NOVEMBER 26, 2013 ISSUE 303 // www.dairynews.co.nz SOFT AND SURE Bale grab made easy PAGE 38 HOUSING COWS Farmers impressed PAGE 20-21 Rural communities vulnerable to any cuts to dairying. PAGE 3 WARNING: AVOID THE SHACKLES OF DEBT “We have seen price growth in rural land, particularly dairy farms, and we are seeing the ingredients that have in the past led to rapid debt build up.” – Ben Russell, Rabobank. PAGES 6-7 0800 800 380 www.nrm.co.nz REMOVE THE GUESS WORK CALL US TODAY Teamwork is the cornerstone of success... Working Together
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NOVEMBER 26, 2013 ISSUE 303 // www.dairynews.co.nz
SOFT AND SUREBale grab made easyPAGE 38
HOUSING COWSFarmers impressedPAGE 20-21
Rural communities vulnerable to any cuts to dairying. PAGE 3
WARNING: AVOID THE SHACKLES OF DEBT
“We have seen price growth in rural land, particularly dairy farms, and we are seeing the
ingredients that have in the past led to rapid debt build up.” – Ben Russell, Rabobank. PAGES 6-7
Finding the right balanceSOME NEW Zealand farmers may not be able to continue farming as at present because of their farms’ environmental impact, says Federated Farm-ers president Bruce Wills.
He told Dairy News last week at the Feds national council meeting that perhaps “the pen-dulum had swung too far in intensive dairying” and its long term impact on the environment had better be assessed.
Water is the number-one issue – far above all others – for Feds, Wills says. And it will remain so for some time. Complex water and environmen-tal issues stem mainly from 10-15 years of massive land-use changes – especially dairy conversions.
He voices no concerns about the rise of dairying
from an economic standpoint, saying the market side “is working great”.
“But… what we are now seeing, and what the sci-ence is telling us, is that in areas of intensive dairy-ing, especially on lighter soils, we have issues with defuse nitrogen working its way into waterways. The parliamentary commissioner for the environ-ment, in her latest report on water quality, high-lights the issue of land use change,” he points out.
Wills says there are ‘hot spots’ where despite farmers’ best efforts in management practices, fencing stock from waterways and riparian plant-ing, the science is saying ‘no go’. Farmers are doing their best to control effluent but some areas need change to ensure sustainability long-term.
“This is the conundrum Federated Farmers and many others are grappling with…. I spend most of my day trying to find the right balance between farming that pays the bills… and protection of the environment.”
Pressure from the Government to grow agricul-ture from $30 billion to $60 billion annual exports by 2025 is an exciting challenge, Wills says. But doing this and reducing agriculture’s environmen-tal footprint is an equally big challenge.
Communities face a conundrum: retaining their prosperous local economy due to dairying or sacri-ficing some of this for improved water quality.
Feds now has six staff dealing with water qual-ity issues. – Peter Burke
PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz
Communities could fold if dairying’s reined in
A STUDY commissioned by DairyNZ and Hori-zons Regional Council (HRC) shows small rural communities are economically vulnerable to any reduction in the amount of milk produced in their regions.
The study analyses the economic effects of HRC’s One Plan. It looks at three scenarios for reducing nitrogen leaching while seeking to retain economic viability in rural areas.
The first scenario modeled implementation of the One Plan as handed down by the Environ-ment Court; the study shows that farmers and their communities would in some cases be eco-nomically devastated.
The second scenario modeled the effects of farmers reducing their N loading by reducing stock numbers. This showed that though farm-ers may survive, their communities may not, says DairyNZ’s Dr Rick Pridmore.
Central to this is milk volume, which is “just as important as the profitability of the farm when you look at communities,” Pridmore says.
“The simple explanation is that farmers could
hunker down. It might be a very unpleasant life but they could have hunkered down and met the targets to an extent. But that community would have lost a lot of jobs with the lower volume of milk. That’s why, if you do only a ‘section 32’ analysis or an economic assessment looking at farm profitability, you can make a big mistake.”
Pridmore points out that to grow milk volume you buy in more feed and labour so more money is spent in the community. “When you look at all those multipliers, the community does rather well out of higher milk volumes. But if people want to go backwards and reduce the footprint it does have big ramifications to communities like Dannevirke.”
By leaving production at present levels there are ways to take out nitrogen and improve the quality of water in rivers, Pridmore says. “We have found a solution that allowed the economy to stay ok, farmers to do ok and the river to be improved. That’s what the third scenario models and Horizons has agreed to implement it.”
A defining meeting brought all this to a head in Dannevirke early this year when 300 people turned out to express concern at the effects of One Plan on their town which is dairy dependent.
Pridmore notes that HRC is saying that farmers would be ok if they reduced stock numbers to comply with the plan, but it was the commu-nity that alerted HRC to greater downstream impacts.
“I think the council and the farm-ers are now build-ing this relationship, which is healthy. The coun-cil has taken a step forward which says they value the community, they value farming and they value the river and we have found a solution that does all three.”
Rick Pridmore
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
4 // NEWS
ZELDA DE Vil-liers, currently managing director of DeLaval NZ, will be the Dairy Wom-en’s Network’s new chief executive.
With at least 20 years experience in the international agricultural indus-try, de Villiers has worked for DeLa-val International in Sweden and New Zealand where she has been based since 2009. She takes up the DWN Hamilton role in January 2014.
Prior to joining DeLaval, de Villiers spent the first 10 years’ of her career in the agricultural finance and rural banking sector in South Africa. She holds a B.AgSc (Hons) and a Diploma in Animal Nursing from Preto-ria University.
Dairy Women’s Network chair Michelle Wilson says de Villiers has an exceptional understanding of the challenges New Zealand’s dairy farming women face and will be a valuable addition to the leadership of DWN and the wider agricultural sector.
New head for DWN
Zelda de Villiers
Industry doing its share to lift water quality
FONTERRA SAYS it shares concerns about the pressure on New Zealand’s waterways and rec-ognises its role to improve water quality.
Commenting on the water qual-ity report by the parliamentary commissioner for the environment (PCE), Dr Jan Wright, the co-op group director cooperative affairs Todd Muller says it is working with scientists and primary industry organisations on improving nutri-ent use and providing farmers with information to manage farming systems efficiently.
“This year we’ve collected nutrient data from nearly 4000 farms which will provide infor-mation to farmers on how to mit-igate the impact of nutrients. We are committed to lifting environ-mental performance and ensur-
ing onfarm management practices meet national and regional limits that preserve New Zealand’s clean green image,” says Muller.
He notes that for 20 years dairy farming has grown as global demand has increased, benefit-ting the New Zealand economy. And farmers have responded well, managing their impact on water by fencing waterways, managing race-ways, tracks, paddocks and efflu-ent, and reducing run-off through riparian planting.
“Fonterra and our farmers have [worked hard] to protect water-ways, but we recognise there is more to do,” says Muller.
The report recognises that water quality has been shaped by the cumulative effects of increased land use by a multitude of indus-tries and highlights the effects of nutrients, he adds.
DairyNZ’s strategy and invest-ment leader for sustainability, Dr Rick Pridmore, says the report
highlights an issue being addressed by a lot of work. (Its context is the impact of land-use change and nutrients on water quality by 2020.)
He notes that central and local government and industry are already at work on defining how New Zealand’s freshwater resources should be managed.
“We are working with farmers, regional councils and other stake-holders to contribute to desired water quality outcomes,” says Prid-more.
“The PCE’s report highlights the critical importance of this limit setting process, because uncon-trolled growth is unsustainable. Unfortunately the report paints an unrealistic picture of the future that ignores this limit setting.”
Pridmore says under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, commu-nities are required to define their values and set limits for water qual-
ity. There is multi-stakeholder sup-port for doing this in cooperation.
“We are pleased to see the PCE recognising our industry’s Sustain-able Dairying: Water Accord and its commitments to fencing water-ways, and to water, nutrient and effluent management.”
In Upper Waikato 700 farmers are working together to improve the health of the Waikato River, with 3000 actions onfarm under-way.
Similar work is in prog-ress around Lake Rotorua, the Manawatu River, the Hurunui River and the Waituna Lagoon.
“We are working openly and constructively with every regional council in the country”, says Prid-more.
“We are confident this partner-ship will achieve a positive outcome for our communities, economy and environment.”
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
NEWS // 5
‘Same-old rhetoric’NITROGEN IS the “elu-sive” pollutant, according to the Parliamentary Com-missioner for the Environ-ment, Dr Jan Wright.
Her latest report on water quality in New Zea-land reiterates that large-scale changes in land use – notably dairying – are putting pressure on water quality. These changes demand that decision makers be aware of the consequences, Wright says.
“The report is focused on the two nutrient pol-lutants nitrogen and phos-phorus. On land they are
valuable nutrients, helping plants to grow. But when there is too much of them in water they become pol-lutants and can lead to excessive growth of weeds, slime and algae.
“Over recent years, hundreds of thousands of hectares used for sheep and beef farming have been converted to dairy farming… and forestry. Conversion to dairying increases nutrient loads on water, conversion to forestry does the opposite.”
But the report contains nothing new, says Irriga-tionNZ chief executive Andrew Curtis. “It only continues with the same old rhetoric we all know
and have accepted – that the status quo will not lead to a sustainable future.
“IrrigationNZ believes win-wins are possible for agriculture and the envi-ronment and we have many examples in New Zealand of how intensive land use can be managed to significantly reduce its footprint, particularly under irrigated agriculture.
“It’s disappointing the report disagrees with this. However that’s what hap-pens when you get carried away with gross assump-tions that are then mod-elled. The commissioner needs to take more note of recent innovations in land-use management.”
Wright says she
FARMERS ARE less than happy and environmen-talists forsee the end of the world – destroyed by the cow. Such is the reponse to commissioner Wright’s report.
Associate professor Russell Death, of the Institute of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, says as the son of a retired dairy farmer and a country lad at heart he would love to see the win-win for the economy and environment to which Wright alludes.
“However, her report clearly illustrates what many scientists and economists already know: if we continue increasing dairy intensification, without some drastic changes in how we farm, the most likely outcome is lose-lose.
“Agriculture creates pollutants, so increasing agriculture, even with the best mitigation prac-tices, will still result in more pollutants entering our waterways. More pollutants, lower water quality – it’s not rocket science.”
A POTENTIAL LOSE-LOSE SITUATION
PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz
applauds the effort going into environmental miti-gation on dairy farms. But she points squarely to the difficulty of controlling nitrogen which, she says, in the form of nitrate is so soluble it is the “elusive” pollutant.
“I am pleased fresh
water policy is very much on the Government’s agenda with the recent release of a discussion paper on setting ‘bottom lines’ for water quality. I hope this report will better inform the general public and those who make deci-sions on their behalf.”
Job losses at NutriciaNUTRICIA ANZ is looking at restruc-turing and possible job losses in Australia and New Zealand following the botulism scare.
The company’s Karicare infant for-mula brand was hit hard when it had to recall 60,000 cans during the Fonterra false alarm botulism scare.
Nutricia ANZ last week said it had begun consulting its workforce to “improve operational efficiency follow-ing the recent Fonterra botulism scare and precautionary product recall”.
“All options are being considered to reduce costs which include the possi-bility of reducing the workforce across Australian and New Zealand sites,” it
says. “Whilst there have been welcome indications of consumer confidence and trust returning to Nutricia, along with signs of recovery in the domestic market of NZ, overseas demand remains slow to respond.”
Nutricia ANZ is consulting with employees over a proposed restructure of its ANZ operations. It was committed to keeping job losses to a minimum.
Wherever possible, Nutricia will undertake to redeploy employees within the Danone group.
French dairy giant Danone has previ-ously said it is seeking “full compensa-tion” from Fonterra over losses caused by the precautionary recall. – Pam Tipa
Dr Jan Wright
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
6 // NEWS
Silly prices for land Debt-growth warning signs there to see
FEDERATED FARMERS dairy sec-tion chairman Willy Leferink says he shares some of the concerns the Reserve Bank has about high levels of debt in the dairy industry, but that a huge opportu-nity exists to shore up that debt because of the high payout.
That said, farmers don’t fund new developments enough out of retained earnings.
“Farmers spend already what they are going to earn next year and you can see example of this now with the silly prices being paid for land – hard to sus-tain in terms of profitability.
“Imagine if we get inflation: how are people going to survive? At the moment
a lot of farmers pay 5% interest but imagine if they have to pay 8% again. It’s important they have a prudent level of equity in their businesses.”
Leferink says he would be “uncom-fortable” with farmer equity less than 40%, and he says for a stand-alone busi-ness he wouldn’t go below 50%.
“Farming is cyclical and if you think the dairy prices we currently have are going to sit idle you are dreaming.”
Farming is not alone in its capacity to drive up inflation, he says. Building in Christchurch and Auckland may also.
It’s a competitive market for selling debt and banks are “fighting for custom-ers”, he says.
BEN RUSSELL says Rabobank believes the long term outlook for dairying is very positive, based on the bank’s analysis of strong, long-term demand for dairy products.
“Generally we think there is going to be good demand for dairy products over the next generation. However there will be plenty of short term volatil-ity. Rabobank’s view is that global dairy commodity price will ease in 2014-15 as more
supply comes on line. For ex-ample, in New Zealand we are having a great year and produc-tion will be up.
“We also think the northern hemisphere will be ramping up to 2014; they have low grain prices and high commodity prices so we think there will be an easing of commodity prices next year.”
Russell predicts the Reserve Bank will lift interest rates next year and that, combined with
a predicted drop in the payout of up to $1.50, will affect dairy farmers.
“Our advice to farmers is to use slightly more conservative budget figures for dairy prices and interest rates over the next couple of years. We think it unlikely the good growing con-ditions, record prices and low interest rates will be repeated next season.”
VOLATILITY HERE TO STAY
@dairy_newsfacebook.com/dairynews
THE HEAD of Rabobank in New Zealand, Ben Russell, says the ingre-dients are there for a more rapid buildup of debt in the dairy sector.
His comments to Dairy News follow the Reserve Bank expressing concern at the buildup of dairy debt, a view also expressed by MPI earlier in the year.
Russell says the ingredients for such a scenario are good dairy prices globally, a likely record payout this year, high farmer confidence and a banking sector in strong shape and open for business.
“We have seen price growth in rural land, particularly dairy farms, and we are seeing the ingredients that have in the past led to rapid debt buildup. At the moment rural debt is growing at about 5% annualised and
that is close to an accept-able level.
“The Reserve Bank will be reasonably relaxed if it stays at 5% or below growth level. But in the mid 2000s we saw debt growing at 15-20% per annum and if it shows signs of going back to those levels we can expect the Reserve Bank to take action.”
Russell says while the issue of farm equity is important, it’s just one part of the puzzle. Probably more impor-tant are profitability and cashflow, but the bank wants to see a combination of a track record of practical farming, profitability and equity.
“I agree with Willy Leferink that by and large 40% equity is at the lower end. There are good farmers operat-ing at less than 40% equity but once you go under 40% there is quite a good
relationship between low equity and loan defaults.”
He says it’s hard to generalise about what is and is not a good dairy conversion. But increas-ingly those doing con-versions need to factor in the costs of the chang-ing rules on water quality and the environment.
“Farmers planning dairy conver-sions need to [know] the environ-mental issues, what the current rules are and what the likely rule changes will be in the future. They have added an extra layer of complexity to dairy conversions and it’s part of the land-scape these days.”
Also emerging with dairying expansion is a need for better gover-nance and systems when farmers are running a number of farms. Russell says it’s easier for farmers managing only one or two farms.
Ben Russell
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more growth for every
unit of nitrogen applied. It’s
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milk production through
summer by holding pasture
quality for longer as well as
increasing crop yields.
If you need to apply
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summer nitrogen
application, SustaiN K is
what you need. It replenishes
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AGROTAIN® is a registered trademark of The Mosaic Company and is licensed exclusively to Koch Agronomic Services, LLC and its affiliates.
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
NEWS // 7
Borrow wisely – academic
AN EXPERT in banking at Massey University says he shares the concerns of the Reserve Bank about the high level of debt in the rural sector, especially in dairying.
Dr David Tripe, senior lecturer in banking stud-ies at Massey, says he’s concerned at rising rural debt levels and says one or two disasters in the sector could prove costly.
He’s also concerned about some banks grow-ing their rural debt levels faster than others. Tripe says the situation is simi-lar to that in 2001-2008 during the growth in the housing market. But in the same period, lending to the rural sector – on a pro-portional basis – grew by more than to the domestic housing market.
Tripe says the coun-try is now in a situation where farm debt is rising on the same sort of basis as housing debt, for a number of reasons.
“I remember ten years ago taking the inland route in Hawkes Bay from Takapau to Napier and suddenly coming across this patch of green looking grass geared up for dairy-ing. I thought this is not sustainable in the long run because it’s dependent on irrigation.”
Tripe is not sure what is causing the rise in debt
in the dairy sector. “Cer-tainly some of the debt arises from the amalga-mation of dairy farms into even larger dairy farms… it’s conversion related. I worry about the number of conversions taking place in Canterbury and the sus-tainability of water sup-plies to support that long term. It seems ok in the short term but not in the long run.”
The dairy sector depends heavily on com-modity prices, unlike the housing market, Tripe says.
“The dairy process is very volatile; so is sheep and beef but I don’t see
anyone rushing to banks to invest on the basis of a temporary lift in meat prices.”
Tripe says he would advise farmers pay down debt and make sure their farming businesses are sustainable at signifi-cantly lower milk prices.
PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz
RURAL DEBT, especially in dairy-ing, poses a risk to the financial stability of the country, all the more because of the volatility of commodity prices.
In its six monthly ‘Financial Stability Report’, the Reserve Bank note that international dairy prices are boosting farm incomes. It also notes that in recent times the growth in farm debt has been modest, but warns that any return to pre-2007 credit growth and spend-ing patterns within the sector would present a risk to financial
stability.A similar point was made by
MPI in June when it noted that 50% of the debt in the dairy sector was held by 10% of farm-ers.
The Reserve Bank says with the high payout it hopes dairy farmers will take the oppor-tunity to retire debt, however they say there is a risk farmers will make borrowing decisions based on the assumption of consistently high future com-modity prices. They say that could be “capitalised into farm
land prices and encourage fur-ther borrowing”.
The bank notes signs the rural property market has picked up; the value of farm sales is up 5% since the start of 2013. It also notes that farm price inflation has picked up in recent months as confidence returns to the sector after the drought.
Finally the Reserve Bank predicts a significant increase in milk production this season but says the downside of this is that it may put “downward pressure on prices”.
WHAT THE RESERVE BANK SAYS
“The dairy process is very volatile; so is sheep and beef but I don’t see anyone rushing to banks to invest on the basis of a temporary lift in meat prices.”
David Tripe
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
8 // NEWS
Sri Lankan agreement to brings trade stability
A Fonterra supplier in Sri Lanka. Under the deal, the co-op will help develop the country’s fledgling dairy sector.
A STABLE environ-ment in Sri Lanka for Fon-terra to operate in will be one outcome of the Dairy Cooperation Agreement
between the New Zea-land and Sri Lanka gov-ernments, says Fonterra director and farmer-share-holder John Monaghan.
It will also help develop the local dairy industry in Sri Lanka which is Fonter-ra’s third largest market
PAM TIPApamelat@ruralnews�co�nz
for whole milk powder.Monaghan told Dairy
News he believes the blocking of Fonterra prod-ucts and protests against the cooperative in Sri Lanka earlier this year must be viewed against the background of Sri Lan-ka’s trade deficit where it imports twice as much as it exports. Over 70% of its milk is imported.
Helping Sri Lankan farmers to develop their own milk pool will con-tribute to stability.
“Fonterra welcomes the signing of the dairy agreement and we have been working with our Government towards this,” says Monaghan, who has been in Sri Lanka rep-resenting Fonterra at the Commonwealth Business Forum.
“It provides an impor-tant framework from which we can work with the Sri Lankan Govern-ment to help the local dairy industry. We have unique capabilities and commitment where we can make a difference to the Sri Lankan dairy indus-try, as we do in many other countries in the world.”
Fonterra already pro-vides a farmer education programme to enhance production and quality. The demonstration farms are a further enhancement of that model. They are yet to be developed and a “stable environment” will be needed for that.
“In Sri Lanka we have 3000-4000 farmer sup-pliers and we want to enhance that. But to enable us to do more good in Sri Lanka we need to have a sustainable and profitable business. We recently faced a challeng-ing operating environment which caused temporary suspension of operations and we are recovering from that now.”
It makes sense to build Sri Lanka’s own liquid milk capacity because Fonterra wants to remain committed to that dairy market where New Zea-land has a 35-year history. In Sri Lanka Fonterra has a number-one position in full cream, growing-up milk and adult milk. It has two manufacturing plants where it employs 750 people and it sends
60,000 tonnes of powder there.
“We are the fifth-largest collector of milk locally, that’s about 30,000L. They are mainly smallholder farmers. We had a progamme in place for some time where we have worked on strong farmer development as part of corporate and social responsibility. Six-teen years ago we started with 200 farmers and now we have 3000-4000.
“We need overseas supply but we also need a stable operating environ-ment for us to continue to commit and expand. We want to help them with demonstration farms and help them increase their volume production and quality and lend some of our expertise.
“The Sri Lankan Gov-ernment has a stated desire to become self-suf-ficient in milk produc-tion. It is in our interest to help with liquid milk and the quid pro quo is that we have that stable envi-ronment and be able to continue to import New Zealand milk powder into that geography.”
As a general obser-vation about Sri Lanka, Monaghan says after years of civil war the Govern-ment “is now trying to win the peace”.
“It is a fast growing economy; they have had rates of economic growth since the end of the war in 2009 of up to 8%. It has slowed a bit to 6% but it is very strong economic growth and it’s an impor-tant market to Fonterra.
“We’ve made a consid-erable investment there… the new agreement is a very positive step in creat-ing a more stable operat-ing environment.
“It is one of Fonterra’s important markets glob-ally. It is Fonterra’s third-largest for whole milk powder and it’s a signifi-cant revenue market for Fonterra.”
John Monaghan
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
NEWS // 9
Westland plans $100m dryer
WEST APPEARS to be winning over east when it comes to priorities for investment at Westland Milk Products.
The Hokitika-based cooperative last week announced its board has approved the first stage of a plan to build a $100m,
3.9t/hour, nutritional dryer complex at its Hokitika headquarters.
The move follows supplier meetings earlier this month and leaves resource consents gained in February for three 6t/hour dryers at Rolleston, Canter-bury, sitting on the shelf. Some shareholders have voiced concerns the cooperative’s move to collecting milk
AT THIS week’s annual meeting Westland’s shareholders will vote on whether to adopt the recom-mendations of a comprehensive constitutional review.
“We recognised that if West-land is to develop as a company and succeed in its strategic ap-proach, we need to ensure that the constitution remains fit for purpose and secures a platform for success well into the future,” chairman Matt O’Regan says in the cooperative’s annual report.
He also pays tribute to inde-pendent director David Spence
who stands down at the annual meeting after 12 years with the cooperative: “an incredible record of service for an independent direc-tor,” says O’Regan.
Westland’s annual report car-ried the single word “Genuine” on the front cover, a theme touched on in both O’Regan and chief executive Rod Quin’s reports, plus four separate sections, headed “Genuine New Zealand…Farms; Quality; Products; Support”.
While neither O’Regan nor Quin
were available for comment last week,
the theme appears to be a strategic move
by Westland to stress its New Zealand-only
supply and grass-roots coop-erative structure as a point of difference.
“Westland has its roots in a genuine New Zealand dairy culture with a tradition of excel-lence,” wrote O’Regan.
Westland’s annual meet-ing starts 11am in Shantytown, Wednesday November 27.
ANDREW SWALLOWandrew s@ruralnews�co�nz
from Canterbury is the thin end of the wedge, and if it starts processing there too it will lose its West Coast focus.
The board’s approval is for an initial $2m investment in the new nutritional complex at Hokitika, aimed to get it through the resource consent process
by February 2014.Subject to consents
being granted, final
board approval for funding to complete the plant should follow, with building starting April 2014 for commissioning August 2015.
“The dryer will build our capacity… and give us increased versatility and capacity in the plant to make speciality, high value, products that deliver better returns to shareholders,” says Westland chief executive Rod Quin.
“Westland is well placed to fit with the new regulatory market in China and demand for our nutritionals capacity is
already accelerating,” he adds.In February Westland commissioned
a $25m nutritional formula plant at Hok-itika and last season saw “marked prog-ress” in Westland’s strategy to improve use of its facilities by growing milk supply, processing winter milk for the first time, and entering new markets with value-add products, Quin says.
So for the time being at least, the scores on the investment doors at Westland appear to be Hokitika 2, Rolleston 0.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
10 // NEWS
Dairy worst culprit in farm injuries, deaths – Govt
WORKPLACE SAFETY inspectors will be visiting dairy farms in Taranaki and Bay of Plenty in the next two weeks to check on vehicle safety.
Information is being gathered for a new farm vehicle safety programme to be implemented next year.
The inspectors will look at all vehicles – not just quad bikes – consid-ering everything from maintenance to staff train-
ing and health and safety plans.
Enforcement action will be taken if neces-sary by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) safety group inspectors but they are also gathering information for the new safety programmes.
Dairy farms are the primary focus, says Francois Barton, who heads the ministry’s workplace safety programmes. He told Dairy News this focus was based on ACC entitlement claims figures, where
someone has been away from work for more than five days, indicating serious injury.
“Dairy has got the bigger contribution to harm across the agricultural sector as a whole,” he said. Taranaki has the lowest rate of those ACC claims in dairy and Bay of Plenty the highest. “We thought it useful to compare the area with the lower rates versus the area with higher rates.”
Barton says the min-istry has focused on quad safety for two-three years and it remains a top prior-
ity. But the statistics show a broader vehicle safety programme is needed. This is in the development phase, working with the Agriculture Health and Safety Council, ACC and others.
“We want to ensure the approach is fit for purpose, appropriate and realistic. In these two weeks of workplace assessments, when we see things that aren’t right we will call it, and take the appropriate enforcement action. But the purpose is not to catch people. It is to help our understanding of how
PAM TIPApamelat@ruralnews�co�nz
vehicle safety is being managed on farms.”
Maintenance, training and use, such as guarding, will be looked at. The right vehicles are not being used for the task at hand, lead-ing to accidents.
Overarching that are on-farm health and safety
systems and plans, says Barton. They determine how a farm can keep farm-ers and workers safe.
The Taranaki and Bay of Plenty inspections are scheduled for about now – the last week of November and first week of Decem-ber.
A formal report on findings will contribute to a new vehicle safety plan to be launched in the second half of 2014.
The MBIE will also talk to the wider community to assess what organisations are taking leadership on health and safety.
Government inspectors will be visiting farms to check on vehicle safety.
CHILDREN ARE dying in farm accidents and yet agricultural health and safety performance can only be described as “stubborn”, says Barton.
“I know of at least two children in the last year that have been killed on farms; the impact on the community and on the family directly involved is terrible.
“Too many people are getting killed and injured on farms. Farming is a critical sector for the New Zealand economy, but it is also a community.
“A change is needed and that’s why we are working closely with ACC and want the agricultural community to step up and take ownership on changing behaviours and at-titudes towards working safety. That’s what’s needed if we are going to turn the dial on safety performance.”
Barton says he would describe health and safety performance in agriculture as “stub-born”.
“We are seeing some pockets of improved leadership around the sector but we are not seeing that flow through to people working in a safer way.
“The level of performance around acci-dents and fatalities and other things is stub-born and we need people to do more not less… if we are to get some progress.”
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
NEWS // 11
Too easy to criticise dairy
FEDERATED FARMERS dairy head Willy Leferink believes it’s hard to undo a ten year smear on ‘dirty dairying’ in one year.
Speaking to Dairy News last week at the Feds national council meeting in Wellington, Leferink said the environ-
ment is a huge issue for dairying. And while he doesn’t want to lay the blame with the media for the present problems, he says there seems to be no desire on the part of journalists to do deeper research or understand the issues.
“It is easy for dairying to be in the dogbox while many cities are not pre-pared to invest in sewage treatment plants. An example of that is Palmerston North which says it can’t afford a sewage
plant but yells and screams about what the farmers put in the river.”
Leferink says people are often mis-informed by the media about environ-mental issues, but he doesn’t blame them because they are only as good as the information they get. The farming community has been slack at responding.
Farmers must get environmental matters right so they can speak from the “moral high ground”. Leferink says a
recent report by ECAN shows that farm-ers in mid Canterbury have significantly lifted their environmental performance. This shows in reports that there are few serious breaches of environmental reg-ulations.
Leferink says he’d like to see the onus for sustainability not only on farmers but also the wider community.
“If people have an opinion on sustain-ability then I’d also like them to have an
opinion on where their rubbish goes and how sustainable they are in their own households.
“They are happy to have a opinion on somebody else but they forget what they are doing at home. For instance, here in Ashburton I am quite saddened to see the amount of rubbish that youngsters leave everywhere. There seems to be two sets of values: one for yourself and one for the others.”
PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz
Farmers backing typhoon-hit FilipinosNEW ZEALAND’S dairy farming community is express-ing support and sympathy to the Filipino community in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.
Filipino dairy workers here have friends and family affected by the typhoon which damaged 500,000 homes and displaced three million people.
DairyNZ chairman John Luxton says 8% of employ-ees on New Zea-land dairy farms are from the Philippines and are valued in the industry’s workforce. Farmers concerned about affected staff are supporting them through it.
Filipino dairy workers in the lower South Island held a ‘Bayaninhan’ – a talent showcase – in Ashburton on Satur-day to raise money for typhoon victims, who will get all the pro-ceeds, says Maria Cristina Tawatao, Migrante coordinator, Ashburton. Migrante is an organisation which supports urban and rural Filipino migrant workers in New Zealand.
Many Filipinos live and work on dairy farms in Can-terbury and Southland, Luxton says. “This is a busy time on farms so we are conscious this may be adding to their stress levels, following a hectic spring. I’d urge any work-ers who have been affected to talk to their employers…. I know a lot of support has already been shown by farmers.
“Filipino employees are a vital and much appreciated labour resource for our industry, and for many this will be a tough time – trying to get information about relatives and friends and grieving for lost loved ones and their dam-aged homeland.
“We know they are a close community who actively support each other. We have been in contact with the Fil-ipino Dairy Workers in New Zealand (FDWNZ) group to offer our support and have asked them to let us know of any assistance they might need.
“Farmers can also contact us if they need any help or advice in supporting their Filipino staff. We also support the Federated Farmers recommendation that farmers help by donating money to the New Zealand Red Cross.”
Federated Farmers told members they should back the international community “just as they backed us during the Canterbury earthquakes”. Many Filipino workers helped out in the aftermath of the earthquake.www.redcross.org.nz
John Luxton
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
12 // NEWS
Dairy sales lower but REINZ upbeat
DESPITE A record payout forecast and low interest rates, prices for dairy farms eased in the three months ending October 2013, latest Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) figures show.
However commenta-tors report some strong sales recently which prob-ably came too late for the data released last week.
REINZ rural spokes-man Brian Peacocke acknowledges the data may seem a little sur-prising at first glance but suggests it’s because it’s based on limited sales. Even in October, tradi-tionally a month when turnover starts to pick up, there were only 19 dairy farms exchanged: five in Waikato, four in South-
land, and the rest dotted around the country, he told Dairy News.
“There’s a lot of pro-motional activity in October which typically concludes towards the end of October and through into November.”
Anecdotal evidence is of strong sales concluded recently, such as a Canter-bury dairy farm that made $52-53,000/ha without shares, he notes.
But there is a subtle hardening of attitude among buyers, reflect-ing market commentary that milk prices will ease next season and beyond, interest rates will start to creep up, and that the kind winter and growthy early spring has turned a little more tricky for many.
“Good properties are continuing to gener-ate good demand and sell well but sales are strug-gling where the vendors’
expectations are out of line with where the market is at. There’s a reasonable supply on the market, but not a great number of top quality properties.”
The median price/ha for the 37 dairy farms sold August-October was $32,701, compared to $34,912, for the three months ended September, when 28 properties sold. The median for the corre-sponding period last year was $27,368, when just 13 properties sold.
However, REINZ’s Dairy Farm Price Index, which adjusts for farm size and location, fell 2.3% compared to Octo-ber 2012, and by 0.6% in the three months to October compared to the three months to Septem-ber. Median size of farms sold Aug-Oct this year was 107ha, with median pro-duction of the 19 farms sold in October being
846kgMS/ha.Peacocke notes there’s
a dairy influence in the better grazing, and in par-ticular, finishing prop-erty data too, with dairy buyers looking for farms to grow feed crops and/or rear replacements. “There is a shortage of that type of property.”
For the three months ended October the fin-ishing farm median was $21,331/ha across 71 prop-erties sold, compared to $25,338/ha for the three months ended September and $20,402 a year earlier.
For grazing farms, the median ended Octo-ber was $18,750/ha on 157 sales, compared to $17,517/ha for the three months ended September and $11,671/ha ended Octo-ber 2012.
Across all farm types there were 349 sales in the three months to end of October, and 1629 farms
ANDREW SWALLOWandrews@ruralnews�co�nz
in the year ended October, 15.6% more than were sold in the year ended October 2012. Not since 2009 have annual sales topped 1600.
Median price across all types was $24,590/ha Aug-Oct, compared to $19,872/ha in the correspond-ing period a year ago – a 23.7% increase. However the REINZ All Farm Price Index, which adjusts for
differences in farm size, location and farming type, was only up 7.4%.
REINZ listed nine
market highlights in its latest rural property report, all of which fea-tured dairy in some way.
PGG WRIGHTSON predicts four “premium-quality” Mid Canterbury farms will “reanimate” the market in dairy properties.
Two established midsize dairy farms at Lowcliffe, and one arable and one livestock unit at Pendarves have been listed for private treaty sales closing early December.
“Over the past few months, due to restricted supply, rural property sales activity has been low,” notes local PGW Real Estate manager
Robin Ford.“ While there are plenty of mo-
tivated buyers in the market, farm owners have preferred to take the good returns on offer from staying put and making the most of record milk payouts, rather than cashing up and moving on.
“As a consequence, demand has exceeded supply and, as high-quality properties come onto the market, prices should respond ac-cordingly,” Ford says.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
14 // NEWS
Leeder to lead regional councilFORMER DAIRY industry leader Doug Leeder has been appointed chairman of Bay of Plenty Regional Council.
He chaired Dairy Insight which merged with Dexcel to form DairyNZ. He is also a former chair of Bay Milk Products.
The Bay of Plenty dairy farmer is pleased with the con-fidence of his fellow councillors.
“I’m looking forward to leading this council as we tackle challenges and decisions. It’s an exciting time, and… we are looking to advancing the interests of the region.
“As a region, we’re fortunate to have an extensive and impressive environmental landscape that enables us to capture development and recreational opportu-nities for the benefit of everyone.”
Leeder succeeds John Cronin who served four con-secutive terms as chairman.
Says Leeder, “I would like to acknowledge the huge contribution John Cronin has made to this council and the region over many years. I look forward to work-ing with him and using his institutional knowledge of council and local government.”
Doug Leeder
Technology tour down south
A GROUP of North Island dairy farmers got an insight into cutting edge dairying in the south ear-lier this month courtesy of ANZ.
The bank took 24 cus-tomers from Taranaki, Waikato and Manawatu on a tour of four farms in Canterbury to help them “collaborate on ideas for their own farms and learn from the insights of the farmers in the South Island,” ANZ managing director commercial and agri, Graham Turley, told Dairy News.
“The tour enabled us to show insights from differ-ent famers in Canterbury on a larger scale that are embracing robotic tech-nology to produce better quality products and higher yields.”
Four farms were vis-ited, including Alvin and Judith Reid’s Riverholme robotic dairy farm, near Pleasant Point, the first farm in the south to install De Laval’s robotic milking system.
“It’s great to see how farmers people like Alvin are exploring options of using technology such as automated calf-feed-ers and robotic milking machines to enhance pro-ductivity of the herd while ensuring the wellbeing of each individual cow,” says Turley.
The group also visited Pannetts Dairies, a 215ha spray-irrigated cut-and-carry operation with 950 cows fed a total-mixed ration in a free-stall barn and milked through an adjoining 60-bail rotary.
While they’ve not gone to robotic milking, there’s a high level of automa-tion in other areas, such
as walk-over weighing and milk metering. The aim is to be sustainable in all respects at high levels of production, maximising return on feed, achieving a good work-life balance for staff and running a healthy herd with minimal envi-ronmental impact. Long term the aim is to produce double the milk of a sim-ilar sized conventional farm.
The third dairy farm on the tour was Camelot Farm, a grazed herd of 560 cows using robotic milk-ing. Cows are individually supplemented to max-imise productivity and the Holstein Friesian and Brown Swiss herd includes some of the top producing cows in New Zealand.
Another visit was Turley Farms, a 4000ha cropping operation with vertical integration into processing and packaging, notably for wheat through
the recently opened Farm-ers (flour) Mill, Timaru.
Turley says tours like the Canterbury one allow the bank to better connect with customers, and it endeavours to do them as often as possible.
“A recent international example was our tour to India in April this year. We took 13 of our New Zea-land food and beverage customers on an eight-day trip to learn more about the opportunities available in that country.”
Besides gaining a better understanding of India and its opportunities they were able to tap into ANZ’s network of prospective buyers, customers, busi-ness partners and other Kiwi companies already working there, he notes.
“In 2012 we hosted a similar trip to Vietnam… Based on the interest in this trip to Canterbury I’m fairly certain we’ll host more in the future.”
Riverholme goes robotic – pages 22-23.
ANDREW SWALLOWandrews@ruralnews�co�nz
Pleasant Point farmer Alvin Reid talking to the group.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
NEWS // 15
Co-op farmers reach 90% fencing targetFONTERRA FARM-ERS will by this Sunday (Dec 1) be only 4000km short of achieving 100% stock exclusion from waterways, says the co-op’s chief executive, Theo Spierings.
Farmers are expected to reach this 90% mark by their self-imposed deadline after erect-ing 20,400km of fencing. Of the outstanding 10%, some is likely to be fenced already, but is awaiting inspection.
“We can be proud of our cooperative and farm-ers; it’s been a huge effort to get where we are today,” Spierings says. “Every kilo-metre completed is added protection for waterways and contributes to clean and green New Zealand.”
Of the outstanding 4000km, inspection was still required to verify the work had been done. “This takes time but means our data is accurate and robust,” says Spierings.
“The remaining water-ways to be fenced are the tough stuff. In many cases, the terrain can be hard to access but we all remain committed to having 100% of waterways with stock exclusion in place. It’s been a massive effort especially given we’ve had farmers who have gone back to square one after having fencing knocked out by floods or storms.”
Outside of the Taranaki
region, where the regional council already has a scheme to exclude stock from waterways, Fonterra has mapped all farms. The mapping shows every waterway and fence and, by going farm-to-farm, the cooperative has a clear picture of stock exclusion, and farmers can see clearly which waterways needed fencing.
Fonterra is commit-ted to helping farmers lift their environmental per-formance and reduce their impact on waterways, Spierings says.
“Our Supply Fonterra programme makes that commitment real. It makes clear our requirements and offers support on fencing and effluent and nitrogen management… creating change, and continuing to do so.
“We share New Zea-landers’ concerns about water quality and we rec-ognise we must continue to lift our game in environ-mental sustainability.”
Fonterra visits each of its 10,600 farms and envi-ronmental practice is a key topic of discussion, Spier-ings says.
Farmers continue improving and investing in upgrading their effluent management infrastruc-ture to meet co-op and regional council rules.
“All this work is part of a 10-year plan for a sus-
tainable future that… pro-tects natural resources and underpins the resil-ience and profitability of our farmers.”
Fonterra director global sustainability Bruce Donnison, farmer shareholder Grant Wilson, RD1 managing director Jason Minkhorst and Fonterra chairman John Wilson load up some fencing supplies in February this year.
FEDERATED FARMERS has commended Fonterra and its farmers for fencing off 20,400km of farm waterways.
“This is a great feat by our dairy farmers to help improve water quality, as about 90% of our dairy members are Fonterra farmers,” says Willy Leferink, Federated Farmers Dairy section chair-man.
“In two weeks we are looking to have 24,400km of waterways fenced, which is halfway around the world, and if you count the second wire we’ve gone all the way. These are the first steps… to a positive and sustainable dairy future.
“It is important to celebrate these successes as tomorrow we have to focus on the next hurdles. With the consultation under the Na-tional Policy Statement on Freshwater Manage-ment, New Zealand will come together to make workable and long term solutions in everybody’s interest.”
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
RUMINATING
EDITORIAL
MILKING IT...
16 // OPINIONDAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
AT LONG last some decent hard data is starting to emerge about the impacts of the dairying on the environment, and the national and local economies.
The recent Nimmo Bell and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Environment reports, on the impacts of various scenarios on ‘controlling’ dairying, highlights how important the cow is to New Zealand. We once lived off the sheep’s back – not any more.
We now depend on a creature with four teats that dominates our landscape from North Cape to Bluff and in places where it was assumed only sheep could graze. Conversion shows no signs of stopping.
Dairying is to many regions what coal is to the West Coast. The economies of many rural towns and communities are dom-inated by the cow. It’s not just the money the farmer earns from good dairy prices, but all the associated industries dairying has spawned. Dairying may be a dirty word to some, but the cow is king or queen when it comes to dollars.
The conundrum facing communities is that curbing dairy pro-duction to reduce the environmental footprint may come at the cost of jobs in heartland New Zealand. Cutting cow numbers to cut N leaching means cutting jobs down the line.
The answer is hopefully in new farm systems, better technol-ogy and quality data that will drive better policy decisions. Proj-ects at the Massey University dairy farms are expected to provide answers. But it seems inevitable that farmers themselves will have to change the way they farm and the community will have to accept those changes in order to retain wealth in rural New Zealand.
Communities may be faced with sacrificing jobs for cleaner waterways. These are some of the most challenging times the rural sector has faced in recent years. What emerges in the next five years may be very different from what we see today.
The conundrum of dairying
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Dunga’s amazing discoveryTHE US Department of Agriculture’s agricultural research service (ARS) does some great work on dairying but Milking It had to chuckle at the name of a scientist looking into whether dust and smells from dairy farms carry harmful bacteria, fungi or viruses� Rob Dungan dis-covered that bio-aerosol concentrations return to normal background levels fairly close to dairies� “So people near these facili-ties can hopefully breathe a sigh of relief about potential bio-aerosol exposures,” the ARS magazine reports� Good on ya, Dunga’s!
Fenced in by negativityGUESS WHO’S not happy with Fonterra farmers get-ting 90% of their water-ways fenced by December 1? Fish and Game New Zealand says the fencing “does not go far enough”�
It says excluding stock from waterways is only a “small” part of the serious problem New Zealand has with intensive dairy indus-try degrading freshwater�
While it may be a small step towards preserving our waterways, Fonterra farmers should be con-gratulated on the achieve-ment� Instead of bagging Fonterra, Fish and Game should give credit where it’s due�
Robot rounds up cowsTO HERD their cattle, dairy farmers worldwide use everything from specialty dog breeds to quads� Now, researchers at the Univer-sity of Sydney have come up with a game changer – a robot cowboy named Rover� A video by the uni-versity shows it bringing a herd of cattle from field to dairy for milking� The cows were not bothered by the robot’s presence� This is seen as necessary for the broader adoption of ro-bots in the dairy industry� Rover was adapted from a robot used to monitor trees in a fruit orchard�
Glitches’ end in sightFONTERRA’S RECENT computer upgrade is not without teething trouble: distribution software glitches have put pres-sure on milk supplies to supermarkets� The co-op says the new SAP software system had af-fected the distribution of its Mainland and Anchor products nationwide� But it expects a solution by the end of next week�
Fonterra was busy changing its computer system when the false botulism scare erupted, hampering resolution of the crisis�
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
OPINION // 17
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on a South Auckland farm earlier this year with Fonterra chairman John Wilson.
NZ-Thai trade on the move
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY is a priority for New Zea-land farmers, who have invested heavily in sus-tainable and efficient farm management systems. This has led to industry-led voluntary initiatives helping reduce envi-ronmental impact, and improving efficiency and enhancing brand value.
An increased focus on animal welfare has led to stronger animal wel-fare laws, and coopera-tion between government, NGOs and industry.
We are also invest-ing heavily in science, research and develop-ment. The Government and industry are jointly investing $684 million in what is known as the Pri-mary Growth Partner-ship. And increased focus on consumer welfare has led to the development of a world class food safety system.
A lot of publicity has surrounded New Zealand’s food safety systems in the wake of the recent whey protein contamination issue – a false alarm. This incident should not have happened and the fact it was a false alarm is no excuse for doing nothing. The New Zealand Gov-ernment is undertaking a full inquiry to identify the causes and ways to further strengthen our system.
New Zealand is com-mitted to openness and transparency in food safety. If there is a chance our food poses a health risk, we will come forward. Nothing is more impor-tant to a food producing nation than its reputation, and we are committed to upholding ours.
I recently attended the launch of ASEAN strat-egy by our Prime Minis-ter John Key in Auckland. The strategy centres on a strong shared history and a stronger future for 12 South East Asian nations including New Zealand and Thailand.
The ASEAN - Austra-lia - New Zealand FTA is to provide a platform for regional growth for the 650 million consumers in our region. This is not a zero sum game, because New Zealand’s growth is not at Thailand’s expense and vice versa.
Thailand, the second largest ASEAN economy, is in the fastest growing region in the world – a region with an expanding middle class increasingly demanding high value, high quality and sustain-ably produced food and beverage products.
It is in the interests of both New Zealand and Thailand to do business together, share ideas and learn from and build on each other’s strength and expertise.
Two way trade between New Zealand and Thailand is currently worth $2.2 billion, a doubling since 2005. About 100 New Zea-land companies export to Thailand or are interested in doing so.
Dairy products account for almost half our exports to Thailand, worth close to $300 million. In total, our food and beverage exports to this nation total about $450 million. More opportunities are open-ing for New Zealand com-panies in the higher priced commodities and value-added food and beverage products as Thai incomes increase.
Both our prime min-isters have committed to doubling trade by 2020 and that’s why this visit is so important to keep us focused on that end goal.
One of the biggest chal-lenges over the coming decades will be how to ensure our food produc-tion keeps pace with the ever growing demand.
This presents chal-lenges for our two coun-tries, but by working together we can all pros-per together.
PRIMARY INDUSTRIES Minister Nathan Guy last week addressed the Executive Roundtable in Bangkok, Thailand. He spoke about challenges facing New Zealand agriculture and our trade with Thailand. Here are edited excerpts from his speech:
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
18 // AGRIBUSINESS
Dairy world’s sustainability push will raise its mana
THE GLOBAL dairy industry’s holistic approach to sustainability will improve its credentials, says International Dairy Federation president Jeremy Hill.
Apart from reducing dairy’s impact on natural resources, it will contribute to dietary quality and nutrient adequacy worldwide, says Hill.
The IDF launched its Dairy Sustainability Frame-work (DSF) last month at the World Dairy Summit in Yoko-hama, Japan.
The summit heard that in some countries, like New Zealand and Netherlands, industry-led initia-tives were already underway to make the dairy chain more sus-tainable.
Hill told Dairy News the DSF will help those countries whose sustainability credentials aren’t as advanced as New Zealand’s and Netherlands’ to learn from their experiences.
Without global standardized methods a concerted sector wide approach to sustainability it would
be difficult, says Hill.“Can you imagine if we had hun-
dreds of different ways of deter-mining water footprints, carbon footprints and of tackling issues related to biodiversity?
“It can be very complex and we needed to bring some struc-ture to this. That’s why the DSF is extremely powerful and will allow
our sector to take a leadership posi-tion in sustainability.”
The DSF was finalised earlier this year after at least 100 individ-ual interviews, several global work-shops and reviews of 80 dairy and 20 non-dairy sustainability initia-tives worldwide.
Designed on three principles – align, connect and progress – it can be integrated in existing and new activities at all levels in the dairy value chain.
Presentations at the summit by Dutch co-op FrieslandCampina
and Dairy Companies Associa-tion of New Zealand director Kim-berly Crewther showed initiatives were underway in these countries. Crewther spoke about the ‘Sus-tainable dairying; water accord’ launched by the industry earlier this year.
Hill expects the DSF to continue to grow.
“It’s already part of the way we are looking addressing sustainabil-ity in New Zealand and it’s already part of the way FrieslandCampina is looking at sustain-ability as part of its commercial operation.
That’s to be expected because we did not create this DSF in the abstract and then look to persuade people to use it. We’ve used prac-tical experience in order to help shape it. “
One of its great strengths is that it “spirals both ways”. “As we get greater understanding on how we need to look at biodiver-sity from a global perspective that understanding spirals down into the regional, national or organisa-tional view.
“But at the same time the under-
standing we gain from looking at the specifics of the biodiversity issue at the local level can spiral upwards to help our understand-ing at a global level. This applies to all 11 categories in the DSF.”
Hill says the DSF is flexible and doesn’t impose on organisations.
“We are not saying we all have to arrive at the same place in all the areas; we are saying this is how sus-tainability should be looked at col-lectively by the sector.
“It’s not about standard or prescriptive outcomes but about common understanding enabling a more aligned approach to prog-ress in all important aspects of sus-tainability.
“This common understanding cascades all the way down to where the rubber hits the road… where people actually do something.
It helps with alignment for those organisations that are active already and also for those organisations less advanced or that haven’t looked at particular aspects of the complex sustainability picture to learn from other organisations.”• Sudesh Kissun attended the World Dairy Summit with assistance from Asia NZ Foundation.
PAYING MORE for grain fertil-iser pays off in crop yields of maize and wheat, according to recent studies funded by Ballance Agri-Nutrients.
Trials in Canterbury, Southland and Waikato in spring 2012 evaluated the performance of standard urea against Ballance Agri-Nutrient’s SustaiN, which is urea coated with the urease inhibitor Agrotain.
This is a nitrogen stabiliser proven to suppress ammonia vola-tilisation, delivering more nitrogen directly to the soil where it can con-tribute to plant growth.
The trials showed that the
extra cost of $11/ha for SustaiN (applied at 100kg N/ha) was read-ily recouped, the company says.
While in one wheat trial SustaiN only produced slightly more grain yield than urea, at the second site, SustaiN at about 100kg N/ha out-yielded urea at the same rate by at least 0.5 t grain/ha.
This highlights the risk of reduced nitrogen efficiency through ammonia volatilisa-tion with urea. At a grain price of $400/t, the extra 0.5 t grain/ha would be worth an extra $200/ha, making the extra $11/ha for SustaiN worthwhile.
In the maize trial, at 100kg N/ha
the $11/ha extra cost resulted in an even greater increase in grain yield of 2.6 t/ha. At a maize grain price of $500/t, this would return $1300/ha more, easily recouping the added fertiliser cost.
Ballance science manager Aaron Stafford says the maize yields could have been better given the trials took place during the drought, so lower-than-average grain yields were achieved.
“This trial work carried out by independent researchers supports our position that [spending] a little more is worth the money, given the results of the trials.”
The trials were done in plots
10m x 3m; there were 10 replicate plots for each treatment. This was done to ensure large areas were harvested with high replication, so as to minimise background crop yield variability, which can easily mask product performance ben-efits.
In one Waikato maize trial, SustaiN applied at 100kg N/ha achieved similar yields to stan-dard urea and SustaiN applied at 200kg N/ha.
This highlights the need to apply only the amount of nitrogen required to grow the crop, but at the same time ensuring the nitro-gen being applied is effective.
Fertiliser lifts grass yields – study
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
AGRIBUSINESS // 19
Fonterra backs super typhoon relief effort
Trail of destruction... the aftermath of Super Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban.
FONTERRA HAS donated $100,000 towards the typhoon relief and recovery efforts in the Philippines.
The co-op’s donation to ChildFund New Zea-land will help provide food, water and essential hygiene items, and help to establish safe spaces for children.
Asia programmes man-ager for ChildFund New Zealand Sally Hewlett praised Fonterra’s support and understanding of the need for urgency.
“They have also kindly offered their local Philip-pines staff as volunteers for ChildFund’s relief efforts.”
ChildFund’s first efforts are in three of the hardest-hit areas: Ormoc, Roxas and Tacloban.
“ChildFund was among the first international aid workers to reach the city of Ormoc, reporting almost total devastation. The chaotic conditions will be frightening for already vulnerable chil-dren so we urgently need
to set up safe spaces and get aid to them,” says Hewlett.
Fonterra chief execu-tive Theo Spierings says the cooperative is encour-aging its farmers and employees to make per-sonal donations.
“We have close ties with the Philippines having been in the market for many years with a con-siderable local workforce. Our thoughts are with our Fonterra family in the Philippines and we are confident the funds raised through ChildFund will be used in the best way pos-sible.”
Hewlett says it’s vital everyone, from individu-als to organisations, work together. “We applaud Fonterra’s commitment and hope other businesses will follow suit.”
Since 2011 Fonterra has partnered with Child-Fund in the develop-ment of children under five living in extreme pov-erty in Asia by supporting early childhood develop-ment services with health
and education, and reha-bilitating early childhood centres.
ChildFund has worked in the Philippines for nearly 60 years. It is coor-dinating its relief efforts with local partners, other
aid agencies and the gov-ernment.
Donations to Child-Fund’s Philippines emer-gency appeal can be made by either calling 0800 223 111 or online www.child-fund.org.nz
Milk scheme gets green light for recyclingFONTERRA‘S MILK for Schools scheme has gained accreditation to the Ministry of Environment’s recy-cling product stewardship scheme.
This recognises effective disposal of used packaging and education efforts in schools and their communities.
Fonterra director of global sustainability and social responsibility Carly Robinson says all schools that sign up to the scheme get a recycling bin, bin liners and free collection by Fonterra to ensure all milk packs are recy-cled.
Not only is it recycling, “it’s also to educate Kiwi kids on the importance of recycling [via] recycling guide-line packs, a recycling video, and visits by represen-tatives to each school to ensure they understand the programme.”
All packaging collected is taken to a Fonterra site to be baled, then is sent overseas to complete the recy-cling process. The milk packs are made into roof tiles, books and paper.
“There are no facilities in New Zealand able to recy-cle this type of packaging. Facilities in Malaysia and Thailand are the nearest and most eco-efficient,” says Robinson.
Almost 7000 recycling bins have been made by New Zealand manufacturer Sulo-Talbot for Fonterra Milk for Schools. It provides discount-price bins made of up to 60% recycled milk bottles.
Fonterra Milk for Schools is the tenth product stew-ardship scheme accredited in New Zealand under the Waste Minimisation Act 2008.
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
20 // MANAGEMENT
Uni’s farm trial impressesFIFTY MANAWATU dairy farmers went back to university for a half day last week to hear about and see a major research project that could benefit them and others nation-wide.
The Tokomaru/Linton DairyNZ discussion group were guests at Massey University’s No 4 Dairy farm where a four year trial to compare the use of a cow house system versus the standard grazing system is getting under-way.
The project – Pasto-ral 21 – involves DairyNZ, Fonterra, Dairy Com-panies Association of New Zealand, Beef + Lamb NZ and the Minis-try of Business, Innova-
tion and Employment. It is intended to show how to profitably increase pas-toral production while reducing farm environ-mental footprint.
The visiting farmers farm on Tokomaru silt loam, notoriously prone to pugging or cow tread-ing damage during winter and early spring. Research by Massey soil scientists shows that the soils can be prone to such damage for up to eleven days in a row.
Managing the trial is Dr Christine Christensen, whose Massey PhD looked at ways of reducing nitrate leaching by reducing urine spots on pasture.
“What we are doing here is seeing how to increase our productiv-ity by using housing, while reducing our environmen-tal footprint. We aim to do the research so farmers
can make informed man-agement decisions.
“We’ll house cows for some of the time to reduce treading damage in the winter and early spring, and through the late sum-mer-autumn months to reduce nitrate leaching and the urinary load on paddocks.
“While the cows are being housed inside we can collect the effluent and spread it back onto pastures evenly and we anticipate high pasture production from doing that as well as reducing treading damage.”
The original herd at No 4 has been split into two, with 200 cows in each group. Christensen says because of the large number of cows involved in each herd, the data will be relevant to farmers “It’s a real farm and we are
PETER BURKEpeterb@ruralnews�co�nz
demonstrating real situ-ations. There are farmers doing it all over New Zea-land and we are just put-ting the numbers to it.”
Working on the project are soil scientists, agron-omists, farm systems
experts and animal behav-iouralists; the leader is Professor Mike Hedley.
Massey has set up a farmer reference group to provide feedback to the scientists throughout the trial. This is a concept
Massey has also adopted at its new once-a-day research project at No 1 Dairy farm.
While No 4 Dairy is not in a ‘sensitive’ catchment as defined by Horizons Regional Council’s ‘One
Plan’, researchers on this project will take a ‘mea-sure-everything’ approach to gain as much data as possible for the ultimate users of the information – farmers.
Farmers, who attended
The Tokomaru/Linton discussion group at Massey’s No4 Dairy farm.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
MANAGEMENT // 21
farmer visitorsWHEN DRIVING down the tanker track to the No 4 Dairy shed, one’s eyes are automatically drawn to the new $1.4 million free stall barn that will house the 200 cows. Cow houses multiply as environmental regulations get tighter and cows are being farmed in climates and on land where 20 years ago sheep reigned supreme.
The cow house is an impressive sight and the finishing touches are being done before the cows move in. The trial will look at cow com-fort and will include quantifying how cows adapt to being housed indoors for part of the time.
“For the initial feeding trial they’ll be split into subsets of 50 cows and they will get to choose their own bed,” Christensen says. “The split will be based on their weight and production.
“For bedding we are using a variety of systems to see the activ-ity of cows when they come into
the barn because the longer they spend lying down, the higher the milk production. We have different bedding systems including sand, canvas-covered foam – some with sawdust spread on it – and a rub-ber wing flex material.”
Lighting will also be controlled with lights out normally about 9 pm.
But while the cows will be housed inside for part of the time, they will get most of their feed from pasture. It is certainly not envisaged to run a ‘cut and carry’ feed system, says Christensen.
“So they will be put out to graze and brought back at critical times. In the winter and early spring they’ll be brought in to reduce treading damage and they’ll get pasture and maize silage inside. In the autumn they’ll be brought in at night to reduce urinary loans on paddocks, Christensen told Dairy News.”
HOUSING COWS NOW MORE COMMONthe discussion group, were impressed.
For many the concept of a ‘cow house’ appeals given the pugging or tread-ing problems they have to deal with each year. For some cost is a factor.
Alistair White, who runs 350 cows at Tokom-aru, was most impressed. “I think trials like this are brilliant. It takes farmers’ opinions out of it. It’s an important trial with herd homes becoming a hot topic for dairying. Run-ning two trials on two farms side by side under one management system is great.”
Others were equally impressed, especially by Massey involving farmers in their research work to make sure there is a prac-tical dimension to a highly technical trial.
Christine Christensen says the project looks
at increasing production while housing cows.
Impressed... farmer Alister White.
The new $1.4 million free stall barn.
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
22 // MANAGEMENT
Southern vanguard for robotic milkingDe Laval has sold 10,000 of its Voluntary Milking System (VMS) units globally but only a handful are in New Zealand, and until recently all were in the North Island. Andrew Swallow reports.
RIVERHOLME ROBOTIC dairy farm is at the forefront of dairy-ing in the South Island for more reasons than one: not only is it the first with De Laval’s robotic milkers installed; it’s also among
the first to feel the con-straints of Environment Canterbury’s Land and Water Regional Plan.
The 132ha (eff ) farm, just outside Pleasant Point in South Canter-bury, is owned by the Reid
family trust which has sev-eral other dairy farms in the district. This one was previously used to raise replacements and for win-tering. Then nearly a year ago the trust started the conversion process, firstly seeking consents.
Pretty quickly they ran into the complexities of Canterbury’s new regula-tory process, which was notified August 2012.
“Ten months ago, rather like a lot of farm-ers I expect, I didn’t think these nutrient limits were going to be an issue for us but we spent six months trying to get a consent and we had to learn pretty quickly what we might have to do in the future,” Alvin Reid told a visiting group of ANZ bank staff and clients recently.
When the decision on his application came through he was “pretty grumpy” to find he would be limited to 400 cows on a farm he’d hoped to milk 550 on, but after a few days mulling things over with a consultant, they decided to proceed and work on management tweaks over the coming years to increase cows and output within their nutrient loss limit.
“The resource con-sent is for 42kgN/ha leak-age… When the farm was in drystock the model
[Overseer] came out with 38kgN/ha so we can only go 10% over that or the consent would be noti-fied,” explained Reid.
An example of their efforts to drive down losses, while increasing production, is pasture choice. All paddocks being renewed are sown with a ryegrass, clover, chic-ory and plantain mix, for which there’s strong sci-ence to show it reduces cow nitrogen excre-tion. However, as Reid commented to the ANZ group, at present Over-seer doesn’t differentiate between those and stan-dard pastures.
He’s hopeful in due course that will become part of the model, and while frustrated by the constraints on his busi-ness, he welcomes the output approach Envi-ronment Canterbury has taken to implement-ing central Government’s National Policy Statement on Freshwater Quality.
“The last thing we need is an inputs model. That would just stifle innova-tion.”
Innovation is some-thing Reid’s no stranger to: he was the first in the region to feed cows on vegetable waste from local processing factories; he’s built his own automated calf-feeders (Dairy News,
Pleased as punch... Alvin Reid watches cows coming in for milking and/or to go to new pasture. The VMS drafts them accordingly.
Cupping on... the robot finds the first teat.
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August 28, 2012) and sold a number commercially; and now he’s the first in the South Island to deploy De Laval’s Voluntary Milk-ing System (VMS).
Including the six-robot shed, races, fencing and a little irrigation develop-ment – “we had to put in a new well and pump” – the conversion has cost $2.5m.
In Europe some farms using the VMS have cows coming in for milking three times a day, but typ-ically that’s for indoor herds on total mixed ration feeds. Reid’s set-up allows them to come in every eight hours if they wish but in practice he expects they’ll settle into a routine of coming through the shed, on the way to fresh pasture, twice daily.
Dominant animals will likely stick to the times they’re used to, especially as the herd will be intro-duced to the VMS mid season. Less confident cows will likely learn to avoid the rush and, ironi-cally, become the lead-ers in terms of spreading milking times.
“We’ve a lot to learn over the next few months. De Laval tell me the farm-er’s habits are harder to break than the cows’,” Reid commented to the ANZ audience.
Once the herd is trained, the aim is to run the farm with a manager and two part-timers, but over the next month there will be some long days,
and nights, with more people on hand getting the herd trained. First milking for any cow through the VMS in particular takes longer as the cow’s teat configuration is scanned by the robot and stored in its memory. Despite that Reid put 150 cows through his VMS shed on its first day of operation.
As part of a DairyNZ voluntary milking system discussion group he’s spent several months looking and learning from others who have already gone down the robot route. He also acknowl-edges the considerable support the manufacturer has, and is, giving.
“The De Laval techni-cal and system teams have added immense value to this whole development.”
To break even each robot needs to be col-lecting at least 2000L/day of milk, Reid calcu-
lates. Long-term the aim is to have a herd of 500kg crossbred cows pump-ing out at least their own bodyweight in milksol-ids every year. He won’t be winter milking, or using a lot of meal, though he notes putting more grain into the system seems to reduce the nutrient foot-print as calculated by Overseer.
“So we may be forced to [use more meal] by our resource consent.”
Down the track Reid reckons activity meters will be a useful addition to the automation, nota-bly for heat detection. When there’s the technol-ogy to do that reliably, it will be a big breakthrough. It’s a subject he’s put con-siderable personal effort into in the past, spend-ing weeks up a stepladder taking photos of tail paint – rubbed or not – as proof of concept for LIC.
Automated sensors at milking will likely be part of the solution too, he believes. His VMS mea-sures speed of milk let-down, which can be one indication of heat, and other indicators such as body temperature may well be integrates in the future, he believes.
Exactly how herd test-ing will be done is still to be determined but Reid anticipates they’ll set up two robots to take samples so the whole herd can be sampled within three days. “It costs about $12,000 extra per robot to set it up for milk samples.”
Yard washdown will be automated, triggered once a set number of cows have passed through but only when there are few or no cows in the yard.
Operator accuracy in recording details such as antibiotic treatments will be essential, he notes.
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
MANAGEMENT // 23
Southern vanguard for robotic milkingCows stroll in to be milked by robots.
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
24 // ANIMAL HEALTH/NUTRITION
Non-chem Cali controlGOT THISTLES? Are they the Californian, creeping type? If so, and a few of them look like the one pictured here, Lincoln University’s biological husbandy unit wants to hear from you.The reason is they could be suffering from white tip fungus, Phoma macrostoma, which Canadian scientists have developed as biological herbicide.“If white tip disease were found to be already present in New Zealand, this may help streamline the importation of the bio-herbicide and give Kiwi farmers and growers a new option in the battle against Californian thistle,” says the university’s Charles Merfield.There are no records of the disease in New Zealand but that doesn’t mean it’s not here, hence the unit’s search.
Thistle rust, puccinia punctiformis, is here, but rust affected thistles aren’t quite so pale and they have pustules all over the underside of leaves.Email [email protected], ideally with an image of the affected plant(s), or call 021 02318901.
Maximising the productive value of heifersSOME HEIFERS are calving at only 82% of their mature weight rather than the target of 90%, says animal nutrition company SealesWinslow, citing recent dairy industry sta-tistics.
And the company says because some farmers struggled to keep condition on stock during the drought last year, more feed may be needed to help heifers to reach target
weights.SealesWinslow nutri-
tionist Wendy Morgan says helping heifers to reach their target weight by the time they calve results in the animals being more profitable in the herd, using the nutri-ents and energy from pas-ture for production of milk solids rather than for growth.
“Research has shown that well grown heifers are
more successful at getting back in calf, cope better in the herd with mature cows and produce a higher level of milk solids,” says Morgan.
Good nutrition will also boost chances of heif-ers conceiving, because underweight cows will pri-oritise their energy to sup-port maintenance.
“If the cow is not get-ting enough energy to sup-port maintenance and
growth, she will not have the spare energy available for getting in calf, or even to show she is cycling, which in itself is an energy demanding activity.”
The lack of size of heif-ers is shown clearly in the data available from the LIC/DairyNZ New Zealand Dairy Statistics 2011-12, Seales Winslow says.
The data reports an average weight of a Hol-stein-Friesian at 2 years of
age (first calver) at 420kg, whereas by the age of 6 (fourth calving) she has grown to about 515kg, an increase of 95kg. There-fore, she is only calving in at 82% of her mature weight rather than the target of 90% (464kg).
If heifers are being grazed on a run off block away from the main farm, there are convenient feed
options available. “Products such as Rice-
bran pellets, rich in essen-tial fatty acids important in improving herd fertility, can be fed out in troughs in the paddock due to the slow release starches they contain.
“They are also rich in starch and contain most vitamins including B and E, phosphorus and other
minerals, protein, fat and easily digested fibre… a concentrated combination of starch and high quality fat which supports condi-tion and energy balance for mating.”
Morgan recommends agreeing liveweight targets for heifers with graziers to ensure growth stays on track throughout the dura-tion of grazing.
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VETS HAVE called on rural New Zealand com-munities, dairy included, to work with them to ensure antimicrobial med-icines are used wisely.
In a statement to mark International Antibiotic Awareness Week (Novem-ber 18-24) the New Zealand Veterinary Asso-ciation said it was timely to remind New Zealanders of the potential threat of resistance.
“After more than 70 years since the first use of penicillin in human med-icine there are a number of bacteria in circulation across the world that are resistant to one or more antimicrobial drugs,” says NZVA president Dr Steve Merchant.
“Animal and human health have always been interlinked, and bacte-ria resistant to drug ther-apy can be passed from animals to humans, and vice versa. Therefore vet-erinarians and human health physicians have an obligation to continue to work together on this key issue.”
Merchant told Dairy
News he’s not aware of any recorded case of resis-tance to products used in the New Zealand dairy industry, but that’s no reason not to be vigi-lant, especially as numer-ous cases have been recorded overseas. “A lot more information needs to be gathered [here] and awareness raised.”
Besides the potential for resistance to render products ineffective, this having animal welfare and production consid-erations, there’s a danger
products which are effec-tive in dairy may be with-drawn by “the powers that be” if there’s correlation, or even just a concern of a correlation, between vet-erinary use and human [pathogen] resistance.
That’s particularly the case with drugs used in food producing animals, such as dairy cows, he notes.
To mitigate those risks, inappropriate use of anti-biotics in farming – either because the antibiotic isn’t the best for that pur-pose, or because alterna-tive methods of treatment or prevention could have prevented the need for the antibiotic – need to be
EUROPE NOMINATES November 18 as European Antibiotic Awareness Day and the British Veterinary Association (BVA) issued animal owners a similar reminder to the NZVA’s, with the message ‘Don’t Infect, Don’t Expect, Do Protect’.
Don’t infect – keep animals healthy through preventive treatment, good nutrition and hygiene.
Don’t expect – like in human health not every illness requires antibiotics.
Do protect – antibiotics must be used according to instructions on the label and a course must be completed even if the animal is getting better.
“Our simple message of Don’t Infect, Don’t Expect, Do Protect should help own-ers to follow good practice and ensure that antibiotics continue to work for all animals and humans,” says BVA past president Peter Jones.
The BVA says the problem of antibiotic resistant bugs in humans is primarily the result of antibiotic use in people, rather than veterinary use, but animal use is an impor-tant factor contributing to the wider pool of resistance.
‘DON’T INFECT, DON’T EXPECT, DO PROTECT’
avoided.“For example, using dry
cow therapy because of poor hygiene. That sort of thing may mean we don’t have access to products in the future.”
The right product for the right disease is also a key. There have always been antibiotics that don’t
work, or don’t work well, against certain patho-gens. In some cases it may be that an older, proba-bly cheaper product is the best to use, without going to the “top-shelf ” range. Equally, there will be times where the cheapest and easiest to use product isn’t the most appropriate.
Merchant stresses the importance of work-ing with the vet, not just asking for the prescrip-tion.
“Consumer demand for antimicrobials to treat animal disease must be balanced by client/con-sumer education [includ-ing pet owners, as well as
farmers and farm man-agers] to protect against poor or ineffective use which can encourage resistance to develop…. Veterinarians play the pre-dominant role here, sup-ported by industry and regulators to ensure con-sistent messages are deliv-ered.” Dr Steve Merchant
“Animal and human health have always been interlinked.”
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
26 // ANIMAL HEALTH / FEED
Crop options for late plantingIF YOU are farming in a warmer district and your feed budget is showing a summer or early autumn feed deficit, it is not too late to plant forage sor-ghum x sudan grass or hybrid maize for silage or greenfeed. These crops are also excellent options if you have encountered establishment issues and have “patchy” brassica crops.Forage sorghum x sudan grass
Forage sorghum x sudan grass is an excellent option for summer feed in warmer districts, producing good yields in a relatively short time-frame even under dry growing conditions. Because it grows rapidly, forage sorghum x sudan
grass can be grazed or har-vested at 80 - 100 cm in height in as little as 35 - 45 days after planting.
Unlike many other crops which must be grazed when they are mature, forage sorghum x sudan grass is versatile. It can be grazed, but if the feed is not required it can
also be harvested as silage or hay and stored for feeding at a later date when there is a genuine feed deficit. When harvested at the optimum stage (80 - 100 cm in height) it has good energy and protein levels.
Pioneer® brand Bettagraze is a proven forage sorghum x sudan grass hybrid. Key benefits of Bettagraze
include: ■ Rapid early growth and quick recov-
ery after grazing ■ Delayed flowering for easier man-
agement ■ High sugar content, fine stems and
a high leaf-to-stem ratio for excel-lent palatability and feed value.
Hybrid maizeMaize is also an excellent late-plant-
ing option producing high yields of quality drymatter even under dry grow-ing conditions. There are two options if you are planting a crop in late Novem-ber or early December. In warmer dis-tricts it is possible to plant a short maturity maize hybrid (e.g. Pioneer® brand 38H20, 38V12 or 39G12) and have it ready for silage harvest in April. Alter-natively a crop of greenfeed maize (e.g.
Forage King) can be green-fed through-out the late summer and autumn.
The method of planting and maize seed choice will be determined by how you plan to use the crop.
The feed value for greenfeed maize is in the range 10.3 - 10.8 MJME/kgDM with higher energy levels being achieved as the grain content increases.
Utilisation will be maximised if the crop is cut and carried to the stock. Harvesting options include single row choppers (though the crop must be pre-cision planted in 76 cm rows to allow efficient harvest) or flail type silerators.
Greenfeed maize can also be break-fed. Feeding behind an electric wire
reduces crop wastage from trampling. Care should be taken when greenfeed-ing crops which have high amounts of grain present, as excessive grain intake can lead to acidosis (also known as grain overload).Maize silage
If you are looking for total drymat-ter yield and don’t require the feed until April, a short maturity maize silage hybrid is the best option. Talk to your local merchant representative or phone the Pioneer advice line toll-free on 0800 PIONEER (0800 746633) for a region-specific hybrid recommendation.• Ian Williams is a Pioneer forage special-ist. Email [email protected].
Crop End Use Method of Planting Seed Option
Greenfeed onlyConventional seed drill (15cm rows)
Forage King hybrid maize seed blend
Greenfeed with remaining crop made into silage
Conventional seed drill (15cm rows)
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
ANIMAL HEALTH // 27
Vets’ team efforts help productivity
Herd Plus vets (from left)
Andy Collier, Katrina Roberts
and Katie Denholm.
TURNING VETS into an advisory team for Waikato dairy farmers makes sense, says Anexa Animal Health spokesman Terry Youngman, commenting on the practice’s Herd Plus advisory service.
Anexa Animal Health is an association veterinary practice with clinics in Morrinsville, Matamata, Te Aroha, Rototuna, Gordonton, Huntly, Te Kauwhata, Ngaruawahia and Raglan. The practice has an R&D arm called Cognosco.
Youngman says farmers need to regard vets as more than an ‘ambulance’ service called in to repair problems as they arise in dairy herds. Instead, vets are ideally suited to helping raise the productivity of dairy herds.
And for dairy farmer clients the advisory service helps make the most of the strong payout without ramping up farm expenses as happened in 2007-2008.
Says Youngman, “The aim is to deliver advice on key areas of concern for dairy farmers who want to lift herd profitability, without necessarily having to incur major capital or operating expenses in the process.”
Herd Plus has ten staff, including vets said to be known locally and nationally to dairy farmers – Andy Collier, Katrina Roberts and Katie Denholm. Collectively they have expertise in nutrition, reproduction, mastitis, hoof care and body condition scoring.
Roberts helped set up DairyNZ’s InCalf programme nationally and has extensive dairy research experience.
Roberts and Denholm both have post graduate qualifications in veterinary epidemiology, enabling herd data analysis to help farmers better understand the ‘whys’ behind dairy herd problems, Youngman
says. This could include better understanding of specific bacteria causing mastitis, and breaking down infections by cow age, lactation stage and repeat offenders.
Cognosco is headed by dairy researcher Dr Scott McDougall. Cognosco enables the Herd Plus advisors to pick up the latest in herd research work and apply it to their clients’ situations.
A cluster of experts “under one umbrella brand means a problem
shared is a problem solved,” says Collier. “It could be one consultant is focussing on reproduction issues, and recognises body condition score is a problem. They can discuss that and bring the expertise of another consultant to assess what can be done there.”
Such advice adds value, not cost, to a farmer’s business, he says. In some areas it can be straight cash benefits. For example, an increase in a cow’s body condition score from 4.0 to 5.0 will result in an extra 15kgMS production, with extra health and reproductive gains on top.
“But there are other benefits not purely financial. Specialty advice on lameness may mean less time spent trimming hooves, a job no one likes. Every farmer will be different in what they want to get from the advice available.”
With farmer clients, the vets work through a ‘plan-do-review’ process. During regular visits throughout the year, progress towards goals is reviewed and discussions held on what has, and has not, been achieved during the season before it is too late to adjust.
Denholm sees the Herd Plus approach putting the farmer “at the centre of their own farming universe”.
“They then have these experts orbiting around with their skills, and can use them as specific issues arise in their farming business.
” This is said to contrast with the more
common approach of one vet as an expert in all areas.
“Farmers need to regard vets as more than an ‘ambulance’ service called in to repair problems as they arise in dairy herds.”
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
28 // EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT
A NEW effluent pond stirrer to be released soon will require limited maintenance and carry a two-year warranty – almost unheard of in the dairy industry, says manufacturer Plucks Engi-neering.
The company, which invented and developed the cone-shaped ‘enviro saucer’ pond, expects its new offering to impress farmers.
Plucks first introduced its range of effluent pond stirrers four years ago, using only 1.1kW of power for 24/7 stir-ring to keep ponds biologically active by supporting oxygen and day light input. By keeping most of the solids in suspension all the time, such a pond can be pumped out any time.
The new stirrers retain the low-pow-
ered motors and large blade under the sur-face, as well as the drive system and steady bearings above the water line,
But the new models are now powered through an in-line planetary gearbox/motor combo, supported by two 40mm steady bearings that do not need greasing. They also have a new style of anti-snag blade.
The machines arrive onfarm ready to be assembled and afloat “in just a few min-utes”, complete with under frame blade protection to prevent damage to the pond liner.
The new range will be offered in a motor range from 0.75kW for small sumps and tanks to 5.5kW for ponds typically 2 mil-lion litres and bigger.Tel. 0800 PLUCKS
New stirrer needs little maintenance
Pluck’s latest offering – a new pond stirrer.
The stirrer’s planetary gearbox/motor combo has bearings that do not need greasing.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT // 29
Capture and spread effluent evenlyA FARM dairy effluent system’s main purpose is to capture and apply efflu-ent to land, but it must also be safe and comply with the rules, says DairyNZ.
Spreading effluent maximises the beneficial use of nutrients for plant growth and minimises contamination of water, DNZ points out.
Key objectives to be considered at the design stage include: capturing all effluent, timely and uniform spreading of effluent, controlling application to within the boundaries of the application area, safety, and complying with respective regional council regulations.
DairyNZ says while system management is ultimately left to the buyer, the design must achieve a high standard – assuming the farmer runs it correctly.
“A FDE system must collect all the animal excreta deposited in contained areas, as well as any other material coming into contact with it. In addition to the milking shed, this must include
any stand-off areas, feed pads, hous-ing areas and stock underpasses where effluent collects.”
The FDE system must handle the required volume and consistency of effluent being produced and the peak flow rate without blocking, overflow-ing or leaking.
Collection systems must be capable of removing all FDE from the milking area after each milking.
Stormwater runoff from areas not in contact with effluent (e.g. from the dairy shed roof ) should be diverted away from the FDE system, unless the extra water is wanted for a specific reason.
Water is required for washdown of the dairy shed, and periodically for washing other areas such as stand-off areas and feed pads.
Drains must handle the peak flow of effluent without blocking, overflowing, or leaking.
A minimum operating water veloc-
ity of 0.8 m/s should be maintained in all drains so that solids do not settle and cause blockages, says DairyNZ.
“All drains which contain or trans-port FDE must be sealed to prevent any seepage. If a venturi or a pump is required for discharging FDE from a milking pit, provide a recess in the floor. The sides and bottom of this recess should be finished to a smooth surface and must be sealed to prevent seepage.”
If slats or grates are used, they must hold their own weight plus the weight of animals, humans and equipment oper-ating within the collection area. The openings should be large enough to pre-vent undue slat or grate blockages yet small enough to reduce risk of animal injury or application system blockages.
All sealed areas within 45m of the farm dairy that may be contaminated by faeces or urine, and all other sealed areas (regardless of the distance from the farm dairy) where animals are con-tained (including feed pads, stand-
off areas and underpasses), must be directed to a FDE system.
FDE storage must be designed so effluent can be held until applied to land when it is most beneficial to plants, and least likely to cause environmental con-tamination.
Effluent must be stored “in an appro-priate location that minimises its effect on human health and wellbeing and is least likely to cause environmental con-tamination”.
All storage units must be adequately sized and must not leak. All storage units must comply with all regulatory requirements and accepted civil con-struction standards.
Storage period is the length of time FDE is stored between emptying events. “This must account for local climate, the potential for periods of saturated soil conditions and periods of limited staff availability (e.g. calving),” accord-ing to DairyNZ.
Effluent storage has to comply with all regulatory requirements.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
30 // EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT
Effluent pond boom saves time – and no swimmingNEW NEVADA brand pond booms facilitate the maintenance of central pumps on effluent ponds, says supplier Midwest Machinery.
The 7m and 9m PondBooms make the retrieval and maintenance of flotation pumps as easy as that of shore-mounted pumps, says marketing manager Andy Thomas.
He says though floating pumps tend to be cheaper and more reliable than progressive cavity pumps, the work required to retrieve them negates
this benefit somewhat. This has prompted farmers to move towards bottom-loading pumps, even though there is a greater risk of them burning out when blockages occur.
“You get a much longer service life out of floating pumps, they chop solids, the servicing cost is a lot less and the pump heads are always in fluid.”
Thomas says traditionally the pumps are kept afloat on a pontoon, hence the retrieval difficulty. Most of the danger and expense of floating pump maintenance can be
attributed to extraction and re-installation. “You have to get a digger to get them out, and then you need a digger again to put them back in.”
The PondBoom holds the pump pontoon in place. When work is required on the pump, a winch and pivot mechanism is used to draw it out of the water and pull it back to shore along the top of the bar in two minutes – and there’s no need to go out onto the pond at any time, says Thomas.
“It’s easy to bring the pump into the shore, check it out, do whatever
maintenance is required then put it back out in the water again.”
The boom can hold a 25hp or 30hp pump.
Midwest Machinery does the installation: “We pour a third of a cube of concrete into a section of the pond perimeter around a galvanised post, and use steel rods to handle torsional strain.”
Though cost is about 15% more than a typical pontoon and gantry arrangement, it pays for itself in operational safety and convenience, Thomas says.
“When this is paired with a shore mounted
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT // 31
Pond blowout led to plastic-lined replacementAN OVERNIGHT efflu-ent pond blowout had Putaruru dairy farmer Jack Scheres scrambling to find a solution.
He awoke to find the pond had emptied over-night from the base, as though the plug had been pulled out.
He called Environ-ment Waikato to tell them what had happened, and so began a major investi-gation including an assess-ment by Fonterra.
“It was nerve wracking; an Environment Waikato investigator scrutinised all our operations and staff. We were given the all-clear to continue operating under difficult parame-ters.”
The Scheres needed to act quickly to avoid pros-ecution. The first step was to reroute effluent into two other smaller ponds while they sorted out problems with the main pond. Using their own effluent spreading gear they had to constantly monitor the effluent levels in the two ponds and apply to land at every opportu-nity. Luckily, the weather enabled them to keep the effluent flowing onto pad-docks. “We were con-
scious when the weather was right, we were into it.”
The Scheres 130ha dairy farm, Grangeland Farms Ltd, is a family busi-ness, with Jack and wife Liz now taking a step back as son Paul manages the farm, and son-in-law Chap Zwiers also working on the property. Although the Scheres have owned the Putaruru farm for 15 years, they moved onto the unit eight years ago.
The Scheres are now into their seventh year of high input farming, using a feedpad system, lifting their overall cow numbers to 450, and allowing higher production per cow, and extending the milking season. The high input approach will be expanded further with the intention of going into winter milk-ing in 2014.
With quick action from Bruce Nickalls Earthmov-ing and I.S. Dam Lining, a new lined pond with a capacity of 5500m3 was established. I.S. Dam Lining managing direc-tor Adrian Mannering says they calculated the pond size to Environment Waikato and DairyNZ requirements.
“Because it had come
under such scrutiny it was important everything was done correctly; we needed to get it 100% right in the eyes of Fonterra, EW and DairyNZ.” The old pond was demolished and the contents spread on the surrounding paddock.
A layer of geotextile
was laid in the pond to act as a cushion to ensure sharp objects wouldn’t pierce the liner.
Scheres says he chose an HDPE lining system as weld seams of the HDPE can be tested and guar-anteed. “We also looked at concrete but it is very
expensive.” Sheets of liner were
joined using a fusion weld; the double track weld cre-ates a test cavity between the seams which can be pumped with air then tested to ensure it holds pressure and are guar-anteed not to leak. Gas
venting was also added to expel possible methane and carbon dioxide build up from the pond.
Now the cycle is com-plete, with the two ancil-lary ponds emptied out and contoured one month ago. The effluent disposal system deploys a trac-
tor mounted PTO driven stirrer and high pressure pump.
Effluent is pumped through lay-flat hoses to a cannon which is dragged across the paddocks. “With the high input feed system we do have a lot of effluent,” says Scheres.
IS dam lining manager north Corey Taylor during construction of the pond.Jack Scheres inset.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
32 // EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT
Engage experts to design FDE systemsTHE DESIGN and construction of an effective dairy effluent system is a com-plex process.
DairyNZ says it requires the assis-tance of experts who are qualified and experienced in the field. Communica-tion with the system designers, install-ers and contractors will be crucial to ensure the end result is fit-for-purpose in your farming situation, it says.
According to DairyNZ, a good efflu-ent service provider will offer certainty that their product will perform, guar-antees and producer statements, after-sales care, service and support, and farm team training on the operation and maintenance of the system.
“Designers and installers should be involved in the project from start to finish supervising the quality and standard of workmanship during the installation and commissioning of the system. They should be willing to stand by their work.”
DairyNZ recommends farmers use suitably qualified and accredited effluent system designers. A list of accredited designers can be found on effluentaccreditation.co.nz.
It says farmers must make sure the system will be up to the job.
A poorly designed system will be expensive and frustrating in the long term, particularly for the farm team. Like milking too many cows through a dairy, it can be done but it takes longer and the likelihood of fatigue, breakdown and general frustration is extremely high.
A system which is poorly designed may result in problems such as:
■ High risk of non-compliance with regional council requirements
■ No contingency for adverse weather events, staff absence or system breakdown
■ High demand on labour and time ■ Expensive to operate and maintain ■ The need to irrigate on days when
ponding, runoff, and leaching risk is high
■ Additional pressure on the farm team over calving or wet weather
■ • Unrealised investment in the system if it is not user-friendly or doesn’t achieve compliance, and
■ Little room for future expansion.
It is important to think about potential changes to the farm system, especially intensifica-tion, including an increase in cow numbers, greater use of
stand-off and feed pads or the addi-tion of wintering facilities. If these are desired but finances don’t allow you to accommodate these now, plan for a staged expansion to the system as you require it. Get the system designed with the changes in mind; it can save a big expenditure in the future.
ALL FARMS contain high-risk and low-risk areas for effluent application. An effluent application plan can help to identify suitable areas of the farm for effluent application, and areas to avoid.
All staff need to be aware of the effluent application plan.
DairyNZ recommends farmers check consent conditions for any restrictions (minimum distances, application area, irrigating after rainfall or minimum irrigation intervals for example). It is usually recommended paddocks are rested for 10-14
days between application and grazing or further applications.
Make a map of the farm, identify waterways, natural drainage patterns, soil types and sub-surface drainage, slope, prevailing wind direction and neighbours’ dwellings.
Low risk areas are ideal for effluent application, high risk zones include mole or tile drainage areas and no-application zones include all land within 20m of a drain, waterway or bore, or the boundary of a neighbouring property.
EFFLUENT APPLICATION PLANS
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GEA FARM Technologies (GEA) is now an accredited farm dairy effluent system designer.
The knowledge and skills of its two effluent specialists helped achieve the required standard, the company says.
Murray McEwan, effluent solutions technician, helps install and commission systems. He has worked in dairy processing sector and for Ballance Agri-Nutrients, applying his knowledge of soil physics, biology and chemistry, and an appreciation of effluent’s value to soil productivity.
McEwan joined GEA in 2010, attracted by the company’s Houle effluent manage-ment brand, said to be the market leader in effluent systems in North America.
“Feed management on New Zealand dairy farms has changed, and farmers need equipment built specifically to manage effluent, rather than based on a history of pumps designed to handle water. Houle is miles ahead in its design, some of which has no moving parts, so really nothing can go wrong with it.”
Working with McEwan is Matthew Rice, GEA’s effluent solutions manager. He graduated in ag science from Lincoln University in 2007, with a focus on resource and nutrient management.
He says he is seeing greater interest from farmers looking for system upgrades that deliver easier, more flexible effluent management and make liquid suitable for reuse.
Fourteen companies have achieved accreditation in this New Zealand programme. www.effluentaccreditation.co.nz
GEA gains accreditation
Murray McEwan and Matthew Rice.
Irrigation workshops to upskill farm staff‘IRRIGATION MANAGER’ workshops in North Canterbury this week are aimed at upskilling farm staff, managers and owners, says IrrigationNZ.
The events will be at Culverden, Nov 26 and Rangiora Nov 27, outlining core knowledge needed for “high performing irrigation”.
“IrrigationNZ trialed these workshops last summer after requests for practical support to help farm staff better manage irrigation,” says chief executive Andrew Curtis. “With water quality and quantity limits coming into force, knowing how to irrigate effectively is crucial.
“These workshops provide the skills and core knowledge irrigation managers need to
streamline procedures to minimise problems and maximise farm profitability.”
Dairy farmer Richard Greaves, who recently attended a workshop at Dunsandel, says since he was coming from a non-irrigation background the workshop was valuable.
“Irrigation is fundamental to our business and we need to understand it better to increase efficiencies. Water is probably one of the most important aspects of our business.”
Greaves expects to implement ideas from the workshop this season including “measuring the pivot to see what we’re putting on and what it means”.
“It is interesting that we assume our irrigators are applying x, but in fact
when we measure and use the software provided it can be totally different. This can have a huge impact on our businesses as they say you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
Dairy farmer Alex Quigley says while they thought their irrigation set-up was already pretty good; it was reassuring to have this confirmed at the workshop. “Everything they were talking about we’d already done but it’s nice to know we’re doing it correctly.”
Centre pivot and calibration topics included an exercise using buckets to check the uniformity of irrigation distribution and application.
Ruwan Wijayasena from Synlait Farms Ltd says he will recommend the workshop to his
company.“We already use
Aquaflex and can check via computers and smartphones our water usage and moisture levels so the content of the workshop wasn’t new. But it was refreshing.”
www.irrigationnz.co.nz/events-and-training
IrrigationNZ is holding workshops to help farm staff better manage irrigation.
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
34 // EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT
FEDERATED FARMERS environment spokesman Ian Mackenzie says the freshwater proposal rep-resents a significant change in how communities will plan for water.
“This is a collaborative response to a col-laborative process – an accounting system for measuring water quantity and quality. This reduces much of the subjective emotion that has typified the discussion and sets bottom lines for water quality.
“[And it gives] communities the power to set their own aspirations for water. For the first time this will be scientifically, culturally and economi-cally informed…. Just as some farmers may face greater restrictions, some cities and their rate-payers may face wastewater upgrades costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
The proposed amendments introduce the concept of time: many issues may have taken decades to build and may take decades to re-solve,” says Mackenzie
“It is a challenge that rightly starts by giving communities the full facts. This is helped by input provided by 60 of New Zealand’s foremost freshwater scientists. For the first time we can build up a picture for what the impacts are and where they are coming from.
“It will also be helped by giving communities an idea of what the costs of water options being considered are. As long as the community goes into decisions with its eyes open, as farmers, we cannot really complain.”
EYES WIDE OPEN ON PLANNING
Chance for science, consistency, in national water debateDAIRYNZ SAYS the Government’s proposed objectives for freshwater will provide a nationally consistent and scientific basis for assessing water quality.
Environment Minister Amy Adams and Primary Industries Min-ister Nathan Guy recently released proposals for improving freshwa-ter management, including national water standards.
The Government is now consult-ing the public on a discussion docu-ment and a draft amended National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.
“Water is fundamental to our way of life,” says DairyNZ general man-ager for policy and advocacy, Kim-berly Crewther. “It underpins many aspects of our national economy including agriculture, it is culturally important and central to many of the recreational pursuits we enjoy.
“[We need] the best possible framework for making decisions about water. That starts with science and an evidence-backed framework….
“The proposed framework comes with some clear [outcomes] for eco-
system and human health…. The framework allows for staged time-frames.
“DairyNZ also considers it impor-tant that where values for water are still to be quantified, that we see a similarly rigorous scientific process.”
Crewther says DairyNZ supports community involvement in helping to set water policies.
“Farmers are willing to step up and be a part of those community processes and play their role in taking actions along with other players like councils.”
Crewther says DairyNZ supports the proposal to require councils to account for water quality and quan-tity by tracking all water takes and where contaminants are coming from – urban, industrial and rural.
“The industry is already collect-ing some of this data through the new Sustainable Dairying: Water Accord because we know we need this kind of information to help us manage our environmental footprint. The new requirement will mean that all sources - not just farming ones - are clearly tracked and monitored.”
Keep up with the latest stories from by following us atGET SOCIAL WITH DAIRYNEWS
Lake Kainui Farm, Horsham Downs – installed by Total Irrigation
Reymer Farms, Temple View – installed by Total Irrigation
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT // 35
Water consent deadline loomsWORKSHOPS ON applying for resource con-sent in Waikato under the regional council’s ‘Varia-tion 6’ will run for the next two weeks. Applications are due by January 1, 2015, at the latest.
DairyNZ environment policy manager Dr Mike Scarsbrook says farmers had best act now, espe-cially if they have grown their herd or converted to dairy since 2008.
Variation 6 requires dairy farmers to get resource consent for water takes greater than 15m3 per site, per day (or about 215 cows), used for milk cooling and dairy shed wash down.
“Farmers could miss out on allocation if they don’t get applications in
early,” says Scarsbrook.“Water takes that did
not exist at October 15, 2008, for example, if a farmer increased cow numbers or converted to dairy, will not have the same level of protection as farms with water takes before that.
“So far only about 50% of farmers have lodged their applications. Some areas will reach full water allocation, meaning later applications are at risk of not being granted, as they are being processed on a first-in-first-served basis.”
The DairyNZ work-shops give step-by-step support for farmers to complete the application form for consents. Special-ists will advise farmers on complex situations.
To complete the resource consent at the event farmers need to bring a farm map show-ing the locations of ground or surface water takes or waterways on the farm,
evidence of cow numbers before and after October 15, 2008, and any infor-mation about the bore (depth, well construction) or surface water intake structure.
■ Paeroa, Nov 26 - Paeroa Hall, Normandy Rd ■ Matamata, Nov 28 - sports club, Bedford Park,
Tainui Street ■ Tokoroa, Nov 29 - Tokoroa Club (Red Room),
Chambers Street ■ Waihi, Dec 3 - RSA, 99 Beach Road ■ Huntly Dec 4 – war memorial hall, Wight Street ■ Taupo Dec 10 - Central Plateau REAP, 73
Titiraupenga Street.Essential to RSVP email [email protected] or tel. 07 858 2768.
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State’s water plan praisedIRRIGATIONNZ SAYS it supports the fresh water National Objectives Framework released recently by the Government.
“It’s good to see the recommendations of the Land and Water Forum being put into action and IrrigationNZ applauds the scientists and planners behind the frame-work. It’s a sensible, well-informed first iteration and we look forward to its further development,” says Irriga-tionNZ chief executive Andrew Curtis.
He says communities will now be able to make informed decisions on the values of local waterways.
“The framework delivers a more consistent approach to the setting of freshwater objectives and limits through-out New Zealand. IrrigationNZ is particularly excited by the breadth of community values that have been captured. Long term sustainability requires the marrying of socio-economic and environmental aspirations and the frame-work achieves that.”
Another highlight is recognition within the framework that communities need flexibility as they work towards meeting freshwater objectives.
“This is important as there are many factors impacting on water quality and a range of management approaches that can be taken as a result,” says Curtis.
Waikato farmers have until January 1, 2015 to apply for water consents.
The dairy effluent
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GRAHAM AND Sandra Fouhy’s effluent system worked to the rules but had reached the end of its run. Time for a new one.
“We had little or no storage and we had to do something so after making some enquiries we were advised to talk to David Manning of Envirotech,” said Graham. This com-pany designs and builds dairy effluent systems under design accreditation by DairyNZ.
The Fouhy farm at Te Poi straddles the Mata-mata-Rotorua highway near the SH29 junction. The two parts are linked by a tunnel.
The farm is 120ha (eff ) – 63ha freehold and 57ha
leased – flat to rolling, cen-trally raced, with the last paddock 45 minutes for the cows from the shed. Fouhys have farmed there for 17 years, now milking 370 Friesian-cross cows in two herds most of the season on 24 hour grazing.
They grow 8ha of maize for silage. This was for-merly stacked but they intend to build a bunker to reduce wastage. This season they have been able to conserve baleage from 15ha as surplus grass became available. They also supplement with PKE and feed straw a month before calving to expand the cow’s rumen and capacity.
Sandra helps manage and is the full time calf rearer. Calves are absent the farm from weaning
until due to calve. They have one single
worker who has been with them for five years. They rear 90 calves each year and use Ambreed/CRV bulls. The cows are milked through a 34 aside her-ringbone dairy shed. They do not drench, and use a Dosatron meter to supply minerals to the stock throughout the season.
Contractors do all maize work and grass har-vesting.
Effluent system upgrading coincided with installing a new feed pad 65m long x 21m wide with two rows of feed bins and holding 250 cows. First came a 90,000L mixing tank with a stirrer and pump.
The shed effluent is pumped from the origi-
nal holding tank to the mixing tank which also collects effluent from the pad which is flood washed three times a week or when needed. After mixing it is pumped to a Reid and Harrison Yardmaster YS 200 model separator. A 3mm screen removes any maize waste entering at the feed pad.
The solids are stored in a 12 x 10 x 2m high bunker which Fouhy believes would hold a year’s output if not emptied. He intends to spread the solids on their maize ground and paddocks not being spray irrigated.
The liquid or green water is stored in a lined, 4 m L tank (40m x 35m) with a working capacity of 3.5 m L.
The liner is 1.5mm
HDPE and the joints are welded and pressure tested. The pond has a free floating pontoon with a 10hp stirrer and a 20hp pump and can be shifted to any part of the pond and anchored, ensuring no long term build-up of sludge on the bottom.
The pump spreads to travelling irrigators on 50ha of the farm. With a tap change it pumps green water to two 30,000L holding tanks which flood wash the feed pad.
“We have invested a lot of money to future-proof our effluent disposal
and we believe that with the feed pad and better supplementary feed-ing we will lift our pro-duction from the present level of 156,000kgMS to 180,000kgMS.
DAVID MANNING has since leaving school worked in dairy effluent processing and spreading. His busi-ness, Envirotech, was founded 21 years ago near Matamata and has been on its Waharoa site for five years.
The company designs and builds to the new code stipu-lated by councils and DairyNZ.
“Our full designs include such things as nutrient budgets to gauge output, soil analysis for effluent absorption and load carrying ability;
it is a total package,” says Manning.
Manning has earned the “big green tick” from DairyNZ, showing his firm conforms to a standard that allows it to advise, design and build, estimate pond storage capacity and engi-neer irrigation systems.
The process requires being able to tick all boxes with the respective councils re the RMA, and to solve onsite issues.www.envirotech.net.nzTel; 07 880 9703
‘BIG GREEN TICK’
Graham Fouhy (inset) has invested a lot of money to future-proof effluent disposal.
David Manning
TONY HOPKINSON
The average dairy farmer takes about 30 minutes to hose the yard after milking and uses between 10,000 and 20,000 litres of water.Water conservation and reducing effluent waste are major environmental issues impacting on all farming operations. It pays to look at options to keep these to a minimum.
and twin pond effluent system to work with your current effluent set ups, keeping your upgrade
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
EFFLUENT AND WATER MANAGEMENT // 37
Taking soils into account while applying effluent
TAKING DIFFERENT soil types into account is essential if dairy farmers are to better manage efflu-ent and associated issues.
Farm dairy effluent is a major contaminant of water, either by direct run-off or nitrogen leach-ing. The amount of water (‘hydraulic loading’) in soil, and various soil properties, influence the effects of contaminants. For example, soil texture and structure determine how much water can enter and be retained in a par-ticular soil, and the rate of transmission of excess water through soil.
So these various soil properties should be weighed up when deciding on effluent irrigation sys-tems, and when applying effluent to pasture, to both maximise nutrient bene-fits and to protect water-ways.
Consider the following when discussing such decisions with your
effluent advisers.Leaching occurs in
response to movement of excess water from the soil, meaning soils with lower water holding capacity are more susceptible to leach-ing. Conversely, soils with high water holding capac-ity (deep silt loams) can store a lot of effluent.
The soils that have low available-water holding capacity are the shallow to moderately deep soils, and sandy or stony soils. Usually, lower water-hold-ing capacity is the result of restricted rooting depths due to the shallow nature of the soils and high water tables. Effluent irrigation on shallow soils with high water tables is likely to result in leaching.
Permeable soils with a deep water table and no drainage limitations are best for putting efflu-ent on.
However, on stony soils the risk of effluent drain-ing directly to groundwa-ter must be considered. In such situations, appli-cation depths and rates
should be adjusted to account for this risk.
Meanwhile, it’s impor-tant to take into account the rate at which effluent can infiltrate soil. If too much is put on too quickly, this can lead to runoff into waterways.
The nature of the efflu-ent and cattle treading on soils can affect the infiltra-tion rate.
Treading damage by stock, which occurs most when the soils are wet, sig-nificantly reduces infiltra-tion rate. For some soils this can result in accumu-lation of effluent below slopes and hollows. It can then enter surface water-ways.
Transmission of water through soil pores is gen-erally described as hydrau-lic conductivity. When hydraulic conductivity of the soil is low, irrigation of effluent will result in ponding and run-off once the total water capacity of the soil is exceeded.
Low rates of hydrau-lic conductivity are found in soils that are poorly
BALA TIKKISETTYdrained, and ponding and runoff often occur with high rainfall. Many of these soils need to be arti-ficially drained to reduce the incidence of ponding and water-logging.
For pugged soils affected by treading, appli-cation rates of effluent greater than 10mm/hour are likely to result in pond-ing of effluent if soil water content at the time of irri-gation is high.
When effluent applica-tion rates are higher than infiltration rates, water can enter macro-pores open at the soil surface, and then move very rap-idly via so-called ‘bypass
flow’ through a relatively dry soil matrix. This gives little opportunity for the water to be retained within the root zone and high leaching of nitrate is likely to occur.
Bypass flow of farm dairy effluent can occur in soils that undergo shrink-age and fissuring during drying, especially when these soils have been pre-viously compacted by treading.
One way to avoid over-application can be to have adequate effluent storage so that farmers can defer irrigation if conditions aren’t right.
DairyNZ has recently released a new smart-phone app to help farmers apply effluent more effi-ciently. The dairy effluent spreading calculator app provides dairy farmers and effluent spreading con-tractors with guidance on
nutrient application rates based on the depth and type of effluent they apply.
The app allows for nutrient application rates for dairy effluent to be easily calculated, based on a number of customisable inputs so effluent nutri-ents can be applied with greater precision.• Bala Tikkisetty is a sus-tainable agriculture co-ordi-nator at Waikato Regional Council.
Soil properties should be weighed up when deciding on effluent irrigation.
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
38 // MACHINERY AND PRODUCTS
Clever tractor takes award
NEW HOLLAND’S new T8 Auto Com-mand tractor has won ‘Machine of the Year 2014’, announced at Agritechnica farm machinery and equipment show in Hannover, Germany.
The award is for technological innova-tions that offer immediate practical ben-efits to farmers.
“This new tractor with its stepless Auto Command transmission, a longer wheelbase and even more power, is set to improve its already impressive all-round performance and it complements the existing PowerShift model range,” says Luca Mainardi, head of tractor and tele-handler product management at New Hol-land.
The judges – farm machinery journal-ists – assessed the T8.420 Auto Command as being able to offer ultimate in-field per-formance in high speed cultivation tasks, ideal for large scale cash crop farmers, hay and forage contractors and large dairies and transport intensive operations.
“This award testifies the hard work and dedication of all those involved in the development of the T8 Auto Command,” says Carlo Lambro, brand president New Holland Agriculture.
Round, square bales easy to handleROUND BALES and four-foot squares are said to be handled with equal ease by Hustler Equipment’s new “low cost” bale grab, the CXR Softhands.
“The CXR has a fixed hand, designed specifically for handling round bales, although the shape also allows four-foot squares to be handled with ease,” the company says.
Going for a cheaper fixed-hand unit pointed to limitations so the company consulted operators during its search for the “ultimate shape”.
Four key aspects of traditional fixed-hand design stood out as needing change: less bale damage to bale shape, wrap and adjacent bales; ease of use when loading and stacking; more versatility to handle bales in any position; and tough enough to withstand New Zealand conditions.
“The slim hands make stacking easier, the compact design offers
unbeatable visibility, and the new patented technology, with details to be released in December, is a major leap in bale handling equipment,” Hustler says.
An optional equaliser bar will keep the hands moving simultaneously for extra safety and precise bale control.
The machine carries a two-year warranty.
Price $3100+GST including Euro hitch brackets and free freight nation-wide.Tel. 0800 487 853 www.hustlerequipment.co.nz
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DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
MACHINERY AND PRODUCTS // 39
WITH A long hot summer looming, now is the time to start making important decisions on feed supple-ments for early next year, says Pacific Seeds.
The company reports that last year Central Hawkes Bay farmer Sue Wylie planted Pacific Seeds BMR Rocket with “really impressive results”.
“We planted BMR Rocket in mid November and were able to put our bulls on it 56 days later,” Wylie says.
“Despite the really bad drought they aver-aged weight gains of 2kg per day while they were on it and we were able to get them off to the works one month earlier than the previous year. On aver-age they were also 20kg heavier than the previous year.”
Pacific Seeds says its summer forages provide growers with diverse and high yielding quality feed options developed espe-cially for environments prone to extreme summer conditions.
“With our range of maturities, plant types and agronomic traits, we have a summer forage solution to suit growers specific needs”, says Pacific Seeds
territory manager Barry Smallridge.
Pacific Seeds forage options include BMR Rocket, BMR Octane and Sprint.
Rocket, which flow-ers earlier than Octane, is better suited to inten-sive management, whilst Octane’s longer grow-ing season provides for greater flexibility. Both these Sorghum x Sudan hybrids have excellent vigor and regrowth rates, with well-balanced energy and protein levels. Each of these hybrids has the BMR-6 gene which pro-vides for enhanced digest-ibility, palatability and increased ME levels. Both forages suit dairy and cattle.
Sprint – which is a Sudan x Sudan hybrid – is ready for grazing or cutting in 50 days, with rapid regrowth allowing for some farmers to get five grazings from it. It is extremely palatable with fine stems and is ideally suited to shorter seasons, or where it can be well managed. Sprint is suit-able for sheep, cattle and dairy stocks.
“Because Rocket and Sprint are so fast growing they provide farmers with
Time right to sow seeds for feed
a number of management options,” says Smallridge.
“Firstly, they let growers get an extra rotation out of their grass pasture. On top of that there is also the option of grazing or cutting for hay,
baylage or silage.“They also provide our
growers with greater flex-ibility than they would have with summer bras-sica,” he adds.Tel. 027 494 7706www.pacificseeds.co.nz
Sue Wylie checking the BMR Rocket crop on her Central Hawkes Bay property.
Woodchoppers strike gold
FOUR KIWI woodchoppers are now reckoned the world’s best, says Stihl NZ.
Kyle Lemon, Shane Jordan, Adam Lowe and Jason Wynyard last month won the gold medal in Stihl Tim-bersports Series World Championships 2013 in Germany.
They outdid 100 choppers from 20 nations, fending off the US team by only 0.62 second to take the top team spot.
Team captain Shane Jordan says the biggest thing was how close it was.
“We didn’t think we’d get put under so much pressure towards the end. It’s not nice winning when it’s so close. But we went over there, did the job and won.”
About 10,000 people watched the event at the Porsche-Arena in Stuttgart. The team relay competi-tion had four categories: single buck, standing chop, stock saw and underhand chop.
Other contenders were from Australia, Canada, Ger-many, Turkey and Sweden.
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40 // MACHINERY AND PRODUCTS
Optima promises safety, style and class in 2.4L packageTHE 2014 Kia Optima has gone on sale in New Zealand, equipped with new safety technology.
The car is said to com-bine style and substance in an “affordably priced vehicle”. Starting price is $42,490.
Kia’s Frankfurt design-
ers have improved the vehicle’s front and rear styling, the company says. The new grille is “bolder and classier”, with the LED daytime running lights lifted from the lower bumper to a position just above the headlights.
New rear diffusers and a sweeping trunk lid replace the previous rear boot lid spoiler. It has front LED quad-lamp fog lights (on EX & Lim-ited models), and newly designed LED rear lamps.
Inside, switching on the ignition lights up two new displays: a 4.3-inch touch-screen TFT LCD instrument cluster, with an 8-speaker Infinity sound system, on the LX and EX models; and a high-resolu-tion 8-inch navigation and telematics screen incorpo-rating the sound system.
The SatNav system will be standard on LTD models from February 2014, including SUNA real-time traffic information for drivers in the Auck-land, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christ-church regions.
The SUNA function is a lifetime component of the Kia SatNav system; the navigation maps are
updated and supported by Kia Motors NZ free for the first three years of own-ership.
The Optima LTD is the first Kia sold in New Zea-land with blind spot detec-tion (BSD) and lane change assist; this detects other vehicles out of the driv-er’s sight, flashing a warn-ing in the door mirror and sounding an alarm if the driver uses the indicators. There’s also rear cross-traffic alert built into the rear parking sensors, useful when backing out of a car park, where it senses laterally to warn the driver of approaching vehicles. Front parking sensors are also standard.
Power comes from the maker’s Theta II 2.4L engine with petrol direct injection, driving through a six-speed automatic transmission with Sport-matic clutchless shifting as standard.
Drive-mode-select allows the driver to choose a driving mode from eco to sports mode.
This adjusts settings in the throttle and gear change points to enable the driver to make the selection via a button near the steering wheel.
The 2014 Kia Optima: more safety and convenience in a four-door mid-to-large sedan.
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accidental shocks➥ Galvanised spring steel shaft➥ Hot dipped galvanised foot
It's never been easier to purchase the Lely Calm automatic calf feeder! Purchase for next season now, and take advantage of our special finance offer.
10% deposit on confirmationInstallation in May - June90% final payment payable October 20th 2014!No interest
The Lely Calm follows the natural feeding pattern of suckling calves, eliminating digestive stress and reducing competition. The Lely Calm is an absolute must for farmers that want to rear healthier calves, reduce labour and wastage and be certain that calves are fed consistently and accurately every time!
Southland and Otago:Lely Center™ InvercargillPh: (03) 211 [email protected]
Manawatu and Wellington:Lely Center™ FeildingPh: (06) 323 [email protected]
Waikato and Bay of Plenty:Lely Center™ MorrinsvillePh: (021) 190 [email protected]
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
MACHINERY AND PRODUCTS // 41
Top quality chop from new chopper
3D CAMERA HELPS UNIFORM LOADING
AWARD WINNING IntelliFill technology enables the operator to accurately fill the trailer with minimal losses, even when visibility is limited.
A 3D camera mounted under the spout guides the crop flow into the trailer, ensuring a uniform fill.
This system lifts operator comfort and can boost productivity, CB Norwood says. Opera-tors can concentrate on harvesting without having to continually check over their shoulder to monitor crop discharge.
The automatic spout guidance will consis-tently reduce crop spillage increasing the forage harvesters’ overall quality of work.
CHOP QUALITY is more uniform and throughput better from New Holland’s new FR series harvesters because of an all-new chopper body, says local marketer CB Norwood Distribu-tors Ltd.
The range has five models of 424-824hp. New features include a high performance grass pick-up header. All models in the FR range are compat-ible with a wide range of headers.
“The FR has the latest advances in blower design, which have optimised crop transfer from the cutter-head to the processor and trailer, even when working in the lightest grass crops.
“The paddle type blower has increased the mass of smooth flowing air by 40% to transport higher volumes of crop more effi-ciently and to reduce the risk of crop accumulation in the chopper body area for much less crop build-up, reducing maintenance demands.”
Because the opti-mum harvesting window for guaranteed nutri-
tious silage is tight, the new 300FP grass pick-up was developed for higher speed, reliable, smooth harvesting in all condi-tions. The 3.0m-wide pickup makes light work of even the widest grass swaths.
The pickup tine reel now has five tine bars instead of four, enabling higher ground speeds, “perfect when working in unstable climatic con-ditions or for operators looking to increase pro-ductivity and profitabil-ity”.
When working in muddy fields, the pickup support wheels prevent bulldozing and maintain uniform header height. Sturdy reinforced steel tines (replacing the rubber mounted tines) reduce tine breakage even in uneven fields or in stony conditions, the company says.
Cab access is said to be easy and the operator plat-form has been widened with sculpted hand rails for safe entry and exit.
The side panels open wide as a single unit on
self-supporting gas struts for easy servicing access. Daily maintenance has been further simplified by advances in feed roll pack-aging. The entire area has been sealed with the addi-
tion of precision placed plates which form a pro-tective seal around the feed roller to prevent the build-up of debris, which can substantially reduce cleaning.
Chop quality is better from New Holland’s new FR series harvesters the company says.
A 3D camera helps the driver fill the trailer with minimal loss.
ROPS TRACTOR & LOADER PACKAGES
CABIN TRACTOR & LOADER PACKAGES
+GST
NEW MODELSLANDING NOW
ROPS TRACTOR & LOADER PACKAGES
CABIN TRACTOR & LOADER PACKAGESFROM
LANDING SOON**IN STOCK NOW
Offer available for a limited time only. Limited stock available.
All prices subject to GST. *Based on 30% deposit. Normal lending criteria & conditions apply.**Agrotron M600 Vista stock landing early December.
AGROFARM SERIES
AGROTRON K610
AGROTRON M600
LANDING NOW
FINANCE
• 85 & 100HP SDF diesel engines
• 30x30 power shuttle, hi/low transmission
• 4WD with true 4 wheel braking
• Available in ROPS or cabin models
• Comes with DF Agrolift Series self-leveling loader
• 130HP, 6 cylinder Deutz diesel engine
• ZF 24x8 power shuttle , 3 speed powershift transmission
• 75L/min hydro pump with 4 sets of rear remotes
• Mechanical cabin suspension
• Full diff lock with ASM
• 135HP Deutz diesel engine
• ZF 24x24 power shuttle, 4 stage powershift transmission
• High flow 83L/min hydraulic pump
• Full function armrest control
• Large rubber, 540.65.R24-600.65.R38
These new models are landing now, so talk to you local Deutz-Fahr dealer today and get your name on one before you miss out.
Treat yourself to the best of the best! The new summit model includes mechanical cabin suspension, a high flow hydraulic pump, and nice wide rubber.
We believe the NEW Agrotron M600 Vista spec is the best value 6 cylinder tractor in New Zealand. This model is landing now, so talk to your local Deutz-Fahr dealer today and get your name on one before you miss out.
POW0285_D
N
1.95%*
CALL NOW FOR
PRICINGPPRRRIIICCCIINNGGGUNBELIEVABLE
FROM
+GST
FROM
0800 801 888 | www.powerfarming.co.nz
WHANGAREI Power Farming Northland 09 438 9163PUKEKOHE The Tractor Centre 09 238 7179MORRINSVILLE Maber Motors 07 889 5059TE AWAMUTU Power Farming Te Awamutu 07 870 2411PUTARURU Maber Motors 07 882 1310TAURANGA Capital Tractors 07 543 0021WHAKATANE Jacks Machinery 07 308 7299ROTORUA Truck & Tractor Services 07 349 6528
GISBORNE Power Farming Gisborne 06 868 8908HASTINGS Power Farming Hawke’s Bay 06 879 9998HAWERA Power Farming Taranaki 06 278 0240FEILDING Power Farming Manawatu 06 323 8182MASTERTON James Trucks & Machinery 06 370 8240NELSON Brian Miller Truck & Tractor 03 544 5723BLENHEIM Marlborough Tractor Services 03 572 8787GREYMOUTH Power Farming West Coast 03 768 4370
CHRISTCHURCH Power Farming Canterbury 03 349 5975ASHBURTON Power Farming Ashburton 03 307 7153TIMARU Power Farming Timaru 03 687 4127ALEXANDRA Peter Watt Machinery 03 448 8490DUNEDIN Power Farming Otago 03 489 3489GORE Power Farming Gore 03 208 9395INVERCARGILL Power Farming Invercargill 03 215 9039
CALL NOW FOR
PRICING
+GST
$62,990+GST
$72,990
PPPRRRIIICCCIINNNGGGUNBEATABLE
DAI RY NEWS NOVEMBER 26, 2013
42 // MACHINERY AND PRODUCTS
Dishing out feed made easyWAIKATO FARMERS Rebecca and Len Walling are dishing out 10 tonnes of feed daily using an Irish-made Abbey VF (vertical feeder) 2850 mixer wagon, reports the supplier, Farm-gard.
“We feed out 10 tonnes a day, twice a day, so we need a good, reliable machine that is going to last,” Rebecca says. “Our
old mixer wagon wasn’t able to handle a 10 tonne payload when we added molasses so we started looking at new machines.”
The VF2850 is the larg-est in the Abbey range – 28m3. It consistently delivers 10 t on the Wall-ings’ 900-cow farm at Wharepuhunga south of Te Awamutu. They milk twice daily, every day of
the year.“Our old machine was
supposed to produce a 10 tonne payload but this was totally dependent on the sort of product you put in. The Abbey can reach the 10 tonne payload with any feed combination.”
Abbey’s twin vertical feeder range is designed to handle tough conditions, and is constructed using
the highest grades of materials, Farmgard says.
The machines can handle precision-chop silage, large round or square bales of silage, hay, straw and roots. Addi-tional feed products such as maize and meal can be added at any stage of the mixing process.
Wallings mix mainly maize silage, grass silage, palm kernel and molas-ses; sometimes straw, minerals, and kiwifruit, apples and bread when available.
“We mix this up twice a day and feed on the feed pad and into feed troughs all year round. It’s a fairly basic diet but it works for our system and is cost effective,” says Rebecca.
The shape of the mixing auger and tub is said to ensure a “perfect” blend of ingredients.
The machine’s Digi-Star weighing system
allows consistency of the feed ration and lets the operator know “exactly what’s going on”. The mixed feed is then evenly discharged, with the feed flow rate controlled by a hydraulically operated dis-charge door.
The VF2850 has a rear self-steering axle allow-
ing it to turn it in a tight circle without having to manoeuvre and back around.
Rebecca and Len Wall-ing are principals of Wall-ing Contractors, servicing the Waikato district.
“We know machinery pretty well and the importance of it doing
the job efficiently and reliably.”
Abbey also makes slurry tankers and muck spreaders.
Wallings bought the Abbey machine from Waikato Tractors.Tel. 09 275 5555 or 03 437 9000 [email protected]
The Wallings feed out 10 tonnes a day.
Abbey’s twin vertical feeder range is designed to handle tough conditions.
WE WORK HARD just like you! Good things come from hard work, POTTINGER have been working hard for over 140 years to bring you hard working machines!
® ™Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or an af liated company of Dow
Confi dencein a drum
TordonTM PastureBossTM does more than send weeds into hiding, it could also send you to see The Boss, live in concert. Purchase Tordon PastureBoss before 31st January 2014 for your chance to win a double pass to see Bruce Springsteen live in Auckland. And no matter what the competition outcome, you’ll be winning with weedfree pastures. Visit dowpromo.co.nz to fi nd out how to win or call 0800 803 939 for more info.
DOW 0232 The Boss - Dairy News.indd 1 19/11/13 5:38 PM
