Learn, grow, excel
WINNER
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Progressive Heights Farm
Lazy Acres Farm
Gold Star Farm
Quiet Cruisers Farm
High Peak Farm
River Bend Group
JULY 2017
$12
$12 incl GST
+ g n i t e Budg rking a m h c n be re up? easu m u o y o d How
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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CONTENTS
GETTING THE BASICS RIGHT 78 Special Report
MILKING PLATFORM 10 Chris and Carla Staples scrub up for a new season 11 Kate Robinson’s herd manager waits for stamp of approval
UPFRONT
SPECIAL REPORT
+ Budgetirnkgin a ? g benchm u measure up How do yo
12 Migrant labour mayhem 16 Water is driving growth 18 Parties line up on cow numbers
BUSINESS 22 Cameron Ealam diversifies into hops 25 Mataura’s formula for success 27 A split partnership with Trinity 30 Certifying the advisers 31 Advice: Keeping it simple 32 Today’s pastures tomorrow 35 Uruguay: Dairying South America-style
SYSTEMS
54 58 60 63
Tracking the budget worm Comparing like with like Focus on the financials Benchmarking to inspire
65 Grow your numbers 66 Maximising the margins 68 After the deluge
SPECIAL REPORT 55
38 Farming for the Super Fund 40 Strategic feed decisions 43 Trial raises palm kernel cost warning 44 CO Diary: What’s next for southern dairying 45 Aiming for healthier, longer-living cows 46 Measuring success at LUDF 48 Drones: An eye in the sky 50 Weighing the supplementary benefits 52 Unravelling fertility issues
SPECIAL REPORT | BUDGETING AND BENCHMARKING 54 Tracking the budget worm 58 Comparing like with like 60 The Neals focus on the financials 63 Benchmarking to inspire 65 Grow your numbers – Rural finance 101 66 Maximising the marginals 68 After the deluge 4
A SPLIT PARTNERSHIP WITH TRINITY 27 Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
ENVIRONMENT 72 Breathable water in a kayakers’ playground 74 Seeking details on riparian efforts 76 Planning before planting 77 Lessons from success and failure
STOCK 78 Getting the basics right 80 Vet voice: Preparing for calving 81 Disbudding: Easing the pain
YOUNG COUNTRY 83 Rewards come with success for Taylor Macdonald 84 No negativity for Alex Voysey 86 Culture shock: Moving to New Zealand 87 Nuffield research: Will it have legs?
TURNING THE BUDGET WORM 54
VIEW FROM THE TOP 88 Theo Spierings: C-centricity in six lessons
RESEARCH WRAP 89 The secret life of cows
FARM GEAR 90 Dairy systems on show
DAIRY 101 92 Eliminate the negatives
SOLUTIONS 94 Less nitrogen but still great results 95 Following Oli & Gus
Property 96 Property
EYE IN THE SKY ON PASTURE 48
COMMITMENT WITH NO NEGATIVITY 84 Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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DAIRY DIARY
BROUGHT TO YOU BY FONTERRA FARM SOURCE
NZFARMSOURCE.CO.NZ/STORE | 0800 731 266
AUGUST August 1 – Entries open for the Ballance Farm Environment Awards 2018. The awards promote profitable sustainable farming practices, including environmental awareness, business practices, and social and community responsibility. For further information on the awards and to enter, visit www.nzfeatrust.org.nz August 7-8 – The New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Management conference is being held at the Lincoln Events Centre, Lincoln. The programme includes disruption technologies and innovations that are likely to impact on NZ’s primary industry; farm environmental plans on the farming community; the latest research on mitigation strategies for nitrogen loss through animal breeding and plant science, plus the application of design thinking to create better engagement with farmers. To view the programme and to register, visit www.nzipim.co.nz August 10-11 – The Agri-Industry Summit being held at the Napier Conference Centre features a diverse range of presentations from
leaders, practitioners and advisers from a broad spectrum of primary industry and related organisations. This year’s theme is Future Thinking – Maximising the Agri Opportunity. For further details visit www.wolterskluwer.co.nz August 13 – Nuffield scholarship applications for 2018 close. Chosen scholars embark on a global learning experience with opportunities for collaboration, networking and mentoring to fast track their thinking and leadership skills to the next level. For information about the scholarships which provide global perspective and insight for potential farming leaders, visit www.nuffield.org.nz August 31 – Entries close for the Enterprising Rural Women Awards 2017. The awards showcase the entrepreneurship and success of rural businesswomen in rural locations and contributing to their local economy and community. Entry forms can be downloaded at www.ruralwomen.org.nz
SEPTEMBER September 13 – Owl Farm in the Waikato holds a focus day. The demonstration dairy farm is a joint venture between St Peter’s School Cambridge and Lincoln University. For further information about the farm visit www.owlfarm.nz September 30 – Applications for the Agri-Women’s Development Trust Escalator Programme open in July and close at the end of
September. The 10-month programme equips women in primary industries with skills, development and support needed to successfully lead and govern in their chosen fields. A combination of Wellington-based modules and distance learning begins in February and ends in November. For further information about the programme and to register your interest, visit www.awdt.org.nz
OCTOBER October 3-7 – The World Dairy Expo is held in Madison, Wisconsin, United States and is a five-day event showcasing dairy cattle and the newest technologies available to the dairy industry. To find out more visit www.worlddairyexpo.com
October 12 – A Lincoln University Dairy Farm focus day is being held on the farm between 10.15am and 1pm. The focus days provide an opportunity to review how the farm has performed and focus on challenges and opportunities in the coming months. For more information on the farm visit www.siddc.org.nz
MILK QUALITY
SOLUTIONS?
DEFERRED TERMS DOLLARS DISCOUNTS
FONTERRA SUPPLIER EXCLUSIVE T&CS APPLY: FOR FULL DETAILS VISIT NZFARMSOURCE.CO.NZ/PROMOTIONS 6
Your result is ours too. So we provide quality products and advice throughout the season. To ensure you have the right solutions for your farm, Fonterra Farm Source is here to help. Even small refinements can flow into big benefits. Talk to your TSR or visit us in-store today.
NZFARMSOURCE.CO.NZ 731 266 Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017 I 0800
EDITORIAL
Good comparisons
M
y mum always told us when we were growing up that “comparisons were odious” – I suspect to keep the lid on sibling rivalry in our large family. “Don’t compare yourself with your sisters or brother and don’t look at what the neighbours have and compare it with your position – that just breeds discontent or envy,” was the idea behind that quaint saying. And I get that – everyone has their strengths and successes and failings too – all of which doesn’t make them worth more or less than you. But to be fair, that was before benchmarking was a thing. These days there is great value to be had from comparing your physical and financial stats with the neighbour and others farming in your area and by using the comparisons to start drilling down to see where you could improve your own performance. Our special report looks at budgeting and benchmarking and identifies how you can use realistic and accountable budgeting to control cost of production and enhance your profitability. The next step is to benchmark your costs and financial indices with others in
SNEAK PREVIEW
NEXT ISSUE BIG DATA SPECIAL REPORT: How are farmers using data and apps on their farms to work smarter? CROPS: A look into what’s growing, what’s wilting and what to use where. THE IN-SIDE STORY: Coverage of the South Island Dairy Event.
a comparable group and use the process to improve. North Otago farmers Grant and Nicola Neal say benchmarking for them is all about helping them find the gaps, but they warn you need to make sure you are comparing apples with apples and are prepared to dig into the details behind the numbers to find out why the metric might not be measuring up (p60). In the Expert Eye James Lockhart says it’s not the benchmarking that will make a difference to your operation, but identifying why your figures are where they are and the continual improvement you then implement (p63). So comparisons can be really helpful when they are used as a constructive force for good – my mum would certainly agree with that. Anne Lee takes a look at the vexed issue of immigration and the new rules around immigration rules and work visas (p12), and Bob Edlin starts our pre-election coverage with a look at the political parties’ opening positions on “Peak cow”. It’s a term I never thought I would hear being discussed by dairy farmers on National Radio and a discussion that could get a lot more interesting yet in the lead up to September’s election. Next we might be discussing “peak tourist” in some areas of New Zealand. When tramping huts and toilets and hotels and roads are full to overflowing, we might need to think of how to increase the spend per tourist rather than increasing the sheer numbers, much like we need to consider more value from milk rather than more milk. Theo Spierings outlines his six customer-centric lessons to add value in this month’s View from the Top column (p88). Sooner or later we have to get clever about doing more with less. I think the sooner the better. Janet Higham from Northland is our winner of a Lifetime subscription to the NZ Dairy Exporter magazine, she sent in this stunning testimonial when we won
Flying the flag – Dairy Exporter editor Jackie Harrigan, right, and writer Anne Lee take a moment out from SIDE, the South Island Dairy Event.
the Best Trade /professional publication in the recent Canon Media Awards: “We have been drystock farmers for over 40 years. When the opportunity came to buy a neighbouring dairy farm five years ago we chose to continue dairy farming on it and challenge ourselves to increase the herd and production. T here were infrastructure improvements to be made and gains from pasture management. We have a contract milker who looks after the latter, but as far as the infrastructure we needed to do considerable research. The Dairy Exporter has been very helpful in seeing what other farmers have been doing and sometimes learning new techniques. At times it reinforces what we have already been doing or opens our eyes to other ways. Dairy Exporter has certainly helped with our steep learning curve. When we have finished reading it, I send it on to a young boy who was struggling at school because he was not interested in the subject matter given to him at school. This boy’s reading level has increased two years and he is now reading at his own age level. He is challenging himself with new words and reading with comprehension. His mother is learning lots about farming also. I now have another 10-year-old boy with the same passion for farming but lacking the desire at school because of subject matter. He also is enjoying reading Dairy Exporter. I keep the back editions for future reference so as you can see each edition gets well used.”
Jackie
NEW ZEALAND
Learn, grow, excel
NZ Dairy Exporter is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740, Toll free 0800 224 782, www.nzfarmlife.co.nz Dairy Exporter/Young Country editor Jackie Harrigan, ph 06 280 3165, M 027 359 7781 jackie.harrigan@nzfarmlife.co.nz Lead sub-editor: Andy Maciver, ph 06 280 3166 Reporters Hugh Stringleman ph 09 432 8594; Glenys Christian
ph 027 434 7803; Sheryl Brown ph 021 239 1633; Cheyenne Stein 06 323 1660; Anne Hardie 027 540 3635; Anne Lee 021 413 346; Karen Trebilcock 03 489 8083; Designer: Joanne Hannam Account Managers: Warren McDonald, National Advertising Manager, Ph 06 323 0143 John McMaster, Auckland/Northland, ph 09 3756 007 Janine Gray, Waikato and Bay of Plenty, ph 027 474 6094 Donna Hirst, Lower North Island, ph 06 323 0739 Nigel Ramsden, Livestock, ph 06 323 0761
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Shirley Howard, real estate/international, ph 06 323 0760 Debbie Brown, classifieds/employment, ph 06 323 0765 David Paterson, South Island, ph 03 382 6143 Subscriptions: www.nzfarmlife.co.nz subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz ph 0800 2AG SUB (224 782) ISSN 2230-2697 (Print) ISSN 2230-3057 (Online)
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Word in your ear Simplify the tracking of young stock to target weights with NEW Mihub Livestock Management The accurate and timely weighing of young stock is key for dairy farmers. Research by both Dairy NZ and Massey University has shown growth rates in young dairy stock can have a lifetime impact on milk production. DairyNZ says liveweight at first mating and calving will have an impact on the reproductive performance and milk production potential of heifers. Heifers must be reared to achieve their liveweight targets; otherwise their first calving will be delayed, liveweight at calving will be too low and fertility during the next mating period reduced. Well-grown heifers will produce more milk in the first lactation, compete better with mature cows and survive longer in the herd. 1 Dr Jean Margerison, senior lecturer in Animal Science from the Institute of Agriculture and Environment, is leading an ongoing study on dairy heifers by Massey University. “Weighing accurately is important, and the aim is to wean calves at the best weight for the breed type and the right proportion of the genetically-inherited mature weight. Weighing also allows farmers to use expensive calf rearing feed resources efficiently by not weaning at too large or too little of the mature weight,” explains Dr Margerison. 2 Currently, any farmer who wants to analyse weighing information needs to be proficient in Excel or confident using a complex herd management system.
3323TTDA01
This inspired TruTest, as leaders in Electronic Identification (EID) and animal weighing, to launch MiHub Livestock Management. This cloud-based software programme allows farmers to easily monitor the weight gains of their young stock and first calvers to achieve researchdriven, breed-based target weights.
8
Weighing & EID
Growth rates in young dairy stock can have a lifetime impact on milk production.
“As a developer of hardware for measuring animal performance, we are very aware this is an area dairy farmers can make a significant difference to their animal’s fertility and life-long productivity. Having the weight information, and being able to quickly and easily analyse it, is critical,” says Verne Atmore, Tru-Test’s NZ General Manager.
“Well-grown heifers will produce more milk in the first lactation, compete better with mature cows and survive longer in the herd.” Source: dairynz.co.nz/animal/heifers/liveweight-targets/
The software transforms session files into simple, easy-to-understand graphs, enabling dairy farmers to quickly make decisions on young stock management, such as; optimum feed programmes, which animals to breed and when, which calves to keep, and which to cull. The ‘Base’ plan is available free for TruTest weigh scale users and for a small monthly fee for non Tru-Test users. MiHub Livestock links directly to Tru-Test’s XR5000 or ID5000 via WIFI and to EziWeigh7i (and XR/ID3000 scales) by using Data Link (phone or PC) or through a computer.
Dairy Automation
Tru-Test’s MiHub Livestock Management enables dairy farmers to easily track and view their young dairy stocks’ progress against liveweight targets.
Unlike general farm systems, MiHub Livestock is a specialist weight and growth rate management system. Because MiHub is an online (cloud) programme, weighing data is accessible from any device with an internet connection. If a computer or Tru-Test device is lost or stolen, the files are safe. It also allows users to share weighing data with staff, vets or consultants without attaching files to emails, and to easily print or download reports and graphs in common file formats. For farmers using Tru-Test devices, you can sign up for MiHub Livestock Management by visiting www.tru-test.com/livestock. 1. dairynz.co.nz/animal/heifers/liveweight-targets/ 2. Tru-Test Article December 2014 - Calf weight key indicator of effective feed system.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Milk Cooling & Tanks
MiHub™ & Data Services
Ensure your milk cooling system is all set for the new season Get your new season off to the right start with Tru-Test’s Start of Season Proactive Chiller Service, designed to make sure your farm chiller units are in good working order and running smoothly.
Tru-Test’s Start of Season Proactive Chiller Service gives you peace of mind that your system is running as it should, and reduces the chance of costly breakdowns occurring when you’re least expecting them. The last thing any dairy farmer wants is to start a new season with dumped milk and thousands of dollars down the drain. A qualified Tru-Test service technician will carry out the Service and provide you with a detailed inspection report.
If issues are identified that require fixing, he’ll provide you with recommendations and carry out any maintenance required. Having your cooling equipment proactively reviewed and maintained should be part of every dairy farms operating budget, but it often gets overlooked or put to one side, especially if things seem to be working OK. The Service gives you peace of mind that your system is running as it should, and reduces the chance of costly breakdowns occurring when you’re least expecting them. For farmers wanting complete peace of mind and an annual visibility on their milk cooling maintenance costs, Tru-Test also offers an Asset Care Plan which can be extended to include other Tru-Test on-farm cooling equipment. Talk to your local Tru-Test On-Farm Milk Cooling specialist today to book your Start of Season Proactive Chiller Service or to find out more about our Asset Care Plans.
Tru-Test’s Start of Season Proactive Chiller Service will make sure your chiller is ready to go for the new season.
Start your season chilled. Book your Start of Season Proactive Chiller Service today. 0800 TRUTEST (878 837) Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
www.tru-test.com
How are you tracking? Let’s talk. 0800 TRUTEST (878 837)
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MILKING PLATFORM │ WEST COAST
Scrubbing up for a new season Chris and Carla Staples
W
ell we’re sure that most of you will be glad that last season has been and gone. The 2016/17 season was a real tough one, both financially and weather wise, in which we ended up finishing 7% down on the previous season’s production after drying off a week early, which wasn’t too bad considering all the events that unfolded during 2016/17. It definitely threw a few challenges our way. Now we are focused on the coming season making sure we have ticked all the boxes. All our young stock have now gone away to grazing, being able to keep everything at home for those eight months definitely had a positive impact on our grazing budget. We have had some positive indicators for this season’s pay-out which is promising to see and well-needed for all dairy farm owners and sharemilkers. This will have great impacts on the budgets and decision making on farm. The weather has been outstanding since drying off, with minimal rain and warmer temperatures, enabling the grass to remain growing, this would have to be our best winter growth in seven seasons of being New bobby calf facilities built ready to use.
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on this property, all fert has reacted well and we are very pleased with the results it has produced, making grazing rotations a lot less stressful. Liver fluke is a major issue for most of the West Coast and our herd is no different. We had a very high reading in a bulk milk test our local vet organised, from these results we decided to oral drench our whole herd at dry off. We did this to try and break the life cycle of the fluke as in the past we have just used an injection which only targeted the mature ones. It will be interesting to see next season’s test results. In late May our later calving cows headed away down south for a welldeserved break, where they will remain to late July-early August. The rest of our cows – 180 – are at home in “winter mode” receiving rape, swedes, palm kernel and grass. Our home mob are run through the shed once a week for teat spraying and checking for any cases of mastitis. All heifers were tagged the week after dry off and farm maintenance is now underway with rubberware changed and fresh paint in the dairy.
Getting school children involved in the basics of the financial and the mechanics of any sort of farming at a young age is a fantastic way of bridging the gap between urban and rural communities. For anyone who watched the episode of TVNZ’s Country Calendar that aired on June 4 we’re sure you’ll agree with us when we say it was great to see such a positive story on dairy farming in New Zealand. Getting school children involved in the basics of the financial and the mechanics of any sort of farming at a young age is a fantastic way of bridging the gap between urban and rural communities. It was fantastic to see a family that takes so much pride in its farming operation as well as their livestock along with the community. There are so many farming operations throughout NZ that would be great adverts for the dairy industry. We just need to get more positive stories out there. With calving just around the corner there has been a lot of talk around bobby calf transport and loading facilities. In
Winter crops for cows. May we were lucky enough to have Silver Fern Farms come to our place and give a presentation on the new rules and regulations around bobby calves, which was very informative and it was great for everyone who attended to be able to have all their questions answered well before calving, with some significant changes being made on the paperwork side of things. Our farm owner was flat out at the end of May, building our new loading pen which he designed himself after looking at various plans for kitset sheds. It’s very well engineered and will definitely stand the test of time. We took the opportunity to take the family away on an overseas holiday (the North Island) in late June and took in an All Black vs Lions game at Eden Park along our travels. The atmosphere was amazing. Hopefully you and your staff have all had a chance to have a break from the farm and unwind while you can, with calving creeping up on us, in no time we will all be back into it. While it’s always exciting to see the first calves in the shed that winter break can quickly become a distant memory. But it’s always pleasing to see from a calf-rearer’s point of view the wellgrown heifers coming into production. It’s in this time that your effort from two seasons before are realised.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
MILKING PLATFORM │ REPOROA Alessandra and Lucas with their two children.
Waiting for the stamp of approval Kate Robinson As the debate around proposed migrant rules continues, we have been waiting for news about a work visa for a Brazilian citizen, Alessandra, who we have invited to join our team as herd manager. The start of the new dairy season has come and gone, and calving is fast approaching. But still there is no news from Immigration NZ. Then we call to discover her application is in a queue and has not yet been assigned a case manager. It could be mid-July before they make a decision on her application – three months since its submission. I know many of you have had similar experiences. We appreciate the hard work our immigration officials put into carefully screening all migrants who want to settle and work in New Zealand. Nevertheless, these delays are frustrating when it starts affecting our farm business and impacting our everyday lives. We’re concerned about not having enough hands on deck once the calves start to drop and not having enough time to orientate our new employee before things get busy.
More importantly, Alessandra and her husband Lucas are in NZ home-schooling their children aged 7 and 9, as without student visas they cannot attend our local school. The upside is that Alessandra submitted her visa application before the proposed rules change, due to take effect in August. Under the new policy, she may have not met the pay and skill thresholds for her family to remain with her in NZ. She may also have had to renew her visa after one year with no pathway to residency.
The new immigration rules will significantly shrink our pool of eligible candidates and make it even more difficult to recruit the right team.
In my view, a migrant worker who is unsettled, alone and yearning for his or her family does not make a happy, productive employee. This situation then causes problems for farmers with retaining staff and attracting good talent in the first place. I was reading an article about the proposed migrant rule changes. DairyNZ’s Dan Schmidt talked about farmers needing to have a “stable core workforce” in order
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
to be in a position to then mentor and train Kiwis. And I agree with him. The new immigration rules will significantly shrink our pool of eligible candidates and make it even more difficult to recruit the right team. This is our first time employing a new migrant. In the past we’ve employed Kiwis, many of who were career-changers and new to dairying. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable candidates from NZ– an all too familiar story amongst our fellow dairy farmers, who too are becoming increasingly frustrated with the recruitment process. Alessandra is the right person for the job and the right fit for our farm business, regardless of whether she is Brazilian or Kiwi. She shone above all other applicants for the position. She has the work ethic and skills we need onfarm, and we know she and her family will settle well into our community. They have been overwhelmed by Kiwis’ generosity since they have been in NZ, with offers of support, second-hand furniture and basic household items as they prepare to start their new life. As a nation of travellers, it seems New Zealanders jump at opportunities to pay forward the kindness bestowed upon them by complete strangers around the world. Perhaps the most heart-warming part of this story is the friendships we have seen develop between our children and their Brazilian friends when they have come to visit. Language has been no barrier as the kids have enjoyed getting to know each other over games of monopoly and hokey pokey ice cream. This whole situation is a reminder that farming is a lifestyle that we live and breathe, and that the relationship between employer and employee is unique to our industry. We work together, live together and often socialise together. The lines between staff, friends and family are sometimes blurred as most of us go above and beyond to help our employees and their families settle – whether they are migrants or New Zealanders. Ultimately, it’s for the benefit of our farm business to make it work. But it is also a splendid example of human nature at its best. We look forward to welcoming our Brazilian friends to our farming family. Until then, we are putting our faith in Immigration NZ officials to make the right decision. • As this article was going to print, Alessandra received news from Immigration NZ that her work visa and children’s student visas have been approved, with her husband’s soon to follow. Thumbs up and thank you to Immigration officials. 11
UPFRONT │ IMMIGRATION Migrants in the lower-skilled code – ANZSCO levels four and five – will be eligible for a work visa for just one year.
Migrant labour mayhem Planned changes to immigration rules could have a major impact on dairy farmers and their migrant employees. Anne Lee reports.
P
roposed changes to immigration rules and work visas have dairy farmers, migrant staff and industry groups deeply concerned about the wide-ranging effects on families, productivity and rural communities. The changes mean some immigrant families already well established in New Zealand will have to leave the country after three years. Submissions closed on proposed changes at the end of May with the final changes due to be announced later this month and implemented from later in August. DairyNZ developer Daniel Schmidt said while there are definitely some positives in the proposals there are also some significant changes that farmers and migrant staff and their families need to be aware of which will have potentially serious implications. He’s urged farmers to get to grips with the full ramifications of the changes and talk to their Member of Parliament as soon as possible so the Government hears their concerns. DairyNZ, Federated Farmers, other industry groups and individual farmers have all made submissions but the short time frame between the announcement of the changes in April and the submission closure date means there was little time for farmers to understand the somewhat complex proposed rules and let their views be known. Greenstone Recruitment director Graydon Sharratt also urged farmers to contact their MP.
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Graydon Sharratt, left, and James Bourke warn of significant effects of the immigration rule changes. He told those attending a workshop at the South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) the changes will have significant effects on the families of migrant staff deemed to be at the lower skill level because in many cases they’ll have to leave the country after three years. New migrants coming in to fill jobs at the dairy assistant level will no longer be able to bring their partners or children with them. That will have major roll-on effects in rural communities where local schools and economies have been bolstered by migrant numbers. In 2016 the positions of herd manager and assistant herd manager were removed
from the Immediate Skills Shortage List leaving only two dairy occupations – dairy farm manager and assistant farm manager. Another major issue is that the ANZSCO code is out of date for dairy farming and only has two codes, each at either end of the skill spectrum – farm manager or dairy assistant (classified as dairy cattle farm worker). In the past visas have been issued largely based on position descriptions and skill levels as described in the Australia New Zealand Skills Classification of Occupation (ANZSCO) codes. Dairy farm managers are classified as ANZSCO skill level one while dairy
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Key points • Only two positions fit the Australia New Zealand Skills Classification of Occupation (ANZSCO) codes – each at either end of the skill scale – farm manager (ANZSCO level one) or dairy farm worker (dairy assistant – ANZSCO level two). • There is currently no mid-skill level classification for dairy staff to enable them to get visas. • Proposed rules mean staff earning a total taxable income below $23.49/hr will be classed as lower-skilled. • Lower-skilled staff must apply for a new work visa every year for a maximum of three years and then must stand down (leave the country) for a year. • Lower-skilled staff will not be able to bring family with them. • If family come they will have to apply for their own visas, likely to be visitor or student visas. • Children of lower-skilled migrant staff would have to pay overseas student fees. • A number of other changes include changes to the points system. Migrants and farmers hiring migrants should seek professional advice to understand the full list of changes and their implications. assistants are classified as ANZSCO level five. Sharratt explained the skill levels determine the duration of a work visa with skill levels four and five issued with a oneyear visa while skill level one can receive a three-year visa with a maximum of five years. Most other industries have ANZSCO level two and three codes but the dairy industry does not, he said. Under the new rules remuneration thresholds are also being introduced as an additional means of defining skilled employment. A minimum threshold of $23.49 an hour has been imposed for skill levels one to three which for a 40-hour week means $48,859 a year. Positions earning less than that are deemed to be lower-skilled. But calculating the threshold for a 50-hour week is more relevant for dairying. In that case the taxable salary (including accommodation) at $23.50/hr will need to be more than $61,100/yr or they will be considered lower-skilled. The rules as written on an hourly rate basis will create confusion within the industry where most salaries are annual rather than based on an hourly rate and the thresholds are not commensurate with salaries or hourly rates being paid in the dairy labour market, Sharratt said.
New migrants coming in to fill jobs at the dairy assistant level will no longer be able to bring their partners or children with them. The other major change is that those migrants in the lower-skilled code – ANZSCO levels four and five – will be eligible for a work visa for just one year. They must then apply for another visa for another year and can remain in their job providing their employer can prove they have advertised widely for an NZ applicant and have been unable to find a suitable candidate or someone suitable who they can train. This is likely to mean they must have interviewed candidates put forward by WINZ and meet the New Zealand Labour Market Test. The migrant staff member and employer can go through this process each year for up to three years after which time the migrant must have a stand-down period of one year (leave the country) before they can come back and go through the same process again. They would not be eligible to bring partners or children with them. Partners of lower-skilled staff are only likely to get visitor visas unless they apply for and are granted their own work visa based on essential skills policy or another visa type such as a student visa but the length of these visas hasn’t been clarified by Immigration New Zealand, Sharratt said. Dependent children of lower-skilled staff are unlikely to get fee subsidies as domestic students and would therefore have to pay international student fees that in many cases are more than $10,000 a year. Indications from Immigration New
Zealand are that those lower-skilled staff already here on visas granted under the Immediate Skills Shortage List will be able to have their family remain until their visa expires. Those on a one-year visa will be able to re-apply again for up to three years and partners and children already here would be able to stay until then and maintain their domestic student fee entitlement but would have to leave after three years. At the higher skill level, the remuneration threshold stipulates the salary must be greater than $35.24/hour – which will also cause problems when adjusted for hours worked, Sharratt said. At 50 hours/week the taxable salary (including accommodation) will have to be $91,650 or more. Federated Farmers 2017 Remuneration Survey shows the mean salary for a farm manager is $65,651 equal to $25.25/hour for a 50-hour week. Sharratt said that won’t necessarily mean the farm managers aren’t deemed to be skilled rather it will mean they will have to prove skilled employment by meeting the criteria set down by Immigration New Zealand just as they have had to in the past under the ANZSCO code.
INDUSTRY SUGGESTED CHANGES TO PROPOSAL DairyNZ, Federated Farmers in consultation with others in the industry including recruitment and immigration consultants have suggested changes to the Government proposal that would see
Essential skills visa proposal Proposed Essential Skills skill levels and associated visa conditions Skill level Higher-skilled Mid-skilled Lower-skilled
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Remuneration thresholds
ANZSCO
Visa length
Children & Partners
$35.24 + per hour
and
1/2/3/4/5
Up to 5 years
Yes
$23.49 - $35.24 per hour
and
1/2/3
Up to 3 years
Yes
$15.75 - $23.49 per hour
and
1/2/3
$15.75 - $35.24 per hour
and
4&5
Up to 1 years
No
13
the ANZSCO skill levels four and five also included in the mid-skilled definition. That would allow those migrant staff operating at an assistant herd manager or herd manager level to possibly gain visas for up to three years without a 12-month stand-down period. It would also allow families of migrant staff to gain visas that would allow their partners and children to remain in the country and allow their children to attend school without paying overseas student fees. The industry submissions have also proposed cutting out the minimum wage to $35.24/hour salary range for lowerskilled bracket. Sharratt said the suggestions could be simply implemented and made complete sense for the dairy industry and the way the work force was structured. It would create a more stable work force, maintain the incentive for training and importantly bolster rural communities. His company had also submitted that the herd manager and assistant herd manager occupations be returned to the Immediate Skills Shortage List and that another ANZSCO code is created to cater for mid-tier roles such as herd manager, allowing a pathway to residency not currently available to them.
The South Island deal The South Island Contribution Visa is a new visa implemented on May 22 which is a oneoff chance to obtain a work-to-residence visa. All applications have to be submitted before May 23, 2018 with estimates that up to 1600 migrant staff already living in New Zealand will be eligible. It’s open to those who have held an Essential Skills visa for five years or more for jobs in the South Island. It is issued in two stages with a 30-month work-to-residence visa issued for the staff member and suitable visas issued for partners and children already here. Over that time the staff member must remain working in the dairy industry and in the WINZ region in which their employment is located. After the first stage a residence from work visa may be issued with the residency approval having a two-year endorsement that requires the staff member to stay in the South Island in the region specified on their visa throughout the two-year period. There are no English language requirements and provision has been made for those Filipinos caught up in the recent false documents situation. While it’s been heralded by farmers and migrants in the South Island as a good move there are concerns for those in the North Island who won’t have the same opportunity.
RULES NOT PRACTICAL James and Ceri Bourke farm at Culverden in North Canterbury and employ migrant staff. James said the proposed changes would hit not only their own business but would also strike at the heart of what has become a thriving community. The local area school his children attend would potentially lose 50
children from its roll of about 280. “That all has a roll-on effect on the community and our businesses up here. If the school’s retracting at a rate of knots it makes it even harder to attract staff to the area,” he said. He has a migrant staff member who was one year short of being eligible for the South Island Contribution Visa so would potentially be lost to his business when
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
her visa expired. The definitions of lower-skilled and lack of mid-skilled options for migrant staff were a nonsense when it came to the practicalities of farming. His business operated a five (days) on two-off roster and with staff requiring four weeks annual leave, 13-14 statutory holidays and normal two days off after five days on, the annual days not working added up to about 137. “So that means when the farm manager is off I need a competent person to be able to step up and take responsibility for the manager’s duties but there’s no provision for an assistant manager or senior herd manager under the rules.” The rule requiring staff to stand down after three years will remove people from the work force who have had time and training spent on them to cover time off for management not only disrupting the day-to-day operation of the farm and lowering productivity but also reducing the farmer’s ability to meet legal requirements in compliance across a range of factors. “Making qualified staff exit in areas of extreme labour shortage is jeopardising the health and safety and viability of dairy farms, creating competing legislation
DairyNZ’s submission Alternate Option - Essential Skill level and associated visa conditions Skill level Higher-skilled
Mid-skilled
Lower-skilled
Remuneration thresholds
ANZSCO
Visa length & restrictions
Children & Partners
$35.24 + per hour
and
1/2/3/4/51
• Up to 5 years • No 12 month stand down
Yes
$23.49 - $35.24 per hour
and
1/2/3/4/5
• Up to 3 years • No 12 month stand down
Yes
Minimum wage $23.49 per hour
and
1/2/3/4/5
• Up to 1 years • 12 month stand down
No
between immigration laws and the current Health and Safety Act 2015.” The three-year and then stand-down rule would mean farms won’t have a stable work force and won’t have trained people in place who could then support New Zealanders new to farming – the very New Zealanders the Government was trying to bring out of unemployment and on to farms. If migrant staff weren’t able to bring their families they would be less-inclined to take up jobs in this country. James said being able to have partners and children living with them helped the productivity of migrant staff and having an open work visa
status for the partner allowed them to perform a vital role in the part-time working sector. Many were employed part time onfarm or in aged care in rural NZ, retail, cleaning and seasonal industries. Migrant staff and their families have become part of the fabric of rural communities such as Culverden. Under the proposed rules that integration would be unlikely and the migrant staff work force would be dominated by single men. He said the implications of defining lower-skilled staff in the way it was proposed would be devastating to his business and his community.
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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15
UPFRONT │ IRRIGATION
WATER DRIVING GROWTH Bob Edlin bob.edlin@xtra.co.nz Announcing the Budget funding boost for irrigation schemes, Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy said the investment was important because economic research showed irrigation contributes $2.2 billion to the national economy and has the potential to increase further. The Budget provides $26.7 million over the next three years to match grant funding to regional-scale irrigation schemes, helping them progress through the development phases to construction, and $63m of new capital funding to support investment in the construction of regional irrigation infrastructure. Both initiatives are administered by Crown Irrigations Investment Limited. But public funding or irrigation schemes that lift dairy production is contrary to recommendations in the OECD’s third Environmental Performance Review of New Zealand. Grants and concessionary financing for irrigation projects overlook environmental and community costs and potentially conflict with the Government’s freshwater management policy, the report says. Announcing the new funding, Guy said several projects looked likely to need investment in the next few years, including the Waimea community dam near Nelson, Flaxbourne community Water Project, Hunter Downs Water and the Hurunui water project. “These would support a wide variety of land uses, including horticulture, sheep, beef and arable,” he said. The water can also be used for urban supply and improving environmental, recreational and social outcomes. He did not mention dairying. But the research he cited – undertaken by the Institute of Economic Research for the Ministry for Primary Industries in 2014 – found the boost from irrigation was larger for dairy and horticulture compared to sheep and beef and other livestock farming. The report estimated the net farm gate GDP contribution from irrigation had risen from $0.92b to $2.17b in 2011/2012 during a decade in which farm gross margins improved and irrigated land area expanded from 457,700 hectares to 721,400ha. • Canterbury contributed the major share of the economic benefits with $1.39b (64%). 16
In other regions, the following effects would result in the dairy sector if there was no irrigation: Northland: Land now irrigated would still have been developed into dairying, but average production would be lower and the region would be more vulnerable to dry summers. Waikato: Most land uses would be predominantly the same but with a 20-25% lower level of production plus higher variability between years. Bay of Plenty: The region is still likely to be in dairy farming, with average production levels down 15%. Hawke’s Bay: Farms on heavier soils would remain in dairying, but those on lighter soils would have stayed in sheep and beef. These could have some dairy development, using supplementary feeds (such as cereals and maize) to meet summer deficits. Manawatu-Wanganui: Lighter sandy soils (for example in Himatangi/Bulls) need irrigation. Without it different farm systems – such as early-calving, split-calving or winter milk production – would have developed. An estimated 50-75% would stay in dairying but production would be down 10-15% and there would be higher variability. Wellington: Most would still be in Tasman: Some areas dairying, with lower performance – (such as Golden Bay) 20% down on heavier soils, 40% can be farmed without down on lighter soils. irrigation, although several West Coast: Farming systems farmers there get gains from (beef, dairy) would remain irrigation. Other areas (such as the same but at a less the Waimea Plains) are too dry - intensive level. for dairy without irrigation. Marlborough: It largely needs water. Dairying is being pushed out by grapes. Without grapes, there would be some dryland dairying. Otago: Without water, dairying is unlikely to have developed. Central Otago/Ranfurly and the Waitaki Valley is likely to be in sheep and beef. Southland: The region would still be in dairying, at lower stocking/production rates. The report said irrigation had resulted in a complex situation of inter-dependency in Canterbury, such as dairy support and the provision of supplementary feed, and was crucial to yields and production reliability. No irrigation would result in much more conservative management practices. There would be some dairying on heavier soils but most would be gone and the region would still be in arable/ sheep and beef, although dairying probably would have been developed on land closer to foothills with a higher rainfall. • In Taranaki, the main irrigated dairy units are on sandy soils along the south/western coastline. The lack of irrigation on these units would result in production dropping 20-40%. Between 5-10% of these units would never have
been developed into dairying without irrigation. On about 33% of the region’s farms, only part of each farm is irrigated and irrigation is used for one or two months. On these farms, the lack of irrigation would result in a 10% drop in production. The research found irrigation contributes to the national economy in many direct and indirect ways. Increased agricultural production boosts farm-gate returns and draws in additional inputs such as agricultural services and transport. Extra onfarm volumes result, too, in more primary processing activity. Irrigation is also felt more widely through higher employment, wages and returns to capital and land, all of which boost household spending on other goods and services.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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17
UPFRONT │ POLITICS
Cow numbers set for election challenges Bob Edlin bob.edlin@xtra.co.nz Opposition parties will be campaigning at this year’s general election with policies aimed at more tightly regulating dairy farming. The Green Party for some time has called for a moratorium on new dairy conversions and will announce more policy on water quality this month. The Labour Party has announced a freshwater management policy that would curb the expansion of dairy farming, irrigation and fertiliser use. But pressure is mounting for tighter constraints. Three of seven points in the Freshwater Rescue Plan announced by the Choose Clean Water group in June call for reducing cow numbers nationally, scrapping irrigation subsidies and a transition out of intensive pastoral systems. The plan is supported by the Tourism Export Council, Federated Mountain Clubs, Fish and Game, Forest and Bird and Greenpeace, and has been endorsed by fresh-water scientists and public health practitioners. Catherine Delahunty, the Greens’ freshwater spokesperson, said it “should be a wake-up call” for New Zealand. The Greens would wind up Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd and end Crown subsidies for irrigation schemes, such as Central Plains Water “that has enabled intensive dairy farming in an area already suffering from too much nitrogen pollution”. All the best practice mitigation measures, such as fencing stock from waterways and planting riparian strips, weren’t going to prevent further pollution from dairy farms entering rivers, Delahunty said – “we need to reduce the number of cows so that there is less pollution in the first place”. Dairy Companies Association of New Zealand chief executive Kimberly Crewther said her organisation disagrees production or cow numbers must be capped, but dairy companies “are not interested in production growth that harms the environment”. Miles Hurrell, chief operating officer of Fonterra Farm Source, said the co18
All the best practice mitigation measures, such as fencing stock from waterways and planting riparian strips, aren’t going to prevent further pollution from dairy farms entering rivers, Greens spokesperson Catherine Delahunty says.
operative believes there is potential to drive continued milk volume Kimberley growth of 1-3% a Crewther. year by improving technology and focusing on farm productivity to work the land “smarter, not harder”. Intensive land use may have reached the environmental limit, he acknowledged, but each region was different and needed to be considered independently. “It’s vital we understand the environmental limits for land use throughout the country’s diverse regions and make sure we don’t exceed them.” This gels with National Party policy. Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy on May 4 told Parliament it was not up to the Government to fix the number of dairy cows. This had to be decided catchment by catchment because “the best information at hand comes from the regional councils…” The 12-point freshwater policy announced by Labour in June features a new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management which will curb increases in farming intensity by constraining livestock numbers, irrigation and fertiliser use. A resource consent would be required to turn a pasture into a feedlot or a low-density farm into a high-density farm with food supplements or irrigation – “and sometimes you won’t get it,” Labour environment spokesperson David Parker said. Labour would require all intensively stocked land near waterways to be fenced off within five years and fund either the Ministry for the Environment or Environmental Protection Authority to prosecute breaches of the Resource Management Act, then reclaim costs from offenders and regional councils. The Audit Office would annually audit regional councils to check on whether they are meeting their legal responsibilities to protect fresh water. Greenpeace said Labour’s water policy is more ambitious than the Government’s,
but is still lacking in some areas such as public funding for irrigation. Greenpeace wants a more explicit commitment to decrease the national dairy herd. Federated Farmers environment spokesman Chris Allan said Labour’s plan lacked balance and could undermine regional economies. There were numerous examples of farmers and communities successfully working together to improve waterways, he said. Speaking for DCANZ, Crewther said innovation had been stifled around the world wherever production had been limited by quota. “New Zealand needs approaches that focus on outcomes and drive innovation,” she said. DCANZ agrees further nutrient loss must be avoided where communities identify the reaching of environmental limits. It therefore supports the Government’s policy of having local authorities determine which land-use activities can be permitted catchment by catchment and where they should be controlled. This needs to be informed by science and evidence and reflect the balance of environmental, social and economic considerations required by the Resource Management Act. Dairy companies were working with farmers and other industry stakeholders to successfully farm within limits, Crewther said. And DCANZ was working with DairyNZ, Federated Farmers and the Dairy Women’s Network to review and refresh the Dairy Industry Strategy for Sustainable Dairy Farming. “We believe that New Zealand’s dairy industry can continue its success as a world-leading producer of high-quality dairy products while also positively contributing to New Zealand being a great place to live,” she said. Hurrell said Fonterra was having “fact-based conversations” with local authorities and communities, “to ensure we get the best outcomes, and balance social, environmental and economic considerations”.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
PASTURE July 2017
Get in front of the eight ball before spring
Choose ‘The Boss’
Circumstances have conspired to create a challenging spring feed-wise for many farmers this year, particularly through the North Island. A slow autumn delayed maize harvesting and subsequent pasture sowing; flooding and wet weather created widespread pasture damage and slowed pasture establishment. It might feel like you’re behind the eight ball already, but with proactive feed budgeting and use of the DairyNZ spring rotation planner, there’s still time to prepare for a pasture deficit at the start of lactation. The most important goal is to reach the end of your first grazing round with cows in reasonable condition, and from a pasture perspective, with as close as possible to the right amount and shape of cover across the farm. Do this, and you will set up the season through to Christmas. Do you have the supplement on hand you need? Feeding supplement early, to hold what cover is available at the start of that round, should be factored
into your plan before calving. When pasture cover is less than expected, for whatever reason, it can be easy to forget that pasture plants cannot grow well unless they have enough leaf area present to support photosynthesis. That’s the science behind the old saying ‘grass grows grass’. It’s also the most common reason people hit a feed deficit in the second grazing round after calving – the first round has been too fast, and they don’t have the pasture cover to generate the expected re-growth before they need to graze that paddock again. Along with a feed budget, the DairyNZ spring rotation planner makes it easier to keep pasture supply and demand on track at the start of the season, so you can make the right grazing decisions to help maximise MS production through to Christmas and feed cows well for mating.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Choosing the right fodder beet comes down to four main factors, and that’s why we’ve nicknamed Robbos ‘The Boss’, because it fills all these criteria so well. The first factor is high seed quality. Robbos seed is tested for germination, weeds and bolters, so you get the seed quality you need. The second factor is high yield. For the past eight years, Robbos has consistently yielded very well in our trials of grazing beet cultivars. It has averaged 24t DM/ha, but we have seen 30t DM/ha+ yields when everything is done right. The third factor is high palatability. Robbos is leafy, with bulbs sitting 45-50% out of the ground, and stock take to it well. Crop utilisation is very high. Last but not least, one of the unique things about Robbos is its leaf quality. Leaves stay green, with less disease than most other cultivars, and that means more protein going into your animals. For further information visit www.agriseeds.co.nz
For further information freephone: 0800 449 955, email: mail@agriseeds.co.nz or visit: www.agriseeds.co.nz
19
BUSINESS │ DIVERSIFICATION Poles yet to be straightened replace dairy pasture on Ealam’s new hop garden.
HOP TO IT Anne Hardie verbatim@xtra.co.nz
C
ameron Ealam’s family has farmed near Nelson since 1856 and have been planning how to continue the business for the next couple of centuries, so they’ve diversified their dairy farm by planting hops. This year they began spraying out a chunk of their Spring Grove dairy farm to dig in rows of 5.2-metre poles for their hop crop which will cost a small fortune to establish, but will return them in the vicinity of $50,000/hectare. Just a short walk from the dairy, the farm has sprouted a hop kiln where the hop cones (flowers) will be stripped from the vines and dried for an industry on a roll as the craft beer market drives demand for the aromatic crop.
‘Hops are a bit less prone to risk than some of the horticulture systems. And whatever we do now, we want to be farming in a profitable, sustainable manner for multiple future generations to keep farming.’
in a dark hole due to an oversupply of commodity hops. So the industry of only about 18 growers at the time, transformed its crop from a commodity product to a higher-value craft beer product and is now reaping the rewards. This year is the first time in generations that new growers are entering the industry and that’s simply because the returns from long-term contracts justifies the capital expenditure. The combination of kiln, machinery and garden establishment will cost the Ealam family about $135,000/ha and over the next two or three years they will establish about 35ha. Yet with those long-term contracts in place, Cameron says they expect between 15 and 20% return on investment which will give them a five-year payback. “The good thing about the hop industry
is the long-term contracts for stability and to smooth those cycles. Those longterm contracts are in place for the next five years, so it’s excellent for budgeting purposes and that was a massive tick for deciding on hops.” It’s not the first time the family has grown hops, though none of the three generations involved in the property today remember as it was a century or so ago. Hops have been grown in Nelson for 150 years, ever since early settlers brought their bundle of plants and dug them into the newly cleared land so they could brew their own beer. Others tried to grow hops around the country, but the latitude-sensitive crop will only perform around 40 to 50 degrees from the equator where it can get the sunshine hours for the development of the flower, so at 41 degrees
Cameron Ealam leans on an old strainer from the past, with the new hop kiln taking shape behind.
Beer needs hops and the New Zealand hop industry has 17 unique varieties and more to come that it can offer brewers around the world. A decade ago, the tiny NZ industry, which produces just 1% of the world hop crop, was wallowing 20
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
The cost of establishing the hop garden is about $45,000/ha and combined with the kiln, about $135,000/ha.
south and the right climate, Nelson is the sole region in the country to grow hops. In a way, Cameron’s family is now returning to its roots. In the intervening generations, the farm has been split up, melded back together and expanded several times, but the core land holding is the original block bought 161 years ago. That history is important to the family and Cameron says they looked long and hard at different options to ensure succession for generations to come. “Our family is quite riskaverse and with that comes quite measured decisions,” he says.”Hops are a bit less prone to risk than some of the horticulture systems. And whatever we do now, we want to be farming in a profitable, sustainable manner for multiple future generations to keep farming.” The 118ha farm almost borders the small Wakefield village and lies on the edge of the fertile Waimea Plains that flare out toward the distant bay. Over successive generations the farm has expanded so that it now straddles two roads with an underpass linking the blocks and they lease an adjoining 50ha. On this mix they have been milking up to 260 cows at the peak on the flats and lower hills as well as running a small number of beefies on hillier country at the back of the farm. Their dairy business is run
on a predominantly grass-based system with silage harvested off support blocks and fed during the shoulders of the season. An in-shed feed system was installed mainly for drought mitigation and generally adds up to no more than 200kg barley/cow. The mix of country results in a range of production that Cameron puts at 1300kg milksolids/ha on the fertile flats, while the hills are capable of 750kg to 800kg MS/ha. Cameron has done the maths on their dairy operation and based on a payout of $6/kg MS, livestock sales at $0.35/kg MS and production averaging 1100kg MS/ ha, it would return a gross income of $6985/ha. It will still provide that income, but on less land so that they can spread their risk by diversifying into hops. Most of the surrounding land is lifestyle blocks and flat land is in short supply and pricey in a region dominated by hills and mountains. So expanding the dairy operation was not an option when they wanted to retain their generational links to the farm. “We would have had to buy a whole heap of five to 10ha blocks and you’d end up with all their houses,” Cameron explains. “In the future we’d potentially look at purchasing somewhere else as well as this, but selling this was never on the cards. I’m pretty passionate about this place and so are other members of the family. “Being at the top of the plains, the soil is pretty fertile and lends
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Hop harvest at an established hop garden in Nelson earlier this year.
21
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
itself to most intensive farming options, so it was finding something that suited our needs and goals, as well as something that interested us. We could have gone into grapes, but weren’t interested – it had to be something we were passionate about.” Until the hop venture began to take shape on the farm, Cameron worked as an ANZ rural manager dealing with investment and finance for agriculture and horticulture businesses, which meant he had a pretty good handle on various industries and their prospects. Nelson’s productive land may be small, but its climate enables diversity, including boysenberries, pip fruit, grapes and hops. The capital costs required to invest in hops is huge, but the upside of that is it is prohibitive for small blocks which helps contain oversupply, Cameron reasons. “The cost is quite significant which is a barrier of entry and in my mind that is a good thing in a lot of ways because it limits a lot of small landholders entering the industry and going down the path of grapes.” A big factor in diversification, was creating a business where more family members could be involved. Alongside Cameron, his mother, Debbie, is now in charge of the plant nursery as she has previous experience in horticulture through her small blueberry business, while his father, Bruce, will achieve his goal of handing the milking cups over to someone else before turning 60 and he will have a new challenge in hops. An uncle, Bryce, will also be involved in the hop operation and has land that will be leased to the business. Along with Cameron’s grandparents, those family members will all be shareholders in the business. At the end of February, the herd will be dried off while the family tackle their first hop harvest which entails the vines being harvested by machine and hauled to the hop shed, where the cones will be stripped from the vines with an imported picker machine, then dried in the diesel-fueled kiln. Multi-level louvres sit horizontally to allow the heat to dry several layers of hop cones before they are baled and sent to the New Zealand Hops facility near Richmond. There, the dried cones are processed into pellets and pressed into bales or repackaged as whole hops for brewers. In the past decade the grower cooperative has focused on the development of quality aromatic cultivars through research with Plant and Food Research at nearby Riwaka. A small brewery takes that research through to the end product, using trained panels and focus groups to assess the brews. Today, the industry produces 17 varieties unique to NZ, specialty aroma hops sought by craft breweries, plus six Northern Hemisphere varieties. NZ has the added advantage of
The aromatic hop flowers. being able to market its hops to brewers as spray-free, as plants don’t suffer the bugs and disease of their overseas counterparts. At just under 800,000kg of hop cones from an overall 442ha, the NZ crop is tiny, but sought after. Seven new growers including Cameron’s family plus former merino farmers and blackcurrant growers, are digging in poles and planting hops this year to reap the benefits of the small, but now very lucrative crop. Along with expansion from existing growers, that will still only increase the entire hop crop to about 650ha in the next few years. To get it in perspective, New Zealand Hops chief executive, Doug Donelan, says there are single hop gardens in the United States bigger than the entire industry here. Small as the NZ crop is, it was worth $25 million this year, with the bulk of it exported to overseas breweries, especially in the US. Donelan says total beer consumption around the world is not increasing, but consumers are moving away from mass-produced, cheaper beers, toward craft brews and that’s where NZ’s specialty aroma varieties are sought. It’s an industry on a roll, which is why newcomers such as the Ealams are investing heavily to grow the crop. Diversifying into hops means the dairy side of their business will decrease and next season they will milk about 170 cows
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
and once the staged hop development is complete, it will drop to just 120 cows. Though cow numbers will drop, Cameron says they intend to literally beef up calf numbers with intensive calf-rearing options, possibly on contract for other farmers. That will add another revenue stream to the business and likewise, a few hundred sheep will graze under the hop crop for several months. Hop vines are cut down at harvest and remain dormant over winter so for many months only the bare poles remain in the garden. Come September when growth takes off again, the garden is restrung for the vines to climb. It means sheep can graze from the end of March through to early spring and then again as the vines reach their full height as they will just graze the bottom of the crop where there are no flowers. Cameron acknowledges it has been a steep learning curve for the family which has been milking cows for about 85 years and the full-on activity of a hop harvest is still ahead of them. While family will fill all the permanent roles for the diverse industries on the farm, contract labour teams will train the plants on to string in spring and a mix of locals and travellers will assist with the hectic harvest when lanes on the dairy farm will bear trailerloads of hops to the kiln. 23
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
BUSINESS │ MILK PROCESSORS
Mataura’s
formula for success Karen Trebilcock ak.trebilcock@xtra.co.nz @KT_at_Exporter Mataura Valley Milk is looking for southern farmers to supply 100 million litres of milk a year. The company’s processing plant has been slowly rising above State Highway 1 north of Gore for the past nine months with work on track for processing to start in spring 2018. Director Aaron Moody, a Gore-based accountant, said the company had signed statements of interest to supply from a number of farmers in the area and these would be the first the company would be contacting in the coming months to become supplier shareholders. He would not comment on the terms of the supply agreements but said the Fonterra payout had become the industry benchmark and Mataura Valley Milk’s intent was to pay that plus a premium. “We have a vision to build the world’s best nutritional plant and will be asking for farmers to become shareholders and partner with us in the company,” Moody said. Mataura Valley Milk was first proposed in 2008 but plans stalled following the global financial crisis when a major investor could not be found. However, the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) granted consent in July last year for the Chinese state-owned China Animal Husbandry Group (CAHG) to have a 71.8% share in the company.
It is CAHG’s first investment outside of China. Based in Beijing and operational since 1982, it produces milk powder, whey powder, seeds, herbages, feed additives, pet food and veterinarian medicines. Bodco, which is 57% owned by CAHG and has a pharmaceutical grade blending and packing plant in Hamilton, will own 5.6% of the company with farmer suppliers holding 20% of the shares and the balance held by minorities. The OIO said at the time of the consent, Matura Valley Milk would create jobs in Southland and Hamilton, New Zealand exports would increase and there would be more market competition in the national dairy processing industry. Southland has two other dairy processing plants – one at Awarua owned by Open Country which is believed to process 220 million litres of milk a year and Fonterra’s Edendale site. Edendale is the largest of Fonterra’s 13 plants. During peak season it processes more than 15 million litres of milk a day with annual production of up to 430,000 MT. A Fonterra representative said the company would not say due to commercial sensitivities whether Edendale was at capacity. Open Country’s Awarua plant was at capacity shortly after it began production in 2008 and in the past four years has gone through a multi-million dollar expansion. Mataura Valley Milk’s silos at the Gore site.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Mataura Valley Milk’s dryer tower and store area under construction.
New Zealand’s Talley’s Group is the major shareholder of the public unlisted company. It is understood to have a waiting list of farmers wanting to supply, especially as farmer suppliers are not required to own shares in the company and its payout in past years has been greater than Fonterra’s. Mataura Valley Milk was hopeful it would find enough milk close to its Gore site. “The closer to the site the better but we are looking for quality as well as quantity,” Moody said. Details were still being finalised but controls on somatic cells, milk temperature and animal feeds such as no palm kernel would be part of the supply agreements, he said. “We will be manufacturing a premium product so we want the highest quality milk.” Mataura Valley Milk aims to produce nutritional powders to be made into infant formula mostly for the Chinese market. It will also be able to make whole and skim milk powders. “We want to run the plant through the whole year but that might not happen from day one. It will depend on the farmers,” Moody said. “Obviously as an accountant I don’t want to see an asset like this one sitting idle. It would be better to have it working.” The tender to build the $240 million plant was won by German engineering firm GEA which has built milk processing plants at Pokeno in 2015 and Lichfield in 2016. Mataura Valley Milk’s general manager is Bernard May, a former general manager of Westland Milk Products. The company will employ about 65 people at the Gore site. 25
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
BUSINESS │ ONFARM
A split partnership with Trinity Trinity Lands is a great employer to work for, sharemilkers Mark and Jamie Perrott say. Sheryl Brown sheryl.brown@nzfarmlife.co.nz @sherylbrownnz Being able to negotiate a unique sharemilking and contract milking split partnership allowed dairy farmers Mark and Jamie Perrott to make a step up in their careers. The couple are on one of Trinity Lands’ farms at Tokoroa (NZ Dairy Exporter, June 2017), milking 680 cows. Their contract is split 66.5% sharemilking, 33.5% contract milking. When the couple looked into the position three years ago they couldn’t afford to buy the 680 top-quality cows Trinity Lands wanted. They pulled their CV out of the running, but Trinity Lands dairy general manager Andrew Archer approached them about a split partnership. For Mark and Jamie it meant taking on less debt, paying less interest and the opportunity to get a foot in the door. “I knew they’d be good to work for, but the budget still had to work. We are lucky they are large enough that they were able to give us this chance,” Mark says. Mark and Jamie own 66.6% of all the animals, including young stock, and split income and expenses into a 66.6% and 33.3% proportion. That makes it a straightforward agreement that is easy to manage, Mark says. They initially signed a three-year contract starting in 2014/15. Considering the milk price fell out in their first two seasons, the couple are glad they didn’t try to push themselves to take on the full sharemilking role. If they had stretched their budget and taken on more debt to go 100%
sharemilking they possibly wouldn’t have made it through the last two seasons. “We have had a really tough two years, we have gone sideways, we definitely haven’t gone forwards.” They bought the cows at the top end of the market coming out of the $8/kg milksolids (MS) payout in 2013/14. A few months later their value had decreased dramatically. However, they’ve had the benefit of breeding from those quality cows, which are all now regaining their value. Mark and Jamie have signed for another three years and have discussed with Andrew different options. The couple are both from Taupo originally, Mark having grown up on dairy farms and Jamie on drystock. Mark’s parents bought 1235ha of Lochinver Station on the Napier-Taupo road and converted it to dairy which Mark, along with his two siblings, managed between 2000 and 2006. Mark and Jamie then got their first contract milking position and stayed contract milking eight years. They won Central Plateau Farm Managers of the Year in the Dairy Industry Awards in 2009. The move north to Tokoroa was based on finding a sharemilking role. The family connection to Trinity Lands runs strong for Mark and Jamie. Mark’s uncle Paul Perrott has worked for the trust for 21 years, while Jamie’s sister Sara has now taken on a contract milker position milking 380 cows. They had some insight on Trinity Lands from Paul and knew it was a successful company to work for with opportunities to progress. Their own experience has been of
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
a company that is professional and supportive. “Trinity are very professional, and very fair. When you do a good job you’re rewarded,” Jamie says. “We are lucky, we have an excellent cowshed and three great houses.” The farm is a Carter Holt forestry conversion going into its 10th season and certainly has its challenges. The milking platform is 243ha dotted among the other 343ha block of bush and scrub and they continue to remove sticks and stumps out of the paddocks.
Key facts • Farm name: Mastiff • Owners: Trinity Lands • Sharemilkers/contract milkers: Mark and Jamie Perrott • Location: Tokoroa • Area: 588ha • Milking platform: 243ha effective • 2014/15 production: 292,000kg MS (665 cows) • 2015/16 production: 319,000kg MS (670 cows) • 2016/17 production: 332,000kg MS (680 cows) • Farm dairy: 50-bail rotary, ACRs, indairy feeding • Supplement bought: 1.3t/cow, palm kernel and silo • Crops: 3.5ha kale, 27ha swedes, 12ha chicory, 160t grass silage • Pasture grown: 14t DM/ha • Empty rate 2016/17: 10.9% (11.5 weeks AI, no bulls), 2015/16: 9.6%, (6 weeks AI 6 weeks bulls) 2014/15: 8.9% (6 weeks AI 6 weeks bulls)
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Grass grub is also an issue and Mark has undersown a lot of Shogun and annuals in the past couple of seasons to maintain pasture cover. The terrain is undulating to steep with the longest walk for the cows 4.2km. The cows can walk up to 12km a day and average 6km/day for the year. The couple originally wanted to buy Friesians to bring on to the property, but Andrew wanted a more Kiwicross cow and it has been the Friesians that haven’t held up on this farm, Jamie says. The long walks take their toll on hooves. They had to look at what seemed like half the herd last season for lameness. Staff pull any lame cows out immediately and lift their foot and treat her if necessary. It is Jamie who typically gets up between 3.30-4am to get the cows in before going home to get the kids off to school. Jamie going easy behind the cows and not pushing them on those long walks is key to minimising lameness and their performance in the vat, Mark says. “If they’re not stressed they’ll produce more.” Walking those distances means the cows need plenty of extra feed to keep them milking well and to get them back in calf. They aim to feed the cows up to 21kg drymatter/day during lactation. “Trinity is great to work for. The main thing for me is they allow us to feed the cows. When the cows are in excellent condition, the feed is going into the vat rather than on condition. We love knowing that our cows are happy and content.” Andrew is good at sourcing feed and it’s very fair across all 21 Trinity Lands farms, Mark says. They feed up to 1.3 tonnes/cow/year of palm kernel in trailers in the paddock and through in-dairy feeding. Mark likes to give the cows their palm kernel when they all get to the paddock. “There is some substitution there, but I like that cows are not fighting over it. Some will head for the grass while others will head for the palm kernel giving them all an equal chance.” Mark and Jamie have increased production significantly since taking on the farm, producing 292,000kg MS in their first year. In their next two seasons they jumped up again to 319,000kg MS and 332,000kg MS. The lift in production, with a similar number of cows, is largely down to improved grass management, and alternating the walk, Mark says. Being organised ahead of time means fewer errors are made and the right residuals are met. They have two fulltime staff, Dan Alden 2IC and Regan Chopra, farm assistant. If they got production up to 350,000kg MS it 28
Trinity Lands works to have a balanced portfolio to be able to still payout dividends with fluctuating milk prices. From left, Trinity Lands dairy general manger Andrew Archer with sharemilkers Jamie and Mark Perrott.
would warrant another staff member, but at the moment it’s another $50,000 they need. Jamie works most days on the farm and their three children, Bradley, 17, Monique, 13, and Jack, 11, help after school and on weekends. Jamie is now a qualified AI technician and mated the herd last season, which has cut costs out of their system. She also does the calf rearing. Jamie, who also did AI for two other Trinity farms, was happy with their 10.9% empty rate last year considering they didn’t use any bulls. “I think it’s a bonus the cows are familiar with me, and I can do it during milking.” They invest a lot into mating. They used 160 CIDRs last season and use K Mars for heat detection with Mark spending a lot of time doing paddock checks. “I can’t afford to skimp in this area.” Since Trinity employed their own veterinarians, it has cut more cost out of the animal health bill including at mating. “It’s been a huge value to us.” For drying off they blanket teat seal the herd and heifers and do selective dry cow treatments for any cow with a herd test result of more than 150,000 SCC during the year. They dry the herd off, winter and calve them down on swedes and have only had the odd mastitis case. Calving the cows on the swedes is great for any metabolic problems, and growing
the swedes means the cows are on a 70-day round from May. They typically feed grass silage during winter which is a perfect combination with the swedes, Mark says. They calve the incoming heifers on kale, which the heifers are introduced to when they are away grazing so they adjust well and are not stressed when they come back to the farm. Andrew does all the soil testing onfarm and makes all the fertiliser calls for cropping, with suggestions from Mark and Jaime. Their summer crop of chicory worked well last year. They grew 19t DM crop which they fed on a 12-day rotation under the effluent irrigator. Mark is keen to grow turnips this season but it has to be planted in the right location for the cows. He would also like to look into fodder beet for a winter crop. Andrew Archer always has time to give advice or listen to new farm management ideas, Mark says. “When I go to Andrew, I have all my facts. He’s not stuck in his ways, he listens to new ideas. If you can prove spending the money will get a return, they will consider it.” Mark and Jamie are hoping for an increased milk price and to increase their sharemilking position with Trinity Lands. They see themselves working for the company for several years to come. “I can see us sharemilking for Trinity for as long as they’re happy with us.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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BUSINESS │ ADVICE
Certifying the advisers Hugh Stringleman hugh.stringleman@nzx.com
Upgrading of whole-farm analysis and farm consultancy advice is the objective of a new certification scheme, thought to be the first of its kind in the world. The Dairy Farm Systems Certificate can be gained by rural professionals after a study course and online examination. In the past six months 14 have done so and a further 44 are part-way through. The certificate is offered by the New Zealand Institute of Primary Industries Management (NZIPIM) and was formulated by DairyNZ and eight consulting firms. It is part of the Transforming the Dairy Value Chain primary growth partnership train-the-trainer approach. The objective is that dairy farmers can have access to, and confidence in, quality advice from rural professionals and organisations with accreditation in farm management, animal welfare, farm effluent systems, and environmental sustainability. That in turn will contribute towards the PGP target of increasing profitability from productivity increases from an average of $50/ha/year to $65 by 2020. DairyNZ programme director Kate Sargeant said the certification scheme was a way to connect existing and new research and development with the advice provided by rural professionals. As research and trial work was done and written up it would be passed on
Kate Sargeant, DFSC programme director, Dairy NZ.
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to certificate holders as professional development. DairyNZ would now refer farmers to certified consultants to provide services such as a whole-farm assessment (WFA), sustainable milk plans, and interpretation of DairyBase reports. Consultants completed a WFA with a farming client as part of their certification, and would continue to offer the WFA as a commercial service. The WFA was a whole-of-system approach to identify the biggest levers that could be pulled to meet farm business and personal goals, Kate said. The process combined financial and physical benchmarking with a discussion with the farm team and onfarm observation.
The WFA was a wholeof-system approach to identify the biggest levers that could be pulled to meet farm business and personal goals.
A comprehensive report and agreed action plan were provided to the farmer following the assessment. She thought the scheme’s interaction between farmers, consultants, researchers, industry-good organisations, plus ongoing professional development, was unique to NZ. Kate, an Australian, said the dairy industry there was looking closely at us. The pattern and structure could be adapted to other industries, for example the red meat collaboration already underway here. NZIPIM chief executive Stephen Macaulay agreed, saying the time was right to extend the farm systems approach into the sheep and beef sector and he was discussing it with the Red Meat Profit Partnership. Such professional development opportunities had become part of the fabric of NZIPIM, to enhance the skills and knowledge base of more than 1000 members, 60% of whom had something to do with dairying. Farm consultants made up 35% of the membership, so more than 200 members
Stacey Belton, farm consultant, AgFirst. potentially would go through the Dairy Farm Systems Certification, he thought. One early starter was Stacey Belton, AgFirst Waikato, only four years after graduation from Lincoln University with Bachelor of Agricultural Science with Honours. AgFirst manager James Allen had suggested the certificate would be necessary for her to advise dairy clients, become a senior consultant and take on projects for DairyNZ and Fonterra in the future. She found in-depth requirements on cow flow and shed structure, for instance, which had not been part of her training or experience before. “The course work and questions also included new material on pasture management, which is one of my specialist areas.” Stacey said she took about five days over the WFA, including six hours onfarm, benchmarking from DairyBase, and three days writing the analysis. As the farm was already in a higher echelon, the exercise was daunting to her. After the WFA had been written up, Stacey and the farmer had developed an action plan, agreed or disagreed on focus areas and assigned tasks and due dates to different people. But she agreed with the scheme designers when they said farms should be able to make improvements after a WFA that would generate $50,000 to $100,000 a year thereafter. The lower gain would be from the easier improvements and the higher figure from a system change, she thought. The 16 on-line module quizzes required a 66% pass rate, which Stacey achieved. “It took about two months, in all, and the main cost to me was time.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
BUSINESS │ ADVICE
Keeping it simple Jackie Harrigan Jackie.harrigan@nzfarmlife.co.nz Simplifying his 600-cow intensive wintermilking Kairanga farm was top of Matthew Collis’ wish list when he undertook a Whole-Farm Assessment (WFA) with AgFirst consultant James Allen, as part of his Dairy Farm Systems Certification. The pair had met while Collis was risk-proofing his business during the pilot Professional Primary Producers Business management programme, to be rolled out through Primary ITO. “While I was there looking at the implications of adverse events – like earthquake, power outage, staff risk or flood events on our low-lying Kairanga property, I realised there was other stuff to look at within the family business.” “We have been winter milking 220 of the 600 cows for the past 18 years, but the operation had become very complicated and expensive to run so we were keen to simplify the whole system,” Matthew says. While the system has jumped around, the herd was producing 300,000kg milksolids (MS) each season from the split-calving operation and Matthew had recently considered returning to spring calving and seasonal production, to better match the pasture growth curve.” He cited staffing issues, winter wet soils, the huge amount of feed needed and just the drain on time and energy to keep the system going as reasons to look for a system change, and felt the whole-farm assessment programme was the best tool to look at the issues. While supplementary feed was not brought in, huge amounts of maize and grass silage and summer crop was needed to bring on to the dairy platform and keep
Cows on a feed pad at Matthew Collis’s Kairanga farm.
The farm assessment included an action the cows producing plan and SWOT analysis and the financial year-round. ramifications were outlined with similar Working through income being generated. the assessment has Out of the huge report generated, been helpful to Matthew says a list of points to review have outside eyes or adjust was brought forward and they on the business, he are now embarking on the change. This says. season will be their last winter milking and “A lot of the time with a whole new staff team on the dairy you do stuff because Matthew Collis. platform the absence of winter mating will it’s what you want make life much easier, he says. to do – I had been thinking of making this “It’s a managed process to get out of change, but it was good to have someone winter milking, but now we have made to challenge my assumptions – and to look the decision and there are good reasons at all aspects of a change. behind it, we can start moving towards it. “I got to thinking about the whole farm “The big thing is that the operation is business and wondered if we were doing going to be much easier to manage from a the best we could – and how we could staffing point of view.” change it to make systems more repeatable and more balanced. “I had been thinking about changing back to spring calving for a while, I didn’t want RXP COLOSTRUM TANKS, PERFECT FOR STORING to wake up one day THE SUPERFOOD THAT NURTURES AND PROTECTS and say I wish I’d YOUR NEWBORN CALVES. done it five years ago,” he says. STRONG “But I did DURABLE ONE-PIECE CONSTRUCTION. appreciate an SIMPLE oversight across CLEAR VOLUME IDENTIFICATION. the whole business SAFE in making a large TRANSLUCENT FOOD-GRADE UNITS. system change – the process looked at the implications from every angle – financial, environmental, systems, production, feed, staff requirements and work balance.”
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BUSINESS │ PASTURES
Today’s pastures tomorrow Cheyenne Stein cheyenne.stein@nzfarmlife.co.nz @CheyStein2 Pasture is the driving force behind New Zealand dairying. Not just from a production point of view but also as a tool to tackle the industry’s environmental challenges. “We are increasingly looking to plants for some of the environmental issues we are facing. It’s clear that we have some opportunities to use different types of plants to capture nitrogen, that’s another aspect of plant production that we are looking at,” DairyNZ principal scientist David Chapman told the Farmers Forum in Palmerston North. A variety of research projects have been on the go over the past five years to ensure we don’t slip to the back of pack and increase the competitive advantage that we have when it comes to our pasture-based systems. “Other countries find ways of increasing their competitiveness, so we must continue to increase the amount of pasture and crop eaten on farm.” This research also needs to work David Chapman. in with regulations being brought in across the country to reduce nutrient discharges from farms. Tools we have used in the past such as high rates of nitrogen fertiliser will become null and void and must make way for new approaches and rely more heavily on plant breeding. “Tools that we have in the past discarded like alternative pasture species may come back into contention.” A starting point is to look at how much value the industry gets from plant breeding. Based on drymatter yield alone, genetic gain for perennial ryegrass is about 5-8% per decade, which is worth between $12 and $20/ha per year to the bottom line of a dairy business. When compared to rates of gain in crops like maize, wheat and soybean which sits at 25% per decade, and 17% per decade respectively, ryegrass gains sound underwhelming in comparison. “But when you look at it, the crop industry spends around $1.5 billion on research and development a year through private investment. There is a lot of difference in the amount of effort going in.” There is also a difference in the plants. Maize, wheat and soybean are annuals which means every year brings an opportunity to roll out new genetics. It would be a bit challenge to shift a plant like ryegrass at the same rate as other crops. “So the 5-8% is actually worth celebrating. We are getting gains and that’s important to recognise.” Actual rates of gain will vary depending on regrassing
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
The world’s first and only pour-on anti-inflammatory for cattle rates and the degree to which the extra yield or quality can be captured in animal production and improved profit. In looking at what we have learnt through the past five years of research, Chapman outlined that the improvements in yield and quality of new ryegrass cultivars have not been at the expense of the ability of these plants to persist in dairy pastures. “In a range of studies we have found that plants of the new ryegrass survive under grazing plus environmental stress just as well as older types.”
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‘The crop industry spends around $1.5 billion on research and development a year through private investment. There is a lot of difference in the amount of effort going in.’
Persistence of new ryegrass pastures is an issue particularly in the upper North Island where the environment is having a dominant effect. Clover is valuable. Not just as a high-quality feed or nitrogen fixation but also for total pasture yield. “Pastures in which white clover contributes 10-40% of pasture drymatter in summer can grow 1.5 to 3.5tonnes DM/ha per year more than ryegrass-dominant pasture.” This amounts to several hundred dollars of worth per hectare.
BEYOND RYEGRASS Mike Dodd senior scientist at AgResearch (seconded to DairyNZ) went on to speak about the value of alternative pasture species as a potential tool in the environmental management space. “We are now looking at alternative pasture species beyond ryegrass and looking at what these species can do in terms of making some gains around environmental management, in particular nitrogen leaching.” Although species have been bred and evaluated over the years Dodd said they have seldom shown clear superiority over ryegrass/white clover in total yield, feed quality and ease of management. “These attributes are still important, but now there is another factor to consider, impacts on the environment.” Our typical ryegrass and clover pastures have a ratio of carbohydrates to proteins that is not optimal for the animal. Excess protein comes out as urinary nitrogen in a concentrated patch. From a plant perspective there are a few options. “From a number of experiments plantain has come through as being consistent in reducing the concentration of nitrogen in the urine.” Known to many as root grass, the annual herb has a few different cultivars. More recently, research has focused on plantain as a key species because of its apparent diuretic effect which dilutes the concentration of nitrogen in the urine. The inclusion of plantain in pasture mixes appears to have a positive effect on herbage production and urinary nitrogen concentrations. “The content of plantain in the offered pasture must be above critical level (around 25%). There is a gap in information around how to establish and manage pastures containing plantain to achieve this desired level in the diet.” This will be the subject of ongoing research in the FRNL programme. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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BUSINESS │ URUGUAY
Dairy, South America-style Susan Kilsby Uruguay’s relatively young dairy industry is pasture-based with cows grazed outside all year round. The industry is eight times smaller than New Zealand’s dairy industry but the volume of milk produced is seven times more than required to feed its own people. Uruguay exports 70% of the milk it produces – primarily as milk powder. The country has just 3.5 million people of whom 1.5 million live in the capital Montevideo. Until 30 years ago most land in Uruguay was extensively grazing by cattle raised on native pastures for beef production. More intensive development has resulted in growth in dairying and grain production. Soybean is the main crop grown. Milk production has been relatively stable over the past decade, with the majority processed into whole milk powder, cheese and butter but a thriving community of artisan cheese producers account for 27% of the milk produced. These farmers keep a small number dairy cows and use the milk to produce cheese which is sold to local consumers. Uruguay has about 3900 dairy farmers, with an average herd of just 150 cows. Stocking rates are less-intensive than NZ with one cow per hectare being the norm but with young stock also grazed onfarm. Supplementary feed is typically grown onfarm as well. The more productive farms have a slightly higher stocking rate of 1.3 cows per ha. Low returns and limited access to finance have stifled industry growth in recent years. The financial industry is poorly developed and it is difficult for farmers to access finance especially longterm loans. The maximum loan term is seven years with most lending being over one or two years, making it incredibly difficult to finance large investments such as new dairy sheds. The co-operative Conaprole is the largest milk processor, processing 70% of the milk produced. About eight dairy companies operate but not all are financially stable. This means farmers who supply some companies risk not being fully paid. Production costs in Uruguay are similar to NZ, but debt servicing forms a much smaller portion of the cost. Dairying land in Uruguay is typically priced between NZ$4500-$8500/ha with the most expensive land priced at $28,500/ha. Low soil fertility means permanent
Uruguay dairy industry players, from left to right: Ernesto Triñanes, Inale extension officer, Gabriel Bagnato, head of Inale, Santiago de Izaguirre, farmer, Diego Ibarra, Conaprole technical staff.
pastures need to be re-sown as often as every four years. Ryegrass doesn’t persist as it dies off during the hot summers. So pastures typically consist of a mixture of fescue and white clover. Crops grown onfarm for supplementary feed include: lucerne, maize and sorghum. Milking cows are typically fed 60% pasture, 25% concentrates and 15% hay. The portion and the quality of concentrates fed is typically higher for cows during the early lactation, decreasing later in the lactation.
Stocking rates are lessintensive than New Zealand with one cow per hectare being the norm but with young stock also grazed onfarm. Supplementary feed is typically grown onfarm as well.
Calving on many farms occurs year round – however more cows are calved in autumn (March) and spring (August) than winter. Rainfall and temperatures are relatively consistent year round. Average daily temperatures range from 11C in July up to 23C in January. Rainfall is highest in spring and autumn. June is typically the lowest rainfall month receiving an average of 83mm while October has the highest at 108.5mm.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
The consistent rainfall eliminates the need for irrigation. Excess rainfall is one of the major challenges. The land is very flat and soils often remain water logged for long periods following heavy rains. The main breed is Holstein Friesian, heavily influenced by American bloodlines. The cows are of a larger frame than typically seen in NZ, but there are some crossbreds as well. Production per hectare averages 440kg milksolids per ha, with the betterproducing farms averaging 630kg MS/ ha. Production per cow averages 18 litres a day. Milksolids content averages 7%. Farmers are paid on a milksolids basis but they typically discuss the milk price in US dollars per litre. Cows are normally milked twice a day. It is not difficult to get farm labourers but like most parts of the world attracting quality workers can be difficult. Farm work is very manual so a larger number of workers is required than you would typically see on a NZ farm. Supplementary feed is normally fed in the milking shed. Herringbones are the most common type of shed with rotaries virtually non-existent. Horses are regularly used on farms particularly for moving stock. Uruguay, like its neighbour Argentina, has a long tradition of gauchos – some of whom are now turning their stockmanship skills to dairying. Two-wheel motorbikes are increasing in popularity but quad bikes are not due to their high cost.
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EVENING MILKING SUITS WAY OF LIFE
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into the bins. As the land that has been leased is in a long narrow band the cows sometimes face a 6km walk to the dairy shed. Cows are run in two herds. Heifers are run in one herd while second-lactation and older cows are run in a separate herd. The farm produced 1,531,000 litres of milk last year consisting of a total of 57,583kg of milkfat and 50,691kg protein. Milksolids content was just over 7% with 395kg milksolids produced per ha. The target for next season is 1,800,000 litres. The farm has progressively expanded its milk output since new farming practices and additional land was introduced by Diego. Milk output has doubled over the past decade. The herd is to be expanded to 200 cows plus 90 heifers by 2018. Calving occurs all year round but Diego aims to increase the proportion of cows that calve during autumn (between February and April). At present 36% of the herd calve in these three months. Peak milk production occurs in October when all cows will be in milk. Last year no cows calved between November and January.
thousand litres per month thousand litres per month
Dairy farm operators in Uruguay often find it challenging to find quality workers. Ernesto Trinanes, extension and project officer from the Instituto National de la Leche (the equivalent of DairyNZ) said plenty of staff were available but not all were suitable for working on a dairy farm. “It is not a problem getting staff but getting good quality staff is very difficult.” Cows are typically milked early in the morning and again in the late afternoon so some farmers find getting staff to get up for the early morning milking a challenge. The Uruguayan lifestyle, typical of South America, normally starts later in the morning and finishes late in the evening. Dinner usually takes place about 9pm and shops stay open until 10pm in the main shopping areas. Diego Madini who manages his family dairy farm alongside his father Luis has found a novel solution to the problem of getting staff to milk cows early in the morning. He now milks at 10am and 10pm. “These times suit our workers better as they do not like getting out of bed early in the morning”. Also, by milking later is he avoids peak electricity costs which occur early in the evening. Diego manages 225 milking cows (excluding dry cows) on 280 hectares. He expanded the family farm by leasing neighbouring blocks, renting the additional land at US$130/ha. The farm has five staff plus himself and his father whom both work part-time. Cows are milked through a 20-aside herringbone and it takes two hours to milk. Supplementary feed is fed in the dairy shed in bins in front of the cows. Between rows these bins are topped up manually by pouring concentrated feed from 20 kg bags
The main breed of dairy cows in Uruguay is Holstein Friesian, heavily influenced by American bloodlines. Oats are grown onfarm for feed, with 36ha planted. A further 24ha was planted in fescue this year and 56ha in other grass species. Just 28ha remains in its natural state with all the rest of the cultivatable land having been regressed within the past three years. Last season 160 tonnes of sorghum and 15t of distillers dried grains (DDGS) was fed in addition to the feed grown onfarm. In the past year production costs were US$0.27/litre, below the average cost production for a Uruguayan dairy farm which is about US$0.31/litre. Last season the milk price paid was just US$0.269/litre compared to US$0.374/litre when milk prices were at their peak in the 2014-15 season. Artificial insemination is used for most breeding, with farm staff trained in AI. Six bulls are also retained for natural breeding. On average 2.46 services are required to get a cow in-calf. During the first cycle (21 days) 51% of cows will be serviced. Four horses are kept on the farm for stock work such as bringing the cows to the shed for milking.
Seasonal milk production Seasonal milk production Luis & Deigo Mandini Luis & Deigo Mandini
160 140 160 120 140 100 120 80 100 60 80 40 60 20 40 0 20 May June Jul 0 May June Jul
Aug Aug
Sep
Oct
Sep
Oct
Nov Nov
Dec Dec
Jan Jan
Feb Feb
Mar Mar
Apr Apr
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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SYSTEMS │ SPRING PLANNER With GPS in hand Mark can accurately set up breaks based on the spring rotation planner.
Farming for the fund Anne Lee anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz @Cantabannelee
Farm facts • The Forks • Farm owners: NZ Super Fund • Farm manager: Mark and Jess Cudmore • Area: 252ha milking platform • Production: 427kg MS/cow (201617), 450kg MS/cow (2017-18 budgeted) • Supplement: 400kg DM/cow • Farm working expenses: $3.90/ kgMS (2016-17), $4.05/kg MS (2017-18 budgeted) • Farm dairy: 60-bail rotary with Protrack and automatic cup removers • Irrigation: Four centre pivots. • Effluent: Two-pond system, effluent spread through pivot, application depth down to 1.5mm
Mark Cudmore – accurately measuring and monitoring to get to the end of the first round right on time.
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Managing spring pasture and getting through the first round right on target is all about getting yourself to what might seem like a “very uncomfortable position,” Canterbury farm manager Mark Cudmore says. “But it’s a position you’re banking on coming straight out of and if you’re not feeling a little uncomfortable as you’re coming up to the end of the first round then you probably haven’t done the job quite right,” he says. That’s because the aim is to end the first grazing round at balance date – right when pasture growth rate reaches a point it’s increased to meet cow demand. Runner up to the 2015 National Farm Manager of the Year title and winner of Canterbury/North Otago farm manager of the year in the same year, Mark is a devotee of the spring rotation planner and proven systems. He’s also a strong advocate of making the most of home-grown feed. A Lincoln University Bachelor of Agricultural Science Honours graduate, Mark was a technical field rep for PGG Wrightson specialising in pasture and forage crops before he and his wife Jess went farming. When he won the Dairy Industry Awards he was working as a farm
manager on a 590-cow operation at Cheviot he’d helped convert. But since June 1 last year he’s been managing The Forks, a 900-cow farm between Methven and Mt Somers owned by the New Zealand Super Fund and managed by FarmRight. Having your farm owners as the New Zealand Super Fund does engender a real sense of pride, they say. “We do tell our family that in a way we’re working for them,” Jess says. FarmRight farm investment manager Ed Tapp was the couple’s consultant at the previous job so it was a smooth transition with support still coming in monthly catch-ups with him and FarmRight consultant Simon Ferguson through FarmRight’s management of the 23 NZ Super Fund farms. Mark’s again been a stand-out performer winning FarmRight’s Chairman’s Cup for overall management excellence in the first year working for the company, the environmental management award and the health and safety award. “As for going from a family farm situation before to what you’d call a corporate farm – I’ve really found there’s no real difference in terms of how we see the farm, how it’s operated,” Mark says. It still has the family farm ethos and while the reporting has to be done to a stricter timetable, he says he was carrying out regular reports for his farm owners in his previous job. Mark’s been a diligent user of the spreadsheet-based spring rotation planner developed by the company. It’s similar to the DairyNZ spring rotation planner available online differing a little in that, although it includes rotation length within its calculations, the output Mark gets is more focused on an allocation area. “It works out our allocation in squares (square metres) and all I need to have for that is our covers (cover at planned start of calving and at balance date), the calving rate – so the number of cows we expect to calve which we work out from our Minda records, and the supplements I have on hand.” The workings within the spreadsheet take into account the ever-growing demand from the herd as more cows calve. The calving rate details are needed because at any one time after calving begins there will be cows in the herd who have just calved and those that have calved some days or weeks before –
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Jess and Mark Cudmore – feel proud that their farm owner is the NZ Super Fund each with a different demand depending on the number of weeks they’re into their lactation. The longer they’ve been calved, the greater their demand driven largely by increasing milk production up till they hit peak lactation. As well as the allocation measures, the spring rotation planner shows the cumulative area of the farm that should have been grazed and the farm’s target average pasture cover for that week. Alongside those columns is a place for Mark to put in the actuals – and that’s the key to making it work. “There’s only one thing for certain if you do a spring rotation planner at the start of the season and go through to balance date with it – it won’t work. Cows won’t calve at the specific rate you’ve planned and the grass won’t grow at the same rate you’ve put into the system – up here we might even get snow. “So the biggest thing to getting it right is re-evaluating where you’re sitting every week to 10 days and, based on that, adjusting your plan accordingly,” Mark says. It will primarily be a matter of adjusting supplement so if pasture growth is exceptional, less supplement can be offered. Keeping the area offered as close to the planner as possible is the aim because big variations will mean either finishing the first round too early and having average pasture cover too low, below what’s required at balance date, or getting to balance date and still having paddocks to graze for the first time. In that case pasture quality issues could be a problem. For Mark, near the foothills of the Southern Alps, balance date is October 1 and the average cover they’re aiming for then is 2300kg drymatter (DM)/ha. “You might get a week where you go, hell we’ve grazed more than we should have but if you watch that and act early it’s easier to get back on track. “If you get to the end of the first round and you’re 10 days short of your balance date and you don’t have the grass you’re in the situation where you’re relying on
shorter covers to grow you the feed you need and grass grows grass, so you’re going to be struggling.” If it goes the other way it can be even tougher to manage as the quality decline that’s likely to follow could be hard to rectify. Production is likely to suffer with cows not peaking and the lower quality in the subsequent rounds – right when you’re trying to get cows in-calf could be a problem too.
‘As for going from a family farm situation before to what you’d call a corporate farm – I’ve really found there’s no real difference in terms of how we see the farm, how it’s operated.’ Mark’s 2IC walks the 252-hectare milking platform weekly with the rising platemeter. “I used to do it but I’ve handed that over to my 2IC – the important thing is it’s the same person every time especially in that first round when you really have to get it right. Having consistency is the key. “I still believe in a plate walker too because I think you get so much more information when you take the time to walk through the paddock – it can be things as subtle as variation across the paddock – if there’s more feed at the front of the paddock than the back or if there’s variation in quality. “It was hard to let that go and I still make the time to go out and see what’s being measured and get a good handle on the situation.” In that way Mark’s not relying on the numbers alone and puts a big emphasis on monitoring post-grazing residuals and what the cows are telling him. It’s especially true in the first round when winter-saved pasture can have drymatter that is above what the platemeter is saying.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
“You might look at the numbers and think we should be in trouble here but you look at residuals and what the cows are being offered along with what’s going into the vat and you can see you’re not. It’s all about really monitoring.” Mark has three full-time staff and is still in the milking roster himself. “So I’m getting the cows in and seeing first-hand what’s going on too.” Going into the winter it’s important to have not just the average cover right but also the shape of the wedge. Mark says in their location, with snow highly likely at some time through the winter or early spring, having an average cover at about 2100kg DM/ha at dryoff is the aim. “High covers just don’t go well under snow – they break down fast and you can waste a lot of feed. “It’s important to get the feed wedge looking good – a nice even slope and it’s very important to make sure you’ve got the quality right too going into winter. “Residuals on that last round have to be spot-on otherwise you’re just bringing quality problems with you into the next season that you’re probably going to struggle with the whole way.” Cows are wintered on fodder beet nearby with the crop bought on a cents/kg DM basis and managed by The Forks staff. They’re transitioned up to an ad lib allowance so are getting up to 12kg DM/ cow/day of fodder beet plus straw and silage. From mid-July the silage is dusted with mag-oxide and throughout the winter it’s also dusted with 50g/cow/day of dicalcium phosphate (DCP). Cows come home all together at the end of July with the planned start of calving on August 1. They return to fodder beet on the platform, grass and this year maize silage, bought locally, with their allocations reduced to just below maintenance as they head in to the springer mob. Mark runs all the springers through the 60-bail farm dairy every day with freshly calved cows allowing him to start them on a small offering of grain and draft off milkers. He has very few metabolic issues over calving and treated about six cows last season – all later calvers that had high body condition scores (BCS). This season cows have generally gone into the winter in better condition and he says managing BCS gain will be a focus. He’s also going to be interested to follow a group of 20 cows that “got burnt” on the fodder beet while transitioning after a breakout. “We’ve kept them at home on a dryland area that’s not in the milking platform. I’ll be watching how they go through the season with production and mating.” 39
SYSTEMS │ PLANNING
Strategic feed supply decisions Anne Hardie verbatim@xtra.co.nz Data collected from farm walks over a number of years can be used for strategic planning that could result in a change of calving date, stocking rate and supplement use to suit the farm’s pasture growth pattern. DairyNZ senior scientist Dawn Dalley has collected information for the four West Coast monitor farms for up to eight years along with the West Coast Focus Farm Advisory Board and that provided a good assessment of pasture growth on each farm and the monthly variability across the years. Regions and farms differ in their pasture growth trends and variability, she says, so it is important to take that into account when assessing stocking rate, calving date and supplementary feeding requirements for the farm. Collecting pasture growth data over the years is invaluable for farmers making those decisions, yet she says it is estimated only 20If farmers want to fine-tune their 30% of farmers do regular weekly system, they should collect data farm walks, let alone compare the regularly and use it to assess data across years to optimise their the seasonal and yearly trends, business. DairyNZ’s Dawn Dalley says. “I suspect many farmers doing regular farm walks aren’t capturing cover into spring, reduce stocking rate or the full benefit of that data by calve slightly later when growth rate is looking at it year-on-year,” she says. getting closer to demand.” “They’re not using that information to set As part of the P21 Project in South up their system to minimise the impact of Otago led by AgResearch and DairyNZ, yearly variation. calving one herd of cows 14 days later on August 24 rather than the usual August 10 start for the region removed the need ‘I suspect many farmers to feed out silage or supplements through doing regular farm walks early lactation and also enabled the farm to achieve a higher pasture cover at the aren’t capturing the full start of calving. benefit of that data by “And we found a very small difference looking at it year-on-year.’ in days in milk, with the later-calving cows having a more compact calving over the three-year study. The farm didn’t produce as much milk, but some other things “What’s the average and range in growth were changed like less nitrogen fertiliser, and what does that mean in terms of the growing cereals on the milking platform spring feed budget and calving date? If for silage and using Italian ryegrass on you’re only growing between 5kg and 10kg 15% of the farm – all of which impacted (drymatter (DM)/ha/day) in August and in on cow performance.” September it is still only 20 to 30kg, then It is difficult to assess the difference in you’ve got to put more supplements into profitability between the earlier and later the system, carry a higher average pasture
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calving dates because other factors had also been changed, she says. “One of the farmers in the area who was on the project reference group calves from August 24 is doing very good production and his opinion was for that environment, there were benefits from calving two weeks later.” Calving dates tend to remain the same on most farms, yet mating periods have reduced significantly and the use of short-gestation bulls has produced a more compact calving and that puts a lot of pressure on the feed supply, she says. Working out the best calving date, stocking rate and amount of supplement to suit the farm depends on four critical factors, Dalley says, including pasture growth rate, whether cows are wintered on the milking platform, how much supplement the farmer can afford to put into the system, plus the climate and physical attributes of the farm. “It’s having that information for your farm and using it to do more strategic thinking, rather than just using farm walks for planning on a week to week basis. “It may mean sitting down with a consultant and using a farm systems model to look at scenarios to determine the factors that have the biggest impact on farm performance and what an optimised system looks like for your farm. With any proposed system change, it also has to fit with your goals and the way you prefer to operate. “Some farmers prefer to run a higher stocking rate or calve earlier as it makes pasture management decisions easier because it minimises having to manage pasture surpluses, which for some farms can be more challenging. On the West Coast, the availability of contractors and timeliness of conservation can make surplus management difficult. For others, they prefer to have more pasture on hand for their cows for as long as they can.” If farmers want to fine-tune their system, they should collect data regularly and use it to assess the seasonal and yearly trends and determine how that affects the way they set up their farm system, she says.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
SYSTEMS │ PALM KERNEL
Three-way trial raises kernel cost warning Glenys Christian glenys.christian@nzx.com Farmers are being warned to carefully watch the cost of feeding palm kernel, even when they are getting very good responses to it from their herds. At the Northland Agricultural Research Farm (NARF) Banking the Lessons Learnt field day in early June the second season’s results of its trial which aims to reduce farmers’ reliance on imported feed were presented. The trial compares three farmlets of a similar size on the farm, just north of Dargaville. It had been using up to 1700 kilograms of supplements a year pushing it towards a DairyNZ system 4 operation. “We asked whether that was where we really wanted to be,” AgFirst Northland science manager Chris Boom, said. In the trial three farming systems were run with the first grass-only, the second running a cropping system and the third using palm kernel to fill feed deficits rather than support milk production. The first farmlet has a slightly lower stocking rate of 2.6 cows per hectare compared with 2.8 cows for the other two. Pasture growth rates were good for both years of the trial, rising from a historical average of 15.4 tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha to 17.4t in the 2015/16 season then 18.8t last season. “In mid-February it started raining and didn’t stop,” he said. “It’s as good as we have had over the last 15 years.” While the cropping farmlet, growing maize for silage, turnips and fodder beet, produced the most milk in the 2015/16
season, the grass-only treatment showed the greatest operating profit at a low $3.90/kg milksolids (MS) payout. But for last season, with a $6/kg MS payout used in the analysis, the palm kernel farmlet not only produced more milk but also had a higher operating profit at $2713 per hectare. This compared with $2670/ha for the grass-only farm and $2207/ha for the cropping farmlet. Farm manager, Kat Reed, said it had been a challenge getting crops in last season.
All farmlets had higher milk production last season, compared with the previous year, with the grass-only farm being 11% ahead and the palm kernel farm 9% up.
“It was really wet in late spring then really dry,” she said. The result was considerable soil damage in the cropping farm which was estimated to affect almost one third of the farmlet last September, compared with 18% for the palm kernel farmlet and 16% for the grass-only one. It was calculated that turnips cost 12 cents/kg DM, fodder beet 27c/kg DM, maize silage 30c/kg DM the same as palm kernel, and pasture silage 135c/kg DM.
The grass-only herd in the NARF trial.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
John Roche – mind the marginal cost of additional milk production. All farmlets had higher milk production last season, compared with the previous year, with the grass-only farm being 11% ahead and the palm kernel farm 9% up. The grass-only cows were dried off two weeks earlier than the other two farmlets, as they were the previous year. Farm working expenses were calculated at $3.72 for the grass-only farmlet, $4.26 for cropping and $3.94 for that feeding palm kernel. The cropping farm’s additional labour and tractor hours were almost three times those on the grass-only farm while on the palm kernel farmlet they were almost double. DairyNZ principal scientist, Dr John Roche, who visits NARF, managed by the BNZ Northland Dairy Development Trust, every six weeks to oversee the trial, showed a chart of different palm kernel prices and milk responses from cows. The marginal cost of increased production was calculated over a wide range of milk responses, although the NARF cows fed palm kernel had a high 130 grams of milk response per kilogram fed in the 2015/16 season. This dropped to around 110g last season, but both were very good biological responses and better than expected based on overseas research, he said. “This may be because we are putting good-quality feed into cows which haven’t had that quality of feed, and we’ve put it in and got out quickly.” A range of palm kernel prices from $200 to $300/t were used and at the highest price and lowest response the milk produced cost $8.31 to produce. “These are average marginal costs,” he said. But some farmers were in a situation where they could feed a certain amount of palm kernel then switch to another feed. And while many farmers’ costs crept up as palm kernel prices did this was not the case in this trial as palm kernel was added
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SYSTEMS │ CO DIARY
Southern dairying: what’s next? Nathan Nelson What’s next for dairying in the lower South Island? That’s the key question the Southern Dairy Hub aims to answer. The research and demonstration farm was set up for local farmer-led initiatives to be researched on southern soils, in southern conditions. Dairy farmers in Southland and South Otago face different challenges to their counterparts in other parts of the country, given the soil type and climate. The hub is due to be operational this month, seven months since conversion of the 349-hectare dryland farm in Makarewa began. Comparative science and research will be carried out on how to farm sustainably into the future. The context in which we operate has been changing and we believe for the better. Our business is complex and we need systems that work for the environment, people, animal welfare, health and safety, food safety, and greenhouse gases while
still focusing on the core aspects of turning pasture into milksolids ensuring we make a profit. The Southern Dairy Hub aims to bring the community together and ask, what’s next? We’re looking forward to opening the farm to the public by holding open days and education days. The hub has been set up to run four 200-cow herds to allow research at scale in the local environment, testing farming practices against each other while maintaining a control or baseline for comparison. With wintering on farm, the first research being carried out this season is a trial with the mixed-age cows looking at comparing feeding regimes with cows on fodder beet and cows on kale. New Zealand-based research on fodder
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• Nathan Nelson, DairyNZ Senior Consulting Officer in Southland
The hub has been set up to run four 200-cow herds to allow research at scale in the local environment, testing farming practices against each other while maintaining a control or baseline for comparison.
John Roche shows how the cost of palm kernel and milksolids response to its feeding has a big influence on profitability.
then withdrawn on a very strategic basis when residuals were between 3.5 and 4 centimetres or 1500kg DM/ha. There were also concerns with the palm kernel herd’s Fat Evaluation Index (FEI) calculated by Fonterra on its FarmSource website. Here milk is given a green, orange or red grading through the season, with the red
beet, in a systems context to research animal health and ongoing performance of those animals into lactation, is limited. Research will look at the environmental effects of these different systems as well. It’s science and research trials like these, which look to answer some of the unknowns and test farm system innovations, that the Southern Dairy Hub will be able to demonstrate in the future as we look at what’s next for dairying. For a full story on the conversion to date, drone fly over footage and a photo library visit: southerndairyhub. co.nz/news
zone meaning milk has tipped over the point where there may be manufacturing issues for the co-op. Fonterra has signalled there will be penalties for producing red grade milk next season. The palm kernel farmlet’s milk was in the red zone when more than 3kg per cow per day was fed during dry conditions
early in the year then again in May when the supplement was strategically fed. There were no issues for the grass-only farmlet but FEI level was elevated for the cropping farmlet when fodder beet and turnips were fed, although it never reached the red level. At an $8/kg MS payout it was calculated the palm kernel farmlet would increase its lead to have an operating profit of $4943, compared with $4594 for the grass-only farmlet and $4307 for the cropping system. But if the cost of the additional capital required to set up a palm kernel feeding system was added in at a 6.5% interest rate the grass-only system’s operating profit came out ahead at $2638/ ha. This compared with $2551/ha for the palm kernel farmlet and $2061 for the cropping system. The trial, funded by DairyNZ, the Ministry for Primary Industries Sustainable Farming Fund and the Hine Rangi Trust, is continuing this season and may go into a fourth year to give a greater range of climate conditions for comparison.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
SYSTEMS │ HERD EFFICIENCY
Aiming for healthier, longer-living cows Cheyenne Stein cheyenne.stein@nzfarmlife.co.nz @CheyStein2 Each year 21% of cows are removed from a herd. Of that 6080% are culled for involuntary or avoidable reasons such as reproductive issues, mastitis, health disorders and low production. Although New Zealand’s level of removal is lower than overseas counterparts where replacement rates can sit about 30-45%, the link between removals and perceptions of animal welfare and health needs to be addressed. Claire Phyn, principal scientist at DairyNZ spoke at the Palmerston North DairyNZ Farmers Forum about the importance of cow longevity and research being done. In 2013 the seven-year Lifetime Productivity research programme was initiated to quantify the issue in NZ and to investigate strategies for improvement. The first phase focused on characterising the frequency and key reasons for removals from the herd, the health-related productivity losses associated with lower cow survival and the potential risk factors and costs that come with poor performance. Although some voluntary replacement of cows is required each year to bring more profitable, genetically superior animals into the herd, there is considerable room for efficiency gains because most of the 21% of adult cows removed annually are for involuntary reasons. Meaning NZ farmers are limiting options for replacements unnecessarily. Economic modelling indicates cow wastage caused by on-farm deaths and culling for involuntary, non-production reasons costs the industry in excess of $1 billion annually. “Improving animal health during the key risk time of the transition is certainly a good starting point. This is the time where cows are more likely to get infectious diseases like mastitis and uterine health issues.” A research project involved in the programme is focusing on how immune response and function can be improved over that period. The transition period is a time of huge physiological and metabolic changes including a change in immune function, Phyn said. “Her immune function becomes compromised at that time. If that goes on for too long or the function goes down too steeply what can happen is she becomes chronically inflamed leaving her exposed to an increased risk of other diseases and uterine health issues.” “We are looking at how we can use an immune enhancer supplement. There is a protocol being used overseas for this. It’s expensive and impractical for New Zealand situations so we are focusing on making ones that is practical, cost-effective and has the desired outcome.” One strategy to increase the productive lifetime of dairy cows is to breed animals that are inherently healthier, more fertile and last longer in the herd. “We are developing new methods to evaluate a functional survival trait to accelerate genetic gain in dairy cow health and longevity.” In the management space research is showing that improving animal health during the three to four weeks after calving is a key approach to increasing longevity and health. “The risk of death onfarm is greatest during this period, Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
especially for mature cows. Many culls originate from issues experienced following calving.” Even if affected animals are not Most of the 21% of adult cows removed removed from the annually are for involuntary reasons herd, the negative effects of health disorders on their well-being, milk production and reproduction and cost of treatment contribute significantly to lower lifetime productivity and farm profits. The second phase of the programme is focusing on developing practical strategies that prevent or treat sick and at-risk animals during early lactation. Pre-calving the focus remains on body condition score (BCS) in the weeks leading up to calving and after. “Studies have shown that if an animal calves slightly too high or too low in BCS then she will have an increased risk of metabolic disorders and uterine disorders. There is a sweet spot in the middle where you get optimised health, reproduction and production.”
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SYSTEMS │ BENCHMARKING
Measuring success Anne Lee anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz @Cantabannelee Benchmarking has been critical to measuring the success of Lincoln University Dairy Farm’s (LUDF) farm management changes over the past four seasons. South Island Dairy Development Centre’s executive director Ron Pellow says the farm’s objectives were to reduce its nutrient losses, to meet the future regulatory nutrient loss restrictions without hampering profitability. “The only real way for us to ensure we are maintaining our profitability year-onyear is through the benchmarking we do with other high-performing farms,” he says. They can’t do it by looking at trends in the LUDF’s profitability alone because each season varies in terms of climatic factors, which affect pasture production, and in terms of payout. The benchmarking process has been invaluable in showing LUDF’s changes have achieved its objectives in terms of both environmental and profitability objectives. Pellow says the management team initially started to benchmark against others because, although it claimed to be among the top 2-5% in terms of profitability it didn’t have evidence to back that up. “We really didn’t know if there were a whole lot of farms out there with a lot better profitability. “So to add credibility to what we were doing we identified a number of farms that we understood, through several sources, were at the top of the spectrum in terms of profitability and were well respected and prepared to share their data.” Since it was instigated for the 2010-11 season the benchmark group has changed a little but the data and comparative analysis has become a sought-after piece of work each year by farmers and industry participants. It’s presented at the July focus days just a few weeks after the end of the season so the information is extremely timely compared to many other benchmarking programmes. Pellow warns the data has to be viewed with some provisos because each farm’s situation is different and a number of assumptions and adjustments have to be made to make the data comparable. “For that reason we don’t use the information to pinpoint to the very last 46
‘We really didn’t know if dollar which farm or system is the most there were a whole lot of profitable.” For instance, some have owned support farms out there with a lot better profitability,’ SIDDC land and have costs that may be shared executive director Ron across their business. Pellow says. “For their own business reasons and rightly so, some don’t necessarily Table one LUDF benchmarking for separate out all of those costs whereas 2016-17 season we’re only looking at the milking LUDF Range within platform on LUDF,” he says. Benchmark farms “Nevertheless, I think we do get Physical a good, robust data set that models what other farms are doing in terms Effective area (ha) 160 140 - 711 of costs and systems and what Support land (ha) 0 0-102 they contribute in terms of overall Peak cows milked 555 507 - 2592 profitability.” They will dig further if outliers Stocking rate 3.5 3.3 - 4.3 (cows/ha) appear and last year spent an Production (kg MS/ 1789 1597 - 2147 afternoon on one of the farms where ha) DairyBase calculations were indicating 10 day peak (kg 2.35 2.09 - 2.35 it grew and utilised a lot more pasture MS/cow/day) than LUDF did. Days in milk (days) 265 246 - 277 The team gained a lot more insight into the farm’s systems but not all their questions on the differences could be answered. “That’s where, when you get right into the detail, benchmarking, in some instances, won’t explain all of the variables.” But Pellow says the benchmarking process is definitely worth it and has contributed to the LUDF’s management team taking a more critical look at some aspects of its budget. “I think we have started looking much harder at some of the criteria we justify things on and certainly when we had the previous two years of very low payout we’ve looked closely at those benchmarks of what other farmers are spending in terms of maintenance of their herd, animal health and breeding costs. “We have a good data set there that can help us to determine whether we are being wise with our investment in those areas or whether we are being over-cautious.” The analysis also looks at trends over time showing the range in costs and other factors which contribute to operating profit with LUDF’s position highlighted within that range. They include feed, stock, labour, fertiliser and overhead costs as well as milk income, stock and other income, operating profit itself and total operating costs. Some of those factors are also averaged each year between all the farms and shown over time.
Pasture and crop eaten (t DM/ha)
16
14.0 - 18.6
Imported feed (t DM/ha)
1.2
1.2 - 3.9
Grazing off (t DM/ha)
3.2
2.2 - 3.2
Total feed eaten (t DM/ha)
20.3
18.2 - 25.3
Nitrogen use (kg N/ha)
173
173 - 293
Six-week in-calf rate (%)
63
61 - 69
Total income ($/ha)
10936
9767 - 13126
Net Stock Income ($/ha)
562
562 - 1498
Total operating expenses ($/ha)
7453
5885 - 8865
Operating profit ($/ha)
4760
4760 - 6722
Total operating expenses ($/kg MS)
4.17
3.52 - 4.41
Operating profit ($/kg MS)
2.66
2.66 - 3.46
Labour costs ($/ha)
1509
1070 - 1615
Animal health ($/ha)
465
183 - 531
Breeding and herd improvement ($/ha)
272
135 - 326
Supplement bought/made/crop ($/ha)
653
555 - 1359
Total feed costs ($/ha)
2304
1950 - 3221
Fertiliser cost ($/ha)
203
195 - 585
Nitrogen cost ($/ha)
241
217 - 374
Repairs and maintenance ($/ha)
611
126 - 611
Financial
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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SYSTEMS │ DRONES Nick Hoogeveen launches his Phantom 4 drone to check winter crops.
Eye in the sky on pasture Drone pilot tips
Andrew Swallow Forget the platemeter, or even motorbiketowed pasture meter: before too long drones will be how data on covers is collected across the farm, a tech-savvy Canterbury farm manager says. Nick Hoogeveen is general manager of Kintore Farm, Mid Canterbury, and was a speaker at February’s New Zealand UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) Conference in Auckland. “On the one hand, farmers think drones are toys, while on the other, the people with the technology have no idea of the potential it holds to assess feed on farms every week,” he says. Highly sophisticated drones capable of flying programmed courses over a farm, automatically taking pictures at predetermined points, are already available for a few thousand dollars. Smart software links the images at the click of a button to give high resolution aerial images of entire paddocks or farms. Hoogeveen’s using such a drone to assess pasture and forage crop establishment,
winter feed stocks, and to pin-point pasture problems a traditional farm walk could easily miss. “We use it to gain a different perspective.” His latest drone, a Phantom 4, is used weekly to measure areas of winter feed crops remaining, volume of silage stacks, and length of bale lines left. The job’s done in a matter of minutes in the paddock plus maybe 10 minutes back in the office to download the images and tell the software to measure the areas etc. With nearly 5000 cows and young stock wintering across a range of crops, such tasks would take hours manually and would be much less accurate. “If you’re a little bit out every day it can make a big difference at the end of the season. We can manage things a lot better with this weekly stocktake.” Besides visual spectrum images (“RGB” - Red Green Blue) taken with the standard camera on the Phantom 4, Hoogeveen’s spent $4000 on a Near Infra-Red (NIR) sensor to mount on either the Phantom 4 or one of his older drones.
• Get familiar with Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) Part 101 drone operating rules. Go to caa.govt.nz/rpas/index-2/ or airshare.co.nz/ rules • Check out airshare.co.nz, a NZ UAV and drone hub with useful information. • Join Drones on Farms NZ, a Facebook page with useful discussion and pointers about onfarm use. • There is a range of cloud-based drone software available such as Drone Deploy, Pix4D, or Sentera AgVault. “NIR allows you to pick up problems with crop or grass health a lot sooner than you would with the naked eye or a normal RGB camera.” One use, already proven on Kintore Farm, is scouting for grass pest-affected patches. Having found a couple of suspect circular patches on foot in a recently renewed pasture last summer the drone was sent up to get a better look. “We ran it over three other paddocks of new grass and found a whole lot more patches. We could see the extent of patches was a lot worse than we could pick up from the ground so the drone gave us an early warning of a developing problem.” With about 10% of the farm affected by grass grub every year spotting areas needing treatment sooner should save thousands of dollars in lost production and hopefully reduce the area needing treatment. That grass grub application alone justifies the cost of the NIR sensor, he says, but he’s confident there will be other ways the drones and cameras earn their keep, notably with pasture yield monitoring. Combining RGB and NIR images produces what’s known as a Normalised Digital Vegetative Index data, he says. NDVI images are known to correlate with drymatter yield so, once calibrated for grass, the drones could replace and improve on current standards such as the Platemeter or CDax. “In the US they’ve got algorithms for all sorts of crops but because New Zealand’s a small market and grass isn’t a high value crop, no-one’s been focusing on it.”
Assembly: propellers are fitted and an iPad connected to the controller.
www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
How much? • A Phantom 3 (P3) Standard with extra battery and a softshell backpack retails for around $1200. • A Phantom 4 (P4) Advanced with extra battery and a hardshell backpack retails for around $2850 • The P3 does not have crash-avoidance features. The flight time is less and the camera not as good as on the P4 models but is still very capable for the price. • A package deal with the extra battery is a good value option because a single battery for a P4 is around $300. With his new drone he’s already able to survey the whole 482-hectare dairy platform in a little over an hour, including battery changes. That compares to five hours to do it with the C-Dax, which only measures paddock transects whereas the drone surveys every square metre to produce yield maps. On many farms, the time required to measure pastures by Platemeter or even motorbike-towed meters means it doesn’t happen as regularly as it should, if at all. That’s despite Dairy NZ research showing a $520/ha net benefit from doing so, Hoogeveen says. The ability to survey the whole farm quickly with a drone could break down that barrier to more regular pasture monitoring, he believes. The reason his new drone can do the job so quickly is thanks to it running Drone Deploy software, which costs US$99/ month. Hoogeveen says it is to small quadcopter-type UAVs what Windows operating system is to personal computers. “It allows the drone to do aerial surveys and stitch the images together so you have a seamless image of the whole paddock or
Smart systems mean the drone can be ‘parked’ mid-air, and it automatically avoids obstacles.
even farm. I used it for a few free onemonth trials before I was comfortable it added value [and subscribed].” Battery life of newer drones is also vastly improved so only two battery changes (three fully-charged batteries) are needed to survey the whole farm. In practice that fits with the Civil Aviation Authority requirement that the drone must be kept within sight of the operator at all times, which means he surveys the farm in quarters. “Doing it in quarters also means if anything goes wrong and you lose the data you haven’t got to redo the whole farm, just the quarter where you had the problem,” he adds. CAA rules (NZCAR – see panel) limit operating altitude to 120 metres but if the drone was at 300m Hoogeveen reckons he could cut the survey time to less than 30 minutes. Consequently he’s considering applying to the CAA for certification which would permit him to fly the drone higher.
ACRONYMS AND REGULATION UAV stands for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. UAVs are also known as drones, a generic term spanning the spectrum of fixed and/or rotary wing unmanned flying machines from insect-sized microdrones to large missile-carrying military aircraft. RPAS is another acronym to recognise, standing for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems. RPAS is the term for drones used by New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority, the body responsible for enforcing rules governing the use of such machines. Parts 101 and 102 of New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Rules (NZCAR) relate directly to drone use, and operators should be aware of and follow other rules affecting them, such as Part 91 of NZCAR: General Operating and Flight Rules, says the CAA. See www.caa.govt.nz/rpas for more.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Back in the office the images are downloaded, spliced by the software, and an aerial picture of the whole farm is displayed.
ABACUS BIO ON THE CASE; DAIRY NZ AND B+LNZ CURRENTLY NOT In December Abucus Bio started an AgMardt-supported project to develop practical uses of UAVs for New Zealand livestock farmers. It said it would be working with farmers and stakeholders in NZ, the United States, and Australia to better understand the opportunities and limitations for drones within pastoral farming systems. “Ultimately, it’s about understanding the farmer’s needs and developing applications that are of benefit, rather than the drone being a cool toy and not much more,” Abacus Bio managing director, Anna Campbell said. An update on the project would be available in two or three months, Abacus Bio said in early June. Dairy NZ said it was not investing in any current drone/UAV related research, either in-house or externally. “At the moment because of the technology limitations and [CAA] rules we don’t see much of a use for them,” Callum Eastwood, a scientist in the Advice Management and Technology team said. Dairy NZ’s position was to facilitate rather than develop technology itself, he added, for example by providing guidelines as to what good pasture management tools should achieve. “We’re leaving it to the companies and individuals to do the development.” A Beef + Lamb New Zealand demonstration farm project involving Southland farmers Neil and Mark Gardyne, Aeronavics and AbacusBio looked at drones for stock counting and other monitoring tasks in 2014, resulting in a field day in April 2015 where it was reported the drone could save the Gardynes $15,000/year in travel costs and boost productivity $35,000, with up to a $200,000 increase in output possible in future. B+LNZ says it isn’t funding any current drone-specific projects.
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SYSTEMS │ SUPPLEMENTS Cows feed on grain.
Weighing the supplementary benefits Conal Harkin
The prices of some supplementary feeds have been the subject of concern and debate recently as the milk price strengthens. A lot of uncertainty remains regarding grain prices for next season and it seems suppliers and growers are reluctant to commit to a price before they find out the projected milk price for next season with prices expected to approach $400 a tonne. On the other hand a lot of palm kernel has been contracted for next season at prices ranging from $200/t-$230/t. We should also be very conscious that quoted grain prices normally include delivery while palm kernel prices do not. So how can you make an educated decision regarding which feed is more profitable for your business? What we do know is that average response rates of about 100g milksolids (MS)/kg drymatter (DM) of a grain-based concentrate have been measured over two complete lactations at the Lincoln University Research Dairy Farm. Greater response rates were measured in early lactation of up to 140g MS/kg DM and it is expected these results will be published later this year. If we know the expected response rates then the decision should be based on the milk price versus the supplement price. For example, if the milk price is $6.00/kg MS then 100g MS is worth $0.60. If the grain price is $400/t then 1kg grain will cost 40cents and 1kg DM grain will cost 50
44cents at 90% Conal Harkin. DM. Therefore the expected profit should be 16cents/kg DM grain. Although the grain price has increased there has been a greater proportional increase in the milk price therefore there is likely to be a greater expected return next season than at the beginning of this season even though grain was far cheaper. Earlier this season grain was being contracted for about $300-$320/t with an expected milk price of about $4.00/kg MS. Therefore 100g MS would have been worth 40cents while 1kg DM/grain would have cost 33c/kg DM at $300/t yielding a profit of 7c/kg DM grain. Although grain prices have increased significantly, there should still be a financial reward in feeding grain strategically throughout the season to complement a grass-based system, and if the milk price increases further the profit should be greater. What we don’t know is the expected response rates from palm kernel as very little research has been carried out on this topic. The neutral detergent fibre (NDF) percentage of grain is considerably lower than palm kernel which will allow for greater total energy intakes throughout the season particularly in early lactation when the cow is more likely to be in a negative energy balance.
Palm kernel still provides a very useful and important supplement that can be used to fill pasture deficits when they occur, where grain will provide better returns when fed consistently throughout the season. Both grain and palm kernel can be used together to enhance the profitability of a dairy farm business. The prices of other supplements such as dried distillers grain (DDG), which were previously far more expensive than grain, are now likely to be similarly priced. Although DDG is a very good quality feed it is considered to be a protein supplement at about 25% crude protein. From a nutrition perspective, it is unlikely that protein supplements should be required at production levels below 500kg MS/cow/year unless pasture quality is an issue throughout the season. As we are all well aware, excessive nitrate leaching is creating environmental issues in this country and more regulation is expected in the near future to help control this. Through feeding pasture alone we are already feeding excessive levels of dietary protein to many cows that do not require it, which is contributing to nitrate leaching. Where possible, it should be more profitable and beneficial to feed a properly balanced ration tailored to the expected level of production. Higherproducing herds will require extra protein supplements through certain periods or throughout the entire season in some cases. Excess protein is converted to urea in the liver and is excreted in the urine and faeces which requires energy for the cow to complete this process. Feeding protein supplements to cows that are not expected to achieve production levels of greater than 500kg MS/cow/year is not likely to yield a profitable response unless there are ongoing issues related to pasture quality. We also need to consider the recent concern from Fonterra that excessive quantities of palm kernel being fed are creating processing issues and although there are no regulations or penalties at the moment it is quite possible these are not far away. Grain is a high-energy supplement that will dilute dietary protein levels of cows that are not able to utilise the excess protein being supplied through highquality pasture, and for this very reason will reduce nitrate leaching. We can also be confident about the milk responses that can be achieved when feeding grain from this recent research at Lincoln University. When deciding to feed or purchase supplements it would be wise to discuss this with a qualified consultant. • Conal Harkin is a farm consultant with Milkmap Consulting, based in Southland.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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SYSTEMS │ IN-CALF RATES
Unravelling the issue of fertility Cheyenne Stein cheyenne.stein@nzfarmlife.co.nz @CheyStein2 Dairy farmers are missing out on at least $1 billion a year through poor efficiency gains in herd fertility, health and feed conversion, DairyNZ senior scientist and team leader Chris Burke says. At the Palmerston North Farmers Forum Burke outlined some of the research projects going on in this area in an effort to minimise these losses. “The profitability of dairy farming could be increased by $500 million per year if industry targets for herd reproductive performance of 78% six-week in-calf rate are achieved. But these targets will not be achieved using current knowledge and technologies alone. A biological breakthrough is required.” Two major work streams are involved in the project Chris is working on; increasing genetic gains in fertility and providing management options for improving herd fertility.
The dogma was that pregnancies were lost around the two week mark where the foetus needs to tell the cow she’s pregnant. We thought that was the problem area but it’s not. “The aim is to accelerate the current 0.11 unit gain in genetic fertility to as much as 0.35 units per annum.” Chris said gains could be made if the accuracy of measuring the fertility breeding value is increased using phenotypes that provide a stronger signal of genetic fertility than those currently used. To find these phenotypes, a special
research herd of 500 R2 heifers has been created with extreme diversity in genetic fertility. This low vs high fertility herd was established from heifers born to carefully selected contract matings in spring 2014. Other breeding values are evenly matched so how they produce and perform will be driven from the difference in fertility. “This is so we can get some more accurate measures of genetic fertility ‘We think the source of the incorporated into the national problem is how the cow is evaluation system and speed up transitioning through calving.’ the rate of genetic fertility. The first measure we are looking at is We thought that was the problem area but liveweight.” it’s not.” So far, high-fertility heifers are hitting What this indicates is that the quality of fertility at a lighter weight and 21 days the egg that is being ovulated is an issue. earlier than their low-fertility counterparts. “We know through our collaborator at “This is an early indicator in differences Victoria University that the egg, before in genetic gain. All measures in fertility it’s been ovulated, needs to pack away at the moment are all taken after the cow everything it needs for the next four days starts lactating and it’s largely based off if until it gains access to outside nutrients for she can get pregnant again six weeks after support.” calving”. Much like packing your bags for a fourAlthough it’s a good measure, it is a day journey, if you don’t pack enough or “noisy” one. the right things, you’ll be in a pickle. In “We want to get a stronger signal.” the case of the egg that means things like The underlying biological mechanisms amino acids and fatty acids. for the onset of puberty and time to “Our research is focusing now on the recycling after calving are quite similar so specific things like amino acids and fatty that’s another trait the team are working acids and looking at what a good egg looks on. like and can we eventually manipulate it.” Further research is unravelling the Of the other factors that go into underlying biology that differentiates a increased survival of the embryo, days fertile cow from an infertile cow. So far since calving and insemination were big research has concluded the first seven factors which link through to uterine days after artificial breeding is when most health. pregnancies are lost. In another field study looking at After cows were inseminated a specialist endometritis 58% of cows had good team went in and flushed the uterus uterine health in the weeks leading up to out and examined the contents under planned start of calving. a microscope. A failure at this stage “We think the source of the problem indicated deficiencies with egg quality and is how the cow is transitioning through uterine support. calving. Immune disregulation. The idea “The dogma was that pregnancies were is to boost the immune system in the cow lost around the two week mark where the after calving.” foetus needs to tell the cow she’s pregnant.
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
SPECIAL REPORT
+ g n i t e Budg rking a m h c n be re up? easu m u o y o d How
54 58 60 63
Tracking the budget worm Comparing like with like Focus on the financials Benchmarking to inspire
65 Grow your numbers 66 Maximising the margins 68 After the deluge
SPECIAL REPORT │ BUDGETING Clarence and Elise Stolte, with Olivia, 8, Charlie, 6, Adelaide 5 and Huey 10 months old.
Tracking the budget worm By being accountable to their budgeting practice, Clarence and Elise Stolte have managed to drive their cost of production down and regularly monitor variances against it using a graphic ‘budgeting worm’. Jackie Harrigan reports.
T
hey say a good marriage is not marrying the right person but being the right partner – but it seems Clarence Stolte found absolutely the right woman when he married Elise, who was working as an accounts clerk and now runs the finances of their growing dairying business. That’s not to say she isn’t totally the right partner as well as a great supporter and mother to their four children. But each partnership needs people with different strengths. Clarence is the innovator and driver and Elise is the calm, orderly and attention-to-detail partner who accurately codes the accounts, monitors the budget and keeps the financial side of the business ship-shape. Clarence is onfarm across their Wiltons Road and Riverslea Wairarapa dairy farms overseeing the production of low-cost milk from the 950 cows and encouraging the farm team to higher efficiency and great profitability. The home operation at Wiltons Road, West Taratahi belongs to Clarence’s parents, Willem and Roelie and after the past 10 years managing, lower order and 50/50 sharemilking, the couple are setting up to buy into the business as land-owning equity partners. Winter milking 200 cows means split calving but winter pasture growth allows them to even-out the challenge of milking through the dry summers on the light soils. Their second 50/50 sharemilking job north of Masterton milks a 450cow seasonal supply herd for NEER Enterprises and Clarence says while they
54
Farm facts: Wiltons Road, Carterton: 500 cows, 200 winter milked, 165ha effective, half irrigated, but water unreliable. 50/50 sharemilking for Willem and Roelie Stolte, 195,000kg MS Clarence, plus two team members and another over calving Riverslea: north of Masterton 450 cows, 135ha, fully irrigated, 170,000kg MS, 50/50 sharemilking for NEER Enterprises Grass platform with only 30t supplement Clarence, plus two team members plus another over calving are producing cash in the sharemilking jobs their focus is on building their landholding in the Wilton’s Road property each year. Over their farming career Clarence and Elise have focused on making farm surpluses by setting realistic budgets and then being accountable to those budgets. “It takes a lot of work to put together the budget – especially at the start when you can’t just pull in numbers. You need to think about what system you are going to run and what does it cost?” Clarence says. “Begin with the bare bones.” “It’s amazing how low cost you can be if you really want to – start from zero
each line and put in what you really have to have. Then you can put in a few extras – things that will make you money and drive a better return.” For example, machinery that saves labour, or upgraded bikes because the old ones are bleeding money for maintenance. “It’s not all about the dollars – expenses that look after people and increase their work enjoyment, like good gear, are allowed too.” The next bit is the accountability and Clarence says a budget that doesn’t work is either because it wasn’t set up realistically or the accountability isn’t there. They make accountability to the budget and variances from it a “team project” and have found it engages staff to think about ways of meeting the budget if they are more involved in being accountable. Achieving accountability is about having timely information – not too far after the fact to control – and understanding the numbers. Elise codes the accounts monthly and has a deadline to achieve it before the monthly all-team staff ‘Dashboard’ meeting on each property that she and Clarence run. “The key staff meeting is in the diary at 10-12th of each month and I have to have the accounts coded by then so we can produce Cost of Production trackers for each dairy unit,” Elise says. Making coding accurate is an ongoing process, Elise says, one that has improved over time. “Now that I am on top of the system
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Dashboard meetings – How they roll
Tracking the worm
The monthly staff dashboard meeting has a budget component, when the Stoltes put up the worm that tracks the budget vs. expenditure. They then discuss the variances underlying the worm’s progress. Having a visual and graphic representation at how accountable they are being to the budget gives the staff an understanding of how the budget is put together and of how they can help. “I am a very visual learner – and I think most of our staff are – so first we look at the worm and see how close or far away we are. Then we look at the actual variances on the Cashflow report so we can understand and explain all the variances,” Clarence says. “At the end of the day it’s our business but it’s a business they all work in and they want to help keep it on track. “Showing the detail of how the budget is made up and how they can help to be accountable to it means we get great buy-in. We want to be in the top 5% across all areas of the business and the financials have to support that.” The farm team Clarence, John Simpson, Noah Firth, Derek de Jong and Steven Borburgh have an end of season debrief meeting over hot lunch to discuss the highs & lows and what they can learn from last season.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
DSM (Dairy Systems Monitoring) Financial Benchmark Report for 2016/17 DSM (Dairy Systems Monitoring) Financial Benchmark Report for 2016/17. NB: For benchmarking purposes the non-cash figures for wages of management, owned run-off run-off adjustment and depreciation are included in the financial KPIs.
Feeding
Production
Year
Profitability
I can be a bit more deliberate in the coding and breakdown of the codes, and choose the things that need breaking down.” At monthly meetings with landowners and farm managers Elise and Clarence go through all the bills and split them up and scribble all over them to say where the charges need to be coded. Being a member of the Dairy Women’s Network has been invaluable to learn how others do it and she values the fact that she and Clarence have a directors’ catch-up monthly where she can run through the issues. “I have seen a lot in the past that the person buying the stuff is not telling the admin person what it is and where to code it.” Information flow is open and constant in the Stoltes’ business. “Miscoding can cause cutbacks in other lines that are necessary and that can cause problems. “Accountability starts to become more real when the coding is correct.” Elise does such a good job of the finances she now does a fair bit of number-crunching for their land-owning farming partners. “We are lucky to have cool farm owners who want us to do our best – we run their figures and show them how good the partnership is for their figures and business as well. We have earned their trust over time.”
Financial KPI
Charlie Stolte is a keen helper on the farm, helping dad Clarence feed the dry cows over the winter.
Team meetings are diaried for each month and all of the team are present. The meetings follow a similar agenda each month. • Tracking the worm: comparing the actuals with budget figures • Focus area: each meeting the drill down into a seasonal focus area: eg: minimising pasture damage in winter, in-calf rate in late spring. A team discussion involves everyone, with maybe some expert input then the team comes up with strategies of how to do it better. • KPIs: Staff put forward topics – levels of performance or production targets for the period, in-calf rates or whatever is pertinent at the time. Having targets and tangible goals is good – what does good look like? Is the team meeting KPIs? if not, how can they improve? • Health and safety: Issues, incidents and accidents, check the equipment, assign things that need to be implemented. • Jobs List: Outlining jobs for the next month so staff are all aware of what is going on.
2016/17
2016/17
STOLTE Effective Area Stocking rate Kg Milksolids/HA Kg Milksolids/Cow
165 2.9 1,185 406
DSM GROUP AVERAGE 230 2.9 1,213 413
Cows (Peak) Feed Harvested - t DM/HA Feed Harvested - kgDM/cow Supplement per Cow Total Feed per Cow Supplement as a % of Intake Milk Price ($/kgMS) Dividend ($/kgMS) Gross Farm Revenue/HA Operating Expenses/HA Operating Profit (EFS)/HA Gross Farm Revenue/kgMS Operating Expenses/kgMS Operating Profit (EFS)/kgMS Farm Working Expenses/kgMS Labour - kgMS / FTE $/cow $/kg MS Animal Health & Breeding $/cow $/kg MS Feed & Grazing (incl Lease) $/cow $/kg MS Fertiliser & Nitrogen - $/Ha $/kg MS Repairs & Maintenance - $/Ha $/kg MS Vehicles + Fuel - $/Ha $/kg MS Electricity - $/Ha $/kg cow $/kg MS Overheads - $/Ha $/kg MS
482 16.9 5,775 432 6,207 7% 6.19 0.40 8,137 4,325 3,812 6.87 3.65 3.22 3.28 65,175 321 0.79 85
675 16.5 5,613 782 6,395 12% 6.17 0.39 8,308 5,582 2,726 6.85 4.60 2.25 4.16 63,328 433 1.05 137
0.21 404
0.33 577
1 427 0.36 246 0.21 207 0.17 191 65 0.16 339 0.29
1.4 484 0.4 294 0.24 182 0.15 132 45 0.11 335 0.28 55
Benchmarking benefits
The monthly Dashboard meetings have a set agenda with sections visually shown on the whiteboard to best engage and inform the farm team, starting with the budgeting ‘worm’ tracking cost of production and showing monthly variances.
Directors’ meetings:
Despite two farms and four young children, Clarence and Elise try to have monthly off-farm directors meetings, usually at a café armed with their laptop but without the children. Olivia, 8, Charlie, 6, and Adelaide, 5 are at school and Huey is just 10 months old. This allows them some clear head time to look past the budget and plan for the next few years. Adjusting for the impacts of things that have changed, the pair take minutes at their meetings with action points and time frames to help them commit to getting them done. They also review their system strategy and decide what level they want to farm at. “We focus on having a budget that weathers the volatility in the pay-out – we have the potential to be high-output operations but we are keeping things pretty simple and low cost.” “Your budget needs to be based around your system and making a conscious decision to change system or spend more dollars is a big decision – one people tend to make too lightly,” Clarence says. “We run a pretty lean system on what we spend, even if the payout went to $7-8/kg MS, we would stick to the same lean cost system.” The couple say they have come to a status quo situation and are now focused on buying a stake in the land, with the right pathway to do it, two low-cost sharemilking jobs generating good cash flows.
Dairy System Monitoring For onfarm budgeting Clarence and Elise use the CRS Cash manager RURAL and 1 Drive for cloud–based storage. For benchmarking they have been members of Baker Ag’s Dairy System Monitoring group for a few years and make good use of monitoring their physical and financial targets against members of the group. Clarence and Elise are now in the top five of the DSM group for $EBIT/HA. The service comes at a cost, but Clarence says they get great value out of being able to compare their operation with the 38 other farmers in the group scattered from the Wanganui region down to Southland. Lower North Island is home to 25 farmer members. “The DSM is a big learning community as each area will have someone different performing at the highest level and because they are all named, we can access them to learn about how they get their results.” The community aspect and openness of the DSM group is unique to the group, DSM director Chris Lewis says. “DSM has been going for 18 years and while other groups exist, not many others name their members so that they can all learn off each other.” Clarence says he makes a point of getting along to any networking opportunities or industry days run by the group, and for in between times he is quite happy to pick up the phone and give someone a call. In the future he thinks an online forum might be a good way of interacting with fellow members. “The strength of the DSM system is that the figures are real, the model is Farmax-based and the comparisons can help you to learn from others. “ 56
Chris Lewis would like to see a third of New Zealand dairy farmers engaged in a benchmarking group, instead of the barely 10% involved now. The Wairarapa-based dairy consultant and developer of BakerAg’s Dairy Systems Monitoring benchmarking service is a great believer in the power of farmers being able to compare themselves against others – via accurate and validated data. “Most farmers run their business through the rearview mirror – always looking back at what happened last season, but more work through the front windscreen, working with the season they are farming in, allows them to make more timely decisions,” he says. “When you are working live you have still got the chance to change things – to actually do something about it.” The strength of the DSM system is that the data is easy to supply, filling in a one-pager called the ‘coffee cup sheet’, updating pasture, feed, cow numbers, sales, deaths and nitrogen applied in less time than it takes to drink a cup of coffee. Farmax is used as the modelling tool and data from the monthly coffee cup sheet updates the model then reports back to farmers to give them an idea of what is happening in their business each month. The individual monthly report for each farmer looks at the drivers in their business and through comparison with others, gives an idea of what their potential is, Lewis says. “We describe it as a multi-tool,” he says, “with the physical and financial information and monthly targets, it also gives them discipline around reporting and it can be really useful for historical information and farm sales.” “Because it’s an independent service the data has validity and credibility.” An annual report gives farmers a sense of the strengths and weaknesses of their business and provides issues for follow-up consultancy advice. Regular networking opportunities for group members allows informal discussion of the results and the reasons for them. After 18 years of collecting data the set has huge industry good information potential, and gets used for comparing different groups and systems for conference papers and to understand bigger issues like irrigation. Lewis is at a loss to explain why more farmers are not benchmarking, saying it’s maybe that they don’t like the admin and form-filling or they don’t want to be confronted about their performance on a monthly basis. “There has been a culture in the dairy industry of using the vat to benchmark, but now due diligence should be around financial performance first and physical performance second especially with added environmental constraints coming in. “We have moved a long way in the past five years. Most farmers now have an idea of their cost of production, which will encourage them to become engaged in benchmarking. “All dairy farmers should get involved in it.”
Lewis’ future for benchmarking: • a growing demand for live benchmarking • improved technology for collecting the data, less time consuming • environmental indices to come • more activity from vets collecting repro and animal health indices • increased analysis of results and ways of formulating next steps at farm level. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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SPECIAL REPORT │ BENCHMARKING
Comparing like with like Anne Lee anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz @Cantabannelee
Benchmarking to know where you can lift your business’s performance isn’t simply a one-off exercise nor should it be based on a snap-shot of a single year or a single key performance indicator (KPI). When done properly it can be an enormously valuable tool – after all you’re unlikely to work on improving something if you don’t even know it’s below par. DairyNZ senior project leader Paul Bird has worked with farmers, helping to lift their business performance through Mark and Measure courses, analysing KPIs and benchmarking for more than 20 years in New Zealand, Ireland and the United Kingdom. He’s seen even small gains made each year can result in massive differences in wealth appreciation over time. “Even if you can make a modest improvement in performance and do that year after year it can have a huge impact over your lifetime of farming – it can be the difference of millions of dollars. “It’s the power of compounding and you see it with a lot of people who have grown large businesses – they’ve operated at above average year after year,” he says. You may not see the value of the difference if you’re just looking at one year’s data but when performance is continually above average the resulting asset and equity growth can be significantly beyond an operator that’s consistently average. But Bird says first you have to know where you sit and you have to
Paul Bird: When done properly benchmarking can be an enormously valuable tool.
benchmark to know you’re operating above average or in the top 10%. He warns though that benchmarking isn’t as simple as looking at one year’s data. There’s always been a danger in looking at a snap shot or just one year of data to make comparisons but in the volatile environment of the past few years where both income and costs have fluctuated widely between seasons the danger is even more apparent. “The farmers in the top 1% in one year may not be the same farmers in the next. If you try to emulate one group based on one year’s data – well that can be a mistake and lead you to make the wrong conclusions.” Instead Bird says farmers should base their benchmarking comparisons on data from three, four or even five years. “When you look at it over those timeframes then you ask yourself am I above, at or below average.”
When benchmarking “Firstly be sure you’re looking at a comparable group to your situation whether that’s in DairyBase or through your accountant or farm advisor.
Budgeting lessons from top performers • Every two to three years do a zero budgeting exercise. • Once you’ve set your budget monitor actual spend closely. • Keep notes on why variations occur. • Be obsessed with sticking to budget. • If payout goes up – bank it. • If cost goes up find savings elsewhere to keep overall costs the same. • Cashflows – review monthly. • Communicate – person monitoring budget with the person spending/ ordering.
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“You can look at the whole group’s average or top 10% performers but you can get a lot from comparing your information with a mentor or good performer in your area too.” Bird says there are groups of farm owners and sharemilkers in some areas who get together and compare their data on a regular basis. Regardless of who you’re benchmarking against it is vital that the KPIs you’re comparing have been arrived at in the same way. For instance, operating profit will include some non-cash adjustments such as depreciation unlike farm working expenses where this is excluded so you need to know what’s included in the particular area you’re comparing. If you’re using DairyBase to analyse your business, Bird advises that you start by going to the financial reports and take a look at the balance sheet – specifically assets and liabilities. “You want to see how your equity growth is tracking, what your assets and liabilities are doing over time and your debt to asset ratio. The last few seasons had been tough and for many farmers – farm owners and sharemilkers – equity may have been eroded but Bird says it’s important to know how big the hit has been, how it compares with others and look at it over a longer time frame – where was it heading up until two seasons ago? The next stop is discretionary cash which is the cash available to pay down debt, reinvest for business growth and drawings. “Are you generating enough discretionary cash to re-invest, pay down
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
debt and grow the business on a fiveyear basis to achieve your goals?” Operating profit per hectare and per kilogram of milksolids (MS) are the primary KPIs to check and make comparisons with your benchmark group.
What’s coming in “If you think there’s an opportunity to increase profit when you look at where you’re sitting compared to the benchmark then look at both revenue and costs. Can you lift revenue while maintaining costs or reduce costs while maintaining revenue.” If revenue is a problem, then take a look at the physical report and see where you sit in terms of physical KPIs. Pasture eaten should be the first port of call – maximising pasture eaten is the most cost effective way to increase profit by either lifting milk production or reducing feed costs because more pasture is consumed. If it’s low check pasture grown to find out if you’re not growing enough or you’re just not utilising it well. A poor calving pattern can also affect pasture eaten/ha and therefore total milk production so look at six-week in-calf rate to see how it compares both with the benchmark but also with industry targets. Poor reproductive performance can hit the cattle sales line in the revenue section of the financial report too and severely limit the options for maximising stock income.
What’s going out The next stop within the financial reports is the costs section. Take a look at the total costs to see
Benchmarking the physical In March 2016 we talked to Paul about the top physical KPI’s for driving profit. He identified: • Pasture eaten. • Six-week in-calf rate. • Production to December 31. • Soil fertility. • Percentage of first-calvers onfarm at end of season one. Follow this link to read the full story ww.farmersweekly.co.nz/section/ dairy/view/top-five-physical-kpisto-drive-profit how they compare and if they’re not where you want them to be get the ruler out and go line by line. “Get into the detail,” Bird says. Labour is the first big one people look at but it’s important to do a thorough analysis if labour costs are higher than the benchmark. Simply aiming to be better than average on a particular benchmark such as labour costs can be counterproductive in that there may be reasons the cost is higher. For instance, it may be because of problems with the farm’s infrastructure and cutting staff numbers will put undue pressure on remaining staff who then get tired and other factors such as cell count and animal health are affected, lifting costs in other areas and reducing income from lower milk production. “When labour costs are high we really have to drill down – is it that the system is too complicated, is it to do with infrastructure or could you genuinely be
more effective and efficient and have fewer staff?” Feed is another big cost centre where savings can typically be made. Bird says many farmers have addressed spending on feed both in terms of the amount of supplement being fed and the price they’re paying for it but it’s important to maintain this focus as milk price rises. “We know from the work we’ve done analysing accounts that those running high-input systems who are sitting in the top 10% for profit are the ones who source their feed at very good prices as well as being excellent pasture and stock managers,” he says Grazing and wintering costs need to be reviewed too. When it comes to fertiliser spending Bird says it’s still surprising to see how many farmers don’t make best use of the technology and reports available to them. He says there’s no excuse for putting more fertiliser on than absolutely necessary. Vehicles, fuel and repairs and maintenance are also areas when savings can be made and a check of your costs against benchmark can be a clear indicator you’re over-mechanised for your production. “We’re also seeing a big range in administration costs which includes professional services. For many people it can be a benefit to spend on getting good advice. It is essential however your advisers are working together with you as a team and absolutely focused on helping farmers to achieve their goals. “You should be getting good proactive advice that’s in-line with the business’s strategy.”
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SPECIAL REPORT │ BENCHMARKING
Farm facts • Location: Papakaio • Owners: Neil and Julie Hamilton • Sharemilkers: Grant and Nicola Neal • Area: 133ha effective • Cows: 480 Friesian cross • Production: 514kg MS/cow • Supplement: 1t DM/cow • Irrigation: Border dyke • Farm dairy: 36-aside herringbone • Staff: two full time
Grant and Nicola Neal – using benchmarking to identify gaps and monitor progress.
Focus on the financials Anne Lee anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz @Cantabannelee
What North Otago sharemilkers Grant and Nicola Neal benchmark might have changed over the years but the way they use the tool hasn’t. “It’s definitely evolved in terms of what we look at. In the first five years we were very production-focused but in the last four or five years it’s been more about the financials,” Nicola says. The couple have just started their fourth season 50-50 sharemilking 480 cows for Neil and Julie Hamilton at Papakaio, north of Oamaru. Benchmarking, they say, is all about helping them find the gaps – the areas where they can improve – but it’s a tool which, they also say, comes with some distinct provisos for them. “You have to be very clear what you’re benchmarking and that you’re comparing apples with apples,” Grant says. You also have to be prepared to dig into the details behind the numbers rather than being focused on the numbers themselves and understand why the metric you’re benchmarking might not be measuring up. “That’s where you have to have a level of confidence in your own farming system and understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” he says. That’s especially true when it comes to farm working expenses and benchmarking costs. “We can be prepared to spend money 60
on a particular area if we know that spending is going to give us a good return,” Grant says. “If we’re confident the spending will lift production or reduce costs or wastage in other areas then we’ll do it but you have to analyse that and monitor the return – look at the bigger picture too,” Nicola says. Grant and Nicola met in the late 1990s when they were both at Massey University. Nicola qualified as a vet and Grant graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science.
‘You have to be very clear what you’re benchmarking and that you’re comparing apples with apples.’ Both are from sheep and beef farms – Nicola in Western Southland and Grant near Waipu in the North Island, but when they were on their big OE and working in the United Kingdom, they decided that when they came home they’d go dairying. Right from the outset of their dairying career they were keen strategic planners, attending a DairyNZ Mark
and Measure Course and then quickly joining one of DairyNZ’s inaugural Biz discussion groups. They have a clear vision that their business, aptly named the Aspiring Cow Company, is about growing equity so they can have an enterprise that’s financially rewarding and enjoyable. Sharemilking is the best vehicle to achieve that but they’re flexible in what that vehicle might be in the future. After a year working as herd managers near Gore they applied for variable order sharemilking jobs and ended up in the Waitaki area. Their first job was on 400-cow farm and both say they ran things by the book. “It was a steep learning curve but we took the attitude that we’d follow the rule book to the letter,” Grant says. “I think we probably made that first year pretty hard for ourselves,” Nicola says. After two seasons they took on their next job, variable order sharemilking. It was initially expected to be an 850-cow job but by the time they started on June 1 it had grown to 1000 cows. They brought 200 of their own cows on to the farm and milked the herd through a 36-aside herringbone. “It really was great – it energised us. We learnt so much about staff, about systems and efficiency and our farm owners were nothing but positive. Their saying was ‘nothing’s impossible you just have to find solutions’,” Grant says. “We were running but we were learning so much – it was fantastic at the time but I don’t think operating at that high-energy, high-adrenalin level was probably sustainable for the long term,” he says. After three years there and welcoming their second child in the midst of their second season on the farm, the couple then took up another lower-order sharemilking job – this time with Neil and Julie Hamilton near Duntroon on the south side of the Waitaki River. They brought 250 cows with them into the 750-cow job and also brought with them their systems and approach to efficiency.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
“We were conscious of making sure to take the pressure points out – making sure we had good people and used good systems,” Nicola says. “We’d also had to be very strong on the previous job when it came to attention to detail and we had that in mind when we were recruiting – we still do now. We make it clear that if you don’t think you can be that person, who’s motivated to give that attention to detail then this isn’t likely to be the place for you,” she says. The next step was 50-50 sharemilking and having turned down a couple of jobs the opportunity arose to continue with the Hamiltons on a different farm – their current farm at Papakaio. Benchmarking has been an important part of their ability to improve their performance every step of the way throughout their progressions and there’s no shortage of reports they refer to when it comes to assessing where they’re at and identifying their “workons”. Their accounts are benchmarked in three places – with their accountants McIntyre Dick and Partners, DairyBase and with Dairy Systems Management (DSM) through their farm advisor Julian Gaffney at MacFarlane Rural Business. Their physical farm performance too is monitored and benchmarked through DairyBase, DSM, the vet practice – Veterinary Centre Oamaru and through reports such as InCalf and Minda. “We expect the financial benchmarking between each one to be within cooee but we don’t get hung up on tiny details or differences. “We do look for anywhere where we’re quite different to the average and understand why so we can identify any gaps but we’re also interested in looking
Benchmarking – understand the why behind the numbers
at the trends – so comparing our own results year-on-year – making sure we’re going in the right direction,” Grant says. Benchmarking across the larger data sets allows you to target high performance – being in the top 10% of 200 farms will give you a higher chance of actually being a top performer than being in the top 10% of 10 farmers for instance – well most of the time that holds true. At the outset of their 50-50 sharemilking career Grant and Nicola used the budgets from two friends to help when they were setting up their first budget. They averaged the two of them and continued to benchmark themselves against them for the next couple of years. They were doing okay by comparison but worked on bringing their farm working expenses down based on the information and in the face of the plummeting payout.
Grant and Nicola in their ‘open air’ office.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
As it turned out the two friends they’d used as their benchmarks were top performers. At the outset Grant and Nicola’s farm working expenses were $2.28/kg milksolids (MS) but they pulled them back to $1.88 and $1.89/kg MS in the following two seasons. “There was a lot of talk about cutting costs at the outset but we saw that as a bit of a negative mindset. “Yes we looked at costs closely but on the important areas – people, animal health and feed, we didn’t really pull back hard on spending,” Grant says. Some of that decision comes from their cow-focused ethos – it’s one of the things that attracted them to 50-50 sharemilking – owning the cows, looking after them well and building that asset. “We’re happy if we’re about average on what our actual spending is in an area but the results from that spending have to be outstanding – efficiency is the aim,” Grant says. “For us the biggest way to cut our per-kg MS costs was to get production up – I think half of the reduction from $2.28 to $1.88/kg MS was from the dilution factor,” he says. They looked at their physical key performance indicators (KPIs) such as six-week in-calf rate, days in milk, mastitis and general animal health spend to get more milk into the vat. “For instance we use pain relief for any cows that have had a difficult birth – keeping them comfortable means they’re more likely to keep on eating and we don’t get them going down with other issues. “We also treat animals for metabolics at the first sign of any problems – if they’re looking a bit wobbly we’ll put a bag in. If they go down it’s costly and time consuming right when you don’t need that and then your eye goes off the ball on something else,” Grant says. 61
“It’s about being bothered, like going out and putting that back fence up and about really seeing the issues and acting on them straight away,” Nicola says. The couple have brought their sixweek in-calf rate up to 74% which has meant a tighter calving spread and more days in milk. They looked at their InCalf and Minda records and found there was a particular year group, which had been bought-in, which were letting them down year-onyear. Now that they are able to rear and grow all of their own calves, they are able to put a real focus on calf health and more intensive monitoring of weights over the past three years is showing results in production and reproductive performance. It’s not the whole answer – there have been a lot of things that have gone into that but when you know what you’re targeting you know to look at the things that are going to affect it and actively manage them, the couple say. “It’s like the reverse of a death by 1000 cuts – there a lot of small changes that when combined do help,” Nicola says. “We also have this internal farm challenge we’ve set ourselves too – getting production up without lifting costs – we call it Plan 500. The aim is to consistently achieve a 78% six-week incalf rate and 500kg MS/cow. “We’ve made it on production (this last season it was 514kg MS/cow) and we’re close with the six-week in-calf rate,” Grant says. Making use of their data is also helping their first calvers. Grant says he noticed that all of their first-calvers were headed into the lighter mob at the wintering block. “We’d just been running one herd through the season and they weren’t competing well enough especially when it came to the supplements so now we separate them out for the first four to five weeks in spring and then over the eight weeks of autumn. “Last season I dried them off a week earlier than the cows too and this season they’ve produced really well and got in calf.” As first-calvers they produced 82% of the herd average where it had been 76%. The farm is border-dyke irrigated and while they’re classed as a system three farm in terms of bought in feed, they haven’t increased supplement significantly in lifting production from 1600kg MS/ha to 1851kg MS/ha. “We use about a tonne of feed per cow over the season – that’s grain, palm kernel, fodder beet and silage,” Grant says. 62
Nicola monitors calf health – money spent on prevention can save money and lift returns.
Grain makes up about 220kg drymatter (DM)/cow and is used from calving till about December, helping ensure high-quality feed through mating and when grass is trying to put up seed heads. The rest is used in autumn to extend the round. Managing pasture and driving milk production from high-quality pasture is the aim so there’s a lot of focus on managing round length and monitoring covers. Their DSM and DairyBase physical data monitoring puts their pasture harvested at 14.3 tonnes DM/ha – and given the farm is fully border-dyke irrigated they’re happy with that. Grant says the record low payout followed by another year at low levels was a “real kick in the guts” for them when it came to their equity but their 2015-16 season operating surplus was back up to 34c/kg MS nearly 10c above the top 20% performers in one benchmarking group they compare themselves with and well above the
operating loss made by the average in the same group. Dairybase puts their cash surplus at 35c/kg MS but when the adjustments are made their operating profit is -4c/ kg MS – still better than the benchmark South Island 50-50 sharemilking group which is -49c/kg MS for the 2015-16 season. This season they’re expected a return to the black in all of their benchmarking analysis. But true to form the couple aren’t ready to rest on their laurels – they’ve identified opportunities via their benchmarking to lift their income via increasing stock sales. “We responded to that and we’ve leased 100ha to enable us to take opportunities there,” Nicola says. They’re also very focused on improving their herd. “Improving the herd will make the cows more efficient – we can drive our cashflow and in the longer term it will improve our balance sheet to as the value of the herd will go up too,” Nicola says.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
SPECIAL REPORT │ EXPERT EYE
Benchmarking to inspire James Lockhart, Massey Business School, Massey University.
If people are asked to rate their driving skills on a scale of 1 to 10 they are most likely to give themselves an above-average score of 7. If there is no standard definition of good driving people use their own highly individualised definitions and most think themselves better than average. Similarly, in farming 80% of farmers are in the top 20%, and don’t know any different. Benchmarking is a tool to learn exactly where a business sits relative to industry best. However, as was the case with the driving skills discussion above, the process assumes that the correct definition of performance has been established. But what if there is an entirely different, new and superior standard? Or, what if the process of business performance benchmarking is flawed? DairyNZ scatterplot diagrams of their DairyBase subscribers suggests the relationships between antecedent
Benchmarking is a tool to learn exactly where a business sits relative to industry best, Massey University’s James Lockhart says.
variables and key farm output variables is anything but simple, some are significant while others less so. Stocking rate is still “probably” the most important driver of physical farm performance, and is still “probably” the single most important driver of annual farm financial performance. Except pastoral farms are complex biological and sociological production systems. Kaplan and Norton introduced a Balanced Scorecard approach. Imagine this conversation between a passenger and a pilot on a modern aircraft. Q: I’m surprised to see you operating
the plane with only a single instrument. What does it measure? A: Airspeed. I’m really working on air speed this flight. Q: That’s good. Air speed certainly seems important. But what about altitude. Wouldn’t an altimeter be helpful? A: I worked on altitude for the last few flights and I’ve got pretty good on it. Now I have to concentrate on proper air speed. Q: But I notice you don’t even have a fuel gauge. Wouldn’t that be useful? So, if stocking rate is “probably” the most important driver of farm physical and financial performance what then is left to measure? And as an aside, we do know that the relationship between stocking rate and physical and financial performance is curvilinear. There is some optimal point. But unfortunately that optimal point is seldom constant. Considerable investment goes into attempting to minimise variability, especially that from animal inputs on pasture-based farm systems (fertiliser,
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pasture plants, forage crops, irrigation, fencing, water and so forth). If it were that simple though, wouldn’t stocking rates converge to very narrow spreads by animal type by region by land class? Or is something else, even more important at play? Lockhart says successful business performance comes from the ‘residual result of relentlessly asking the question’: “How can we improve ourselves to do better tomorrow than what we did today?” In our recent research in Japanese companies we have yet to encounter similar industry-wide business benchmarking. We have, however, worked with an embedded and sustainable culture of continuous improvement – the total commitment to excellence, where even the most trivial improvements are both welcomed and pursued. The process used to enhance performance is then both “benchmarked” and shared between companies. Are there alternate, superior assessment standards that should be being used for comparative performance of New Zealand pastoral farms? Or are the swathe of metrics per cow, per stock unit or per hectare adequate for effective farm decisionmaking and comparative analysis? Notwithstanding the limitations of benchmarking mentioned above it is time the legacy metrics and beliefs were openly challenged. Whatever happened to profit? Or at least various measures of profit? Farm business benchmarking exercises typically set out to establish Effective Farm Surplus per hectare (EFS/ha), removing the costs of ownership so that financial performance is standardised to best extent. Sadly the big – and most critical – items of debt and equity are often ignored. The capital commitment of the business and physical and financial performance relative to
Offer leading grazing management in a variety of areas; • Dairy calves through to rising two year olds in calf • May to May heifer grazing
•
Beef Grazing
Operate 3,400ha to the North East of Taupo towards Reporoa.
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If stocking rate is “probably” the most important driver of farm physical and financial performance what then is left to measure?
that capital commitment are seldom considered. Aren’t we supposedly lowcost producers of soft proteins for global consumption? If that is the case why don’t we simply benchmark production per unit of our most scarce resources (capital, labour and management) against our competitors? These aren’t farmers down the road they are farmers in Ireland, the Netherlands, the United States, Australia and a number of South American nations. Traditional measures of NZ dairy farm performance have been based on milksolids production per cow and per hectare. Milksolids production per ha has previously been associated with profitability. To reflect the increased dependency on imported feeds comparative stocking rate was developed to reflect kilograms of liveweight per tonne of feed supplied, allowing for better comparisons between dairy farms. Both profitability and production have been shown to increase with both stocking rate and comparative stocking rate until an inflection point where profitability decreases even with increased productivity. The same outcome is expected to occur on sheep and beef farms. This decrease at higher stocking rates reflects the increase in farm working expenses with increasing feed and animal costs associated with higher stock numbers on any given area of land. As land price and capital investment have increased, productivity per hectare no longer provides a complete picture as to the profitability of a farm business
– if it ever did. Various measures of EFS conveniently neglect the capital costs involved. They also neglect the relationship between changing variable costs and changing fixed costs – which are otherwise assumed to remain constant. So what has been happening to the capital costs required to produce a kilogram of soft proteins in NZ, relative to the rest of the world? A viable number is produced by calculating the kilograms of milksolids produced per $1000 of capital employed. Our early analysis produces a range on NZ dairy farms from a low of 8.4kg/$1000 capital to a high of 44.7kg/$1000 of capital employed. Most of that range is explained by location, and then by stocking rate. The least capital-intensive regions being the West Coast of the South Island, followed by Northland, then Central Hawke’s Bay and the lower North Island. Next, valuable comparisons can then be made between NZ, Australia, the Netherlands, Ireland and the dairying regions of the Americas. Is the business internationally competitive? Is it resilient to changes in interest rates? Is it resilient to changes in the exchange rate? Is it resilient to changes in product prices? And if not, what needs to be done? At that point the discussion over benchmarking, which tends to be both myopic and hugely dependent on the betterthan-average effect adds value – and produces information against which effective business decision can then be made.
We will provide custom reporting including Minda weights and daily weight gains. Very competitive rates. For more information: Website - www.kiwigrazing.co.nz Email - ryan@wairakeiestate.co.nz “OUR FOCUS IS GROWING YOUR STOCK” Phone - 027 378 5177
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
SPECIAL REPORT │ RURAL FINANCE 101
Grow your numbers Sheryl Brown sheryl.brown@nzfarmlife.co.nz @sherylbrownnz
Dairy farmers who added more debt than assets to their balance sheet during the downturn in dairy prices need to be vigilant with their budgets as more cashflow comes into their businesses going forward. The decisions farmers make in the next two years will set them up or put them back, CMK accountant John Dazley says. “There is a real danger right now. We have all sucked our belts in for the last three years and now we are going into a situation where we have some money coming in. Managing that is as important as when you don’t have money. “It’s very easy to be unspecific with budgets and write out three or four cheques for wants rather than needs and you’ve suddenly spent $100,000. “We can’t just blindly continue and think payout will take care of it.” Farmers who didn’t enjoy the tough conversations they had with their
Succession Having a plan for succession is one of the biggest issues facing dairy farmers today. Dazley and Darke have written a new book, Passing it Forward. All families are at one point or another of a succession pathway and everyone without question has doubts and concerns as how as a family they can pass the farm to the next generation and or distribute their wealth to family members in a fair way. Passing it Forward has been written with you and your farming family in mind, with the intention to help you understand how your succession plan could work. Written in plain English, no jargon that will confuse or trip you up, hopefully you will gain some benefit from their experiences and insight into succession planning. To purchase any of the books visit www.amazon.com
bank manager during the downturn need to ensure they’re not going to be having those conversations again anytime soon, he says. Farmers should budget to get back to the position where they were before the downturn and need to make a budget to plan to pay off debt accumulated during that time. “Even if your plan is paying back $1/kg MS of debt this season – and actually do it.” Dazley and strategist Andrew Darke work for CMK in Stratford and are co-authors of Know Your Numbers and Grow Your Numbers. The books are 101 guides to farm finances and targeted for dairy farmers to help them better understand their financial position so they can make moreinformed business decisions. Farmers should have a good grasp of their financial position so they know where they are launching from, Dazley says. Farmers should have a list of their assets and their liabilities and work out their equity worth. Knowing their equity position is an important factor because it influences how they can move forward, whether it’s growth, succession or consolidation. “Make sure you know your numbers. Know what your production is, what your costs are. Know your break-even point, if interest rates go up, or the payout goes down what they will look like.” Farmers need to use those numbers to create a financial plan and set financial goals. “The bank wants to know you have a plan and have considered your options,” Darke says. Part of meeting financial goals is monitoring your business through a budget, he says. Dairy farmers can often use the fluctuating payout as an excuse not to do a budget. But a business can only
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
be managed well when the owner has an understanding of cash flow and the need for a budget. A budget is not a box-ticking exercise just to please the bank manager. A budget will identify whether you have a sustainable business model and will help plan to meet financial goals and avoid any surprises. Farmers should be using a cash flow forecast budget and comparing it to an actuals budget as they go through the season to monitor real performance, Dazley says. When the payout forecast changes or there are unexpected costs farmers need to adjust their budget and keep a close eye on their income and costs. Just as farmers react in their farming practices, they need to react financially, Darke says. “As the season evolves, we have to be quick enough to change the plan on the farm and also the finances.” Farm budgets should include income, farm working expenses, interest and lease payments, drawings, capital expenditure and tax. Tax management will be important in next two years as farmers start to make a profit again and there are tools that farmers can use to plan ahead so they do not come under stressful financial management to pay tax. 65
SPECIAL REPORT │ DAIRYBASE
Maximising the marginals Sheryl Brown sheryl.brown@nzfarmlife.co.nz @sherylbrownnz
Finding the optimal production point for your farm is about finding the sweet spot – where your farm operates to its potential while keeping operating expenses per kg milksolids (MS) low to maximise profitability. Profit from milk is maximised when your marginal cost -–the cost per kg MS of producing at that next level – equals the milk price. The strength of DairyBase is it uses data to paint an accurate picture across seasons and is a beneficial tool farmers can use to judge their physical and financial performance against farmers in the same location. It’s also a tool farmers can use to benchmark their farm’s journey over time to monitor improvement. While DairyBase is historical data it is still vital information farmers can use to benchmark their performance to identify
and focus on areas they need to improve. At the 2015/16 $3.90kg MS payout the top 20% performing farms in the Bay of Plenty study and the bottom 20% performing farms were found across DairyNZ System 2 to System 5 operations. The DairyBase study data is a reminder that it does not matter what system you run, success comes back to your cost structure, DairyBase consultant Jenny Ritchie says. The 2015/16 results from the BOP Focus on Dairying DairyBase Project included 48 farms from Whakatane and Western Bay of Plenty districts. The study has seven years of data from participating farmers in these districts. Initially established to find the best farm system for the area, the recurring message has been that it’s not what system people are running that determines profit, Jenny says. “It is not your system or district that
2015/16 Key Differences Between High and Low Profit Farms
2015/16 Key differences between high and low profit farms Financial KPIs
Top 20%
Bottom 20%
Difference
1
Std Operating Profit
$/ha
1,655
-367
2,022
2
Operating expenses
$/kg ms
3.54
4.81
-1.27
3 4
Cash Farm Working Exps Operating expenses
$/kg ms $/cow
2.85 1,481
3.91 1,791
-1.06 -310
2015/16 Physical KPIs
Standardised Operating Profit
2015/16 Standardised Operating Profit hectareProfit Farm System 1Graph Pasture & Crop Eaten per Tby DM/ha 15.2 13.5 1: Standardised Operating per hectare by Farm System per 2 Supplement+Grazing Offhectare by Farm T DM/ha System 3.1 3.4 $3,000 3 $3,000 Total Feed Eaten $2,500 Stocking Rate
4
Std. Operating Profit $/ha
Std. Operating Profit $/ha
5 $2,500 Supplement+Grazing Off Eaten $2,000 6 $2,000 Production per ha 7 8
1.7 -0.2
T DM/ha
18.3
16.8
cows/ha
3.4
3.3
0.1
kg DM/cow
904
981
-77
1,410
1,247
163
$1,500 MS in vat by 31Dec
MS/ha
892
788
104
Production per cow $1,000
MS/cow
416
375
41
$1,500
kg MS/ha
1.5
DairyBase consultant Jenny Ritchie – using DairyBase to find your sweet spot.
primarily determines profit, it’s your cost structure. “Every year in the Bay of Plenty study we have noticed it – at every milk price the higher-profit farmers are spread right across the systems.” The same trends come out every year regardless of milk price or seasonal influences, Jenny says.
‘The DairyBase study data is a reminder that it does not matter what system you run, success comes back to your cost structure.’
15/16 the$1,000 top 20% (10 farms) spent $1.27 less per kg MS and earned $2k/ha more operating profit than the 10 lowest $731 $731 $500 t farms. Their cows ate 1.7t/ha (13%) more pasture & crop and$516 produced 163kg $413 more MS/ha (13%). They had 104kg/ha “Over the last seven seasons and a $516 $500 $413 in the vat by 31 Dec. (13%) wide range of milk prices, the study has $0
$0
clearly demonstrated that the key driver of dairy operating profit per hectare is operating expenses per kg MS – the -$1,000 -$1,000 cost of production. “In general the lower your operating -$1,500 -$1,500 System 4&5 2 System 3System 3 System 4 & 5 SystemSystem 2 expenses per kg MS the higher your Milk price $3.90 the 20% top 20% (10 farms) from all systems 2 –did 5. the As did the bottom profit per hectare.” Milk price $3.90 - the- top (10 farms) camecame from all systems 2 – 5. As bottom 20% 20% Note wide range of profit within system. not system that primarily determines Note thethe wide range of profit within each each system. It’s notIt’s system that primarily determines profit. profit. There is a wide range of operating -$500
-$500
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
changes they just need to ensure they are operating with the right cost structure for the production they are achieving. “We see farmers that do really well who don’t make radical changes chasing the milk price, they finetune a little bit but are generally not changing systems. Graph 2: 2015/16 Operating Expenses $/kg MS & Standardised 2015/16 Operating Expenses $/kgMS & “A lot of farmers have scope Operating Profit $/ha Standardised Operating Profit $/ha to be more profitable within the $3,000 system they are in.” $2,500 The DairyBase data showed the cheapest way to increase $2,000 2015/16 Operating Expenses $/kgMS & production and improve Standardised Operating Profit $/ha $1,500 y = -1012.5x + 4675.1 $3,000 performance was by growing and R² = 0.6345 $2,500 feeding more pasture, she says. $1,000 Looking forward with the study $2,000 $500 they want to try and extract more $1,500 y = -1012.5x + 4675.1 R² = 0.6345 $0 detail around marginal costs from $1,000 the DairyBase information to help $500 -$500 farmers narrow in on the optimal $0 -$1,000 production level for their farm, she -$500 says. -$1,500 -$1,000 If farmers can produce at a -$2,000 -$1,500 level where their marginal cost 2.50-$2,000 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00 5.50 6.00 6.50 7.00 of production equals the longExpenses $/kgMS 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 Operating 4.50 5.00 5.50 6.00 6.50 7.00 Operating Expenses $/kgMS System 2 System 3 Systems 4 & 5 All Systems Linear (All Systems) run average milk price they will maximise profit over time, she Operating expenses value allvalue inputs used totogenerate the year’s can be compared Operating expenses all inputs used generate the year’s profitprofit and canand be compared across all farmacross types. all farm types. 6 of the yearsstudy of this Operating study Operating Exp/kg MS MS has been the KPI Operating with Profit/ha In 6 of the 7 In years of7this Exp/kg has been themost KPIstrongly most associated strongly with associated Operating says. Profit/ha That meant the break-even milk price for the top farms was $4.28/ kg MS while the bottom-performing farms needed $5.18/kg MS to break even after paying interest, tax and living expenses. Farmers don’t need to change system when the payout
Standardised Operating Profit $/ha
Standardised Operating Profit $/ha
expenses between farms and within each system. For 2015/16 the top performing 20% of farms had average operating expenses of $3.54/kg MS while the bottom 20% of farms averaged $4.81/ kg MS.
System 2
System 3
Systems 4 & 5
All Systems
Linear (All Systems)
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SPECIAL REPORT │ BENCHMARKING Flood recovery: A fertiliser truck applying a second dressing of fertiliser in five weeks to try to build cover prior to calving.
After the deluge Benchmarking comes down to analysing numbers to improve performance and can be a guide even when disaster strikes. When Sheryl Brown visited Donna and Corrie Smit in June, two months after their Edgecumbe farm was entirely flooded, a key focus was benchmarking how regrassing the entire farm would impact pasture harvested and operating profit in future. Donna and Corrie Smits’ dairy farm on the edge of Edgecumbe was submerged past the fence posts after the flood on April 6. Every paddock was under water for about eight days. The grass rotted and they had to undersow the entire farm in the aftermath – 100 hectares out of 160ha was undersowntwice with a discounted ryegrass and clover mix. In May and June they applied two dressings of fertiliser as they attempted to grow a minimum cover of 2300kg drymatter (DM)/ha before their 500 cows returned home to calve in midJuly. “The pressure now is to have enough grass for when the cows come home,” Donna says. On a positive note, if they manage to grow and harvest more pasture in the next few seasons and increase profitability it will be a good argument to do more regrassing in the future, Donna says. “That’s the really cool thing about benchmarking. We know how much pasture we have been eating in previous seasons and it’s pretty consistent. “If we get two years down the track and we are harvesting 19 tonnes and we think it’s because we regrassed the entire farm we have a business case. We know if we gain extra grass, we will know the cost and will know if it is worth undersowing a higher percentage of our farms each year. “There will be an economic calculation we can do.” Donna and Corrie have been part of the Bay of Plenty Focus on Dairying 68
Trust Dairybase Project for the last seven years. The study, funded by DairyNZ, collects physical and financial performance data from farms in the Western Bay of Plenty and Whakatane districts. The farmers get back an in-depth analysis on their farm performance every year to monitor their own progress against other farms and systems in their district. The DairyBase Project has been a privilege to be part of, Donna says. “We get all of this documented information. It’s fantastic.” As an experienced chartered accountant, Donna is driven by numbers. She is a director for Fonterra and Ballance Agri-Nutrients as well as a trustee for Dairy Women’s Network, and Taratahi Agricultural Centre. But being able to be an accountant for her own business she says she’s lucky to have these DairyBase numbers on hand to drive their business forward. “People think they can do benchmarking themselves against their own figures, but it’s when you analyse it with your peers where you gain knowledge.” Through benchmarking their business processes and performance against the best operators in their region Donna and Corrie were able to identify areas to improve. They identified early on that they weren’t harvesting enough grass. They were harvesting 14.4t/ha/year in 2009/10 – a figure which is pretty low looking back, Donna says.
Key facts
• Company: Corona Farms • Owners: Donna and Corrie Smit • Location: Edgecumbe, Bay of Plenty • Area: 160ha milking platform • Runoff: 40ha at Edgecumbe • Cows: 500 Friesian crossbreds • Average production: 240,000kg MS, 1560kg MS/ha, 440kg MS/cow • Farm dairy: 2 x 20-aside herringbones • Farm working expenses: $2.42/ kg MS • Operating costs: $2.95/kg MS
“It was a big learning for us out of the benchmarking study. “Now we look for staff with Primary ITO Level 4 or people who want to do Level 4, and they have to be good pasture managers.” Their System 2 operation harvested 18.7t DM/ha/year last season – a reflection of how far they have come since putting more emphasis on that area of their business. “Through the study, over time we have seen it doesn’t matter what system you use as long as you eat all your grass because that’s your cheapest feed source. If you’re wasting grass you won’t be maximising your profit.” Their grass growth rates are high because of the favourable conditions in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, where they have an average annual rainfall of more than 1300mm.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Since boosting their pasture harvested and by keeping their operating costs low their farm is now consistently in the top 10% of farms in the district. “We are a high-performing farm, except in really good payout years where System 5 farms do better – but we are still above the average in those years. “We are not producing the highest milksolids per hectare, but we are maximising our pasture we grow and producing milk at a lower cost.” Their farm working expenses for 2015/16 were $2.42/kg milksolids (MS) compared to the region average of $3.35. Operating expenses for the same season were $2.95/kg MS compared to the region average of $4.03/kg MS. It’s all about keeping operating expenses low, Donna says. “If you keep costs low your operating profit will be higher.” Having years of financial and physical data for the region is a useful reference point for themselves and other farmers to make decisions or work out why something is happening in their operation, she says. For example many farmers have been noticing high empty rates last season and farmers in the South Island particularly were blaming fodder beet and company genetics.
‘We are not producing the highest milksolids per hectare, but we are maximising our pasture we grow and producing milk at a lower cost.’ But when you look at the data in the Bay of Plenty, where fodder beet isn’t fed, empty rates have also increased over the last few years, Donna says. The data shows the average mating period has reduced from 13.6 to 11.2 weeks in the last six years, which is key to higher empty rates. “Empty rates have gone up because of us. The whole point of having this document is you can dispel myths. “It cuts a whole lot of myth out because we’ve got this document going back seven years and it’s all sitting there.”
Donna Smit – benchmarking their farm against their peers has lifted their performance.
There is always something to take out of every season, Donna says. “The really cool thing is every year we learn something. This year we were interested in how people were making the savings – where they were pulling the money out.” In the 2015/16 season with a $3.90/kg MS payout Bay of Plenty farmers in the study dropped their operating expenses by 50c/kg MS since the high payout of 2013/14. “It was so admirable, I was so proud of our group.” DairyBase consultant Jenny Ritchie who summarises the findings of the Bay of Plenty study every year found farmers had cut back in wages, repairs and maintenance, fertiliser and animal health. “Jenny worked out the low-profit farmers didn’t cut as much. The highprofit farmers cut – they were very flexible. “It shows you the mindset of the top-profit farmers who saw the change in environment and they were making changes.” However an interesting result from that season was the high-profit farmers that did cut hard, had higher empty
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
rates and had more cows with lameness issues. “That is going to impact on next season whereas the low-profit farmers carried on, had less animal health issues and have lower empty rates going into this season. “It’s not about who is right or wrong, it’s about valuing our differences.” Donna and Corrie own farms at Oamaru, North Otago milking 3000 cows on 880ha. They benchmark the performance of those farms in DairyBase as well, and are particularly interested in the results released from LUDF – Lincoln University Dairy Farm.
Lessons from the flood Donna was in a Dairy Women’s Network meeting at Fonterra in Auckland on April 6 when she heard the news of Rangitaiki River breaching its banks and flooding Edgecumbe town. While her husband Corrie was out on his tractor helping neighbours in the flood, the water hit a canal and diverted back to their farm, which is upstream of the initial river breach. Overland flooding 69
Edgecumbe Flood: Donna and Corrie’s farm was under water for eight days.
from the rain also came from the other direction. The flood was an extreme event after getting 300mm rainfall in one day. It was the first major flood Donna and Corrie have experienced on the farm in the last 30 years, although in 2009 the eastern side of the Rangitaiki River had a major flood. Corrie raced home to move all 500 cows and 100 rising two-year-olds on the farm to the dairy yard and Donna drove home while finding grazing and organising transport. The response of people in their hour of need was amazing, she says. Nobody turned her down for grazing, while the 018 service were aware of the situation and were texting Donna numbers of stock transport companies to ring. “Our local trucking company Heikells Transport was awesome, they took over and organised all other trucking companies and made sure everybody got their cows off.” The stock trucks were initially stopped at the police cordons until Corrie explained the fact they had 600 animals in the middle of the flood. As the rain continued Donna and Corrie loaded their cows for 12 hours until midnight, with help from neighbours and their ANZ bank manager Jason Parkinson who turned up at 10pm to load cows after helping evacuate residents in the town during the day. 70
The freight bill to get all 12 truck and trailer loads away was close to $28,000 and they are yet to get a bill for the animals to come home again. The cows were still in-milk and originally went to friends who carried on milking them, but the pressure became too much when feed ran out so they had to be moved again. Cyclone Debbie hit five days later, while the community was working with tractors, pumps and generators to get rid of the water. The cyclone knocked a lot of trees down on the farm and it took them five days to pick up all the trees and rubbish, Donna says. Their house was not flooded but they were unable to stay in it because it was within the cordon which made daily logistics difficult. Industry support was good following the event, but there is potential for a more organised rural response to help with practical solutions in future events, she says. “I think in these situations, the best support is farmers helping farmers. “The biggest governmental support during it was in the wellness area – but what we needed was practical help, help to get stock off the farm, help with grazing, help to organise pumps and generators, organise grass seed and fertiliser. “Local farmers and our Fonterra area manager Lisa Payne did a
sterling effort. Linda Virbickas, a dairy farmer and volunteer from the 2009 flood, took over the regional council whiteboard and made sure tractors, pumps and generators were where they were needed and were fuelled and maintained.” Donna estimates the Edgecumbe flood has cost their business $300,000. Despite the stress of the experience and the cost, Donna still talks about them being lucky. “We were lucky the flood didn’t happen at night. We were lucky it wasn’t in winter or the middle of spring with calves on the ground. We were lucky our house wasn’t flooded.” Two months on they were also lucky to have had good weather since the flood to help the farm recover. They were also lucky they had two good growing seasons before this year and had extra grass silage on hand. “We had a really good run before this. It all evens out.” While they were loading cows in the middle of the night with flood waters around them Corrie said “at least we have cows milking down south”. Having a diverse business portfolio certainly has made the impact of the flood easier to shoulder, Donna says. “We were taught at accountancy school to spread your risk, it takes a real life incident to truly fathom this.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Faculty of Agribusiness & Commerce
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ENVIRONMENT │ WATER Balage is placed in the winter crops as soon as they are sown to reduce runoff into the river.
Anne Hardie
Breatheable water
The boulder-strewn Matakitaki River that runs along three kilometres of Jon and Vicki Nicholls’ Murchison dairy farm is a kayakers playground and a summer paradise for their kids, but it costs time and money to control its eroding forces and ensure the water quality meets kayakers “breathable” standards. Vicki is fourth generation on the farm near the small Top of the South town and the couple are now sharemilking for her father, George Scott; milking 500 cows at the peak of the season on 180 hectares. It’s a dramatic environment, squeezed between steep-sided hills in a two-metre rainfall climate and a river that can change rapidly from a catchment that includes mountainous country. A photo shows the valley after the 1929 Murchison earthquake where a hill opposite the farm blew out and swept houses before it to the other side of the valley, across what is now part of the farm’s river flats. Fast forward a couple of generations and the farm is clean dairy pasture that has been developed over the years to drain wet areas and grow as much grass as possible while trying to direct the river away from paddocks. These days, river protection is as much about protecting the water quality as it is the asset and the Nicholls’ goal is to create a sustainable farming business that fits their environment. Their efforts won them the Meridian Energy Farm Environment Award in the
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West Coast Top of the South Share Farmer of the Year award and they also scooped the overall award and went on to compete nationally. Both have worked on farms around the country and at one stage Jon, who grew up on a farm in the United Kingdom, was a FarmWise consultant, before they returned to Vicki’s family farm four years ago with their three small daughters to be variable order sharemilkers. Since then they have increased their business to 50:50 sharemilkers and have been working on environmental issues as well as production to take the farm into the future. They’ve planted poplar and willow poles supplied by the Tasman District Council to try and stabilise weak areas prone to erosion along the banks of the river. Although a number of varieties of trees, shrubs and grasses, including natives can be used to stabilise areas, poplars and willows have major advantages through their growth rate, root spread and ease of establishment. Several varieties of both poplar and willow cover the range of soils and terrain on farms and the willows are varieties that don’t break and create more willow. “The river has a significant difference between high and low flow,” Vicki says, “and has the ability to change course which means it keeps trying to eat into part of the farm. So the plantings are aimed at trying to prevent it flowing in the farm and also to stop sediment from those banks falling into the river.” Older crack willow already grows
The Nicholls family sharemilk on Vicki’s family farm.
rampantly alongside much of the river and the Nicholls flattened areas with a 20-tonne digger as a way of managing the willows and encouraging regeneration. Poplar and willow poles have been planted along erosion-prone streams on the farm as well to reduce sediment flowing into the river. Every aspect of their farming business has undergone scrutiny to see where improvements can be made to reduce sediment and E.coli leaving the farm. Each paddock has been soil-tested for Olsen P and pH to manage fertility, but also phosphate levels that may run off into the river. Nitrogen is less of a problem in an area with high rainfall, so they concentrate on what matters in their region and community for water quality. Crops on slopes are grazed from the top first so the crop below catches the
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
sediment and E.coli. In winter crop paddocks, bales of balage are strategically placed just after the crop is sown in November so they don’t create ruts driving through wet paddocks which allow sediment and E-coli to flow into streams and out to the river. Effluent from the dairy now goes through smaller pods over a bigger area at a slower rate. A perfectly good concrete silage bunker built by Vicki’s father back in the late 1970s is no longer used because of its proximity to a drain for leaching and they’ve added the usual riparian strips and installed culverts on the farm to keep both sediment and E-coli from the river. On a busy day, up to 70 kayakers will be heading up the road past the farm to tackle the white water created around rocks deposited in the river from the 1929 earthquake. Kayakers are meticulous about water quality because they spend a lot of time in it – often under it, Jon says. “You have water quality they refer to as wadeable, then swimmable, then drinkable and the top quality is breathable. And the kayakers talk about breathable water because they’re in it. So these are things we’re conscious about in our farming practices and need to think about on a national level. “For us, it is the sediment which affects water quality and E-coli, and the other contributors include wild animals and aquatic birds. Only 7% of the Buller catchment is in farming, so some of the contamination is going to be natural. When you get a big slip further upstream, you can see the water change colour.” It’s important to understand the farming influence though, as well as the public’s
concerns and he says the dairy industry has not been very good at understanding some of those concerns, or working out which concerns are valid. Like many sharemilkers, environmental improvements are driven by them but paid by farm owners who are generally an older generation who Vicki says worked hard in previous decades to develop a farm that was easier to manage and grew grass wherever possible. The younger generation now needed to focus on environmental developments and sometimes that created tension. Some of that reluctance was understandable, especially when fenced riparian strips ended up with blackberry that farmers once spent time and money clearing to put into grass. “The way it has been done historically is to make management easier, but now we’re doing it to be environmentally friendly.” Many of those environmental developments also have ongoing costs and that Jon says can be hard to justify to farm owners. “Compliance costs are high on a farm like this where we’ve put in six 450mmplus culverts in the last four years and they do require annual maintenance. After each rainfall you get a blocked culvert and a blowout and those things all add to the cost of running a farm. But that’s the reality. “We’ve put in about 11 troughs as animals were fenced out of streams and the upside is we don’t have liver fluke now – so there are upsides. And the banks and drains aren’t trampled so there’s less sediment and E.coli going into the river. “ Some of the environmental work on farms has unintended consequences, though, like the culverts which now
obstruct the path for aquatic life. That can be rectified by creating passages for them, but Jon says it’s something farmers need to consider when installing culverts. Jon expects greater accountability for water usage on dairy farms and how they use fertiliser. “We have to have consents for irrigation water, but don’t have to justify what we do with it. So I think there will be greater accountability with how we use that water – how much drymatter did we turn it into and where did we apply that water. We’re using a resource and I think the population of New Zealand is allowed to ask us about that resource. “And I think there will be more accountability for where we put our fertiliser. As an industry we don’t have a central database for where we put our nutrients. We have TracMap and we might have it in a diary or GPS it, but no-one is looking at that data. So I think the time will come where you have to prove you stayed 20m away from waterways. It will cost, but if public sentiment turns more against dairying, it’s a hard place to come back from. We need to keep our permission to farm. “You need the public support because they will be prepared to pay more for a product produced in an appropriate manner.” He says there’s ignorance on both the urban and rural side of the environmental debate and that leads people to filling in the gaps with misinformation. The dairy industry has begun to promote its environmental efforts and the public needs to know those details. “I think if you explain what you do, people don’t look over the fence and guess.”
The Matakitaki River runs alongside 3km of the farm.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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ENVIRONMENT │ WATER QUALITY Aslan Wright-Stow – on the hunt for riparian planting projects from dairy farmers.
Survey seeks detail on riparian efforts Glenys Christian glenys.christian@nzx.com Dairy farmers are being urged to get involved in a national survey which aims to provide more information about riparian fencing and planting’s effect on ecological and water quality recovery. “As far as I’m aware nothing internationally has been undertaken on this scale in riparian management research,” DairyNZ water quality specialist Aslan Wright-Stow says. He was involved in setting up the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s (NIWA) National Riparian Restoration Database (NRRD) before moving to DairyNZ in April. He will continue to be involved in the database in his new role, getting dairy farmers started by answering an online survey about existing fencing and planting work on their properties. The database collection is the beginning of the large-scale five-year project set up by NIWA last September to give a much better understanding of optimal planting design when it comes to riparian planting onfarm. “At the moment we know that some riparian restoration works well and leads to rapid recovery and others seem less effective with respect to some water quality and ecological outcomes,” he says. While riparian fencing and planting has been carried out by various groups, including farmers, since the 1970s there are still gaps in knowledge on the optimum ecological benefits, as well as understanding the time required for these benefits to occur. With a lot of voluntary riparian establishment and planning, no clear project goals were developed to help guide planting and fencing. “It’s difficult to study the benefits as most riparian projects aren’t monitored after establishment,” he says. Still fewer include long-term monitoring scaled to the growth of trees and the gradual ecological effects of riparian revegetation over 20, 30 or 40 years and beyond. “Farmers often start off with a hiss and a roar but once the fencing and planting has been done there’s little consideration for monitoring the benefits,” he says. Some plantings work better than others and likely to relate to the scale of planting,
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size of the stream or river, location in the catchment, distance to pristine conditions, and landscape topography. “But we don’t know which factors are most important for different stream types. For example, is it better to plant a long thin buffer, or a short wide buffer,” he said. The aim is to be able to provide guidance that will ensure cost-effective riparian management that delivers better water quality outcomes demanded by national and regional policies. Aslan, 39, was born and brought up in rural Canterbury and studied biology and zoology at the University of Canterbury, completing a Masters of Science in freshwater ecology. He joined NIWA in Hamilton and worked there for 16 years looking at different sectors’ land use and their effects on streams and rivers, such as the impacts of, and recovery from, plantation forest harvesting.
‘We don’t know which factors are most important for different stream types. For example, is it better to plant a long thin buffer, or a short wide buffer.’
He says more information on correct planting layout and species selection is more important now than ever with a changing climate and the likelihood of more extreme weather events in the future. “A farmer’s planting effort may get washed out in a significant flood, and to rub salt in the wound, trees carried in flood waters can damage fences or block culverts, if done incorrectly,” he says. “We need the information now – we can’t wait 30 to 50 years.” To do this a space-for-time experiment will be carried out where locations that already have 10, 20, 30 and 40-year-old vegetation are monitored and compared with each other, rather than continuously monitoring a site for the same amount of time. “We have a few gems out there that are over 50 years old,” he says. “And that data can show us what works
best and how to adaptively manage current projects that have the potential to fail to meet their goals.” Information is needed on where riparian projects have been undertaken around the country because there is no one source at present. “There is some council information but it’s variable between councils and not readily available,” he says. “Taranaki is ahead of the pack and they are seeing good results.” So phase one of the NIWA programme is setting up the national database and for that, information on as many different riparian planting projects as possible around the country is required. All land uses are targeted with farmers being asked to complete an online survey which will take about 10 minutes. It contains 18 questions asking details of plantings on their farm, reasons for establishing it, plant species used and plant spacing. They’re also asked to estimate the total number of volunteer hours and money spent and if there’s been any financial or other support from councils or industry bodies. Then, importantly, they’re asked whether the project is meeting their goals and if they would like to be part of a citizen scientist group that contributes to the space-fortime experiment by collecting monthly information on how the planting affects water quality and ecological condition. “From the database around 50 sites from around the country will be selected that will be monitored by citizen scientists for around 18 months,” Aslan says. “Monitoring large numbers of sites across the country becomes costprohibitive using traditional science methods, and for this programme to work really well, we need a large number of sites.” He’ll be encouraging dairy farmers to
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
get involved with back-up from DairyNZ consulting officers and support teams of developers to help explain the science behind the project. DairyNZ has a CRM database of its levy-payers and knows if they run a high or low-input farming system. Through the Sustainable Dairying Water Accord 11,400 farmers are already thought to be involved in riparian management and fencing. But Aslan says they may well be involved in other onfarm activities such as having Queen Elizabeth II covenants in place or creating and protecting wetland areas. They now have a range of tools such as DairyNZ’s Riparian Planner to help, giving step-by-step instructions on how to undertake riparian planting. It also provides lists of the most suitable plants, cost estimates for various fencing and planting options, along with pests which may attack them. “In the past riparian planting has happened in a piecemeal way,” he says. “A single database doesn’t yet exist. But we need sound and robust science-based information.” Once the database is as complete as it can be it will be a very useful tool for other science projects because of the huge amount of information it will contain. This will be particularly useful for improving understanding on catchmentscale benefits for improving water quality and the ecological importance of linking riparian projects. The database will also provide important information on the time and financial investments made to improve water quality.
“If farmers, or other groups, are interested in taking part, and their riparian project meets the scientific needs of the programme, a community group will be asked to collect detailed information from that location,” he says. Citizen scientists would need to be available for two to three hours a month for from 12 to 18 months, to collect information on the physical habitat, water quality parameters and what is living in the water. Volunteers will also act as a conduit for getting water samples requiring more complex analysis to laboratories for testing. All the equipment needed will be provided as well as training on how to use it and those involved will be able to view the data they collect and compare that with data collected from other sites, and relate it to national statistics. Equipment for those wanting to undertake the complex tests themselves will also be available, and this will help extend knowledge on how data collected by community groups using inexpensive equipment compares with professional analysis. This monitoring work will start in about a year’s time and run for up to two years. “We want to know what’s in the water, what the buffer is like and how the two relate,” Aslan says. “It’s also the ideal opportunity to get more information on, for example, the spread of weeds and answering questions such as whether there’s an optimal planting density to reduce their presence.
Better understanding of optimal performance and cost-efficiency to help meet land-water limit setting processes make gathering information on historic riparian projects even more urgent, DairyNZ water quality specialist Aslan Wright-Stow says.
“And we also have the opportunity to get additional information collected on the quality of river banks, the risk of sediment entering a stream from the banks, and whether certain planting reduces this.” A minimum of two or three people would be needed in each group for health and safety reasons, but there could be more, he says. After initial reporting of details such as the width of streams and the age of plants, monthly data would be collected on water quality and there would also be six-monthly checks on stream life and habitat conditions. These details will be summarised on a NIWA website as well as one with more detail that is able to be accessed by those undertaking the monitoring. Aslan is quick in his reassurance privacy will be protected. While none of the information will be able to be linked to an individual project, people or groups, if they’re happy for these details to be made available, farmers can indicate this in the survey, which may result in more likeminded people joining their group. “People want a sense of ownership because this leads to reassurance that they are making a difference,” he says. Regular updates on the project will be circulated to those involved as well as through special interest groups in councils. DairyNZ water quality specialist, Dr Tom Stephens, who already has close links with councils aims to strengthen this collaboration through further development of the Riparian Planner and is also hopeful more funding will be made available from this source. It’s planned that the Riparian Planner will be updated as new information on optimal riparian design from the project comes to hand, but Aslan believes these will be tweaks rather than massive changes. “So farmers involved will get a broad picture of the benefits that come from riparian fencing and planting and how restoration can mitigate impacts from the paddock on not only water quality, but also ecological health and habitat condition,” he says. “Council policy and the land-water limit-setting processes that are underway in New Zealand are going to drive a lot of restoration to improve water quality. Dairy farmers are leading the way through the Dairy Accord and this will give some nice context to highlight the work they’ve already done, plus provide more of the information needed to meet those limits.” The survey is available at riparian.niwa.co.nz or through links from www.dairynz.co.nz
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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ENVIRONMENT │ WATER QUALITY
Planning before planting Glenys Christian glenys.christian@nzx.com Rank grass could be more of friend to farmers than they realise when it comes to planning and carrying out riparian planting, a recent Wellsford workshop was told. “Grassy margins filter contaminants from run-off,” Dr Tom Stephens, a DairyNZ water quality analyst, said when demonstrating the Riparian Planner online programme to 20 farmers, getting them to map waterways on their properties then let it lay out the planting and fencing required. It was important to correctly estimate what percentage of land along waterways was likely to flood every year and choose a suitable fencing setback distance, which varies according to soil type, slope and water flow, he said. On flat-to-undulating land a setback distance of from three to five metres could reduce nutrients, sediment and bacteria entering waterways but wider strips were needed if the objective was to create shade or a wildlife habitat, reduce weed growth and keep streams cool.
‘If they are spaced too thinly weeds will come through or if they are too dense you’re wasting money.’ “You want to get that right so the number of plants recommended is correct,” he said. “If they are spaced too thinly weeds will come through or if they are too dense you’re wasting money.” Grass could be left in the lower bank zone, the strip of land along the waterway prone to flooding, because planting shrubs or trees there could lead to their catching debris which would impede stream flow. “If you are super-keen you can plant native grasses and just spot spray for weeds,” he said. A one-metre grass strip should also be left around fences put in at the top of the upper bank zone, where trees and shrubs could be planted because the area only flooded periodically. The grass strip also prevented plants being grazed or shorting out electric fences and if the bottom fence
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DairyNZ water quality analyst, Dr Tom Stephens, left, works with Tapora dairy farmer, Earle Wright on a map of his property using DairyNZ’s Riparian Planner. wire was one foot up from the ground cows would be able to reach underneath to graze. Stephens said farmers could log into DairyNZ’s Riparian Planner at any time for tailored advice on planting their farm. While it would prompt them about actions required, simplify planning and reduce costs, it wouldn’t make decisions required, replace the farmer or their consultants or do the hard work involved. Farmers give the address of their property, then on a map draw in waterways and specify the type of fencing and planting required. The planner will ask if stock is excluded then calculate planting and fencing costs and work out the amount to be done each year. There are online planting guides for regions throughout the country, with five go-to plants suggested as they are hard, fastgrowing and can be planted straight into pasture. Ecosourced plants are recommended as they’re the best adapted to the local climate and soils. There’s then a choice of plants for the lower bank zone, mostly sedges, that should be planted at spaces as from half to one metre apart. And for the upper bank zone, where planting should be from 1.5 to two metres apart, a longer list of tree and shrub options is given. Weed control costs are also factored in.
When planting wetlands 10m could be left on the lower banks inside fences, Stephens said. “You want a lot of low-growing sedge and raupo is ideal.” Councils, some of which had schemes funding up to 50% of planting and fencing costs, would send staff out to look at a planned planting area and DairyNZ consulting officers could be called on for advice as well. And Stephens said he or water quality specialist, Aslan Wright-Stow, could be contacted via the planner so they could check the fencing and planting planned. “Do it once and it will last you five years,” he said. If farmers required a farm environmental plan under new regional council rules they would not have to repeat the exercise. Earle Wright, a Tapora dairy farmer with one of the flagship sites for the Integrated Kaipara Harbour Management Group, who organised the workshop, said if the subject of riparian planting wasn’t dear to farmers now, it would be dear in a different way in the near future. “The Government has set goals,” he said. “But our focus should be that we’re doing this for our kids.” More: www.dairynz.co.nz/riparianplanner
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
ENVIRONMENT │ WATER QUALITY
Lessons from success and failure
Otago setting a region-wide water quality limit for rivers such as the Taieri of 30kg/ha/year (with the exception of a few areas) is not scientifically robust or defensible, Keri Johnston says.
Keri Johnston
On a theme of pretending to be someone I’m not (eg: the prime minister of this fair nation), it has been suggested I put on the Environment Minister’s hat and write to those councils still to dip their toes into the complex issue of setting water quality limits with some advice and lessons learnt to date… so here goes. Dear (insert name of CEO of relevant council), With the recent OECD report (March 2017) stating that New Zealand’s economic growth model is approaching its environmental limits, I thought it timely to contact councils who are yet to undertake the process of setting water quality limits. Many have gone before you, and I sincerely hope that you have been watching and learning from their successes and failures. I would like to provide you with what I consider to be key lessons learnt.
ENGAGE AND INVOLVE This may seem rather obvious, but it is actually very difficult to do well. You need to engage everyone, urban and rural and it needs to be communicated right from the outset that any process to set water quality limits is a community issue – again, everyone. You will create an even larger divide between the urban and rural factions of your communities if you focus solely on one as the cause of the region’s issues. And, everyone needs to be involved. It is important to emphasise that these processes will potentially impact on livelihoods but also expectations on water quality outcomes. Therefore, they must be involved in
the process. I must also emphasise that everyone includes stakeholder groups and iwi. Every person, body or group with an interest in the outcome needs to be engaged and involved. All it takes is one to derail the entire process.
OVERSEER Overseer appears to be the tool of choice for ensuring compliance with water quality limits at a farm level. Please remember that Overseer is a model that estimates losses at the root zone. It in no way is capable of determining how much nutrient actually makes it to water (either groundwater or surface water). Please also remember that it is subject to frequent change and therefore, should you opt to use it, you must allow for this fact – a lesson Horizons has learnt of late and Otago is in denial about.
You need to engage everyone, urban and rural and it needs to be communicated right from the outset that any process to set water quality limits is a community issue – again, everyone.
and there is constant failure by councils to recognise this. For example, Otago setting a regionwide water quality limit of 30kg/ha/year (with the exception of a few areas) is not scientifically robust or defensible. I cannot believe that the Clutha River is the same as the Lindis River and that one water quality limit will achieve the same outcome in both water bodies. I completely understand that getting the science right will take time, but again, allow for this.
ADAPT AND REVIEW The expression that springs to mind is: best-laid plans. Despite best efforts to create robust, defensible limits and a rule framework around these, be prepared to review in the event that we are proven to be wrong, or simply does not work. And, then actually carry out the review. This will require you to adapt.
ACCEPT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW You may not have all the answers, or the information available to determine the answers. Accept this, and take whatever steps necessary to get the answers. Plucking limits out of thin air is not an acceptable alternative – again reiterating that livelihoods are at stake, but also that water quality outcomes will not be met. It affects everyone. If you are not able to determine the answers, get help. I thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and I hope my advice puts you in good stead for the future.
SCIENCE Again, an obvious statement I would have thought. And I’m not suggesting the Dr Mike Joy type of science, but robust, defensible science. Water quality is a multifaceted topic and every water body will be different – it is not “one size fits all”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Kind regards and best wishes, Keri Johnston (wannabe Environment Minister)
• Keri Johnston is a natural resources engineer with Irricon Resource Solutions, 77
STOCK │ ONFARM Ben Davie with one of the herds of cows on the Clydevale farm.
GETTING THE BASICS RIGHT Karen Trebilcock ak.trebilcock@xtra.co.nz @KT_at_Exporter Having a lower-order sharemilker enter the Otago Ballance Farm Environment awards this year had the competition’s judges scratching their heads. Ben and Tanya Davie don’t own or lease the farm, or even own the cows grazing it but what they’re doing on the 320-hectare farm at Clydevale near Balclutha got them not only the LIC Dairy Farm Award but also the Otago Regional Council Quality Water Management Award. “To win the water management award, which any farming operation could have won, that was special, it’s great for the dairy industry,” Ben said. “We get such a bad rap from the rest of the country. To win something like this was great.” The couple, with their four children,
Key facts
milk 720 cows and have just finished their sixth season on the farm which was converted from sheep and beef a year before they arrived. In that time they have raised production from 280,000kg milksolids (MS) to 340,000kg MS this season achieving about 470kg MS/cow. Which is not bad considering the farm’s clay soils suffer in the spring from the wet and cold and in summer from the dry and there is no irrigation. They don’t condition score their cows but believe in fully feeding them with only minimal grain going in to fill shortfalls. They also don’t use CIDRs or other interventions at mating and after the fiveweeks of AI last year were holding at 72% in calf. “We keep things fairly simple. We have a philosophy of getting the basics right and the rest will follow.” Effluent is spread on 70ha using a gun which they can get down to 3mm/hour/ha
for when soil moisture is high. Planned start of calving is August 5 but Ben is starting to rethink it. “We don’t really get grass growth here until about September 20 and our peak calving date is about the 15 to 20 August so we’re a month ahead of it and it costs us a lot to feed those cows for that month. “I know it’s about days in milk but maybe we should be thinking about more milk in days.” Drying off date this year was May 28 with the lighter-conditioned cows on once-a-day for about a month before that. They hadn’t considered entering the Ballance Farm Environment Awards until a week before entries closed when a phone call from their bank manager at Rabobank made them have a look at the website. “We think now everyone should enter. They look at every part of your business, not just the environmental stuff. ” The couple found the experience easy and rewarding.
At the dairy entrance are Ben, Tanya and Jacob (3).
• Hejlea Dairies • Owners: Raymond and Claire Sutherland • Lower order sharemilkers (25%): Ben and Tanya Davie • Location: Clydevale, Otago • Area: 320ha (280ha effective – 20ha farm forestry) and a 260ha runoff at Hillend • Dairy: 54-bail rotary • Herd: 720 Friesian and Friesian crossbred cows • Production: 340,000kg MS 2016-2017 season • Planned start of calving: August 5 • System 1-2 • Rainfall: 800-900mm • Elevation: 80m
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
The main farm drain is running clear, just the way Ben likes it. At the rotary dairy are the two full-time staff (from left) Rene Condino and Doshen Macanang with Ben Davie.
Three-year-old Jacob gives mum Tanya a hand with the horses. “The competition is very professionally run and was a pleasure to be a part of,” Ben said. “The judges were very approachable and like-minded people. They were easy to talk to, it was a discussion, and they were really interested in what we were doing and why. “We showed them this is how we farm, this is how we do it. There was nothing fake.” At the end of it the couple were given an eight-page report detailing possible ways to improve their business which, for Ben and Tanya, included employing more staff so they could have time to concentrate on finding ways to grow their business. They employ two Filipino staff and several relief milkers but Ben still milks most mornings in the 54-bail rotary and does all the tractor work himself, including planting summer turnips and fodder beet for transitioning in late lactation before the cows go to the 260ha runoff nearby at Hillend. The young stock are there yearround and silage is brought back from it to the milking platform. They’re busy days, especially with four children, Charlotte, Oliver, Luke and Jacob, all aged under 10 and who are all horse-mad. Tanya teaches riding and with the kids goes to all the A&P shows in the South Island. They have had a very successful 2016/17 season with all three of the older children winning titles at the South Island Premier show, NZ Showcase and as well as winning a title at Horse of the Year with one of their other ponies. Even three-year old Jacob loves to ride. And then there is rugby for Ben to coach and netball for Tanya. “It’s a really great community here at Clydevale,” Tanya said. “Everyone cares about everyone. There’s always baking left on doorsteps for families in need.” Although Ben and Tanya don’t own the farm and the owners live nearby, Ben said
he and Tanya are “still on the coal face”. “We’re responsible for everything on the farm. If we think it’s needed, we put a case to the farm owners. We have a really good relationship with them.” And one of those responsibilities is looking towards 2020 which is when the regional council will begin enforcing nutrient caps. “It’s only three years away and we still don’t know if we will be able to continue farming here then the way we are now.” The farm’s southern boundary is the Pomahaka River which the regional council has identified as one of its worst waterways for water quality. Ben and Tanya are part of the Pomahaka Water Care Group and every three months take water samples from the main farm drain before it enters the river. “I used to swim in the Pomahaka when I was a kid, I want my kids to be able to do the same,” Ben said. “So far, all the samples have come back with everything low. We test for everything – nitrogen, phosphorus, E.coli and sediment – and we did have one phosphorus spike which we can’t explain but everything else has been really low. “We look at what we’re doing onfarm when the water samples are taken and try to see if there is something that will show up but so far, apart from that one spike,
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
everything is good.” His gateway is the drop-off for samples from the other farmers in the catchment who are water testing and the water care group hopes it will give the regional council proof that what is happening on their farms is not affecting the river. “When this farm was converted by the owners it was done really well. All the drains were fenced off and the hedges were kept. There are a lot of trees so it’s really nice. There is nothing better than checking on the cows on a summer’s evening.” The fenced-off drains so far have only mature trees and long grass in them but Ben and Tanya are consulting with the water care group about possibly planting them with other species to see if more nutrients and sediment can be captured. “When we have it planted we’ll test the water going in and coming out and hopefully the wetland will be improving the water even more. “One of the questions the Ballance Award judges asked us was about the bird life on the farm and we had never thought about it. “But there is bird life. We just shot 180 ducks off it at the start of the duck shooting season, everyone got their bag limit. And we don’t have a hide or prefeed or anything so that shows you our waterways must be pretty good.” 79
STOCK │ VET VOICE
Calving – getting things right Katie Mason, Veterinarian Managing workloads at calving can be stressful, but some jobs need to be prioritised. Special attention and time given to managing cows around calving will be time well spent. Metabolic and other disease conditions around calving are commonplace, hugely time-consuming and costly when things go wrong. At calving cows suffer “immune dysfunction” which means they may be more susceptible to disease. Metabolic conditions such as milk fever and ketosis (some of which may not be as obvious as a down cow in the paddock) can have longlasting effects on the health and fertility of your herd. Adequate magnesium supplementation is still a top priority to prevent metabolic problems around calving. Cows around calving need sufficient magnesium in order to mobilise calcium stores in their body. Late-term pregnancy and early lactation are very demanding times for the cow
Plan ahead A plan for getting things right for cows around calving: • Talk to your vet and decide on how best to supplement your cows with magnesium. • Estimate how much magnesium you will need for the season (accounting for any magnesium required for maize balancer) and organise your supplies early. • Make sure all your equipment is working correctly and you have what you need, for example if you are using an inline water dispenser make sure it is serviced. • Ensure you also have a plan for other trace element supplementation such as copper and selenium. • Avoid effluent (high potassium) paddocks for cows pre-calving • Body condition score your herd regularly and outline a feed budget • Pay special attention to feeding cows two weeks pre-calving. Do not overfeed fat cows.
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Cows around calving need sufficient magnesium in order to mobilise calcium stores in their body.
in terms of calcium and magnesium is needed to keep these levels balanced. Magnesium is not stored in the cow’s body and needs to be given daily. This can be challenging in wet and windy weather when you are using magnesium dusting as your primary method of supplementation. Plan to start magnesium supplementation for your herd four weeks before your planned start of calving and continue to supplement with magnesium, depending on weather and supplementary feeding, until late spring.
A water flavourer such as apple, aniseed or caramel will encourage the cows to drink magnesium-treated water.
A number of magnesium products are on the market in different forms. How much magnesium you are actually giving to your cows will depend on the product and the method of application. Be sure you are giving what you think you are giving by knowing the magnesium content of the product; and allowing for wastage depending on your method of supplementation. Broadly speaking, you need to supply a pre-calving cow with 20g of elemental magnesium per day. Your options for supplementation are: MAGNESIUM OXIDE (55% elemental magnesium), which can be dusted on the pasture or added to supplementary feed. Dusting magnesium oxide is a wasteful method of supplementation as you need to dust with two-three times the requirement, depending on weather. This equates to around 100g a cow per day to ensure the cows are getting enough. If the cows are eating the magnesium oxide from supplementary feed you can use about 60g a cow per day as wastage is lower. MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE AND MAGNESIUM SULPHATE (10-12% elemental magnesium) which can be added to the water at a rate of around 80g
a cow per day before water palatability issues become a problem, and the cows simply won’t drink the water any more. A water flavourer such as apple, aniseed or caramel will encourage the cows to drink magnesium-treated water (pick the flavour your cows like best by experimenting a bit). In general, magnesium water additives, such as magnesium sulphate and magnesium chloride, are used together with magnesium oxide as they cannot provide enough magnesium to meet the demands of the pre-calving cow when used alone. MAGNESIUM RUMEN CAPSULES These generally do not provide adequate amounts of magnesium to meet the demands of the pre-calving cow. Extra magnesium will be required where low-magnesium feeds, such as maize, are being fed (figures quoted above are for pasture-only fed cows). Magnesium to balance maize will not prevent metabolic issues alone. While magnesium supplementation is vital, there are other aspects to consider to prevent metabolic conditions at calving. Cows failing to reach body condition score (BCS) targets at calving of 5 for mature cows and 5.5 for heifers, continues to be a predisposing factor for health issues around calving. However, where cows are genuinely reaching BCS targets at calving, correct rationing for springer cows is important. Cows in BCS 5 at calving need to be restricted to 80-90% of their ration for the last two weeks before calving which equates to around 9-10kg of drymatter per cow per day for a 500kg cow. Where they are not reaching BCS targets, they need 1112kg of dry matter per cow per day (based on 11MJ ME/kg DM pasture).
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
STOCK │ DISBUDDING
Easing the pain of disbudding South Island farmers Eileen Walker Spending a small amount on pain and her husband Shane have been relief when disbudding can result using vets for many years to sedate in better calf growth rates and the calves, provide local anaesthetic earlier weaning weight. and disbud. To help reduce the pain of “We get VetSouth to come in and disbudding, a local anaesthetic do batches from two weeks old can really help and the addition onwards, while they’re still in the of an anti-inflammatory can shed.” also reduce the pain for a Getting the vets on board has further 24-72 hours. Jacqueline McGowan freed up time for Eileen during Research by Massey the busy spring period. University found calves that “Before, we had to set up extra received pain relief before gates and spend a lot of energy catching disbudding gained an average of 9g more the calves. Now, with the vets, we show per day for the next month. While that them the pen and they quietly work away. doesn’t sound like much, it means calves I don’t have to be there and the calves reached weaning weight about six days aren’t stressed.” earlier than those that didn’t receive pain While the vets are present, they relief. This meant they could be moved on deal with extra teats and it’s also an to grass sooner, saving on milk and labour. opportunity to put in the secondary ear The reduced costs and the benefits of tag and give vaccinations while the calves heavier calves offsets the small cost for are sedated. local anaesthetic by about $1/calf. “Since we started sedating the calves, And there are numerous other benefits they’re less sore. The vets are quicker and to using pain relief when disbudding. First, more precise.” it makes the process easier and safer for the Manawatu farmer Andrew Hoggard handler and reduces the risk of regrowth converted to using pain relief in 2016. as more care can be taken to completely “I was dreading how long it would take remove the horn bud. doing the local,” he says. “Three minutes to work, wait in the crush, then disbud – one calf at a time. I was worried it would take forever. But my fears were unfounded. It only took 10 minutes extra, max, to disbud the whole mob and the calves were much happier and quieter through the process.” Research shows calves grow Andrew says it wasn’t complicated and faster if they’ve received pain cost only a little extra. relief before disbudding.
For more about disbudding, including a video about how to administer local anaesthetic, visit dairynz.co.nz/ disbudding. • Jacqueline McGowan, is a DairyNZ animal husbandry and welfare developer.
Myth-busting: MYTH: Injections of local anaesthetic are more stressful than disbudding. TRUTH: The local anaesthetic injection causes the calf very little stress and is much less stressful than being disbudded without pain relief. MYTH: Hot iron cautery destroys the nerves so it doesn’t hurt. TRUTH: Although the nerves are destroyed where the iron touches the tissue, the nerves around the area are still sensitive and the calf experiences pain from inflammation in the surrounding tissue. MYTH: They drink straight afterward, so it’s obviously not painful. TRUTH: Willingness to drink milk does not mean calves are pain-free; suckling is soothing for the calf. MYTH: Young calves don’t need pain relief. TRUTH: There is no evidence that young calves feel less pain than older calves. However, young calves recover more quickly and have fewer complications than older calves. They should be disbudded before they’re eight weeks old.
LEAD THE CHANGES YOU WANT TO SEE IN AGRICULTURE THE 2018 NUFFIELD NEW ZEALAND FARMING SCHOLARSHIPS APPLICATIONS NOW OPEN Scholarships are awarded each year to those involved in farming and growing, who aspire to influence the future of their industry. Find out more at nuffield.org.nz | admin@nuffield.org.nz STRATEGIC PARTNERS
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WINNING DAIRY TRAINEE Words by Sheryl Brown
Rewards come with success W inning the Central Plateau Dairy Trainee of the Year got Taylor Macdonald a tap on the shoulder and an offer of a farm manager position. The 20-year-old is now farm manager for 2016 Central Plateau Share Farmers of the Year Ross and Karla Shaw, milking 600 cows on 185 hectares effective in Reporoa. Taylor had been working as a 2IC milking 470-cows before winning the title and the step up in his career is a direct result of entering the competition and networking. Ross and Karla offered him the role directly after he won the award before he even had the opportunity to apply for a farm manager position for this season. The potential to get recognition and advance his career was a key motivator for Taylor to enter the competition. It was also great for personal development. It was the second time Taylor entered the dairy trainee section. He did not make it through to the final judging stage last year, but this year he had the experience of knowing what to expect and had more confidence, Taylor says. Putting himself out there – having to answer questions in front of judges and stand up in front of a large audience – was daunting but was all part of building his confidence and helped him succeed this year, he says. “I had high hopes last year, but there was a lot more to it than I thought. Having to stand up in front of judges while they were hitting you with question after question was different to any other environment. “I took a lot out of it. I learnt a lot.” Taylor has been working in the dairy
industry for four years since he was 16 years old after starting to do odd jobs for dairy farmers growing up. “I am the only person in my family who is a dairy farmer.” He spent his secondary school years living on a deer farm in Waikite Valley, Reporoa, and the after-school jobs around were either relief milking or weed control on nearby dairy farms. He got a real taste of farming when he took time out from school to work for three months on a farm for a family friend. He returned to school after that but he had found his passion in farming and soon left to work fulltime as a farm assistant where he worked for two years. The dairy industry offers a great lifestyle and a lot of opportunity, Taylor says. “I love working with animals and being able to work outdoors. It’s great to be able to live and work onfarm.” He has been studying with Primary ITO throughout his dairy career and has completed all of Level 3 and Level 4 Dairy Farming qualifications. Getting the qualifications at the same time as the work experience has been a real asset to get ahead in the industry, he says. “It’s been defining for me, I’ve learnt more in-depth knowledge, especially around feeding and pasture. “Working day-to-day onfarm it’s hard to
‘I HAD HIGH HOPES LAST YEAR, BUT THERE WAS A LOT MORE TO IT THAN I THOUGHT. HAVING TO STAND UP IN FRONT OF JUDGES WHILE THEY WERE HITTING YOU WITH QUESTION AFTER QUESTION WAS DIFFERENT TO ANY OTHER ENVIRONMENT.’ get access to that until you get to a higher role.” Taylor will look at doing some of the Primary ITO Level 5 Human Resources qualifications going forward as he takes on managing staff for the first time this season. Taylor is managing a 2IC who will float between the farm owner’s two dairy operations and a fulltime farm assistant. His main focus will be having good communication and involving staff in the overall operation. “I don’t like it when people are stuck milking for eight hours a day and another person is just doing farm jobs. For me farming is everyone is involved in everything.” He is also interested in studying the financial Primary ITO courses which will help him in his path towards farm ownership. Taylor and his fiancé, veterinary technician Jessica Maandonks have their eyes firmly set on owning their own dairy farming business in the future. “For us it’s about building our own business now so we can do this for ourselves and not for the man.” The couple are starting to build equity to be in a position to be sharemilking or contract milking on a larger farm after another three years. They are saving as much as they can and are hoping to invest in some in-calf two-yearold heifers to lease out.
CENTRAL PLATEAU DAIRY TRAINEE MERIT AWARDS: • B.O.P. Regional Council Most Promising Entrant Award – Scott Johnson • T H Enterprises Ltd Farming Knowledge Award – Donna McKinley • Bayleys Real Estate Communication & Engagement Award – Toni Schnuriger • Rotorua Lakes Council Community & Industry Involvement Award - Daniel Smith • DairyNZ Practical Skills Award – Damon Harris
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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DIA WINNERS
Commitment with no negativity Words by Glenys Christian
A
lex Voysey’s commitment to a career in dairying can’t be doubted. As a school pupil on a gateway programme he biked 15 kilometres for 5.30am starts to a south Auckland dairy farm for work experience. There were plenty of hills on the way to Auckland Hauraki Dairy Industry Award (DIA) winning managers, Bryce and Rosemarie Costar’s Onewhero farm. “And it was uphill in some places on the way back too,” he says. But the 23-year-old hasn’t looked back and no one was prouder than the Costars when he took out the Auckland/Hauraki Dairy Trainee title in this year’s awards. He also won three merit awards and says he couldn’t choose the one which meant the most to him to be called on stage to accept. “I was really happy to win one,” he says. They were the Silver Fern Farms’ Farming Knowledge Award, the Keeper Life’ Community and Industry Involvement Award and the DairyNZ Practical Skills Award. Alex was born in England where his grandparents had a small dairy farm milking 60 cows in Somerset. “They gave that up 20 years ago,” he says. But the farming urge was strong and in 2007 his mother and stepfather brought Alex and his sister from their home south of Birmingham to New Zealand. Looking for houses with land they found a 40-hectare beef block at Onewhero, on the western side of the Waikato River. Alex went to Onewhero Area School and it was here in 2009 where he got the opportunity to work for the Costars every Friday for 10 weeks. That settled his
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Alex Voysey has big ambitions when it comes to future Dairy Industry Award titles.
Alex Voysey doesn’t have a favourite task onfarm – he likes everything about the lifestyle.
career choice and the next year he headed off to Telford Agricultural College in Otago to complete a Diploma in Agriculture. He returned north to a Landcorp farm on the Hauraki Plains where he worked as thirdin-charge. He’s just finished a season as 2IC at another of the State Owned Enterprise’s farms just over the road, milking 600 cows on
270ha along with a manager, 3IC and a farm assistant. He’s now sole-charge manager on yet another of Landcorp’s farms, milking 200 cows on 76ha. “I wanted to be a manager by 2020 but I’m three years too early,” he says. His plan now is to move on to a larger farm as manager after maybe two years. And he’d like to have his own farm within the next 10 years, a plan which very much involves fiancée Rebecca Casidy, 22, who is a farm assistant on another neighbouring farm. They met at a friend’s party nine years ago, were friends at first then got engaged in January 2016. The wedding date is already set for November 2019. “That’s six years down the track from when we first got together,” he says. Once she becomes a farm manager for a season or two they would like to go contract milking then move on to sharemilking. Leasing land to be able to run their own stock is very much an option. “We’re open to where we go,” Alex says. “It’s all up for negotiation.” But his intention is to stick with farming on the Hauraki Plains for the immediate future. The new farm he’s managing has a KiwiCross herd with calving starting on July 11. They’re milked through a basic 20-aside herringbone dairy with no new technology. In line with Landcorp’s national policy, no palm kernel will be fed this year. But two to three hectares of maize is grown onfarm to be made into silage, as part of a pasture renovation programme, along with hay if there’s surplus grass. Alex is passionate about farming, being outdoors and being with animals. Outside working hours he’s a keen Young Farmers Club member, plays
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
indoor football every Wednesday evening in Ngatea and likes to get out on the Firth of Thames fishing every chance he gets. He’s quick to encourage other youngsters to look at the wide variety of careers available to them in farming. “If you don’t like working behind a desk go to the country,” he says. “I try to get people to go farming by telling them how much I enjoy it. I tell them about my experience and ask them to think about it. “I haven’t got one favourite job but I haven’t got one negative either.”
Alex moved from a 2IC position with Landcorp to become manager of another of its Hauraki Plains farms on June 1.
One down, two to go Alex Voysey rates his first year competing in the Dairy Industry Awards as a great experience. “I can’t say that enough,” he says. “It was a barrel of laughs. It really opened my eyes up to what other people were doing and you can also see where they’re at.” He entered the competition because he wanted to be pushed outside his comfort zone and improve his skills, but ranks going into the judges’ interview as the hardest part of all the different events contestants had to tackle. “I was nervous but that was just like everyone,” he says. “We were all in the same boat and I made some life-long friends.” He’d love to take part in the competition again but now as a manager he isn’t able to. However he has big plans for fiancée, Rebecca Cassidy, to take part both in next year’s competition and that of the year afterwards. His ambitions have moved on too and now he firmly has the aim of taking out the region’s Farm Manager of the Year Title then, the big one, Sharefarmer of the Year. “I’d like to try to get the trio for the area.”
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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CULTURE SHOCK there for nine months working as an au pair. After travelling they decided to return to NZ which meant settling on a family farm at Hukerenui, just north of Whangarei, which Philip managed. They milked 250 cows to start with then moved to another family farm with a herd of 350 cows. “My sister-in-law was a Pia and husban d great support in the early Philip with the basket of goodies they years when our children were presented with were small,” she said. at their last field day on Innes “But I would have also Anderson and Tania really benefitted from Dropulich’s low er having something like the north partner fa rm at Kaiwaka where Dairy Women’s Network they’ve contract milked (DWN) available. for the last three year s. “I never felt isolated because we weren’t in an isolated area, but I just didn’t Words by Glenys Christian know why we did certain things.” Calf-rearing was an area she initially “The list is long” Finn Pia Rockell says when struggled with until she built up her own asked what was the most difficult thing to system. adjust to when she made the move to a New “It was never my favourite job but I enjoy Zealand dairy farm. it now,” she said. “It was complete culture shock,” she said. “I saw the benefits in doing it a certain way “I didn’t know anything about farming and becoming more patient.” and I learned at times by trial and error. She worked part-time for two and a half It would have been so good to get outside years as school secretary, an off-farm role information.” she said she really enjoyed. And coming The 39-year-old had met husband Philip, back onfarm full-time she attended more a Northland dairy farmer, while he was on DWN field days which helped her gain more a farm exchange in Ireland in 2000. She was
It’s a Kaiwaka to Taranaki move for Pia Rockell and husband, Philip, to take on their first 50:50 sharemilking position.
IMMIGRATION
confidence in other farm management areas. Not only did she pick up more knowledge from presenters but also from the range of fellow women dairy farmers attending. “Every time you think you know something you can still learn more,” she said. “And you can share that knowledge and spread it to people who aren’t involved. Even if you’re a seasoned farmer you can learn new things. And there are a lot of ideas you can share which you’ve picked up on the job apart from what the presenter’s talking about.” She learned to fully appreciate the amount of sharing of information that happens in dairying in NZ, compared with other industries. “One person’s success isn’t stealing from another, it’s a shared success,” she said. “You’re meeting fabulous ladies who have been there and done that.” In the 2014-15 season Pia and Philip moved south to Kaiwaka, taking on a contract milking position on Hokonui Farms, a 225 hectare property, of which 211ha is effective, leased by Innes Anderson and Tania Dropulich. It was milking 470 crossbred cows at that time but numbers have since been lifted to 550. And for the last three years it’s been the DairyNZ and the Northland Dairy Development Trust’s partner farm for lower Northland. “I had to learn to farm in a different way,” she said. The change in approach saw her need to evolve her role in many onfarm tasks. “I thought I was an OK calf-rearer but now I know I’m a good one,” she said. Last year Pia was approached by the DWN’s national office to take on the role of Rodney convener. The area has 65 women on its DWN email list and other local dairy farmers keep in contact on its Facebook page. “I said I would do it if I wasn’t on my own, and we could share the load,” she said. So she and Tomorata sharemilker Sheila Russell teamed up and organised a number of well-attended events. Deosan sponsored a mastitis management presentation last November, Ballance hosted a workshop on building emotional resilience in March and a wellness day was planned for early May. Pia has also attended a number of national events organised by DWN over the time she’s been co-convener. A recent human resources www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
training day in Hamilton was “excellent”, she said. “So often younger dairy farm workers are not aware of what their rights are and employers are not always aware of all their legal responsibilities. It’s good to look at things from both points of view.” Pia admits to being passionate about managing staff onfarm as well as paying close attention to health and safety. “It’s reassuring that you’re doing the right thing,” she said. She believes they had a pretty good roster for their farm assistant and 2IC of five days on, two days off, then six days on and one day off in the winter. Through summer their assistant chose a seven and two, seven and two, seven and three roster while their 2IC preferred to work 11 days on and three off. “Those rosters both work for them,” she said. Pia has also been proactive when it’s come to encouraging staff to enrol for Primary ITO courses and making sure they attend local discussion group gatherings. She is in the process of completing her Diploma of Agricultural Business with just one paper left to get her over the finish line. “It’s been quite challenging and I had to push myself out of my comfort zone,” she said. Next on her to-do list might be a production management paper. “I always say I won’t but then I do more.”
The Rockells’ goal was to go 50:50 sharemilking by 2019 but that plan has been speeded up by two years with their move to a 76ha farm close to New Plymouth, where they’ll milk 220 cows. “We were lucky enough to be able to go now,” Pia said. They’ve budgeted to produce 72,000kg of milksolids (MS) in their first season. Contract milking at Kaiwaka has given them the opportunity to grow their business by 25 calves a year from their 49 cows leased to Hokonui Farms. Pia said it would have been great for all the family to have been able to stay in Northland but the position in Taranaki ticked all the right boxes in terms of cow numbers, farming viability and schooling. “We were also approached about equity partnerships on larger farms but we really wanted to own and milk our own cows,” she said. Once settled into their new environment connecting with DWN members there will be a priority and there could be an opportunity to move into an administrative role once again. “I don’t think of myself as a leader, but who knows,” she said. “A leadership course could be another push out of my comfort zone.”
Pia Rockell appreciates the amount of sharing of information that goes on in the New Zealand dairy industry.
‘I NEVER FELT ISOLATED BECAUSE WE WEREN’T IN AN ISOLATED AREA, BUT I JUST DIDN’T KNOW WHY WE DID CERTAIN THINGS.’
Will it have legs? During his 2016 Nuffield research, scholar Richard Fowler, pictured, visited 18 countries in North America, Europe and Africa. He used the opportunity to gauge the sentiment around new synthetic foods and the possible ways they can change how we view and source our food. “The biggest take-home for me was that a lot of the world is starting to look at agriculture as a contributor to the global problems, not as a solution. I think we need to understand where they are coming from,” Fowler says. “There are huge opportunities arising from focusing more on environmental management, food quality and adding value for the consumers and supermarkets.” Plant-based alternatives to animal products like soy milk and margarine are already widely accepted. New generation cell-cultured products claim to come much closer to the real thing and under certain circumstances could go mainstream too. Investment in synthetic foods is rising and the new products are often portrayed as
a revolution in food production that could replace animal products and solve many of the problems associated with conventional agriculture. While not readily available yet, companies like Perfect Day Foods predict they will have a milk product in supermarkets in the United States by the end of 2017. These products are aimed at consumers who buy into the story. And they tell a compelling story to those who listen, using bold statements without the track record of producing these foods at scale. With concerns over animal welfare growing, the fact synthetic foods can be produced without or with minimal use of animals, is a major part of the story. Environmental impact is addressed as well. For example, Perfect Day Foods claim their cell-cultured milk will require 98% less water, 90% less land, 65% less energy and will emit 80% less carbon dioxide compared to cow milk. Often there are bold promotional claims about nutrition and food safety too. These new foods, however, can’t match animal products on cost yet and most of their
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
claims remain speculation. But Fowler says they already have an impact. At the same time, “the synthetic food industry pales in comparison to the size of the New Zealand agricultural industry and conventional farming is a bigger threat to synthetic foods, than the other way around,” Fowler says. “The opportunity for farmers is to listen to consumers and offer them more choices. The New Zealand primary sector needs to resist the urge to take a stance against the synthetic foods and be part of an informed conversation.” The likes of Fonterra, with vast expertise in nutrition, food processing and distribution, may be in a perfect position to investigate opportunities and shape how these trends evolve. 87
VIEW FROM THE TOP │ FONTERRA
C-centricity in six easy lessons Theo Spierings
Fonterra chief executive
“They continue to focus on maximising production and then on starting to look for customers to buy what they have produced.” This quote from KPMG’s latest Agribusiness report could be describing dairy 15 years ago. In urging agribusiness to be more customer-centric, they point out that we all exist to meet customers’ needs – not to shift our production. If we don’t, our future is uncertain. I second that. C -centricity – putting our customers at the centre of what we do – is fundamental to our strategy of moving higher volumes of milk into higher-value products. Our goal is to have 10 billion liquid milk equivalent in higher value products by 2025. We are half way at close to five billion. That’s a far cry from the days of “making stuff and trying to find a home for it”, as one industry veteran used to describe it.
Qualities like protein and fat are seasonably variable and can differ from farm to farm. Fingerprinting lets us identify which milk is best-suited for processing into which products. It also enables deeper partnerships based on what customers need.
What have we learnt that other food producers can apply? We have six lessons to share. Trust is the biggest benefit New Zealand producers of food can offer customers. NZ has strong food safety and quality frameworks, but we must all make them personal. Customers anywhere must be able to buy NZ products with confidence and we
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must let them connect with us. In our case customers can get information on our pasture-based farming practices, how our herds are looked after, nutritional facts and the care we take across our supply chain. We back that up with strong end-to-end traceability systems. NZ’s food producers go to extraordinary lengths to produce premium quality products. It makes good commercial sense to connect global customers to this effort. A second lesson is to turn a deaf ear to claims that you cannot add value to a commodity. You can. Our constant goal is to earn margins above the base commodity prices in our ingredients business which accounts for two-thirds of our revenue. Strong customer partnerships, built up through product and service quality and supported by innovation are key. For example our milk fingerprinting technology not only tells us the milk from each vat is safe, it also tells us its composition. Qualities like protein and fat are seasonably variable and can differ from farm to farm. Fingerprinting lets us identify which milk is best-suited for processing into which products. It also enables deeper partnerships based on what customers need, such as butter with a certain flavour profile or cheese with the right “stretch” and melting qualities. Lesson three is connect your people to your customers. We call it customerconsidered thinking. Our people know where the product they produced that day is heading and often which customer will be using it. It all reinforces the duty of care that we are making a product that someone, somewhere, will consume. Lesson four relates to the idea of “food solutions for dominant demographics”. Food that meets specific health needs is increasingly in demand. We perform well in the bone health and paediatrics segments and now we have expanded into lactose intolerance. We developed a low-lactose milk powder for a market segment forecast to grow 6% year-on-year. The more NZ products offer a quality + taste + health proposition, the more value we can add. Lesson five is love your product and teach others about it, so they love it too. Our Anchor Food Professionals brand has been built by chefs connecting with other
Staff know where the product they produced that day is heading and often which customer will be using it.
chefs, especially in markets less-familiar with butter, cream and cheeses as core ingredients. Our chefs work with chefs to develop products and menus which generate demand for our brand and customer loyalty. This demand has led to investments to expand production and jobs in the regions. The red meat sector is exporting premium cuts where the value is added and earned in NZ and recognised by chefs internationally. The deer industry is differentiating its products in Europe, by promoting NZ cervena as a summer meat, sustainably pasture-farmed. Food made here has a special provenance and we should make the most of it. Lesson six is don’t wait for the market to tell you want it needs. Why not create innovations which capture consumer imaginations. You know your product better than anyone. Become your own disrupter to create new demand with it in new categories. Apple did it. Why not NZ Inc?
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
RESEARCH WRAP │ COW BEHAVIOUR
She’s trying to dominate you.
The secret life of cows Anne Lee anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz @Cantabannelee
S
o it turns out that friendly cow – the one that licks you and then bunts you when you try to walk away –has an ulterior motive. She’s not trying to be your friend, she’s trying to dominate you – to put you back down the pecking order. And the cow heading up the herd on the way into the dairy at milking time –she’s not the dominant cow at all but is more likely to be a mid-ranking cow. The dominant cows will be back in the middle of the pack – keeping away from humans and pushing her subordinate herd members along. The social behaviour of dairy herds – the secret life of cows – was revealed in an entertaining and enthralling workshop at this year’s South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) conference. Lincoln University PhD student Aimi Hussein shared some of the insights she gained during the many hours of observations she carried out at the Lincoln University Research Dairy Farm. Understanding the social hierarchies in a herd and cow behaviours was important, animal science lecturer and Aimi’s supervisor, Dr Racheal Bryant said, because it created awareness about factors involved in animal welfare and stock management. In particular, it revealed factors relevant to meeting feed requirements during periods of restricted access. Marginal cows are most at risk of losing weight or becoming injured when they have to compete for feed. Aimi carried out her study on a group of 252 spring-calving Friesian Jersey cross cows split into three groups, differing in
Aimi Hussein and Dr Racheal Bryant.
stocking rate and herd size, all grazing perennial ryegrass and white clover pastures. A large group of 189 cows was stocked at medium stocking rate of 4.2 cows/ha while a small group of 34 cows was stocked at a high stocking rate of five cows/ha and another small group of 29 cows was stocked at 3.5 cows/ha. The cows’ behaviour was observed from 8am to 6pm for 12 weeks from September to December with each cow assigned a dominance value. Dominance behaviours include bunting (swinging their head into and towards other animals), pushing (using parts of the body other than the head to displace another cow), mounting and allogrooming (licking the head or neck of another cow). Previous studies have found inconsistent relationships between milk production and dominance but Aimi’s study found a positive relationship in the mid and low stocking rate groups. The more-dominant animals had higher milk production.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
In the higher stocking rate group there was no clear relationship which Aimi suggested could be because that group was supplemented with grain. Social dominance in cows is usually derived from competing for feed and it could be that the additional grain compensated for the competitive effects of the high stocking rate, she said. Aimi found a positive relationship between dominance and both liveweight and age – so the older, heavier cows were more dominant. There was no clear relationship though with body condition score. Studies have shown cows recognise 50-70 herd mates, making that the ideal group size because they will sort out their hierarchy issues within that group. In larger groups they will come across animals they don’t recognise and that’s when dominant animals will again feel the need to assert that dominance. Of course 50-70 were not practical herd sizes on a dairy farm and to minimise disruptions cows would form their own groups within the larger herd, Aimi said. Moving cows in and out of herds frequently would disrupt those groups and could lead to an increase in aggressive behaviours while dominance hierarchies were established, she said. In human societies dominance hierarchy is shaped like a pyramid with few dominant individuals and the numbers increasing as dominance decreases. In a dairy herd the hierarchy is shaped like a diamond with few dominant individuals, increasing through a sub-dominant group to a subordinate group where the greatest number of individuals is likely to be. From there numbers in the subsequent groups of submissive and then marginal again steadily decline. Cows display leadership and followership characteristics but the leader may not be the dominant cow as cows also exhibit allelomimicry – copycat or followthe-leader behaviour. Because mounting is also a dominant behaviour mating time can disrupt the social order. Even submissive and marginal cows can overcome their fears and form small groups driven by their sexual activity. But as the number of cycling cows diminished it could be more difficult to detect lower-ranked cows unwilling to mount or attract a partner to be mounted, Aimi said. Racheal said the next phase of research into cow behaviour was on cows feeding on winter crop with or without use of a stand-off pad. For more on Aimi’s study go to www.side.org.nz for the 2017 conference proceedings. 89
Systems on show National Fieldays saw the release of a range of milking systems and enhancements which will be of interest to dairy farmers. Tim McVeagh describes some of the more significant ones and the claims made about them… DELAVAL E100 ROTARY SYSTEM This rotary system is the result of DeLaval’s global engineers working out of Hamilton for the last three years in an attempt to come up with an ideal milking system for New Zealand pasture-based dairying. It was trialled at Jack Schere’s 500 cow Tirau farm for the 2016/2017 season, and is the first development phase which will be continued for the next two years. “This is part of DeLaval’s teat-to-tank package, with the rotary being not a blend of systems developed over time, but a total system designed as one package,” Justin Thompson of De Laval said. The salient components of the rotary system are the ComfortBail, (redesigned bail work); CockPit, (allowing monitoring and control at the cups-on station); FastLane, (to maximise throughput and minimise stress); MC53 Cluster, (for stable vacuum at high flow rates); and DelPro, (farm management software). See more at www.delaval.co.nz LIC AUTOMATION PROTRACK DRAFTER The next generation of dairy drafting systems from LIC Automation is based on the existing drafting hardware, but is connected to Protrack EZ Heat, CellSense and YieldSense. Before entering the drafting race, cows pass through a heat booth, where a camera assesses the status of the heat patch. Those who have been ridden, and those who have no heat patch, are drafted for mating or applying patches. Additionally, cows who have elevated cell 90
counts as detected by CellSense units, or those who have dropped in production as detected by YieldSense units, can be drafted based on pre-set parameters. And of course, selected cows can be drafted as needed. “We are moving to a BYOD (bring your own device) system, rather than a screen in the pit,” Craig Lowry of LIC Automation said, “so now the phone or tablet with a web-based application is used to plan and review drafting, and to save time the heat events are run through this too. So a farmer can check the heat, cell count, and production history for any particular cow over the last one, two, three months.” See more at www.licautomation.co.nz
The GEA DairyProQ robotic turnstile rotary is a step up from tandem robotic rotary dairies. Each bail has its own robotic cluster, and cows are milked on a voluntary basis. Cups find teats by 3-D cameras. Each teat is monitored individually for conductivity, milk flow rate and yield.
GEA DAIRYPROQ For farmers waiting for an automatic rotary dairy, the GEA DairyProQ has arrived. With a turnstyle conformation, this is a step up from tandem robotic rotary dairies. Each bail has its own robotic cluster, with cows being milked on a voluntary basis. GEA claim advantages in three areas: • Superior milk quality through proper udder preparation including teat washing and stimulation; milk quality assessment and teat spraying for every cow, every milking. • A better working environment by eliminating manual application of clusters, allowing staff to focus on herd management. This in turn attracts staff who are more technically savvy. • Productivity around the clock with its associated efficiencies. Any bail which is out of commission can be closed individually without compromising the performance of others. Three-dimensional cameras are used for cup application, so it’s not relying on memorised co-ordinates for teat location.
PPP HB Feeder: This herringbone feeding system has a single hopper/dispenser for each side which travels on a rail to each end of the cow platform. Options include a second grain/meal feed, one or two mineral dispensers, a liquid additive and RFID tag reading to programme feeding.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Each teat is monitored individually for conductivity, milk flow rate and yield. “There are no installations as yet in New Zealand, but they are coming this way,” Ben Morris of GEA said. GEA also had on display their Monobox single-stall robotic milker, feed pusher and lane scraper. See more at www.gea.com WAIKATO CENTRUS PLATFORM As an alternative to concrete and steel rotary platforms, the Centrus has a fibreglass composite structure. For Waikato, this has manufacturing efficiencies. For engineers, they have logistical installation advantages. For the farmer, they have weight and durability advantages. They will not rust and are more resistant to chemical attack. Rubber mats are fitted to improve cow comfort and are designed to reduce the incidence of cows standing on the union of stainless and rubber pulsation tubing and the resulting damage. See more at www.waikatomilking.com WAIKATO NAVIGATE AUTOMATED DRAFTING SYSTEM Waikato Milking Systems Navigate drafters come in three models: • The Access, which is controlled by a wireless remote to operate the two sort gates; • The Advance, which has the Access system but also an EID reader and cowlocation sensors, so that cows selected on a touch screen, (up to 10 can be installed) before or during milking can be automatically drafted. • The Premium version which has the features of the Advance system, plus the NaviGate management software which allows drafting on milking history, mating history and with Waikato milk meters drafting on milk production. Upgrades are available for the Access and Advance models. Waikato’s claimed unique features include quiet operation by acetal-bushed hinges, weather protection of electrical and pneumatic components, ceiling mounted identification sensors, and steel footing to ensure accuracy and to accommodate weigh scales. The three models can be fitted into existing rotary and herringbone dairies, and usually take about two days for installation. See more at www.waikatomilking.com DAIRYFLO CLEAR SHELLS AND LINERS DairyFlo’s clear polyurethane liners have been on the market for some time, with their claimed durability and environmental advantages, (they can be recycled into items like floor mats). DairyFlo now supply compatible clear shells moulded in a polyolefin plastic by Silclear of Great Britain. They are
LIC Automation Protrack Drafter: This enhanced version of LIC Automation’s drafting system is connected to Protrack EZ Heat, CellSense and YieldSense. Cows can be automatically drafted as being in season, or on their cell count, or on yield. considerably lighter than traditional stainless steel shells, but trial work by DairyFlo show that the lighter cluster weight does not affect milking time or yield, acceding to Steve Crawshaw of DairyFlo. A set of four liners and shells are on offer at $49 plus GST. See more at www.dairyflo.com WAIKATO EXPRESSO DETACHER STALL CONTROL For farmers who want to record as much milk production data as possible for every cow, every milking, this system has it all. Developed in the United States, it has been acquired by Waikato Milking Systems for NZ farmers, though research facilities may be a more likely target. For each cow milked, cow group number, milking duration, yield after two minutes, total yield, prep ratio, average flow rate, peak flow rate, low-flow duration, bail number, milk conductivity, milk temperature, and whether cluster removers are engaged in this milking are shown on a bail side screen and recorded. A histogram of milk flow is also displayed on the bail side screen, with low flow periods highlighted. The mountain of data generated at every milking is analysed to produce alerts for attention. For this system, Waikato Smart Sensors and Stall Controls must be fitted to each bail. See more at www.waikatomilking.com PPP EXPERTO FEEDER This herringbone dairy feeding system has a single travelling hopper/dispenser for each side of the dairy, rather than a dispenser for each cow position. The hopper/dispenser is mounted on a rail which extends down the inside bail area wall. It comes as a single product dispenser but can be upgraded to include a second grain/meal feed, one or two mineral dispensers, a liquid additive and RFID tag reading. The control of ration sizes, mixes, and dispense frequency as selected by the herd manager is set through the herd data base and microprocessor. No pre-mixing is
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
needed. Cow identification to allow group feeding is by NAIT RFID tags being read by an antenna on the travelling hopper/ dispenser. This system is also suitable for feed pad installations. See more at www.pppindustries.co.nz CORKILL SYSTEMS LTD CHILLBOOST This device is aimed at farms where the blend temperature of new milk going into the silo of already chilled milk exceeds the 10C requirement. It consists of a timer which connects a shunt to the vat thermostat at pre-set times. The timer starts the chiller system about half an hour before milking starts and the thermostat senses that the milk is warmer than it actually is. So the chiller brings the milk down to the normal cut-out temperature, (about 4C) before milking. This cycle is repeated every half hour so that as milk is added to the vat the blend temperature is lower than normal, when chiller would cut in at about 6C. This generally lowers the blend temperature by about 2C. The Chillboost can be fitted to existing chiller units by an electrician for about the same cost as the unit, ($195 plus GST). It is adjustable for different milking regimes, and lends itself very well to skip-a-day pick-up. See more at www.corkillsystems.co.nz ECOLAB FLEXIDOSE Ecolab have released a chemical dispenser for dairy plant and vat cleaning systems, with the catch-cry “Touch a button, not a chemical”. The unit will accurately measure in 5ml increments chemicals from two sources, and is calibrated for all Ecolab acid and alkali cleaning chemicals. The Flexidose is powered by a 12 volt power pack, and needs compressed air. Chemicals can be stored up to 15 metres from the Flexidose, and are pumped on demand by separate pumps, to calibration flasks and then to the wash tank. See more at www.ecolab.com 91
DAIRY 101 │ FEEDING WINTER CROP A cow about to munch the afternoon away on hay.
Eliminate the negatives Karen Trebilcock ak.trebilcock@xtra.co.nz @KT_at_Exporter
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his is one for the Southerners. You’re probably reading this after you have peeled off several layers of wet weather gear and are trying to thaw your hands around a hot cup of instant (black, no sugar and none of that frothy stuff). You North Islanders, in your T-shirts and jandals, can skip these pages and plan the rest of the day instead – probably going big game fishing. After a month of feeding winter crop, Southern farmers will either be thinking they have it sussed or things need to change. Cows will be transitioned on to the crop, be holding condition, or improving, any early breakouts should have stopped and you and your staff will have the routine of shifting fences down pat. If that is not the case, a few pointers may help. What will be causing you the most stress are breakouts. When you left the cattle yesterday everything seemed okay. This morning you’ve gone to shift them and they’re running through the next day’s break, or worse, hidden somewhere in the kale forest tearing into balage wrap. Start eliminating the possible causes. First check the power on the break fence. If it is low then look for reasons. The plastic on reels and standards that stop them earthing could be damaged (fix pig tail standards with a piece of garden hose heated in hot water so it slips on over the
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top), or the wire on the reel could have too many knots in it or has deteriorated with age and needs to be replaced. Also your fencing unit and earth might not be up to the task. There may be enough power during summer but wet crop touching the break fence could be too much for them. Check the break fence is being hooked up properly. Make sure the last thing you do every day before you leave the cattle is to check the power on it at both ends. If you don’t have a fence tester then stand on one leg with a handful of grass and check it that way. Cattle have been known to figure out how to knock an electric fence standard over without getting a shock. If you suspect that is the case, after shifting them
A temporary water trough on a kale crop.
on to the break sit down and watch to see what happens. When you find the offender, and often it is only one who has figured it out and the rest are simply following her, you can either take her out of the mob or change your standards. Fence standards are available that carry power through them. If you don’t want to spend the money, the No 8 wire trick is always an option. Cut metre-long pieces of metal wire, bend them into a narrow V shape and thread one through the top of each standard so it is touching the break fence wire. The cow will touch it when she tries to push the standard over and one shock is usually enough. Another reason they may have broken out is something has scared them. There could have been a dog running around, a storm could have upset them or even a low-flying plane or helicopter. If possible, keep winter crop paddocks away from roadways and public accesses where people walk their dogs and hoons do doughnuts in their cars. Also consider where the other mobs of cattle are on the farm. Cows like to hang out together. If there is another mob they can see or hear or even smell a paddock away, they will try to meet up to see who has the most feed, discuss the weather and or whatever else it is cows talk about. Have mobs together if you can, on either side of the permanent fence, moving with each other if the paddocks are side by side, or away from each other if they are backto-back. Of course, they could have broken out because they were hungry. Use DairyNZ’s Winter Crop Allocation Calculator to work out how much you should be feeding. It covers everything from fodder beet to balage to palm kernel. But to use it you still need to know how much crop is in the paddock. Paying for an independent expert to measure the crop in late May can be money well spent. Dry matter analysis can be done as well to make sure the figures are more accurate. But you can also do it yourself and even now, halfway through the winter, if you’re worried you’re underfeeding your cows, it can be a good idea to get out the scales. By joining the ends together of a 3.54m length of alkathene pipe you get a hoop which has one square metre inside it. Place the hoop on the crop and cut everything inside the circle and put it in a bag and then weigh the bag (deduct the weight of the bag). If measuring swedes, make sure you take the dirt off the bulbs and weigh the bulbs separately to the leaves as they have a different drymatter content. Use the equations found on the web to convert the weight to drymatter per hectare.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Calves eating their new break of kale early morning. Note the pigtail standard against the fence has been repaired using garden hose.
The more samples you cut, the more accurate you will be and try not to measure the best parts of the crop – you will only be fooling yourself. Do at least three measurements per hectare, more if the crop is uneven, less if it looks the same across the paddock. If measuring fodder beet, or another crop direct drilled in rows, it is more accurate to forget about using the hoop and instead pull up part of the row. For 60cm-wide rows, a 1.67m row sample length will give an area of one square metre. Again, the equations can be found on Google. Another thing to check is utilisation. This is part of the DairyNZ Winter Crop Allocation Calculator but the estimates it uses (80% fodder beet, 60% kale) might not be right for your farm. Wet soils can cause more crop, especially kale or the leaves off fodder beet, to be lost as cows walk over it. To find out, take your hoop and weigh what is left to see if the utilisation is what it should be. Also accurately measure the area of the break you are giving them. Get your smart phone out and use the GPS. Long faces, so every animal can reach the crop at once, are best.
Take the dirt off swedes before weighing them to calculate the dry matter per hectare.
Loppers are the easiest to use to cut kale for measuring.
But with all calculations, make sure the facts you end up with stack up. If you have measured your crop and everything you have on paper shows your cows should be getting what they require for the day but they are still losing weight, breaking out or things just aren’t right then do something. Get advice, either from a farm consultant, a vet, or at the very least someone who has more knowledge than you and who you trust. Of course, after your cows have scoffed their daily allocation of kale in less than two hours, they could have broken out simply because they were bored. A couple of feeders filled with balage, hay or even straw will give them something to chew on during those long southern twilight evenings. Setting out balage, hay and straw on winter crop as it’s growing in the summer works well for most farmers. It takes a bit of planning to work out what the daily break sizes will be six months in advance but it saves sliding around in the mud with a bale on the forks of the tractor in winter. Especially as that piece of pasture you’ve rutted doing it will take the longest to bring back into grass in the spring. And if mob sizes do change, or if a patch of crop in the middle of the paddock has not grown as well, or the weather gets really bad and the cows need more feed, who said break fences had to be straight? Simply curve them to include another bale of balage, or to miss it that day as required. Two other things to consider now we are half way into winter crop feeding – water and shelter. Cattle need water and permanent water troughs are never in the right place in crop paddocks. Hook up a lightweight, temporary one and move it with the cows (make sure it doesn’t ice up in frosty weather). Even if there is a permanent water trough in the first break, use a temporary one as well as the crop face gets further away. Cows ploughing through a wet paddock between the feed and the water trough causes soil structure damage that can take weeks, even months to repair when it is time to sow grass.
There is the same problem with shelter. If the trees cutting the southerly are on the first break, weeks later the cows walking between the crop face and the shelter will make the paddock wetter and muddier. All this walking also uses metabolic energy and if the distance is great enough, the energy the cow uses to get to the shelter and then back to the crop can be more than it will save by getting out of the wind. Cows also need dry areas to lie on and if the paddock is a churned-up mess there will nowhere for them to do it. A few environmental things to think about – after the daily break is eaten, cows standing on mud in winter rain is the worst possible scenario for contaminants reaching waterways. Nitrogen, phosphorous, E.coli and sediment, all those things regional councils worry about, will flow off that mud. Because nothing is growing, nutrients can’t be taken up by plant growth and, because the soil structure is damaged by the cows compacting it, the ground is less able to hold nutrients. To lessen the impact on waterways, try not to grow winter crop on slopes. If you have to, graze the crop down the slope rather than up it. This will mean the crop between the cows and the drain at the bottom will take up or filter some of the nutrients and sediment. Always make sure there is grass between any waterway and the crop, even if it is a low area in the paddock that flows to a fenced-off drain. If you have forgotten to do this when planting, set some bales of straw by the waterway as a barrier to at least soak some of the containments and plan it better next year. Check your waterways by your crops. If they are cloudy when they usually run clear do something about it before your regional council does. Lastly, make sure all your crop is finished before it starts flowering when temperatures warm up. Flowering brassicas can cause serious health problems in cattle, even death. Seek advice if you need to. Right, coffee finished, so back to it.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
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DairySolutions Less nitrogen but still great results
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educing nitrogen on pasture need not be a detriment to great results when it comes to dairy farming, as proved by the Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF). The SIDDC (South Island Dairying Development Centre) runs the Lincoln University Dairy Farm on behalf of the university, and back in 2010-11 they determined the farm should focus on productivity and efficiency to lift profitability, and operate within their historical environmental footprint. In 2014-2015, faced with a declining milk price and changing nutrient regulations, the fully irrigated, pasturebased Canterbury dairy farm voluntarily chose to reduce its use of imported feed and nitrogen fertiliser. It then matched the stocking rate to the revised feed supply, to limit its estimated nitrogen (N) leaching, while seeking to maintain profitability among the top 5%. “With a low milk payout and choosing to constrain the farms nutrient losses, we’ve had to push efficiency to levels we
‘We’ve had to push efficiency to levels we previously thought were unattainable,’ Ron Pellow says.
previously thought were unattainable,” Ron Pellow, executive director of SIDDC, says. Ravensdown is a partner of SIDDC, along with Lincoln University, DairyNZ, LIC, Plant & Food Research, AgResearch and SIDE. The partnership is a natural alignment for the co-operative, principal consultant for Ravensdown Environmental, Arron Hutton says. “We (Ravensdown environmental team and agri managers) are working with many farmers on how to be smarter with their inputs and improve their farming systems,” Arron says. “We’ve been undertaking whole farm soil testing at LUDF for several years, allowing us to gather enough data to see trends across each paddock and ensure we’re getting maximum performance out of the pasture. “The results achieved by the LUDF show that careful planning and getting the right advice really do pay off – not only for your bottom line, but for the environment.” Average performance for the past three
Tailor-made line post Gallagher’s new Insulated Line Post is tailor-made to incorporate the best of all other electric fence posts on the market. Gallagher Marketing Manager Mark Harris says the ideal electric fence post would be perfectly insulating, have the ground-anchoring ability of a wood post, the convenience to install of a steel post, the flexibility and ease of transportation of a fibreglass post and last like a hardwood post. Such a product did not exist so Gallagher set out to create one. “We believed by using a combination of materials and innovation we could design a tailor-made electric fence post to fit the above description.” “What we have achieved is this and more,” Harris says. “Our Insulated Line Post has all the attributes of the ideal electric fence post plus strong, easy-to-install wire attachment clips and customised multiwire spacing options.” The composite design combines a tough 16mm fibreglass rod core with a patented injection-moulded polyethylene outer, which protects the 94
seasons, running a similar farm system, resulted in over 510kg milksolids (MS)/cow and 1780kg MS/ha. Farm working expenses averaged $3.70/ kgMS resulting in a reasonable level of operating profit considering the volatile payout over this time. Modelling with Overseer estimates nitrate leaching losses are now more than 25% lower than the 2009-2013 baseline period. The use of imported feed during lactation and nitrogen fertiliser are now nearly half what the farm previously used, while average milk production is only down 2%. Ron Pellow says the satisfying results have been achieved by further intensifying the focus on pasture management and by operating with a better match of feed supply (pasture) and stocking rates. Feed previously required for maintenance of a larger number of cows is now available for increased milk production. “This lifts farm efficiency, helping to improve performance, profitability and reducing nutrient loss,” he says.
Global fit
fibreglass from UV degradation. This creates a flexible, long lasting robust post. Glass reinforced nylon snap-on clips form a reliable connection and have a 200kg holding force, which is typically twice as strong as most conventional wood or steel post insulator attachment systems. Superior animal safety is another feature as the post will flex when the fence is impacted. This flexibility and the post’s rounded cap significantly reduce the risk of animal injury. The post comes in 950mm, 1140mm, 1350mm and 1500mm lengths to suit most farmed animals. “It’s easy to install with simple tools,” Harris says. “The posts can be rammed quickly and easily with a hand rammer, which minimises installation time and avoids the expense and waiting time for heavy installation equipment as with other post types.”
Northland dairy farmer Brian Mason describes his new Massey Ferguson 4708 as a great utility tractor and ideally suited for his dairy operation. Brian and his staff milk 1000 cows on his farm, Waikauri View Farms, near Wellsford. Brian has run Massey Fergusons for about 10 years and bought the new MF 4708 in October, with a second identical machine due to arrive in August. Brian says he likes Massey Fergusons because they are “common-sense tractors” that are perfect for use on a dairy farm. He looked at several models before buying the first MF 4708 last year. It was an upgrade to his previous MF 4245 tractor. “I like it better than the 4245. We picked this one because they are right up there with technology in this category of tractor, and we get good service,” Brian says. “We will use them both for general-purpose dairy farm jobs, such as hay and silage feeding, spraying and loader work.” More? Contact AGCO NZ manager Peter Scott at 0272 708 027 or Peter.Scott@ agcocorp.com.
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
Following Oli & Gus The marketing power of Facebook has surprised a Hawke’s Bay home-based clothing producer who now has 29,351 page followers, and still counting, since first posting an offer of children’s clothes two years ago. Donna Paterson-Mills and her husband Bryce have since extended Donna’s range into women’s wear and now have a website to streamline order-taking, payments and dispatch – and to make their home life less hectic. “It’s all grown so quickly. Our plan is for the website to handle the retail side of our business so we can get our own lives back again,” Donna says. The Oli & Gus Facebook page followers exceed by five times the Facebook following of a successful women’s wear retailer with 41 stores throughout New Zealand. The website will extend the offering of meant-to-be-worn clothes for women under their Hot Mamma label that offers short runs of each garment style – some completely sold out within hours of a post on Facebook. “Our Hocus Pocus sweater is a recent example. It sold out in eight hours,” Donna says, who designs all the clothes and chooses the fabric for each garment. Uppermost in her mind is the lifestyle of busy women, like herself, who want good-quality clothes that are comfortable to wear, will still look good after repeated washes and offer an individual flair. “I’m sure our customers like the idea that there’s not much chance of someone else wearing exactly the same dress at the same place.” She says there is no deference to fashion magazines or catwalk trends, as evident in the Facebook photos of Donna modelling her latest garments without make-up or any pretence at being a fashion model.
It all comes across as refreshingly casual, down-to-earth and honest – the photos setting a tone that obviously appeals to the women buying Oli & Gus clothes. On the supply side the reverse happens because there is nothing casual about how the garments are produced. An off-shore supplier has learned to follow Donna’s designs and fabric choices and their ongoing communications have led to a mutual respect, as seen in a recent invitation to join the supply company at a major fabric market event. Donna says her interest in clothing design began as a young girl playing with cotton reels, pattern boxes and a button box at the foot of her grandmother’s antique sewing table. Rose was a renowned dressmaker in Hawke’s Bay – her last project, at the age of 80, being Donna’s wedding dress with Arabic embroidery supplied by Donna – and Donna gradually learned from her grandmother the basic skills, and art, of making clothes. “Eventually I started making my own pieces from fabric pulled out of a remnants bag.” A Massey University bachelor degree in resource and environmental planning enabled Donna to travel to Asia and the Middle East as a language and art teacher – a venture that ultimately led her back into clothing design. “In Al Ain (the “garden city” 150km south of Dubai in the United Arab
Donna sorting through fabric samples for upcoming Oli & Gus clothing collections.
Emirates) I spent hours in the fabric markets and met with the artisans that created the most beautiful garments. “I started designing my own clothes again to wear while teaching at a private school in Al Ain. My designs had to keep within the cultural boundaries of the Middle East but I added my own ideas on colour.” In Australia, which became her home for 18 years, Donna worked at a management level in the fashion industry while husband Bryce continued his management role in industrial construction. In 2014 the couple returned to Hawke’s Bay and created their Oli & Gus label on Facebook as a work-at-home project for Donna.
More? Visit www.oliandgus.co.nz
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PROPERTY │ NORTHLAND
Complete package on Kaipara Harbour
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xpansive coastal views and access to the Kaipara Harbour while just over an hour’s drive from central Auckland is a location with huge investment potential even before you add in the diverse farming operation encompassing dairy, sheep and beef. Altogether, the farm spreads over 360 hectares in six titles, including the 88ha dairy farm and it is for sale as a complete package or as separate titles that range from 18ha to 119ha. Kaipara View Farming Limited is a family-run operation that harks back to the first of the family to settle the land, John George Linton, way back in 1893; clearing the bush and creating farmland for future generations. In the ensuing decades the land has been subdivided and often added back into the family holding and the dairy farm was the latest expansion of today’s farming enterprise. Today it operates as a sheep and beef unit, with about 300 cows milked on the dairy unit and also grazing an adjoining property. Much has been done on the dairy farm since it was purchased three years ago and Lin Norris from Bayleys says
the result is a credit to the vendors, with new owners reaping the benefits. “Their preference would be to sell it all as one and the benefits of the total property are the flexibility and the diversity of having sheep, beef and dairy to mix around as you need to. “It also lends itself to tourism with the additional houses and coastal views. The Kaipara Harbour has suddenly become a really sought-after area – everyone wants a coastal view. I was out there on a still day with the tide in and when you see that, it’s just stunning. A neighbouring 215ha sheep and beef property that is not an economic unit but has 4km of nice coast sold for $4.1 million because of its location.” Sheep, beef and dairy numbers fluctuate on the farm as season and market dictates, but Norris says the dairy unit has potential to significantly increase production. This past season it produced 72,936kg milksolids from 275 cows on a DairyNZ system 1 regime which equates to a simple, low-cost operation with no imported feed. It includes 180 cows being wintered on the milking platform and 70 replacement
calves, plus 40 dairy beef calves reared on milk from the vat. The milking platform is a flexible area though and in the past three years the vendors have completely refenced the dairy unit, installed a new water system including new troughs and have built fertility to a good level. “It has one of the best cow sheds and calf sheds I’ve seen and they’re a real credit to the owners. Whoever buys the property is going to reap the benefits of their work in the past three years. “If an investor bought the property, one of the family members selling the farm is keen to stay and manage the entire operation.” The largest title is a 119ha block with estuary frontage and areas of native bush plus scattered totara trees and its own limestone quarry. The farm with its six titles sits 12km from Maungaturoto township and the same distance from deep-water boat access to the harbour. A range of houses includes a solid 1960s home in an elevated position with views over the farm and Kaipara Harbour, a three-bedroom log cabin and a fivebedroom 1960s home with views down the harbour – plus numerous building sites with harbour views. To view the farm visit www.bayleys. co.nz/1050116 and for further information contact Lin Norris on 021 959 166 or Alex Smits on 021 273 6975.
Self-contained at Matakohe Harbour A good balance of fertile flats and rolling country provides a good base for a selfcontained 285-hectare Northland farm near Matakohe that was kick-started back into dairying last season. The farm, which is 17km from Ruawai and has road access at each end of the property, is for sale by negotiation and Catherine Stewart from Bayleys describes it as a stunning property that offers both dairy grazing and dairy farming options. “It’s all self-contained and you don’t 96
need to lease a runoff or buy in hay and silage – the runoff is at the back of the farm and you can winter the cows and run the young stock there.” Historically, a 108ha block operated as a well-established dairy farm and has good farm support buildings and dairy from that period. It was then run as dairy support before the vendors returned it to dairying last season and began milking in December. An adjoining 175ha grazing property
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PROPERTY │ NORTHLAND
Bountiful farm at Ripiro Beach Much sought-after Redhill soils lie beneath an immaculate 148-hectare dairy farm near Dargaville that enjoys exceptional coastal views and a bounty of fish just beyond the back gate at Ripiro Beach. The top-performing dairy farm which milks 320 cows and has produced a threeyear average of 120,535kg milksolids is for sale at $3.256 million and Catherine Stewart from Bayleys says it still has potential for further gains. “The features are definitely the views, soil types and depth of soil, and the way the farm has been well maintained. “It’s immaculate, clean and fertile and when you finish milking the cows you can jump on the four-wheeler with your torpedo and go fishing out the back where there’s amazing fishing.” The farm is run by sharemilkers who work with a farm adviser to keep everything up to a high standard and their
adds a whole new platform with 70ha of flat-to-easy contour and the balance suitable for dairy support. The pastures of this property are an improved ryegrass/clover mix which have benefited from a good fertiliser history. “They’ve had an amazing regrassing programme and it’s all ryegrass and clover on the milking platform that makes a good solid pasture base.” Water is supplied from five dams, with tanks at the dairy while the support block is gravity-fed to troughs. Through the centre of the farm, a solid limestone track has been created to link the 63 main paddocks with
50:50 contract is in place until June 2018. Part of their management system includes a 39ha block on the boundary leased from Kaipara District Council to use as dairy support. A separate support block owned by the vendor just down the road grazes young stock and provides silage from surplus each year to feed to the milking herd around Christmas. This block is also available for purchase. Maize has been grown on the milking platform in the past, while eight paddocks of chicory are grown for summer feed and the only bought-in supplement is palm kernel which is fed through the season at 2kg/cow. An estimated 140ha of the milking platform is effective grazing and apart from the chicory, it’s covered in clean, strong pasture of rye and clover with a few areas of kikuyu. About 80% flows over
rolling contour, providing large areas of cultivatable land for cropping. All up, the dairy farm is subdivided into 70 main paddocks that are linked via quality limestone races to a near-new 40-aside herringbone dairy with a 400cow yard. Among the other essential farm facilities are a three-bay calf-rearing shed with an extra concrete bay on the end with a roller door, plus a large two-bay concrete-floor implement shed. Effluent from the dairy is collected in a two-pond weeping wall system that is then irrigated on 18 paddocks using a travelling irrigator. Quality bore water suitable for domestic use is pumped to the highest point on the farm and then gravity fed back through the paddocks using a mix of 40mm and 32mm sub-lines. Two houses provide the homes for those who want to combine dairying with enviable views and a lifestyle that’s hard to beat. The sharemilkers live in the three-bedroom brick home and the second three-bedroom home is tenanted. “It’s a gorgeous, immaculate farm with everything done on it and exceptional coastal views. Plus there’s the lease block for wintering the cows.” To view the farm visit www.bayleys. co.nz/1020094 or the video at vimeo. com/216935001. For further information contact Catherine Stewart on 027 356 5031.
the 18-aside dairy. A more recent addition is the large three-bay calf barn on the tanker loop, adding to a host of farm support facilities including a palm kernel bunker, implement sheds and storage sheds. The farm has not had a full season in dairying recently, but Stewart says its production is the equivalent to milking 230 cows for about 90,000kg milksolids with enough support land for 100 calves, 100 yearlings and additional winter grazing for 250 cows. To view the farm visit www. bayleys.co.nz/1812420 or for further information contact Catherine Stewart on 0800 422 959 or 027 356 5031.
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PROPERTY │ SOUTHLAND
SCOPE FOR MORE
production at Drummond A 258-hectare Central Southland dairy farm that was converted to a very high standard is milking about 620 cows as a semi self-contained unit and is for sale at $10.95 million. Wayne Clarke from Southern Wide Real Estate says the farm near Drummond is located in one of those special areas of Southland, renowned for consistent and reliable early pasture growth. A 188ha part of the farm was converted to dairying in 2008 with the balance in 2011, and its retiring owners are offering all the livestock and plant for sale, with the possibility of an in-milk sale. “This is a farm we can highly recommend that has genuine scope to increase production with the infrastructure already in place.” Last season the farm calved 620 cows for a production of 256,000kg milksolids and is wintering 200 in-calf cows at home. About 300 bales of balage were made on the farm, while it bought in 69 tonnes drymatter of silage, 400 bales of balage and 112t of palm kernel.
The 54-bail rotary dairy was designed and built to house a 60-bail platform as well as the technology for easy milking.
well as the technology for easy milking. Alongside the Waikato plant it has automatic cup removers, bail gates, auto teat spray, a full Protrack system, plus meal and molasses in-shed feeder with mineral feeding. Outside it has a 15m circular yard, Dungbuster scraper, wrangler and two vibrators on the meal silo. Its effluent consent allows for 700 cows through to 2025. Farm support buildings are numerous, including a number of sizeable implement sheds, two larger sheds used as stand-off pads, calf sheds, woolshed and workshops.
Added to that are four houses providing ample accommodation, beginning with the four-bedroom homestead and substantial garaging, to a six-year-old three-bedroom brick cottage, a two bedroom cottage and finally a fourbedroom brick and roughcast home. The farm lies 8km from Drummond, 11km from Otautau and 25km from Winton which places it within easy reach of several Southland communities. To view the farm visit www. southernwide.co.nz ref SWI1266 and for further information contact Wayne Clarke on 0274 325 768.
It now has 7ha planted in winter crop for the part of the herd kept at home, while 14ha that was in crop last year is planted in new pasture. As part of the conversion, the farm is subdivided into 104 paddocks with water supplied from a four-metre bore that pumps 17,000 litres/hour through a 40mm ring main and 32mm laterals to mostly 1500l troughs. The 54-bail rotary dairy was designed and built to house a 60-bail platform as 98
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017
July Events Find your sweet spot and be in to win Allocating the right amount of pasture can be tricky. Having a rotation that’s too fast or too slow could mean wasted feed and therefore money. The Spring Rotation Planner can help you get your allocation spot-on which will ultimately result in better cow performance. Complete the Spring Rotation Planner this month and you can enter the draw to win lunch for you and your team. Visit dairynz.co.nz/srp.
New business section
CONSULTING OFFICERS – CONTACT DETAILS Northland Regional Leader
Chris Neill
Far North
Chris Neill
027 499 9021 027 499 9021
Lower Northland
Mark Forsyth
021 242 5719
Whangarei West
Corey Thorn
027 886 0221
027 483 9820
North Waikato Regional Leader
Phil Irvine
South Auckland
Jamie Haultain
027 486 4344
Hamilton North
Phil Irvine
027 483 9820
Matamata/Kereone
Frank Portegys
027 807 9685
Morrinsville/Paeroa
Euan Lock
027 293 4401
Hauraki Plains/Coromandel
Annabelle Smart
021 242 2127
South Waikato Regional Leader
Wade Bell
027 285 9273
Looking for tips to get ahead? Visit DairyNZ’s new business section, which includes tips, tools and templates to help your business thrive. Visit dairynz.co.nz/business.
Te Awamutu
Stephen Canton
027 475 0918
Otorohanga
Michael Booth
027 513 7201
South Waikato
Kirsty Dickins
027 483 2205
Discussion Groups
Regional Leader
Sharon Morrell
0274 922 907
Western Bay of Plenty
Wilma Foster
021 246 2147
Central Bay of Plenty
Kevin McKinley
027 288 8238
Central Plateau
Colin Grainger-Allen
021 225 8345
Eastern Bay of Plenty
Ross Bishop
027 563 1785
Interested in farm systems, reproduction, progression, pasture management, budgeting, people management, or milking smarter? We hold a range of different discussion groups on specialist areas of interest as well as other topical field days and road shows around the country. Find out what’s on near you at dairynz.co.nz/events or phone your local consulting officer.
Change of Address If you’ve shifted farm or changed your supply company, make sure you’ll still receive your copy of Inside Dairy – visit dairynz.co.nz/address and let us know your new details.
Farmer Information Service – 0800 4 DairyNZ (0800 4 324 7969) Answers to your dairy farming questions are just a phone call away. We can also help you with: • Event information • Industry contacts • Ordering publications and resources.
Bay of Plenty
Taranaki Regional Leader
Katrina Knowles
021 831 944
South Taranaki
Katrina Knowles
021 831 944
Central Taranaki
Sarah Payne
027 704 5562
Coastal Taranaki
Michelle Taylor
021 276 5832
North Taranaki
Lauren McEldowney
027 593 4122
Regional Leader
James Muwunganirwa
027 499 9020
Horowhenua/Wanganui/South Taranaki/Southern and Coastal Manawatu
Scott Cameron
027 702 3760
Lower North Island
Wairarapa/Tararua
Tim Ferguson
021 244 3428
Hawke's Bay
Gray Beagley
021 286 4346
Central/Northern Manawatu/Rangitikei
Jo Back
021 222 9023
Top of South Island/Westland Regional Leader
Wade Bell
027 285 9273
Nelson/Marlborough
Mark Shadwick
021 287 7057
West Coast
Wade Bell
027 285 9273
Canterbury/North Otago Regional Leader
Virginia Serra
021 932 515
North Canterbury
Teaghan Lourie
021 246 2775
Central Canterbury
Natalia Benquet
021 287 7059
Mid Canterbury
Stuart Moorhouse
027 513 7200
South Canterbury
Virginia Serra
021 932 515
North Otago
Trevor Gee
021 227 6476
Southland/South Otago Regional Leader
Richard Kyte
021 246 3166
South Otago
Richard Kyte
021 246 3166
Central/North Western Southland
Nicole E Hammond
West Otago/North Eastern Southland Liam Carey
021 240 8529 027 474 3258
Nathan Nelson
021 225 6931
Teresa Anderson
027 702 2219
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Eastern Southland Western Southland
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Our name stands for best of breed.
The PGG Wrightson Genetics team are a nationwide network of livestock specialists working alongside breeders and commercial producers across New Zealand. The team offers genetics and seed stock expertise, animal evaluation and long-term strategic advice for dairy farmers. The specialist advice the team offers assists farmers to improve livestock performance, resulting in enhanced long-term farm productivity.
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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | July 2017