New Zealand Dairy Exporter September 2017

Learn, grow, excel

HOME SAFE EVERY NIGHT

SEPTEMBER 2017

$12 incl GST

GROWING A HEALTH AND SAFETY CULTURE

$12

DOING DUE DILIGENCE WINNER

FARM SYSTEM CASE STUDY: More profit with less impact

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

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EPRINEX MEANS MORE MILK. ®

It’s not a theory. It’s a fact. EPRINEX® has been scientifically engineered to be the fastest acting, most potent broad spectrum pour on available for lactating dairy cows.

Analysis of more than 80 trials shows a consistent increase in milk productivity and improved reproductive performance. +

With over 20 years of trusted performance gains worldwide, EPRINEX is the only pour on with a New Zealand label claim for increased milk production.

So for reliable productivity returns on your stock and peace of mind this season, talk to your local vet about the scientific benefits of treating with EPRINEX - NZ’s most trusted pour on.

(McPherson et al (2001) NZVJ 49 (3) 106-110)

+

Proudly available from your local veterinary clinic. Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand. Trading name of Merial New Zealand Limited. Level 3, 2 Osterley Way, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand. EPRINEX® is a registered trademark of Merial NZ Ltd.

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Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997 | No. A7191 | ©Copyright 2017 Merial NZ Ltd. All rights reserved. NZ-17-BAH-148.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

With decades of experience in delivering New Zealand’s hardest working and most trusted drenches, we know what works – just like you. As well as our tried and trusted range, we’re proud to bring you another classic - this oilskin vest.

It’s like your old oilskin vest, but with a brand new look. Get yours with qualifying products.

OILSKIN VEST QUALIFYING PRODUCTS: ECLIPSE® Pour-on 2.5L, ECLIPSE® E Injection 4x 500mL, EPRINEX® Pour-on 5L, EXODUS® Pour-on 20L, GENESIS® Injection 4x 500mL, GENESIS® Injection B12+Se 4x 500mL, GENESIS® Pour-on 5L or 10L, GENESIS® Ultra Pour-on 5L, IVOMEC® Plus Injection 4x 500mL, MATRIX@ C Hi-Mineral 5L, 10L or 20L, SWITCH® Fluke10 10L, CALF PACK (ARREST® C 5L + ECLIPSE® Pour-on 2.5L + 30mL gun w/ 2 nozzles), IVER MATRIX® CALF PACK (IVER MATRIX® Calf 5L + ECLIPSE® Pour-on 2.5L + 30mL gun w/ 2 nozzles).

OILSKIN JACKET QUALIFYING PRODUCTS: ECLIPSE® Pour-on 5L, ECLIPSE® E Injection 3L. PROMOTION RUNS FROM 01/08/17 - 27/10/17

Proudly available from your local veterinary clinic. Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health New Zealand. Trading name of Merial New Zealand Limited. Level 3, 2 Osterley Way, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand

ECLIPSE®, EPRINEX®, EXODUS®, GENESIS®, IVER2017 MATRIX®, IVOMEC®, MATRIX® & SWITCH® are registered trademarks of Merial New Zealand Limited. Registered pursuant to the ACVM Act 1997 3 Dairy Exporter | ARREST®, www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September No’s. A7290, A9270, A10640, A7191, A10222, A7456, A9888, A7353, A9222, A11065, A6481, A10131, A11138 | ©Copyright 2017 Merial New Zealand Limited. All rights reserved. NZ-17-MAL-125.

CONTENTS

COMFY COWS PROVE CASE FOR COVER 38

MILKING PLATFORM 10 Niall McKenzie is boxing on as calving finishes 11 Frances Coles wishes the rain would go away

UPFRONT 12 What’s in the crystal milk bowl for dairying?

13 Bank forecasts a growth slowdown 14 Election 2017: Water and the smaller parties 18 Co-ops comfortable with Sahara trade 20 Market View: Don’t expect milk prices to lift much

BUSINESS 22 Aaron Jackson weighs up the next step 28 Contracts: Check the details 30 CO Diary: Owners support first-timers 32 Get out the scalpel on costs 34 Banks uneasy with offshore borrowing

SYSTEMS 38 Comfy cows prove case for cover 40 MPI investigates farm system change 46 Nutrient challenge at Back Track

WEIGHING UP THE NEXT STEP 22

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

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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 Warren McDonald, Auckland/Northland 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

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)

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

SPECIAL REPORT | HEALTH AND SAFETY

SPECIAL REPORT 49

50 It’s about keeping people safe 53 Leading the way 54 DIY Safety: Getting the records right 57 Business bonus of health and safety 58 Complacency creeps into rural safety 61 Policy boon for farm investors.

62 Agri fatalities still rising – WorkSafe 64 The right decisions when injury strikes 66 Learning when things go wrong 67 Involving staff in welfare 69 Getting things right with rules 70 Saved when the rules aren’t followed

ENVIRONMENT 72 A kauri for McKenna 75 Unrealistic standards for irrigators

SPECIAL REPORT │ HEALTH AND SAFETY 50 It’s about keeping people safe

62 Agri fatalities still on the rise

54 Getting the records right

64 The right decision when disaster

57 Business bonus of Health and Safety

strikes 66 Learning when things go wrong

58 Complacency creeps in to rural safety

69 Getting things right with rules

61 Policy boon for farm investors

70 Saved when rules aren’t followed

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

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STOCK 76 Sparkle with Speckle Parks 78 Wagyu crossbred calves win:win 79 Vet Voice: Planning for a busy mating season 80 Preventing antibiotic resistance

YOUNG COUNTRY 82 A volunteer adding value 84 Due diligence diverts disasters

A VOLUNTEER ADDING VALUE 82

FARM GEAR 86 Bridges over troubled waters

DAIRY 101 88 Cashing in on the 20th

SOLUTIONS 90 Another smart SAM 91 The case for metrichecking

Property 92 A winter home for 2000 cows 94 Entry points at Eketahuna 96 Scale and scope at Tikokino 97 Productivity where pines prevailed 98 Well set up in Hunter Hills Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

CHECK THE DETAILS 28 5

DAIRY DIARY

BROUGHT TO YOU BY FONTERRA FARM SOURCE

NZFARMSOURCE.CO.NZ/STORE | 0800 731 266

OCTOBER October 12 – An irrigation operator and manager workshop is being held in Ashburton with a mix of classroom learning and practical in-the-field application. The Irrigation New Zealand workshop runs between 10am and 4.30pm and costs $350 plus GST for members and $550 plus GST for non members. A second workshop will be held on October 19. For further information visit www.irrigationnz.co.nz/events or contact Kate Mills on 03 974 1425.

October 12 – A Lincoln University Dairy Farm focus day is being held on the farm between 10.15am and 1pm. For more information on the farm visit www.siddc.org.nz October 12 – Federated Farmers is running a rural governance workshop to provide insight into the benefits that a board can bring to agribusinesses, plus the responsibilities of a board and individual directors in a distinctly rural context. For more information email events@fedfarm@org.nz or visit www.fedfarm.org.nz October 16-18 – Precision Agriculture’s International Tri-Conference takes place at Claudelands in Hamilton. For information on this event visit www.sftichallenge.govt.nz October 17 – The Waikato Regional Council is holding its sixth Effluent Expo. The event at the Claudelands Events Centre is a one-

stop shop for high-quality effluent management systems and runs from 9am to 3.30pm. For further information visit www. waikatoregion.govt.nz/community/whats-happening/events/ effluent-expo/2017-effluent-expo October 19-20 – The New Zealand Royal A and P Show is being hosted at Hawke’s Bay on Show, with competitors from around the country competing for the tri-colour ribbon. For further information visit www.showgroundshb.co.nz October 25-November 21 – The 2017 national and regional Dairy Business of the Year winners host regional optimisation days for other farmers to learn about their business profitability, environmental management and human resources.

Dates/locations: October 25, Northland; October 25, Canterbury; November 2, West Coast; November 7, Waikato; November 9, Bay of Plenty; November 14, Wairarapa; November 16, Manawatu; November 21, Taranaki. For further information on the winners and directions to farm field days, visit www.dboy.co.nz/page/optimisation-upcoming October 29 – International Dairy Federation (IDF) conference is in Belfast. To view the programme visit www.idfwds2017.com

NOVEMBER November 7-9 – The annual Grasslands Association Conference is being held in Whanganui and this year’s theme is “A river runs through it”. Visit www.grassland.org.nz for details.

November 15-17 –- Canterbury A and P Show’s dairy section will have royal event status this year and will have three international judges. Canterbury holds the largest A and P show in the country.

Entries close September 22. For entry forms and further information visit www.theshow.co.nz

ONE SOURCE

November 18-20 – Rural Women New Zealand is holding its annual conference at the Ascot Park Hotel in Invercargill with speakers, awards, tours and more. For further information visit www.ruralwomen.org.nz November 22 – Owl Farm focus day at the Waikato demonstration dairy farm. For information about the farm visit www.owlfarm.nz

FOR PASTURE AND CROPPING ADVICE

FOR BEST RESULTS TALK TO SOMEONE WITH ROOTS IN YOUR AREA. By understanding your individual pasture and cropping requirements, your local Technical Sales Rep will be able to provide tailored advice that best suits your needs.

TALK TO US TODAY

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0800 731 266

NZFARMSOURCE.CO.NZ/SPRING

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

EDITORIAL

Evolving our systems “The world is changing, we need to evolve to stay relevant.”

While the world has always been changing, farmers have shown a great ability to evolve and change. From small herds and simple milking systems, they were encouraged to grow, to produce more, to satisfy the demand for milk overseas, and were well rewarded for it.

Now they are going to be forced to change again – to change to leach less nitrogen and other nutrients and to produce milk from less water by using it more efficiently. Some will even have to change systems and wind back cow numbers, but by producing more milk from fewer cows profitability and sustainability can be enhanced.

Rex and Sharon Butterworth have changed the way they farm to ensure their farm system is sustainable both environmentally, biologically and economically. The development of covered standoff feed pads to control effluent and feed wastage, concentrates on minimising condition loss in the transition period and increasing their cow efficiency of feed to milk conversion. The farm case study has been developed by MPI to show other farmers how they can change and evolve, while maintaining or growing profitability (p38) while improving environmental sustainability.

Our special report investigates the evolution on farms to growing a health and safety culture and identifies many benefits from those who have embraced the new regulations. However, many farmers are dragging the chain and as yet the fatality

NZ Dairy Exporter

numbers onfarm are not consistently dropping, experts say. If government targets are not met by 2020, farmers can expect more stringent regulations to be forced on them (p49).

Here in New Zealand water is shaping up to be a huge election issue with big irrigation painted as the lead cause of dairy intensification leading to degradation of the waterways. Except it seems the science shows the worst waterways are in the regions with the least irrigation.

Bob Edlin covers off what the smaller political parties bring to the policy table around water and farming just before the election kicks off in September (p14).

We have the second part of our contract milking feature, outlining how important it is to understand the contract and do due diligence around the ramifications of conditions in it before you sign up. (p22) We had a fantastic reaction to the calf picture contest we ran on the Dairy Exporter Facebook page with 336 entries, and the winner who liked, shared and sent us a lovely photo of her calves is Francesca Bennett. Congratulations!

Thanks to the sponsors of the great prizes we had: Antahi Innovations, Shoof International, AllflexNZ, Dairy Care NZ and VetEnt. Like our Dairy Exporter Facebook page to keep up with the details of our next competition.

Jackie

@YoungDairyED

@DairyExporterNZ

WINNN

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SNEAK PREVIEW:

NEXT ISSUE BODY CONDITION SCORE: the golden target, what to aim for and how to get there.

MANAGING THE LACTATION CURVE: hitting peak milk and maintaining momentum across the season.

BUFFALOS MILKED UNDER THE SOUTHERN ALPS

OWL FARM FARM SYSTEM CHANGE PROCESS: A review of the farm system to meet profitability and environmental objectives.

Some of the pictures that entered our Facebook calf competion

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

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Word in your ear DAIRY STOCK PERFORMANCE

Making the everyday easier When designing their recent conversion, owners Bryce and Nicki Clark were clear from the outset, they wanted automation in their dairy shed.

Farm Manager, Ariel Raga explains.

“Bryce and Nicki saw an opportunity to make things easier with this shed. The initial attractors were reduced labour, the ability to monitor daily the weights of the cows, and close, targeted management of our supplementary feed.”

Late last year they added In-line Sensors to help with mastitis detection and recently, the MiHub Dairy Herd Management phone app, which is already proving valuable.

“The phone app enables us to draft while we’re getting the cows in, rather than waiting until we get to the shed to input the IDs. Now if we see cows needing attention in the paddock, we can just put it straight in our phones, and they’ll be drafted. I can see for mating it’ll also be a big help as we can just input any bulling cows in the paddock.

You can also control the drafting gate, so even if you’re not in the shed you can still operate the gate with the app. It’s saving a lot of time just being able to do that.

Sometimes we’re short people: someone’s getting the cows and there’s only two of you in the shed. By just putting it in your phone, you don’t have to worry about drafting them when they leave the shed.

They’ll just be drafted by themselves.”

3416TT01

The automation is cause for some envy with Ariel’s friend on other farms.

“Talking with some of my friends about their farms without automation, it’s definitely easier for us. For example, for them, during mating someone’s got to be on cups off all the time so cows needing drafting aren’t missed. So, it’s another labour saving.

They think our system is very good.”

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Weighing & EID

As Ariel progresses through his first full season with the automation, he can see benefits coming up.

“We’re in the process of transferring all our cow data into the MiHub online management system. Once we do, we’ll have all their historical information at our fingertips. This will really help with things like dry cow treatments – which cows need it, how many times they’ve had it previously, what to give etc. Being able to group cows based on a variety of factors is also really helpful. We can see which ones have been treated and with what. It pops up on the in-shed screen and we all know what we need to do based on whether she’s a green, or she’s blue and she’s in this group. Reduces risk and means I don’t have to be in the shed all the time.”

Home Dairy Manager, Ariel Raga loading cow ID’s into Tru-Test’s MiHub Dairy Herd Management app for drafting.

At this time of the year, when monitoring weight is critical in making sure cows are on a rising plane towards getting in calf, automation is a valuable tool in tracking this and identifying issues early.

At this time of the year, when monitoring weight is critical in making sure cows are on a rising plane towards getting in calf, automation is a valuable tool in tracking this and identifying issues early.

“The Walk over Weighing is invaluable for this. By monitoring weights daily we can quickly see the ones with issues, which we then investigate further. We can react and get on top of things much faster now.

Those with issues, we just put them in groups and manage them accordingly.

Whether it needs to be calved, treated, thinned or fattened up a bit. It’s also easy to go back over each cow’s records and

Dairy Automation

Workers refer to in shed screens which display colour coded cow data to know what actions they need to take.

say, oh this one’s never been right, put it in the cull group.”

Ariel’s advice to farmers and managers with manual sheds is that “they just have to have it for their farm. It’s just so easy and saves labour. They really will see a big difference, even if it’s just yourself in the shed.

It’s a big savings as well. Whilst an expense to install, in the long term it will pay itself back easily in saved labour and costs, as well as making the job easier.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

Milk Cooling & Tanks

MiHub™ & Data Services

MILK PROTECTION

Ensure compliance, protect your milk, reduce costs Your milk is what you’re in dairying for.

Meeting regulations, keeping your milk safe from contamination and dumping, and reducing cooling costs as much as possible.

These are critical to getting all you produce to your dairy company and receiving the best return.

Milk protection specialist, Tru-Test, has identified three key areas that will give you the best chance of consistently achieving this through your milk cooling system. down to temperature. It can be one of the most cost-effective solutions for meeting compliance with the new regulations.

It’s also often the best solution for on farm constraints such as site restrictions, power or water issues.

PRE-COOLING Pre-cooling cools the milk before it enters the vat. Saving your refrigeration unit from working overtime to get your milk

Tru-Test offers a full range of pre-cooling solutions. Our milk cooling experts can come on farm and do an assessment with you to determine your requirements and the right solution for your operation.

Alerts are sent to your mobile, freeing you from being in shed or reliant on staff. With auditable performance data stored online, you can monitor your milk cooling system from anywhere there is access to the internet.

VAT MONITORING Monitoring the milk going into your vat helps to ensure you remain compliant and protects against milk loss by capturing milk temperatures at every milking and alerting you to issues as soon as they happen for swift response.

SERVICING Good milk cooling maintenance saves you money.

Like any plant machinery, regular servicing of your milk cooling system is a smart investment to protect your milk

Tru-Test’s range of vat monitors includes the Plus which will issue alerts if your milk is not cooling quickly enough.

The Auto model is both a monitor and controller and will automatically turn on your refrigeration as well as issuing alerts.

KEVIN AND MICHELLE ALEXANDER, HUKERENUI, NORTHLAND.

water issues, too high temperature and forgetting to turn the refrigeration on. The auditable data can easily solve issues, should they arise, around milk quantity and temperature.

“The more information you have, the better, for decision-making on farm, and if you’ve got an early warning system and an early detection system, then it’s just a really big benefit and it saves you money and time at the end of the day.”

MIKE AND ESMERELDA DUFFIN,

Our vat monitors have prevented farmers losing milk through power outages,

WAIROA, SOUTHLAND.

and reduce your running costs. It will also maintain and extend the performance life of one of your largest on farm capital investments and a critical infrastructure.

Avoid paying more with good maintenance.

With the steep increase in the cost of refrigerant, reducing the use of this will also be important in managing your future running costs.

“When looking for a refrigeration supplier, the offer of a maintenance plan was a must. Knowing you can call someone knowledgeable when you need help is very attractive for me.”

GRAHAM AND VICKI BROCKLEHURST, HAURAKI PLAINS.

Tru-Test offers a range of proactive and reactive servicing, and Asset Care Plans.

These are all supported by qualified, nationwide servicing and a 7-day call centre.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

www.tru-test.com

“For us, addressing the issues with our existing pre-cooling by installing a Tru-Test Ice Bank was by far the simplest idea, and used the least amount of dairy water. It also fitted into our existing cow shed space.

Our milk now goes in the vat at less than 60C. When we walk out of the shed at 7am in the morning, the milk is at 3.90C and it’s finished, it’s all over, from 370C. Job done.”

How are you tracking?

Let’s talk.

0800 TRUTEST (878 8378)

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MILKING PLATFORM │ INVESTMENT Niall shifts the break fence for heifers in spring.

Boxing on Niall McKenzie Northland

S

o calving is nearly finished. It’s been wet and cold. The people in our area have been saying it’s the wettest winter they can remember. Funny thing is they say it every year.

Calving has gone relatively well on all accounts. The only interesting story that happened over this time was when Delwyn and I were drafting out springers from this year’s heifers in the morning.

I had being working for about five hours that morning and my temperament would be best described as short.

Delwyn wanted to draft a different way than they way we were doing it as it wasn’t going to plan and was taking a long time. I didn’t want to do it that way basically because it wasn’t my idea and as the suggestion went on the more stubborn I became.

Following more discussion as we worked I reluctiantly gave in to Delwyn’s plan for the drafting. It pains me to say it but we were done in over half the time. Without a doubt Delwyn has more skill than me. Just saying it aloud so I remember.

In the winter I met up with one of my farming mentors. In my head anyone older than me is a mentor, they don’t even need to be in the primary sector. I was taught to respect your elders by my grandfather, a World War II veteran.

I read my mentor (his name is David) my last report in the NZ Dairy Exporter. He said I used the word passion too much. His thoughts were that passion is used too much in New Zealand dairy farming. Passion, he told me in no uncertain terms, can be used as an excuse when you’re not making any money. Delwyn, my wife, was quick to agree that dairy farming can be a very expensive hobby unless managed very impressively.

David also said he thought Fonterra’s chairman John Wilson used the word passion too much. He said they have their heads in clouds where unicorns run and there are rainbow waterfalls. Are they not aware of how much competition there is for their milk and that they need to be better?

At this particular moment I could see he has pessimistic views kicking in, which is great. Being challenged to do better is a positive thing instead of being happy with normality. Fonterra needs to hold themselves to a higher level, they need to be the pinnacle so that everyone wants to supply them.

David has had hardship, loss and massive triumph.

His family partnership owns more than 3000 hectares farming dairy and dairy beef. They do things their way and do not follow the flock. His philosophy is based upon “boxing on”. So I thought, as I respected him and his family, I would try to change my thoughts to be similar.

It took me a good while to get it. Boxing on is grit. Grit is giving you that determination to keep on going. Grit is to push through when things go wrong. Grit is how we start again when things go wrong. Grit is proven to be a pure driver of success in whatever field you work in or profession you choose. It’s good to know other people go through shit too.

With the recent lift in the forecast payout by Fonterra, our incomes grow larger. We think to ourselves we could put it into 100 tonnes of palm kernel and make money on it. We ponder ideas of how we could make more money from the high payout.

It’s grit that reminds us that Delwyn and I are low-cost dairy producers and we need to stick to our strengths. So our plans don’t change for the high payouts.

Stay true to your beliefs and keep boxing on.

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

MILKING PLATFORM │ COLUMN Typical stormy skies of South Canterbury this winter.

Rain, rain go away…

Frances Coles

Chief calf rearer Katie Coles, 6, lends a hand with a heifer replacement.

South Canterbury

If I could sum up the past month here in South Canterbury with one sentence, it would likely be “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.”

We received 160mm of rain in July (most of it over just one day and night) and have followed that up with another 35mm to date in the first half of August.

Not ideally, the forecast for this coming weekend is for another possible deluge and snow – surely we’ll be due for a run of good weather once that’s done.

I’m really feeling for the farmers further north of us, who had even more rain over the same period. Springtime can be exhausting enough onfarm without a daily leg workout through deep mud thrown into the mix.

Around the region, graziers and those who have wintered cows on are wondering when they’ll ever get a tractor near their paddocks to get their spring regrassing programme started, and everyone is trying their best to balance the need to hold cows back on their allocated feed with a desire to open up more of the paddock to minimise the damage from pugging.

Meanwhile, spring keeps trucking on and calves are hitting the ground thick and fast. Dairy sheds always feel a little like Grand Central Station this time of year when there are herds all over the place; milkers, colostrums, springers, dry cows, those requiring health treatments...

We’re more than half way through as I write this, so it’s good to be getting into a bit more of a routine with a reasonablesized milking herd and be getting some of

the older calves out of the sheds and on to grass. I never tire of seeing them bounce around the paddock like lambs when they get their first taste of the open space.

As nice as it is to see the days getting longer and daffodils starting to emerge, there has been somewhat of a dark cloud hovering over the dairy industry this spring – Mycoplasma Bovis.

Discovered on (so far) three herds in the South Canterbury area, spring has been complicated for the Van Leeuwens and their neighbours by an exotic disease outbreak leading to an MPI-led testing and surveillance programme, restricted movements and unwanted media storm.

As is always the case in scenarios like this – there has been widespread speculation about how it got here, who was responsible for it getting here, whether the response by agencies involved has been good/fast enough. The list goes on.

I think everyone’s missing the point – it’s here now and we have to deal with it. Many, if not most, countries that we consider dairy countries already have this bug in their national herds.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

There will be a time for reviewing the facts around how the disease came to our shores, but at this stage we really are in the thick of the “Do” phase of the “Plan, Do, Review” cycle.

It’s also really important to remember that there are people involved here who will be hurting – a lot. I can’t even imagine how stressful a situation like this would be if it was your own farm which was declared Ground Zero.

No doubt the teams on these farms trying to work through this all are just as affected as the owners.

Personally, I’ve found it a slightly odd situation to watch unfold.

I understand how serious an impact this could have on our industry as a whole – we’ve already seen dairy prices ease at the latest two GDT auctions – “Disease Outbreak” and “NZ Dairy” together in headlines overseas will grab the attention of buyers.

However, despite the fact the farms affected are only about an hour’s drive south of where we farm – they’ve also felt a massive distance away at the same time, as the pressing needs of getting on with the jobs at hand during calving have taken up our energy and attention instead.

Talking with other farmers from our immediate area, I’ve found we’re largely all adopting the same approach of watching the story unfold, then working out what we can do within our business to strengthen our procedures around biosecurity.

Our vets have already been proactive in sending out some recommendations to take heed of and I’m sure they won’t be the last to share some learnings.

So I guess I’ll carry on worrying about what I can actually influence and simply stay aware of the other matters which are just a concern, but do hope for those involved that it is all worked out sooner rather than later.

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UPFRONT │ FUTURE OF DAIRYING

Gazing into the milky ball Two papers take differing approaches to giving dairy farmers and processors an idea of the future for which they should be planning. A study funded by the Primary Growth Partnership takes a scenario approach, Bob Edlin reports. A Rabobank analyst foresees a slowdown in the growth of milk production over the next five years and considers the implications.

F

our plausible scenarios have been developed to help New Zealand dairy industry organisations prepare for a range of possible futures.

They are set out in a paper titled “Scenario analysis to determine possible, plausible futures for the New Zealand dairy industry” Nicola Shadbolt, professor in farm and agribusiness management at Massey University and a Fonterra Co-operative director, is the lead author.

The Centre of Excellence in Farm Business Management, a joint venture between Massey and Lincoln Universities, early in 2014 began a project funded by the Transforming the Dairy Value Chain Primary Growth Partnership programme to research dairy farm systems for the future.

The first phase was to develop a better understanding by farmers, industry and researchers of possible, plausible scenarios for dairying. Potential farm systems for each scenario would then be designed and analysed.

The study involved several industry stakeholders and used scenario analysis because existing farm systems have been developed around a common belief of the future and a confidence the past will continue or that the future direction is certain.

Each scenario presents challenges, indicating adaptation will be required across the NZ dairy value chain to thrive and be resilient, the paper says.

The scenarios are: The base case – This extends the current thinking and status quo; presenting a future characterised by growth but with increased complexity, competition, and volatility. It factors in most of the uncertainties but does not stretch any of them too far.

It assumes globalisation has progressed and global economic growth has remained positive, creating an extremely large global middle class, many living in Asia and Africa. There has been an expansion of multi-lateral trade agreements but instability in some regions and new rules and regulations increase the challenge to

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global trade. Technology has increased competitive intensity across the dairy value chain and the pace of innovation and technology adoption has become highly significant. All these factors result in relatively profound shifts in supply and demand, increasing price volatility for the dairy industry.

Consumer is king – The focus is shifted from volume and commodity to value through several differing value chains and products. This scenario stresses a particular set of uncertainties (such as consumer perceptions and needs) and the world is characterised by much more wealth because of rapid globalisation and economic growth. This substantially increases the demand for dairy.

The consumer, now more aware/ informed and sophisticated, is the key driver of the entire value chain and the market for foods has become considerably more segmented as consumers increasingly demand products to suit specific individual needs.

This opens opportunities across the dairy value chain, giving NZ dairy more choices on where to trade its relatively small volume of global production and deliver an extremely diverse range of specialised high-value products.

Science and technology is a critical enabler and/or disrupter. Agility and innovation across the value chain is critical in gaining a sustainable competitive advantage.

Governments dictate – In an increasingly chaotic and insular world, the main uncertainties are the political environment, trade rules, technology transformation, and social and economic disorder. A sustained decline in economic growth has shrunk global wealth and the middle class.

The greater incidence of regional conflicts, epidemics and weather-related natural calamities are causing significant shocks to the global geo-political environment and the agri-food supply.

Poverty and hunger are dominant themes and food security is high on the political agenda.

Trade barriers have increased significantly as governments protect domestic industry and aim for selfsufficiency, making market access a big challenge for exporters.

Because consumers primarily are price-driven, seeking cheap, balanced and nutrient-dense foods, there is a clear shift away from differentiated products towards commodities. Price competition makes efficiency extremely critical for agribusiness companies.

Regulation rules – This is grounded in a world demanding much greater transparency and compliance with community, government, social and consumer-imposed standards and expectations.

Major uncertainties concern the natural environment, resource regulation, approvals to farm, and consumer regulation. Globalisation has progressed and the world is wealthier, on average.

Better education and knowledge sharing have made people more aware of issues and increasingly inclined to press for greater regional, national and global regulation.

Technologies for monitoring and surveillance result in greater regulation of agri-foods operations to address environmental, animal welfare and food safety concerns. This significantly increases complexity and costs through the value chain but opens opportunities for those who view regulation as a necessity rather than a burden or constraint and who deliver above and beyond what is expected, by showing a privilege-to-serve attitude akin to boutique restaurants/ hotels.

But scenario planning is not about making predictions, the paper emphasises.

It is a tool to enable better decisionmaking.

It is important, therefore, not to focus too greatly on which scenario will or will not occur but to recognise and reflect on the uncertainties decision-makers are likely to face.

bob.edlin@xtra.co.nz

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

UPFRONT │ FUTURE OF DAIRYING

GROWTH SET TO SLOW Bob Edlin bob.edlin@xtra.co.nz Tougher environmental regulations are among the factors that will slow the growth of milk production over the next five years, a Rabobank report predicts.

The slowdown will have “vast implications for the entire supply chain”, Rabobank dairy analyst Emma Higgins says.

But farmers are likely to benefit from increased competition as processors vie for supply to ensure optimal use of their capacity.

The report “Survive or Thrive – the Future of New Zealand Dairy 2017-2022”, says capital expenditure in new processing assets stepped up between 2013 and 2015, but capacity construction has outpaced recent milk supply growth and appears to have been based on stronger milk supply growth projections than Rabobank anticipates.

A 2-3% spike in production is expected in the 2017/18 season but beyond that constraints will impede volume growth.

After two decades of “remarkable” dairyindustry expansion, the Rabobank report essentially asks: “is this the end of growth as we know it”?

The short answer is that NZ milk supply can grow by around 1.6% compound annual growth rate over the next five years. But this is a significant slowdown from the 4.1% average over the past two decades.

Investment in new farm conversions and the expansion of existing platforms has already virtually trickled to a standstill.

Rabobank anticipates this trend continuing as: • Further dairy expansion is limited by environmental constraints on the consent process for converting dairy farms; and • Tightening limits on land and nutrient use in key dairying areas constrain growth in the supply of milk from existing farms.

Finance is another consideration as the need to be globally competitive calls for low-cost production models.

The strong appreciation in land values, which fuelled the expansion of dairy over the past two decades, is unlikely to be a feature of the next five years. Business cash flows accordingly must be positive.

Farmers and external investors will be more cautious about adding expansion costs to their budgets and “there is unlikely to be the same pull on equity and/or debt for expansion in the New

More cautious investment in new plant capacity will be the norm, dairy analyst Emma Higgs says in the Rabobank report.

Zealand dairy sector over the next five years”.

Finally, Fonterra’s limits on palm kernel use by its suppliers will remove a potential growth lever. Fonterra issued voluntary guidelines recommending a maximum use of 3kg of palm kernel per cow per day in 2015. From June next year milk supplied to the co-operative will be tested and penalties imposed if requirements are not met.

But the report expects improved herd and pasture management to maintain supply growth, albeit at a slower pace, and farmers’ focus to shift to maximising milk yields from inputs.

“There is unlikely to be the same pull on equity and/or debt for expansion in the New Zealand dairy sector over the next five years”.

A greater uptake of new technologies combined with genetic gains in livestock and new pasture species will also help lift output while reducing farmers’ environmental impacts.

The report rules out the likelihood of a widespread adoption of intense feeding systems, like those typical in the northern hemisphere.

Among other considerations, lifting the intensity “challenges New Zealand’s core pasture-focused branding strengths” and the costs would erode our comparative

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

advantage with northern hemisphere producers.

On the manufacturing side of the industry, the report expects processors to struggle to fill existing and planned capacity over the next few years as supply growth slows.

The expansion of processing capacity has run ahead of recent milk supply growth “and appears to factor in stronger milk supply growth than we anticipate.”

A key risk (“and worst-case scenario”) would be persistent plant under-utilisation, resulting in high overhead costs and a rationalisation of manufacturing assets.

More cautious investment in new plant capacity will be the norm, says the report and processors – if they are to thrive over the next five years – will need to review their business strategies.

All will need to cut costs from their supply chains to remain efficient and competitive.

Greater competition for milk is the good news for farmers as processors vie to fill plants for optimal utilisation. Rabobank says Fonterra, Open Country Dairy and Westland are the processors most exposed to shifts in supply arrangements Farmers in the Waikato, Southland and Canterbury are tipped to be the most likely beneficiaries of increased competition, with three new plants in the pipeline over the next two years.

One possibility raised by this is the opportunity for farmers to secure price premiums by aligning with a processor whose strategy includes specific marketing of “grass-fed milk”, “free-range milk”, “palm kernel-free milk” and so on.

The risk is that this can create more complex milk pricing structures.

13

BUSINESS │ DUE DILIGENCE

Aaron and Holly Jackson with sons, Tom, left and George – sharemilking rather than contract milking but there were plenty of positives in contract milking options too.

Weighing up the next step Aaron and Holly Jackson didn’t stint on the diligence when looking at their next step in the dairy industry, they told Anne Lee how they used friends, experts, checklists and historic facts to make a considered decision.

A

aron and Holly Jackson talked to respected peers, sought independent advice and had to weigh up a lot of pros and cons when they were assessing next step opportunities in their dairying career, particularly when it came to looking at contract milking jobs.

In the end the Culverden-based couple took up a job that ticked all the boxes for them, going 50-50 sharemilking on a 360420 cow job.

“The sharemilking opportunity came up literally right at the last minute and it was perfect for us but we’d looked at contract milking and other sharemilking jobs before then.

“Each one was different and we had to look really carefully at them but we set some criteria – things that were important to us about a job,” Holly says.

It hasn’t been a direct progression path for the couple with Aaron doing three years dairying straight out of high school in Christchurch before shepherding for eight years and taking on an engineering job with Akaroa Salmon.

During that time, he met Holly who completed a post-graduate teaching

22

diploma and then secured a secondary school teaching position in Hawke’s Bay. Aaron found work as a machinery manager on a 2500-cow operation in the region and while he was working there the pair decided they were keen to get involved and start climbing the progression ladder in the dairy industry.

Aaron worked as 2IC on a 1600-cow, split-calving farm but six months in stepped up to manager when the manager left.

They saw the season out in Hawke’s Bay and then returned to their home province of Canterbury taking on a manager’s role for Holly’s uncle Stuart Neil at Culverden.

Holly was able to teach at the local area school just a couple of minutes’ drive from the farm and Aaron says working for Stuart was a great way to learn and gain valuable experience.

During the four years on the 660-cow farm they were able to lease cows into the herd and could rear both their owner’s

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

calves and calves from the cows leased to him.

They were then able to take a cut from the replacement calves as the lease payment.

Aaron says they also bought animals when they could, always purchasing higher breeding worth (BW) and production worth (PW) stock.

When payout was low they sold selected older animals and replaced them with higher-quality heifers for a similar price.

“And with the way we were leasing them it worked out quite well,” Holly says.

At one stage there had been talk about setting up a sharemilking partnership with their farm owner and while it didn’t eventuate the couple say it gave them confidence to take a look at the next step in terms of progression.

Aaron Jackson with a newborn They’d also surrounded calf their first as sharemilkers. themselves with top performers in the industry and count New award in 2014 and farm nearby, also in the Zealand sharemilkers of the year Justin Amuri basin. and Melissa Slattery among their best Holly says they discussed their job friends. options and budgets with James.

They sharemilked nearby until they “He’s helped us a lot and has so much ventured back to the North Island this knowledge about dairying. He gave us a season having realised their dream of really good broad holistic view of the next buying their own dairy farm. step,” she says.

“If you surround yourself with positive During their time at the Neils, Aaron people it’s like a wave – you get pulled and Holly had two children – Tom now along. It’s no different to what we tell kids 3, and one-year-old George – so it was at school – have good friends – your peer important that any next step in their group is important,” Holly says. farming career meant they were within “They were really important to us as easy commuting distance to a high school sounding boards and Mel went through so Holly could carry on teaching. the numbers with us.”

It just makes the whole thing more James and Ceri Bourke are also mentors, sustainable, Aaron says. friends and sounding boards for the “We looked at a few jobs and there were couple. pluses and minuses for all of them – you They were runner-up in the Canterbury really have to work out what your criteria sharemilker/equity manager of the year

Aaron and Holly Jackson – make sure you talk about everything up front with your prospective farm owner.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

are and what’s important, what your bottom lines are before you can really weigh them up,” Holly says.

Initially they thought any contract milking job they looked at needed to have large scale to make it worth their while but they found there were other factors that could be more important in making the job a success.

One job they seriously considered was to contract-milk 850 cows for a large-scale sharemilker with 2000 cows.

It was a bit of stretch in terms of commute time for Holly but an even greater negative was the standard of housing, particularly for the staff.

“It would have made recruiting staff quite difficult I think,” Aaron says.

On the positive side were gains that could be made with stock.

“That was one of our criteria – to have some kind of stock gains in the job.

“We had cows we wanted to bring to the job and we really didn’t want to have to sell them when cow prices were low.

“For this particular one we were able to take our own cows and lease them into the herd which is really positive for us but we could also mate his heifers – we’d pay for them to be AI’d and we’d keep the replacements.

‘If you surround yourself with positive people it’s like a wave – you get pulled along. It’s no different to what we tell kids at school – have good friends – your peer group is important.’

“He’d said that if it worked out well on that farm we could do it across all his heifers,” Aaron says.

“The fact he had 2000 cows was quite appealing because he understood where we could make extra money and was open to opportunities for us,” Holly says.

The contract rate was a straight cents per kilogram of milksolids (MS) rate.

On the budgets they looked at, Aaron and Holly say they wouldn’t have taken any jobs at less than $1/kg MS. “There was another job that was offering under a $1/kg MS but it included a percentage of the milk cheque – 4%.

We’d also be up for 11-14% of the costs and we would have had to provide a lot of gear – similar to what you’d take as a sharemilkers,” Aaron says.

There was no option for stock gains but 23

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the accommodation was good, it was a great shed and the cows were good,” Holly says.

“But when we looked through the numbers with Melissa, it actually came out quite low – there wasn’t much falling out the bottom. You really need to look at any contract very closely to work out what you’re really going to end up with in the hand at the end of the year,” Holly says.

They saw that if there were too many quirks and variations away from the Federated Farmers contract as a bit of a warning sign.

Aaron and Holly Jackson with Tom, 3, and George, 1 – be sure of your criteria before you start looking at the next step.

‘You really need to look at any contract very closely to work out what you’re really going to end up with in the hand at the end of the year.’

“We saw one that was a Word document wholly put together by a farm adviser and there are just too many places things can go wrong.

“The Federated Farmers contract has everything covered and if you want to put in your own add-ins well that’s okay if you all agree to them and you check them out properly but if you don’t have that scaffolding of the Federated Farmers contract you’re taking a big risk,” Holly says.

The pair say they looked at contract milking as the next step from managing because it didn’t require a whole lot of capital to get in.

There also weren’t a lot of smaller sharemilking jobs around.

“If we could take our cows and lease them into the herd and do something like mating the heifers to build up numbers we thought contract milking could be a way to grow our equity and skip the smaller sharemilking job.

“We thought it could give us a way to leap frog over that smaller job – the jobs that seem to have disappeared,” Aaron says.

“With contract milking you don’t have the risk of trying to find the next job – somewhere you can take your cows.

“If the payout is low when your sharemilking contract ends you have the risk you might have to sell your cows when prices are low and that’s a big risk to your equity,” Holly says.

In the end though the couple were offered a 50-50 sharemilking job for Ken Riddington at Culverden – just a short distance for Holly to go to work.

It was a fantastic opportunity and ticked every box for the young couple.

This season the farm is in the direct path of work to put pipe in the open races of

Aaron and Holly’s decision-making hacks • Make a list of what’s important to you.

• Are there stock gains?

• Have the budget emailed to you ahead of any interview so you can double check it and have your questions ready.

• Make sure all costs are included.

• Check the accommodation.

• Make sure production is realistic and find out what feed has gone in previously to get historic production.

• What feed is budgeted for the production target?

• What’s the policy on supplement – when is it fed, what’s fed and what situations won’t it be fed in?

• What’s the supplement policy with drought, irrigation failure or a sudden big payout drop?

• What’s the policy with calf milk?

• Do you think you can get on easily together?

• Talk to previous contract milkers or managers?

• Talk about everything up front – don’t assume anything. the Amuri Irrigation Scheme so, with some paddocks out, cow numbers were set at 360.

Aaron says they should rise to 420 once the paddocks are back in again for full season and border dyke irrigation is converted to spray.

Aaron and Holly had 300 cows of their own – 94 of them heifers and 100 of them three year olds.

Ken put 100 of his own cows in.

“He wanted the sharemilking contract to be a straight percentage rather than 50-50 for 300 and a management fee for the rest so we lower order sharemilk Ken’s 100 cows and 50-50 ours so that the overall average is a 44-56% split – we get 44% of the milk price and pay 44% of the costs including the cost of supplement and nitrogen with Ken still helping to pay young stock grazing.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

“It was a great opportunity for us and when we compared it with the 850-cow contract milking job we could see that on one hand we could make say $100,000 in cash including our stock gains there but on the other hand with this sharemilking job we could see our equity growth with stock and our chance to grow our business faster,” Aaron says.

Ken’s great reputation in the community and with previous sharemilkers was also a factor and the couple are thrilled they’re on the next rung of their progression ladder.

anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz

@Cantabannelee • For more advice from John Donkers, Due diligence directly diverts disasters, see Young Country section p84 25

SPECIAL REPORT │ HEALTH AND SAFETY

Delaborin farm manager Cristian Zavala, rear, wearing a life jacket, hoses down the effluent saucer while Paul Clement keeps a watchful eye.

It’s about keeping people safe If you’re thinking about health and safety as compliance it’s very easy to make it a box-ticking exercise. But farming company manager Paul Clement says you need to genuinely want to keep people safe. Anne Lee reports.

Making health and safety a priority on a Canterbury farm may have started out with a need to manage it during a re-conversion programme but it’s become part of the culture and deeply embedded in everyday life.

Operations manager Paul Clement was farm manager at Delaborin in 2015. Back then it was part of Synlait Farms before a change of ownership saw the farming company renamed Purata and another change bring it under the Theland Farm Group umbrella.

Theland Purata Farm Group includes the 13 Canterbury farms, while Theland Tahi Farm Group includes the 16 North Island farms. Theland Tahi farms were formerly managed by Landcorp.

The advent of Central Plains Water allowed the 355-hectare Te Pirita property to be fully irrigated and meant a huge development project for the farm that had initially milked 460 cows through a 38-aside herringbone dairy.

That was replaced with a 60-bail rotary with new tracks and laneways put in, new fencing, a new effluent system and the addition of 10 pivot irrigators so that the farm now milks 1200 cows.

“We’d been talking about health and safety in a more formal sense for about 50

a year before then as the whole business really recognised the need to do more in that area.

“There were some pretty horrific national statistics around farm deaths and injuries surfacing then,” Paul says.

He was particularly struck with comments he heard from Michael Falconer who had worked with the forestry sector.

‘I think building a health and safety culture comes down to talking about it. The more you talk about it the more it’s on everyone’s mind.’

“It really hit home for me when he was talking about health and safety and said you don’t want one of your team members dying.”

It was a confronting message and one Paul says immediately took him out of the mind-set that health and safety was about compliance.

“If you’re thinking about it as compliance then it’s very easy to make

it about box ticking. You’re really not engaged with it and it just becomes another job.

“You have to think about it in the context of genuinely wanting to keep people safe.”

That was the attitude Paul took into the development project where he not only had the farm team to look out for but a myriad of contractors who were coming and going.

“We set some KPIs for the project at the outset that included lost-time injuries (LTIs) and serious harm injuries (SHIs). That’s a bit of a different approach to the usual KPIs typically set with a development like that – it’s usually all about being on budget and on time.”

It was the first time a sign-in policy was implemented for anyone coming onfarm.

Hazards could change daily or even within the day and with so many different people coming and going as well as the fact they were still trying to run the farm Paul says they implemented a daily “toolbox” meeting.

It was held at the start of each day and was a time where everyone onfarm downed tools to come to a 10-15-minute meeting.

“It was short and snappy and was

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

to make everyone aware of what the hazards were on the farm that day, who was working where, who was coming onfarm and what everyone was doing.”

Paul says everyone quickly bought into the idea especially when they saw it was genuinely about making sure they all went home safely each day.

“But it also brought with it a whole lot of efficiencies. If someone was going to be cutting down trees for example we’d all know when that was going to be happening and where and we’d work with them so we didn’t have hold ups or they didn’t end up with holdups waiting for us to walk cows past them.”

Paul says it was a learning experience for the farm team and management as well as the contractors.

Contractors had varying levels of health and safety policies and as part of his overall co-ordination and management role Paul talked through those policies with them.

Angie Saywell is Theland Farm Group’s health and safety manager.

She says that under the Health and Safety at Work Act there are overlapping responsibilities between persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) on a shared worksite.

“What Paul did was follow the three C’s – consult, co-operate and co-ordinate.

“Everyone had their own policies in place and hazards were identified and managed but every day through the toolbox meetings they could review that and work out what risks the farm had influence over and what other risks there were that we could expect PCBU’s to manage.

“The way the project was run is still a talking point when it comes to health and safety – the level of communication and sharing of information between everyone working on farm was very high,” Angie says.

The toolbox meeting also gave everyone working onfarm a chance to meet each other in person, helping

Angie Saywell and Paul Clement – health and safety is never a completed exercise, it’s a way of life.

intensify the sense that the discussions were about keeping each other safe.

“I think building a health and safety culture comes down to talking about it.

The more you talk about it the more it’s on everyone’s mind.

“You might have to force yourself to do it at the start and make a conscious decision to do it but then it just becomes natural – it becomes a habit and is part of the culture,” Paul says.

The sign-in-and-out procedures at Delaborin are replicated on the other farms in Theland Farm Group and involve an online system.

Signs tell visitors to sign in at the farm dairy office where a computer tablet is installed on the wall next to the hazard map.

It’s a large metal whiteboard that clearly shows anything they should be aware of. It’s updated daily or as a hazard appears. Hazards that can move around the farm, such as cows, are depicted by coloured magnets.

The online sign-in system has been developed by Christchurch based

company Montage and personalised for Theland.

Theland have called their system PeopleHub and it’s simple to use, requiring the visitor to record their name, company, what they’re on farm to do, their phone number and how long they expect to be onfarm.

The farm manager is notified via txt that the person is onfarm along with the information they’ve put into the system including their contact details.

The visitor also gets a txt and can click on a link that will allow them to sign out on their phone when they leave so they don’t have to come back to the office.

Paul says visitors and contractors coming onfarm for the first time have a health and safety induction making them aware of the hazards and outlining procedures and how they should conduct themselves to stay safe.

Once the visitor is inducted they can sign in online rather than coming to the office but because the manager or Paul receives a txt to tell them the contractor is onfarm they will then phone them to

Health and safety is part of the culture not simply a compliance issue at Theland farm group

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

51

let them know of any new hazards they should be aware of.

For companies that come to the farm regularly such as fertiliser contractors they too have an induction process and have access to all the hazard information for the farms as well as the health and safety policies. Angie says there’s a good level of communication to ensure both the farm and the company are aware of each other’s health and safety policies and individual’s coming onfarm from those companies must be made aware of that information.

Contractors are able to make a note on the hazard map too if what they’re doing in an area could be hazardous to others.

“They can put up commentary with it so everyone can see they need to avoid the area or see what’s going on,” Paul says.

That kind of information is typically given before a contractor’s visit, Paul says.

“If a digger is coming onfarm for instance we’ll have organised that in advance and we’ll have that up on the map already.”

If it happens during the day, the farm team will be notified, he says.

“The technology is there to help us but it doesn’t take away from our responsibility and that of the contractors to make sure processes are followed.

That’s why we back up the technology with a phone call or personal interaction when we see that’s necessary,” Paul says.

For the farm’s own people there’s a robust orientation for new team members.

“They have a full day of orientation before they do any work. They’ll spend time at our office in Darfield and be made familiar with our health and safety approach,” Angie says.

They’ll be issued with their personal protective equipment (PPE) such as high viz vests and be introduced to PeopleHub which is also our online tool for recording near misses and accidents as well as the place team members log their hours.

“It makes it simple for them if everything is in one place but again it also helps us analyse what’s happening across the farms,” Angie says.

Fatigue can be a serious health and safety factor on dairy farms and capturing the data means it quickly becomes apparent if people are working longer hours than they should.

“It means we can address that quickly and work out solutions,” she says.

Reports from PeopleHub go to the board.

“Hours worked is one of the metrics they want visibility on.”

52

Angie Saywell and Paul Clement review emergency procedures kept in a weather tight tube at the assembly point outside the farm dairy on Delaborin

Because it’s web-based any one of the farm team can record a near miss or an injury accident on PeopleHub on their phones, home computer or whatever application they sign in on.

The farm manager, Paul and Angie will be alerted.

“I can then share the incident straight away with others in the business if I think that needs to happen and we can make sure support is given straight away,” Angie says.

“We can carry out further investigation if that’s what’s needed.

‘You might have to force yourself to do it at the start and make a conscious decision to do it but then it just becomes natural – it becomes a habit and is part of the culture.’

Paul Clement

“But we can also use it to analyse incidents and use the information to improve health and safety on the farms.

“It gives us a dashboard so we can identify key hazards, see how many near misses, injuries – serious injuries or minor injuries are occurring or see if there’s a time or day of the week where more near

misses or accidents happen.

“Because we’re not waiting for people to send in the information in paper form we can act more quickly but it also means they’re more likely to record it and the more information we have the better we can be at setting up systems to prevent injury,” Angie says.

That’s where health and safety sits so well within the company’s InSynC programme – a lean management programme for continuous improvement and the elimination of waste in terms of wasted time and other resources.

Each farm has a television screen in its farm dairy office area where the company can display tips and messages.

“If we see that a particular near miss or injury is an issue we can put up tips for injury prevention,” Angie says.

Just like the toolbox meetings the InSynC programme also includes a short daily meeting for the farm team.

“They’re a chance to plan ahead for the day as well as look back at the day that’s been so we can address any challenges or roadblocks,” Paul says.

First item on the agenda is health and safety with everyone in the team encouraged to participate and put forward suggestions.

“They’re the ones doing the work and they’re probably going to come up with better solutions than me.”

Every farm has a health and safety representative on the company’s health and safety committee and the culture of sharing best practice between farms means good solutions are readily

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

disseminated among the wider farm group.

Acting on near-miss reporting and talking about solutions with the team shows the company takes the issues seriously, Angie says.

“And that gets more buy-in from them – if they report incidents and don’t see anything coming out of that they won’t be motivated to act. The follow-up is really key here.”

The ratio of non-injury to injury incidents is an important metric, she says.

The more non-injury incidents that are reported the more chance there is for prevention.

At the moment close to 75% of reported incidents are non-injury.

Paul says in setting up the health and safety policy the company looked at the critical risks onfarm as a priority.

They’re the hazards that can kill you and the team identified cattle, vehicles and machinery, heights and drowning among the top threats.

Safe animal-handling, vehicle training, speed limits and helmets, banning climbing on pivots, sending people on courses for using harnesses and the wearing of a life jacket along with a twoperson policy around the effluent system are some of the actions they’ve used to deal with those.

Every team member has their own development and training plan that’s discussed at every review so there’s no chance anyone goes without the training they need to enable them to act in a safe manner.

“But it’s more than that – they buy into the speed limits and wearing of helmets or policies around wearing a life jacket when they’re hosing out the (effluent) saucer – and that’s the culture thing.

“They do it because it’s just how it’s done not because we make them. It comes from them,” Paul says.

The effluent system is fully fenced off and clear signs, posted on the fences and gates, spell out procedures for those entering the space.

The system includes a sand trap, a solids separator, a saucer and a storage pond.

The pond is fenced off from the rest of the system as well and no one can go into that area unless they are wearing a life jacket and there’s another person present.

The same policy applies to the saucer area.

If a team member is cleaning out the sand trap they must have notified another team member they’re in the area and have five-minute minimum check-ins

Leading the way A national agribusiness leaders group aimed at supporting a healthier and safer farming sector has just appointed a general manager and is working towards a regional road show in October.

Milk New Zealand agribusiness chief executive Justine Kidd is the chair of the Agricultural Leaders’ Health and Safety Action Group (ALHSAG) and says the group has agreed a work programme that aims to bring about a culture and practice change that means safety first every day.

Justine Kidd, chair, “Our aim is to create safer, healthier Agricultural Leaders farms for everyone,” she says.

Health and Safety Last month Canterbury man Tony Action Group.

Watson was appointed general manager of ALHSAG. Watson has worked for Dexcel, before it became DairyNZ, Westland Milk Products and Danone Nutricia as well as working in human resources company PeopleMAD with his wife Sarah.

One of the first steps in the group’s work programme is to create and maintain an agreed data set that defines the health and safety issues, opportunities and actions needed for a safer sector.

That information will help define the problem, bust some of the myths and give an effective benchmarking and measurement system.

Other steps will include sharing ideas and resources from both inside and outside agriculture, helping to show what good looks like and normalising health and safety within farming.

Kidd says the group of agribusiness leaders has recently created an incorporated society and has senior sector representatives engaged as directors.

The appointment of Watson as a general manager would allow the strategy the group had developed to be put into action and work plan rolled out.

via the two-way radios all team members carry.

Signs at appropriate points reiterate the dangers of specific hazards and the behaviours expected around them.

Signs or visual controls that can include words and diagrams or symbols remind everyone but they also help ensure people who have English as a second language clearly have health and safety procedures spelt out.

But health and safety isn’t just about safety – Angie and Paul say health is part of the culture too.

It can be a tricky line to walk in terms of interfering in people’s own choices but the company has an employee assistance scheme available to anyone who may need counselling or personal help.

“We’re all working pretty closely and if someone needed extra help with a personal issue we’d see what we could do to get them extra help,” Paul says.

Drug testing is part of the health and safety programme at Theland Farm Group – pre-employment, just-cause and random drug testing are all included.

“We make our health and safety

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

culture and what goes with it, clear at our recruitment stage so that’s probably why drug-related incidents haven’t been an issue for us – people who don’t want to be drug-tested generally won’t apply,” Angie says.

Angie says they use The Drug Detection Agency (TDDA) and she advises farm employers unsure about how to develop a drugs and alcohol policy to get professional advice.

Late last year Theland gained secondary level ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices (WSMP) accreditation.

Both Paul and Angie say that health and safety onfarm is never a completed exercise.

“You can’t just fill out a booklet and say right here’s my health and safety policy and then put it away in a drawer.

It’s really about living it every day,” Angie says.

“It not what we do it’s how we do it – it’s part of the culture,” Paul says. anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz @Cantabannelee

53

ENVIRONMENT │ ONFARM

Flowering manuka planted last year.

Gary Watkins by the 220-cow feedpad.

A kauri for McKenna Planting native trees and shrubs where once there were pines has become a labour of love for Northland dairy farmer Gary Watkins. Glenys Christian reports.

N

orthland dairy farmer, Gary Watkins, uses Waipoua Forest’s giant kauris as his inspiration when it comes to planting up a gully on his Arapahue runoff.

“I think that’s beautiful and it must have been what this was once like,” he says.

His proof is one large kauri stump he found on the 1.5-hectare area after 50-year-old pine trees there had been cleared.

“It was never burned when the land was originally cleared, fenced and the pines planted,” he says.

“I can imagine where the kauris were and I think, wouldn’t it be great to have it back like it was.”

So now he’s intent on turning back the clock and as well as almost 5000 plants put in last year, he plans to get another 4000 in the ground this year. Six kauri have already proudly taken their places, the first planted on daughter, McKenna’s, first birthday.

“When she’s 80 she can come back and have a look at it,” he says.

Six totara have also gone in with plans to plant kahikatea, totara and puriri next year. But the groundwork for them has been in clearing the pines, which were falling over. This work was carried out by contractors, then he got to work fencing

72

the gully off and spraying with glyphosate.

The next step was to plant 200 willows to stabilise banks and provide shelter for more than 3000 manuka and kanuka along with flax, cabbage trees, pittosporums, coprosmas and some rushes which have gone in around a wetland area fed by a spring running down the hill. The planting has all been carried out

by Dargaville company, Babylon Coast Gardens, with Gary helping out along with his two full-time staff.

He says he never really considered

Gary Watkins with the kauri planted for daughter McKenna’s first birthday.

replanting the land in pines after difficulty getting them harvested.

“They’re ugly and they also make cows abort,” he says.

But he did briefly think of putting the area into manuka before deciding that a mix of natives was the way to go.

He’s been involved in dairying ever since leaving school in Dargaville where he grew up. He sharemilked in the area before moving to the 151ha Ruawai farm his parents Noel and Delia bought more than 20 years ago. Noel, 75, keeps busy as a milking machine fitter for De Laval, working seven days a week.

“I’ve worked in the industry for 24 years and can’t see myself getting out of it now,” Gary says.

A recent dream that he sold his herd was more like a nightmare! Some years ago a trip to Southland to a sharemilkers’ conference led to him taking a oneseventh share in a 349ha dairy farm there.

“I thought it was a wonderful place but I didn’t want to live there,” he says.

Now owners have reduced so he and John and Diane Smith have equal shares in the farm on which 50:50 sharemilkers Tony and Vicki Miles milk 1000 cows.

Gary’s also recently stepped up to be a committee member at the Northland Agricultural Research Farm (NARF) just north of Dargaville.

His cows, herd-tested every year for the past 23 years, are in the top 4% of Breeding Worth (BW) in the national herd and the top 3% in Production Worth (PW).

Since 2007 all his cows have been DNA traced, giving him “real accuracy”.

He culls solely on BW and PW, with around 25% replacements coming into the herd every year. He uses LIC Premier Sires with mating starting on September 29 and finishing on November 10. Then Friesian bulls, chosen because they are better on their feet, go out until January 1.

Calving for the heifers starts on June 26, with cows starting on July 2. Both dates have been brought forward slightly in recent years mainly because of the series of harsh droughts the area has suffered.

Calves are reared initially in a shed

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

Farm facts Location: Ruawai, Northland Area: 151ha Farm owners: Noel and Delia Watkins 50:50 sharemilker: Gary Watkins Production: 2016/17, 191,000kg milksolids Herd: 440 Friesian, Breeding Worth 104/45, Production Worth 120/57, recorded ancestry 100% Dairy: 38-aside herringbone Supplements: 160 tonne of maize silage, 400t palm kernel, some dried distillers grain and molasses Runoff: 96ha, 30km away at Arapahue Southland shareholding: Gary and John and Diane Smith own a 349ha (327ha effective) Southland farm where 50: 50 sharemilkers, Tony and Vicki Miles, milk 1000 cows.

A new feed wagon has recently been bought with a nutritionist now giving advice on the herd’s diet.

divided by removable panels so it can be used for other purposes during the rest of the year. His cows all receive a rotovirus vaccination and their calves can be in sheds for up to two months, feeding from a calfeteria with meal gradually being introduced.

“It can be too wet outside for them otherwise,” Gary says of the low-lying farm protected from the Kaipara Harbour by stopbanks. This means a lot of onoff grazing is required and the 220-cow uncovered feedpad, built 22 years ago at a cost of $23,000, is often in use, with the rest of the herd stood off in the yards.

Between 60 and 80 calves will go to the 96ha runoff at Arapahue further north on higher, rolling country 30km away, for the winter. This year he sold 46 low BW calves at eight to 10 months of age from there.

He also runs 107 yearlings on this land, bought 17 years ago, and grows from 1015ha of maize to be made into silage.

He grows the remainder of the 160 tonnes of this crop used every year on the home farm and also buys in around 400t of palm kernel. Looking at the Fonterra graph of milk components which shows where there could be an issue with too much of the supplement being fed, making it problematic for processing, Gary says he’s happy.

“There are only two little spikes,” he says.

And this year he’s hired nutritionist Trish Lewis to add a wider variety into his herd’s feed sources.

“We’re usually feeding out on the feedpad from May to November and that’s when we move on to grass only. Trish is trying to get the maize to last longer.”

That’s seen dried distillers grain and molasses added in and Gary has bought a new feed wagon to make getting the blend into bins on either side of the pad a simpler task.

Pastures are renewed as the land comes

out of maize with permanent species or a range of different annuals. He keeps kikuyu under control by mowing and mulching every autumn. There are high phosphate levels in the farm’s soils, having been built up over many years from 35 to 90 Olsen P. Around 170 units of nitrogen go on from June through to October.

“After that we don’t worry because it’s too hot and too dry,” he says.

With a pH of 6.1 lime is applied on an occasional basis.

The farm has a 38ha effluent area where a travelling irrigator is used. Six years ago a new seven million litre effluent pond was put in giving 90 days of storage. After leakage problems with liners put in on other farms locally Gary went for the first rubber liner in the area which he says has performed well.

He’d like to plant more trees on the home farm, probably poplars along lanes and fencelines to give his herd more shelter. On the runoff the planting work carried out so far has cost close to $30,000 with Gary receiving a $4500 grant from the Northland Regional Council covering the cost of much of the fencing work. All the seedlings were planted with a fertiliser tablet placed under their roots and all were staked to lessen the risk of wind affecting them.

“It cost more money but it was worth it because I wanted them to get up quickly to protect other plants,” he says.

He did have an anxious time last September when some of the seedlings’ leaves turned brown.

“I thought my trees were dying but they were just going through a check process and greened up again even with the drought,” he says.

He’s used a spray of Crest, applied by helicopter in autumn, to kill kikuyu, which if unchecked would threaten to strangle the seedlings. The bonus is that it doesn’t affect clover growth, but he’s

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

Learning the lessons Gary Watkins says he’s already learned a lot from the native planting project on his runoff even in its early stages.

Shelter and protection for natives needs to be established early. Gary wishes he had put in more willows as the first species to be planted to fulfil this function. Once they outlive their usefulness he will poison them so the bythen well-established natives are able to permanently take over.

Planting holes need to be dug correctly to give seedlings their best chance.

Match plants to planting sites. Karo was planted on exposed areas because it is tough enough to deal with these conditions.

“And we used flax on areas which were more erosion prone,” he says.

He also quickly found that soil type differed within just a few metres in the gully he was planting up, so to cater for this manuka seedlings with very fine roots were planted where soils were also fine.

Plant as many seedlings as you can as early as you can.

“It would have been good if I had got all the plants in in the first year,” he says.

aware he’ll need to keep a range of weeds under control in the future. So far that’s just involved grubbing a few thistles and ripping out some small pine seedlings which have tried to re-establish.

Asked about any pest problems he says there was one early instance where pukeko pulled out around 300 wetland plants as soon as they were planted.

“But I soon sorted them out.”

Already some manuka plants are more than a metre in height with karo also growing very strongly. And Gary says although it’s early days he’s sure kauri will do equally well on the site in the future.

“In the old days there was no respect for kauri,” he says.

“The mindset was different. But it’s good growing them and I’ve enjoyed myself.”

73

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ENVIRONMENT │ IRRIGATION Anybody that has irrigation on-farm is highly unlikely to meet good management practice as determined by the Farm Portal.

There is an expectation that the OTOP zone committee adopts a solutions package based on incomplete science and on the ideals of the catchment groups that exist in the OTOP zone, many of whom still believe that no change to the status quo is needed.

Unrealistic standards Keri Johnstone

What a horribly wet month we have had (and yes, I know its winter), but despite the weather it has been an eventful month.

The Selwyn River began flowing for its entire length for the first time in years, which has seen many jump for joy (no pun intended, Mike Joy), regardless of how short-lived this phenomenon might be. Hopefully, too, all that rain will be recharging our aquifers. So, what else has the month brought us here in Canterbury?

Decisions on Plan Change 5 (PC5) to Canterbury’s Land and Water Regional Plan were released at the end of June, 2017. PC5 was to bring into regulation good management practice, or GMP. Eight parties have appealed this, mostly in relation to the Farm Portal (the online tool that will be used to determine whether you are farming at GMP or not), and how irrigation management and fertiliser is treated by the Farm Portal.

I am not familiar with the issues relating to fertiliser, but the irrigation aspect of the Farm Portal is flawed. The Farm Portal

assumes irrigation is 100% efficient. It’s not. Even the best-designed and welloperated centre pivot irrigator is not 100% efficient. So, what does this mean? Well, it means anybody that has irrigation onfarm is highly unlikely to meet GMP as determined by the Farm Portal.

To meet this unrealistically high standard, farmers would be forced to upgrade irrigation systems, and for many there is a significant cost to this. GMP at its core is about “doing the best with what you have got”, and the failure of the commissioners hearing Plan Change 5 to acknowledge this and take into consideration the requests by industry to change the Farm Portal is a massive failing with unintended consequences for PC5.

Because of the appeals, PC5 is not likely to be operative before the end of 2017.

We are also starting to get to the business end of the Healthy Catchments Project. This is the sub-regional planning process for the area south of the Rangitata River to south of the Pareora River and everywhere in between (known as the OTOP zone). What is known as the “solutions package” is to be determined by this month. The solutions package

comprises recommendations on how to manage the water resources of the OTOP zone and will form the basis of the subregional plan, and another plan change to the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan.

I have been actively involved in this process in the past month, both professionally as well as helping my local catchment group prepare a presentation to the OTOP zone committee on what it would like to see in the solutions package.

On this front, it has been a month of sheer frustration – chocolate might be off the menu, but plenty of wine has been consumed in attempts to ease the stress levels. At this stage of the process, the science is still not right (or not done at all), allocation figures are incorrect, and there is still a huge lack of comprehension generally about this process and the ramifications it could have.

There is an expectation that the OTOP zone committee adopts a solutions package based on incomplete science and on the ideals of the catchment groups that exist in the OTOP zone, many of whom still believe that no change to the status quo is needed, failing to understand that status quo is simply not an acceptable option (whether rightly or wrongly).

So, as August begins, I am hoping for a quieter month, with plenty of sunshine to dry out the place, and even though less wine should probably also be on the cards, that just doesn’t seem right.

• First published in Country-Wide September 2017.

Even the bestdesigned and welloperated centre pivot irrigator is not 100% efficient.

STOCK │ ONFARM

Key facts Sharemilker: Derek and Catherine Hayward Owner: Paddy Lockett Location: Cambridge Milking platform: 135ha effective Lease: 85ha (for beef and young stock) Farm dairy: DeLaval parallel parlour P2100 Double 18-aside, ACR, milk meters, blood and conductivity meters, rapid exit, auto draft, scales, Wetit teat spray, in-dairy feeding Cows: 280 Holstein Friesians, 120 pedigree Jersey and Ayrshire 2017/18 production target: 180,000190,000kg milksolids Split calving: 50% autumn, 50% spring Mating: eight weeks AI Supplement onfarm: 9ha Lucerne, 20ha maize, 10ha oats, 45ha grass silage Supplement bought: 1 tonne/cow/year grain mix and minerals, barley straw

Derek Hayward says Speckle Parks appeal to calf rearers and beef finishers.

Sparkle with Speckle Parks Dairy farmers looking to expand their use of beef semen could find an answer in Speckle Park cattle.

Sheryl Brown visited Waikato sharemilker Derek Hayward to see how he is using the black and white beef breed to add value to his business.

D

erek and Catherine Hayward are in the stock business.

Like most sharemilkers their money is invested in their cows. They milk 400 cows just outside of Cambridge in the Waikato, where they have been for 10 years.

They own 120 pedigree Jersey and Ayrshires and the rest of the herd is made up of Holstein Friesians.

A few years ago the couple came across an opportunity to invest in Speckle Park cattle and saw a chance to add another branch to their investment portfolio.

“Our business at the moment is pure and simple cattle, we’ve got to look to add value where we can,” Derek says.

“I’ve always had an interest in beef and we’ve been watching the breed for a long time and I could see the quality of them.”

They are working to build a quality beef herd for the market, while adding value to their dairy operation via breeding and selling crossbred Speckle Park calves.

Derek used 150 Speckle Park straws across his dairy herd this year, 105 of those will be crossbreds which he will sell as four-day old calves.

The other 45 cows have been put in-calf with pure-bred Speckle Park embryos as Derek and Catherine want to build their beef herd to 100 breeding cows within the next couple of years.

76

They lease two nearby blocks to rear their young stock and graze the beef cattle.

There is increasing demand for the unique speckled black and white beef calves, Derek says. The four-day-old crossbreds are reaching $300-$400 and he has calf-rearing buyers regularly looking for more Speckle Park calves.

They appeal to calf rearers because they have keen survivability traits and are easy to teach to drink.

“They are so seriously easy to feed – they

get up and go. Nobody minds teaching the Speckle Park calves to drink.”

Speckle Park are polled which is an extra bonus and are early maturing with impressive weight gains targeting 18 month markets.

One of their strengths as beef cattle is their ability to adapt and eat whatever food is available to them, Derek says.

“They’re tremendous converters – they live off the smell of an oily rag.”

A white Speckle Park bull will colour mark across any dairy breed, making it easy to identify beef crossbreed calves on the ground.

Derek uses the Speckle Park across his Jersey, Ayrshire and Friesian cows. Even with Kiwicross cows the strong colour marking means it’s always easy to identify the beef calves, he says.

Speckle Parks have keen survivability traits.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

The distinctive speckled coat is easy to spot and a good marker to use across the dairy herd.

“When using the right bull there is no argument it’s a Speckle cross calf.”

In Derek’s experience they have been easy-calving over his dairy cows and he has used Speckle Park across his heifers this year without any difficult calvings.

Working with beef genetics across a dairy herd comes back to doing your research and choosing the right bull, he says.

What makes a good Speckle Park bull depends on what a dairy farmer wants to achieve.

It depends if they want to use a bull for its light birthweight over heifers, or are happier with bigger calves from their cows to dominate at the four-day-old market.

“Every farmer has an end goal – it’s what you want to achieve.”

As with any breed, dairy farmers need to do their research and use the best genetics to get the results they want, Derek says.

“People looking at using Speckle Park should do their research, research the bulls, be clear on what they want to achieve and make sure their breeder or semen company are providing them with the information they need.”

➥ continues p78

OUTSTANDING HEREFORD & SPECKLE PARK YEARLING BULL AUCTION Friday 29 September 2017 - 12:00pm 45 Maungahina Road, off Castle Point Road, Masterton

Speckle Park are a carcase-orientated yet maternal pure-bred (not a composite), breed of beef cattle. They are polled and Britishbred originating from Canada. Speckle Parks are moderate-sized.

Mature cows range in weight from 600kg to 850kg and mature bulls 1000kg. Calves average 30 to 40kg at birth and wean off at about 230kg to 370kg.

Speckle Park have three distinctive colour patterns; white, leopard and speckle, with 12% solid black. Their distinctive colour pattern are readily passed on to their crossbred offspring, thus enabling buyers to know with speckle marked cattle they are getting 50% of all the above mentioned heritable and desirable traits.

Source, Speckle Park International Inc and www.maungahina.co.nz

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

Bunter Anderson 027 444 1169 Monty Monteith 027 807 0522 Hamish Manthel 027 432 0298 Kelly Higgins - Waikato

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COMPRISING OF: • 35 purebred registered Hereford yearling bulls • 12 purebred Speckle Park yearling bulls • 10 Speckle Park/ Hereford yearling bulls Mark & Melissa McKenzie: 06 378 6896 or 027 415 8696 AGENTS:

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Fonterra suppliers only. T&Cs apply. See nzfarmsource.co.nz/livestock

77

Bridges over troubled waters Tim McVeagh

F

onterra’s Clean Streams Accord has added to the demand for farm bridges in recent years.

The advantages of bridges compared to fords include less erosion, better access during floods, quicker and safer crossing, cleaner water and a better habitat for aquatic life. They also add value to the farm.

Watercourse characteristics will largely dictate whether a ford, culvert, or bridge is most appropriate. The proposed traffic may be pedestrian only, or may include livestock or light or heavy vehicles. Each case needs to be considered separately, but there are some generalisations.

Fords are more suitable where water flow is low and where stock and vehicle traffic movements are infrequent. They are discouraged by regional councils as they allow sediment from vehicles and effluent from stock to enter the watercourse. They can also be a significant barrier to fish passage.

Culverts are suitable for smaller spans and where flooding is less likely. The upstream end can act as a dam allowing water to build up, so the embankment must be designed to act like a dam. Tree and rock debris blocking the culvert during a flood can result in loss of the crossing.

Larger culverts with high embankments should include a spillway in the design to allow excess water past the crossing.

Increased water velocities at the inlet and outlet may result in scouring of the bed and stream banks, and so need protection works. Construction requires working in the watercourse, which may be prohibited at certain times of year.

86

Culverts will generally cost less than bridges, but diverting the watercourse to install the culvert must be factored in.

Culverts may be circular or “box” type as used in stock underpasses. A small culvert for farm vehicle crossing can cost between $2500 and $25,000.

Bridges which span the entire stream or river are less likely to interfere with the watercourse. They are more suitable for greater spans and high banks, and where debris such as logs or rock movement is an issue. Fish passage is seldom affected by a bridge, particularly where flow velocities are largely unaltered. They are generally more expensive than culverts.

Getting a bridge built Farmers may hire a reputable bridgebuilding company to manage the whole project. Alternatively, the farmer or a consulting engineer can manage the project, with design work by the engineer.

There are six major steps to farm bridge building.

1. Site inspection: The engineer will collate information such as the watercourse hydrology, likelihood of flooding, aquatic ecology, soil properties, foundation stability, abutment and pier requirements, span and height above flood level, as well as the farmer’s requirements (stock, types of heavy vehicles, road approaches, health and safety). A survey to locate significant features and pick up relative ground, water and stream bed levels will be necessary for the design and construction. A cross-sectional drawing of the watercourse and a preliminary drawing of the bridge should be drawn up. Site, location, legal identity and ownership details are documented. At this stage the

engineer and farmer will consider some basics of the bridge design.

Location: Bridges are best located on straight stretches of the watercourse as these are generally more stable and bank erosion is less likely. The bridge should cross the watercourse at right angles to simplify construction and keep costs down. Local knowledge of past flooding and channel behaviour is a valuable guide to location.

Height: The clearance under the bridge superstructure (main beams or girders) is determined by the flood heights.

Additional clearance (free board) is required to allow floating debris to pass under the bridge.

Unless a local authority specifies the design standard (eg: a 50-year flood capacity), the design will be based on the risk the farmer is prepared to take.

An essential crossing would likely be designed for a 100-year flood as the risk of overtopping or failure must be low.

A temporary structure for the harvest of a forestry block may be appropriately designed for a 10-year standard. The free-board required may vary between regional councils. Some require one-metre clearance between the bridge and the floodwater level. Others specify the bridge must be 0.5m above the surrounding ground level so a flood can wash around the bridge.

Length: The bridge should preferably be longer than the stream’s width so the abutments are clear of the stream and do not restrict flows. In order to reduce cost, bridge abutments can encroach on the waterway. This can occur provided afflux (the increase in upstream depth due to installation of a bridge) is accounted for and increased velocities through the

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

Dairy farmer, vintage machinery buff, and engineer Brian Schnell has erected this Bailey bridge on the Bunnythorpe farm run by him and son-in-law Greg Gemmell. This will give easier access to paddocks for their cows which are milked voluntarily by Lely robots, with the farm split into three farmlets. The bridge was bought dismantled, some years ago by Brian, and now spans a tributary of the Mangaone Stream. Four meter “I” beams were driven down by a post rammer mounted on a front end loader to secure the bridge, with existing abutments being used as well.

Overhead power lines prevented the use of a crane, so a system of supporting wire ropes, rollers and a winch were used to roll out the bridge over the stream. Here Brian and his cousin Donald Schnell are fixing the decking. Kiwi ingenuity at its best. bridge opening are acceptable. Increased scour can result if bridge constrictions are excessive.

Width: Most single-lane vehicle bridges will be 3.5m to 4.5m wide, which allows for heavy traffic such as trucks. Large-herd dairy farmers may prefer a wider bridge so the cows do not meet a bottleneck on their way to the shed.

Wing walls: These should be extended down into the bank to prevent undercutting, and project above expected flood levels.

Single span/multi span: Multi-span bridges affect stream flow, can collect flood debris and result in scouring around piers.

They are also more expensive. Single-span bridges of up to 20m are provided by at least one of the bridge suppliers.

Safety aspects: Edge railings and handrails make for a safer bridge. Kerbs assist with keeping wheels away from the edge of the deck. However, kerbs and railings will collect flood debris if the bridge is overtopped.

Run-off: The water run-off from the bridge will probably be loaded with soil and manure, so should be directed back on to the banks rather than being allowed to enter the watercourse.

2. Regional council consents: Requirements vary between regional councils. For some, the construction and use of farm bridges in some situations are a permitted activity. This means no resource consent is needed.

The main concerns are effects on the environment, neighbours and other river users, while the building consent is concerned with structural details. If a resource consent is needed, the documents produced by the engineer are used in the application. It’s advisable to discuss the proposal with the council to determine their requirements before the expense of a full set of working drawings.

For resource consent, be prepared to provide detailed information on: • Legal description of the land involved, including a site survey.

Photographs are very useful.

• Bridge description: This will include design aspects such as a location diagram, preliminary plans and watercourse cross-sectional diagrams. It will also include installation information such as machinery to be used, water

diversion needed and proposed start and completion dates for the works.

• Environmental description: This can include details on water characteristics, the surrounding area, physical resources, ecosystem information and recreational aspects.

• Consultation: This may include consultation with Fish and Game, the Department of Conservation, local iwi/ hapu, river users and downstream users or residents.

• Possible adverse effects: This includes effects on water flow characteristics and quality, erosion, debris trapping, riparian vegetation, fish passage, sediment release and natural character.

• Mitigation measures: This includes machinery and fuel constraints during construction, removal of construction materials from the watercourse and fish passage considerations.

Regional councils are generally able to offer on-site advice. The result of the resource consent application will be either approval, rejection, or approval with conditions on the structure or its installation. At this stage, the farmer can decide whether to go ahead with the project or abandon it.

3. Working drawings: A full set of engineering drawings are then prepared by the engineer in accordance with New Zealand industry standards. They will show the bridge and features such as abutments, wing walls and river protection details. A producer statement is completed by the engineer outlining the work to be done.

4. Costings: While the major cost will be the bridge and its installation, allowance must also be made for the resource and building consents. Standard designs often allow more accurate costings to be made. Some of the factors which affect the cost are farm location, access to the site, abutments and wing walls needed and erosion protection work required.

Ballpark costs for one pre-cast concrete bridge system are $70,000 to $120,000 for a 12-16m span bridge.

5 District council consents: A consent for site preparation and a consent for the bridge construction (building consent) must be secured from the local district council before construction starts.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

Future-proofing

An Atiamuri farmer called upon the services of Humes Pipelines after a flash flood during cyclone Debbie wiped out several crossings on his dairy farm.

Together with Dave Casey of Humes, the decision was made to install a Humes 10 metre Double T bridge at one of the crossings. This would enable farm machinery and stock to access parts of the farm safely with no risk of future washouts.

GDC Consultants of Hamilton carried out site design work which included geo tech testing for pile specifications and design work for the protection of abutments and piles by a system of Gabion baskets.

The new bridge is 10m long and 4m wide, and meets class 1 loading, which enables the farmer access with heavy machinery. The bridge sections were transported in, then craned into place

by McLeod Cranes of Taupo with their 80-tonne crane. The bridge components fit together like a giant Lego set and made the install a straightforward process for Waikato-based contractor Steve Curin from Curin Contracting.

“Other than the tight deadline there were no complications with installing this bridge, although the weather and mud were against the contractor at times. But despite this the install went extremely well, and we look forward to working with the client again,” Casey said.

6 Construction: For most farmers the actual construction work will be in the hands of experienced contractors. With many bridges, including the popular precast concrete bridges, the components are trucked to the site for the construction work. The job should be completed by fitting weight and speed restriction signs at both ends of the bridge.

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DairySolutions

Another smart SAM

D

rive around most countryside in New Zealand and you can’t miss the distinctive green and yellow of SAM machinery.

Known for their smart design, reliability and ease of use; SAM spreaders, feed

wagons and hydraulic trailers have been sought-after by farmers for years. Another product has now been added to the mix a new SAM Quick hitch.

Providing effortless, simple coupling from the tractor across a range of trailed

implements, this tough SAM Quick hitch removes wasted time.

Once connected to a three-point linkage, operators have a very clear view of the tow-pin from the tractor cab ensuring an easy pickup every time.

Its fully-welded construction is engineered for safety and strength which is consistent with the company’s Built to last ethos. General manager, Dave Meade says “reliability is key”.

The SAM Quick hitch has been designed with a self-supporting stand allowing speedy alignment. No unnecessary manual lifting is required.

Various tow pin sizes and attachments are available and can be changed out easily.

The hitch is suitable for trailed implements up to 15 tonnes.

It comes at a great price too at just $995 plus gst.

Contact your local farm machinery dealership for more details or visit www. sammachinery.co.nz.

Or visit their manufacturing facility in the heart of the Waikato where they have enjoyed more than 70 years in business.

More: www.sammachinery.co.nz

Step up to a great idea For years many farmers used all sort of contraptions to assist them with working on the same height as the cows for tail-painting, mating and pregnancy testing.

For years many have put themselves, contractors and staff in danger of getting hurt on unstable, slippery or unbalanced structures.

TechniPharm brought a Dairy Caddy to the market 10 years ago and fortunately many farmers have now changed to the Dairy-Caddy mobile platform, or Dairy-trolley as some call them. TechniPharm won three awards for the Dairy caddy.

The Dairy-Caddy comes in four models: Standard, Large, Xtra Large , Extendable and Slimline.

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Making getting on and off much easier.

Each unit provides for a specific situation.

The Standard and Slimline are often used in older dairies with narrow pits, the Large one for newer dairies and the Extendable is great for farmers, vets and AI professionals who work in various sheds and with various people of different height.

This year TechniPharm has added a new feature to the Standard and Large Dairy caddy in the form of a Step Up Ezy. This retrofit step up can be obtained with a new unit or be added to an existing Dairy Caddy and allows the getting on and off to become much easier.

TechniPharm’s mission is to make farming “ezy”, and this new invention does just that.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

The case for metrichecking Intensive checking meant more dirty cows were identified and treated well before mating started.

A recent New Zealand study on metrichecking sheds light on the benefits of more intensive treatment of dirty cows after calving.

Dr Mick Clews of Vetora, Reporoa presented the findings of his study at the 2016 World Buiatrics Congress in Dublin.

The investigation included more than 15,000 dairy cows making it one of the biggest NZ dairy studies ever undertaken.

In the study cows were metrichecked three times at 21-day intervals and all dirty cows calved for more than seven days were metricured. This intensive checking meant more dirty cows were identified and treated well before mating started. These treatments had a big effect on conception.

Any doubt that given time post-calving all dirty cows will self-cure have been removed. Once cows are more than 21 days post-calving, the accuracy of metrichecking for detecting dirty cows decreases dramatically.

Is there an economic benefit for the additional checks and treatments? Yes, there is.

Overall results of the study showed a 2.4% increase in the six week in-calf

rate and a 2% reduction in empty rate compared to checking cows once before the planned start of mating. If you currently don’t metricheck or treat dirty cows the benefits would be even higher.

There is an extra cost to this approach – with more treatments, farm visits and metrichecking – but the returns are 3.5:1 on a milk payout of $5.5. Compared to metrichecking once, the additional cost including treatments will be around $7.50 per cow in your herd with a return of $26$33 (at $5.50/kg milksolids).

More: Talk to your vet about regular metrichecking.

Courtesy of Totally Vets August Vet Notes 2017.

Innovative dispenser for run-offs and dry stock Farmers with run-offs or dry stock now have an efficient and easy option for treating mineral deficiencies in their animals, with PETA Dispensers’ latest innovation.

PETA Dispensers have been used to successfully treat bloat, facial eczema and mineral deficiencies in livestock through their drinking trough water since 1974, after being developed at Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre.

The innovation has continued with the latest release of the 48-Hour Multi-Purpose Dispenser. Earlier models of dispensers were available as 12-hour or 24-hour units, which has mostly been used for milking cows because farmers see their livestock every day.

The 48-hour dispenser is made possible by the patented 48 Hour Bead Jet technology and is designed for use on run-offs or with dry stock where farmers do not see their animals every day. The dispenser minimises labour and is highly convenient. A farmer simply calculates the dose

for the number of animals in the paddock, drops the dispenser into the trough and over a 48-hour period the minerals or supplements are dispersed. This ensures animals are dosed on a per-animal-per-day-basis, which is important for optimal health in livestock.

“The 48 Hour Bead Jet took a lot of development, but has huge benefits for farmers with runoffs and drystock,” Peter Phillips of PETA Dispensers says. The 48-Hour Bead Jet technology comes in two models – the 48-Hour Multi-Purpose Dispenser and the 48-Hour Zinc Dispenser. It is available in New Zealand from rural supplies stores and veterinarians, and is also exported.

More: www.peta.co.nz

The PETA 48hour dispenser can be dropped into a trough to provide supplements for 48 hours.

SUPPLEMENTARY FEED Maxammon Maize and Maxammon Maize blends • Palm Kernel & blends

FARM NUTRITION SOLUTIONS

Barley, Wheat, Maize & Soybean Meal (forward contracts available).

Custom made Dairy Mineral Pellets To join our Palm Kernel Pricing Text Service.

Please text your name and area to 027 214 9761 Palm Kernel Pricing Text Service

0800 SEAWEED

Intergrain NZ LTD Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | September 2017

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