduced their flock from 220 ewes to 98 ewes and from a peak of 40ha, leasing paddocks from neighbours, they’re now down to about 20ha and expect to reduce that further.

A nearby farmer who milks more than 400 sheep supplies the milk that Daniel uses to make Charing Cross Sheep Dairy cheese, which is sold at Riverside Market.

Sue and Guy have retired from Lincoln University and are learning to give themselves some time off. Sue says they’ve learnt an enormous amount over the past decade.

“One of the things I’ve learnt is farmers always seem to think the production end is the most important end and it’s exactly the opposite. It’s about the consumer experience,” she says.

“If they don’t like your product, if it doesn’t resonate with them, give them some kind of emotional, social or ethical experience, they will just go to the next place. So the market is that perfect venue to give that experience.

“Although it’s painful and can be expensive, failure has been our biggest asset and an ability to be flexible. For a couple of old fogeys we’re actually incredibly light on our decision-making feet and we’ve taken opportunities that most people probably wouldn’t have and most of the risky opportunities have come off.” n

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SHEEP MILKING

Breeding for gains

By Gerald Piddock

Breeding programmes in the North sees milking sheep developed for New Zealand conditions.

D

airy sheep genetics have made massive gains in the past few years thanks to dedicated breeding programmes from North Island-based sheep milking companies.

Spring Sheep Milk Company launched its own milking sheep breed Zealandia at its open day in November, while Maui Milk continues to develop its Southern Cross breed two years after its unveiling.

Both companies see superior breed performance being key in increasing sheep milking suppliers in their Waikato bases.

Spring Sheep general manager of milk supply Thomas Macdonald says Zealandia was a combination of six years’ worth of data and performance records going into the company’s breeding programme.

The breed is essentially a composite of several different milking sheep breeds.

He says they decided early on that non-dairy genetics were not going to be part of the breed.

In 2017 they brought in dairy sheep genetic material from Europe, which proved to be the foundation for the Zealandia breed. They met with European sheep milkers and learned what worked for them and what did not.

“That was when we brought the Lacaune breed and the East Friesian breed back into the country,” Macdonald says.

“It’s been three years of bringing in additional lines and advanced lines looking for specific traits that are specific to our Waikato farming systems, recognising that not everything that happens overseas is applicable to the Waikato.”

He says there were several traits they wanted in their sheep and once obtained, those sheep are recorded and bred to become suitable to Waikato farm systems.

The breed’s characteristics were based around extended days in milk. At the beginning when the bulk of Spring

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Sheep’s flock had Romney genetics, the sheep had a lactation period of around 120-140 days.

Those results prompted a discussion amongst Spring Sheep’s leadership team.

“What we really need to do is put that genetics programme on steroids,” he says.

In 2017 they were immediately able to increase production from 1-2 litres per sheep once they got access to those European genetics, although the lactation period was still short.

Over the past three years that lactation period had increased from the start of August to the end of April.

“What it means in numbers is that it takes you from a 120l sheep in that first year to a 200l sheep when you have that cross of the dairy and non-dairy sheep together to where our team sat last year, which is in that 270-275l/ewe,” he says.

Spring Sheep chief operating officer Nick Hammond says their average production this year across all seven farms, across all sheep ages was now 250-300l/sheep.

He says the Zealandia breed had taken the best attributes from different breeds.

“We have taken a variety of highperformance dairy sheep and breeds.

We brought them into New Zealand and what we have done is taken a huge amount of data and measurements off that group,” Hammond says.

“We have done 24 million data points off that group and off that we have selected the best rams and we’ve done all of the heavy lifting.

“We now have a high-performance dairy sheep adapted specifically to NZ’s farming systems.”

Spring Sheep got rid of any sheep carrying non-sheep dairy genetics after two years of operation.

To their surprise, removing those sheep and sticking only with dairy sheep had not come at the expense of other traits like hardiness and survivability in NZ’s outdoor farming system.

A mob of Zealandia milking ewes bred

by Spring Sheep Milk Company wait to be milked.

“You think it would – and that was one of our initial considerations – but hasn’t actually been the case,” he says.

Hammond believes the data they collected allowed them to successfully select the genetics to avoid any animal health issues.

“The animal health burden has not been the big disaster everyone told us it would be,” he says.

Sheep-milking farmers can also notice any issues a lot faster than sheepmeat farmers because they see the sheep twice a day during milking This allows them to quickly deal with any animal health issues they would not have otherwise seen, he says.

When asked if the industry was large enough to have two breeding programmes, he says the industry will grow quickly because of sheep’s fast breeding rate.

“When we talk about scalability of an industry and you look at animal constraint, it’s very much a short-term constraint. Quite quickly we can be 40,000 sheep by 2025,” he says.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Maui Milk general manager Peter Gatley was formerly LIC’s general manager of genetics when the company developed Kiwicross cattle, which is now the most widely used cow in the dairy industry.

He now wants to do the same with the Southern Cross milking sheep.

The sheep were being developed for an outdoor system, which is different to other countries where milking sheep are farmed indoors.

“The Southern Cross ewe we’re breeding is effectively the sheep equivalent of the Kiwicross cow,” Gatley says.

The programme began in 2015 when Gatley and geneticist Jake Chardon attended a sheep milking conference at Massey University.

They were a couple of individuals looking to find a way into the industry, he says.

Chardon spoke with Dr Jock Allison, who imported the original East Friesian genetics into NZ. He discovered Allison still had the frozen embryos of those sheep and bought them off him on the spot.

“It was quite scary, we didn’t have any sheep at the time,” Gatley says.

They moved quickly and within a matter of weeks those embryos were implanted in ewes being farmed in Hawke’s Bay. Over the years they have used the East Friesian, Awassi and Lacaune genetics, along with a Coopworth base.

Getting access to the Lacaune genetics was key. The sheep breed’s genetics are jealously guarded by French farmers and it took Chardon two years to build up a relationship with those breeders.

The first shipment of those genetics arrived in 2017 and it became an integral part of their breeding programme.

“We are miles ahead of where we were back then, but it still feels like there’s massive potential ahead of us,” Gatley says.

While the Lacaune was fully competitive with the East Friesian on milk production, it had advantages in other areas such as udder conformation, milking speed and was better suited to outdoor NZ grazing systems.

“When we started in 2015 we were

totally dependent on East Friesians but they just didn’t last. They go soft in bad weather, they don’t like the sun and pneumonia is a real issue,” he says.

Gatley says the Southern Cross breed’s genetic makeup was likely to resemble a sheep with mostly Lacaune genetics and some Coopworth to give it resilience to outdoor farming.

This year they have started their own embryo programme to maximise the genetics of elite ewes.

They will use progeny tested semen to get those embryos and the embryo donor ewes will be the top 10% of the ewes at Maui Milk’s Waikino Station near Taupo.

For converting farmers, the rams they will be supplied with will have come from multiple generations of progeny-tested sires.

“Every one of their mothers will be a proven performer from a grass-based system,” he says.

First-cross hoggets were capable of producing around 200l while mixed age ewes with more dairy genes on an all outdoor farming system were capable of doubling that. n

SHEEP MILKING

Class in the paddock

By Ross Nolly

Attracting young people into the agricultural sector has been a challenge for the industry, but programmes such as the one implemented by a Taranaki school will help.

I

t is often difficult to attract urban kids to careers in the rural sector, however, one urban high school has initiated an innovative agricultural programme to help bridge that divide.

Taranaki’s Waitara High School is in the second season of its sheep milking programme. Situated 25km north of New Plymouth, 75-80% of the school’s students are urban and 70% are Maori.

The programme is part of the school’s agriculture curriculum for Year 11 and 12 classes, which focuses on Unit Standards in fencing and animal handling. External achievement standards are also offered for livestock management and soils.

The Year 11 class focuses on career and training pathways, health and safety, farm skills including drenching, hydration, and nutrition of farm workers, animal reproduction and digestion.

The Year 12 class focuses on animal behaviour and farm management, to maximise production, running the school farm, agrichemicals and reproductive technologies.

“A couple of years ago one of the Year 12 livestock management projects dug up a Nuffield Scholarship report about the prospect of sheep milking in New Zealand. We thought it sounded pretty interesting and could be a viable project for our school. So, I joined the sheep milking conversation through the Sheep Milk NZ group coordinated by associate professor Craig Pritchard from Massey University,” agriculture and science teacher Gus Berghan says.

“We investigated the logistics and with the support of the L. A. Alexander Agricultural College Trust Board (the trust supports Taranaki agriculture and horticulture teachers), we went ahead with it.”

Pritchard invited Berghan and the Waitara High School students to Massey and helped them investigate the practicalities of fitting the project in a school environment.

A great deal of support from Sheep

64

Waitara High School introduced a sheep milking programme for Year 11 and 12 students to attract urban children to the industry.

Milk NZ is readily available for new sheep milk operations. David Chapman from Woodville’s Wildbush sheep-milking farm gave the school their East Friesian sheep and a ram to get them started.

The school operates a 2.8-hectare farm, running 40 ewes, three calves and chickens for eggs and show. Pritchard spent two days with students to outline milking sheep management practices and designed a milking platform, which the students built and now milk four East Friesian sheep on.

“Some of the students have been in a dairy shed, but it’s a real eye-opener for most of the kids who have never been on a farm before. It opens them up to possibilities for work they knew nothing about,” Berghan says.

“Instead of solely hearing about milking, they can come to the shed and experience it. They can go from learning Shakespeare in one lesson and be down here putting cups on the sheep in the

next one.”

Sheep have proven to be a perfect dairy animal for a school environment.

Berghan has found that sheep milking is quicker and easier than milking cows, and he was surprised how readily the sheep responded to entering the shed.

Cows can make more mess and are a much larger animal to deal with in the shed and on the farm. Their size also increases the risk of injury to students, especially those who are not used to being around stock. The students can handle the sheep and learn how to do it safely, without feeling intimidated or injuring themselves, or the sheep.

“I was a little concerned that I’d be milking every day, but there’s been a lot of support from other teachers and students who cover some of the weekends for me and my wife Helen,” he says.

“We’ve taken the lead from Dave Chapman and leave the lambs on their

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

mothers until they are about 13.5kg, before separating them at night.

“The lambs have access to water and pellets, which they soon find a liking for.

The next morning the ewes are miked first and then returned to the paddock with their lambs. This takes nearly a week and then we wean them and put them out with the other stock. We only milk for nine or 10 weeks during the fourth term.”

Many students who aren’t on the course visit to watch the sheep being milked. In December Gus picks a group of Year 10 students who will begin the course the following year to introduce them to milking.

“It either turns them on or off. It’s better that they experience it then, than have a class of 25 disinterested students the following year,” he says.

“I often bring entire classes of Year 9 and 10 students down to show them how it’s done. Some don’t even know where milk comes from. This introduces agriculture to those who may never have thought of taking it as a subject.”

The Year 11 and 12 students, and the

Year 10 students who are choosing the course for the first time, are given a notebook to allow them to record any farm work that they complete during the school holidays.

Berghan calls the farmers to assess the student’s confidence and skill levels, which enables him to complete a final assessment and if competent, the students gain NCEA credits for their work. The school also has consent to assess sheep milking as a Unit Standard.

“The Unit Standards they gain aren’t just for NCEA, the credits can also go towards their Level 2 National Certificate in Agriculture. Each year I write references for students who have found work, or are looking for work on farms,” he says.

“Some have chosen agriculture as a career and gone on to Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre and Telford Rural Education Centre, and others have undertaken agriculture university degrees.”

Another remarkably innovative idea was the purchase of a pasteuriser to

Waitara High students preparing the milking plant, as agriculture and science teacher Gus Berghan watches from above.

allow the school’s Year 9 to 13 Home Economics classes to make cheese from the milk.

After pasteurisation the milk is frozen until it’s needed to make feta and mozzarella cheese. The students get the opportunity to see the entire manufacturing process, from the milk leaving the ewe’s teats to the finished cheese. The learning doesn’t just stop at making cheese though, because the students also design the cheese packaging.

“The students learn to work together and cooperate with one another. I like to have some diversity to give students the opportunity to experience a variety of agricultural activities,” he says.

“The farm is used by the Business Enterprise course to produce eggs and chickens, and to rear and sell calves.

We want to show the kids that it’s a business.”

“I’d like to increase our milking sheep numbers. It would be nice to produce enough milk to increase the types of cheeses we produce to use in the café.” n

The milking platform was designed by Massey University professor Craig Pritchard and was built by the students.

Student Joseph Vallen putting cups on East Friesian the sheep.

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February 2021

65

AUTUMN CALVING

To autumn calve, or not

By Cheyenne Nicholson

Dairy Trust Taranaki are gearing up to reveal the results of a trial comparing transitioning from one calving system to another.

D

airy Trust Taranaki will be revealing preliminary results of their autumn calving trial this month at an open day on their Kavanagh farm in Hawera.

Operations manager Debbie McCallum says that the trial aims to identify implications of the transition period required to change the season of calving and compare an autumn calving system with a spring calving system.

Many farmers are opting for wholeherd autumn calving or split calving to mitigate the risks of summer dry and capitalise on the greater winter pasture growth the region has been seeing for the past decade.

“Autumn calving has become popular along coastal Taranaki,” McCallum says.

“Summer dry is common. More often than not there’s a big soil moisture deficit. Low pasture growth rates in summer and autumn along, with increased pasture growth rates over winter make it a viable option for coastal farmers.

“There’s a bit of a lifestyle perk about it, too. Rather than battle through milking in summer, many would rather milk in winter and have a break over the January through March period.”

Calving in March and April when the weather is better is appealing for many with calf rearing easier in the dry, warmer weather.

In 2017 the original 600-cow herd residing at Kavanagh farm were split into an official autumn-calving herd and a spring-calving herd. The herd was randomised on age, BW, PW, liveweight, previous production and calving date to create two equal herds for ease of data comparison.

The farm was also split into two farmlets, randomised into location, soil fertility and distance from the shed.

The first 18 months of the trial was dedicated to the new autumn-calving herd transition from spring to autumn calving. The first spring the autumn cows

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Debbie McCallum from the Dairy Trust Taranaki and Jake Jarman on one of the Trust farms where he had been researching the transition process to autumn calving for his thesis.

weren’t mated, but instead entered into an extended lactation through to the following winter and mated in winter 2018.

During this extended lactation, the autumn-calving cows averaged 661kg MS/cow and 488 days in milk. Some cows competed 577 days in milk, and 50% of the herd were still milking at drying off. During the first autumn-calving lactation, the milk production curve flattened out and while they didn’t peak as high as the spring herd, they displayed greater persistence.

“One of the biggest drawbacks is that loss of production in that second lactation. Per cow, production was negatively affected. This would be something for farmers to consider as it’s a financial cost,” she says.

This hard-and-fast transition process comes with pros and cons.

The two notable implications are

increased BCS and a subsequently higher risk of metabolic issues and higher reproductive performance for a season.

By doing a whole-herd transition utilising an extended lactation, farmers can maintain their existing herd. On the downside, there will likely be cows who are unsuited for extended lactations, which can lead to cows gaining aboveoptimal body condition score post 300 days in-milk.

“We found a fairly notable increase in BCS in the transition cows. They packed on the pounds. They’re being fed as a normal-producing in-milk cow, but their actual milk production drops so that extra energy goes into body fat,” she says.

“We had some big variations in the herd, which indicates that we had some cows who were very well suited to extended lactations as their production was fairly good, and others who weren’t.”

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“Some farmers are saying they don’t care if they break even, or even if it costs a bit more, as it’s worth it for the lifestyle aspect.”

Debbie McCallum The biggest issue here is metabolic. To combat this, cows were given a restricted intake to help them mobilise body fat to minimise metabolic issues.

The autumn-calving herd displayed higher reproductive performance during the extended lactation, but not their first lactation calving in autumn. A high sixweek in-calf rate meant that the calving pattern was condensed, which put pressure on feed demand.

“This was largely expected due to the longer interval between calving and mating, and once the autumn-calving herd returned to a short interval, their reproductive performance got back on par with the spring herd,” she says.

The autumn-calving herd had a 16% better three-week submission rate, 16% better six-week in-calf rate and 8% better not-in calf rate than the spring herd in that first lactation.

While there are undoubtedly many benefits being noted from the trial, there are also some points to consider when thinking of making the switch.

Many farms will need a higher input of nitrogen to support winter milking along with top-notch pasture management, laneways need to be good quality to reduce lameness issues and mating through winter can be tricky due to fewer daylight hours.

“Difficulty getting cows in calf over

Dairy Trust Taranaki was formed merging three legacy entities; the Stratford demonstration farm, Waimate West Demonstration farm and Taranaki Agricultural Research Station.

winter was a trend this year, we didn’t have a very good empty rate,” she says.

“From a practical perspective having a good amount of feed on hand is important. “Dry cow management also becomes a whole different kettle of fish as you’re battling with facial eczema and ryegrass staggers at that time of year, too.”

Economic analysis of autumn calving will be done over the coming years, as the trial gets a few more lactations under its belt and will be a large part of Dairy Trust Taranaki work in the future. While the economics of autumn calving is important to a farm’s bottom line, there are other goals and values to consider.

“Some farmers are saying they don’t care if they break even, or even if it costs a bit more, as it’s worth it for the lifestyle aspect. Calving and calf-rearing in warmer weather is more pleasant, and

many farmers get more enjoyment out of their farm,” she says.

“You do spend more on feed over that winter period, but you feed little over summer on the flipside of that.

“What we have seen overall is an increase per cow and per ha production for autumn compared to spring, and that’s likely due to a good number of days in milk compared to spring.

“We will have more results and statistics to share at our open day and, of course, over the coming years of the trial, to put some meaningful data in front of farmers to consider.” n

MORE:

Dairy Trust Taranaki will host an open farm at their Kavanagh farm on February 10, to discuss their findings to date. For more information, head to their website or Facebook page.

Dairy Trust Taranaki are partway through an autumn calving trial on their Hawera farm, investigating the economics of autumn calving.

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

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AUTUMN CALVING

One metabolic disease can increase the risk of other metabolic and infectious diseases and reduce milk production, health and reproduction.

The big three

By Cheyenne Nicholson

Metabolic diseases in the transition and early lactation stages can affect cow performance unless it is treated and managed carefully.

G

ood management through the transition period can minimise metabolic issues and maximise production and reproductive performance.

Massey University associate professor Dr Jenny Weston says poor transition management can result in decreased herd performance and it can be hard to regain that ground lost. One of the key things is setting up the cow for going from a lower level of maintenance feeding to eating at capacity to fulfil the demands when she’s back in the milking shed.

“It’s as if someone’s been on a strict diet for a long period of time and their stomach has shrunk somewhat and you suddenly go ‘Here’s an all you can eat buffet, go for it’. They are less able to cope with eating everything you put in front of them,” Weston says.

However, this doesn’t happen overnight as the rumen needs time to adapt to the dietary changes. Plan to be increasing feeding levels during transition to build their intake back up and consider what is in the diet. Make

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any changes slowly, the typical rule of thumb is the rumen takes about 14 days to adapt to feed changes.

Ketosis, magnesium deficiency and milk fever round out the big three in metabolic disease of both transition and early lactation cows.

Ketosis Ketosis is a condition of energy deficit.

Cows will always lose some weight postcalving due to a mismatch between feed supplied to meet requirements and what the cow can physically eat. Ketosis is a step beyond this. When fat is broken down the waste products or metabolites – ketone bodies or non-esterified fatty acids – associated with this process are used by the body. When the cow is in a negative energy balance, she will use more fat to provide energy to maintain health and production.

“This excessive breakdown of fat overwhelms the metabolic pathways and causes a backlog of metabolites that accumulate in the blood system,” she says.

Excess ketone bodies in the

bloodstream indicate that fat breakdown is occurring at a greater rate than the cow can cope with. Ketosis will usually present as rapid weight loss, reduced milk production, a dry, rough coat and dry manure. Some cows will show off behaviour like aggression, chewing on metal piping and rails, high stepping and a wobbly gait.

Overfat cows and high-producing cows are more susceptible to ketosis as their energy needs are greater. As with most diseases, the number of clinical cases is just the tip of the iceberg. For every one clinical case, there will be around 10 sub-clinical cases. Subclinical ketosis can affect the function of the ovary after calving, which can contribute to noncycling cows.

Preparing the cow for higher feeding levels and a change in diet composition is critical to preventing ketosis. Attention to detail when it comes to mineral balance is also important along with avoiding having overfat cows at calving and assessing if feed is supplying sufficient energy. The key strategy for treating ketosis is to boost their energy

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

“It’s hard to predict which ones are going to recover and which ones are going to stay down. Often, they just stand up and walk off after treatment, other times they don’t.”

Dr Jenny Weston

potassium and nitrogen is important as these reduce the absorption of Mg. When it comes to treatment a range of products are around to elevate Mg in the blood, but improvement involves getting enough Mg into the fluid around the brain, which is difficult to achieve.

“It’s hard to predict which ones are going to recover and which ones are going to stay down. Often, they just stand up and walk off after treatment, other times they don’t,” she says.

through either oral supplementation with propylene glycol or dextrose given in the vein. A vet may administer an injection of corticosteroid to encourage the cow’s metabolism to boost glucose production. Reducing energy demands, for example, dropping to once-a-day milking can be effective also.

Milk fever Milk fever is low blood calcium (Ca).

Ca is required for muscle contraction and is stored in the body (in the bones).

Ca levels are regulated by the body and when the diet is low in Ca, efficiency of absorption from the gut will increase and the amount lost through excretion will be decreased. It will also be mobilised from the bone during times of high demand, however, this process is not instantaneous and many cows will go down or die before the body has a chance to right itself.

“If you continue to feed high levels of Ca pre-calving, you lull the cow into a false sense of security. Then she calves and starts lactation, Ca demand increases and she can’t keep up,” she says.

Nearly all cows will go into a subclinical phase of low Ca that is considered to be normal immediately post-calving. It’s the cows whose blood Ca drops even further that will progress to clinical cases.

Many symptoms of milk fever are the opposite of Mg Staggers. The early stages are often seen as an odd gait and overly excitable cows. Muscles are affected so cows can’t stand, and this can progress onto not being able to lift their head.

The heart muscle becomes weak and it can’t pump as much blood around. The

Magnesium deficiency Cows don’t store enough magnesium (Mg) in the body, so it needs to be supplemented daily. Cows often aren’t efficient at absorbing Mg during times of stress – like drying off, feed shortages and bad weather – and their ability to absorb Mg decreases as they get older.

Clinical symptoms of Mg deficiency will be familiar to most farmers. The uncoordinated stagger of overstimulated muscles is distinctive. Aggressive behaviour, fast heart rate, twitching and, in severe cases, convulsion and down cows can occur. Subclinical symptoms are more subtle – reduced appetite, reduced milk production, kicking cups off and flicking their tail.

“Treatment can be frustrating, so prevention really is critical. Ensuring cows are supplemented with Mg every day is key. The form of Mg will depend on what sort of system each farm has,” he says.

Avoiding feed with high levels of

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muscles in the gut then stop working, resulting in bloat as the rumen stops moving and gas cannot eructate.

Intravenous milk fever treatments act quickly, but any product that contains Ca or Mg carries a slight risk when being administered into the vein.

“Both can affect muscle contraction and stop the heart, and occasionally a cow dies while treating them. Under the skin treatments are slower to act, especially on a cold day. Typically, I’d advise only severe cases to be treated via the vein, with mild cases it’s best to err on the side of caution,” she says.

Cows do not store enough magnesium (Mg) in the body so it needs to be supplemented daily.

Getting enough Ca into a cows system to keep them going for 12-24 hours is important to give the body time to enable Ca mobilisation from bone. Oral treatments are also available but should only be used in mild cases as severe cases affect swallow reflex.

Getting a vet to show everyone onfarm how to give metabolic solutions in the vein is important, as is keeping metabolic solutions in flexi packs on the quad or ute for instant access. n

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February 2021

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February 2021

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One last word …

B

ack in January 2018, I wrote a column about a drought gripping parts of the country.

By January 2019, the weather had done a complete 180 and farmers had grass coming out of their ears and were busy making supplementary feed to restock the hay sheds and silage pits.

This time last year, some regions were experiencing another severe drought.

Hot and dry conditions had caused pasture growth to stall and paddocks frizzled away to dirt. Crops were basically non-existent. The lack of rain and soil moisture saw farmers dip into their feed reserves, dry off stock – some as early as December – or switch to once-a-day or 16-hour milking, while others sent stock to the works or at least tried to with processors coming under huge pressure.

Farmers from all over the country rallied to help those most affected and donated feed.

Not so this year.

Mother Nature has come to the party and given farmers perfect conditions, and now many are well into making supplementary feed. Some farmers are telling me they are on their third or fourth cut. They have grass coming out their ears once again, and not enough mouths to keep up.

The number of tractors, balers and machinery and trucks on the road has certainly increased over the past few months and does not seem to be slowing down. I have been told some

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of the maize crops around Waikato are phenomenal and driving around Manawatu and Tararua, I have seen a number of paddocks that have been a sea of wrapped bales.

I know many farmers who treat this time of the year as a big social event where everyone pitches in to help cart and stack, finishing with a barbeque. As one farmer put it, “It is the best time of the year.

One of my old farming friends tells me that he spent “bugger all” last year on harvesting costs because there was nothing to harvest.

No one is really too stressed, the sun is shining, the grass is growing and the kids are on holiday, meaning this is something we can do as a family and with friends and neighbours. We all pitch in and help each other out.”

One of my old farming friends tells me that he spent “bugger all” last year on harvesting costs because there was nothing to harvest. This year, he has spent all of what he saved and probably even more than what he budgeted for this season, but hopes he won’t need to buy any feed in. He reckons he will have

enough feed to get through even if he runs into a dry spell.

Pastures were just starting to dry out in early January when Mother Nature delivered the rain.

And the good news keeps coming with rises in the first two Global Dairy Trade auctions this year showing that global demand is high, leading to banks and other outlets to lift their payout forecast to between $7/kg MS and $7.20/kg MS. My farming friend says he expects to do record production thanks to the perfect summer conditions and is on cloud nine.

“I have a hay barn and silage pit full of insurance and is as good as money in the bank and if the payout goes up, I will be a very happy man,” he says.

Thanks to Arohaina Le Comte who sent us the picture of the Ninja Turtle-themed bales. She and her husband have been farming for 20 years and were on their way to Christchurch when they passed these creative and colourful characters on the outskirts of Ashburton on State Highway 1.

“I thought that I would share this with the farming community. (When I saw it, I) thought, ‘What an innovative way to use silage bales’. Cowabunga, dudes.”

Cowabunga indeed.

Sonita

Like us: farmersweekly.co.nz Follow us: @DairyFarmer15 Read us anywhere: farmersweekly.co.nz DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

Dairy Diary February 2021 February 2 – DairyNZ Tiller Talk Manawatu hosts a specialist pasture group.

Topics will include forage value index, regrassing, summer supplements and analysis on cost, and benefit to business and winter crops.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz February 4 – Lincoln University Lincoln University Dairy Demonstration Farm (LUDF) Focus Day is aimed at dairy farmers and dairy industry professionals. Come along and hear about season to-date performance, and research and development updates.

Info at http://www.siddc.org.nz/lu-dairy-farm/ February 9 – DairyNZ Lower North Island rural professional’s Know Your Numbers workshop. Network and exchange ideas on how to achieve better outcomes for our farmers.

Registration essential. Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz February 10 – DairyNZ Reach your goals faster with DairyNZ’s Biz Start event in Ashburton. This standalone event is part of our Biz Start series and packed full of great information about business structures, taxation and budgeting.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz February 10 - SMASH Weighing Up Your Options, Karamea. Darren and Jennifer Hislop will host this field day, where they will be looking into some of the features of their farm, including their new effluent and in-shed feeding systems.

Info at www.smallerherds.co.nz February 11 – DairyNZ Reach your goals faster with DairyNZ’s Biz Start event in Glenavy. It will focus on the various business structures, considerations around taxation and personal and cashflow budgeting.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz February 11 – DairyNZ Farmers and rural professionals are welcome to signup for the Good Yarn event in Manawatu. Good Yarn is a hands-on workshop that will give you the practical tools and confidence to be able to talk to people in rural communities about mental health.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

DAIRY FARMER

February 2021

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February 16 – Smash Positive Planning For the Future, Invercargill. Topics include keeping a lid on costs, breeding to fit your goals and succession planning.

Info at www.smallerherds.co.nz February 17 – Dairy Women’s Network Join us for a practical on-farm workshop about body condition scoring in Kaihere, Hauraki Plains. We’ll be out in a paddock with Ilyse Jennens from Franklin Vets (DairyNZ accredited) as she shows us how to condition score cows.

Info at www.dwn.co.nz/events February 23 – DairyNZ Succeed in business group is a forum for like-minded farmers, developed for those who want to enhance their skills and career options. A series of five events covering: goal setting, contracts, running an efficient office, budgets and cashflows, compliance and self-employment.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz February – Dairy Women’s Network Your farm business future, various dates and locations.

ASB and NZ CA Limited workshop focused on succession planning and preparing the next generation into farming and farm ownership.

Info at www.dwn.co.nz/events March – Dairy Women’s Network Make time for your people, various dates and locations. Free workshop and webinar series funded by New Zealand Dairy Farmers through the DairyNZ levy.

Attendees will gain knowledge about employment contracts and rosters, salary packages, accommodation requirements, as well as growth opportunities, wellbeing and building strong team relationships.

Info at www.dwn.co.nz/events

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