dairy news 8 july 2014

NEW FEDS DAIRY CHAIRHoggard in unopposed PAGE 4

Tatua switches from Fonterra to OCD. PAGE 3

JULY 8, 2014 ISSUE 316 // www.dairynews.co.nz

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NEWS // 3

NEWS ��3-23

OPINION �� 24-25

AGRIBUSINESS ��26-29

MANAGEMENT �� 32-39

ANIMAL HEALTH �� 40-45

CALVING ��47-52

MACHINERY & PRODUCTS ��53-58

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INDEPENDENT WAIKATO processor Tatua Dairy is to buy its extra milk from Open Country Dairy, ending its long-standing relationship with Fonterra.

Tatua chief executive Paul McGilvary told Fed-erated Farmers Dairy section conference last week the deal with Open Country means they can buy OCD milk on a much ‘flatter profile’ as opposed to Fonterra’s more ‘seasonal profile’; price is also a factor.

“Fonterra’s price for milk is relatively high as opposed to Open Country’s, particularly if we buy closer to the peak of the season,” he says.

“The decision was mostly economic and cer-tainly wasn’t any kind of relationship issue. At a commercial level we have a very good relationship with Fonterra and in fact we probably find we have more things in common than in opposition. But

Tatua switches to OCD for milkPETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz

various changes going on and to try to make it easy for them to understand the changes. We are also trying to show the way by what we are doing in the factory.

“My firm belief is that Tatua will have a net water take of zero and I think we can return to groundwater that is cleaner than when we took it. If we can show the way, farmers will get the confi-dence to do more in their own operations.”

Paul McGilvary says Tatua gets cheaper milk from Open Country

Tatua says it wants to know where its products are going

just on the milk one we feel we can do a better deal elsewhere.”

Tatua is celebrating 100 years as a cooperative and McGilvary cites several reasons why it’s been so successful. These include visionary leadership and a strong focus on customers whom they treat like family, bending over backwards to meet their needs. One advantage of being small is they can be agile and do things at speed which larger organisa-tions might struggle with.

“For example, if we want to talk to all our farm-ers we can literally send them emails and contact them and probably have a meeting later the same day if we need to.”

He says explaining things in a simple way is important given the increasingly complex nature of farming and the rules it has to comply with. This particularly applies to environmental matters.

“There is enormous power in reducing that to simple things people can understand because then you are more likely to get action. We are working with our farmers all the time to interpret all the

TATUA IS to open an office in China as part of its goal to build relations with this key customer. Chief executive Paul McGilvary says they want to be able to know where their products are going and be able to control their supply chain.

“We can no longer sell only to agents and then let them do what they will with the product. We need to know what’s happening right though to the customer and we also need to technically support the product so the customer can get the maximum value out of it. The China office is designed to do exactly that.”

Meanwhile Tatua is making the biggest invest-ment in its 100 year history by installing a $65 million drier.

It will be used to dry reconstituted products and produce a new range of high value exports.

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FARMERS MUST lift their game on environmental and labour issues over the next three years.

That’s the message from the newly-elected chairman of Federated Farmers Dairy, Andrew Hoggard.

Hoggard, who replaced Willy Leferink, is hopeful that new technology in both areas may provide some answers. Hoggard was elected unop-posed at the Feds annual con-ference last week.

According to Hoggard, while some excellent progress has been made on the effluent management front, not all regions around the country are up to the compliance standards. But he says when he looks back at what has happened in his own region – Manawatu/Wanganaui over the past eight years farmers have made a phenomenal investment in envi-ronmental management. He says a lot of knowledge has been gained and it’s important that the rest of the country comes up to that standard.

He says in regards to labour issues,

conditions onfarm have changed mark-edly in recent years and compliance issues are something farmers have to deal with. He says the rules have always been there but haven’t been enforced to the degree that they are now.

“When I started off it was just me sharemilking 150 cows. Did I need to know about a health and safety plan? No, back then it was just me. I knew

what was dangerous, I grew up on that farm. I knew what was dangerous, I knew what was safe and I knew what to do. Did I keep a record of my hours? No it was just me. I worked till I got the job done. Now I employ people and I can’t put that same expectation on them,” he says.

Hoggard says he has to have proce-dures and other things in place because that is the changing face of dairy work with more staff involved.

“We do need to lift our game and have better procedures in place and it is a challenge because a lot of our labour

regulations are based around large fac-tory settings and not small business like ours. It’s a lot easier for large fac-tories to comply with all these rules as opposed to small business because they have got a whole lot of other stuff they are dealing with,” he says.

Hoggard, who farms in the Manawatu and uses technology exten-sively on it, says he hopes he’s look-

ing for technology for answers and to make the job of compliance easier. He says some of the recording is

still paper based and he is hoping for change.

“One thing that IT could provide relates to simple record keeping. I’d love my staff to be able to hit a stop/go button on their cellphone when they start and stop work which automatically goes into my farm accounting software.

“When I come to do the pay slip at the end of the week I can see what hours they have worked and it’s all sorted. That would be just one way of how it could be made much simpler and easier,” he says.

Hoggard says it’s important that the

farming industry, including dairying, has a good reputation as employers so that they can attract good young people to take up farming.

He says the dairy sector with its sharemilking system and other career pathways offers good opportunities for young people.

Hoggard is a strong believer in the cooperative movement for the dairy sector and says it’s an excellent system.

But he has concerns at the growing number of private processing compa-nies that are appearing on the scene – especially if they are foreign owned.

“It is one thing that does scare me. If we have foreign owned land, produc-ing milk for a foreign owned processor, where are the returns to New Zealand?

“That’s not front and centre of the big issues at the moment, but it is in the background,” he says.

4 // NEWS

‘Focus on labour, environment’PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz

“We do need to lift our game and have better procedures in place.”

New Federated Farmers Dairy chairman Andrew Hoggard.

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INDEPENDENT PROCESSOR Tatua remains hopeful of global dairy prices bouncing back.

Tatua chief executive Paul McGil-vary says the balance between demand and supply of dairy prod-ucts is at play.

Since February, global dairy prices have dropped by 30% which McGil-vary says is a “steep decline”.

“It’s how that balances out with the demand from China which has been a bit down,” he told Dairy News.

“China had a very difficult time last year with the supply of their inter-nal market.

“This year I will expect they will have slightly less problems and there-fore their own supply will be a bit better.”

McGilvary says he believes the high payouts of last season will return at some stage given the volatility of the market.

“You’ve got a market dynamic in having a great range of countries within the Asia Pacific region who are getting wealthier and the first thing they do is upgrade their food consumption, particularly for their children.

“That growth in wealth within these countries is going to drive demand for our products and I can definitely see it pushing payouts fur-ther up.”

Last week’s GlobalDairyTrade auc-

tion saw the GDT price index drop 4.2% to US$3756 a tonne, the eighth consecutive drop and the lowest since February 2013.

Rennet casein slumped 10.2% to US$10,672 a tonne, and whole milk powder sank 8.5% to US$3594 a tonne. Anhydrous milk fat slid 5% t to US$4058, while butter milk powder fell 1.9% to US$3628 a tonne.

Butter was unchanged at US$3634 a tonne.

Cheddar climbed 8% to US$4236 a tonne, while skim milk powder rose 2.1% to US$3863 a tonne.

Milk protein concentrate and lac-tose weren’t offered at the event.

There were 144 winning bidders out of 195 participating bidders at the auction over 13 rounds. The number of qualified bidders was 738, up from 734 two weeks ago.

Last month Rabobank warned that producers may have to wait until 2015 for a revival in prices, with milk output much improved in major exporting nations, but Chinese buyers having stepped back, after early-year stockpiling.

“China bought more than we anticipated in the first five months of the year. It now appears they also bought far more than they needed,” the bank says.

NEWS // 5

Synlait’s FEP first past ECan’s post

Prices should bounce back – Tatua

Mixed bag: Skim milk powder prices rose while whole milk powder prices slumped in the last GDT auction.

DUNSANDEL PROCESSOR Syn-lait Milk has gained an industry-first from Environment Canterbury (ECan) which promises to save its suppliers seri-ous duplication of paperwork.

ECan last week said the farm envi-ronment plan (FEP) template in Syn-lait’s farm sustainability certification programme Lead With Pride is the first that meets the requirements of its Land and Water Regional Plan.

Synlait Milk managing director John Penno said ECan’s approval of the tem-plate means Synlait suppliers working within the Lead With Pride programme “are now able to cover off their respon-sibilities under the proposed Land and Water Regional Plan as well as meet our standards for best practice leadership in food safety and sustainability in a one-stop-shop system.

“It comes at no charge to them and they receive a financial reward [from Syn-lait Milk] once they become certified,” he added.

When Lead With Pride was launched last year premiums of up to 12c/kgMS were indicated (Dairy News, April 30, 2013).

While Canterbury’s Land and Water Regional Plan is still subject to appeals on points of law to the High Court, whatever the outcome of those it seems likely FEPs will remain a key element in gaining con-sents to farm with nutrient losses above certain thresholds. Those thresholds are being thrashed out catchment zone by catchment zone across the region, but the

default level ECan has set is 20kgN/ha/year as calculated by Overseer for nearly all the intensively farmed areas.

Announcing the Synlait FEP approval, ECan chief executive Bill Bayfield said the template meets all requirements of the Land and Water Regional Plan.

“It is… reassuring to see in this tem-plate a methodology that will enable development of plans identifying actual and potential environmental effects and risks to properties, that addresses those effects and risks, and has a high likelihood of appropriately avoiding, remedying or mitigating them.

“We hope the farm environment plans that come from this template are valuable both for farmers and for Synlait.”

Bayfield says irrespective of the rules, ECan is encouraging all farmers to pre-pare FEPs.

Where they form part of a consent application ECan has previously indi-cated that the consent will be for land use according to the FEP submitted.

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ARABLE FARMERS are being encouraged to consider dairy effluent as an alternative source of plant nutri-ents, notably nitrogen.

But they’ve been warned nutrient content is variable and it may be necessary to top up with fertiliser nitrogen to maintain maize yields.

“Effluent is not fertiliser so plan for that and manage it accordingly,” Plant and Food Research’s Dirk Wallace told the Foundation for Arable Research con-ference in Palmerston North last week.

That means testing for nutrient con-tent just before application, “not five days before at the pond you’re going to get it from,” stressed Wallace.

The disturbance of ponds or heaps and possible interim storage can cause changes in nutrient content with shifts in the organic-to-inorganic (ie imme-

diately available) nitrogen ratio, and total amount of nutrient due to losses as ammonia to the atmosphere through volatalisation.

For crops a high nitrogen effluent is preferable as it will reduce diesel use in application and compaction risk as fewer passes are required to apply the same amount of nutrient.

“As drymatter increases so does the total nitrogen concentration,” Wallace pointed out.

The problem from the grower’s per-spective is when that nitrogen will be available to the crop, as organic nitro-gen will be held in the soil until it breaks down.

“The form you want to grow crops is inorganic nitrogen; that’s immediately available,” he says.

Wallace and others are doing greenhouse studies of if and when the organic fraction of nitrogen in effluents becomes available. So far it looks like there’s about a one-month lag.

“At four weeks we found we were still losing nitrogen. Then minerali-sation kicks in and we start talking

about that organic nitro-gen becoming avail-able.”

A problem with the immediately available nitrogen in effluent – the inorganic part – is retain-

ing as much as possible for the crop and minimising losses to atmosphere.

Field trials with maize grown after effluent applications found anything more than a nine-day delay between application and sowing cut yield.

“So put it on and get it in and it will help you to grow the crop.”

Incorporation into soil, ideally by injection, also reduces losses to the atmosphere. However, liquid effluents

tend to have lower nitrogen content so high-rate applications can saturate soils causing problems with subsequent field work and sowing.

“Discing wet soil is rubbish for soil structural qualities,” noted Wallace.

Across six field trials it was found 20-50% of the nitrogen applied in efflu-ent was recovered by maize crops, with yield off effluent averaging 14.0t/ha compared to 13.3t/ha off conventional fertilisers.

However, the recovery rate of nitro-gen could pose a problem in some regions if councils cap total nitrogen

applied to, say, 200kgN/ha/year, because in practice only 40-100kg of the efflu-ent N is available in that growing season, Wallace warned.

Use of dairy effluent in cropping systems could be an environmental win-win, reducing leaching losses from dairying while cutting synthetic fertil-iser use in arable systems.

“60% of [greenhouse gas] emissions from the arable industry are related to synthetic fertilisers,” noted Wallace. That high figure is largely due to high energy use in the manufacture of urea or ammonium nitrate.

6 // NEWS

Crop farmers coulddo with cow pooANDREW SWALLOWandrews@ruralnews�co�nz

“Effluent is not fertiliser, so plan for that and manage accordingly”

– Dirk Wallace

Arable farmers are being encouraged to use dairy effluent, but top it up with fertiliser.

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FORMER FEDS Dairy chairman Willy Leferink says it’s back to farm-ing with just a little involvement in farmer industry matters.

The Canterbury dairy farmer has stepped down after the standard three years in the role. He rates his role in the Sustainable Dairy Water Accord and the Dairy Regulation Act as two major successes. He also says he helped develop relationships with dairy companies, DairyNZ and a range of other stakeholders and helped bring TAF (trading among farmers) to a ‘reasonable conclusion’.

“I’m all about bringing people together. I learned very early on in life as a manager of a freezing works that if you couldn’t take your people along with you it made it hard for you,” he says.

In terms of unfinished business, nutrient management is at the top of the list he says.

“We are only a quarter of the way there, if that. There is a helluva lot of

energy that has to go into that process and it needs to go much better and it needs to go in a way that it doesn’t become a huge cost to the farming community. We have to be very care-ful that through regulation we don’t kill the goose that lays the golden egg,” he says.

Another ongoing issue, says Lefer-ink, is dealing with Fish & Game. He says they talk regularly with them. He

says they have smart systems that enable them to win over boards of inquiry. “So we can learn from them. They had some good points when they highlighted the issue of cows standing in the creek. We had to react to it and justify it. So we solved that issue.”

Leferink says Federated Farmers and the dairy industry as a whole need to be more proactive than in the past – especially nutrient management.

NEWS // 7

COMMISSIONING OF Oceania Dairy’s new $214 million dairy plant has started at Glenavy, South Canterbury.

Chief executive Aidan Johnstone says dry commissioning work is under-way on the chilled water system, the waste water treatment system and the bore water systems, and the boiler has been fired up to deliver steam.

“Construction will be completed in time for the arrival of our first milk sup-plies,” says Johnstone.

“We will then run a further six weeks of commissioning and performance testing before the final handover of the

factory from construction to produc-tion by the middle of September.”

Staff have also moved into the office building at the new processing plant; 63 staff are now located on site in advance of completion of the new factory.

“Our staff are pleased to be able to co-locate on the Glenavy site after almost 14 months of running dual operations on site and in Timaru,” says Johnstone. Staff numbers are expected to exceed 70 by the time the factory starts receiving milk in late July; it is still recruiting for positions in the lab-oratory, warehouse and office.

Canterbury plant raising steam

Oceania Dairy’s Glenavy plant.Back to farming for Leferink

Willy Leferink with DairyNZ chairman John Luxton at the Feds annual conference.

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8 // SOUTH ISLAND DAIRY EVENT

MANY SPEAKERS latched onto SIDE’s Riding the Wave theme, including opening speaker Hayley Moynihan, who said a “king tide of supply” had hit the dairy market “shore” resulting in the recent price crash.

But Rabobank “sees the supply side easing in the second half of 2014” and while a lot of milk is yet to be absorbed by global mar-kets, towards Christmas or in early 2015 it’s expected prices should rally towards US$4000/t, she said.

Possible “upsides”

ANDREW SWALLOWandrews@ruralnews�co�nz

SPIERINGS’ STRATEGY to leverage off Fonterra’s New Zealand origins with globally sourced product was questioned by SIDE delegate and Green Party primary production spokesperson Steffan Browning.

“What’s your strategy to ensure ‘brand New Zealand’ is not diluted?” he asked.

Speirings answered that Fonterra’s strategy would “make ‘brand New Zealand’ stronger rather than weaker” and the New Zealand brand needs to mean “more than just 100% pure”.

Browning later told Dairy News his

concerns weren’t allayed by Speir-ings’ answer and that as the pool of globally traded milk increased, and New Zealand’s share decreased, it would be increasingly important that New Zealand product is just that, and shown to be the best.

Any failure in the brand in dairy, perhaps due to overseas sourced product marketed by a New Zealand company, risked damaging the brand for all sectors, not just dairy.

“We need to protect the New Zea-land brand whatever the sector, for the benefit of all sectors.”

which might prompt movement sooner, or higher, are if the fore-cast El Nino intensifies, or China’s inventory turns out not to be as large as thought, or its domestic production doesn’t stabi-lise as expected.

On the “downsides” Moynihan pointed to a possibly slower global retail recovery, more per-sistent supply growth in post milk-quota Europe, and geopolitical insta-bility in areas such as the Ukraine and Russia which could force European product into other mar-kets.

But later in the confer-ence Fonterra chief exec-

utive Theo Speirings said Russia falling out with Europe, which currently supplies 85% of its dairy imports, could be a posi-tive for New Zealand. “If that stops, where are they going to get it from?”

In five years the Rus-sian market could even be bigger than China, he sug-gested.

Speirings spelt out Fon-terra’s strategy to shift its product mix up the value chain, reducing traditional cheese manufacture and casein production, while accelerating investment in cream cheese, mozzarella, UHT, nutritional prod-ucts and special milk pow-ders. Whole and skim milk

powder, butter and anhy-drous milk fat production will be grown in line with market growth.

The aim is to raise the average value of sales from 90c/L at present – 30% behind the global export average of $1.2/L – to $1.15/L.

But for all the focus on adding value, Speir-ings stressed Fonterra is “still the envy of the dairy world” and uniquely com-petitive on commodity products. “We can make a lot of money out of com-modity products and build something else on top of it. Nobody else can do that. They are all underwater on commodity products.”

He also promised an aggressive strategy on milk supply, going after “every litre of milk” with the overall aim to build Fonterra’s position as the largest global exporter of milk products. “Currently we reach 1.2-1.3 billion consumers. We can step that up to 2 billion people based on six milk pools, but we really have to make a difference in their lives.”

The current portfolio of at least 60 brands will be slashed to five: Anchor, Anlene, Anmum, Main-land and Fernleaf. Ques-tioned why Fonterra’s logo doesn’t appear on retail packaging, he said it might once the “dots” of

the strategy are joined, but at present there’s no equity in Fonterra as a brand. “If a company logo appears on the front of a pack, and it does not have equity, it’s a risk,” he explained.

In New Zealand alone at least $800m is being invested in facilities to add value to the product mix and avoid the 60-day peak supply problem faced last year when Fonter-ra’s “back was to the wall.” “We want 10% flexibility over that peak.”

That $800m invest-ment “does not include Lichfield,” Speirings said,

alluding to a proposal to build a powder plant at the Waikato cheese site. Nor does it include “a possi-ble next step in the South Island” where supply is still growing very fast and will hit capacity con-straints pretty quickly, he added.

Fonterra later con-firmed to Dairy News the Lichfield proposal has yet to be signed off by the board but resource con-sents have been applied for.

Delegates at SIDE 2014.

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King tide of supply floods markets causes prices to dip


DAIRYNZ CHIEF executive Tim Mackle was another to latch onto the Ride the Wave theme, admitting during his conference opening comments to having “dabbled” in surfing in his youth.

Just as a surfer has to pick the right wave – one that’s steep enough to get him going but not so steep it will dump him on his face – Mackle said the farming paral-lel might be picking business partners or the right loca-tion and farm.

Similarly, surfers have to be fit enough to catch the wave, and be in the right spot to do so, watching out for “snakes” who “drop in” on what was to be their wave.

“Everybody wants to ride your wave at the moment. I don’t think riding a wave is much fun with a whole lot of other people on it,” he commented.

Having the necessary skills was another parallel. “If you’re not skilled you’re not going to be able to stand up on that wave,” he warned, repeating the estimated annual need for 1000 graduates at diploma level or above coming onto farms.

“And you’ve got to watch out for the things that are going to knock you off your board,” he warned, listing environmental issues and public perceptions as parallels.

SOUTH ISLAND DAIRY EVENT // 9

Out with ideology, dogma“GET RID of the ideology, get rid of the dogma and get involved in the debate,” dairy farmer John Sunckell told SIDE delegates during his Selwyn Story workshop�

Sunckell has been one of several farmers on the Selwyn-Waihora zone implementation committee that recently reached consensus with other community members over a plan to manage the catchment’s nutrient limits�

“Science is not necessarily a friend,” he warned, adding “Mike Joy is in the right space” on the environmental issues, but cultural, social and economic values have to be brought to the table too�

“You have to give back all the things that don’t really matter to gain all the really important stuff back from the others�”

Worried as all get-out“DAIRYING IS becoming an overwhelming part of Landcorp’s business,” said chief executive Steve Carden�

“That’s exciting because it’s going quite well but also quite alarming� We could do really, really badly if the payout was less than $6/kgMS and that worries the heck out of me because it’s not that long ago it was less than $6/kgMS�”

Carden reflected on his first 10 months at the helm and sought to dispel some myths about Landcorp�

“I sure as heck did not uproot my family from Melbourne to go to work for a government depart-ment,” he said, reflecting on Landcorp’s state-owned enterprise status�

In 27 years it has returned half a billion dollars to governments in dividends and received no funding in return� Only once has it failed to make an annual profit�

Cellphones and backpacks“PLEASE DO not turn off your cellphones,” event committee chairman Paul Marshall asked dele-gates as the three day event began�

“Put them on silent, but keep them on,” he urged, explaining that workshop feedback forms could be filled in online using a dedicated confer-ence app instead of the usual fill-in and tear-out forms�

The app included a full schedule of proceed-ings and allowed organisers to send real-time updates�

Another departure from the conference norm was a switch to backpacks instead of satchels�

Staying on the wave demands making right choices – Mackle

DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle (right) chats with Stephen Browning, Greens.

SIDE snippets...

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10 // NEWS

THE GOVERNMENT has announced new national standards for freshwater that they say will make a significant improvement to the way freshwater is managed.

Environment Min-ister Amy Adams and Primary Industries Min-ister Nathan Guy say the changes announced are a critical milestone in the Government’s drive to improve water quality.

The National Fresh-water Objectives (NFO) set national standards or ‘bottom lines’ in terms of fresh water quality stan-dards and water alloca-tion. All councils must give effect to these in their regional plans and meet these minimum standards, but they also have the option of setting higher standards if there is local support for this. The NFO are part of the Resource Management Act.

New limits on water

FONTERRA SAYS the Government’s announced changes to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management lay the groundwork for consistent and robust decisions about the manage-ment of New Zealand’s freshwater.

Fonterra acting group director cooperative affairs, Sarah Paterson, says last week’s announcement is an important step towards a nationally consistent approach to managing freshwater.

At the same time it gives communities the tools they need to make decisions about their waterways, she says.

Paterson says regions across the country have been grappling with the challenge of setting workable environmental limits. Setting national standards for freshwater will provide greater clarity on the science that needs to underpin environmental limits.

Policy signals consistency - Fonterra“Fonterra and our farmers have been taking part in a collabor-

ative community approach to develop environmental limits. We want these discussions to be based on sound science and eco-nomic analysis, and we believe these national standards will help

achieve this. “We are committed to lifting environmental

performance and improving water quality in New Zealand. Fonterra’s farmers have mapped every waterway and fenced 23,500km of waterways. Nutri-ent data has been collected from nearly 4000 farms to provide information on mitigating the impact of nutrients,” say Paterson.

“We recognise the huge amount of work that has so far gone into preparing these national standards, and we welcome the continuing efforts being made to complete the task.”

Environment Minis-ter Amy Adams says this means, for the first time, rivers and lakes will have

minimum requirements that must be achieved so the water quality is suit-able for ecosystem and human health.

“Ensuring an on-going and reliable supply of healthy water is one of the most important envi-ronmental and economic issues facing New Zealand today. It is critical that we protect and improve the water quality that we all care so much about,” she says.

Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy says the changes balance eco-nomic growth with envi-ronmental sustainability.

“It’s not an either-or situation – we need both. Primary industries con-tribute more than 76% of

our merchandise exports and largely depend on freshwater, while tourism also relies on the beauty of New Zealand’s water bodies.

We all want sustain-able and profitable pri-mary industries. That will mean changes to some of

“We all want sustainable and profitable primary industries.”

our farming practices, but I know farmers are up for the challenge,” he says.

More than 60 freshwa-ter scientists from public, private and academic sec-tors across New Zea-land have come up with numeric values proposed for the national standards. Nathan Guy

Sarah Paterson

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NEWS // 11

Aussies target Middle East trade

ASIA TENDS to be the focus for Australian export market development, and rightly so.

In total, 70-75% of Aus-tralia’s dairy exports by volume go to Asian des-tinations, and strong demand growth continues in markets such as China and Southeast Asia.

Many readers would be less conscious of the Middle East as a destina-tion for Australian dairy, however, it is a region worthy of attention.

Dairy Australia recently ran three seminars target-ing the top Middle Eastern destinations for Austra-lian dairy: the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. These sem-inars told the Austra-lian dairy story to current and potential customers and enabled us to better understand the markets themselves.

Exports to the region grew 58% to almost 1.6 million tonnes in the five years to 2012, before easing 7% last year amidst soaring prices and unprec-edented dairy demand, from China in particu-lar. Of this, 70,000 tonnes came from Australia (9% of our export volume), making the Middle East our second-largest regional market, worth nearly A$300 million in 2013.

As shown in the chart, we are a relatively small exporter by market share. The largest share is held by the European Union; New Zealand is a signifi-cant supplier; and dairy products produced (or further processed for re-export) within the Middle East have also grown in recent years.

Each of the three Middle East countries vis-ited has its unique attri-butes, and common themes. The most imme-diately striking to an Aus-tralian observer is the sheer volume of product on display at retail.

The large hypermar-kets in major cities devote several times more shelf space to dairy than retail-ers in Australia. Popular products commonly had 25-30 packs facing the con-sumer, stocked several units deep.

Pack sizes also tend to be much larger --2kg yogurt tubs were a common sight – reflect-ing larger households with more children and several domestic staff.

With a relatively afflu-ent population and a deep history of dairy consump-tion, an enormous variety of local and international brands are available.

Bega, Bulla and Lemnos products comprised Aus-tralia’s branded presence in many outlets, in addi-tion to Australian-made Kraft and Pauls lines.

Perhaps unexpectedly, given their overall market share, most imported retail brands and fresh deli products were European, reflecting deep historical ties, geographic proximity and clever marketing.

Compared with many Asian markets, products imported from outside the region don’t appear to carry the same pre-mium over local brands: the quality and safety of local products tends to be regarded highly.

Middle Eastern ingredi-ent customers tend to be price sensitive: despite the relative wealth of the pop-ulation, price controls for staple products in many of these markets restrict returns for manufacturers, leading to aggressive cost management.

In the short term this can manifest itself in chopping and changing suppliers based on price (even at the risk of com-promising quality), with some manufacturers maintaining sets of reci-pes to allow rapid product reformulation with ingre-dients of different specifi-cations.

In the longer term, costs are sometimes reduced by removing dairy from products altogether – replacing it with a cock-tail of vegetable-based alternatives to mimic the characteristics of butter or milk powders. This pres-ents a difficulty for Austra-lia in doing large-volume business with Middle Eastern customers, since Australian suppliers tend to compete on attributes other than price.

While the quality and safety of Australian prod-ucts is highly regarded, in these markets cheaper suppliers with accept-

JOHN DROPPERTable standards are often selected.

Higher-value opportu-nities that better suit the positioning of the Austra-lian industry are emerg-ing in the provision of functional products with added health or cosmetic benefits. The Middle East is unlikely to ever surpass

Asia as a volume destina-tion for Australian dairy exports, and Australia is equally unlikely to estab-lish a dominant presence as a mass market supplier.

Apart from the benefits of diversifying our market exposure however, the opportunities associated with higher value, lower

volume products such as those with functional attributes are worthy of attention as our industry looks to position itself fur-ther up the value chain.• John Droppert is a Dairy Australia industry analyst.

A supermarket in Jordan stocked with local and

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12 // NEWS

Ambassador role for top duoDAIRYING AND the wider farming industry has two new champions in this year’s national winners of the Ballance Farm Envi-ronment Awards – Mark and Devon Slee.

The couple’s busi-ness, Melrose Dairy, milks 2640 cows off three milk-ing platforms totalling nearly 700ha at Ealing, Mid Canterbury. All bar 6ha is irrigated by centre pivot normally producing over 1800kgMS/ha/year off grass, fodder beet and about 400kg/cow of barley fed in shed.

“This year our pro-duction was a bit lower because we lost two irri-gator corner arms [in the September gales] and it was a very challenging season,” notes Mark.

So many irrigators were damaged in those storms that the arms couldn’t be fixed until January and while the rest of the pivot was operational for the first half of the season, when the engineers and

electricians came in every-thing stopped.

“We probably lost a week of watering at a critical time with those pivots, on top of the cor-ners which missed out all summer to then.”

Efficient irrigation is the key to productivity off the stony silt loam Lis-more and Balmoral series soils, and to minimising the environmental foot-print. It means they’re in control of pasture growth and nutrient uptake, with nitrogen fertiliser matched to pasture needs.

Consequently leach-ing losses due to drain-age are minimised, with Aquaflex soil moisture sensors ensuring water is only applied when pasture needs it, with some space left to accommodate rain.

“We’ve been using Aquaflex for eight years. We’re on our third gen-eration of it now,” notes Mark.

They’ve been growing fodder beet for a similar

time. “We get about 23t/ha. We have to wait until we can afford to take the pasture out so we don’t get it in early enough to get the really high yields.”

This year they have about 80ha with cows going onto it in late lacta-tion as well as for winter.

“We milked some cows off it for about six weeks before we dried off this

year. It’s a really interest-ing feed. Basically it’s pure carbohydrate with very low protein, so there’s less nitrogen excreted. It could be another tool to

decrease our nitrogen loss by a significant amount.”

At present Overseer calculates their loss at 47kgN/ha/year, but Slee believes the model doesn’t

allow for the improved quality of their soil with the organic matter built up after years of dairying, or the ever-improving effi-ciency of their irrigation and fertiliser use.

Both are now GPS tracked using AgHub pro-viding proof of placement and reduced risk of mis-takes in application.

Effluent is applied through irrigation pivots with GPS providing sim-ilar proof of placement. “We can get the applica-tion rate down to 5mm per day because it’s going over the entire pivot area.”

Nutrient content is checked with tests about three times/year. “It varies very little,” notes Devon.

In their sheds they use Protrack to individually monitor, and, when nec-essary, draft out animals. Mahana Blue heat recov-ery systems are fitted in two of the sheds, and all three have automated cup

removers so milking is a one man operation. Each shed and associated milk-ing platform is run by a team of four, with each herd split into two mobs so one person milks while the other gets the other mob in and then milks that. The roster is 10.5 days on, 3.5 days off.

“As farmers we have to set the culture on our farm: to be positive, and proactive. It’s very much a team environment,” says Devon.

They do individual catch-ups with staff twice a year, support training, have a health and safety manual, and produce weekly farm performance reports and a monthly newsletter.

“The dairy industry needs to promote itself as a career for those who want to get ahead. As an employer you’ve got to be patient and take your time to find good staff.”

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NEWS // 13

Ambassador role for top duo

THE NATIONAL round of the Ballance Farm Environ-ment Awards involved farm visits by two judges, Jamie Strang and Warwick Catto (Ballance Agrinutrients), fol-lowed by a panel interview prior to the awards night.

“We want to find out what drives them to go the extra mile with sustainability in their businesses and understand where they’re coming from on issues such as water quality, perception of New Zealand farming, and urban-rural rela-tions,” acting chair of the NZ Farm Environment Awards Trust Simon Saunders told Dairy News.

“We are looking for that next step in them having an ability to talk about New Zea-land agriculture and the wider issues and how they are being solved not just in their busi-nesses but the whole industry.”

Strang is a retired Wairarapa farmer with a long involvement in the awards. Catto is Bal-lance’s R&D manager. Besides Strang and Catto, the panel interviews were conducted by Saunders, who’s a Southland sheep and beef farmer; dairy woman of the year and 2013 Northland Supreme award winner Charmaine O’Shea; Rabobank Waikato region manager Paul Lamont; and Fed-erated Farmers president Bruce Wills.

Wills says the Slees will make outstanding ambassadors for New Zealand agriculture.

“This type of operation has been at the forefront of the debate on the effects of dairying on the environment…. The Slees have shown great initiative and dedication when it comes to reducing their environmental footprint, and they are excellent role models for other farmers to follow.”

Saunders says their panel interview proved they have a very good understanding of the challenges and opportu-nities facing New Zealand agriculture.

“They are a highly motivated and skilled couple, yet very down-to-earth and humble. They absolutely deserved to win this competition and they will make excellent ambassadors for the dairy industry and for New Zealand agriculture in general.”

The judging panel was “blown away” by the calibre of all the regional winners, he adds.

Besides the Slees, contenders for the 2014 Gordon Ste-phenson Trophy were: Roger and Jane Hutchings, North-land; Rick Burke and Jan Loney, Bay of Plenty; Mike and Sharon Barton, Waikato; Rob and Sandra Faulkner and Bruce and Jo Graham, East Coast; Gavin and Oliver Faull and Tony and Loie Penwarden, Taranaki; Justin and Mary Vennell, Horizons; Matt and Lynley Wyeth, Greater Wel-lington; Wayne McIntosh, Otago; and Andrew and Heather Tripp, Southland.

What drives them the extra mile?

ANNOUNCING THE Slees’ selection as winners of the national award, New Zealand Farm Environment Trust act-ing chair Simon Saunders said they will be great ambassa-dors for New Zealand agricul-ture.

“Mark and Devon possess the outstanding communication and leadership skills necessary to spread the sustainability

message to national and international audiences.”

Saunders said all ten regional supreme winners demonstrated a huge passion and commitment, not just for their farm businesses but for New Zealand agriculture as a whole.

The Slees told Dairy News the ambassador role “is quite a big responsibility” but Mark believes his directorship expe-

rience with Mayfield Hinds Irri-gation Company and Irrigation New Zealand will stand him in good stead.

“We’re just a pretty normal dairy operation. I think it’s a relevant story we’ve got to tell to whoever we’re speaking to – groups, farmers, members of the public, government organisations.”

He admitted “it was quite a shock really” to have landed

the national title.“All the supreme winners

were top calibre farmers and it was hard to tell who was go-ing to be the national winner. We’re surprised to have won it, thought it’s not really a com-petition…. This trophy is about being an ambassador for the next 12 months. Looking for a couple that can portray what agriculture’s all about, and tell their story.”

SURPRISED TO BE SPREADING THE WORD

Mark’s a sheep and beef farmer’s son but Devon came from a non-farm-ing background, meeting Mark at Lincoln Univer-sity.

“People have to be interested in the land and animals to get on in dairy-ing. It is a big shift for some families, having to travel 20km to town and not having a shop just round the corner.”

They’re strong sup-porters of commu-nity organisations, with their winnings from the regional BFEA distributed

to three local commu-nity groups. The national award is a travel scholar-ship which they’re think-ing they’ll use to look at dairying in the US or Europe.

“I’d like to study the overseas systems to see the comparison of where we are at,” says Mark. “We’ve got to be very careful in New Zealand because dairying is under-pinning the economy at the moment.”

Devon echoes that. “We’re pretty strong on low cost systems.”

Simon Saunders

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NEWS // 15

Beware of the US juggernautTHE ONGOING evolution of the US dairy industry holds plenty of interest. It exceeded 92 billion L in annual milk output for the first time at the end of June.

About the turn of the century I used to joke about an export marketing man-ager I’d met from one of the biggest US dairy companies who didn’t seem to have a working knowl-edge of an atlas. The US indus-try in those days had a paltry 4% of the global trade in dairy prod-ucts, relied to some extent on export subsidies and the US gov-ernment bought any surpluses of low specification milk pow-ders and butter.

That is a far cry from where the US industry is looking into the future and placing its bets these days. In 2013 that share of trade had (according to the US exporters council) expanded to 17%, with about 15% of all US milk output being processed into milk powders, cheese and butter that was exported.

Much investment has gone into

large-scale milk powder plants and there is a move to improve the quality of products.

The US is now the biggest exporter of skim milk powder (SMP) although a large portion of this is in the lower-qual-ity form referred to as ‘non-fat dried milk’. An incremental earner for the US is whey powder – a by-product of its massive cheese industry – a meaning-ful contributor from sales into feed and

other low-grade uses in Asian markets. About 25% of all US milk is used to

produce liquid milk products, whose consumption is in decline and, despite renewed industry efforts to reinvigorate marketing of milk, shows little sign of flattening and returning to growth.

At least 75% of the remainder of US milk is processed into cheese. The US food service sector is the biggest cheese

market in the world, keeping demand growing and US consumers chewing through more and more burgers, pizzas and other takeaway ‘delicacies’.

The farm sector of the US dairy industry has fiercely held onto regula-tion of their farmgate prices, but these are set by reference to prices in the wholesale trade. Despite the vicious cycles in prices due to the working of that mechanism, the US industry has

grown steadily over the past decade.

One of the big won-ders of the dairy trade landscape is that the US industry hasn’t grown faster in recent times.

The big margins might be available but other fac-

tors have held the handbrake on output. Many dairy farmers have been repairing their balance sheets from the effects of post-GFC volatility and the slim mar-gins through much of 2012 and 2013. Feed quality has also suffered – espe-cially since the deep drought affect-ing the south-west regions for the past few years, which still exists for many, although prices for corn and soy have

fallen sharply on the strength of much higher supply in 2014. With lower qual-ity feed, milk output per cow has been weaker.

Any effect on milk output will therefore be lagged. At the end of May 2014 US total milk output was growing at the rate of 1.4% over the same month last year, but for the year to date had expanded just 1.1%. The forecasters at the US Department of Agriculture reckon the US industry will pick up speed, so that over the full 2014 year it will add 2.4%. That would mean the US will pump out 3.3% more milk for the rest of the year to hit that target.

For the seven months to the end of 2014, that growth would equate to about 1.9 billion L of milk. Here comes the crunch: we reckon just about all of that expansion will either head for the world market or the coldstore, as US domes-tic consumption of dairy is – at the very best – flat-lining.

While New Zealand might be grow-ing quickly at present and is expected to continue expansion in 2014-15, even if NZ expands at 5% in the same seven-month period (faster than the expec-tations the chief executive of Fonterra

has made public), the additional milk it would produce would amount to only one-third of that extra US output.

We’d better hope US consumers eat more cheese and that China continues to increase its import orders, or else there will be a lot of milk looking for a home.

• Steve Spencer is a director of Fresha-genda, a Melbourne consulting and anal-ysis firm.

“We’d better hope US consumers eat more cheese and that China continues to increase its import orders, or else there will be a lot of milk looking for a home.”

STEVE SPENCER

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Patrick Harridge, ANZ Waikato Agri Manager.He’s been here so long he’s almost part of the landscape.

Patrick knows the Waikato farming community well. In fact, he’s been a part of it for the last 12 years as an ANZ Agri Manager. With almost 30 years experience in the fi nance industry and time spent helping out on the family’s dairy farm, Patrick has a great understanding of agriculture

and an even better understanding of agri business in the Waikato. Patrick is part of ANZ’s dedicated Agri Business Team of 34 industry specialists providing expert local service to the region. To fi nd your local ANZ Agri Specialist, visit anz.co.nz/rural or call Patrick himself on 07 837 8623.

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16 // NEWS

Professor goes to new heights

ANOTHER HIGH place Woodford has been visiting recently is China. He’s had a lifelong interest in the country and has been travelling there since 1973. He says his goal has been to learn more about China and understand the reality of things there.

“Recently one of my projects has been up on what’s called the Quing-hai on the Tibetan Plateau.

“This is way up at above 3000m above sea level and the town we stayed at was almost as high as Mt Cook.

“There is some really profound dry land agricultural issues over there and we are finding that we have a lot in common with some of the Chinese scientists. We may even be able to learn some things from them in relation to our alpine grass-land in New Zealand,” he says.

Woodford says while Quinghai is part of China, most of the people up there are Tibetan, so it’s Tibetan

language, culture and religion. He says the Chinese government

is putting vast resources into the province.

But Woodford says the cold winters make finding suitable agri-cultural solutions challenging. For example he says finding a legume that will grow there in winter is one of these.

“The legumes that we will use there will probably be ones we don’t currently use in New Zealand. Probably what we give is the way of thinking that goes back to the fold Lincoln ‘whole-farm system’ approach.

The Chinese scientists tend to be very specialised in particular areas, and what we bring is a much broader perspective and that’s the notion that they are pretty keen on and trying to understand. So it’s about soils, plants animals, people and it’s about all those things coming together,” he says.

LESSONS FROM CHINA

LINCOLN UNIVERSI-TY’S professor of farm management and agri-business, Keith Woodford, has recently been visiting people in high places in other countries.

In Colombia, as part of an ‘agricultural diplomacy’ initiative by the New Zealand government, he’s been looking at how our science and technology can help improve the lot of local dairy farmers.

The place Woodford has been is 3000m above sea level near the Colom-

bian border with Ecua-dor. He says Colombia has 300,000 dairy farm-ers, but their holdings are very small and production is low.

“The New Zealand gov-ernment is running an aid programme to see if it’s possible to apply Kiwi know-how to improve the

Colombian dairy industry. “I’ve taken some

photos, and when I show them to people from the Waikato they say ‘gosh that could be from the Waikato’ or if the person comes from Taranaki they’ll say ‘gee this is a bit like Taranaki’. It’s won-derful country up there

but there are some quite big challenges. Interest-ingly their government is very keen on the way we do industry development and extension and what I call our ‘farmer-centric approach’.

“What that means is that we put farmers and businesses in the centre

of the whole innovation system here in New Zea-land.

They think that is quite interesting and of value to them,” he says.

Woodford says some of the solutions for Colom-bia may see some New Zealand technology used but not in all cases. He

says some of the grasses may suit the conditions and our fertiliser manage-ment may also have a role to play.

Woodford says the people in the region are very poor and any increase in milk produc-tion will be consumed on the local market.

PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz

A Colombian dairy farm 3100m on the equator. PHOTO: KEITH WOODFORD.

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Kiwi making life easy for farmers

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Enter Geoff and Bev Laurent, owners of Shoof

SUDESH KISSUNsudeshk@ruralnews�co�nz

International, a company selling to the world’s farm-ers all sorts of innova-tions – some the Shoofs’ own inventions, and some those of other farmers or local inventors.

Attendees at last month’s Small Herd and Supply Herds (SMASH) conference in the North Island heard from the Lau-

rents, about their journey from being small innova-tors on their family farm in Cambridge to the global market.

It began in 1968 when, after driving bulldozers in Australia for a couple of years, Geoff responded to a call from his father; he came home and joined the 50ha family farm as a 39% sharemilker, soon moving to 50/50 sharemilk-ing, then marrying Bev, a nurse, in 1969.

But milking twice daily year-round did not satisfy Geoff and he began look-ing at everything he did on the farm to see what easier or better ways there might be.

“Rather than being focused on the cows and the milk, as I should have been, I started looking at everything I did and trying to ‘improve’ on it all,” he says.

“What I was doing also seemed to attract the attention of farm discus-sion groups, farm advisors and the farming press of the day. There were always visitors to the farm, look-ing at what was going on there.”

His first ‘invention’ was a reversible tractor-

mounted scoop for clean-ing feeding platforms. This won an award at the second field days at the Hamilton racecourse. At the next field days he added a new device that dosed iodophor into udder wash water for the pur-pose of treating mastitis. He won another award.

Then he and Bev made a big decision, “to use $400 we had set aside for a new lounge suite to start a company, Topmilk Devel-opments, to produce and market this device, which we called the ‘Trickler’.”

Thus began their jour-ney into the ‘real’ world of business, “something nei-ther of us knew anything about. Bev was a nurse, so at least we had one reliable and secure income in the family. I continued share-milking, buying the farm a few years later”.

The next four years were frenetic for Geoff, as he worked on more inventions. He remem-bers feeding calves on the farm with “an inflation on a beer bottle and think-ing this was a nuisance”. He invented a multi-speed calf feeding bottle, later famous as the Speedy Feeder.

GEOFF LAURENT’S father, Vern was an innova-tor in his day.

With Cambridge engineers Ken Rossitor and Ron Woodward he developed a buckrake, using a photo from an English farming journal as a guide. This became the widely known and used Rosswood buckrake.

Geoff says in 1957, when he was about 12, a field day was held on their farm and several thousand farmers turned up “to see this amaz-ing new device”.

“Dad turned to town milk in the early 1950s, delivering his milk in Cambridge at 4am, then getting back to the farm for morning milking.

“It was a long day, but more profitable than just normal seasonal dairying. He worked hard and made many innovations for the time. The farm, though quite small at 50ha, became known as modern and productive, and was the venue for much examination and discussion.”

INNOVATION INHERITED FROM HIS DAD

Geoff and Bev Laurent

The first effluent pond on the Laurents’ farm, Cambridge


NEWS // 19

Kiwi making life easy for farmers

As an intensive farm milking all year around, cowshed effluent disposal was a problem.

The pumping system was always giving trou-ble, so Geoff went to the Hamilton Meat Research Institute who helped him design some effluent ponds.

After getting special permission from the coun-cil Geoff built these first-ever dairy-farm ponds.

Sore feet was also prev-alent in the herd; Geoff thought of a shoe for cows’ feet. “Initially I put a ban-dage around the things and sent them off - and

before they got to the end of the race the bandage was trailing in the dirt.”

He knew there was a better way.

In 1979 the couple exhibited their products at the Royal Show in Eng-land; to their surprise show visitors took close interest in their devices.

A Dutch company bought a full container of Quartermilkers, an improved quarter-milking bucket.

Topmilk Develop-ments Ltd was now offi-cially an exporter. Exhibits in France and other coun-tries followed and busi-

❱❱ First ‘group-feeding’ of calves� ❱❱ Development of ‘dry washing’ of udders� ❱❱ ‘Reversible scoop’ invention winner� ❱❱ Udder-wash-water sanitiser invention

(Trickler)� ❱❱ Conception and initial development of a

shoe for cows (to become the Shoof)� ❱❱ Conception and prototyping of a

multi-speed calf feeding bottle (to become Speedy Feeder)�

❱❱ Development of ‘pasture budgeting’ – a system eventually accepted world-wide�

❱❱ Invention and development of the first dairy-effluent ponds in New Zealand� ❱❱ Development of teat spraying (using a garden sprayer) – eventually to become

accepted practice worldwide� ❱❱ Development of dispensing systems for reverse-flow washing of milking machines

(Rev-Wash)� ❱❱ Development and commercial introduction of the first computerised herd recording

system especially for town supply farmers – ‘Comtest’� ❱❱ Development of an inline end-of-milking indicator, the Sight Glass� ❱❱ Development of an improved quarter-milking bucket Quartermilker� ❱❱ Development of a better hoof-working leg rope Vet-Rope – now used internationally�

Leading the way in innovation

ness grew. Geoff noticed sore feet

were as big a problem for herds in Europe as in New Zealand. So, he set about making the ‘cow shoe’ idea from years earlier. The shoe-for-a-hoof was born and former Hamilton mayor Russ Rimmington suggested the name Shoof; the company’s name was changed to Shoof Interna-tional.

In 1992 sales broke $1 million, Geoff put a share-milker on the farm and Bev gave up nursing for a full-time role in the com-pany.

Thanks to Rogernomics

and economic reforms the company began import-ing and selling veterinary equipment New Zealand vets and farmers had been starved of during the pro-tectionist Muldoon years.

In 2004 sales broke $20 million and Shoof International further spread its wings, buying out competitors in Austra-lia and opened a branch in Osorno, Chile.

Today Shoof turns over $25 million, and employs 90 staff in four countries.

“We have learned huge amounts, and still remain focused on growth,” Geoff says.

Multi-speed calf feeding bottle – one of Geoff’s many inventions.

Shoof on a hoof

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NEWS // 21

Thriving dairy drives land trendsNEW TRENDS are emerging in the rural real estate market as the dairy industry continues to grow and quality properties continue to fetch top dollars.

That’s the message from Brian Peacocke from Pastoral Reality and a rural sector spokesman for the Real Estate Institute.

He sees consistent demand and similar prices for dairy farms in Waikato and Canterbury, and con-sistent demand but at slightly lower prices in the central North Island and around Rotorua. Farms in South-land are in the same price bracket.

One strong trend is that some dairy farms in Canterbury are being put on the market without the Fon-terra shares by Fonterra suppliers.

“It’s a mix of everything,” Pea-cocke says. “Quite often we are seeing scenarios where the Fonterra shares are available over and above the land price to the purchaser and offered at face value.

“We are hearing a requirement from some owners that they retain

their link into the dairy industry and retain the Fonterra shares. But the condition with the shares means that if they are not continuing as dairy farmers they can’t hold onto to those shares for longer than three years but they can convert them into shareholder units.

“So in many cases they are keen to retain that investment link with the industry they have been involved in.”

Peacocke says people who buy the dairy farms without the Fonterra shares have up to, and in some cases beyond, six years before they have to become full shareholders, but he

says in the end if they wish to be a Fonterra supplier, their sharehold-ing has to match their production.

Peacocke says he also sees demand for quality sheep and beef finishing farms especially in Otago, Southland and North Canterbury. These are being bought for dairy support, either for grazing heifers or growing crops.

“The spin-off from that is we are seeing demand bouncing back in some more traditional areas for sheep and beef, eg Hawkes Bay and northern Wairarapa, Pea-cocke says.

Demand for dairy farms in Waikato and Canterbury remains high.

Open slather for processing ‘not a recipe for success’

FOREIGN INVESTMENT in the New Zealand dairy industry is “a concern” but some offshore investors may be confusing processing with farms or milk supply, says Phil Turner, director business transforma-tion, Fonterra.

Open slather for processing options is not a recipe for success, as the meat industry illustrates, he says. But Fonterra is determined to retain and build its share of the New Zealand milk pool in the face of increasing competition.

“The Government seems very enthu-siastic to attract foreign investment into dairy for reasons I do not understand,” Turner said in answer to questions at a major horticultural conference in Auck-land where he spoke on the success of the dairy industry.

“It is such a successful part of the New Zealand economy, wouldn’t you want New Zealanders to be on the whole getting at least a fair share of the action?”

But offshore dairy investors may be confusing investing in milk processing in New Zealand with investing in farms or milk supply, says Turner. Fonterra’s strength as a cooperative is in maintain-ing control over the production and man-

ufacturing of milk, he says.It will be interesting to see how the

foreign investors in processing plants fare, Turner says. “We’ve already got quite active price competition for milk in New Zealand today: that’s intense in parts of the country, not everywhere. It’s probably going to get more intense.

“But Fonterra is committed to main-taining if not rebuilding its share of milk in New Zealand. We will put up a good fight to retain what we’ve got in that competi-tive environment.”

Fonterra was well above 90% and has now dropped to the high 80% in its share of New Zealand milk. “We will be commit-ted to getting that up again by delivering great service to the farmers and compet-itive prices, which we think on the whole we do.

“We’ve got a share structure which some people see as an obstacle …. Some of our competitors don’t have a share struc-ture so you can switch more easily.

“But I think there’s high risk for pro-ducers in an environment where you’ve got open slather among your processing options.

“Think about the meat industry – it looks great, you can decide where to send your cows from one day to the next.

“But I don’t think it’s been a recipe for success for the industry.”

PAM TIPApamelat@ruralnews�co�nz

Massey honours pioneersTWO MASSEY University food tech-nology pioneers, Professors Emer-iti Dick and Mary Earle, have been awarded the uni’s highest honour – the Massey Medal. The medals were presented by chancellor Chris Kelly, a former chief executive of Landcorp, at a symposium celebrating the 50th anni-versary of the course in food technol-ogy at the university.

The Earles joined the food technol-ogy faculty at Massey in 1965, Dick as professor of biotechnology and Mary as a senior lecturer in food technology.

They pursued a lifetime commitment to their profession, including working with students from Thailand.

In 1980 Dick was appointed dean of the technology faculty.

When Sir Pat Goodman, of Good-man Feilder fame, received an honorary doctorate in 2000 he said the success of his company owed much to the work of professor Mary Earle.

Both have written many scientific papers and books and even during their retirement both have continued to pub-lish – most recently online.

Dick and Mary Earle cut a cake to celebrate 50 years of food technology at Massey.

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22 // WORLD

Plan to boost cow numbersA NEW plan is calling for 20,000 extra cows in the Alpine Valleys region of northern Victoria in the next decade and for those cows to substan-tially increase the region’s output.

But one of the driv-ing forces behind the plan says it will only succeed if

there is community-wide cultural change, improved transition schemes and support to ‘fire up’ interest among young people.

The Regional Growth Plan for the Dairy Indus-try in North East Victo-ria aims to lift annual milk production in the region from 220 megalitres to

Stuart Crosthwaite says there is a need to change the way people think about dairy.

400 megalitres by 2025. It calls for cow num-

bers to increase from 40,000 to 60,000, stock-ing rates to lift to 1.5 milking cows per hect-are, per cow productive performance to go from 420kgMS to 535kgMS and for farmers to target 3.5-4.0 tonnes of home grown fodder per year.

And it will seek an extra 25% of high quality land and targets a 7% return on assets.

It is anticipated by 2025 the region will generate $A160 million of farmgate returns and support 550-600 fulltime jobs.

The report says the ambitious predictions are based on the region’s nat-ural biophysical advan-tages, demonstrated improvements in farm-ing technologies and a strong outlook for the global dairy market ensur-ing a stable and favourable farmgate price for milk. However, it points out that 60% of farm owners and managers in the region are aged over 50.

The plan has been supported by the Alpine Valley Dairy Pathways Project steering commit-tee. Its chairperson Stuart Crosthwaite says to reach the goals “we’ve got to change the culture of the community”.

“We need a long-term persistent effort to change the way people think about dairy,” Crosthwaite says. “We’ve got to bring the community along for the ride.

“We did a comparative business analysis of beef and sheep versus dairy and if you’re in the top 30-40% of dairy you can be four or five times more profitable than any beef operation. We know the business case is strong but why aren’t people taking up that opportunity?”

Crosthwaite says it is important to work on transitions with farmers help them retire and keep land in dairy.

“If we’re going to double milk production in the next 12 years we need that high quality land cur-rently in dairy to stay in dairy.

“We know the north-east has the oldest demo-graphic of farmers in Victoria. We’ve got 200 farms and we reckon

30-35% of those farm-ers will go out in the next five years. They have no obvious succes-sor or young generation coming through. If they go out we’ve got no hope of increasing milk produc-tion.”

The plan recommends professional one-on-one help for businesses to con-tinue in dairy, schemes to help reduce farm oper-ating costs and provid-ing networks and options for the next generation of potential farmers.

“We’ve got to plant the seeds and get people to think about dairy in a positive light. We need to be firing up young people to be ready to take on an opportunity when it pres-ents itself,” Crosthwaite says.

He said there were some beef operations in the region considering conversions to dairy.

The report says there is an increasing dependence on non-family labour and it includes a workforce strategy to ensure the right people are in place to sustain industry growth.

The region’s dairy farm numbers have dropped markedly during the past decade but those remain-ing have grown in size and output, resulting in only marginal volume loss. The overall trend is for inten-sification of dairy farms with more cows and pro-duction per hectare.

The report says dairy competes strongly with other agricultural uses and should be able to access high quality land when it becomes available. How-ever, it warns that there may be demand from com-peting uses such as resi-dential.

Kiewa Valley farmer Pat Glass says the funda-mental strategies in the plan were good. “It will be interesting to see where it goes over the next five years.”

However, Glass says he had concern about the cost of land.

“I can see milk pro-duction increasing in the Alpine Valley because those who own the land will choose to entrust custodianship to those who can make a lot more money out of it by milking cows rather than grazing cattle.”


WORLD // 23

Australians are drinking more milk and processors are finding it hard to keep up with demand.

Exports to suffer as fresh milk sales rise

AUSTRALIA’S DRINKING milk states are struggling to keep up with increased consumer demand for milk.

The gap between local produc-tion and domestic fresh milk sales is growing – particularly in Queensland -- raising concerns about the level of inter-state milk transfer and the potential impact on export availabil-ity.

Most milk produced in Victo-ria, Tasmania and southern NSW is turned into exports. However, milk produced in South Australia, West-ern Australia, northern NSW and Queensland is mostly consumed locally.

While deregulation means the shortfalls are theoretical as there is no restriction on moving milk over state borders, state organisations are touting locally produced milk as the freshest and cheapest option.

They also say the industry needs

clear signals from the market and increased base prices to give farmers confidence to increase production.

Despite good seasons, restricted cow numbers – partly caused by exporting heifers -- are limiting the industry’s ability to respond quickly to increased demand for milk. National production volumes have stabilised but are still 10% lower than a decade ago.

On the other hand, fresh milk sales are continuing on a steady incline fuelled by population growth and a small increase in consumption.

Some supply contracts are now stipulating that drinking milk must be produced in the state of consumption, which is having a flow-on effect for sourcing enough supplies for exports and other dairy products.

Queenslanders are now drinking nearly 100 million L more each year than the state’s cows are producing.

South Australia has been unable to meet its usual quota for locally pro-duced milk for inter-state sales and

in Western Australia production fell below sales for two months earlier this year with predictions that will happen again in 2015.

WA Farmers Federation dairy president Phil Depiazzi says Lion has been importing milk from other states for its Woolworths contracts but the new contractor, Brownes, would be sourcing solely Western Australian supplies for its fresh milk deliveries. “That will tighten supply even more,” he says.

The state produced 22million L of milk in February but sales were nearly 27 million, meaning milk from inter-state was needed.

March sales were about a million ahead of production. “They were two fairly critical months and that is likely to be critical again next year, espe-cially if we’re not getting that milk in from Lion,” Depiazzi says.

“Farmers are slightly more posi-tive so that should mean a touch more milk,” he says. “We’ve had a pretty good season.”

RICK BAYNE

QUEENSLAND 20% SHORT IN SUPPLY

QUEENSLAND IS about 20% short of meeting its own drinking milk requirements, according to Queensland Dairyfarmers Organisation president Brian Tessmann.

“Unfortunately, the industry has lost significant capacity in the last three years, especially since the supermarket milk price war began,” Tessmann says.

“The industry wants to expand if it is profitable to do so – but the market isn’t giving us that signal at the moment.”

He says there is “no doubt” that A$1/L milk had badly affected the Queensland farm gate price paid by the two major pro-

cessors, Parmalat and Lion. “Farmers have not only

been hit hard by the de-pressed farm gate prices but also with significantly increased costs of produc-tion such as those associ-ated with electricity and feed grain.

“Natural disasters includ-ing several major floods and cyclones, followed by an exceptionally dry summer in 2013-14, have also put farm margins under strain. These have all contributed to the number of farm exits we have seen in recent years.”

Tessmann is adamant that Queenslanders should be drinking Queensland-made milk. Brian Tessman

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24 // OPINION

RUMINATING

EDITORIAL

MILKING IT...

Willy’s wayWILLY LEFERINK last week ended his three year term as Fed-erated Farmers Dairy section chairman and is now back on the farm preparing for calving – or will it be a trip overseas?

He took over the role at time when the heat was on the nation’s dairy farmers, still suffering from Fish & Game’s ‘dirty dairying’ campaign. At the same time regional councils started to flex their muscles on environmental issues and dairy farm-ing leaders including Leferink spent lots of time urging logic and common sense in the creation of new environmental rules.

Social media took to highlighting perceived breaches of envi-ronmental standards and, to be fair, some farmers didn’t help the cause by flagrantly disregarding environmental standards. There was the TAF debate and volatility in world dairy markets. Then the concept of ‘food safety’ gained fresh urgency for the dairy industry when Fonterra botched the handling of a botu-lism scare.

This was the world Leferink had to lead his colleagues through and few would dispute that he did a brilliant job. Like his president, Bruce Wills, Leferink worked hard to establish the credibility of Federated Farmers with a range of stakehold-ers – some of whom were seen as arch enemies.

Leferink tiptoed through the difficult times, remaining loyal to his dairy farmer constituents but building bridges and estab-lishing good relationships with environmental and community groups.

He was never afraid to speak his mind one way or the other and his wicked sense of humour enabled him to get away with saying things others might have left unsaid. Leferink was as astute and successful in farming politics as he was in own busi-ness. His solution-focused approach was a winner.

In three years Leferink has helped build a new and revital-ised Federated Farmers organisation respected in government and environmentalist circles and in the wider public arena. He leaves the organisation in better shape than when he arrived and is now poised for new challenges.

Yes, in some ways he was a little unconventional, but regard-less of that Willy’s ways have done the trick. A job well done Mr Leferink.

Flying DutchmanFONTERRA CHIEF execu-tive Theo Spierings’ took several questions from the floor at last month’s South Island Dairy Event in Invercargill, but then exited swiftly stage left leaving no opportunity for one-to-ones with at-tendees, or the news media. Apparently, he had a plane to catch. Milking It wonders which plane he was on, given the next scheduled departure from Invercargill was 4.05pm and he left at 2.30pm with a journey of 15 minutes to the airport. Of course, a charter may well have been waiting, but it’s not the first time the ‘flying Dutchman’ has made a sharp exit from a conference leaving disappointed those who prefer to put their points discreetly.

What a killA FORMER farming leader told Milking It: Recently our vets ran a calf rearing seminar for the ‘girls’ who rear calves – it’s a girls-only affair. One of the girls from one of our farms attended.

The vets were well organised and had a calf on hand to demonstrate the captive-bolt killing method. When invited, one of the women volunteered to do the job. The crowd broke into squeels as the trigger was pulled, the bolt did its deadly work and the calf’s head exploded, showering brain tissue over the unsuspecting woman and those near her.

Little films of this ‘animal friendly proce-dure’ could go viral on YouTube.... thanks to the Minister, MPI and NAWAC.

Said our informant, “I did submit to NAWAC on the code changes and urged all its members to observe the various ways of euthanasing calves prior to their deliberations and final decision. They did not follow my advice or accept my offer to demonstrate the methods. My idea was to adopt a method of kill-ing that would look better if seen by the public.”

On leave, not planning gardeningJOB CUTS at Lincoln University are causing concerns among the agri-science fraternity. But, of course, not all are on that radar.

An email to a promi-nent academic there drew the reply, “I am on long-planned annual leave until 21 July. Despite some rumours, I will return.” Let’s hope that’s true.

Milk but no cowsIMAGINE A world where milk is artificially produced, and free of lactose and cholesterol.

That’s the dream of three US bio-engineers seeking to produce a proof-of-concept of their cow-free milk. The trio, founders of the biotech start-up Muufri, expect to make next year the first batch of their potentially revolutionary beverage.

They envisage a beverage drinkable by the 75% of the world’s population who are lactose-intolerant and want to reduce depen-dence on animals. Their milk components made in yeast culture would yield for consumers and food manufacturers the products they know and love, but via a more sustain-able, healthy and humane process.

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OPINION // 25

Signing off with gratitude and “Willyisms’Outgoing Federated Farmers Dairy chairman Willy Leferink spoke at last week’s annual conference in Palmerston North. Here’s part of what he said:

FEDERATED FARM-ERS has vastly helped improve TAF (trading among farmers) and we have started to reinvigo-rate sharemilking. While we have a way to go to better promote this great farming pathway, the update of sharemilking agreements and the youth and vigour of that section are extremely uplifting.

We even navigated our version of Edward Snow-don when ‘someone’ for-warded internal emails to the media. I didn’t coin it, but ‘WillyLeaks’ sort-of stuck.

Throughout it all we have strengthened indus-try relationships with DairyNZ, Fonterra, West-land, Tatua, Synlait, Miraka, Open Country and the new entrants.

Speaking of Fon-terra, I wish also to dis-cuss Fonterra’s growing

farm portfolio overseas. New Zealand’s future lies in taking our knowhow, experience and systems into the big wide world. Fonterra is to be congrat-ulated for being in the pic-ture.

Yet I somehow feel uncomfortable that these operations have the same Fonterra master brand on them as our farm-ers. Simply put, I am fear-ful that my reputation or that of Kiwi farmers may be held hostage to what a farm worker overseas may or may not be doing. We need to have this discus-sion.

I would like to thank once more my predeces-sor Lachlan Mackenzie for leaving me the space in which to operate; also former national president Don Nicolson for some wise advice when I started. As both have ambitions

to be in Parliament I wish them well in the coming election.

Then there is the boss Bruce Wills who richly deserved that Landcorp Communicator of the Year Award. I also wish to say thank you to Conor English who helped us in select committees and the political dark arts of Wel-lington.

Lastly, I thank my wife Jeanet who manned the fort back home in my absence and packed my bags on many occasions. Without her I would not have been able to this job.

Now this isn’t a Willy speech without some Wil-lyisms.

First, the Dutch will win the World Cup. If not in Brazil the one after that. Secondly, an activ-ist, somewhere will blame the end of western civilisa-tion on dairying. Thirdly,

that Cain did not kill Abel out of jealous rage. No, it was because Abel proposed to convert from sheep to dairying. And finally, that the Black Death actually came into Europe on imported cattle feed.

Others, no doubt, believe there was a cow on the grassy knoll in Dallas on that fateful day when JFK drove by. Oh and the moon landings were faked by the Inter-national Dairy Federation because the moon is made out of cheese. The discov-ery of which would crash Global Dairy Trade.

I am staggered by how we are sometimes por-

trayed. If you read only social media or judged us on how we are some-times portrayed in the mainstream media, you’d think the public and Susan Wood hate farmers. Guess what? They don’t.

While Readers Digest’s annual ‘Most Trusted’ may have its

share of critics, it has also been going for years. It has consistently placed ‘farmer’ within its top-20 ‘most trusted’ professions and this year we’re 14th-equal with dentists.

The next time any farmer feels like having a lash against supposedly unsympathetic public,

stop. Are you reacting to what the public gen-uinely thinks or is it a blogger or a journalist? If you look at the bottom ten professions they are made up of bosses, politi-cians and the people who sell stuff. It includes the media too.

My message to the

media is that for every bad-news farming story that gets reported, there must be five great stories going unreported.

If the media wish to break that trend I can recommend Mark and Devon Slee, who won the supreme 2014 Ballance Farm Environment Award, the Gordon Stephenson Trophy. The Slee’s are farming first among equals as the best of the rest isn’t far behind.

Getting that out will turn our farming reality into public perception and on that note I leave you in very good heart. Thank you for having allowed me to be your servant.

Willy Leferink has stepped down as Feds Dairy chairman.

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26 // AGRIBUSINESS

Super-bred cows will change the game

A WORLD-LEAD-ING dairy researcher says major changes in the way cows are bred will pave the way for the development of new dairy products.

Dr John Lucey is the

director of the Wisconsin Centre for Dairy Research and a professor of food science at Wisconsin Uni-versity.

Lucey, raised on an Irish dairy farm, spoke at a recent symposium mark-ing 50 years of teaching food technology at Massey University. He once taught

food science there.He told Dairy News that

genetic technology will enable scientists to breed for specific traits in dairy cows, rather than wait to see what traits sons and daughters of cows pro-duce and how beneficial these are.

“Rather than just breed

SOCIAL MEDIA PITFALLS

SOCIAL MEDIA may be great in many respects, but it poses new challenges for many industries, including dairy, John Lucey says.

Instantaneous sending of infor-mation to consumers has a down-side – the stories can be just plain wrong.

“Most writers in the media have very little science training; few actual science writers are [about nowadays]. So some inaccurate

stories [on social media]… are taken at face value by the public…. So food researchers and university people must speak out and get the correct messages across.”

Lucey says worldwide not enough money is being spent on dairy research. With dairy being so diverse biologically it can provide lots of excellent quality products and great health benefits and there is a need to capitalise on that.

for an amount of milk or an amount of fat or pro-tein, you start breeding for individual proteins. You might say a lot of a par-ticular protein has health benefits but it is produced in low amounts, but there is a cow or bull that has this trait and has the abil-ity produce it and pass it on.

“That kind of focus would enable us to target that individual protein or component. In the next ten next years we’ll prob-ably see more of that drive whereby people will breed animals for what I would call non-traditional traits.”

Lucey says this idea is not unrealistic as from a genetic perspective the markers are already there and have been researched and developed, and ani-

mals worldwide have been identified as having these traits.

Now the technol-ogy needs to be commer-cialised.

Lucey says after a roller coaster ride dairy prod-ucts are again in favour with consumers, many so-called health concerns having been rebuffed. Now many consumers appreci-ate the value of high qual-ity dairy protein.

“For example in the US a huge phenomenon for the last five years has been Greek yogurt… with about twice the protein of regu-lar yogurt. It was kind-of chugging along in the US, but it’s had phenomenal growth because people are appreciating the high pro-tein content.”

Taste, flavour and tex-ture are the important drivers for getting con-sumers to buy a product,

Lucey says. “They are the givens but [they are also] looking for something healthy and convenient and they don’t want it to cost a lot.”

With the market for dairy products opening up in Asia, food scientists must attend to the needs of these new consumers. Though interested in dairy products, they have dif-ferent taste preferences to New Zealand consumers.

PETER [email protected]

Dr John Lucey says cow could soon be bred for individual proteins, rather than just milk or fat.

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AGRIBUSINESS // 27

GDT among Fonterra’s great innovations

JUNIOR EUROPEAN agriculture officials, typi-cally aged in their 20s, for-merly determined world dairy prices at fortnightly meetings in Brussels, before Global Dairy Trade was introduced in 2008, says Fonterra executive Phil Turner.

The director, business transformation, at Fon-terra, says he remembers the Brussels meetings when he first joined Fon-terra in 1999. Those young officials only cared about prices in Europe but were effectively setting world prices.

“When Australians and New Zealanders like me came along and asked if they would please do a little less adjusting of world prices they got very defensive.”

Turner was reflecting at a major Trans Tasman horticultural conference in Auckland, hosted by PMA Australia-NZ, on why

the New Zealand dairy industry has been so suc-cessful and its lessons for other sectors.

“People talk about New Zealand’s natural advan-tages in the success of the dairy industry but when you look around the world, a lot of places have similar advantages but few have our story to tell.”

He believes much suc-cess has come from dereg-ulation, opening markets and innovation. The Global Dairy Trade auc-tion – “a huge experiment” -- is one of Fonterra’s top innovations.

“In the old days we used to have to make a living by essentially sell-ing unwanted product through holes in tariff walls into rich spoilt mar-kets like Japan, US and Europe that didn’t want us to be there.

“Now we have the luxury of operating like real marketing compa-nies trying to meet the needs of consumers and matching their needs more effectively than our competitors. It is a whole lot better way to make a living.”

Fonterra faced a prob-lem familiar to many in the primary sector – a lack of a transparent reliable world price. Local market protection meant the only functioning dairy mar-kets were internal; those trying to sell in the world market would have to sell bilaterally through traders or their own sales force. It was never clear to the buyer or the seller whether they had a good or a bad deal because there was no basis for comparison. “World markets are vola-tile particularly since the GFC and volatility makes it very hard to build a sus-tainable business.”

Fonterra decided to create a mechanism to give price transparency. GDT makes a pool of

product available in web based events every fort-night. It was originally every month.

“This was a huge exper-iment, faced with a lot of scepticism both within the company and outside.

“It was a classic inno-vation in the sense that it made obsolete at a stroke a whole bunch of tradi-tional bargaining in ingre-dient products. From a cautious start it has been a great success. From 2008 to today we now have not just Fonterra, but seven different dairy produc-ers from six different countries who sell prod-uct every fortnight to over 700 bidders in 40 different products categories. “The volumes have become quite substantial. The larg-est US exchange – the Chi-cago Mercantile Exchange – trades about US$111m

of cheese annually. By comparison, in the last 12 months GDT has traded an average US$400m every month.

“In my view the cre-ation of GDT is one of Fonterra’s great-

“People talk about New Zealand’s natural advantages in the success of the dairy industry but when you look around the world, a lot of places have similar advantages but few have our story to tell”

est achievements. It has given all those who trade in world dairy products transparent prices for the first time.”

It protects both parties in the transaction from getting it wrong, means

Fonterra can declare a real profit over the value it’s added to a commodity price, means it can accurately measure the real value of milk and declare a real dividend to farmers. Phil Turner, Fonterra

PAM [email protected]


28 // AGRIBUSINESS

What’s important, the family or the farm?DOUG ROWAN

Doug Rowan

MANY FARMERS must decide what will happen to the farm after they have gone. What is needed is a formal farm succession plan.

An effective succession plan enables a smooth transition of farm own-ership and control to the next generation with appropriate legal struc-tures in place which serve the whole family.

Many people shy away

from making a plan, for a variety of reasons:

■ Parents may be afraid or unsure of how to talk with their children about what they intend

■ The increasing average size of the economic farming unit raises cap-

ital requirements and exposes the farm busi-ness to more debt

■ The difficulty in keep-ing up the momentum in implementing the farm succession plan

■ Acknowledging that every farm and family is unique and there’s no one-size-fits-all solu-tion.

Where to start?A farm succession plan

first requires you (the par-ents) to start a conver-sation with your family and professional advisors about the future.

The first thing you’ll need to decide is whether the succession plan has the farm at the centre of the decision-making or the family who own it. This is crucial.

If the farm is the centre of the succession plan then your decisions will revolve around how to maintain and develop the existing farm so that it doesn’t fall out of the family ownership.

If the family is at the centre of the succes-sion plan then decisions regarding what to do with the farm will revolve around what is best for the family – now and in the future.Involve the right people

In a farm succession planning exercise a team approach will bring about the best results. This team should include you both, your lawyer, accountant and banker. It’s critical that all these professional advisors are prepared to work together and listen to your real wishes.Family expectations

It’s important that the expectations of each child are managed well. Have each of your children expressed their expecta-tions regarding the future farm ownership and what role they hope to play? A family meeting as part of your succession planning creates an opportunity for open discussion amongst all members of the family.

Regardless of who is actually working on the farm it’s a good idea to listen to the whole family. You may be surprised about who would like the farm retained and who is

not concerned so much.Is your plan viable?

If a particular member of the family is appointed as the successor in respect of farm ownership it’s important for everybody to have confidence that the successor has the skills and aptitude to run the farm successfully.

The plan needs to real-istically address the cap-ital requirements of the family members who con-tinue the farm and the level of debt that’s sustain-able. The goal is to ensure success for the next gen-eration.

A good plan addresses these questions:

■ Would it be equita-ble for non-farming members of the family to allow the farming member of the family to receive a greater amount of assets when you both die?

■ Does the family believe treating everybody equally is more impor-tant than maintaining farm ownership in the family name?

■ How do you balance the interests of your non-farming family mem-bers in the succession plan? Are there other resources for them?

Making it happenA major issue in farm

succession planning is that the issues can become too hard and the roadblocks we talked about earlier start to appear. It’s becom-ing increasing popular to appoint an independent person to be responsible to keep up the momen-tum so that the plan is put in place, is implemented and is then reviewed regu-larly to ensure it’s actually working.You are unique

Every family is unique: it has a different number of children, debt loading, skill base and farm charac-teristics as well as expec-tations from each child. Don’t delay in getting your farm succession plan up and running. • Doug Rowan is a direc-tor of Cullinane Steele Law-yers, Levin. This article first appeared in Fineprint, winter 2014, the newsletter of NZ Law Limited member firms.

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AGRIBUSINESS // 29

Freight deal good for farmers

LOGISTICS MANAGE-MENT company Kota-hi’s deals with Maersk and Ports of Tauranga will mean far more efficient routes to market for dairy products and other pri-mary exports, says Kotahi chief executive Chris Gre-enough.

“Every dollar we waste in the supply chain is a dollar less in the farm-er’s pocket,” he told Dairy News. “This really is a way to reduce that waste and return more to the farm-er’s pocket.”

The deal involves Kotahi making a commit-ment to Port of Tauranga of up to 1.8m TEU export containers over the next 10 years and taking a stake in the port company. The port in turn will invest in infrastructure to handle much bigger (6500 TEU) container ships within the next few years.

Greenough says if New Zealand does not get these larger ships it will even-tually become a spoke of the larger hubs across the Tasman, which would add

7-10 days to export tran-sit times.

Kotahi has also com-mitted to provide up to 2.5 million TEU export cargo containers to Maersk Line for the next 10 years, start-ing in August. Maersk Line managing director Gerard Morrison says the 10 year contract has not been done anywhere else in the world. Maersk will introduce a new 4500 TEU service from October 2014, to Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, to provide additional capacity. From there cargo can go virtu-ally anywhere in the world. And Morrison says Maersk now has a clear path to work on introducing the 6500 TEU vessels to New Zealand.

Greenough says the deal represents a “step change in our connective-ness to the world”.

“New Zealand is served by quite a plethora of ships at the moment and most of them aren’t full,” he says. “Some of them aren’t breaking even from a return-on-investment point of view. They are burning far too much fuel per container of export; that adds to our carbon

footprint and our cost of getting to market.”

The concessions mean the Port of Tauranga can invest in infrastructure for the more efficient class of vessel, and Maersk can deploy those vessels which mean less waste, more sustainable services and more competitive routes to market.

The advantages will be available to dairy and other export sectors. “Once we have the infra-structure and have the ships calling, those ben-efits will be available to New Zealand Inc,” he says. “It requires a catalyst to make these happen.

“We are not on the way to anywhere [else in the world]; carriers have to make a dollar to keep sending ships here. If we lose the ships… New Zea-land’s livelihood is a bit shaky.

“This is about secur-ing New Zealand’s com-petitiveness on the world stage and most of New Zealand’s competitors are closer to the market. They have advantageous freight flows, they are usu-ally on the back-haul, the lower demand leg, such

as Europe back to China. Most products are going from China to Europe, the ships are pretty empty on the way back and they can get almost freight free. We are opposite to that: we export more containers than we import. We have to do everything we can to minimise that disadvan-

tage which is quite exces-sive at this point.”

Greenough told a media briefing a key aspect is continuing support for New Zealand’s regional communities. New Zea-land’s livelihood comes from the regions and they need to stay connected to the world. Some ports will

become hub ports, others regional feeder ports.

The chief executive at the Port of Tauranga, Mark Cairns, said the deal gave the port certainty to go ahead with a $60-$70m dredging programme as part of its $250m strategy for bigger container ves-sels.

Morrison said Maersk is still two-three years away from deploying the larger ships and is still determining exactly where they will go.

Port of Tauranga has announced it will be ready for them but they haven’t as yet had discussions with other ports.

PAM [email protected]

TIMARU PORT BACK ON BOARD

KOTAHI HAS committed volume to the Port of Timaru to service the South Canterbury cargo base which has grown significantly for three-five years, Kotahi’s Greenough says.

Kotahi will also continue as one of the largest customers of the Port of Lyttelton.

At this stage there isn’t a large enough port in the South Island to handle the big 6500 TEU ships that Maersk plans to bring to New Zealand but it would be benefi-cial for New Zealand to have big ship-capable ports in the North and South Island. “It’s a matter of time and money.”

Cairns said the agreement gets the Port of Timaru back to the volumes it was handling in 2008

– about 80,000 20ft-equivalent containers. Tauranga bought half of Timaru and “probably overplayed trying to take over the South Island”.

“There’s a regional catchment that’s sensible in South Canterbury to move through Timaru which has capacity and we think there are advantages in transhipping over to Tauranga which is why we made that investment.”

Kotahi has agreed to com-mit export traffic to Port of Tau-ranga subsidiary Timaru Container Terminal (TCTS). In exchange for the commitment, Kotahi will get a 49.9% shareholding in Timaru. Operations will be managed under a management contract with Port of Tauranga.

Port of Tauranga is gearing up to receive bigger container vessels.

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Bom, JY Secondary Problems Following Hypocalcaemia Around Calving. Proceeding International Calol Conference 1994.

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32 // MANAGEMENT

OAD good for gains if you cull wellONCE-A-DAY (OAD) dairy farmers have been told they need to identify and breed cows that suit their individual systems. So said LIC’s Jack Hooper at the annual OAD milking conference. Peter Burke reports.

ABOUT 100 people, including a reasonable cluster of OAD farmers, gathered in Wairarapa to hear what does and does not work in OAD milking. DairyNZ and LIC staff pre-sented. Field trips were made to the farms of Leo Vollebregt and his broth-ers Gerard and Peter and their wives Rebecca, Mer-edith and Karyn.

Jack Hodder, an LIC genetic group consul-tant, says breeding good replacements is important to farm profitability and above all they must be able to produce profitable milk solids.

Farmers must use herd testing records and their other Minda records to look through and see

what cows are performing under their system and try to breed more of them.

“There are several ways of improving the herd genetically,” Hodder says. “The first one is repro-duction which gives you choices about which calves you keep and then the choice is about which cows you cull. You have to choose which sires

you use. But it is impor-tant to know whether you are going to get some gain from all of them and even more importantly from which of these you are going to get most of your gain.”

OAD farmers can make big production gains if they cull their herds well. Hodder says he knows of several who have done this and got big gains.

“One advantage of OAD herds is their improved reproduction performance and that then places the farmers in a position to have more choices about how they go about improving their herd. Whether they do it through calf selection or through culling cows. By

going to OAD they have often provided themselves with the choices and they should take advantage of that.”

Lachlan McKenzie, from Rotorua, a former Federated Farmers Dairy chairman, has been on OAD for about eleven years. He chose this to reduce the workload on his farm after he bought another farm and didn’t want to build a costly new dairy shed. He says if he had to put the 1200 cows twice a day through a 40-aside herringbone shed, they’d be milking ten hours a day and he’d never get staff to work such hours.

When he went OAD the drop in production was

not great. “There was no benefit for me because I had sharemilkers on the property, but it provided

a better lifestyle for the sharemilker and it was easy to attract good staff.

“It takes time to adjust

to a new system, [as does] going from a drystock farm to a dairy farm. It takes time to adjust and

Lachlan McKenzie has been milking once-a-day for 11 years.

Jack Hooper

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MANAGEMENT // 33

OAD good for gains if you cull well

it’s the same for the cows. Initially they get fatter and the calving spread is a lot tighter – but I have no regrets.”

Look closely at the value of grazing stock off farm in winter, McKenzie

cautions. In some regions grazing costs at least $30 a cow. It’s cheaper for him to buy PKE than to pay for grazing.

“The quality of some grazing is not consistent and by grazing at home

it’s bringing fertility onto my pumice land. Consider what effect any decision has on the profit line. I am not saying my systems will work for anybody else… everybody needs to do the number crunching on how

much it is really costing and how much it is bene-fiting them.”

McKenzie says if he was farming on heavy clay soils that got waterlogged in winter his system clearly wouldn’t work.

Farm walk: Farmers go on a farm walk at the OAD conference.

OAD MILKING expert Professor Colin Holmes told the gathering OAD clearly does work – and very well for some of the best farmers.

But to succeed at OAD a farmer must be very good at it. Profitability as well as lifestyle are very important, requiring close control of farm working expenses. Holmes urges all costs need to be carefully scru-

tinised, including building new and expensive milking sheds.

“But they also have to produce sufficient milk solids. If milk solids production goes down too low it doesn’t matter if they reduce expenditure, the low MS production will still af-fect profitably.”

Holmes says profitability is also important given the volatil-ity in dairy markets. But this has

always been so and in the past dairy farming was a lot more marginal than it is today.

Holmes and other speakers stressed the need to regard farms as an investment and to do the sums to discover the return on capital.

Some at the conference re-ported theirs as being up to 13% but many others had not done the sums.

HAVE TO BE VERY GOOD AT OAD TO SUCCEED

OAD can work well for some.


TONY MARCUCCI, a dairy farmer from Warragul, 100km east of Mel-bourne, travelled the furthest for the conference.

He decided last year to switch to OAD.

He runs 1000 cows on two farms and says the climate around War-ragul is similar to many parts of New Zealand, though the summers are much hotter.

Few other farmers are operating on OAD and it is hard to get advice. “I picked up quite a few things – issues of breeding and genetics, the need to cut costs and lower inputs and focusing on a pasture based system are important”.

Marcucci says what information he picked up at the two conferences

will help fast-track his quest for im-proved profitability back home.

34 // MANAGEMENT

OAD MILKING confer-ence attendees saw how South Wairarapa farm-ers Leo Vollebregt and his wife Rebecca make out on the OAD farm they own and operate, and how Leo and his brothers Peter and Gerard do on their farm recently converted to OAD.

The Vollebregts farm close to the Rua-mahunga River and Lake Wairarapa. The brothers are all locals, owning their own farms. Peter and Gerard milk and run their oper-ations separately.

Leo has farmed in Wairarapa 29 years, con-verting to OAD in 2006. On his 154ha he runs 610 cows in two herds milked in a 40-aside herringbone shed. He has Friesian and Jersey cows but most of the herd is now the stan-dard cross bred cow.

Leo is regarded as a very experienced OAD farmer who has done

much to maximise pro-duction and profitabil-ity on his farm, improving pastures and feeding his cows well. Over time he has built up the quality of his herd by culling and breeding and selecting cows which perform well in the OAD system.

Another important facet of his operation is on

farm working expenses: for the 2013-14 season these were $3.96/kgMS. The farm will produce about 203,400kgMS in the current season.

The conference attend-ees were also much inter-ested in the farm the three brothers jointly own and manage with the help of a herd manager and two staff.

The 194ha farm

(Tahora) was acquired by the brothers in July 2012 and a hectic two months followed as they converted it to be milking in August. The 550 cross bred cows are run through a 40-aside ‘no frills’ herringbone shed.

The three brothers recognise each other’s strengths and on the new

farm Leo looks after staff-ing issues, Peter the stock and Gerard handles finan-cial and the growing com-pliance load. They hadn’t been looking for a new farm, but this one came to market and presented an exciting challenge.

The decision to go OAD was effectively a pragmatic one, Gerard says. “We decided on OAD because for us the challenge was

to set it up quickly and we were all interested in low cost so the whole thing just fitted.

“We put up a low cost cow shed, some of the components of which were secondhand. We have discovered through Leo’s experience that OAD can be just as prof-itable and productive as

TAD and so yeah we are trying to copy that model.”

Gerard says parts of the farm can be prone to flooding so they had to design the

races so as always to have access to the dry parts of the farm; so far they haven’t had a flood. They have also been creat-ing a wetland on the farm as part of the process of improving water quality in the area.

Because part of the farm was once organic, there are many different species of grass and they are now going through a

OAD the Vollebregt way

AUSSIE SNEAKS ACROSS TO LEARN

“We try to farm well and know a bit about the specifics of OAD - mainly growing quality grass well and looking after cows well.”

Farmers at the Vollebregts’ milk shed.Tom Marcucci

OAD isn’t rocket science, says Leo Vollebregt.

process of renewing pas-ture with standard dairy pastures.

Peter runs 280 cows on his nearby 97ha. He says he and his brothers work well together and enjoy working on projects such as this one.

He admits the herd is not exactly what they want in the long term, but says

in order to get the farm into production they did the best they could.

“Initially we didn’t have as many options as we’d have liked when we took over the farm on July 1 and we wanted to be milking that season so we couldn’t be that fussy and couldn’t be as selective as we’d have liked to.”

As they build towards this they are taking advan-tage of the Friesian base in the herd and some of the Friesian heifers are being exported to China.

Leo says his broth-ers are good dairy farm-ers who understand cows and keep costs down. OAD isn’t rocket science, he says.

“We try to farm well and know a bit about the specifics of OAD – mainly growing quality grass well and looking after cows well. There are a lot of skills involved and you rely on those skills at all levels of management and operations. You put them all together well and you have success.”

The Vollebregt broth-ers have in two years built an efficient, profitable farm, working together well and keeping a focus on the bottom line.

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36 // MANAGEMENT

Focus turns on new farmA NEW farm is joining the focus farm project on the Hauraki Plains.

A field day introduc-ing the new farm and the goals of the project will be held on the Ngatea farm of Megan and Michael Web-ster this week. The Web-sters’ farm will inform local farmers for the next three years.

The focus farm project,

supported by DairyNZ, was set up by a committee of farmers in 2011 to dem-onstrate the profitability gains possible on a typical Hauraki Plains dairy farm.

The committee, known as P3 Trust, selected Michael and Megan Web-ster’s farm in Ngatea as the new focus farm, having concluded the project’s first phase on Angus and

Karen MacIn-neses’ property in Waitakaruru.

The Websters see this as “an opportunity to fulfil our poten-tial and strive to be the best we can be,” says Megan. “This is a great opportunity to challenge ourselves and step out of our comfort

zone.”The couple are equity

partners in the 217ha farm where they will milk 640 cows this season and employ two staff. They have already benefited from some of the advice on offer.

“Other farmers have been positive and offer-ing to help out. We’ve had a few farmers from the focus farm committee step up and mentor us. By just doing the farm walks with them, we’ve learnt so much in that short period of time,” says Michael.

The Websters fol-lowed the progress of

the MacInneses and their son Matthew MacInnes by attending field days on

the property and receiving regular email updates.

“We’ve been impressed

with their improvements; it has been amazing to watch,” says Megan.

THE P3 Trust held a final field day on the MacInneses’ farm at the end of May where a summary of the project was provided.

DairyNZ consulting officer Fiona Wade says during the last three years the MacInneses have met or made progress on a range of goals resulting in an increase in profit and achieving family goals for succession.

“A strong focus of the MacInnes family and the P3 trust has been to increase profit,” says Wade. To achieve this the MacInnes family and the management team focused on getting the basics of pasture management right, improved reproductive performance, increased strategic nitrogen use, forward contracting supplementary feed to have a lower purchase price/kgME and overall improved cost control.

At the beginning of the project, the farm profit was $1298/ha. At the same milk price of $6.50/kgMS, profit in 2013-14 would be $2898/ha.

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MANAGEMENT // 37

More bouquets than brickbats

HOW OFTEN do you give positive or neg-ative feedback to your staff, or anyone in your life come to that?

Research shows there’s a threshold ratio – the Losada ratio – of three positives to every negative required to gain engage-ment, and an optimum range running up to about six positives to one negative.

Dana Carver, of DairyNZ’s people team, told SIDE attendees that surveys in the dairy industry have found the ratio onfarm averages four negatives to one pos-itive. Little wonder that the industry has 50% higher staff turnover than the national average.

“If they (employees) are not engaged, then turnover is going to be high,” she warned, during a workshop on staff engagement.

Most staff leave not because of money, but because they’re not engaged in the job or there’s something more engaging on offer elsewhere, she said.

Long hours, lack of career progression, attracting the wrong people in the first place, and poor people management also contribute to the sector’s high turnover.

“How do we break the cycle? We have to prioritise the time to put the people man-agement systems in place and upskill.”

Carver said she’s worried those responding to television advertisements promoting dairying as a career aren’t going to get the experience promised because of the lack of people management skills on many farms. That shortfall is easily explained.

“Most of us have not actually been trained in people management like we have in the operational things.”

But just as managers had learned to be good with pasture and stock – the skills

progressed them to positions with staff to manage – so they could learn to be good with people, she said. “There is a formula for it, just like there is with pasture man-agement.”

Good recruitment practice and thor-ough, planned orientation is the start (see panel). Recruitment should include a detailed job description with farm culture and values spelt out, at least three ways of advertising, an application form, phone screening of applicants, thorough refer-ence checks, and face-to-face interviews done in a professional manner.

Orientation means a full introduction to the job, responsibilities, other staff, the farm and its systems. One-to-one reviews of progress should be held four, eight and 12 weeks in. Calving or other busy times are no excuse.

“You can make time for it. You’ve just got to believe it makes a difference,” Carver stressed, pointing out managers would often find half an hour to talk to a contractor about a job on the farm, yet many fail to find that time for their staff.

Good team meetings – planned, engag-ing and involving all, and delivering action points and results – are the next step. One-on-one reviews should be similarly planned and scheduled. Agreeing and pro-viding good training is also important, as is good leadership.

“The bottom line is a manager must be respected and trusted in order to motivate staff.”

Making time to get to know employ-ees, and observe them or their work would enable genuine, positive feedback to be given, gaining engagement.

While prioritising people management, upskilling and getting systems in place may at first make a manager busier, in the long-run it’s the only sustainable option, Carver argued. “Once you can manage people, the world’s kind of your oyster.”

ANDREW [email protected]

Pasture system People SystemRoutine farm walks and feed wedges Good recruitment and orientationPlan paddock use Good team meetingsPlan fertiliser use One-on-one review timeUse correct round lengths Good training

Good communication and feedbackResult: Quality grass with good growth and correct covers

Result: A happy, capable and efficient team that stick around

Adopted from Dana Carver’s presentation to SIDE 2014.

People and pasture management parallels

Dana Carver, DairyNZ talks to SIDE delegate Robert McIntosh.

3599 Metabolizer halfpg vert.ind1 1 9/11/08 9:20:42 AM


38 // MANAGEMENT

GIBBERELIN SPRAYS are best used to fill feed deficits at the shoulders of the season and should not be used throughout the year, a workshop session

Putting gibb’ in its placeANDREW [email protected]

at the South Island Dairy Event heard.

“From a systems per-spective where they sit is really to cover these feed deficits: they are not a plant nutrient,” Lincoln University researcher Rachael Bryant stressed to delegates.

They won’t replace

nitrogen which remains the main driver of pro-duction but a tendency to reduce tillering in rye-grass means gibberellins may give clover a boost, she added.

Besides reducing com-petition in the sward from ryegrass tillers, clover responds strongly to the Rachael Bryant

NAIT IS entering the final 12 months of a three-year tran-sition for cattle and all stock should be tagged and regis-tered by July 1, 2015.

Dan Schofield, acting NAIT and farm operations man-ager, says this includes cattle born before the NAIT scheme became mandatory on July 1, 2012. Cattle born since July 2012 must be tagged within six months of birth, or before they are moved off farm, whichever comes first.

“However, we recommend farmers tag animals at the earliest possible time after birth. This means they will be far easier to handle. For best tag retention, animals should be tagged in the inner part of the ear between the two veins,” says Schofield.

“Farmers are reminded to tag their stock and register them with NAIT within one week of tagging, or before they leave the property, whichever is sooner.”

Registration is a key requirement of the NAIT scheme. It links the tag used to an animal’s birth farm and shows the current location of the tagged animal. Performing the animal registration allows that animal to be eligible for lifetime traceability within the NAIT system.

“If farmers have any stock born before July 1, 2012 that they consider too dangerous to tag we recommend send-ing these animals to slaughter before July 1, 2015. These animals must already have a TBfree New Zealand bar-coded primary eartag to be eligible and the impractical-to-tag levy will apply,” says Schofield.

NAIT is beginning to consult pending a review of the impractical-to-tag levy as it is currently expected to cease from July 1, 2015.

plant hormone produc-ing larger leaves on longer petioles. But there may be weed effects too.

“A lot of dicots and broadleaved weeds are very responsive to gibb’. Dock’s one of them, espe-cially in autumn,” noted Bryant.

But applying gibb’ to

autumn ryegrass could be a way to reduce nitrogen content in pasture which is often particularly high at that time of year, so such applications are being investigated as a tool to reduce nitrogen leaching risk going into winter.

Bryant explained the gibberelin sprays work by promoting stem elon-gation, as do plants’ own gibberellins, produced in response to increasing day length, later in the season. Early and late applications nearly always produce a visual pasture response but not always a drymatter response, she added.

Ensuring sufficient plant nutrients are avail-able, notably nitrogen, seems to be one of the keys to ensuring a drymat-ter response is obtained. “Using gibb without nitro-gen is like giving a teenage kid steroids with an empty pantry,” she warned.

The stem elongation effect means platemeter readings or other assays of pasture yield may need adjusting.

Gibb should be applied as soon as possible after grazing, at least within five days. “The response isn’t to do with plant height: it’s to do with it having had its head chopped off.”

A risk post treatment

is stem elongation result-ing in all leaves of the rye-grass being grazed when pasture is taken down to the standard seven click, 1500kgDM/ha residual height, extending the lag phase until pasture starts to accumulate drymatter again after grazing.

The impact of removing all leaves was spelt out at an earlier SIDE workshop by DairyNZ’s Sean McCar-thy and David Chapman who relayed results of sim-ulated overgrazing events leaving residuals of just 1200kgDM/ha.

“You can see straight away how that low residual was holding up growth. It was just sitting there spin-ning its wheels for [about 15 days],” noted Chapman.

Consequently, the overgrazed plots took 45 days to reach target graz-ing height, compared to 28-30 days for plots cut to the standard 1500kgDM/ha.

A study of seven farms by McCarthy in the lower North Island found two farms regularly overgraz-ing, two regularly under-grazing, and while the other three had more residuals in the target 7-9 click range, 10-20% of pastures were still being undergrazed and 10-20% overgrazed.

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MANAGEMENT // 39

AUSTRALIAN DAIRY farmers Sam and Christine McCluggage follow a simple calf rearing system that proves size really does matter when it comes to reproduction success.

For five years the farm has used a fixed-time sexed semen AI pro-gramme and has made the develop-ment of well-grown heifers a high priority.

All calves are given every opportu-nity to grow to their genetic potential. The McCluggages aim to rear heif-ers to a joining weight of 350kg at 15 months and a calving weight of at least 600kg as two-year-olds.

The programme has been worth its weight in milk, bigger bodied heif-ers achieving high in-calf rates and production and reproduction targets being met.

The McCluggages, who farm at Allonsford, western Victoria, hosted a Warrnambool Veterinary Clinic Farm-Chat forum last month to explain their system that has been overseen by Dr Jon Kelly.

Last year the farm achieved a 53% in-calf rate using sexed semen – higher than industry expectations of about 40% -- which was boosted to nearly 90% after the addition of Jersey bulls.

“We were very happy with that,” McCluggage said. “Anything 45 or over is a good result with frozen sexed semen.

“We’d be happy to get 53% with whatever we used.”

This year the farm will rear 300 heifer calves from a 650 herd. “We probably came off a base of 150-160 five years ago,” McCluggage said.

The farm’s priority is to grow good size heifers to continue the high reproduction rates.

“We aim for a young herd with extra numbers entering at the start

of calving and well-grown heifers that can produce well and become pregnant.

“We’ve been able to breed a lot more early heifers and we’ve been able to double the amount of heifers by joining a big heifer group.

“We get probably 60-80 heifer calves right at the very start of calving.

“To get your heifers well grown gives them the best chance of con-ceiving and to have a good healthy calf. The bigger heifers definitely produce better. They’re not too far off their mature herd mates if you get them up to the 600kg plus mark at calving for Holsteins.”

The calf rearing programme fol-lows up the AI system. “Keeping things simple is the key,” McCluggage said. “We don’t have any automation in our system.”

Years ago the calving season started in mid-May but it was brought forward to March 20 as the herd grew bigger and to suit a preference for working with animals while the weather is still good.

Calves are removed from their mothers within 6-12 hours and given 2L of fresh colostrum via a tube feeder

and then another 2L 12 hours later.Once fed the calves are put in a

purpose-built shed set up for protec-tion from wind and rain from the west and south but with the east side open to allow good ventilation.

Wood shavings 450mm deep carpet the floor, and 100mm saw-dust is added later in the season. Five calves are housed in each pen.

Early in the season calves stay in the shed for only 4-8 days unless the weather is poor. They are then moved to small, well-sheltered paddocks.

“We get the calves out in the pad-docks as early as we can, which you can do when you’re an early calver,” McCluggage said.

The new-born calves are fed 3-5L of fresh colostrum milk once per day, the youngest calves getting preference for colostrum.

The calves are weaned by sight from 13 weeks, though late calves may stay on milk until 16-18 weeks to help them catch up. Grain feed-ing continues for a further 6-8 weeks with smaller later calves offered more to make up growth. Calves in the pad-docks have access to an adlib crushed grain mix and fresh water.

Sam McCluggage with Gavin Lake, Clayton Smith and Alex Craig at a FarmChat forum held on the McCluggage property at Allansford, Victoria.

Proper calf rearing improves AI successRICK [email protected]

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40 // ANIMAL HEALTH

Money from better cow fertility

Developing eczema-tolerant dairy cattle genetics

DAIRY FARMERS in the Nelson-Marlborough region are invited by LIC to learn how they could make more money from every cow in their herd.

The coop plans to run events in eight towns, with Cognosco, the research group from Anexa Animal Health, to present key find-ings of the national herd fertility study (funded by DairyNZ) and talk with farmers about reproductive perfor-mance.

LIC’s Greg McNeil says that by focusing on eight key areas, farmers could achieve more profit from the same sized herd.

“This is an open invitation to all farmers in the area… to join the dis-cussion, learn what drives successful

reproduction and what they could do to improve their herd’s performance.”

The events will be held in Mur-chison, Takaka and Havelock next

month. The presenta-tion will present the latest research of reproductive performance of New Zea-land dairy herds, includ-ing local statistics.

“The comprehen-sive study was done over many years,

with farms and herds across the country and has provided fascinating insights of how suc-cessful reproduction is achieved on farms of all sizes.

“We’ll present these findings in a practical way to provide farm-ers with information they can take away and apply on their own farms,

to ultimately improve their herd’s reproductive performance.”

The events are the final stage of the reproduction roadshow run in other farming towns nationwide last year.

Greg McNeil

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WORK IS underway to develop genet-ics that make cows more tolerant to facial eczema (FE).

Breeding company CRV Ambreed and AgResearch are working on the project, partly funded under the Pri-mary Growth Partnership (PGP) scheme.

CRV Ambreed’s genetic develop-ment strategist Phil Beatson points out that FE stresses cattle and presents an economic risk to farm businesses through lowered milk production, weight loss and death of stock.

For every three in 100 cows with clinical FE, it is estimated up to 70% of a herd may have subclinical symp-toms, he says.

“You won’t necessarily see the dis-ease in cows with subclinical symp-toms, but it will be damaging the liver and lowering milk production,” says Beatson.

“Because many subclinical animals go undiagnosed and untreated, it is hard to quantify the economic impact of FE on the dairy industry – but con-servative estimates in lost milk pro-duction are around $160M per year, depending on outbreaks and weather.”

But FE resistance in dairy cattle is a heritable trait, and that’s good news, he says. “The sheep industry has proven that if you develop a long-term breed-ing programme you can significantly reduce the occurrence of the disease.

“We’ve seen how sheep farmers have taken control and addressed the disease well, but in the dairy industry it hasn’t received the same degree of attention until now.”

DairyNZ strategic investment leader for productivity, Dr Bruce Thorr-old, says the dairy industry supports the research being done.

“A key objective of the PGP pro-gramme is to use transforming tech-nologies and information flows to help dairy farmers to sustainably improve dairy farm productivity through on-farm innovation and research,” says Thorrold.

The work is being funded by CRV, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, DairyNZ and the Ministry for Primary Industries as part of the Transforming the Dairy Value Chain PGP programme.

“Because FE is an issue for the industry, we have all invested in the science behind more tolerant bulls to provide dairy farmers with another option for FE manage-ment. Bull testing is available to all the industry now, and it’s good to see the science being commercialised by CRV,” says Thorrold.

AgResearch scientist Dr Chris Morris and Neil Cullen have been lead-ing the project alongside Beatson.

Says Cullen, “Our work with CRV Ambreed over the past 10 years has resulted in a bull team which will sire cows with a degree of resistance and more resilience to FE challenge than cows from the average bull. These bulls have been evaluated for FE tolerance, so dairy farmers can take a long-term view of developing herds resilient to a FE challenge.”

Beatson says the research has been particularly intensive over the past four years to establish bull teams which in one round of use are predicted to breed the next generation of cows 25% less reactive to a challenge from FE.

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42 // ANIMAL HEALTH

A SOUTH West Victoria study has found that dairy farmers can benefit from using sexed semen, particularly in well-grown heifers.

The Warrnambool Veterinary Clinic ran fixed-time AI monitoring of sexed and conventional semen and found that joining heifers with sexed semen at 320kg or more can produce good results.

Speaking last month at a Warrnam-bool Veterinary Clinic FarmChat forum at Allansford, Dr Jon Kelly said size rather than age was a key factor in repro-duction success.

According to Kelly, there were bene-fits from using sexed semen, including more replacements, better opportunity to cull, driving herd structure younger and as an extra income stream with excess heifers.

“The most fertile animal in a herd is a well-grown heifer so farmers should target them rather than cows. Cows are inherently less fertile than heifers,” he

says.Sexed semen will result in about 90%

heifers and 10% bulls.“Some heifers are only 12-13 months

old when joining but it doesn’t make any difference to your result as long as they are big enough.

“Using the Warrnambool Veteri-nary Clinic fixed-time AI programme at 320kg you are likely to get over 85% showing heat at the time of AI. It shows they have all reached sexual puberty.”

The trials found sexed semen achieved an average 41% in-calf rate, which Kelly said was worth doing.

“One farmer had 26% in-calf rate but the farm only had 70% showing heat when they were receiving AI because they were little heifers,” he said.

“Herds with smaller heifers get lower conception rates. Little ones don’t calve as well while bigger heifers are much stronger performers.

“If you can’t guarantee a 30% con-

ception rate then the benefits aren’t there and you should go back to using normal semen. It all comes down to the heifers submitted to the programme.”

He added that fixed-time AI is an option for heifers at out paddocks where heat detection is difficult.

Farmers should use a team of sexed sires. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” he said.

Kelly said the study across south-west Victoria farms confirmed that sexed semen is very different from conventional unsexed semen. “It is a compromised product that gives lower conception rates than conventional semen and should be used in a con-trolled way,” he said.

Kelly said it is also possible to use sexed semen in the milking herd. “There are a lot more cows than heifers in the herd and we should be having a crack at using sexed semen but in a controlled way. Be wary of the hangover effect.

“Be wary of using sexed semen for too long in the joining period and affect-ing next year’s fertility.”

Kelly described the first month of joining as critical for subsequent herd fertility.

Farmers should maintain strict qual-ity control, and preferably use an AI technician they have used in the past with good results to carry out the proce-dure. “Do all the farm can control really well – AI technique, animal handling and

heat detection.”Kelly said the dairy industry had suc-

cessfully bred high producing cows but this came at the detriment of reproduc-tion results.

“It can be a vicious cycle that keeps getting worse unless you do something about it.”

He said it was important that farm-ers record a sexed semen insemination so they can analyse the result and justify its use the next season.

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ANIMAL HEALTH // 43

Farmers at front line of foot and mouth detectionDETECTING FOOT and mouth disease (FMD) early allows a better response to tackle it, says DairyNZ vet Anna Irwin.

Irwin, back from a five-day train-ing camp run by the European Com-mission for the control of FMD in Nepal, says dairy farmers are pivotal in detecting the disease early.

Seeing the disease was invalu-able, Irwin says, “but it also brought home the importance of being alert on farms. Anyone working with live-stock on a daily basis is in the best position to be our number one sur-veillance force.

“Foot and mouth is one of our big-gest biosecurity risks, so we need to be prepared. The quicker something is picked up, the better our response will be.”

And farmers use of New Zealand’s biosecurity systems, such as NAIT (National Animal Identification and Tracing) will help prevent an out-break.

“It’s important that farmers keep their NAIT records up-to-date, as animal tracing and accurate records are vital in any disease investigation. In any outbreak, the ability to reliably

trace animals saves so much time.“Nepal doesn’t have anything like

our system, which makes it much harder to manage and control the disease when animals move around so much.”

If FMD were to reach New Zealand, it would damage the country’s trade reputation and halt virtually all exports of meat, animal by-products and dairy products until at least three months after the disease was considered eradicated.

Led by the Ministry for Primary Industries, the Nepal trip provided training in the clinical recognition, diagnosis, investigation and control of FMD.

FMD is widespread in Nepal and outbreaks occur frequently there. The train-ing gave veterinarians, gov-ernment officials and other rural professionals from FMD-free countries some of the skills required for an outbreak.

Farmers should report any-

thing they are unsure about in any livestock to the biosecurity line by calling 0800 80 99 66.

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Sires named best of seasonTWO LIC bulls have won sire-of-the-season awards from Jersey and Holstein-Friesian breed soci-eties.

William SIA Duetto won Jersey New Zealand’s JT Thwaites Sire of the Season and Hazael Dauntless Freedom won the Holstein-Frie-sian New Zealand’s Mahoe Trophy at the societies’ annual conferences this month.

LIC’s general manager of bio-logical systems, Geoff Corbett, says these are “prestigious awards many breeders strive for”.

“Congratulations to the Flemings (Otorohanga) and the Schoutens (Invercargill) for breeding these elite bulls and having your expertise recognised too.”

Duetto and Freedom were pop-

ular with farmers this season, both sitting high on the ranking of active sires (RAS) list for their breeds.

Duetto is third on the Jersey RAS list, with BW of 249.

Freedom was sired by MacFar-

lanes Dauntless, and is eighth on the Holstein-Friesian RAS list with BW of 272.

The Mahoe Trophy is awarded to the NZ bred bull whose proof has earned the most points for traits, daughter production, conforma-tion and management.

The JT Thwaites Sire of the Season award is given to the bull that meets criteria in production and traits other than production, and has the highest BW after the May animal evaluation run.

310034 Willand SIA DuettoBW:■$249Sire:■Shalendy■Ideal■Ascent■

S3JBreeders:■■Gavin■and■

Rosemary■Fleming■from■Otorohanga.

109230 Hazael Dauntless Freedom

BW:■$272Sire:■MacFarlanes■DauntlessBreeders:■Hans■and■Margaret■

Schouten■(Hazael■Farms)■from■Invercargill.


44 // ANIMAL HEALTH

Ray Kitchen believes earlier preg testing through herd recording samples will allow him to close up the amount of time cows are empty. PHOTO: FARMWEST. Testing made easy

TECHNOLOGY FOR diagnosing pregnancy from milk or blood sam-ples, for example through herd testing services, is now available from several Australian companies.

The industry learned about the Idexx technol-ogy at last year’s Herd 13 conference when Neil

Petreny, from CanWest DHI, described its enthu-siastic uptake by Canadian dairy farmers.

To date, Northern Herd, Farm West, HICO and Nugene have signed up for the technology and will soon make it avail-able to dairy farmers in regions other than NSW,

Queensland and Tasma-nia.

The test can detect cows pregnant at 35 days from a milk sample and at 28 days from a blood sample. The milk sample test is a week earlier than pregnancy testing through traditional rectal palpa-tion.

The Idexx test detects pregnancy-associated gly-coproteins (PAGs) that spike in a cow’s system from about 25 days in pregnancy and the farmer usually has the results within one-three days of herd recording.

Boyanup, WA, farmer Ray Kitchen, principal of Carenda Holsteins, has used the service since it became available through FarmWest in Western Australia in September 2013.

“Preg testing with milk samples is quick and easy and a lot less stressful on the cows and the opera-tors,” he says.

Kitchen also sees it as a way to reduce the time cows are empty, thus improving profitability in his 400-cow herd which calves in three batches per year.

“Days empty cost money. Getting cows back in calf sooner means we will be milking more fresh cows than stale cows and that means better profit-ability.”

The first time he tried the service Kitchen had 50 cows analysed for preg-nancy.

“We found about two thirds were in calf as a result of a mating pro-gramme we were running. Early preg tests are a big advantage for a synchrony programme. It means we can retreat the empty cows a week earlier so they are ready to inseminate

sooner.”A few cows receive a

‘re-check’ result meaning the cow may be too early in pregnancy to detect the PAGs or that she may have lost an early pregnancy.

Kitchen found the logistics of preg testing with milk samples simple. “I went into our herd records on Easy Dairy to see which cows had been mated more than 35 days previously. Then I circled these cows on the herd recording paperwork to order flag them for preg-nancy testing.

“The results are easy to understand and it’s a 30 second job to update our records.”

As his herd record-ing date always falls near the end of a week, Kitchen usually has the results in time to identify the cows not in calf by the Friday afternoon and then have them cycling Sunday night ready to inseminate Monday morning.

Another advantage of the technique is accurate calving dates.

“That means we can dry the cows off at the cor-rect time. We want our cows to have enough dry time to set them up for a productive and fertile lac-tation, but if we give them too long we face a loss of production and income. Now we have a tool to get it just right.”

Rod Brasher, Farm-West, said providing the service incurred a lot of expense for laboratory, testing equipment and software but he was con-fident in the value of the technology, voted the dairy industry’s best new product at the 2013 World Dairy Expo. • This article was first pub-lished in the June-July 2014 Australian Holstein Journal.

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A HIGH-PRODUCING dairy cow is under massive metabolic stress and the liver is at the crossroads of metabolism.

A newly available sup-plement called Metab-olase, from European pharmaceutical firm Fatro, Italy, corrects metabolic balance in all states of tox-icosis, fatty liver, fatigue and stress by fine control of metabolism, improved energy uptake, scavenging of free radicals and ammo-nia clearance and detoxi-fication.

The product is a well-researched parenteral (injected into a vein or muscle or under the skin).

Metabolase supplies essential vitamins and amino acids, to enable the body to be naturally more efficient in its own energy metabolism. It has four major actions:

1) Improving energy uptake

Inside every cell are the mitochondria, the cell’s ‘power’ producers. Muscle cells have many mito-chondria, allowing them

to respond quickly to the need for doing work. L-Carnitine is the only physiological carrier for transport of fatty acids inside the mitochondria, where they are burnt to produce energy.

Thus carnitine, a major component of Metabolase, stimulates complete glu-cose oxidation and mini-mises lactate production and helps the organism use fats for energy produc-tion. The result is a reduc-tion in metabolic acidosis, a delay in muscle fatigue

and an improvement in the maintenance of con-tractile force.

Deficiency of L-carni-tine results in the block-age of-oxidation of fatty acids resulting in a reduc-tion in energy supply to cells and also to accumu-lation of free fatty acids in cells, leading to toxic effects on the cells. All of this results in ketosis, hepatic steatosis, mus-cular asthenia, muscular atony and cardiac insuffi-ciency.

Fructose and sorbitol are added energy sources.

Fructose is a ready-to-use source of energy while sorbitol is a sugar alco-hol the body uses slowly. While the energy content is high this is only part of the story; it is all very well providing fuel to an engine but there must also

be ignition for it to work. Metabo-

lase pro-

vides not only fuel but also the spark. Like the ‘give a man a fish or teach him how to fish’ story, Metabolase ignites the

body into burning its own energy.

2) Fine control of metabolism

Vitamin B12

is involved in the formation of red blood cells and it stimu-lates appetite, promotes growth and releases energy.

Vitamin B6 is a cofactor

in many energy-produc-ing metabolic reactions, is important for protein and amino acid metabolism and is essential in releas-ing energy from muscle glycogen.

3) Scavenging free rad-icals

Metabolase contains five antioxidants. Thioc-

ANIMAL HEALTH // 45

Supplement counters cow’s ‘massive’ metabolic stressDENNIS SCOTT

tic acid scavenges free radicals in aqueous and fatty regions of cells (as opposed to vitamin C, aqueous only, and vitamin

E, fatty only), arginine has a favourable influence on antioxidant defence sys-tems in the lungs, lysine can increase intestinal calcium absorption and increase the renal con-servation of the absorbed calcium thus improving calcium balance during the transition period, methionine is essential in

a wide range of biochemi-cal reactions and glycine is useful in reducing oxi-dant damage following an inflammatory response.

4) Ammonia clearance and detoxification

All cows after calv-ing have increased circu-lating ammonia because of decreased ureagene-sis caused by hepatic lipid accumulation. Ammonia induces muscle weakness and can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause central fatigue.

Ornithine, citrulline and arginine are needed to drive liver detoxification of ammonia and aspar-tic and glutamic acids in muscle. • Dr Dennis Scott is a vet for Ethical Agents.

Dennis Scott

“Like the ‘give a man a fish or teach him how to fish’ story, metabolics ignites the body into burning its own energy.”

Metabolase helps cows to be naturally more efficient in its own energy matabolism.

• Detects a wide range of antibiotics at or near to NZ regulatory levels.

• MPI approved for on-farm testing.• Single vial test - just add milk

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ANTIBIOTICS IN YOUR MILK?The COWSIDE-2 on farm test can provide peace of mind prior to pick up

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CALVING // 47

Extra effort now will pay dividends laterTO SET up a dairy cow for a long, productive life you must give her the best possible start.

According to DairyNZ, extra effort now will pay dividends throughout a cow’s milking life. Well-grown heifers make much better milking cows; grow-ing them well starts from the day they are born.

It’s important to follow best practice in calf rear-ing, DairyNZ says.

All calves, including bobbies, must get ade-quate fresh colostrum in their first 24 hours of life and should be fed colos-trum, or a colostrum sub-stitute, for at least their first four days.

Always handle calves

gently and with care. Do not allow anyone to throw, hit or drag a calf at any time; electric prodders must not be used.

Calves not with their dams must be kept shel-tered – warm and dry.

Calf pens must be fit for purpose and well maintained. Bedding areas must be comfort-

CALVES■MUST■be■checked■twice■daily■for■signs■of■ill-health■and■treatment■given■to■any■found■ill.Check■as■follows:

■■ Noses■are■clear■of■discharges■and■are■moist■and■cool

■■ Calves■are■alert■and■have■respon-sive■ears■with■no■infection■around■the■ear■tag

■■ Navels■are■clear■of■infection■■ Mouths■are■clear■of■ulcers

■■ Calves■have■shiny,■supple■coats.■Note■that■if■a■calf’s■pinched■skin■is■slow■to■return■to■normal■it■may■be■dehydrated■and■need■electrolytes

■■ Vaccinate,■treat■for■parasites■and■provide■access■to■shelter

■■ Control■the■spread■of■disease.■Calves■of■the■same■age■should■stay■in■the■same■pen.■However,■small■or■unthrifty■calves■may■be■better■off■with■a■younger■group.

REGULAR HEALTH CHECK

able, clean and dry, with adequate ventilation to ensure ammonia gas does not build up. Exposed concrete, bare earth and mud are not acceptable.

Calves should be fed at the same times each day to minimise stress and have ready access to large quantities of clean water.

Feed calves well to rapidly achieve weaning weight with a well devel-oped rumen.

Colostrum is very important: a calf should drink at least 2-3L of fresh colostrum during the first six hours of life to get the immunoglobulins that act as antibodies. To achieve this, collect new calves twice a day and give them first day colostrum regard-less of whether they have had a feed.

First day colostrum is valuable (even if it con-

tains blood or clotty mas-titis milk). It should be fed fresh. Store it (other than first-day colostrum) in several drums to reduce risk of loss; keep it cool and stir it twice a day.

A colostrum keeper may be added to maintain the sterility of the product, or add a sachet of Ezy-yo to each drum; colostrum can be frozen for up to six months. Thaw in hot water, do not microwave.

Routine good hygiene and health practices are also critical. DairyNZ rec-ommends scrubbing all

feeding equipment well with hot water and deter-gent. Clean calf pens often and disinfect the places where sick calves

are treated. Spray pens weekly with a broad spec-trum disinfectant; remove sick calves promptly to a sick bay.

Best practices in calf rearing result in successful milking cows.

Newborn calves? Give them lifetime traceability

To find out more go to

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Tag them with NAIT approved RFID ear tags within six months of birth or before being moved off farm.

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Problem: Cleaning waterbuckets and troughsSolution: Pen Waterer• Stops dust, bird and calf faeces soiling the water • 8L bowl with float valve • Drain for easy cleaning• Riser with 20mm thread

Problem: Meal wastage fromcalf faeces, rain and pestsSolution: Milk Bar Meal Saver• 100% wind, rain and pest proof• Keeps meal dry, clean and edible • Counter balanced lids that calves easily lift with their noses• Fitted with tow skids. Holds 150kg

Problem: Lifting buckets ofmilk all season Solution: Milk Bar Milk Kart• Fitted with a Flow Meter• Fitted with 12v battery and pump • Available in either 125L or 550L• Optional power whisk • Easy to use, easy to clean

Problem: Calves cross suckling on ears and uddersSolution: Milk Bar Teat• A valveless, internal web controls the flow rate to stop calves gulping • Reduces cross suckling*• Higher weight gains*• Calves are more settled and stay latched onto the teat*

Problem: Calves bunting feeders off the railsSolution: Ezi Lock Hooks• Milk Bar feeders with Ezi Lock Hooks are 100% bunt proof• Feeders sit snug against rail• Feeders lock onto anything from wire to 75mm• Feeders hang upside down to drain

Problem: Mobiles that arehard to clean and don’t lastSolution: Milk Bar Deluxe• Only Milk Bar Deluxe Mobiles have two separate axles• Suspension softens the ride to reduce wear and tear• Jockey wheel and handle• NO pipes or plumbing!

* As found in the Milk Bar Research Trial 2014. © All information from the Milk Bar Research Trial 2014 is owned by McInnes Manufacturing Ltd. No reproduction is permitted unless a written request has been authorised by McInnes Manufacturing Ltd.


CALVING // 49

Research shows impact of poor teat designCALF REARING equip-ment firm Milk Bar says a trial commissioned by the company shows poor teat design can impact pre-weaned calves.

The trial earlier this year looked at the influ-ence of teat flow rates in commercial milk feeding systems on calf health and performance.

Milk Bar says the pre-liminary results are “shocking” and clearly show the negative effect poor teat design can have on pre-weaned calves.

The brief was to feed six groups of calves from the same farm, the same rations and in the same facility. Three groups were to be fed with Milk Bar teats to give a controlled feeding rate, while the other three groups were to be fed with a “faster teat with an internal valve” that feeds at a similar speed to teats sold in New Zealand, North America and Europe.

Previous studies have shown that the feed-ing rate influences post-feeding cross-suckling in groups of calves, the com-

pany says. “The trial is still in progress so we still can’t answer the ‘why’ question, but we have evidence that confirms groups of calves fed on a faster teat with an internal valve will cross-suck, while it is rare in groups of calves fed from Milk Bar teats,” the com-pany says.

“We have been able to show the udder damage caused by calves cross-sucking. It has long been suspected that cross-suck-ing can lead to heifer mas-titis. We knew this was happening from obser-vations by farmers, and we are concerned at the impact this can have on the production capabili-ties of that heifer when she comes into the herd.”

While the trial is still ongoing, there are some preliminary results to share for this calving season, the company says.

“It was apparent that calves in the ‘faster teat with an internal valve’ groups cross-suckled vig-orously after feeding. They suckled on navels, ears and developing udders. These calves tended to have

red swollen teats, but of greater concern was that the teat canals appeared to be open, and the kera-tin plug appeared to have been sucked out.

“It is too early in the trials to answer the ques-tion, ‘Why do calves fed on a faster teat with an internal valve cross suck so much while it is rare in groups of calves fed with Milk Bar teats?’ But the research trial has made it obvious that they do, and the impact of these dam-aged udders coming into your herd is worth think-ing about. We will be monitoring these calves through to milking in 2016 and will keep farmers informed on their prog-ress.”

During the trial, some calves from both groups were euthanased to see what the effects of differ-ent feeding speeds had within the digestive tract. The difference of the curd structure in the aboma-sum was noticeable two hours after feeding.

“Calves in the ‘faster teat with an internal valve’ group had clumps of curd

floating in a watery fluid while the calves in the Milk Bar teat group had even, porridge-like curd-ing. Further analysis is being undertaken to see exactly what effect this has on digestibility but it is interesting to note that during the first week alone, the calves fed on Milk Bar teats gained 17.5% more weight than the other groups.”

Milk Bar teats have an internal web that controls the flow rate, stopping calves gulping and encour-aging the correct suckling action and saliva produc-tion required for better curding, higher weight gain and less cross-suck-ling, the company notes.

“Calves must suckle on a Milk Bar teat, just like they do from a cow. If you squeeze a cow’s teat the milk goes back into the udder. To milk a cow you must strip downwards while squeezing the teat between thumb and fin-gers. When a calf is on a cow it must suckle hard to obtain milk.

“If you squeeze a Milk Bar teat, you will get the

same result: the milk goes back into the feeder. To get milk from a Milk Bar teat a calf must suckle in exactly the same way as it does from a cow. This is the natural way for a calf to feed and their digestive system will stay healthy as a result.

“A common miscon-ception is that when a cow ‘lets her milk down’ the milk is readily avail-able to the calf. In fact she will only let it down into the teat canal and the calf still has to suckle hard to obtain it; milk is definitely not forced out as it is when you squeeze a teat with an internal valve*.

“This misconception has led to numerous teats with internal valves being developed. Unfortunately when you squeeze a teat with an internal valve, as a calf does when it suckles, the milk squirts out with force.

“To get milk from a teat with an internal valve

a calf will pump the teat and milk is forced into the mouth. Force feeding is a completely unnatural way for the calf to obtain milk. We suspect that the diges-tive system simply cannot cope with this volume of milk; hence they will suck on another calf, or on their surroundings to satisfy their natural suckling urge. This force feeding could be the cause of the prob-lems you may be seeing in your sheds of cross-

suckling and nutritional scours.”

Milk Bar says it will continue researching so farmers can make edu-cated decisions for calves.

“If we can help feed calves correctly and pre-vent cross-suckling damage to developing udders, thereby reducing the risk of heifers develop-ing mastitis in their first lactation, then we feel we will have invested wisely.”Tel. 0800 104 119

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50 // CALVING

Calves thrive in sheltersFIRST IT was tunnel houses for growers, then came stock shelters for

cows and calves.Morrifield Develop-

ments Ltd, Invercargill, saw it was onto a good thing.

Now, one of its sheds used to rear 140 calves

annually is still in service after several years.

Typically a stock shel-ter has two 9m spans and is 27m long. The walls are 1200mm high plywood which excludes wind that would chill the calves. Above this wall is a run of 1200mm wide mesh.

“This allows some breeze above the calves which helps remove odours,” says Morrifield Developments co-director Allister Morris.

Clear plastic roofing admits sunlight that helps dry the floor sawdust, 300mm deep on a con-crete base. At the end of each calf growing season the sawdust is rotary hoed to bring any moist mate-rial to the surface to dry out.

“Because the bedding is kept dry there is little if any rotting or break-ing down and only a small amount of sawdust is needed at the start of each season.”

Morris says his com-pany’s calf pens with-stood big loadings of snow during the storm that wrecked the Southland stadium.

It eventually melted away.

The shed pictured had four pens to suit an auto-matic calf feeder. More pens can be built and spec-ifications altered to suit individual needs. This shed had gates at one end to allow calves access to nearby paddocks.Tel. 03 214 4262www.morrifield.com

TONY [email protected]

FEEDING HIGH-QUALITY fibre to calves early in their life contributes markedly to their rumen development and contributes to life-long health and production, says fibre nutrition maker Fibre Fresh Feeds.

Now is the time for calf management plans that realise the potential of new calves, including high nutritional fibre in calves’ diets within their first few weeks.

This is critical to animals’ long-term health and devel-opment, says the company’s national sales manager Bob Bell. “It’s critical to have a plan in place for calf rearing, and to make sure the plan is communicated [early] to the people in the calf shed.

“It doesn’t need to be complicated, but even a simple plan will ensure you have given the process some thought. Every day counts in getting calves off to a good start, and if you don’t have a good plan in place, you run the risk of compromising the farm’s performance.”

Quality fibre in the early days of rumen development is part of getting this early formula right, Bell says.

“Fibre in calves’ diets within their first weeks of life encourages faster and healthier rumen and digestive development, allowing calves to transition to and thrive on grass much faster. It also leads to health and produc-tion benefits.”

This saves costs and leads to better long-term results, especially in pasture-based systems; also, calves will better utilise other solid feeds.

Bell says fibre also improves rumen motility and pro-vides essential nutrition for sustained growth, but the fibre must be of good quality fibre. The likes of hay, straw and silage provide little nutritional value, instead taking up the space needed for energy- and protein-rich feeds.

He says his company’s FiberStart is for consumption alongside traditional meal products “while providing essential nutritional value for animal growth, and it helps to establish the correct microflora population needed for rumen and gut development”.

Earlier is better for getting quality fibre into calves

Mesh on the wall allows breeze

TO ORDER: Phone 0800 MOLASSES (0800 6652 7737)

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Create a custom blend of minerals in molasses for delivery along side the existing in shed feed system.

Condose is unique in that it can deliver non soluble minerals like Mag Oxide, Limeflour or Dolomite suspended in Molasses.

Conedose is more accurate then dusting and water dosing, saves time and wastage, more cost effective than mineral feed pallets and more profitable.

Conedose was the supreme winner at Lincoln Field Days in 2013, and is available to lease NZ wide.

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HALTING OR stunting a calf ’s health or growth has a life-long, knock-on effect, and getting the animal back on target will be costly.

Target weights are important mile-stones to reach, as stunted animals are usually below their liveweight targets for their entire productive life. In dairy calves, a good rule of thumb is that if an animal is 10% below liveweight target at calving, she will produce 10kg less milk solids and incur a 3% reduction in the 6-week in-calf rate (first calf ).

It is important to note the knock-on effect, as calf rate determines next year’s calf rate, milk supply and feed demand curves.

‘Gut health’ issues affect the morbid-ity of the calf and its ability to digest and absorb nutrients. Scours and digestive

upsets can stunt the animal’s develop-ment and even cause death. Dehydra-tion is the usual cause of death in calves with scours.

A sickly yellow faeces colour indi-cates a gut that is not functioning opti-mally. Probiotic use helps a calf through the stressful period of rearing, maintaining gut health, gut devel-opment and integrity. It is especially useful in the first 14-21 days of development and change in the calf ’s life, putting its gut stability on the back foot.

VitaCalf is intended to help keep a calf ’s gastrointestinal tract healthy and to kickstart the colonisation and devel-opment of the rumen. The supplement

contains Lallemand’s rumen and monogastric-specific live yeasts with a yeast cell wall extract high in manno-oligosaccharides (MOS)

which blocks pathogenic colonisation within the gastrointestinal tract.

Levucell SB is a concentrated live yeast that enhances the nutrition and health of a monogastric, pre-rumi-nant animal. It contributes to reducing

pathogenic microorganism concentra-tion, reinforcing the intestinal micro-flora equilibrium and the stimulating of the animal’s immune system. With Agrimos, an effective prebiotic MOS product, the combination helps main-tain gut health and development.

Levucell SC is a concentrated live yeast specifically selected for rumi-nants, as a rumen probiotic. This strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has shown

to be effective in driving a quicker estab-lishment of key bacteria and protozoa in the rumen. The more developed microflora improves the production of volatile fatty acids which stimulate the growth of the rumen papillae and a thicker rumen wall.

VitaCalf is fed at 10g per calf per day, added to calf milk or milk replacer.• Paul Drew is an animal nutritionist for Vitec Nutrition.

CALVING // 51

Kickstart for rumen, aid to gut healthPAUL DREW

Target weights are important milestones to reach, says Paul Drew (inset).

* Applies to items that are in stock at the time of placing your order for orders placed between 1 June – 31 August 2014. Delivery terms and conditions apply. Product offers valid until 31 July 2014 or while stocks last. Prices include GST and are subject to change. Some products may not be available in all stores but can be ordered.

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52 // CALVING

Workshops include how to nurture, kill calves

‘STOCKSENSE’ WORKSHOPS running nationally will equip new entrants to the industry

for the demanding calving season, says the organiser, DairyNZ.

Practical skills are especially in view, and there is another dimen-sion, says Chris Leach, DairyNZ’s manager,

animal husbandry and welfare.

“While we were devel-oping these workshops the Minister for Primary Industries announced changes to the use of blunt force trauma. So we said…

let’s run workshops to cover the humane slaugh-tering of calves [by] senior dairy staff.

“We are looking at a session on the manage-ment of cow health and a session on how to stay

fit and healthy during the calving season.”

Despite all the public-ity about banning the use of blunt force – specifically killing unwanted calves with a hammer, Leach is concerned that the mes-

PETER [email protected]

sage hasn’t got out to everybody.

“It’s one thing to know about the changes, but we are looking to support farmers by providing them with best practice so they know their options [for] doing this in a humane way.”

Leach says the captive bolt method is deemed the best option and affordable

– now costing no more than $400 plus charges.

“One benefit of the captive bolt is that farm-ers don’t need a firearms licence – a major advan-tage. Of course we are advocating safe storage of this equipment, including keeping the [charges] and the captive bolt in sepa-rate places.”www.dairynz.co.nz

Reading the early signsSINCE INDUSTRY new entrants may not be academi-cally inclined or literate or numerate, the workshop ses-sions will be fun and angled towards ‘active learning,’ says Chris Leach.

“We start off looking at observation skills – seeing the early signs of cows going into labour. We use a calv-ing barrel with a calf cadaver inside which allows work-shop participants to have a feel and find out what a calving presentation feels like. [Then they will be able] to identify what abnormal presentation feels like, and know how to report that and when to call for help.”

The other focus is on calving cows, going through the process of mothering cows and calves and then safely transporting neonates back to the calving shed. Partici-pants will also learn the importance of colostrum as the first feed.

All this differs from calf rearing, a task done by other farm staff.

Keeping staff healthy and fit during calving is also in view, says Leach.

“We must look after people, see that staff get a reason-able roster and are not asked to work extreme hours. And they must be well fed, well nourished, get good sleep and stay fit and healthy during the season.

“Planning, a good roster and good training ahead of the calving season… minimise the effect of those long hours. It’s vital to work as a team – good communication, good understanding, good policies and procedures to ensure everybody knows their roles and responsibilities.”

Staff need to know that if they are not coping they can discuss the situation with their managers.

One practical aspect of the workshop is showing farm-ers and staff how to prepare a portable calving kit includ-ing metabolics, calving ropes, ear tags, spray paint, gloves, torch, notebook and pencil and even some energy bars for workers.

“We suggest the kits are put together before calving starts in earnest, so it’s part of the planning preparation. The kits should go in a watertight bucket with a lid, and be close to hand.”

Taranaki farmer Tim DeBeer (left) learns about birth presentation at a calving workshop with tutor Joe Craddock.


MACHINERY & PRODUCTS // 53

Tag system reads heat, gives go-ahead for AI

Rumen focus counters late calving drawbackA LATE-CALVING farm is said to be countering its newborns’ nutri-tion “struggles” by feeding them a fibre supplement intended to improve rumen development.

The product is FibreStart, made by Fibre Fresh Feeds.

Waiuku dairy farmer Scotty Shuker’s 126ha property lies along-side the mouth of the Waikato River. It is characteristically wet, which means plenty of grass, but its calves are born much later in the season than those of farms nearby.

Shuker determined to clear this hurdle, says the nutrition company.

“Late calves traditionally strug-gle and when summer comes around; they’re not as healthy or developed as their earlier counter-parts,” Shuker is reported as saying.

“They catch up eventually, but

we wanted a system that made sure we didn’t have the setback in the first place – we wanted to avoid the check in growth we were seeing after weaning. So we set about changing our systems.”

Shuker encountered Fiber Fresh Feeds at the Waikato field days, noting the research the company had done on rumen development and the benefit of rearing calves on fibre products.

During the farm’s first, trial season the calves “went straight into the paddock and started eating grass no problems,” Shuker says.

“They would deck a paddock in two days and still be wanting more.”

The FiberStart is also reported to work well alongside the farm’s existing meal-based systems.

The calves are more robust

and bigger come summer, with-out having suffered any checks in growth during weaning.

And the heifers “look more capacious in the stomach, and go straight to grass and eat it down hard.”

Time is being saved by feeding the calves only once a day “from the start and then we leave them plenty to nibble on so they’re con-stantly full and happy. They drink a lot less milk too.”

Over the past couple of years Scotty has further refined his sys-tems to become even more effi-cient.

“We’re trying to improve all the time. Dad raised us to always look at and be open to new ways of doing things.”www.fiber-fresh.com

A SMART eartag launched at the Waikato field days could improve animal health and reproduction management, says its marketer Samen NZ, a dairy genetics com-pany.

The Agis CowManager SensOor smart-tag system detect heats and health problems from the way a cow moves and from its body tem-perature, says national sales man-ager David Banham.

Each cow sensor unit has a gyro meter, pedometer, thermom-eter computer chip, transmitter and long-life battery built into a

moulded plastic button acting as the male tag.

The sensor measures a cow’s movement, temperature and eating habits, sending that information back to the farmer’s computer via a wi-fi signal passed on by routers placed at key points on the farm.

This provides data a farmer can use to better manage a herd and improve herd performance, Banham says.

A key improvement would be at mating, ensuring cows were inseminated when cycling was strongest.

While signs that a cow is cycling are fairly easily read, the main heat is preceded by a shorter semi-heat

which drops off very quickly. Here the tag comes into ‘play’, Banham says, in its ability to differenti-ate between two heats, based on a cow’s head movements and tem-perature. CowManager can detect the best time to apply AI straws with 98% accuracy.

“The farmer will get a text and know with absolute certainty which cows he needs to pull aside for AI.”

Head movements also help farmers catch sicknesses early, Banham says.

By comparing a cow’s time spent eating with its time spent chewing cud, the software can detect milk fever or other meta-bolic problems 8-12 hours before

visual signs emerge.In monitoring head movements

the sensor can detect when a cow goes off its feed which, along with body temperature, indicates ill-ness.

Tag loss rate has been found less than 1%; they are powered by bat-teries guaranteed for five years.

Banham says with tags costing about $20 each, a farmer would be able to recoup the cost within the first year, after which the return would be 200-300% within the first three years.

Agis has developed an Android app for the system. Tel. 07 889 0087 www.samen.co.nz

GARETH GILLATT

Samen national sales manager David Banham at the field days in Waikato.

Waiuku farmer Scotty Shuker gives fibre supplement to late calves.

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54 // MACHINERY & PRODUCTS

A FERTILISER company has launched an online store, promising farmers savings of as much as $85 per tonne on standard products.

FertDirect launched its website www.fertdirect.co.nz at Queen’s Birth-day weekend, marketing New Zealand-sourced and import-to-order products.

It’s the first online service of its kind to be offered nationwide and FertDirect business manager Rob Williams says it’s designed to save farmers money without compromising on quality.

“Our aim is to deliver factory-to-farm savings.

“By cutting out all infrastructure, salesman and other costs involved with the traditional fertiliser supply chain we can pass those savings straight to our customers,” he says.

Farmers simply need to choose their product, tonnage and which New Zealand port they want their fertiliser delivered to. Imports generally take 6-8 weeks to arrive while New Zealand-sourced products can be delivered immediately to the farm.

“Our staff have 30 years’ experience in the fertiliser industry so we have a strong network of international manu-facturers and suppliers behind us,” Wil-liams says.

“That enables us to work directly for farmers – sourcing fertiliser from manufacturers, arranging production, paperwork, shipping, customs, tax, port clearances and de-vanning. All our cus-tomers need to do is arrange delivery to their farm.”

Williams says even when transport costs are taken into account, FertDirect will still be a much cheaper option than New Zealand’s other main suppliers.

“Transport prices for full truckloads are very competitive. And if farmers were buying bagged fertiliser through their local store they would have to pay a ‘through store charge’ on top of the price per tonne plus a bagging fee. You won’t face that extra cost when buying from us.”

FertDirect was formed earlier this year after a trial in Waikato and Bay of Plenty in 2013.

“We wanted to test our sales process to make sure manufacturers could meet our delivery times and product specifi-cations – which they did,” Williams says.

“We sold about 1000 tonnes of product during the trial and passed on savings of $60,000 to those farmers involved. They were pleased with the product they got and all of them have re-ordered so we knew we were onto a winner.”

FertDirect specialises in standalone products such as ammonium sulphate

and guano phosphate and Williams says quality is paramount.

All products are tested prior to ship-ping to ensure they meet specifications and arrive in good condition.

Once they reach New Zealand, sam-ples are again taken from every con-tainer and sent to a laboratory for further testing. Batch numbers are recorded for every order despatched to maintain quality control.

“We are offering farmers the oppor-tunity to plan ahead and get the best

possible price for the basic fertiliser products they need.”

Williams is also encouraging farmers to contact FertDirect to discuss other fertiliser products they may wish to buy that aren’t listed on the website.

The online ordering system is fast and easy to use, and prices cover deliv-ery to ports in Bluff, Dunedin, Lyttle-ton, Mount Maunganui and Napier. “If you would like a quote to another port simply complete our online enquiry form and we’ll email you a price.”

Fert savings at your fingertips

FertDirect says its online store offer savings for farmers.

What The Industry Knows But Isn’t Telling You

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Gains for one-ring milking liners

A NEW vaccine against bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) prevents BVD transfer from mother to foetus – a critical pathway that makes the disease very dif-ficult to control.

The product is Ultravac BVD, from Zoetis. The company says at least 60% of cattle in New

Zealand have been exposed to the BVD virus and $150 million lost to the industry – $220 per infected cow. Causing these losses are lowered conception and milk production and more abortions.

Zoetis market development manager Dr Wayne Clough says more farmers are learning of BVD’s effects on their finances and animal health. He refers to “a decade of research evaluating the impact of BVD and major advances in how we can detect it in herds”.

“When it comes to protecting a herd from BVD, Ultravac BVD has a number of features that make it particularly useful.”

And within 4-26 weeks a second booster shot of Ultravac BVD may be given, making it a flexible vac-cine to administer.

The vaccine is injected under the skin, rather than into muscle, making it ‘cow friendly’ and easier to administer, Zoetis says.

A 30-day in-use shelf life helps reduce wastage, and allows the booster shot to be given from the same pack as the first shot.

Zoetis plans to work with veterinarians in their efforts to raise farmers’ understanding of BVD and its effects on their business. The BVD Steering Com-mittee has for some years outlined control measures for farms to counter BVD infection and transmis-sion.Ultravac BVD can be bought from vet surgeries

New vaccine blocks BVD transfer

SKELLERUP HAS redesigned its Reflex milk-ing liners, formerly made with two tension rings but now having only one.

The result is improved cow health, milking effi-ciency and milk quality, says national manager Perry Davis.

“This innovation increases the effective length of the liner barrel, lowering the collapse point and so reducing the likelihood of teat pinch-ing when cows are being milked.

“Teat pinching can cause teat damage and susceptibility to masti-tis and infections, so any-thing that helps prevent it

is a big gain for cow com-fort and health.”

Synthetic rubber com-pounds mean the second tension ring is no longer needed, Davis says.

When liners were made of natural rubber, the second ring could be re-tensioned during their life as the rubber stretched and lost elasticity.

“This is no longer an issue with synthetic rubber liners. The Reflex range is designed to keep its tension to 2500 milk-ings – its recommended replacement.”

In recent years two ten-sion rings on Skellerup liners have been used to enable them to fit stan-

dard shells (150-155 mm) and short shells (140 mm).

“Short shells have a small percentage of the market, however, and having two tension rings on liners can be confus-ing for farmers, so we re-designed all but one of the Reflex liners to remove the second ring and improve performance at the same

time.”The Reflex M22 multi-

fit liner, sold with or with-out vacuum shut-off tailpieces, is the excep-tion: it still has two tension rings to accom-modate 140 mm short shells.

The range now offers the best milking plant fit for a herd, be it Jersey, Friesian or cross-bred, Skellerup says.

“Original plant equip-ment is fairly rigid and does not typically lend itself to that degree of flex-

ibility; Reflex offers a practical, cost-effective proposition for consumable replace-ment.”

Blue Line and Reflex products are now sold in New Zealand under the

one Reflex brand including tubing and dairy accessories and milking liners. www.dairybestpractice.co.nz

Reflex milking liner

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THE LATEST addition to the DEUTZ FAHR 5 series is the 5110 (110hp) Vista spec. The Vista unit made its debut at the National Fieldays alongside the all-new 6 and 7 series. The addition of the Vista spec completes the 5 series line up for Power Farming New Zealand.

First in the manufacturer’s series 5, it is referred to as a stan-dard model “but in fact has a lot of features associated with premium models,” says Power Farming’s North Island Tractor Sales Man-ager, Alistair Horrocks.

The series has four models (100-130hp) occupying the medium-power category of the Deutz-Fahr range.

Features include three rear remotes powered by an eco-pump which gives increased flow at low engine revs.

It has four wheel disc braking, safer on hills. The 5 series Vista also features ‘Stop and Go’. “The system disengages drive to the transmission by simply touch-ing the brakes. Releasing the brake pedal allows smooth mod-ulated take up and drive making it extremely useful in applications such as front end loader work.”

The motor is a new Deutz 3.6 litre tier 4 common rail engine. Emissions compliance is reached using a diesel oxidation catalyst which requires no servicing or maintenance. This removes the need to use adblue or a partic-ulate filter making it extremely user friendly with low mainte-

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controls fall easily to the driver’s hands and feet, ensuring comfort during long working days.Tel. 07 902 2200 www.powerfarming.co.nz


Pen treatment helps keep bugs at bayHAVING PPROBLEMS controlling bugs and viruses in confined stocking environments?

Stalosan F is said to be known in the pig and poultry sector for killing bacteria, fungi, ammonia, viruses, para-sites and moisture, says the product supplier Agrivantage.

Managing director Warren Tanner says it is proven where stock densities are high and lengthy enclosure is typical; so also in closely stocked calf rearing premises.

The European sourced has been Sold in Europe for 50 years, the antibacterial disinfec-

tant has a formulation adjusted to cope with changes in disease type and profiles in crowded environments. Stalo-san F is said to be registered with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as an antimicrobial-disinfectant agent.

Core ingredients are phosphates, clays, minerals and oils that keep it inert in contact with animal bedding and dung. The minerals within it bind to the surface of bacte-ria, virus and parasites, effectively drying out their cells, ending their life cycle.

The action and the results contrast with liquid disinfec-tants, says Agrivantage. It remains active in contact with organic matter, compared to standard disinfectants that lose effectiveness as new animals enter the pen area.

Typically, calf rearers would begin the season, before populating pens with calves, by spraying out the area with an anti-viral/disinfectant agent then applying a dusting of Stalosan F.

“Then it is a case of simply reapplying Stalosan about once a week at a rate of 50g/m2. Rearing 300 calves would require about five bags throughout the season for effec-tive disease control.”

The product reduces ammonia smells due to its abil-ity to bind with ammonia in calf waste, making for a more pleasant and healthier environment, Agrivantage says.www.agrivantage.co.nz

Standard but premiumTONY HOPKINSON

Alastair Horrocks, tractor sales manager Northland for Power Farming.

Stalosan F

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Wireless drench gun knows the right dose

A UTE can become a firetruck if fitted with the right water pumping device says a Brazilian company – managed by a Kiwi – that makes such equipment.

This gear enables a community to turn its citizens’ utility vehicles into an effective fire-fighting fleet “in minutes,” says Kevin Smith, the New Zealand-born chief executive.

The company, Guarany, designed and released the units in 2005, seeing a gap in the market. It had been selling 20L backpack fire-fighting appliances, then saw scope for an appliance able to pump 5000-8000L.

The forestry industry was an obvious market, Smith says, “but many of our export customers are using them in a variety of ways”.

“They are also used to deliver emergency water sup-plies to farm livestock in remote areas.

“But the original fire fighting purpose creates most demand. The first 20 minutes of a fire outbreak is the most crucial time for getting it under control and one of these units can deliver water to a fire face for about 15 minutes.”

The units are most effective when pumping a water and foam mix.

A 4-stroke Honda engine with a small pump (M-35) provides water at 300psi along a 30m hose, or even a 90m hose without loss of water pressure.

Smith says the units can hold 400L or 700L in flexible bladders filled when loaded onto a vehicle.

The company launched a rigid water storage unit during the 2014 Expo Forest show in Brazil.

Guarany makes fire fighting products sold in 60 coun-tries. www.guaranyind.com

ANIMAL WEIGHT data from an electronic scale goes by WiFi to a new electronic drench gun, determining the dosage for the animal in question.

Developer Te Pari Products expects the gun to be on sale early 2015, says director Patrick Blampied.

Believed to be a world first, the gun eliminates overdosing and underdos-ing animals.

Blampied says farm-ers could save up to $1 an

animal by using the gun. “As soon as you pull the trigger the correct amount will come out.”

The gun also records total number of doses and can send information back to the scales allowing farmers to keep easy elec-tronic drenching records. The unit’s batteries will last 2000 shots before needing to be recharged.

While it is yet to be used in the field, Blamp-ied says researchers have accurately simulated normal working condi-tions. “One of the most important parts of the design stipulation was that it needed to be robust.”

Operators will be able to use the gun up to 10m from the weigh station, Te Pari says.

The gun competed in the Waikato field days inventor’s competition where it won the grass-roots innovation award for

best prototype.Talks with electronic

scale manufacturers sug-gest the gun will be made compatible with a range of weighscale makers’ prod-ucts.

Tel. 0800 837 274www.tepari.com

GARETH [email protected]

Turning utes into firetrucks

Patrick Blampied shows off the new electronic drench gun.

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Indian truck surprises where it countsMAHINDRA IS a house-hold name in its home country of India but is less well known here.

Their tractors have been in the local market for a few years; their road vehicles arrived this year and have had a high pro-

file at all the agricultural field days.

Dairy News spent a few days trying out the single cab Mahindra Pik Up (yes, that’s how you spell it) that one lucky reader of Dairy News or Rural News will drive away in a few weeks, and was genuinely surprised at how civilised it was on the road.

The mHawk turbo diesel 4-cylinder makes a modest 88kW of power from its 2.2L capacity but the 280Nm of torque is what counts. That twist makes for effortless driv-ing in any gear, while the Bosch common rail system gives respectable economy (9.1L/100km claimed).

Noise levels are better than some Japanese diesel engines we’ve tested and even though the relatively low final gearing kept the engine busy at 100km/h it was more than bearable on a long journey. Simi-larly, the interior com-fort was a surprise and for

about $30,000 you get a good sound system, cruise control, power mirrors, adjustable steering and great seats. The plastics were a bit hard, but it’s a work truck.

The comfort theme extends to the ride and handling. Don’t get us wrong, a leaf sprung truck

with 1.25 tonne bed capac-ity and 2.5 tonne towing capacity is going to move around a bit when unladen. However, it was much better than the likes of a Land Rover Defender, especially up front where independent, torsion bar suspension resides. No solid axle here with all the

ADAM FRICKER

attendant handling prob-lems such a set-up brings.

The ride is very good and the steering accurate. Again, we did not expect this.

We had little chance to get off-road, but did enough to confirm that the low range gearing and diff lock do the job and that the rotary switch makes changing between two and four wheel drive a breeze.

Our initial prejudices about the Mahindra were all dispelled. It is sol-

idly built. Actually, we did expect that – they make tractors, after all. But it is also civilised and capable and it is well appointed for the price, has a three year warranty and has a dealer network to back up the product.

Also available as 2WD, single or double cab, the Pik Up is tough enough for India’s back roads and is finding favour in the Aus-tralian mining industry. www.mahindraauto.co.nz

Mahindra Pik Up single cab. Below right: Modern interior and well appointed.

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$389Valid 1/7/2014 - 31/7/2014

$34

*Valid 1/7/2014 - 30/9/2014. Visit www.pggwrightson.co.nz for full terms and conditions.

MILK BAR50 Classic, 500 LMobile Calf Feeder

$3,850

ONE OF THREE MILK BAR

50 CLASSIC, 500 L MOBILE CALF FEEDERS

(VALUED AT $3,850 INCL GST EACH)

WHEN YOU SPEND $200 OR MORE ON

SELECTED MILK BAR PRODUCTS!*

ONE OF THREE MILK BAR

50 CLASSIC, 500 L MOBILE CALF FEEDERS

(VALUED AT $3,850 INCL GST EACH)

WHEN YOU SPEND $200 OR MORE ON (VALUED AT $3,850 INCL GST EACH)

WHEN YOU SPEND $200 OR MORE ON (VALUED AT $3,850 INCL GST EACH)

SELECTED MILK BAR PRODUCTS!*

Metaboost (previously Minject)4 in 1 Injection 500 ml Pillow

$159518$275

Valid 1/7/2014 - 30/9/2014

SealesWinslow Calf Pro1® 20% and Calf Grow® 16% Pellets 25 kg Delivers optimum intake, rumen development and contains leading coccidiostat and mineral additives.

Gusto 20% and 16% Textured Calf Feed 25 kgDesigned for young calves, Gusto textured calf feeds are high quality, highly palatable feeds, developed by dairy nutritionists to provide essential nutrients for growth and rumen development.

SealesWinslow Calf Pro1® 20% Muesli 25 kgHighly palatable to encourage early feed intake and maximum rumen development.

SCANDA® Selenised10 L

$349Plain

$8990

Vitamin B12 Cobalex 2000500 ml

Selenium

$9490

ALLIANCE® Cobalt and Selenium 10 L

$699Cydectin® Pour-On2.2 L Promo PackINCLUDES 10% VOLUME FREE

$275

dairy news 8 july 2014

Documents

tatua switches

p r o d u c t i o n

ocd milk

open country dairy

line systems

rumensin programme

power drenching systems

pair rumensin