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Optimistic for dairy’s future

By Dr Tim Mackle

The outgoing DairyNZ chief executive shares his thoughts on the dairy industry as he leaves the job he has been doing for the past 15 years.

My time with DairyNZ has been an experience in celebrating the successes and embracing the challenges.

As a sector, we know how to farm well and we take great pride in delivering quality dairy food to Kiwis and the world. I’ve taken huge heart in how our farmers always rise up and continue to put their people, animals, environment and communities first.

We do that in the face of staffing challenges, milk price volatility, increasing regulation, disease and natural disasters and, more recently, inflation and high interest rates.

When dairy farmers stepped up as one of New Zealand’s essential services during the covid-19 lockdowns, adapting quickly to keep farming despite the constraints, it was in true Kiwi fashion.

I’m incredibly proud of our dedicated sector consistently delivering a significant contribution to the NZ economy. Last season dairy brought in $22 billion of export earnings, resulting in our sector contributing around $50bn to New Zealand’s economy.

Our sector was built by people focused on producing food for Kiwis and our global customers and much-needed export income for New Zealand.

That’s why I’m confident that the sector is well-placed as we look to the future.

A key part of that future is a focus on science and innovation. Our scientists work with dairy farmers to help solve complex problems, finding solutions that work in the unique pasture-based dairy systems.

To date there have been some incredible R&D projects at DairyNZ, focused on modernising workplaces, fertility gain and improving water quality.

For example, our successful Forages for Reduced Nitrate Leaching and Plantain Potency and Practice programmes have

helped reduce nitrate leaching from farm systems.

We’re now looking to reduce emissions through our dedicated low-methane R&D. This work aligns with customer needs and the policy discussion around how we farm now and into the future.

We want the right outcomes for our farmers and NZ. We know getting policies right helps ensure our sector –and NZ – continue to thrive.

DairyNZ will continue advocating hard to achieve this, backing our work and recommendations by science across animal care, water quality or climate change.

This includes emissions pricing and advocating for the delivery of a credible and workable emissions pricing system, as an alternative to the legislated NZ

After 15 years at the helm, Dairy NZ chief executive Tim Mackle has stepped down from the role and says he is optimistic and confident the dairy sector is well-placed for the future.

Emissions Trading Scheme. We will not accept a system that threatens dairy farm businesses and rural communities.

DairyNZ will continue rolling out relevant events and working to better connect and support farmers through their next part of the journey. Do get in touch with your local DairyNZ team for any support or advice across budgeting, regulation, staffing or seasonal advice.

As I reflect on my time with DairyNZ, there hasn’t been a day in 15 years I haven’t wanted to get out of bed and come to work. I’m lucky to have that passion for DairyNZ and the dairy farmers we support.

I am proud of the work farmers have achieved. I have always been, and will continue to be, one of dairy’s biggest advocates.

We have had some tough moments over the past two decades, but as a sector we always come together and collectively face those big issues.

The future is going to take that collective team effort we are so good at, and I’m optimistic, as dairy farmers are always focused on achieving the best outcomes. I look forward to seeing that continue.

Nga mihi nui

“We want the right outcomes for our farmers and NZ. We know getting policies right helps ensure our sector – and NZ –continue to thrive.”

Under the volcano

This Taranaki farm is wetter than most, and that means adapting the ‘rules’ of production to do what’s best for the livestock.

Taranaki farmers Brad and Penny Jordan own an 80ha dairy farm at Opunake where they milk 220 cows.

By Ross Nolly

Brad and Penny Jordan don’t always follow the manual, but with their Taranaki farm’s excellent figures they must be doing something right.

ATaranaki couple’s farming philosophy and their ability to farm profitably was put in the spotlight during a recent SMASH (Smaller Milk and Supply Herds) field day – but they do not believe they do anything special.

Brad and Penny Jordan milk 220 cows on an 80ha dairy farm nestled 7km from Mount Taranaki and Egmont National Park, which defines their farm’s climatic conditions.

SMASH had noticed that the Jordan’s farm profit per hectare was higher than the benchmark for similar sized farming operations, and that they’d held their farm working expenses to $4.36 per kg MS. The majority of that cost was stock feed.

Hosting the SMASH field day on the farm was a bit of a conundrum for

them, with Penny saying, “We don’t do anything special, we’re pretty boring.”

But achieving excellent figures in a challenging environment, with upwardspiralling costs, is no mean feat, and certainly not boring.

“One of the first things our farm consultant said to us when we started out was to keep things simple. We’ve stuck to that the whole way through,” Brad says.

Not having to pay for labour is a big cost saving. Right from the start they knew they wanted to run the farm without any staff.

“It might sound boring, but we just try to keep everything simple. You don’t have to do everything that everyone tells you that you must do. There’s no point doing things just for the sake of it,” Penny says.

They have owned their farm for 10 years and their farming philosophies are to keep things simple, and to feed their cows well. Their mantra of “If you don’t need it, don’t buy it” has proven itself and helped them farm profitably.

Brad grew up in a farming family and after leaving school he spent 12 months at Taratahi in Masterton completing a National Certificate in Agribusiness Management. At the end of the course he stayed on to work over the Christmas holiday period until the staff and students returned in the New Year.

He then moved to Aokautere (Palmerston North) for 12 months for a

FARM FACTS

• Farm owners: Brad and Penny Jordan.

• Location: Opunake, Taranaki.

• Farm size: 80ha and a 45ha runoff.

• Cows: 220 Friesian crossbred cows.

• Production: 2022-2023: 105,000kg milk solids and average 477kg MS per cow. Target MS production per hectare is 1,500kg.

• Farm working expenses: $4.36 per kg

dairy assistant role on a 500-cow farm before shifting to Mokoia, south Taranaki, to work for a year on another 500-cow farm.

He then returned to his parent’s farm at Hawera, milking 150 cows. Two years later his parents bought the 140-cow farm across the road and milked the herds in each of the sheds for two years before amalgamating the farms, building

Continued page 10

“We once fed PKE from trolleys in the paddock, but we were making a lot of mess and often got the tractor stuck. One day I looked at the farm on Google Earth and saw all of those bare spots and it didn’t look good.”

Brad Jordan

The farm has 4.5ha and 1.44ha QEII National Trust reserves and a 0.47ha fenced-off area of native forest. They set predator traps and usually catch 100 possums per year in the reserves, and stoats often along their riparian plantings. Brad clears the grass away from a predator box trap entrance.

a new 30-a-side herringbone cowshed, and milking 300 cows.

When a neighbouring farm came up for sale they bought it and increased the herd number to 500.

SAVE FIVE

During this period Penny worked in Hawera supermarkets, boarding kennels and a drapery.

“Brad began having issues with unreliable staff, and because I was already

milking with him on my days off, I left the drapery to work with him on his parents’ farm,” Penny says.

Two years later, they made the jump to sharemilking and took on a threeyear contract and went 50:50 on a 70ha Manutahi farm milking 200 cows. They leased a 90ha farm at Alton then returned to sharemikling.

“We only stayed there for two of the three years because our current farm came on the market and they let us go so we could purchase it,” Brad says.

“We went through quite a few jobs to get into a position to buy this farm. We were attracted to it because the fouryear-old 34-bail rotary cowshed had ACR, Protrack, walk-over scales, teat sprayers, drafting, and an automatic plant wash system.

“It’s basically a one-person shed, which worked well for us when the kids were young. It meant that one of us could always go to their events while the other ran the farm.”

The farm is a System Three and they have a 45ha runoff 2km away that is primarily used to grow their young stock.

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This season’s production got off to a slow start due to the inclement spring weather, but has now caught up with last season’s figures. They target 105,000kg milk solids and average 477kg MS per cow. The cows average 470 -500kg in bodyweight and they aim for them to produce their bodyweight in MS.

Being in such close proximity to the mountain means that the farm has both rocky paddocks and some quite wet areas. This makes pasture management a tricky balancing act during the wetter seasons. All of the swampy areas are fenced off.

The wet weather and ground conditions were the catalyst to build a feedpad in 2017.

“We once fed PKE from trolleys in the paddock, but we were making a lot of mess and often got the tractor stuck.

One day I looked at the farm on Google Earth and saw all of those bare spots and it didn’t look good,” Brad says.

“The pugging was losing us a lot of pasture too, so we decided to build the feedpad. It’s probably the best thing we’ve done here. The timing was perfect, because the following spring was incredibly wet; a real nightmare. We’d never had it that wet before.”

They initially used trolleys on the feedpad, and were surprised how much feed the cows spilt onto the concrete. They then realised just how much the cows had been wasting in the paddock when they flicked it out of the troughs and trod it into the ground.

A cow barn is next on the to-do list, but they’re still contemplating what type to build. They say a composting bedding home would be the best choice, and

could be sited beside the feedpad.

The farm is subject to strong winds, so whatever home is chosen it must be able to withstand them. The farm does dry out at times, but generally it’s relatively summer safe.

“When we first came here we had to learn what areas were too wet to have the cows on at certain times of the year. But you don’t learn that until you’ve been here a year or two,” Brad says.

“The fertiliser trucks were always getting stuck and we often had to pull them out. So we began applying it ourselves with the tractor, so we could do it when the weather was suitable and avoid the wetter areas,” Penny says.

Only a couple of paddocks are cropped for silage, which amounts to 50-100 bales. A further 100 are made at the runoff. The bales from the runoff are either brought back to the farm to be fed out during summer or early spring, or they stay at the runoff to be fed to the stock there.

“We buy 100-120 hay bales to feed out over winter. We prefer to buy it because we’ve found that if we make hay up here it always tends to be later into summer, and it takes a long time for the grass to come back,” Brad says.

“At the moment we’re feeding maize silage daily on the feedpad after afternoon milking. We hold them until after milking to give them an equal chance at the feed. They get 7kg of maize silage each.”

Continued page 12

The 220 predominantly Friesian herd produces 105,000kg milk solids and average 477kg MS per cow. They are fed 300t of supplement through the in-shed feed system.

The farm has its own stone and sand quarry for use on the farm.

About 300t of supplement is fed through the in-shed feed system. It comprises 4.5kg per cow daily of mostly PKE. But over the past two years they’ve been adding 15% tapioca and 5% minerals to the mix.

They try to keep feed costs as low as possible, but over the past few years they’ve begun buying maize silage to feed during autumn.

The farm is split into 26 paddocks and 24-hour grazing is used for most of the season.

“We get down to 23-24 day rounds when we take paddocks out for silage. But we mostly stay on the same rotation until April 1 when we go out to a 40-day round, and on May 1 we use a 55-day round. We do grow some grass through winter, but nothing like they do down by the coast,” Brad says.

Their production per hectare was higher compared to most farms as their supplementary feed costs were much higher. But they’ve demonstrated that it works for them. They know that if they want to achieve their targets they need the 300t of in-shed feed and 100t of spring maize silage.

“We don’t do any cropping, so don’t need the machinery or have to spend time putting it in. Topping is another time-consuming job and expense. We used to top the farm, but now have the philosophy that we’re better off eating

that grass. We just keep a few more cows and top up with supplements when needed,” Brad says.

If a drought does occur, the coastal farms tend to dry out about three weeks earlier, so Brad and Penny get a threeweek heads-up to get prepared. If there’s plenty of leftover silage they only buy enough hay to fill the gap.

“We don’t do any re-grassing, but do undersow areas that were pugged during winter. If a pasture is growing well we don’t see any need to re-grass it, which is another cost saving,” Brad says.

“It’s pretty difficult getting new pasture established up here and contractors aren’t keen to work in stony paddocks.”

Penny says, “A couple of years ago we had a severe drought, so we just bought extra feed. Instead of drying off, we continued milking and had our best season.

“We never made any money, but it paid for the feed that we would’ve needed anyway. You still have to feed your cows and set yourself up for the upcoming season.”

The herd on the feedpad in the early evening after afternoon milking. They are fed maize silage on the feedpad.

Milking is pretty easy when they both milk. The cows are usually in and out in 50 minutes and they’re finished milking in one and a half hours – an hour less than their previous farm. Two hours extra work per day for two people quickly adds up, and freeing those extra hours was equivalent to employing a part-time worker.

Calving begins on July 23. They calve 230 predominately Friesian crossbred cows, and milk 220.

“We’ve got a few bigger cows but they have trouble backing off the platform. We don’t really want big cows on our wet paddocks. The smaller cows are hardy too,” Brad says.

They keep 50 replacement heifers and rear 20-40 beef calves. The heifer

Penny and Brad’s farm was in the spotlight recently during a SMASH field day highlighting their profitable system.

calves go to the runoff in November and the beef calves in December. The beef calves provide diversification, help with cash flow, and utilise the runoff to its full potential.

New-born calves are collected daily and brought to a calf shed close to the cowshed. When they’re four days old they’re moved to a bigger shed with woodchip bedding.

The calves are fed colostrum twice daily and vat milk when the colostrum runs out. The calves aren’t given meal or hay until they’re three to four weeks old.

“We keep them in the shed until they’re bigger. They’re weaned when they’re around 100kg, and for the first ones that’s usually around the start of AI in October. But we can be still feeding beef calves right through until Christmas,” Penny says.

Mating begins on October 17 and comprises 4-5 weeks of AI before finishing off with bulls. Two teams of two bulls are used, one Angus and one yearling Jersey. The bulls are rotated

The

every two days for five weeks. Jersey bulls are run with the heifers.

“We’ve used short-gestation bulls in the past, but over the last few years our in-calf rates have increased, so we don’t have many late cows,” Brad says.

“My son and I have a contest where we each pick our bulls and compare our choices. The last couple of years we’ve picked the same bulls.”

They prefer a Friesian-type, 450-470kg cow.

To be selected, their bulls must be more than 80% black, have good temperament, milking speed, good traits other than production, no negative traits and be easy calving. They’re always high BW bulls, but they don’t specifically seek out high BW and have never really focused on it.

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This year they had a 91.6% in-calf rate and last year’s was around 92. When they first came to the farm their in-calf rate was 96% but it dropped each year until it reached 84%.

The cause was a rare animal health issue where they discovered that their cows were very low in phosphorous.

They still don’t know what caused the issue. The optimal cow phosphorous level is 2 mmol/L blood serum, but their cows showed 0.4 mmol/L.

“We tested our soil and discovered that the phosphorous was locked in the soil and not getting to the grass.

The vet took blood samples and we began injecting them with Vitamin B. They were going off the milk, going

Continued page 14

herd was affected with a rare animal health issue and the Jordans discovered that their cows were very low in phosphorus. Brad dusts the maize silage fed with a high concentration of phosphorus.

“You’ve got to work hard and put in the time if your aim is to become a farm owner. You mustn’t overextend yourselves. When we started out we bought secondhand equipment and we’ve still got one of those tractors. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it.”

Penny Jordan

down, and dying very quickly,” Penny says.

“One day we had three that weren’t looking good, just after we’d had a couple die. The vet took blood samples and after the first sample said ‘Ooh, that doesn’t look good.’ The sample was brown, just like chocolate milk,” Brad says.

After receiving the results they injected many of the cows with a phosphorus supplement.

“The affected cows were becoming anaemic within a week or two of calving, and went downhill very fast. Until we discovered the cause of the problem, it seemed like there was nothing we could do. They were just dropping dead and the vets had never seen anything like it before,” Penny says.

On the vet’s recommendation, they dusted the maize silage fed on the feedpad with a high-concentration phosphorus. They noticed an improvement in cow health within weeks.

The cows now cycle much better without needing to use any CIDRs. They believe the rising in-calf rate is a combination of the phosphorus supplement and the cows being very well fed.

“We lost about 10 cows. It was so stressful seeing them like that, you didn’t want to go back to them because you didn’t know whether you’d find more dead ones,” Penny says.

“We weren’t used to having dead cows, and to have three or four in one day

wasn’t a nice experience. We now use high phosphorus content mineral blocks on the feedpad too. The in-shed feed was mineralised, so we thought we had our bases covered,” Brad says.

were monitored they noticed that any ill cows quickly lost bodyweight. A cow with mastitis often lost one kilogram of bodyweight per day. Brad usually gets the cows in, so is familiar with the order that they tend to walk home and into the shed. Any lagging cows are given extra scrutiny.

“Now, we rely on the ‘eye-ometer’. It’s during spring when it’s really wet that we can have mastitis issues,” Penny says “Because it’s only the two of us who milk here, we know the cows and are familiar with the way they look, so can usually spot issues pretty quickly. During the spring we use a handheld teat sprayer as well as the automatic system.”

The feedback from the attendees at the SMASH field day was positive, but many attendees were puzzled why they didn’t carry out many of the practices that are deemed essential.

“We were asked why we didn’t herd test. Our shed is difficult to test in. Most of the attendees were surprised that we didn’t test, and didn’t know of anyone else who didn’t. If you find something that works for you, don’t change it.”

Mastitis is the farm’s main animal health issue and Brad and Penny are always on the alert for it. They think it’s mostly due to the amount of rainfall they receive. But their stocking rate of 3.3-3.4 cows per hectare can be tough to manage when it’s wet.

The yard scales aren’t compatible with Protrack. But when the scales

Brad has never been too concerned about the figures received from herd testing, except for SSC. He finds it easier to strip the herd, because a herd test only gives him results for one particular day.

“Herd testing is expensive. I’d rather spend the money on dry-cowing the entire herd at the end of the season.

Brad and Penny in their 4.5ha QE2 reserve bush looking at the amount of regrowth. The predominance of Kawakawa and Nikau palms (mostly coastal species) demonstrates the lack of frosts.

“The affected cows were becoming anaemic within a week or two of calving, and went downhill very fast. Until we discovered the cause of the problem, it seemed like there was nothing we could do. They were just dropping dead and the vets had never seen anything like it before.”

Penny Jordan

We’re a wet farm and it makes sense for us to treat them all,” Brad says.

“We use a short-acting treatment because we don’t have an extremely high SCC. At the moment it’s sitting around 130,000.”

Looking ahead, they would like to purchase a drystock farm to rear beef or graze heifers, and employ someone to run the dairy farm.

“We still enjoy the farming lifestyle, but would eventually like a change from daily milking. I really like rearing our beef calves and watching them grow until they leave here two and a half years later,” Brad says.

“We’ll still be here in five years, but hopefully in 10 years we’ll be on a drystock farm,” Penny says.

Brad says that getting into a dairy farm is still achievable, but you must stick to the goal.

“We never thought we’d get our own farm, but we just kept working at it. It’s a bit different now though. We were lower order sharemilkers and there’s not much of that about now,” Brad says.

He’s always liked sharemilking or leasing compared to contract milking,

because during good seasons it’s often possible to make more income than anticipated.

“You’ve got to work hard and put in the time if your aim is to become a

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farm owner,” Penny says. “You mustn’t overextend yourselves. When we started out we bought second-hand equipment and we’ve still got one of those tractors. If you don’t need it, don’t buy it.” n

Penny in the milking shed. After finishing milking she sets the auto platform washing system going.

Risk of souring on milk

By Gerald Piddock

The new milking season is fast approaching, but what Fonterra’s opening forecast will be is anyone’s guess.

The recent gains in the GDT may be enough to prop up the price so it sits something close to where it currently is for the 2022-2023 season.

Even the 0.9% fall on May 17 is unlikely to have had too much effect on the milk price, according to NZX.

Unfortunately, one thing that isn’t going to change in the near term is the input costs. There’s also the likelihood of a recession in the second half of this year, according to BNZ Markets head of research Stephen Toplis.

“We were always going to have a recession. The question is, how high do interest rates have to go to get us there?” he said during a presentation at an open day held by dairy farming group Southern Pastures on one of its farms in South Waikato last month.

The impact of those rate increases have not flowed fully through the economy and he predicted household mortgages would hit 6.5%.

In the rural sector, a disproportionately high number of farmers have floating rates, and according to new data from the Reserve Bank, the dairy sector is currently paying $1.20/kg milk solids on interest rates.

“What’s even more distressing is that in 2021, that number was 50 cents.”

The bigger issue for farmers is not the payout, but the dollar value of their cost structure, he said.

Those costs will ease, eventually putting farmers in a much better position.

“But at the moment in the next 12-18 months, there’s no way of avoiding it being a really difficult time to operate, it’s just a given.”

Everyone’s feeling the pinch and there will be keen interest to see what farmers’ spend at Fieldays will be like.

Consumers are feeling it too and

you have to wonder whether the high prices people are paying for food in the supermarket are starting to impact farming’s social licence.

Near the end of the open day in a panel discussion, Southern Pastures managing director Prem Maan wondered why the dairy industry and wider primary sector are not better supported by New Zealanders.

One big factor and certainly not the only factor is economic food insecurity brought about by the massive increase in retail prices.

It’s hard to support an industry when you cannot afford the products it creates, especially when you have to stare at them every week during a weekly shop.

If you think that’s an exaggeration, go and spend an hour at a Pak’nSave on a Saturday morning and people-watch. Look at the stress people are under as they weigh up what they can and cannot afford on their budgets.

It’s a complicated issue, and while farmers don’t set retail prices, its cold comfort to shoppers. There’s also little appreciation for the costs incurred by farmers around food production. No wonder resentment builds.

This isn’t a new idea. Last year’s KPMG Agribusiness agenda described NZ as having a two- tier food system. One is world-leading, producing highquality food to global consumers. The second gets treated as an afterthought, combining excess export grade products with imported food, food grown by farmers scaled to supply the domestic market, or product that did not meet export standards, and food from community initiatives.

“The export system is highly responsive to the needs of the end consumer. The domestic system is geared to meet the needs of the supermarket duopoly. We talk proudly about one.

“We hardly mention the other. This must change. We need one food system

that works for New Zealanders,” the KPMG report said.

Solutions are also complicated. Our domestic prices for meat and dairy are dictated by export prices.

Changing that for dairy would mean re-writing DIRA, which is easier said than done given it has just gone through a revamp.

Even if somehow this occurred and Fonterra no longer set the milk price like it does every quarter, what would take its place? The supermarkets?

You just have to look at how badly farmers were screwed on price over the past decade across the Tasman when supermarket giant Coles slashed milk prices to A$1/L, amending that policy only in 2019.

Sure, it was a great deal for consumers, but farmers, not so much.

But supermarkets can play a role, especially when it comes to price transparency. It’s a pity the government’s response to the Commerce Commission’s inquiry into their conduct did not include more recommendations around this, like making the two main operators publish the wholesale price of what they pay for products every quarter.

And when they inevitably whine about commercial sensitivities, remind them of the economically privileged position they are in as a duopoly operator in New Zealand.

So what can farmers do? Apart from keep telling their story as well as they can – which many do and do very well –the options are limited to keep donating to charities like Meat the Need, which now takes milk as well as meat.

The silver lining is that this high inflation period is expected to eventually ease and interest rates fall. While the long-term outlook for dairy is for reasonably solid demand, those lower rates should make dairy products affordable to NZ consumers if international prices remain high.

Each month the Milk Monitor delves into the dairy industry and gives us the lowdown on the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between.

Dairy’s top women

By Gerald Piddock

Taranaki farmer and community leader Donna Cram has been named Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year for 2023 in recognition of her contributing to the dairy sector with passion, drive, innovation and leadership.

Cram is a fourth-generation dairy farmer from Taranaki, farming 107 effective hectares plus a nearby 42ha runoff, milking 290 cows for the new season.

She is heavily involved in her community as the Taranaki Catchment Communities Inc chair and founder, part of the DairyNZ Dairy Environment Leaders, an ambassador for Federated Farmers, a councillor on the Taranaki Regional Council and a trustee at Dairy Trust Taranaki.

She says she defines leadership as bringing people together and getting buy-in at grassroots level. Achieving that and using the skills of the people in those groups is key.

“I’ve been told I’m really hard to say no to,” she laughs.

“It’s about people. I love a good discussion and I think we don’t do that enough. For innovation and good ideas, quite often it comes from four different people, and I think that’s really important.”

Cram says she does not believe all of her ideas are good ideas – but through listening to others, she is able adopt and collaborate with ideas she learns from others.

“Some of the good things that have happened, chances are that other people have been involved.

“You never lead alone.”

Dairy Women’s Network (DWN) trustee Donna Smit says what stood out for the judges was the way that Cram inspires her community and especially encourages young people.

“Her ability to see the big picture and then mobilise those around her was something the judges’ thought was really special,” Smit says.

“They were looking for commitment, drive and passion for the dairy sector, someone who is a positive role model for women in dairying. They were looking for

a strong performer who demonstrates leadership within her community, and with a wider circle of influence, and who epitomises the ‘bigger, brighter, bolder’ mantra shared through the DWN Conference.”

Cram received a scholarship of up to $20,000 for an approved and personally chosen development programme, or professional/business coaching and/ or learning experience for winning the award.

She says she is still deciding how best to use the opportunity that scholarship will bring.

“It will definitely be around leadership and governance, and I would like it to be on a world stage rather than local.”

She was presented with the award at the DWN’s recent conference in Invercargill.

Also recognised was Matamata dairy farmer and a member of DWN’s Te Awamutu Business Group, Rachel Usmar, who was named DWN Regional Leader of the Year.

Usmar says she felt humbled winning the award, finding it hard to believe that her everyday actions inspired others.

“I just do it because I love it.”

Usmar left school when she was 16, working as a hairdresser for 16 years before buying a property and becoming a calf rearer.

“I did a few things in between but never felt fully satisfied just being a hairdresser,” she says.

Over the past eight years she has also worked as an AB technician for LIC and more recently has branched into dairy farming by purchasing a herd and leasing a 65ha farm for the coming season and milking 200 cows in the Matamata-Tirau district.

Over the past two seasons, Usmar has also run a native tree nursery, aiming in part to get plants into schools to educate children about the industry.

A major supporter of her endeavours has been husband Jared, who works as a ground-spread fertiliser truck operator, contracted to a local ground-spreading business.

When asked how she manages these tasks, she laughs:

“You could say time management is one of my strengths. I wake up in the morning and I say, ‘I’ve got this and this to get done and what’s the most efficient way of getting it done?’”

Usmar initially joined DWN to meet other like-minded women. Then she realised the business and leadership opportunities that existed within the organisation.

“I’ve been told I’m really hard to say no to.”

Donna Cram

Taranaki farmer Donna Cram is the Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year for 2023.

Westland chief executive Richard Wyeth took on the role knowing the company was making a loss but he and his team have begun to turn those losses around.

Zero 2 hero

By Tony Benny

Turning a multimillion-dollar loss around to become a profitable business is no easy feat.

When it comes to challenges, they don’t come much bigger than turning multimillion-dollar loss-making concern into a profitable business, but that’s what Westland Milk Products CEO Richard Wyeth and his team have achieved in a little over two years.

In 2021 Westland, now owned by Chinese company Yili, lost $80 million. Just a year later the company reported a profit of $40m, an improvement of $120m.

“The result that we got last year will certainly be the biggest turnaround I’ll ever achieve in my career so that’s pretty rewarding,” Wyeth says.

While favourable market conditions certainly played a part in Westland’s return to profit, it was equally down to the strategy Wyeth and his leadership team developed, called Zero-2-100.

“The strategy was executed very well and we got the perfect market conditions for what we were doing.

“My team came together exceptionally

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well, we had a good plan and we had the capital from Yili to deliver it well. You’ve got to have a good plan, capital and good people and then it was all about execution, all about making it happen.”

Wyeth’s been making things happen throughout his career, with key roles in the establishment of both Open Country Dairy and Miraka as notable career highlights. He grew up on a Wairarapa sheep and beef farm but with farming enduring the Rogernomics era at the time, he was encouraged to find another career and headed to Canterbury University to study law.

“I was never going to be a lawyer — I did two years but I used to sit there wondering, ‘What am I doing here?’ and I ended up doing a BCom and a BA in commerce. There was a lesson in that, find something you love and do that, don’t try and do something you don’t enjoy.”

As a student Wyeth was a keen social rugby player and captain of his team and ended up running a 400-player

competition in Christchurch at the same time as completing a postgraduate diploma in sport management.

“I’ve always like organising things and I guess being a chief executive is just organising things at the end of the day.”

He took a sales role at DB Breweries, followed by a stint at Coca-Cola.

“I always knew I wanted to run something, I didn’t know what it was, but it was all about picking up skills along the way.

“Bunnings taught me about end-toend business, it taught me about inwards and outwards goods, and Lochore Contractors was based around managing staff and logistics. At DB Breweries I learnt to sell and Coca-Cola liked having young managers so I got more people experience as well as negotiating key contracts.”

He then had “a multitude” of jobs, starting in the graduate management of what is now Bunnings and then, aged 24, he was the transport manager at the trucking company of his father’s cousin Kevin Lochore, former All Blacks legend Brian’s brother.

“We had 20 trucks and 40 drivers. It was all about learning how to manage people.”

He took a job with a genetics company to round out his experience.

“I wanted to learn about running a P&L, to really understand how to run a full business because when you’re in sales and those other things, you’re not really running a business.”

Early in his career Wyeth changed jobs often and he recalls being warned by

Continued page 22

Westland Milk Products is owned by Chinese company Yili, which bought the company in 2019. They invested lot of money into Westland to turn things around but it didn’t work.

“My team came together exceptionally well, we had a good plan and we had the capital from Yili to deliver it well.”

older colleagues that so many changes would not look good on his CV, but he didn’t see it that way at all.

“I think I only applied for one or two of those roles along the way, I was asked, so I was pretty lucky in that sense. I was picking up skills, whether it was running people, negotiating contracts, learning how to sell, running a full P&L, all of those things, so that when opportunities came, I had the skillset to apply.”

In 2007 Wyeth joined Open Country Cheese, which had been established the previous year.

“It was absolutely the wild west, I mean some of the pictures I’ve got in my mind of what we did back in the day, you’d be horrified,” he laughs.

“But if you look at what Open Country Cheese was then to what Open Country Dairy is today, it’s just an amazing success story. I can’t claim any credit for that, the Talleys own that business and they’ve taken it from strength to strength.

“I learnt a lot around managing projects, around building factories and setting up processes and systems.”

One lesson was the importance of having a sales policy, something that was hammered home to Wyeth when he realised one of the company’s top salesmen had actually sold more cheese than Open Country could then produce.

“The market was going up and we’d already over-sold and we couldn’t even fulfil the orders and basically we were losing money incredibly quickly.

“I had to go out and say, ‘Look we’ve got this wrong and we need to trim

all your orders back by a percentage’, and there were really challenging conversations,” he recalls, adding that he still has relationships with most of the people he had those conversations with back in 2008.

Wyeth became global sales manager, over three years seeing sales grow from 20,000t to 120,000t of cheese and whole milk powder a year.

geothermal energy so we had the lowest carbon footprint of any dairy processor in New Zealand.”

“We were profitable basically from the start. I think we broke even in year one and then we were profitable from there on.”

Wyeth loved his job at Miraka, overseeing it from start-up to a multimillion-dollar export business and with his two children George and Sophie at school in Hawke’s Bay, he and wife Sarah had no plans to leave Taupō. But then he received a call from a recruitment firm who were looking for a new chief executive at Westland.

“I understood Yili had purchased the business in 2019 so I was very aware of what had gone on and I knew the business had a lot of debt previously and was in a pretty challenging position. But when they approached me and talked about it I thought, ‘I’ve always been up for a challenge so why not?’

“I’ve always liked Westland, the people especially. It’s quite similar to the Wairarapa where I grew up, in terms of that small rural feeling and good, downto-earth characters.”

But the dairy company he’d been appointed to run was in a very poor situation.

“I didn’t do my due diligence as well as I should,” Wyeth admits.

“I knew they were losing money and I thought that was about $40m a year but when I came in, they’d lost $70m in 2020 and the forecast for 2021 was to lose $90m. We managed to peg that back to $80m but the thing about that is it makes you make some very quick and clear decisions.”

First step was to cease infant formula production.

“The thing about dairy in New Zealand and what I love about it is the scale, the international side. When I worked for Coca-Cola and DB in New Zealand, they’re big iconic brands in New Zealand but they’re still New Zealand, whereas when you get into dairy you’re selling to 40 different countries.”

In 2011 Wyeth was offered the chief executive role at Miraka, a Māori incorporation-owned start-up dairy company based in Taupō that planned to use geothermal energy to run the new plant.

“That was starting with a paddock. It was an amazing project. I think I was 35 and it was like, ‘Right, let’s build this thing’. We built a whole milk powder dryer and the beauty of it was we used

“They’d invested a lot of money but it didn’t fly so I said, ‘We’re getting back to basics, we’re not doing that.’”

An extension to the butter plant in Hokitika had already been signed off and it was decided to concentrate on selling butter and skim milk powder at the same time as getting out of the infant formula business. A 49-year-old dryer was decommissioned and with that coal consumption was reduced by 20%.

Another win was improving yields by 1%, which basically meant reducing the amount of product that went down the drain.

“One per cent of 60 million kg of solids at $10 a solid is a lot of money.”

The strategy behind the changes is called Zero-2-100, which translates as zero cost to quality and zero harm to

Westland lost $80 million in 2021 but last year reported a profit of $40m, an improvement of $120m – making it the biggest turnaround Richard Wyeth has achieved in his career to date.

“I think it’s been exciting for the whole business to be on the journey we’ve been on ... I do get bored easily but I’m certainly not bored at the moment.”

Westland’s people, $2 per milk solid value improvement and $100m improvement in profit.

With his management team, Wyeth sat down and worked out how to improve the business by that $100m. Concentrating on butter and protein production, improving yields, reducing coal consumption and shutting down the infant formula plant were among the changes, along with putting both a foreign exchange and a sales policy in place.

“We didn’t have a foreign exchange policy and we weren’t selling at the right time.”

The foreign exchange changes resulted in $10m of extra profit and while a similar result hasn’t yet been achieved for sales, Wyeth is confident it will be in 2023.

“We’ve delivered a great result for 2022, we now need to continue to drive that and be profitable in 2023. We’re on track to deliver another profit. It is early days but we’re certainly in a good position.”

Richard and Sarah live in Christchurch, where most of Westland’s management team is based. Their daughter Sophie

is still at school in Hawke’s Bay and son George has followed his dad to Canterbury University, though he’s studying engineering, not commerce.

Most weeks Wyeth gets over to the West Coast where the business that is so important to the regional economy is based.

“From what I understand we’re 60% of GDP on the West Coast – we put in about $550m of milk payments. There’s tourism, there’s still a bit of mining and there’s dairy farming, so absolutely we’re

important for the West Coast and we don’t take that role lightly either.”

While the turnaround at Westland has been spectacular, Wyeth knows there’s more to be done and he’s itching to get the job done.

“I think it’s been exciting for the whole business to be on the journey we’ve been on. I don’t think we’re as good as we can be right down to the front line so there’s still more to do. I do get bored easily but I’m certainly not bored at the moment.”

Westland Milk Product picks up milk from 386 suppliers from all over the West Coast and pays out about $550 million in milk payments.

The devil wears gumboots

By Cheyenne Nicholson

From a high-paced lifestyle in the cutthroat fashion industry to South Auckland farmer and social media manager, a sharemilker knows the ups and downs of switching careers and finding her happy place.

On the surface, there don’t appear to be many similarities between running a dairy and beef farm – until you dig a little deeper.

“One thing I’ve been able to utilise from my career in fashion is the ability to remove emotion from the equation,” Amber Carpenter says.

“The fashion industry is cutthroat, you can’t have emotion, and you have to treat it like a business. Farming by nature is emotion, you’re attached to the land, the animals – all of it. But sometimes you have to make hard decisions and remove emotion from the equation to be able to push the business in the right direction.”

Carpenter grew up a beach girl and wondered why on earth anyone would want to live rurally. Today, she lives and works on a dairy and beef farm, milking 450 cows. The farm split-calves 100 cows in autumn and the remaining 350 in the spring, with autumn-born calves going to one of the two beef blocks nearby. The farm team totals five including Carpenter and husband Fraser.

“I loved working for Karen, she is very inspirational and knows her business inside and out. She works hard and is not afraid of a challenge. It was very much an entry-level job, so similar to the lead role on The Devil Wears Prada. It was a brilliant start to my fashion career.”

When not busy doing coffee runs, mending clothes, sorting clothes and everything else her role entailed, she made time to spend with friends. One such friend invited her to a party in Karaka, south of Auckland.

“At the time, I thought, why am I going to a party in Karaka of all places? But I went and that’s where I met Fraser. I thought ‘Oh yeah, he’s a bit of alright’ and that was that!”

Fraser, a fourth-generation dairy farmer, was working as a mechanic at the time but made the move back into

farming not long after the two met. Shortly after, Amber became a country girl.

“Back then, gosh that was 16 years ago now, the commute from the farm we were on to Auckland wasn’t too bad. I ended up loving rural life, which is funny because I always used to wonder why people would live rurally.”

Her career in fashion was on the fast track and she was flourishing, and she and Fraser were making plans for their future in farming.

One of his goals was to be a sharemilker before he turned 30. So they came up with a plan, hustled and made it happen. Their first year sharemilking was arguably one of the hardest years to start with a $3.90 payout.

“We had no retros and were waking up each morning to go to work to basically

Like many teenage girls she had an interest in fashion, and it led her to Auckland University of Technology for a Bachelor of Design majoring in fashion. As part of her degree she had to work at Fashion Week. Here she worked on some of Karen Walker’s shows, and eventually landed her first out-of-university job with the label.

South Auckland sharemilker Amber Carpenter swapped her stiletto heels and career in fashion for gumboots to work full time on the farm. She now also manages social media accounts for clients.

“Coming from the fashion world where it’s a case of ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’, farming is just so different. Everyone wants to help and give advice and encourage you.”

lose money. To survive I really had to put all my skills from my corporate career into action. A big part of role career was

making money and making businesses successful, skills we really needed those first few years.”

That was almost nine years ago, and since then the couple have an awardwinning careers as sharemilkers winning the 2017 Share Farmer of the year for Auckland/Hauraki in the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards (NZDIA).

“I was a part-time dairy farmer and full-time corporate executive. But I really enjoyed it. There was a running joke though that no one in the farming space thought that I was real, that Fraser had made up his wife, because no one had ever met me. When there were events on I was often overseas or in town working. Then we entered the awards and people were like ‘Oh, you’re real.’”

That same year she gave birth to their first child, Oliver, and had every intention of returning to work when her maternity leave was up, but with a number of factors at play and a long commute to the city it wasn’t so cut and dried anymore. While the couple deliberated what to do next, Fraser, half jokingly, half seriously recommended she jump into the role of regional manager for NZDIA.

“We’d had a little bit to drink and

Continued page 26

Fraser is a fourth-generation farmer who was working as a mechanic when he met Amber but moved back into farming shortly afterwards. Amber then became a country girl. Fraser with son Oliver and Amber with Noah get out on the farm.

someone was asking who was next in the role and Fraser said ‘Oh Amber will do it, she needs something to do.’ It was the best thing I did. He says I’m a bit like a caged lion when I’m not using my brain

in a different capacity to the farm, so it was perfect.”

Carpenter has since moved into the role of executive chairperson with NZDIA, a role she’s done for the past three

seasons, and says she enjoys being part of the incredible team who keep the awards alive for other farmers to make the most out of.

“The awards for us were just amazing, we got so much out of it and I love being part of that for other people.”

Eventually, they had to make a decision about her return to work. Weighing everything up, she decided the time was right to leave the corporate world and step, boots and all, into the farm business.

“I knew in my soul it was the right thing but I really struggled with it. I’d had a really successful career and was good at what I did, so it was a big transition for me.

“I’d lived on the farm for 10 years by that point but I’d never been there for long periods at a time. Then suddenly I left my job, had this baby that I didn’t know what to do with and was on my own. I also suffered badly with imposter syndrome.”

The farming community and the connections she made through NZDIA and Kellogg Rural Leadership helped immensely. She was astounded at how

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In 2017, Fraser and Amber won the Share Farmer of the Year for Auckland/Hauraki in the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards. This led to Amber taking on the regional manager role for NZDIA, and she has been the executive chairperson for the past three seasons.

welcoming and open the industry was.

“Coming from the fashion world where it’s a case of ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’, farming is just so different. Everyone wants to help and give advice and encourage you.”

A few years later and with another child, Noah, to add to their wee family, things were going really well. Until the lockdowns of 2020 saw Carpenter pacing again, so she decided to start looking for an off-farm job. Her requirements for a job were simple: work from home, flexible, creative.

While Fraser was doubtful she’d find a job that would fit the bill, it wasn’t long until she received a message from Chelsea Millar, owner of Grass Roots Media (GRM). Having never done writing or social media before, she wasn’t sure if the role at the social media management company was for her.

Turns out it was.

“The Auckland lockdowns were really tough and during my motherhood journey and journey to being a farmer I felt like I’d lost a little bit of myself I guess and in many ways getting back into a career outside of farming got me back on my journey to be fully fledged Amber again.”

Her role entails working with a number of GRM clients, who hail from all parts of the primary sector, to formulate a strategy and content plan for their social media platforms. She meets with each client every month to formulate the

month’s content and align it to their wider business goals.

“Social media is this amazing platform for businesses and people to tell their stories. There is so much more to farming that people outside the sector just don’t know about, and part of my job is to help get that information out there into the world.”

Keeping up with social media trends and communicating with others online on behalf of her client accounts plays a key role in ensuring success in the social media space, so while it might seem like an easy job, there’s a lot that goes on in the background to make sure every post hits the mark.

The role allows her to embrace her creative side by tailoring content to fit each client’s unique brand voice, and through creating graphics, something she lost touch with in the latter years of her fashion career. It’s not without a laugh or two along the way either.

“Having a team with GRM has been invaluable. On farm it’s often just me in the office while others are out on farm. So even though it’s all virtual, I’ve always got someone to chat to or share a laugh with. They’re a super talented team and honestly, I’ve just learnt so much.”

As a self-described type-A personality, organisation is the key to her life to fit in all the things she’s got on her plate. Google Calendar synced to Frasers’ phone lets them both know where they are each day and spending some time in the evenings to prepare for the next day usually keeps the wheels of their household turning nicely.

While lacking experience in the digital space, she bought to the table a wealth of farming knowledge and experience, which is crucial to being able to help clients navigate the world of social media and effectively communicate their message to the world. She said she’s learnt a lot on the job with the help of a supportive and knowledgeable team.

“Fraser is a huge part of being able to do everything. We work really well together and have complementary skills. While there are parts of the year where I am solo mumming it for a while we just roll with it. Kids and farming rarely go to plan so you have to give yourself some grace for those days when the shit hits the fan.”

From the city to the country, she has found her own way to forge a path in the dairy industry and says that now, she can’t imagine doing anything else. She has found her happy place. n

For tips and ideas, visit farmstrong.co.nz

Sam Whitelock Farmstrong Ambassador

The dairy and beef farm milks 450 cows on a split calving system with 100 cows calving in autumn and the remaining 350 in the spring. Autumn-born calves go to one of the two beef blocks nearby.

“It was the best thing I did. He says I’m a bit like a caged lion when I’m not using my brain in a different capacity to the farm, so it was perfect.”

Wintering well this season

Justin Kitto

We have all been feeling the colder weather creep in, and with the winter season officially here right across New Zealand, farmers are getting ready for the months ahead.

Farmers are passionate about their farms and their animals, no matter the season, and regional councils, the Ministry for Primary Industries and other sector bodies have been recognising farmers’ wintering efforts, including keeping our animals comfortable.

We know that lying time is very important to cows as it provides rest, opportunities to sleep and reduces the risk of lameness, which leads to better welfare outcomes.

When cows are well fed, have suitable soft lying surfaces and space available and are not exposed to adverse weather conditions, they prefer to lie for 10-12 hours per day.

Some great work from the Southern Dairy Hub has shown that soil moisture conditions, in particular surface water, results in cows not getting enough lying time.

during wet weather

Increasing the feeding area by giving cows a fresh break Rolling out straw for cows to lie on Providing cows with access to the area behind the back fence (if suitable for lying on)

It is also important to put cows in mobs based on calving dates to help monitor and manage herds. This makes it simpler to move the cows off-crop two weeks before calving to provide the best conditions and outcomes for the herd and ensure no calves are born on-crop.

with DairyNZ

to observe the condition of the cows and the ground, including looking for lying bowls where they have gotten comfortable and settled down in more sheltered or warm areas.

Templeton says that if the conditions seem a bit too wet, they use their contingency plan, typically by doing an additional shift of the break fence to provide a fresh lying surface.

There are many innovative actions that farmers can use to ensure their cows get sufficient lying time, including:

• Shifting cows to a drier, lower risk paddock or to sheltered paddocks

Saving crops positioned in drier or more sheltered areas for grazing

Southland dairy farmer Luke Templeton applies a range of good wintering management practices suited to his farm. He says they always hope for the best over winter, but plan for the worst.

“It is never about if we get bad weather, it’s always about when and considering what you will do to look after your animals and your people no matter the weather.”

His animals are checked twice a day

They also use portable troughs and provide additional feed, such as hay and baleage, along with moving the break fence up to three times a day. n

MORE:

Come see the DairyNZ team at Fieldays 2023.

Find further information and resources at dairynz.co.nz/wintering

DairyNZ lead adviser

Southland dairy farmer Luke Templeton applies a range of good wintering management practices suited to his farm. He says they always hope for the best over winter, but plan for the worst.

“When cows are well fed, have suitable soft lying surfaces and space available and are not exposed to adverse weather conditions, they prefer to lie for 10-12 hours per day.”

A SIDE of empowerment

By Sonita Chandar

With the challenges of rising costs, milk prices, regulations and the weather, the past year has been a testing time for dairy farmers and now more than ever they need to be able to adapt to the challenges.

With that in mind, organisers chose the theme, Adapt, Empower and Succeed, says SIDE (South Island Dairy Event) co-ordinator Tineka Johnstone.

“The local committee came up with this little gem,” she says.

“They feel farmers need to adapt to the conditions, regulations, pricing and everything else and by sharing this knowledge, they hope it will empower farmers to succeed.”

Johnstone says farmers have faced many challenges.

“Farmers are coming under a lot

of pressure. We had a dry summer in Southland and farmers are still trying to recover.”

SIDE was established in 1998 to provide a forum for those involved in the South Island dairy industry to evaluate and apply knowledge, skills and technology to their business.

The key drivers of SIDE is South Island Dairy Farmers. The focus and delivery of all SIDE events is guided by farmer needs and ongoing evaluation.

Run by farmers for farmers, SIDE lines up industry experts for keynote addresses, networking sessions and practical workshops.

This year, there will be 12 practical workshops, culminating in a field trip to the Southern Dairy Hub.

The workshops involve Q&A sessions, discussion from industry experts

and feedback from farmers on their experience with such topics as wearables, efficient N use, utilising catchment groups, and how to be the best boss.

As well as the workshops, SIDE offers inspiration from keynote speakers, including Tyla Nathan-Wong, who has represented NZ at various sporting events including the Olympics and Commonwealth Games; Shaz Dagg, who is NZ’s first elite para-triathlete and Parafed Manawatū’s sport development adviser; and Vangelis Vitalis, deputy secretary of trade and economics at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

A keynote session on the climate is also planned.

MORE:

This year’s conference is at ILT Stadium Southland, Invercargill on June 28-29.

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Land of opportunity

By Samantha Tennent

Aphoto of a blanket of snow from her mum in Canada was more than enough to help a West Coast farmer get over any lingering feeling of homesickness. And even the weekly rainfall on the West Coast, which can be higher than an entire year’s worth of rain in Brooks, Alberta, isn’t enough to send her scurrying home to Canada.

Despite the weather, Lisa Peeters is not planning to return to Canada anytime soon.

“My dad was here recently and we had a few wet days and he couldn’t believe we were still able to drive around the paddocks in a two-wheel-drive ute, whereas back home he wouldn’t have been able to get a tractor in because we have such heavy clay soil,” Peeters says.

“But everything is just so different here, the climate and how dairy farms operate and the opportunities in the dairy industry.”

Her parents were involved in dairying on a family farm when she was younger but it was sold when she was 16 after the family members decided to go their separate ways. And in Canada, it is really hard to get opportunities in dairying unless you come from a family farm, she says.

Leaving school, she worked with sheep

and beef before training as a vet nurse, but always kept farming in the back of her mind. Feeling a bit burnt out after a couple of years with an equine vet practice, she promised herself she would travel if she chucked the job in.

An exchange programme led her to New Zealand, where she had hoped to get a role on a sheep farm. When the programme offered her a three-month role on a Mawhera Incorporation dairy

farm, Peeters figured it was not a big commitment if she ended up hating it, so she gave it a crack.

She was placed with sharemilkers Mark and Debbie van Beek, but covid hit not long after she arrived so she had to decide whether to go home to Canada or stay. Another worker left around the same time and the Van Beeks offered her an opportunity to stay longer. It became an easy choice.

The abundance of opportunities

New Zealand dairy farming affords is a great reason for a young Canadian to stay.

Canadian Lisa Peeters is managing a 240ha farm milking 430 cows at Hokotiki on the West Coast.

“I was already enjoying New Zealand a lot and I could already see the opportunities in dairy here.

“And I love the people and the culture so it wasn’t a hard decision.”

They are milking 430 cows that are a three-way cross of Jersey, Ayrshire and Friesian. The farm is 240 effective hectares and there is a 60ha support block for the young stock. There are three working on the farm full time, including Mark and a part-timer who helps out when needed. They also get a calf-rearer to help with calving.

Dairying in NZ is a lot different to what she grew up with. When she first arrived it blew her away when she heard that all cows would be dry at the same time.

“Back home we milked 365 days of the year, with cows calving, being mated and being dried off happening every week, but I’m loving the seasonal system here.”

In the early days, she felt isolated living on the West Coast. She did not have a car for the first 18 months but once the country got moving again postlockdowns, and she brought her dog over from Canada, she wanted a bit of freedom.

She takes one week off every three months and uses that time to explore the

country. She has covered all of the South Island and done some venturing into the North.

She entered the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards last year and won the Trainee of the Year category for the West Coast/Top of the South region.

“It was such a cool experience, I learnt so much and met some incredible people,” she says.

“That was a big reason why I entered, so I could meet more people my own age, as well as test my knowledge.”

And this year she entered the manager category and won the Emerging Talent award.

Another way she has met people has been through reinvigorating the West Coast New Zealand Young Farmers club. It had folded not long before she arrived but the enthusiasm from her and a few others has got it back off the ground and they have developed a strong membership base.

“We need things like Young Farmers over here, the region is so spread out and

we need things to get us off the farm and connecting with others.

“It’s great to relate to similar challenges other farmers are having too and know you’re not alone when things are tough.”

She has completed her Level 5 Dairy Production Diploma with Primary ITO and is going to start her Level 6 next year. Long-term, she is keen to own her own cows one day but maybe not on her own.

“I’d love to meet someone who is as passionate about cows and dairy farming as me and go sharemilking together, but I am not sure I want to do it on my own.”

She has a residency visa and in two years can apply to stay in the country permanently. She has kept her vet nursing registration active back in Canada just in case she ever wants to use it again, but for now she is pretty comfortable living the Kiwi lifestyle.

“I can definitely see myself remaining in the dairy industry, to keep learning and keep my options open.

“I will never say no to a learning opportunity.” n

Get

“Back home we milked 365 days of the year, with cows calving, being mated and being dried off happening every week, but I’m loving the seasonal system here.”

Lisa Peeters

Farm manager Lisa Peeters enjoys farming in New Zealand and says there lots of opportunities in dairying compared to back in Canada.

Cream of the crop

By Gerald Piddock & Sonita Chandar

The National Dairy Industry Awards recognised the crème de la crème of New Zealand dairying – a sector that is clearly in good hands.

The biggest night on the dairy calendar was once again a dazzling display of all the finest the industry has to offer as the winners of the National Dairy Industry Awards were announced at a gala dinner for 500 at the Cordis Hotel in Auckland. Being a national award-winning share farmer literally runs in the family for Hayden and Bridget Goble from Taranaki, who were described as a power couple who are driven, genuine and focused dairy farmers.

The Taranaki farmers are the 2023 New Zealand Share Farmers of the Year, taking the title 33 years after Hayden’s parents Kevin and Diane were the inaugural winners in 1990 of what was then known as New Zealand Sharemilker of the Year award.

It is believed to be the first time in the history of the awards that the son or daughter of a previous national winner has also won the national award.

Hayden said he remembers as a child watching his parents go through the judging process.

“The great thing about Hayden’s parents is that they have allowed us to do it our way. They are innovative, they are open to new ideas, and they are supportive,” Bridget said.

It was the first time they had entered the awards. Hayden said they had gotten to the point in their careers where they wanted to build some more networks and challenge themselves.

“We are at this stage and we had to give this a go now, push ourselves and meet new people.”

“We are both competitive people and we have both aimed to put our best foot forward for this and it just shows that our hard work has paid off,” Bridget said.

She believes it was their work as a team that helped them win the title. They are a team in everything that they do and view their individual goals as team goals.

“I think we have both got that drive and that push. It’s not one person

leading it,” Hayden added.

Bridget said they also complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

The couple are 20% variable order equity partners together with Bridget Mooney, Kevin Goble and Diane Goble on their 200ha, 565-cow New Plymouth property.

The Gobles also won three merit awards for dairy hygiene and pasture performance, and the interview.

Hayden graduated from Telford in 2005 with a Diploma in Agriculture and Bridget is a doctor, with a specialty in emergency medicine.

The judges were impressed with Bridget’s on-farm technical knowledge and application.

“She’s a busy full-time doctor, but she is boots-in and we enjoyed seeing how she makes a positive contribution to their business,” Michele Cranefield, ANZ senior manager and judge, said.

“There is a power in their connection and balance of their partnership and they both have a genuine passion for the industry.”

Hayden acknowledged the other

finalists in the Share Farmer category as well as the manager and trainee finalists.

“Hopefully we can continue this journey together and learn from each other along the way.”

He also thanked his parents: “You have been an inspiration to us and have allowed us to progress in the industry. You are forward thinking and have allowed us to carry out our ambitions.”

“And to do it our way,” Bridget added.

Canterbury/North Otago’s Jack Symes was named the 2023 New Zealand Dairy Manager of the Year.

The NZ Dairy Awards winners, from left, are Dairy Trainee of Year Bill Hamilton, Share Farmers of the Year Bridget and Hayden Goble and Farm Manager of the Year Jack Symes.

“Jack Symes is a very intelligent, quiet achiever who presented a pristine property. He runs a tight ship, and his financial planning reflects a commitment to future goals.”

Jack Meehan

He said winning the award made all of the hard work he has put into the contest over the past six months pay off.

“I’m very honoured on behalf of all of the other contestants around the country.”

Winning the title showed that hard work pays off and opportunities become available to those willing to do that.”

Symes is farm manager on parents Judy and Brian Symes’ 160ha, 630-cow property at Southbridge. He said they had been hugely supportive of him during the awards process and his farming career.

The first-time entrant grew up on a dairy farm and holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Agriculture) from Lincoln University. He said entering the awards allowed him to develop skills and make connections that he will use in the future.

“This award has allowed me to express my passion for the industry and I am very excited to be part of a great industry going forward and cannot wait for what the future holds.”

He won four merit awards and more than $24,000 in prizes.

The judges observed that farming comes naturally to Symes and he is very credible and genuine.

“Jack is a very intelligent, quiet achiever who presented a pristine property,” judge Jack Meehan, from ANZ, said.

“He runs a tight ship, and his financial planning reflects a commitment to future goals.”

Northland farm assistant Bill Hamilton won the 2023 New Zealand Dairy Trainee of the Year. He said it felt incredible to win the title.

“I didn’t even bother writing a speech because I didn’t think I’d win, it’s pretty special.”

Hamilton is a farm assistant on Richard

Outgoing

and Sharon Booth’s 395-cow, 174ha property at Titoki, employed by Andrew and Vicky Booth.

The 24-year-old suffered a significant head injury during his university years, which he has overcome. He is grateful he is back and handling life on farm.

He holds a Bachelor of Agricultural Science majoring in agriculture from Massey University and enjoys the combination of practical outside work, the challenges, and the opportunities to progress his understanding and knowledge of the dairy industry.

Hamilton thanked the awards organisers for their work over the week leading up to the dinner, calling it “one of the best weeks of my life”.

“It has been such an incredible experience.”

The passion and optimism and drive

that the other trainee finalists had for their businesses and industry had been incredible and inspiring, he said.

He also thanked his employers, the Booth family.

“They do amazing things on the farm and have really helped me develop as a person and as a farmer.”

Hamilton won more than $13,000 in prizes including a Honda XR 190 farm motorbike, along with the DairyNZ Practical Skills Award and Best Video Award, presented by Streamliner.

The Dairy Trainee judges said Hamilton was strong across all fields and is an excellent all-round farmer.

“He is consistently strong across all areas and stood out to the judges in all sections of judging,” judge Mark Laurence from DairyNZ said.

“He was very strong in the practical skills.

“Bill has built resilience through facing and overcoming challenges in his life.”

Also recognised was outgoing DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle, who was awarded the Services to the Dairy Industry Award, in recognition of his contribution to and advocacy for the NZ dairy industry over many years, and Cameron Henderson won the Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award (see page 34).

Runner-up in the Share Farmer of the Year contest was Waikato’s Aleisha Broomfield. Canterbury/North Otago couple Jonathon and Stacey Hoets placed third.

The Dairy Manager runner-up was José Hamber from Manawatū, and Finja Philips from the Auckland/Hauraki region was third.

Canterbury-Otago’s Brayden Johnston was placed second in the Dairy Trainee of the Year contest and Manawatū farm assistant Sarah Powell was third. n

DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle was awarded the Services to the Dairy Industry Award, in recognition of his contribution to and advocacy for the New Zealand dairy industry.

Responsible dairy champ

By Gerald Piddock

Being a responsible farmer is living by the philosophy of looking after every aspect of the farm, from its people and animals to the grass and water.

Oxford farmer Cameron

Henderson has been named the 2023 Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award winner at the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards, receiving the John Wilson Memorial Trophy.

The prestigious award was introduced by the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards and Fonterra to recognise dairy farmers who demonstrate leadership in their approach to sustainability and who are respected by their fellow farmers and their community for their attitude and role in sustainable dairying.

Henderson runs a 400ha dairy, dairy support and arable farming business near Oxford, North Canterbury.

In a video presentation that was played at the awards night in Auckland, Henderson said that being responsible evolved from survival to a wide-ranging philosophy that encompasses all aspects of the business.

“Things have changed since then, but the one part that hasn’t changed is that real sense of trying to do the right thing and to be proud of what we do and being responsible in everything that we do here at Henderson Farms.

“What does responsible farming mean to us? It’s really all-inclusive, it’s environmental sustainability, it’s looking after the land, environment and water, it’s looking after the animals and our people.”

Henderson said he has a passion for innovation and collaborates with others to try new things and find possible solutions to industry challenges.

Upon receiving the award, he said responsible dairying is all about pride in the industry and he had met a lot of very proud and responsible dairy farmers in the week leading up to the awards.

He thanked wife Sarah, who he called his “greatest supporter”, as well as other family members and his farm team.

Awards head judge Melissa Slattery said all of the finalists were constantly

looking to improve and were never done.

“But Cameron wasn’t afraid to pull back if something didn’t work.

“He was always looking to incrementally make gains in reducing his environmental footprint, including N leaching measurement, dung beetles, compost and planting shelter for his animals.”

The judges noted that Henderson’s engineering background and inquisitive nature, together with strong networks, generated innovative on-farm solutions to everyday challenges.

Fellow judge Michael Heard said Henderson has strong attention-to-detail skills and is very data-driven.

“He looks at the whole farm and doesn’t just do something because it’s good for the environment, he also considers what the impact on the bottom line is.”

Another of the judges, Connal Buchanan, agreed: “He has a very comprehensive approach and has a clear focus on drivers of his business.”

The judges were impressed with Henderson’s extensive leadership roles and community involvement in a

Oxford farmer Cameron Henderson, who won the prestigious 2023 Fonterra Responsible Dairying Award at the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards, and wife Sarah with the John Wilson Memorial Trophy.

number of local and national projects and organisations.

Heard said Henderson is essentially spending more time involved with community projects than farming.

“He’s built his business to give him the flexibility to really get involved in the numerous environmental projects he is passionate about, including being a founder and trustee of the Waimakariri Landcare Trust, a member of the ECan Regional Water committee and various roles on the Dairy Environment Leaders group.”

Henderson is also a director of Ballance Agri-Nutrients and holds roles with the North Canterbury Farmers Charitable Trust and Waimakariri Landcare Trust.

He is a previous president of North Canterbury Federated Farmers, associate director at DairyNZ, and steering group member for He Waka Eke Noa.

A Nuffield and Kellogg scholar, Cameron was awarded the inaugural Synlait Farming for a Healthier World Award in 2022.

The other finalists for the Responsible Dairying Award were Tararua farmers Thomas and Jennifer Read. n

Our star farmers create our future star herds

The New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards shines a light on our rising stars. Farmers whose knowledge and skills will drive generational improvement on farm and in our national herd.

LIC continues to be a proud sponsor of these awards in celebration and support of the next generation.

There's always room for improvement

No business like agricultural show business

By Sonita Chandar

The largest agricultural event in the southern hemisphere is back in its usual spot on the calendar and the one thing New Zealand National Fieldays Society chief executive Peter Nation loves to see is the new areas of the event come to life.

“A lot of shoe leather goes into Fieldays,” Nation said.

“The team spends a lot of time thinking about what people want to see and hear. They work incredibly hard and put a great deal of time and effort into developing new hubs, areas and overall planning of the Fieldays.”

Fieldays is the ultimate launch platform for cutting-edge technology and innovation, and an annual pilgrimage for many who return year after year and have done so for 55 years.

Once again, exhibitor bookings are strong, which Nation said is a turnaround from the past few years when covid put a dampener on things.

“The economic headwinds are changing and the event is looking strong. It will only get better.”

Like so many other organisations and events, Fieldays has had a bit of a bumpy ride in the past couple of years. It was threatened by restrictions on mass gatherings early last year, and in response it changed the date from June to November.

Fieldays hosted a different audience last year as many farmers weren’t able to make it, but Nation said a lot of horticultural growers, who cannot normally come in June, attended. And he expects attendance this year to return to previous levels.

“We expect all the farmers will be well and truly ready to get off farm and especially those from areas that have been affected by all the adverse weather events we have experienced,” he said.

“We believe they are probably ready for some time out off the farm. They have experienced frustration and anger and haven’t been in their normal frame of mind.

“Hopefully they have dug themselves out of the mud and are ready to connect

and reconnect with like-minded farmers and exhibitors. Fieldays gives these people the opportunity to do that. They can get a deal and replace assets that may have been damaged.”

And there is plenty for them to see and do including the new Sustainability Hub, which has been four years in the making.

“Sustainability is hugely important to us,” Nation said.

“Fieldays has been focusing on sustainability for some time and we are really proud that this commitment includes building the internationally recognised ISO 20121 Sustainable Events Standards into its management procedures.”

The hub is a collaboration with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).

“We’ve made a strategic decision to use the scale of Fieldays to help educate

It is the time of year when the gumboots and utes come out for National Fieldays at Mystery Creek.

Thousands of visitors traipse through the various hubs each year to gain a better insight into various aspect of agriculture. This year, there will be a new sustainability hub for visitors.

New Zealand National Fieldays Society chief executive Peter Nation says he loves walking around the Fieldays site and seeing all of the hubs buzzing with people.

both visitors and exhibitors so that future generations will benefit from improved sustainability practices for New Zealand’s food and fibre sector.”

The new hub will feature a select number of sustainability-focused organisations, including Toitū Envirocare, Wilderlab and RiverWatch.

“It’s a secret as to what exactly is in there,” Nation said.

“I can tell you that we will have an exhibit ourselves as Fieldays has its own story to tell.”

Nation said the hub will have a river and the EPA will be conducting live tests so people can see how it all works.

Paula Knaap, general manager engagement at the EPA, said visitors will be able to explore sustainable farming research and science, urban and rural waste management, as well as water management and renewable energy.

“Embracing initiatives that protect and enhance the environment has a range of benefits, from longevity of land use through to resilience to changing climate conditions,” Knaap said.

“We want to support farmers, growers and the consumer on their sustainability journey. By showcasing some of the initiatives underway in Aotearoa New Zealand, we can help everyone see that together we can overcome the enormity of the challenges, with innovation and collaboration.”

Alongside the hub, the Fieldays Sustainability Trail, accessed via the official Fieldays App, will lead visitors to Fieldays exhibitors who are

demonstrating sustainability practices, products and initiatives.

All the old favourites are back, including the Innovations Centre showcasing the latest innovations in agriculture, backyard inventions and commercial improvements. These are always an integral part of Fieldays with thousands of visitors eager to view the latest rural advancements.

going from strength to strength and I believe it is because there is a gap in the market,” Nation said.

“Rural health is underfunded and distance may be a factor in farmers not going to see their local doctor. To be able to provide that service here is vital.

“We have had people send us letters and say ‘Thank you, you saved my life.’ There is huge pride and satisfaction that we can help people in this way.”

Also returning is the Opportunity Grows Here Careers Hub, which was created in partnership between Fieldays and the Ministry for Primary Industries. It is an engaging platform for attendees to learn about food and fibre career pathways and consider joining a thriving sector.

“We have 40 schools booked in from all over. In the past, we have had thousands of schoolkids go through, but it is not just about the kids.

“There has been an upsurge of entries and we have received several international entries,” Nation said.

“We only held the innovations awards six months ago but there are lots of new innovations being developed and entered.”

Another popular hub is the Hauora Taiwhenua Health and Wellbeing Hub, which will see 200 health professionals working in the hub at various times and new exhibitors.

“The Health and Wellbeing hub is

“We get a lot of adults too who may have lost their job or are just looking for a change and new career path. There are plenty of opportunities in agriculture and this a really popular hub.”

Nation likes to walk around the site and watch people enjoying the exhibitions, hubs and all that Fieldays has to offer.

“I walk past the various hubs and they are buzzing with people talking to each other.

“That’s what gets the hair up on the back of my neck. It is exciting. Seeing it all come together and the sites all humming with activity is why we get out of bed.”

“We expect all the farmers will be well and truly ready to get off farm and especially those from areas that have been affected by all the adverse weather events we have experienced.”

Peter Nation

An aerial view of the New Zealand National Fieldays Society site at Mystery Creek in Hamilton, where thousands of farmers can see what is new in agriculture and get themselves a deal.

Hitting the sweet spot

By Gerald Piddock

Agri tech has to be viable, feasible and reliable for it to win favour with farmers.

Wading through the vast array of technology available can be a daunting prospect for dairy farmers looking to invest in new gadgets to make the job easier.

The aim should be to hit that sweet spot between viability, feasibility and reliability, DairyNZ research engineer Brian Dela Rue said at the organisation’s Farmers Forum in Waikato.

Making a tech decision is very much down to the individual farmer and is about identifying the need on the farm, the gap, and whether that gap can be filled with training staff or if the answer will be new technology.

Assessing value and return on investment is difficult but financial factors such as time saved and improved results are considered.

“What we find with a lot of the technologies that we look at is that it’s the non-financials that are the key part for farmers,” Dela Rue said.

These include making the business more socially acceptable to family

members who may have left farming. New technology is not always “plug and play” and it often it leads to information being captured that then needs to be used on the farm. This may mean the farmer or staff will need to be upskilled, he said.

Dela Rue suggested making one staff member their “tech champion”.

“Pick someone who is really into technology and it is their job to make the most out of it.”

He and senior scientist Callum Eastwood work at DairyNZ where they

A 2023 survey by DairyNZ shows cow wearables have been the big bolter in tech uptake since its last survey in 2018, shifting from 3% of farms having cows fitted with a type of sensor to 16%.

There has been greater uptake in using satellite technology and smarter software for grazing management and pasture assessment such as the Halter technology holding cows within “virtual” paddocks, defined on a digital farm map.

research technological advances in the dairy industry.

Their work includes understanding the needs farmers have around technology and pooling that to help guide technological investments.

Recently, this included investigating grazing management and pasture assessment technologies and working with farmers around their main criteria for grazing management software.

Those criteria are then shared with companies looking to develop these types of products.

They also capture feedback from farmers in a survey undertaken every five years.

Eastwood said new technologies can help farmers work more sociable hours. These may include in-shed automation or virtual herding.

The rise of animal wearable technology also gives farmers ways of improving animal and farm performance because it provides farmers with information at an individual animal level.

“This can help you make better decisions. Getting and attracting people on farms is always a challenge and having technology may attract people.”

It can also compensate for staff who do not have a strong background in dairying.

Farmers also like new technology because they enjoy the challenge and it gives them opportunities to better meet regulatory compliance.

“We think that the Holy Grail could be hands-free compliance. If you have the right data streams coming in, maybe you wouldn’t need to fill out things over and over again.”

The pair have just completed the 2023 survey, which shows that the most popular technologies being adopted on farms are around the dairy shed.

These include automated tasks – cup removers, teat sprayers, in-shed feeding and auto drafting.

The update of cow wearables has been the big bolter in tech uptake since its last survey in 2018, shifting from 3% of farms having cows fitted with a type of sensor to 16%.

A large percentage of these farms have rotary sheds, indicating it is farmers with larger herds who are adopting this technology.

These larger herd farmers are more likely to adopt new technology because the value proposition is better with the larger scale.

Dela Rue said the reasons for not

adopting technology on farms vary.

There may be a lack of perceived value. The farmer has plans to upgrade their milking shed and often it is not appropriate to add tech to the older shed. The performance of the data is not proven, the farm’s internet connection is not good enough or the technology does not integrate with existing systems.

Looking ahead, the pair see a potential future in augmented reality technology playing a role in farming.

This has the user wearing a headset to access information hand-free. The technology is still in its infancy with the headset being extremely clunky, but there could be value in it if those headsets become more streamlined.

Camera technology has also made huge advancements over the past decade. Eastwood pointed to OmniEye as an example of where this has been used on dairy farms, with the company using it to detect cow lameness.

He also foresees sensor technology on pastures to better measure nitrogen application rates.

“We see those ‘on the go technologies’ will also be a theme area for the future.”

“We think that the Holy Grail could be hands-free compliance. If you have the right data streams coming in, maybe you wouldn’t need to fill out things over and over again.”

Brian Dela Rue

Step change

By Samantha Tennent

Technology that learns is being used to identify issues with lameness in cows.

Rapid advancements in technology are revolutionising decision-making on farms. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are becoming increasingly common, allowing dairy farmers to utilise intelligent algorithms to drive efficiency in their operations. By identifying potential problems early, improving production and increasing profitability, AI and machine learning are game-changers that will take farming to the next level.

“Farmers need tools to be able to make the right decisions as there are tougher consequences from not getting it right nowadays,” OmniEye chief executive officer Andrew Christie says.

“Farming is becoming increasingly competitive with more pressure on margins and everyone is trying to remain profitable and looking for opportunities to improve efficiency.”

The locomotion monitoring system developed by OmniEye is a prime example of AI supporting farmers to make better decisions based on data. The significant economic and welfare impacts lameness can have on a farming business are what intrigued OmniEye founders Greg Peyroux and Benoit Auvray. They had been looking for a problem to solve.

“During the first lockdown Greg and Benoit had spent hundreds of hours on the phone to farmers and people throughout the sector exploring what challenges farmers were facing,” Christie says.

“They both have agritech backgrounds and were looking for a way to utilise a camera, machine learning and AI to support farmers.

“Lameness was a clear winner because of the extensive impacts it has on the farming business and for the animal involved.”

They got stuck in, developing a prototype, using veterinarians to train the model while working closely with Pāmu and other pilot farms to validate and

improve it. The scoring is based on the DairyNZ lameness scoring scale.

“We have over 30,000 vet scores, which we used to train the system to identify a healthy cow or a lame cow and everything in between.

“So when it sees a cow, it assigns a score based on the DairyNZ scale and presents the data on a dashboard for the farmer, who can set thresholds for alerts and make decisions based on real-time data.”

The cow walks past an electronic ID tag reader at the exit race and when she comes into the view of the camera it identifies and tracks her, then assigns a score after analysing her gait from machine learning.

Christie can see an increasing need for innovative tools to assist decisionmaking.

“A tool like ours can help farmers monitor what is happening with their animals, help them identify problems early and look for patterns or trends and monitor progress over time.

“They can also monitor cows that are undergoing treatment to help regain levels of productivity that problems like lameness have a real impact on.”

He believes farmers will turn to AIbased tools more and more as they seek

detailed information to make decisions. But the farm system and individual situation will influence which tools each farm adopts, as well as the return on investment they can expect to see.

“Farmers will need to identify where the biggest bang for their buck is, which starts by identifying how much an issue is impacting their productivity, and then working through how the technology could improve the outcomes and how they make their decisions surrounding it.”

With over 30 systems throughout New Zealand already, he knows the appetite for technology is growing but believes we are only at the start of the AI and machine learning revolution. And our understanding of what the emerging technology is capable of will only improve with time.

“It’s an incredibly exciting space to be. There are so many complex problems on farms but that also means there are so many opportunities for innovation and continued technology development.

“And New Zealand agriculture is already good at working together to help everyone improve, so more data and tools being available will certainly drive the efficiencies and improved decisionmaking that we’re all searching for.”

As the cow leaves the milking shed, the Omnieye does a locomotion score to help farmers identify any lameness issues.

Synergies and new thinking

By Tony Benny

Growing New Zealand’s agritech revenue will take an innovative approach.

Growing New Zealand’s agritech sector revenues to $8 billion annually by 2030 is the goal of a refreshed version of the Industry Transformation Plan expected to be launched by the government in June this year.

AgriTechNZ, working with the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, has just completed a countrywide tour, bringing the agritech industry up to date with the latest tweaks to the ITP and giving feedback that will be digested before the 2023 version is finalised.

AgriTechNZ chief executive Brendan O’Connell says achieving the $8bn target will be challenging.

“If we’re growing businesses in the same way as we’ve grown them in the last 10 years, we won’t reach $8bn by 2030, so the ITP is looking at the new ways of growing businesses or the new types of behaviours we’re seeing internationally that could grow the sector by that much,” O’Connell says.

That will include looking at ways to commercialise science and making sure New Zealand is getting its share of global investment in agritech.

There are seven desired outcomes listed in the updated plan, including fostering global connections, operating as a “smart ecosystem” across all the different players that make

up agritech in NZ, getting the right skills, talents and investment, and connecting better with Māori farming.

“The seven outcomes listed in the plan are effectively creating the conditions to create the desired level of growth,” O’Connell says.

He says AgriTechNZ is pleased to see large companies like Gallagher not only growing their own businesses but also investing in other enterprises.

“We see Silver Fern Farms, along with Fonterra and Zespri and others, joining the Sprout Agritech startup ecosystem and we think that type of behaviour is new and will create different types of value going forward.”

Sprout both invests in “agrifoodtech” start-ups and runs intensive courses to train food tech entrepreneurs. O’Connell is optimistic the involvement of established companies will accelerate the growth of the agritech sector in NZ

While covid made one of the original goals of the ITP, getting out and making global connections, difficult, the pandemic did heighten the importance of agritech for food supply and security.

“The pressure and challenge on food systems around the world to produce more but with lower footprints has intensified and that speaks directly to agritech solutions,” O’Connell says.

He describes He Waka Eke Noa, the government and

the farming industry’s effort to agree on how to reduce primary sector emissions, as effectively one of the largest agritech initiatives NZ has seen.

“Finding those technologies that may be in the research phase now and getting them applied on farms as quickly as possible will have an impact not only by reducing emissions but also in the size of the sector and meeting that 2030 goal.”

The discussions that have

been held over the past few months with agritech businesses around the country will lead to what O’Connell says is a “more refined focus”.

“We’re doubling down on some areas we think will have the biggest impact and that’s what we’re discussing right now, and when the launch is done, we’ll go through what the actual work programme is to put interventions around those areas.”

Getting deeper into irrigation

By Tony Benny

New technology developed by NIWA will help farmers who irrigate their farms manage their system more efficiently.

Farmers trying to make strategic irrigation decisions that take into account climate change and environmental regulation now have a new online tool that brings together data around water supply and potential restrictions as well as NIWA climate change projections to help them crunch the numbers.

IrriSET is just one output developed following a research project, Irrigation Insight, where NIWA scientists worked with farmers in North Canterbury to plan how best to use irrigation water from the Cust River, using soil moisture data, weather forecasts and

supply information.

Perrin Ag principal consultant Carla Muller previously worked for NIWA and spent three years on the project before joining Perrin Ag, which is now keen to see the tool used by farmers.

“We worked with a group of farmers down there and actually sat round the kitchen table with them and asked, ‘What are the questions you have around irrigation and how do we then solve them?’” Muller says.

“The whole project was set up from a co-design perspective.”

For the farmers, the research project has led to much more efficient use of irrigation water, and now

other farmers and growers can harness a tool developed as part of the project to help future-proof their irrigation systems.

It’s likely to be most used in Canterbury, where there is more irrigation than in the rest of New Zealand, but it will work in any region.

“With the IrriSET tool you

can link in your existing and future supply constraints and then you can overlay current and future climate, irrigation infrastructure limitations and then consider what your irrigation system could look like now and what may be needed into the future.”

The tool is freely available on NIWA’s website and

“It’s a tool we envisage farmers using when they have a big decision to make, ‘Should I build a storage pond, should change to a pivot, should I buy the neighbours’, have I got enough water to do that?’ – that kind of strategic-level planning decision.”

Carla Muller

The new IrriSET tool from NIWA is designed to help farmers link in existing and future water supply constraints, which can then be overlaid with current and future climate, irrigation infrastructure limitations.

Photo: Dave Allen, NIWA

essentially all farmers have to do is fill in the boxes, and IrriSET produces a report.

“It’s a tool we envisage farmers using when they have a big decision to make, ‘Should I build a storage pond, should change to a pivot, should I buy the neighbours’, have I got enough water to do that?’ – that kind of strategiclevel planning decision.”

The tool has detailed climate changed projections and implications built in, at a level not easily available to farmers otherwise.

“You might be able to look up the climate change maps, but actually being able to access a tool like this that has NIWA climate change data built in gives you a way to turn data into information. You can actually put in your farm location and see what it does for your farm.”

It is simple to use, but Muller says it is likely farmers will use it alongside a consultant or perhaps a bank manager, to take into account other factors influencing their decision.

“Can I get the capital to fund irrigation, what do I do with additional, or less, grass? Those are decisions that require farm systems expertise as well.”

Part of the original research project was looking at the economic impacts of irrigation, trying to answer basic questions like, “If I put on 20mm, what does that actually cost me?”

“We did a lot of work around trying to understand that cost of irrigation application, as well as the benefit of that in terms of growing grass. We then balanced the desire for pasture and the cost of irrigating with potential environmental implications such as drainage”

IrriSET answers those questions under current conditions but can also look into potential future climates, so farmers and growers can take steps to future-proof their businesses.

“We’ve got irrigation schemes that are changing, we’ve got weather that’s changing, rules that are changing, all of that – it is important for farmers to consider what their business needs in terms of infrastructure investment now and for the future.”

The online tool has already proved its worth on farm, says Muller.

“An earlier version of the tool helped an arable farmer irrigate more land with the same amount of water.

“We have also used it on a sheep and beef farm looking at new irrigation on their flat land. We worked with them to understand the implications of that under climate change and what they would do with the additional feed grown.

“In the end they decided it wasn’t worth it unless they could put a higher value crop in. Now they are looking at diversifying a small part of their business to an alternative land use with the support of irrigation. So there’s some cool stuff coming out of it.” n

The IrriSET tool from Niwa is helping farmers use water for irrigation more efficiently and will help future-proof their systems.

Pee is for precision

By Ross Nolly

Using precision tools to apply fertiliser only where it is needed can mean big savings for farmers and reduced nitrogen leaching.

Reducing the amount of nitrogen leaching from farm pasture is an environmental necessity. Not only does it help protect New Zealand’s precious waterways, but from a purely practical standpoint, there’s no point paying for fertiliser that leaches away without growing pasture.

Geoff Bates is managing director of Pastoral Robotics, which has developed Spikey, a precise method of providing pasture with the required nutrients. Spikey is a targeted liquid fertiliser system giving farmers the ability to independently treat urine and inter-urine patches.

“Spikey is a machine that detects and treats urine patches, and applies fertiliser very precisely. The latest iteration applies liquid fertiliser, but doesn’t apply it to the urine patches, so uses 10% less fertiliser for the same growth,” Bates says.

Spikey travels around the paddock and each time it detects a urine patch, it treats it differently. Otherwise it applies bulk fertiliser. This optimises the outcomes for two distinctly different fertiliser requirements as urine already contains large amounts of nutrients such as nitrogen and potassium.

The machine detects urine patches using spiked electrode disks that provide a fast and accurate detection system. Spikey detects and treats the urine patches with NitroStop, which consistently increases grass growth by up to 25% and reduces nitrate leaching by up to 20% on paddock scale.

“On average, the urine patches give you 600kg of extra nitrogen per hectare. That’s a lot of nitrogen, and there’s no question that a plant will grow more, but there will usually be something else that limits its growth,” Bates says.

“If growth is limited, it takes the plant a while to realise that it can take off. The first thing we can do is provide a growth promotant. The next thing is to identify what is limiting the growth. It may for instance be sulphur, which we can add to

the mix sprayed on the urine patch. This would give it what it needs to maximise growth.”

Spikey gives farmers the potential to apply 20% less fertiliser and grow more grass. According to Bates, applying low rates of fertiliser more precisely enables a farm to achieve more growth per kilogram of fertiliser, and achieve higher utilisation efficiency.

Contractor Gavin Palmer of Spreading Canterbury uses the liquid fertiliser version of Spikey, recognising that Spikey was the ideal piece of equipment to protect the environment and help farmers comply with the 190kg/ha/year nitrogen cap, he says.

“We chose the liquid fertiliser version because it allows us to only apply nitrogen to the areas outside of the cow urine patch. If a client saves 10% of their available nitrogen, and they’re doing 10 rounds, it equates to them gaining an extra round of nitrogen,” Palmer says.

“We utilise GPS pointing to track where a cow has placed its urine. It’s huge being able to return to that exact

point and apply another supplement if needed.”

Contractor Jon Jackson of Jackson Spreading uses the solid fertiliser version of Spikey.

“A farmer trialled Spikey on the worst half of the farm for half a season. By halfway through the season it was growing more grass, and he’d put more cows onto it. Whereas on the other ‘better’ half, he was feeding out silage and running fewer cows,” Jackson says.

Jackson visits his client’s farms every second day because the optimal time to use Spikey is within 48 hours of the cows being in the paddock. This ensures a high urine patch detection rate and gives the treatment the largest possible window to impact pasture response.

Bates predicts that nitrification inhibitors will eventually become available for use on dairy farms.

He believes Spikey is a practical method to minimise the amount that is applied, minimising the risk of residuals in the milk, and maximising their effectiveness.

Pastoral Robotics managing director Geoff Bates with Spikey, a targeted liquid fertiliser system giving farmers the ability to independently treat urine and interurine patches.

Smart little tags

By Samantha Tennent

As he sat among the usual crowd at the local bridge club, Tyrel Glass never could have guessed that a game of cards would lead to an innovative solution for dairy farmers. Chatting between games, he uncovered a problem he knew he could help solve and he teamed up with fellow Massey University engineering graduate Baden Parr to turn their unique idea into a reality. And that was the birth of ProTag.

“The initial problem was related to GPStracking animals, but we got involved with Sprout Agritech and discovered there was a lot of competition in that space,” says ProTag co-founder Parr.

“But when we looked deeper we found that although there are a lot of technologies available to farmers, the shortcomings were that farmers need to do a lot of the heavy lifting and analysing the data themselves.”

They refined their target innovation to ensure it would truly add value on farm.

“With ProTag we are putting the behaviour signals with the context of where the animal is on the farm with what it’s doing at that moment and using AI modelling to truly understand what could be happening,” Parr says.

“For example, knowing that the animal has just entered fresh pasture has helped us distil the behaviour that we see and instead of suggesting that something’s wrong with the animal because it’s acting very differently than it did yesterday, we can say actually that animal is on fresh pasture, we know what sort of pasture

it is. And then say actually nothing is wrong or actually maybe something is wrong but we have that bigger picture information to understand truly.”

He says other technologies do not include that level of context and the solution is to teach farmers to recognise the clues in the data themselves.

The innovation is in an ear tag, chosen because they are small, lightweight and cheap but they did need to ensure it had enough power without big batteries or large solar panels. So by incorporating specific technology, they have been able to keep continuous location updates that enable the insights.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the true enabler of the technology. The tags themselves use AI models that are trained to estimate and predict behaviour from the sensor data, which goes into the cloud. And from there they use AI to filter and develop the insights at a herd level as well as the individual cow. Their ultimate goal is to be able to feed that back to provide insight and value to the farmer.

“Our system works in a self-learning fashion to an extent. As we get more and more information from the farms, the models get better and better and there are always continuous updates and the models will constantly evolve.”

They also plan to connect to other systems to use the data to help farmers with their evolving needs, which could be automating compliance reporting to milk processors about where animals are spending their time, understanding pasture efficiency or sharing performance insights with fertiliser companies or advisers. They will partner with other technology companies and amalgamate farm data streams.

“We are very open to collaboration. We believe we’re all better together and the common goal is driving efficiency and improvement for the dairy sector.”

ProTag has been through the Sprout Agritech accelerator programme and successfully secured several investors to get up and running. Their primary focus is New Zealand dairy farms but they can see there will be other opportunities and have been exploring potential in other markets. They have a number of trial farms around Waikato and have been working with the Lincoln University Dairy Farm to trial and develop the tags. They are hoping to have them commercially available in 18 months.

“Developing the concept and understanding the value of layering farm and animal information is really exciting, it’s going to be a great tool to support farmers.”

A smart ear tag that uses artificial intelligence to estimate and predict behaviour from the data could be a game-changer for farmers.

“Developing the concept and understanding the value of layering farm and animal information is really exciting, it’s going to be a great tool to support farmers.”

Baden Parr

Massey University PhD students and ProTag developers Tyrel Glass and Baden Parr developed ProTag, an ear tag that enables farmers are able to undertake preventative health measures in an effort to reduce vet fees, boost productivity and increase animal welfare.

This pack is designed for dairy farmers looking to utilize high BW sires while improving udders and somatic cell counts in their herd. The pack average BW is currently 340 Rel 59%.

0800 220 232 | www.samen.co.nz

One last word …

It has been a busy month with lots happening down on the farm – herds being dried off and sharemilkers hitting the road as they move to new jobs, marking the start of a new season when farms are bought and sold, and new contracts signed.

It is also that time of year when we celebrate our farmers: awards season.

The Dairy Industry Awards were held last month. Congratulations to all the finalists and winners – if this is the calibre of people we have in the dairy industry, it is a good place to be. Of course, these finalists are just the tip of the iceberg; there are many more of you unsung heroes out there.

Last month saw a successful Dairy Women’s Network Conference, during which the Fonterra Dairy Woman of the Year and Regional Leader were announced.

It is also the time of year when farmers make their annual pilgrimage to the New Zealand National Agricultural Fieldays at Mystery Creek near Hamilton. With covid restrictions no longer throwing a dampener on the event, it is back in its usual spot on the agricultural calendar.

Once again farmers can see what is new in agriculture. There will be plenty of bargains to be had and lots to see including the newly developed Sustainability Hub. All the old favourites are back too, including the Innovations Centre showcasing the latest innovations in agriculture, backyard inventions and

commercial improvements, the Hauora Taiwhenua Health and Wellbeing Hub, the Forestry Hub, the Digital Futures Hub, the ever-popular Tractor Pull and more.

Farmers looking to stay indoors should check out the South Island Dairy Event (SIDE), this year being held June 26-28 at Invercargill.

SIDE is New Zealand’s premier dairy conference, and the largest event of its type in the country. Organised by farmers for farmers, the annual programme is designed to promote thinking and debate, as well help like-minded farmers to network and find inspiration and motivation.

Winter has definitely arrived, with storms and snow in parts of the country. This is usually a good time to wrap up in front of the fire with a good read but unfortunately the farm work never stops. There’s maintenance and cleaning as well as feeding out and shifting stock.

As we head into the new season, it is a good time to take stock of the farm and get some of those repairs and maintenance jobs done.

Cow sheds should be waterblasted and prepared, stocks of detergents, teat spray, tail paint etcetera replenished ahead of time so when the cows start coming in it’s all ready. Calf sheds should be cleaned and, depending on your rearing operation, fresh clean bedding should be laid, and feeding equipment and storage vats washed and sterilised.

It’s also a good time to pull together your calving kits so they are ready to go when the first calf drops. Check out the DairyNZ website for pre-calving care and kit ideas.

And when calving starts, it can be a hectic time on the farm so planning and preparing in advance will help things run smoothly. Have a pre-calving checklist so all team members know what is to be done and what to expect.

Filling the freezer with pre-cooked meals will ensure you and your family and even your staff will have a good nutritious hot dinner at the end of the day. Soups and casseroles are a great idea, as well as baked goods for smoko breaks.

Thanks to Mark and Aimee Adams for this month’s stunning photo of the view from their cowshed at Ōkato, Taranaki. They have been milking 360 cows and increasing the herd to 440 cows, aiming to do 450kgms per cow this upcoming season.

Mark has been farming for 12 years and is a first-year contract milker. He enjoys the outdoors and the variety that ensures every day is different to the previous one.

With a view like that, no wonder he enjoys the great outdoors.

Sonita

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DAIRY DIARY

June 2023

June 6, 7 and 8 – Agrihealth

Mastitis Roadshow, Gore, Oamaru and Ashburton

Join Dr Steve Cranefield and Dr Katie Saunders for AgriHealth’s 2023 Mastitis Roadshow.

Hear practical advice to help NZ farmers produce more milk of higher quality and achieve milk premiums. Info at https://agrihealth-7847123.hs-sites.com/mastitisroadshow

June 6 and 12 – DairyNZ

Find out more about a Better BW for dairy farmers, Waikato and Lincoln

Time to have your say at a Better Breeding Worth discussion

Join us in-person to learn more about DairyNZ and NZAEL’s proposal to improve Breeding Worth and genetic gain for Kiwi dairy farmers.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

June 6 and 7 – DairyNZ

A Kai and a Korero, Bulls and Mangatainoka

DairyNZ is hosting a series of hui to support Māori in the dairy sector to build capability, equip their people and achieve their goals on farm.

We welcome all trustees and directors of Māori dairying entities and their managers, contract milkers, sharemilkers and staff to attend and connect for a kai and a korero. Supporting this generation of Māori and the next to thrive in the dairy sector is an important part of building a better future for our industry.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

June 7 – DairyNZ

Northland Agricultural Research Farm

Details to be confirmed

This project commenced June 2021. It compares the productivity, profitability and impact on people and the environment on three farms.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

June 8 – DairyNZ

Business by the Numbers – Online

Get practical techniques and confidence to manage the numbers in an agribusiness.

Step through the process of preparing and monitoring accurate farm budgets to stay on top of farm finances. Have confidence in achieving longer-term goals such as self-employment or growing your farming business. Three part-days online.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

June 9 – Dairy Women’s Network

Working with NAIT and MINDA, Otago

Come and join us for a workshop on how to get the best out of NAIT and MINDA.

Ospri and LIC will show you how NAIT and MINDA can work together to help with all your herd movements so you are always up with the regulations. They will also help answer any questions that you may have.

Info at www.dwn.co.nz/events

June 13-15 – DairyNZ

Mark and Measure, Queenstown.

Spend quality time on your farm business at this three-day workshop in Queenstown

This course is now full. Please contact phoebe.hall@dairynz. co.nz to go on the waitlist (we do have cancellations from time to time).

Mark and Measure is a three-day course to help you learn key business concepts and skills, and gain confidence to achieve your unique picture of personal and business success.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

June 28-29 – South Island Dairy Event

SIDE 2023, Invercargill

Run by farmers for farmers, SIDE lines up industry experts for keynote addresses, networking sessions and practical workshops in a revitalized format. Presenters include farmers, researchers, consultants, veterinarians, accountants and scientists. The interactive style of the workshops encourages plenty of discussion and the exchange of ideas. The programme is designed to promote thinking and debate, as well as provide a space for like-minded farmers to network and find inspiration and motivation.

SIDE presents a unique opportunity to connect and engage with a diverse group of farmers.

BrightSIDE is also being held during the event. BrightSIDE is all about inspiring, encouraging and uplifting those starting out in dairying to show them the positive side and the opportunities that a dairying career can provide. It will give attendees the drive and confidence in themselves to progress.

Info at https://www.side.org.nz/

Better farming, and better profits, through better Breeding Worth.

Creating a more profitable future for the NZ dairy industry with accurate, independent and inclusive animal evaluation that uses genomic information.

Genetic information is key in unlocking potential profit on Kiwi dairy farms. Through better rates of genetic gain farmers with a herd size of 450 cows could unlock an additional $39,000 in farm profit every year.

To give New Zealand the best chance of achieving internationally competitive genetic gain, we believe one key aspect is to improve NZAEL’s Breeding Worth, with genomics and make it available as one BW for the sector. By doing this we can help lift the performance and profitability of every New Zealand dairy herd.