Letters of the week Gumboots on the ground

Tim Dangen

NZ Young Farmer of the Year, beef farmer and MPI Agriculture Ambassador

I CAN assure your correspondent Clive Dalton, in “Make the hub experience count”, (Letters, June 19) that the Careers Hub at Fieldays was not full of “corporate jackets and suits”.

The Opportunities Grows Here Careers Hub is backed by the Ministry for Primary Industries and Fieldays. MPI carefully puts the hub together with 11 sector organisations, which have displays and stalls encouraging people into primary sector work.

Organisations from the meat, dairy, hort and food sectors were there and the hub hosted some great sessions by young people for their peers, including one run by the Food and Fibre Youth Council. I was proud to host this year’s session with the Young Farmer Grand Finalists, which provided some great insights into working on farm.

It’s no longer just about “dirty gumboots”, and the hub uses a range of ways to get young people excited about opportunities – including virtual reality to try their hand at specific tasks.

I’m proud to support the hub’s efforts, working alongside Fieldays, MPI, industry organisations and the sector’s young people.

Dear Steve ...

But the dive still has to be executed –and they’re up for it.

There’s not much talk of the government among this cohort. Bureaucracy moves too slowly and the path to prosperity lies with them, not Wellington.

Finn Ross and Aimee Blake of Future Farmers New Zealand exemplified the values of the new generation.

This group has a simple strategy –united youth reimagining society to heal our world with food and fibre.

They’re building on the foundations that the farmers who came before them have laid down, erecting a structure that fits the world now – just as farmers have done for millennia.

Evolution doesn’t slow down and right now, with the exponential growth of technology, farmers are being pulled into the future faster than ever.

That’s not a problem for these digital natives who understand that the landscape encompasses not only pastures but fibre networks, social networks and spreadsheets.

The online world is a tool that will enable them to flourish, not a distraction that keeps them from farming.

What’s also inspiring is the way that groups such as Future Farmers are widening their vision to encompass things like Matauranga Māori.

While some see it as a threat to the mainstream Western way of doing things, they simply see another way of thinking that can inform what they do and how they do it.

Kathy Mehrtens

Canterbury

FARMERS Weekly won’t be the same without your column. Often it was the first thing I turned to, bypassing all the articles on emissions, new regulations etcetera. It was always a bright spot over a Monday morning cuppa and always worth the walk to the mailbox, knowing some common sense and humour awaited before opening the bills.

We are the same vintage and circumstances as you, so have farmed through similar times.

Thank you for all your articles, they have been a linchpin to sanity at times.

They don’t just want to be business owners, they want to be custodians of the whenua who see value in more than just dollars and cents.

Ironically, a lot of research tells us the adoption of this way of thinking will help the bottom line over time, so it’s a winwin.

So while politicians and those with large platforms look for ways to exclude people and ideas from the recipe for success, our future leaders are mixing up a big, rich and diverse stew.

If this is a representation of the farmers who will take New Zealand forward, we’re in very good hands.

What has prompted me to finally send you an email was your comments in the article on you by Hugh Stringleman in “Wyn-Harris to bow out with honour” (June 12).

You well deserve your NZ Officer of Merit all to yourself, but in typical “just Steve down on the farm battling through the adversity of hard times and savouring the magic of the brilliant times” style, you have annointed the rest of us right along with you.

Legend.

Wishing you and Jane all the best for fun adventures ahead.

• Steve Wyn-Harris is retiring next week after more than two decades of writing his From the ridge column.

In my view

Jim van der Poel Chair of DairyNZ

KIWI dairy farmers continuously strive to be world-leaders in pasture-based production, emissions efficiency and animal care. Our sector’s success in global trade relies on these factors.

Maximising genetic gain is important if New Zealand is to continue being world leading. Genetic gain expressed in Breeding Worth (BW) results in cows that are more efficient producers, meaning they need less feed for each kilogram of milk they produce.

Right now we are missing out on genetic gain due to slow on-farm adoption of genomics, fragmented datasets and multiple versions of BW presented to farmers.

That’s why NZ Animal Evaluation Ltd (NZAEL), a DairyNZ subsidiary, is proposing a single, independent BW index that will include all useful genomic information and make NZAEL’s BW more reliable and the sector standard.

Having more reliable information allows farmers to make better decisions, which will help ensure genetic gain is the best it can be for Kiwi dairy my view

Graham West

NZ Farm Forestry Association immediate past president

AT THE National Fieldays this year, the Forestry Hub held several lighthearted forums to discuss topical land use issues. One was “Are all trees created equal?” I was asked to speak on radiata pine. This is my summary.

Except for gorse and perhaps possums, few introduced species are more vilified than radiata pine and yet few species have been more tested, researched and widely planted.

Radiata pine was like an up-and-coming loose forward that bursts from every ruck – it surprised everyone, yet many doubters remained unconvinced.

The first recorded planting of radiata in New Zealand was in 1859, 164 years ago. It was planted, somewhat ironically, by a sheep farmer at Mt Peel Station, South Canterbury.

Most early plantings were on the harsh treeless Canterbury plains, providing shelter for stock farmers. This will help NZ keep up with the rest of the world when it comes to rates of genetic gain –meaning our farmers will be able to breed better animals every year. We want to help all dairy farmers in NZ unlock additional potential profit – for their benefit and that of NZ as a whole. The work we have done shows us this change is the right thing to do. However, we need an operating model that is fair to all participants. A model that encourages all sector participants to get involved will see everyone working together and give us the greatest chance of success. We have developed a proposal and are now consulting with farmers and sector participants to get feedback to improve our thinking.

LOST OPPORTUNITY: NZ is missing out on genetic gains due to slow onfarm adoption of genomics, fragmented datasets and multiple versions of Breeding Worth presented to farmers, says DairyNZ chair Jim van der Poel.

To be clear: NZAEL is not seeking to own genomics data. Commercial breeding companies will retain ownership of the genomic data they have invested in collecting.

However, as an industry good organisation we are requesting access to it so the whole sector can benefit.

As a sector, we need to work together to ensure NZ takes full advantage of the opportunity genomics represents, so we can achieve world-leading rates of genetic gain.

Jim van der Poel DairyNZ

This is the same approach taken to the current phenotypic data –such as herd testing data – that flows into the Dairy Industry Good Animal Database.

This is a significant change for the sector and brings plenty of challenges, but we believe we would be remiss in our duty to farmers not to work towards this change. This is about dairy farmers and us all working together to get the best outcomes.

We believe the development of one BW with genomics by NZAEL as an industry good body, on behalf of the sector, is a positive use of farmer levies.

NZAEL works closely with world-renowned experts –agricultural geneticist Dorian

Garrick and AbacusBio managing director and agricultural scientist and human settlement.

Peter Amer – who have made it clear NZ’s rate of genetic gain has not improved to the level we should expect in the past 10 years. This consultation process is about making sure it can be going forward.

Their work has shown rates in other countries have risen significantly. NZ is falling behind and this has reduced sector competitiveness and farmer profit from what it could have been.

They also believe the sector’s rate of genetic gain could increase by up to 50% due to greater adoption of genomics and a whole-of-sector approach. This level of improvement, from modelling we have done, could have delivered an additional $136 million of annual value to the sector over the past 10 years. As a sector, we need to work together to ensure NZ takes full advantage of the opportunity genomics represents, so we can achieve world-leading rates of genetic gain.

Along with breeding companies, we are committed to finding a sustainable solution for NZ dairy farmers.

More information about the proposal is available on the DairyNZ website. Consultation is open until 5pm, Tuesday, June 27.

Radiata came from coastal California, so Canterbury is well out of its natural range, and it should have died in the first winter.

Many other imported species were trialled and early on radiata stood out because of fast early growth. It was like an up-andcoming loose forward that bursts from every ruck – it surprised everyone, yet many doubters remained unconvinced.

Twenty years later it was first used for house building, again, ironically, a farmhouse.

In the development of the NZ primary sector there has been few species (of plants or animals) trialled with alternatives, over and over again. The alternatives have inspiring names like the Coast Redwood, Mexican Cypress, Grand Fir, Ponderosa pine, Oregon pine. Radiata was simply known as “pine”. Its early name was Monterey pine, but it was also called pinus insignis. “Insignis” means “distinguished” and “remarkable” and perhaps would have been a more appropriate name.

By the 1950s radiata was reluctantly adopted as the alternative to native timbers for house building and was soon also providing newsprint, packaging, tissue, posts and poles, plywood and particle board. Its early development was helped by being virtually the single focus of an entire research institute, at that time called FRI, now Scion.

Radiata has been extensively trialled and commercially planted in many other countries of the world, particularly in Chile, Australia, Spain, South Africa, Ecuador, Italy and Argentina. The total area of radiata plantations is 4.1 million hectares.

Its strength is that it’s a utility player that can do all things well, often surprising the opposition with speed, adaptability, and easy progress. It is quick to the ball, difficult to move in a ruck, and establishes dominance in the loose play.

Radiata is easy to propagate from seed or cuttings, grows on almost any site below 600m elevation, requires almost no fertiliser, and yet on hill country produces more than twice the dry matter grown by pasture.

Its universal biological productivity is the secret that many pastural farmers haven’t discovered. On top of this it has had 70 years of genetic improvement.

Many people think we are too reliant on one timber species, and yes, logically we should diversify. Forest investors have been looking into that question for at least 30 years, because it has been a continual business risk.

On this issue, I think we got a clear message from the Kiwifruit industry when it was struck with PSA. What saved them was the genetic diversity they had in the many varieties of their main species. One cultivar was found to be almost resistant to PSA and is now their leading money earner –it’s the yellow kiwifruit now called SunGold.

We perhaps should have a dual strategy on this issue, to create species diversity and genetic diversity within species.

NZ is very lucky to have radiata pine in its primary industry. Many have looked for alternatives, few have found its equal. This one species earns NZ $6.5 billion a year in export revenue. There is a large and ready market for almost