3 minute read
DairyNZ helping farmers adjust their businesses for environmental standards
SYSTEMS STEP CHANGE
Step change for good
DairyNZ is helping farmers adjust their business to environmental standards. Anne Lee reports.
The rules of the game might be changing but that doesn’t have to mean the game is suddenly harder to win or is unfair.
DairyNZ’s Sarah Dirks says DairyNZ’s $5-million, five-year Step Change project that will run through to 2025, is all about working with farmers to show ways farming businesses are able to operate successfully while achieving water quality and greenhouse gas (GHG) outcomes alongside profitability goals.
“The world is changing and the project focuses on the step changes we need to make to meet customer expectations, trade requirements and the commitments the country has made through policies such as the Paris Climate Accord as well as the National Environmental Standards (NES) and National Policy Statement on FreshWater.
“There is a lot coming at farmers but we want to show how we can adapt for the future and how what farmers do to achieve water quality goals can impact their GHG emissions and profit.
“Equally, we can show how people who focus on profit can also have a positive effect on water quality and GHG emissions.
“If we fixate on the policy, it all becomes quite negative because we view it as people forcing us to do stuff but if we look at what the opportunities are there can be a lot of positives for our businesses and communities – it becomes quite exciting.
“It’s about producing milk the world wants.”
This month the Sustainable Agriculture Finance Initiative (SAFI) will release its framework for banks and the wider finance industry to use to assess sustainability onfarm.
It’s expected that the framework will go
Sarah Dirks.
Table 1:
Know your numbers: Think about how you can operate your farm systems to reduce environmental impacts and increase profit.
Dairy operating profits
A B
C D
Environmental impacts (GHG emissions, N Surplus, P loss, etc)
A = Highest operating profit, lowest environmental impact D = Lowest profits, highest impacts
beyond environmental sustainability to people and animal care.
Banks will be able to use the framework in their credit models.
Sarah says it could be an opportunity for farmers with a focus on sustainability to influence their interest rate and access to capital.
“This is the future so for the sustainability of our businesses we need to respond to the market and the market globally is signalling they want low environmental footprint food – and the banks are saying we think it’s more secure for us to invest in sustainable business because it’s lower risk.”
This autumn DairyNZ has held 12 onfarm Step Change events around the country taking a deeper look at what farmers have done in their farm system and how they have affected factors that can impact water quality – factors such as purchased nitrogen surplus.
They’ve also looked at farm practices that can affect E. coli, sediment and phosphorus loss, and how management impacts on GHG emissions and profit.
Farmers have become more familiar with the metrics and the levers they can use to shift them with focus days sparking good discussion.
The next round of events, “the Dollars and Sense of Going Green” will be held over June and July and will be finance focused with more explanation of SAFI.
“We’ll be looking at sustainability benchmarks too so farmers can see what a typical farm in their area is doing.”
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