Dairy Exporter May 2021 by NZ Farmlife Media

i k a i t i Ka

May 2021

Learn, grow, excel

Becoming

Farmers stepping up to environmental guardianship $12

MAY 2021

$12 incl GST

Sustainable finance

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Retaining staff 1

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

CONTENTS MILKING PLATFORM 10 Trish Rankin ponders how she can measure success 11 A facial eczema outbreak has Bridie Virbickas concerned 12 Gaye Coates reminds us to enjoy the sunshine 13 Challenges and triumphs for Chloe Davidson

UPFRONT 14 Sustainable finance impacts agriculture 18 Dairy farms in Victoria are getting sold to beef producers 41 SHORT TERM PAIN FOR LONG TERM GAIN

20 The dairy market steadies in April

BUSINESS 22 Tatua is whipping up a dairy success 25 Farmers encouraged to check their Greenhouse Gas number 26 Looking beyond the long Irish lockdown 28 CO Diary: Taking care of your new staff 31 Filling gaps in the onfarm team

SYSTEMS 34 West Coast farmers work hard to improve environment 38 DairyNZ helping farmers adjust their businesses for environmental standards 41 Tirau dairy farmer sees positives in reducing herd sizes 70 PLANTING FOR A BRIGHTER FUTURE 4

44 Plantain crops yield reduction in soil nitrous oxide levels Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Special report

SPECIAL REPORT: Becoming kaitiaki

i k a i t i a K Becoming

48 Protecting waterways for the future 51 Hemp a ‘hero’ crop for farmers 54 Fonterra’s holistic sheep farming approach 58 Planting a cardboard future 62 Restoring the nohoanga (a place to sit) in Canterbury 66 Ambassadors making changes

Farmers stepping up to environmental guardianship

68 Focus on environmental and profitable farming for the future

48 Protecting waterways for the future

70 People powered planting

51 Hemp a hero crop for farmers 54 Fonterra’s holistic sheep farming approach 58 Planting a cardboard future 62 Restoring the nohoanga - a place to sit 66 Ambassadors making changes 68 Focus on environmental and profitable farming for the future 70 Planting for a brighter future

STOCK 74 Dairying up the beef semen industry 76 Keeping teats healthy at dry off 78 Sorting selenium and spring energy

YOUNG COUNTRY 80 It’s now or never for Young Farmers’ finalist

RESEARCH WRAP 82 Advances in research from the Farmers Forum

WELLBEING 84 Harriet Bremner asks why we do safety checks for planes but not other vehicles

DAIRY 101 86 Investing: Making a killing off-farm

SOLUTIONS 48 PROTECTING WATERWAYS FOR THE FUTURE

Salt the health solution

88 Farm carbon certification launched 89 Wide uptake of Teatseal tube recycling scheme 89 Terragen Kiwi presence

OUR STORY 90 The Dairy Exporter in 1971

OUR COVER:

80 “NOW OR NEVER” FOR YOUNG FARMERS’ FINALIST Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Our photographer Ross Nolly went on the road to Taranaki with Jackie Harrigan to capture Gwen, daughter Tina and Rob Willcox. The Willcox family have spent the past 17 years fencing and planting their waterways.

DAIRY DIARY May 11-12 – MINDA roadshow continues to Nelson. The LIC-run MINDA training sessions include the MINDA LIVE and the MINDA app. Visit www.lic.co.nz/products-and-services/ minda/mindalive-training. Other dates/ locations: May 18-19,Takaka; May 25-26, Westport; May 27, Reefton; May 31-June 1, Greymouth; June 1-3, Mangakino; June 2-3, Hokitika; June 15-16, Rolleston; June 21-23, Ashburton; June 24, Geraldine; June 29-30, Timaru; July 1-2, Oamaru; July 6-7, Balclutha; July 8, Gore; July 13-14, Invercargill; July 15, Lumsden. May 13- Lincoln University dairy farm’s May focus day is between 10am and 1pm. Visit www.siddc.org.nz/lu-dairy-farm. May 14 – The 2021 Ahuwhenua Trophy winner will be announced at an awards dinner in New Plymouth and this year, it is for dairy farmers. The 2021 Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer Award will also be announced for people working or training in the dairy industry. To find out more about the trophy visit www. ahuwhenuatrophy.maori.nz. May 15 – The Dairy Industry Awards are taking place in Hamilton for New Zealand Share Farmer of the Year, New Zealand Dairy Manager of the Year and New Zealand Dairy Trainee of the Year. For details of regional winners and more information go to www. dairyindustryawards.co.nz. May 18-20 – DairyNZ runs a Mark and Measure three-day course in Taupo. Visit www. dairynz.co.nz/events/bay-of-plenty/mark-andmeasure-2021-taupo/.

May 26 – Dairy Trust Taranaki will hold a Step Change open day on Gibson Farm between 10.30am and 1pm. Visit www.dairynz.co.nz/ events/taranaki/gibson-farm-step-changeopen-day.

June 21-24 – Holstein Friesian New Zealand conference is being held in Whangarei. For details visit: nzholstein.org.nz/event/ holstein-friesian-new-zealand-conference-2021northland/.

June 8 – SMASH (Smaller Milk and Supply Herds) is holding a field day ‘Gearing up for spring’ near Matamata that includes rearing calves and managing transition cows. For more visit www.smallerherds.co.nz/smash-events/ gearing-up-for-spring-matamata-june-8th/.

June 22-23 – This year’s South Island Dairy Event is being held at the Ashburton Event Centre with the theme, Evolve. The annual event provides leading research, technologies and farming systems from industry leading farmers and business people. Speakers and workshops are designed to be thought provoking. To view the programme and register, visit www.side.org.nz/.

June 9 – Owl Farm focus day to discuss management of the season to date, running from 10.30am to 1pm on the Cambridge farm. For further information visit www.owlfarm.nz/.

June 22-23 – A five-day Rural Governance Development Programme run by Business Torque Systems and funded by DairyNZ is being held in Taupo. Another course is being held in Christchurch on June 29-30. More details at www.dairyevents.co.nz/ media/1955/2020-rgdp-info-pack_opt.pdf.

June 9-11 – Ayrshire New Zealand conference is being held in Rotorua. For more details visit ayrshire.org.nz/annual-conference/. June 10 – A Northland Dairy Development Trust field day near Dargaville looks at what’s happening on the research farm plus discussions on financial results from a supplement trial, a new future farming strategies trial overview and a farm walk. The day runs from 10.30am to 1.30pm. For more details visit www.dairynz.co.nz/events/ northland/northland-dairy-development-trustfield-day-june/.

June 24 – SMASH (Smaller Milk and Supply Herds) holds its annual conference in Cambridge. Visit www.smallerherds.co.nz/. June 24 – The 2021 Dairy Business of the Year awards celebration night. Visit www.dboy.co.nz/ page/awards/.

June 15-17 – DairyNZ runs a Mark and Measure three-day course in Queenstown. Visit www.dairynz.co.nz/events/canterburynorthotago/mark-and-measure-2021-queenstown/.

June 29-July 1 – DairyNZ runs a Mark and Measure three-day course in Greymouth. Visit www.dairynz.co.nz/events/west-coast/markand-measure-2021-west-coast/.

June 16-19 – The Fieldays at Mystery Creek near Hamilton is a launch platform for cutting edge technology and innovation. Tickets can be purchased online. www.fieldays.co.nz/.

HOMEOPATHIC PRODUCTS TO SUPPORT UDDER HEALTH AT DRY OFF HOMEOPATHIC FARM SERVICES

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w farmservices.nz Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Editor’s note

a g n a o Noh a place to sit

ow cool would it be if every dairy farmer in the Amuri Basin fenced off and planted an area of local native trees and shrubs where the birds and small creatures and people had a nohoanga - a place to

sit? That is the dream of Amuri dairy farmer John Faulkner, who has restored his nohoanga on the banks of the Waiau Uwha River (pg62). And how amazing would it be if every farm in the country joined in? If closer than 4km the areas would be a ‘birdhop’ for bird life to move between and if it’s beside a river, farmers could put a couple of extra metres of setback in, make a swimming hole and and picnic area for their family and team members to have a nohoanga as well. Then the local community might be able to use it and appreciate how farmers are guardians of their farms, their waterways, their environment. Big initiatives start with small steps from many individuals. There is an irrigation lake on our neighbour’s farm that is a lovely nohoanga, peaceful, partially planted and great for swimming and watersports. It’s a great asset to the neighbourhood and we are very grateful to be allowed to use it. There really are great mental health benefits to having a nohoanga in nature, I love to walk the dog down there in the morning or evening, to paddleboard and swim on it and to watch my kids jet skiing and enjoying the water. We had a BBQ picnic there early in the lockdown of 2020 and really appreciated the peace and serenity in such troubled times.

My nohoanga with our dog Mac keeping a keen eye on activity at the lake.

Our cover models, the Willcox family say despite their early misgivings, the fencing and planting of their waterways has been only positive. With better farm management and health outcomes for cows and the farm team, they have huge pride in their efforts and the beauty of their farm after planting three waterways around 70,000 plants over 17 years. Planters are finding new and more efficient ways of mass planting with a protective sock sleeve, colour coded plant trays and specialist digger-mounted, spot-cultivation tool helping a team plant 8000 trees in three days under Synlait’s Whakapuāwai programme on the Stewart’s family farm at Ashburton (pg.70). From an invention by their 15 year old daughter, the Fry family of Nelson are hoping to sell a million of their compostable cardboard plant Emguards next year (pg58) with riparian and conservation work ramping up. With the ongoing squeeze on farm labour, and in particular migrant workers being shut out of the industry because of Covid19, Sheryl Haitana talked to Jane Muir and came up with the best way to either retain the staff you already have or attract new team members (pg31).

NZ Dairy Exporter @YoungDairyED @DairyExporterNZ @nzdairyexporter

Sneak peek JUNE 2021 ISSUE

• A look at regen agriculture • Prepping for calving: getting ready for the big days • Making a game plan to improve the whenua: From league to research on improving water quality, former New Zealand rugby league representative Tawera Nikau is involved with multiple projects on his farm land in the Waikato. • Where the grass is greener: A look at what has happened in the Emerald Isle, Ireland, since dairy quotas lifted. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

NEW ZEALAND

NZ Dairy Exporter is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740, Toll free 0800 224 782, www.nzfarmlife.co.nz

NEW ZEALAND

ONLINE New Zealand Dairy Exporter’s online presence is an added dimension to your magazine. Through digital media, we share a selection of stories and photographs from the magazine. Here we share a selection of just some of what you can enjoy. Read more at www.nzfarmlife.co.nz

WHAKAPUAWAI PROGRAMME

CAN YOU SPARE A CULL COW? DONATE TO MEAT THE NEED

Editor Jackie Harrigan P: 06 280 3165, M: 027 359 7781 jackie.harrigan@nzfarmlife.co.nz Deputy Editor Sheryl Haitana M: 021 239 1633 sheryl.haitana@nzfarmlife.co.nz Sub-editor: Hamish Barwick, P: 06 280 3166 hamish.barwick@nzfarmlife.co.nz Reporters Anne Hardie, P: 027 540 3635 verbatim@xtra.co.nz Anne Lee, P: 021 413 346 anne.lee@nzfarmlife.co.nz Karen Trebilcock, P: 03 489 8083 ak.trebilcock@xtra.co.nz Chris Neill, P: 027 249 1186 waipuvian@gmail.com Phil Edmonds phil.edmonds@gmail.com Elaine Fisher, P: 021 061 0847 elainefisher@xtra.co.nz

MILK PAYOUT TRACKER:

Average $7.66/kg MS

2020/2021 Fonterra forecast price 8

7.70

7.60

7.70

7.86

7.80

$/kg MS

The Dairy Exporter visited the Stewart family of Ashburton when they had a big job on - planting 8000 native trees, shrubs and grasses along 2 kilometres of waterways in just three days in partnership with their milk company Synlait’s Whakapuāwai programme. Three generations of the Stewart family on hand in late April were helped out by keen Synlait staff and ecological contractors Brailsfords – with their innovative planting methods. Check out the video on YouTube ‘Dairy Exporter’ channel.

7.90

7.50

Mid $7.66

7.30

7.40

6 5

PODCASTS:

Series 2 Podcast 3 Determining the pregnancy status of your herd via milk can be done as part of your CRV herd test. Listen to DairyNZ animal and feed developer, Sam Tennent, and CRV herd testing manager Mark Redgate to find out more. www.crv4all. co.nz/podcast/series2-episode3/ Series 2, Podcast 2 In this podcast, Okoroire farmer Floyd Smit joins CRV’s Jenna O’Sullivan and Rosanna Dickson to talk about breeding with Polled genetics. www.crv4all.co.nz/ podcast/series2-episode2/

Fonterra forecast

MILK PAYOUT TRACKER:

Average $7.70/kg MS

2021/2022 Fonterra forecast price 8 7

$/kg MS

For all Dairy Banter Podcasts visit www.nzfarmlife.co.nz /tag/dairy-banter

8.10 7.30

7.60

7.50

8.00

8.40

Design and production: Lead designer: Jo Hannam P: 06 280 3168 jo.hannam@nzfarmlife.co.nz Emily Rees emily.rees@nzfarmlife.co.nz Social Media: Charlie Pearson, P: 06 280 3169 Partnerships Managers: Janine Aish Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty P: 027 890 0015 janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz Tony Leggett, Lower North Island P: 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz David Paterson, South Island P: 027 289 2326 david.paterson@nzfarmlife.co.nz

7.00

Subscriptions: www.nzfarmlife.co.nz subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz P: 0800 2AG SUB (224 782)

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Printing & Distribution: Printers: Ovato New Zealand Single issue purchases: www.nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop ISSN 2230-2697 (Print) ISSN 2230-3057 (Online)

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IT’S ON FEE

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MILKING PLATFORM TARANAKI

thing we haven’t done enough of lately is drill into our goals and make a pathway to achieve these. However, on the plus side, having had the opportunity to get off the farm and re-connect with other women at the DWN conference, it is great to feel refreshed and reinvigorated. Another keynote speaker was New Zealand hockey representative Gemma McCaw. One key aspect of her presentation included this quote:

“It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.”

Having fun: Trish Rankin (centre, right) with fellow strong women during downtime at the Dairy Women’s Network conference in Taupo.

Striving for success

- Joyce Maynard

Trish Rankin finds herself wondering how she can measure success in her personal and farming life.

hat does success look like for you? This was a question asked to the participants during the recent Dairy Women’s Network (DWN) conference held in Taupo during April. If you don’t know what your goals are or what your successes are then when do you know when to celebrate the steps you have taken towards them? This was a great reminder to me after having had a messy few months trying to find a new farming position for our family, staff and 450 cows. The farming season has been great here in Taranaki. Production is where it should be, cows are meeting body condition score (BCS) targets, grass is growing, our staff are awesome, we have plenty of supplements available to be left on the farm for the end of our contract and of course, milk price 10

Party time: Trish Rankin (back, right) at the Dairy Women’s Conference in Taupo during April.

payout is helping to ensure a successful season. I’ve found myself caught up in the day to day worry that is trying to keep kids, business, cows, staff and dairy progression on the path to success - without necessarily knowing clearly what success should look like. What are our big hairy audacious goals? Apart from ‘farm ownership’, one

So often we spend day in day out putting kids, family and farm first and forget that our kids are watching us. We often get told to enjoy the journey but some days it doesn’t seem that easy to do that. How can I be the best version of myself more frequently and encourage our kids to do the same? So as we look to shift soon, happily within Taranaki, where our children can remain at the same schools, rugby clubs and we get to keep our same friends and awesome staff, I will be making sure we take some time out to reset our goals. These goals can include what we need to do to be the best version of ourselves as well as our farming and business goals. I recently watched a moving documentary on the Sunday TVNZ programme called ‘Mind your Busyness’. A good farmer friend featured and his message was clear - not taking time off the farm is not ok. Not looking after yourself is not ok. We need to focus on being well. Live well and farm well. Being the best version of ourselves, achieving our business and family goals will happen if we sit down and make a plan about what success looks like for us.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

MILKING PLATFORM BAY OF PLENTY

The tiny grenades of terror

Bridie Virbickas sent this photo of her dahlias and Jersey cows because the photos of the facial eczema cows were definitely not as pretty!

Summer 2021 in the Eastern Bay of Plenty was the worst for facial eczema in 20 years. Bridie Virbickas is now spore counting paddocks to make sure her herd is safe.

t has been a cracking autumn in the Bay of Plenty. Slightly cooler temperatures to slow down the summer grasses, but warm enough for the ryegrass to rocket. Regular rain to keep things humming, but not too much to make it too wet. It is the recipe for a great end to the season. However, for many farmers in the Eastern Bay of Plenty, it has been a recipe for disaster. This summer has been the worst for facial eczema that the vets have seen in the last 20 years. There have been farmers who have never had a case of facial eczema on their property before who have had to dry off a large portion of the herd in a matter of days. Out of my 650 lovely Jersey cows, 70 have been badly affected so far. They haven’t all shown clinical signs of photosensitivity which has been interesting but very worrying. Blood tests taken from those cows have shown severe liver damage. I have had two of these cows die of liver failure and two put down who were on their way out. None of these cows have shown signs of having eczema in

the past so the consensus seems to be that they have had enough exposure to the spores over the past few years to have an accumulative effect on the liver. Then the leve of spores this year was the final straw. I decided to take random blood tests from my “healthy” milkers, 10 from each herd, to see if it was widespread. 85% of those tests came back confirming liver damage. This would explain the drop in production from 1.3 to 0.9kg MS/cow in about 5 days. We have zinc bolused our milkers for the past five years. When people would ask “have you had any eczema?” I would confidently respond “No, we zinc bolus our herd, it’s a big job but it’s worth it!” Bolusing had given me a false sense of security. I thought my girls were safe from this horrible disease. Turns out, no amount of zinc can combat the astronomical spore counts that we are seeing. The farms that have been affected have all been using different forms of zinc in different ways, whether it be oxide in the feed, mono or heptahydrate in water, or bolusing like we do.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

I have been frantically spore counting paddocks ahead of my cows to make sure they are “safe”. I have had to drop out a handful that have been over 100,000 which I will leave until later to graze with dry cows. It’s hard to believe those tiny little grenades of terror can do so much damage. Usually I have relied on spore counts done in my area to follow the degree of danger, but now I will do spore counts myself throughout the summer to avoid areas that pose the most threat to my cows. Different management options are something we need to think about. If spore counts are high, rather than being all grass most of the summer, we may have to think about feeding supplements to reduce the amount of spores they are eating, and making silage with the high risk paddocks. This would certainly be more costly in the short term, but in the long term, the health and longevity of the cows are what generate the income. I haven’t worked out yet how much this eczema outbreak has cost, both in animal health costs and loss in production, but I have a feeling it would cover the cost of making and feeding more supplements. Food for thought. The effects of facial eczema are heartbreaking. For those farmers in my area that don’t do any zinc treatment, I would compare that to not wearing a seatbelt. You’re fine until you have a crash, then you are screwed. 11

MILKING PLATFORM WEST COAST

Rainbows after rain After weathering stormy periods both with weather and employment issues, Gaye Coates reminds us to enjoy the sunshine.

here is something deeply soothing about listening to the rhythmic drumming of wanted rain on the roof. It is profoundly therapeutic being able to translate those sounds into a near instant change on the comments line in our weekly farm report from “scary” to “now have grass”. A rain-free period on the West Coast over summer was initially welcomed while we regrassed, repaired fences and made use of “willing” children home on holiday to attack the weather dependent maintenance list. Then, when the ground hue changed and the weekly farm walk showed grass growth stalling, the novelty of extended sunshine hours wore off and the thinking cap came on to work our way out of the gaping feed hole and to keep cow condition and milk production on track. When it did eventually arrive, that pitterpatter resonating through the ceiling was welcome to say the least. Ironic, given that the same rain sounds eight weeks ago, were heard as an intimidating cacophony while we battled against the elements to put in 12

winter crops and ryegrass paddocks. That period of rain resulted in three attempts to establish the winter swedes, making each Aparima Gold bulb every bit as expensive as the similarly named precious metal. Testament again, that much of farming is lived in moments and what is wished for one day, can be loathed on another. Either way, the moment will pass. That same reminder that moments do

Testament again, that much of farming is lived in moments and what is wished for one day, can be loathed on another. Either way, the moment will pass. pass can be applied to filling the fifth slot in our permanent farm team, an exercise which is proving to be as challenging and as elusive as finding the Fiordland moose. We are a small, family-like team. There

is a tremendous amount of trust and respect that goes with working and living alongside each other that cannot be underestimated, so team fit and sharing a passion for playing the game well is as important onfarm as skill. I’m sure former All Blacks coach Steve Hansen would attest to the significance of that. Over the years we have accumulated our stories and if I’m ever tempted to move aside from farming, I think I could easily slot into script writing for Shortland Street, Coronation Street and a number of other onscreen dramas. However, despite some memorable letdowns, the core of our team is very much a stable group who share the same farming ethics who back us and each other. Over the summer we have certainly learnt that this team culture is crucial to getting up each day and feeling good about being at work. It is hard to get the balance between getting just someone to fill the gap and waiting to get that “right” person who may never turn up. We’ve learnt from experience that there is no perfect answer to the quality versus quantity dilemma, both scenarios place stress on the team especially in the context of a shortage of agricultural workers nationwide. This summer, we have all learnt that the far greater stress comes from the mental fatigue of having someone in the team who doesn’t share like everyone else in our farm’s established practices and values. It would be fair to say that this summer we have developed an appreciation for the structure of an employment contract and gained confidence to follow by ourselves the resolution processes the employment laws within that give. While it would probably be a stretch to say that those processes were an exclusively positive experience for all parties, we were grateful that we were supported by the wording of a good employment contract to have difficult conversations that were correct, invited objective and healthy discussions and that provided a clear pathway to a positive outcome. Thankfully too, this moment will pass - rainbows after rain is the focus. • First published in Country-Wide April 2021.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

MILKING PLATFORM CANTERBURY

Dealing to the internal struggles

Left: I need a hero: Super-girl and Super-boy at the kindy trike-a-thon. Above: Margot and Angus Davidson with the family’s new Bircher piglets.

Chloe Davidson outlines some of the challenges, and triumphs, she has experienced onfarm recently.

ver the last couple of weeks I have spoken to a few people who have read my past columns and they have mentioned how positive our situation looks from the outside. So, for this column I thought I would share some of the struggles we’ve had so far this year because it’s all about balance, right? So often we are too afraid to talk about our struggles in fear of judgement, but this shouldn’t be the case. I would never want to portray this business as a fairytale because it’s far from it. Do we still believe in what we’re doing? Definitely! Do we question whether the blood, sweat and tears is worth it on a daily basis? Of course! My dad always says, “nothing worth it in life comes easy” and I live everyday with this in the back of my head because yes it’s hard but it’s definitely worth it! And let’s be honest, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it. We began the year stronger than we’ve ever been. We’d had a break off the farm which gave our mental health a much needed boost, we’d reconnected as a family and James had been able to spend days in a row of quality time with the kids and I for the first time in a few years. We set goals for ourselves around increasing income, decreasing costs and using a budget to guide us where to next.

We were hitting the ground running and had a positive outlook for the year, but so far, 2021 feels like a series of curve balls that have come one after the other and have made us constantly question ourselves and our business.

“In February, we took on the challenge to do all of the onfarm labour ourselves which was great for our wage bill but our work/life balance went out the window.” In February, we took on the challenge to do all of the onfarm labour ourselves which was great for our wage bill but our work/life balance went out the window. The importance of grabbing every small opportunity to spend quality time as a family has resurfaced and we’re again reevaluating our next move. Maintaining a work/life balance when you’re trying to get ahead is always a hard juggle and one that we’re yet to figure out. We set a few goals early this year and

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

one of those goals was to pass on some of our costs to our customers, particularly a portion of the delivery costs. We are confident in the quality of our product and service and know that our customers value the ethics in our calf-at-foot model so we are heading towards a premium priced product. The retail price increase was well received and didn’t cause any drop in demand which was great and will be something we do bi-annually to keep up with the rising costs. We chose to do a standard delivery charge which wasn’t dependent on the number of litres a customer bought because we felt this was fair as it doesn’t cost us more to deliver 1L vs 4L. Unfortunately for the 1L delivery customers, it did make their one bottle of milk seem quite expensive so we lost a few of our 1L customers but they will grab their milk from the local stockist so everyone won. Whether customers are buying directly from us or from their local stockist, they are still supporting our business and as long as we keep our goal in mind then we will be moving forward – decrease costs where possible to make the service viable. We’ve quickly learnt that operating a small business is like a series of waves, there are high waves and low waves and no matter how hard the low waves hit, there will always be a high wave to follow. Be confident in your products/services’ worth and never compromise based on what someone else thinks it’s worth because if you don’t value your product highly, no one else will. 13

INSIGHT

UPFRONT SUSTAINABLE FINANCE

Sustainable finance impacts agriculture Rather than saying ‘so what’ to ethical investing, farmers need to be aware that banks will be taking this into account when assessing their business. Phil Edmonds outlines what sustainable finance means for the dairy industry.

ver the past few months a growing list of New Zealand investment funds have announced changes to their strategies, with dedicated shifts towards socially and environmentally responsible investing. Among others, Mercer declared in April it would be divesting shares in companies including those involved in the most carbon intensive industries. At the same time the tool Mindful Money was being promoted to allow anyone to generate details on the ethical nature of their Kiwisaver investment, identifying those funding the bad stuff, including environmental violations. Having scanned this passage and found no reference to agriculture, farmers might say ‘so what’. But the banks are also in this camp, which should give cause to read on. In the process of documenting the impact on the environment from their own investments, banks could well start to stare 14

at farming-related assets that show fewer signs of holding their value, and more signs of damaging the banks reputation. The NZ banks won’t be giving up on agriculture as a result of its environmental risks anytime soon. In fact, they are proactively developing a framework that will enable farmers to attract what has become known as sustainable finance. But the move to transparent investment reporting to meet the demands of ethical investors and now the government means the writing is on the wall for those doing it the old way. The emergence of a more globally active ethical investor community can’t be blamed on Covid-19 (believe it or not) but it certainly has become more visible over the past year, tied inevitably to the growing groundswell of concern about climate change. The picture of an ethical investor might well conjure up an individual with some

disposable spare change buying a handful of shares in a company making sleeping bags out of old socks, rather than Rio Tinto. Don’t be fooled. Ethical investing is no longer discretionary. It is fast becoming conventional business practice. A Rabobank paper published in late 2020 titled Cashing in on Sustainable Agriculture noted that large financial institutions are increasingly looking beyond traditional investment metrics to determine their viability, “and as a result are starting to actively divest investments that present a high sustainability-related risk.”

BUSINESSES REQUIRED TO MAKE CLIMATE CHANGE DISCLOSURES

The private sector may have started this but regulation is on the way to support it. In mid-April the NZ Government introduced legislation that will require the financial sector to disclose the impacts

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

“The NZ banks won’t be giving up on agriculture as a result of its environmental risks anytime soon. In fact, they are proactively developing a framework that will enable farmers to attract what has become known as sustainable finance.”

of climate change on their business and explain how they will manage climaterelated risks and opportunities. The Financial Sector (Climate-related Disclosure and Other Matters) Amendment Bill will make climate-related disclosures mandatory for around 200 organisations, including most listed issuers, large registered banks, licensed insurers and managers of investment schemes. Climate Change Minister James Shaw said “Climate change will have a profound impact on businesses all over New Zealand. There are activities and assets that these businesses are involved in that will not hold their value in a low carbon world, simply because they emit too much climate pollution and contribute to the climate crisis.” How might banks react with their carbon emitting rural portfolios in mind? Two options: • Walk away from agriculture? No way • Proactively help farmers (and in doing so, themselves) secure the value of their assets. With so much skin in the game, banks have already been acting on option 2 by delivering targeted lending products to farmers wanting to make their farm operations more environmentally robust. As an example, ASB has a Rural Environmental Compliance Loan available designed specifically to help farmers manage their environmental compliance costs and get sustainability projects started such as effluent system upgrades, fencing off waterways or riparian planting. The loan can be up to $200,000 and repaid over five years with a ‘low’ interest rate. ANZ has a similar offering – a low interest Environment Loan for improving the environmental and economic sustainability, carrying out conservation projects and meeting local environmental bylaws. This loan can be for up to $300,000 and as with the ASB offer, repaid

over five years. This has proved to be an important first step but is largely business-asusual lending, with these loans aimed at farmers who need a leg up to meet compliance. It is not sustainable finance, which involves funding a farming operation that will deliver changes beyond normal regulatory requirements, and crucially, is measured to help banks answer the government’s soonto-be mandatory reporting requirements, and attract ethical investors.

STRUCTURAL BARRIERS

So far, the growth in sustainable finance for the agriculture sector has been thwarted by structural barriers that have not been a problem in other sectors. For energy and transport for example, sustainable finance is well advanced as investors can clearly recognise tangible, defined and measurable outcomes (renewable energy, electric cars etc). For agriculture, outcomes have so far proved difficult to define without clear measurement techniques and an understanding of the impact agricultural practices have on the environment. For example, there are as yet no proven tools available to report onfarm greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to provide viable evidence of any impact. The absence of this technology makes it harder for investors to understand how their funding will make a tangible difference. And of course, agriculture has been out of the limelight (globally, if not in NZ) when it comes to an understanding of the big steps that need to be made in order to arrest climate change. Until recently, agriculture has not been on the radar of sustainable financiers. In NZ, a start has been made – albeit in front of, rather than behind the farmgate.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

In 2019 ANZ signed a fouryear partnership with Synlait to fund its sustainability agenda with a discounted interest rate based on its performance across a score of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures (including land use, biodiversity, human capital, business ethics) that were to be independently assessed as part of the company’s own sustainability reporting. In March this year, BNZ announced it had formed a partnership with Southern Pastures, which owns 20 dairy farms in Waikato and Canterbury, to deliver water and biodiversity benefits. Southern Pastures performance would be judged under an independently certified 10-star values programme that stipulates strict environmental, climatic, animal and human welfare requirements. The latter initiative does involve action behind the farmgate, but the scale of the project has justified the use of an established measurement programme.

DEFINING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Alas, help is on the way to address the measurement challenge for all farmers with the development of a NZ taxonomy (set of base measurements) to define sustainable agriculture, and in so doing provide a more attractive proposition for potential investors. Such a taxonomy already exists in Europe and requires landowners to show they are both meeting the minimum 15

requirements (known as ‘do no significant of those details, farmers can harm’ safeguards) as well as demonstrating expect to be able to consider two the substantial avoidance or reduction of different means of evidencing GHG emissions from production practices. environmental progress – either The NZ version will be adopting a though a successful project similar methodology as the European outcome, or by showing the Union taxonomy, but our way of pastoral adoption of good practice. farming is different and that needs to Blake says “The latter will be taken into account. recognise farmers who In a recent NZX-hosted have been doing explainer on sustainable the right thing, finance, BNZ head of because it gets natural capital Dana Muir harder to show said “In New Zealand we outcomes the have a unique set of skills more you achieve and practices that are very reductions. For BNZ head of natural different from the rest of those starting from capital Dana Muir. the world, and we need to scratch it will be easier to acknowledge that from a focus on reductions.” finance point of view if we are going to So in a nutshell that’s the bring out any tool to support farmers as theory. Back to the practice milk or meat, those who they go through this process.” – does this emergence of are doing a good job and A leadership group including ASB, sustainable finance mean it farming in an environmentally ANZ, Westpac, BNZ, Rabobank and MPI is going to become the norm, sustainable way will be rewarded, is working with the Ministry for the where all rural lending will be BNZ CEO and those who are not, it will get Environment to achieve international tagged to measured environmental Angela Mentis. tougher and tougher from all angles recognition for a standard for use by the improvement? – not just regulatory. There will be finance sector in considering agriculture Not necessarily but inevitably yes, more differentials in pricing – eventually lending and investment. might be an honest appraisal. to the interest rate you get charged.” The Sustainable Agriculture Finance If this sounds threatening, it is not Initiative (SAFI) will be aligned with CARROT + STICK the message that the banks are wanting emerging international frameworks When announcing the BNZ partnership to send. They see the emergence of (including the EU Taxonomy and Climate with Southern Pastures, BNZ chief sustainable finance as a huge opportunity Bonds Standard) and importantly, existing executive Angela Mentis said “BNZ will for New Zealand’s primary sector. sustainability standards used by New increasingly seek to use Environmental, Blake Holgate says he’s not aware of any Zealand growers and farmers. Social and Governance (ESG)-linked other country that is developing these Rabobank’s Blake Holgate says “the lending with New Zealand farmers, initiatives for sole operators behind the Framework or structure will be based on agribusinesses and other sectors to help farmgate. standards you have to meet. But climate meet New Zealand’s climate change There are examples overseas adaption measurement will be obligations.” where processors are being very much aligned to NZ and This was reiterated by rewarded, but nowhere else consistent with the work Dana Muir. “BNZ has being undertaken by He always rated customers to any significant extent Waka Eke Noa (Primary on their nonare farmers being given this Sector Climate Action financial management, direct opportunity to benefit Partnership). A lot has questioning how financially from their work to ANZ rural economist been done to bring the they manage their operate more environmentally. Susan Kilsby standard into line with work environment… customers Dana Muir is unequivocally Rabobank’s already underway, whether it will start to see more and enthusiastic. “This will be a Blake Holgate is at milk processor level or more of this because we do see it huge opportunity. Finance has been a standards set under the Farm Assurance as a risk, as well as an opportunity to help missing piece in telling the traceability Plus verification programme. The industry build sustainable businesses.” story. doesn’t want a whole lot of new standards ANZ rural economist Susan Kilsby With the new SAFI framework, we will they need to comply with.” echoed this, which reflects the sector’s be able to finally say that compared to the Details on the framework will be wider view. “Going forward, whether it’s rest of the world, this is how sustainable released in the near future, but ahead banking or price you get paid for your we are.” 16

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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INSIGHT

UPFRONT GLOBAL DAIRY - AUSTRALIA

LEFT: Dairy farms in South Gippsland have been snapped-up by beef producers or Melbourne buyers.

D L SO eef b o t ne

-go

Milking an exit Words by: Simone Smith

avourable seasonal conditions, strong demand for milk and profitability at the farmgate. It’s a good time to be a dairy farmer in southern Australia. To anyone outside of the Australian dairy industry, this sounds like the perfect recipe for growth. But the reality is a vastly different story. “We’ve just experienced the best years ever to dairy farm and we are seeing a depletion,” United Dairyfarmers’ of Victoria president Paul Mumford said. “There’s obviously a reason.” Milk production for the month of February was down 0.1% in Victoria – Australia’s largest milk production state, according to Dairy Australia. Year-to-date total Australian milk production was up 0.9%. For the head of Victoria’s dairy lobby, the state’s static industry comes after years of challenges including milk price volatility, input price hikes, drought and floods. But in the past year, Covid-19 has inflamed issues around the industry’s workforce, it’s “sleeping devil”, according to Paul. “(The pandemic) has forced the labour onto the owners of the business and bought another added level of stress,” he said. “Coupled with that are the continued stress of production costs, weather, electricity or whatever other issues are 18

Paul Mumford: United Dairyfarmers’ of Victoria president Paul Mumford said the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed a workforce issue within the state’s dairy industry. SOURCE: UDV

bubbling away. This has allowed farmers to exit the industry. We are seeing a lot of farms sell out of dairy because the opportunity is positive to transition into beef.” Beef farmers purchasing dairy operations has been a growing trend in the South Gippsland property market, in south east Victoria, according to SEJ Livestock and Real Estate licensed estate agent Irene Walker. The past four dairy farms she sold were purchased by beef producers. Some rare smaller dairy farms, those which adjoin an existing dairy or larger operations have remained in the industry. But for the most part – those who milk cows have been priced out of the property market. “Established beef families from the northeast of the state have been lured by the security of rainfall in this region,” Irene said. “They have more capacity (to

purchase) - they have old money, family money and haven’t got debt. Plus, we are now dealing with Melbourne buyers who have taken their money out of commercial real estate and shares and are seeking more security by putting it into land.” This shift in the market dynamic has been brewing for the past 10 years, according to Irene, “cemented” by recordbreaking beef prices in the past year. Prices have reflected the uptick in demand. Irene said dairyland selling to beef has fetched $9500-$14,500 an acre, up from $6500-$8000/acre five years ago. Yanakie dairy farmer Paul Hannigan will milk 340 cows this year – 50 less than last year – despite buying more land. He’s lost access to leased land and despite the new property, his total farming area has shrunk, and he’s had to destock. He viewed land as a secure investment but wondered what a declining industry would mean for those who continue to milk cows. “For us, I’d like to think what we have now (property) is worth more than what we paid for it, I know it is and a fair bit more,” he said. “I can’t see how returns will be any less with a shrinking milk pool, but at some stage it could tip the other way and we could start importing more and the export market won’t be there.” Chris Nixon milks 500 cows and runs 2000 beef breeders in the bushfire ravaged region of far eastern Victoria. For the first time in his farming career, his beef operation has been more profitable than the dairy for the past 18 months. While he won’t be selling his milkers, he understands why farmers are choosing beef over dairy. “There are big issues overhanging our dairy industry and it hasn’t given farmers the confidence to go forward,” he said. “The reason the industry hasn’t gone forward like it should have has been because of tough seasonal conditions, a reduction in water, probably higher than average labour costs and the overhang of the supermarket duopoly on price. That’s why it’s hard to see clear air on a forward sustainable price.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Pasture & Forage News

May 2021

Play it safe with crop transition If anything is going to go wrong with your transition this year, it will most likely happen in the first week of changing animals from one diet to another.

If your farm is to go forward - pastures may need culling A critical part of herd improvement comes at the end of every season, when the cows you’ve identified as performing well below the others, are removed from the herd to make way for new blood. Pastures are no different – they need culling too, if your farm is to go forward. Some will have been very productive over the past 12 months; others will have let you down. It’s time to sort the good from the bad, and make a plan to turn poor performers into stars. Pasture growth varies hugely from paddock to paddock across every farm. On flat land, a 100% difference in DM yield between best and worst paddocks is typical. This figure is much higher on hilly farms. If your poor paddocks are growing 6t DM/ha less than your best, which is common, they’re giving you 300kg MS/ha less (based on 75% utilisation and 15kg DM/kg MS conversion). One way to find out how much individual paddocks grow is to review your grazing records. Good paddocks might be grazed 12-13 times a year, poor paddocks 6-7 times a year. A single grazing might be 1 to 1.5 t DM/ha of pasture, so you can add up how much each has grown. For more detail on recording

grazing days, visit www.barenbrug. co.nz. Some recording software (e.g. Pasture Coach, Agrinet or Minda Land and Feed) does this automatically if you’ve collected weekly pasture cover data. An example of this analysis for the Lincoln University Dairy Farm (LUDF) is below. For each soil type, the difference in t DM/ha of pasture eaten between the best and worst paddock shows just how much production the farm has missed out on. The next step is to look at what to do with these under-performing paddocks. Should you soil test? Apply extra fertiliser or herbicide? Oversow clover? Improve drainage? Put them into spring crop? There are several options to consider, with the aim of getting your farm’s pasture performance to the highest level possible. We can help – hop on our website and book a free pasture health check with your local Barenbrug agronomist.

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That is the time when most animal health issues – and sometimes deaths – occur, so you take care preparing for this. Allow enough time for animals adapt to a different feed source. The rumen is a complex fermentation system, full of billions of microbes, and they do not like sudden changes. You can transition onto brassicas in a shorter time than fodder beet, but in both cases, a gradual introduction of the new feed is all-important to prevent problems like scouring, acidosis and nitrate poisoning. Putting hungry animals onto any crop is a recipe for disaster – they will eat too much, too fast, so always make sure they have something in their bellies first, whether it’s hay, silage or straw. Watch them carefully – things can go wrong very quickly, and some animals just don’t do well on crop, meaning they will need to be removed and put back onto pasture. Visit our website to find detailed transition advice.

INSIGHT

UPFRONT MARKET VIEW

Dairy market steadies in April Words by: Amy Castleton

pril was a relatively quiet month in terms of dairy commodity prices, with little change at either of the month’s Global Dairy Trade (GDT) events. Prices rose just 0.3% at the April 6 auction, and eased 0.1% at the April 20 auction – thus leaving prices pretty much where they were a month earlier, on balance. We’re at a time of the year where Southern Hemisphere production starts to wind down, while the Northern Hemisphere is entering its peak. It typically is a pretty quiet time of year for the dairy market. New Zealand milk supply seems to be The world is yours: While demand from Chinese buyers for dairy commodities lessened at the April 6 GDT tracking along okay, though soil moisture auction, other regions stepped in to take China’sin place. % change the GDT price index levels aren’t brilliant in a lot of areas. The 15.0% East Coast is especially dry for this time of PERCENTAGE CHANGE IN THE GDT PRICE INDEX year, and particularly in the South Island, 10.0% while Taranaki is wetter than usual for this time of year. Conditions were largely 5.0% reasonable through summer, however, which should keep autumn production going. The NZX forecast for full season 0.0% milk production is +0.1% at the time of writing, virtually unchanged from last -5.0% season. In Europe, French and German -10.0% production has been falling over recent 2 6 5 2 7 4 2 Jul 6 3 1 5 3 7 4 3 7 5 2 7 Jul 4 1 6 3 1 5 2 2 6 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun 2019 Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun 2020 Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr months; however this is now reportedly 2019 20192019201920192019 202020202020202020202020 2021202120212021 2019 201920192019201920192020 202020202020202020202021 evening out, with milk supplies through Europe’s peak expected to be at least in take China’s place, illustrating that there end of March), compared to a $7.84/kg MS line with last year. Steady milk supplies out is good demand for dairy commodities forecast for the 2020-21 season (calculated of Europe should help keep commodity outside of China as well. in early April). At the time of writing, the prices steady over the next few months, Traders on the NZX Dairy Derivatives Derivatives market had the September until attention turns back to how Southern market seem to expect that commodity 2021 milk price futures contract at $7.64/ Hemisphere production is tracking prices will fall over the remainder of kg MS, and the September 2022 contract in our spring. 2021, though much of the downward at $7.50/kg MS. It’s likely Fonterra will be Demand has been very trend in forward curves for dairy more conservative when it announces its China-led in recent months. commodity futures seems to be opening forecast in May, but an opening High domestic prices and built around NZ’s spring. It would forecast of around $7/kg MS for the 2021increased dairy consumption be expected that a lift in our milk 22 season looks fairly likely. At this point have increased demand for supplies – albeit seasonal – will the market feels balanced. Despite the imported dairy. On top of put some pressure on commodity current high prices it seems that it will take that is the need to ensure food some sort of economic shock for anything Amy Castleston. prices. security, meaning more stock In saying this, the outlook for next to move too significantly. building. However Chinese buyers did season’s milk price remains quite positive. step back a little at the April 6 GDT event. The most recent NZX forecast for the 2021• Amy Castleton, senior dairy analyst at Buyers from other regions stepped in to 22 season is $7.38/kg MS (calculated at the NZX Agri. 20

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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BUSINESS ADDING VALUE

Whipping up a dairy success

Elaine Fisher goes behind the scenes at Tatua, nestled in the settlement of Tatuanui, Waikato.

losely watched by his uncle, the young man has his fingerprints taken. Nothing sinister here, instead he’s about to become a trusted Tatua staff member, with access to some of the most secure parts of the company’s plant. In doing so he is also following a company tradition. Many of its 400 staff are related to each other which is fitting because this is a company with a long tradition of family involvement, including among its suppliers. “Among our 106 suppliers are descendants of the farmers who founded this company in 1914,” says Tatua chief executive, Brendhan Greaney. A tour of the site with Brendhan reinforced the professional, yet personal company ethos. Brendhan greeted everyone by name, from the contract cleaner (doing an extra 22

round during the March 2021 Covid-19 Level 2 alert) to the engineers overseeing the plant’s high tech drier and the staff responsible for the tricky task of shipping co-ordination. Tight security on the site at Tatuanui, between Te Aroha and Morrinsville, is vital because Tatua produces a wide range of high value ingredients, including for

Tatua Dairy Whip Cream in a can 40 years ago. However, Brendhan says the philosophy of adding value, in its simplest form, can be traced back to the company’s foundation. “The cooperative was formed by the founding shareholders who wanted to secure processing for their milk. They saw the way to do that was by starting their own company.

“Among our 106 suppliers are descendants of the farmers who founded this company in 1914.” the manufacture of specialist protein ingredients, for which quality and food safety requirements are paramount. Adding value to milk and other proteins has been a Tatua tradition since it pioneered its famous-in-NZ, and Australia,

“What was true then still applies today because Tatua takes a perishable product – fresh milk - and processes it into durable products, adding value along the way.” Today fewer farmers, operating larger farms than 107 years ago, and based

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Top left: Tatua has 106 dairy farm suppliers based within a 12 km radius of the factory. Top right: Wynee Singleton, Tatua nutritionals quality advisor is among the company’s 400 staff based at the Tatuanui factory site. Bottom left: Tatua’s two new 15 million litre waste water treatment ponds and supporting plant and infrastructure is due to be commissioned soon. Bottom right: Tatua produces a wide range of high value ingredients, not all of them made from milk.

within a 12 km radius of the factory, continue to supply fresh milk. Much of it is turned into one of the company’s range of consumer products or its bulk ingredients; caseinate, WPC and AMF. Lactoferrin, a bioactive milk protein used in sports drinks and infant formulas and known to boost people’s immune systems, is also extracted from the milk. Together the bulk and value-added products constitute the unique business model which has enabled the company to endure through the dairy industry’s many turbulent times, resist takeovers or amalgamations, and continue to be highly innovative and financially successful.

MILK PRODUCTION RISES

Production from its supplying farms in early March this year was slightly ahead of 2020. “Given the shape of our business with, broadly speaking, 50% bulk ingredients and 50% value added, small

fluctuations in milk production don’t have a big impact on our business. “Our milk processing assets are well utilised, and we are not securing more milk supply. We are focused on doing the best we can with milk from our existing suppliers, and growing the value-added business, a good proportion of which does not require milk at all.” In fact, some of the proteins Tatua uses in its ingredients business are plant based, including from peas, wheat, yeast and soy. The company processes those, and milk proteins, into ingredients which are incorporated into end products produced by other manufacturers around the world. “Creating many of our value-added ingredients requires an enormous amount of patience and significant investment. Many have been years in development before the formulation is ready for our customers and has met all the food safety, quality and market registration

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

and requirements. “Some really cool stuff happens here, and we have some very clever people who develop and manufacture our products. Typically, our ingredient development is customer led and we have strong collaborative relationships with customers, working closely together to design products for them. “As we are a relatively small business, we can do quite small batches of highly specialised products, which would probably not be worthwhile for other larger companies to undertake. “There is more risk associated with these products than generally traded commodities. Many of our formulated specialised ingredients cannot easily transfer to another customer. For that reason, we ensure we are well diversified and we have the bulk ingredient business which, generally speaking, can be traded anywhere in the world.” 23

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COPING WITH DISRUPTION

Getting products to the 65 countries Tatua exports to has been challenging since the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted shipping and port operations. “Our very capable international trade team who have strong relationships with shipping companies have so far been able to get our products to where they need to be. Having people on the ground in some of our key markets, such as Japan, China and USA, is hugely valuable as they know what is going on and can help keep our products moving.” Tatua’s focus on quality extends to its supplying farmers too, who meet the standards of Tatua 360, the company’s responsible farming programme which aims to ensure its supplying farmers’ long-term commitment to responsible and sustainable farming practises for future generations of Tatua farmers. The programme includes the five key elements of environmental custodianship, animal care, farm systems, milk quality and central to the programme is the welfare, wellbeing and development of people. “Increasingly customers are looking at the whole value chain from what happens onfarm to the end products. We are audited frequently by customers and regulators who increasingly want to see what happens on farms too.” To further its environmental credentials, the company will commission its new wastewater treatment plant within the next few months. “This is a big investment for us at just under $15 million and follows an earlier investment in stage 1 in 2017 of around $5 million. We lost some construction time during the Covid-19 lockdown last year when we had to suspend work, but we are now close to completing the project.” In the beginning it was just a paddock adjacent to the factory site. Now there are two 15 million litre ponds and a large amount of supporting plant and infrastructure. “In money terms, this project brings no return on the costs to build and operate, but it is absolutely the right thing to do for the environment.”

BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Embrace green values Words by: Sheryl Haitana

armers generally know their nitrogen leaching number, but many are still struggling to grasp their Greenhouse Gas number and they need to embrace it, says Fraser McGougan, the new chair of DairyNZ Climate Change Ambassadors. “We shouldn’t be afraid of these numbers, you never know, you might be already doing an amazing job. “Some people are afraid of climate change, but there’s an opportunity here.” A fourth-generation dairy farmer, Fraser and his wife Katherine milk 430 cows on 143 hectares near Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. The couple won the Bay of Plenty Ballance Farm Environment Awards Supreme Award in 2019. Farmers must look deeper into their farm systems and focus on drivers beyond production to be able to farm profitably and sustainably in the future, he says. He believes farmers are getting their heads around farming within new environmental regulation. The climate change deniers that used to voice their opinions at fieldays seem to have disappeared. It is also helpful that milk companies are starting to send signals through schemes like Fonterra’s Cooperative Difference with incentive payments for sustainability and farmers are getting on board. “Ten years ago farmers would have jumped up and down about that.” The environment has always been something Fraser has been interested in during his 20 years farming, but it has come more into focus since having three children. The Maori concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) makes more sense to him than ever, about being custodians of the land and leaving it in a better way for the next generations. A book over 40 years old that Fraser reads to his children is Dr Seuss’ ‘The Land of the Lorax’ about the danger of human destruction of the natural environment. “It mirrors what’s actually happening in the world and how humans are going to

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Fraser McGougan has always been interested in the environment but says the concept of kaitiakitanga (guardianship) came into a sharper focus after having his three children.

have to modify their behaviour,” he says. In his opinion, climate change is going to be a bigger challenge for the dairy industry than fresh water legislation. It’s a rapidly changing and evolving subject and it is a challenge for farmers how quickly rules are rolling out while science and technology are trying to keep up. “I could see there as a huge changing space coming, personally I didn’t know enough about it. I need a reason why and I felt there was a bit of an information gap there.” Fraser became a climate change ambassador three years ago as part of his journey to improve his own knowledge of climate change. There is a lot of information for farmers to sift through amid trying to apply the right solutions to their farms. The ambassadors help communicate the challenges and opportunities dairy farmers face in playing their part to address climate change. The ambassadors keep in touch regularly and are great to bounce ideas off of, Fraser says. “It’s a broad group of really intelligent people with different views.” Fraser believes the issue needs to extend beyond just the dairy sector, and during his role as chair he hopes he can unite agricultural industries to share ideas and come up with solutions. That’s what He waka eke noa is all about - all being in the waka together. “This is bigger than just dairy farmers, or just agriculture, it’s everybody playing their part.” 25

BUSINESS METHANE RESEARCH

Beyond the long Irish lockdown Words by: Katie Starsmore and Jacob Sievwright

I Katie Starsmore and Jacob Sievwright.

t’s finally starting to warm up here in Ireland and Covid-19 restrictions are looking to be lifted in the coming months. It’s been a long time coming! At the end of March/early April we had a few weeks of cold frosty mornings which stunted grass growth. Following that we have had lots of warm dry weather and haven’t had much rain over April so we are currently praying for the rain. Who would’ve thought you would ever say that in Ireland? We’re now in the full swing of breeding with plenty to keep an eye on. Our mating start date (MSD) is May 1 and we plan to artificial insemination (AI) for 11 weeks while using 8 teaser bulls on rotation within 300 cows. Each of the teaser bulls is fitted with a halter that has a chin ball. The chin ball marks on the cows along with tail paint that we use to identify bulling cows. Tail paint is topped up twice a week and any cows seen to be bulling are written on a

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

whiteboard at the front of the herringbone pit to be drafted for AI. Cows are inseminated by Munster Bovine AI technicians around 10am every morning and only conventional semen is used. The first eight weeks of mating dairy semen is used, however the following three weeks of mating beef semen is only used. Our target is to have 95% of the cows served to AI within the first 24 days of mating. Leading up to mating we check for premating heats for three weeks before MSD. Any cows that had a heat in the week prior to MSD will receive 2ml of prostaglandin (PG) seven days after the recorded pre-mating heat to bring them forward to make a more compact calving. On May 18 (Day 18 of mating) all cows that haven’t cycled are scanned for any cysts, metritis or other issues that would be causing them not to cycle. Also cows that had a difficult calving, had twins, retained placenta, or were sick/down during the calving season are metri-checked. This means that any infection or endometritis can be identified and treated to increase their chances of cycling and holding a pregnancy. Any cows that haven’t visibly come into heat by the end of the fourth week of mating will be synchronised using the CIDR program. Also, any late calvers (calved after April 1) as well as any cow that has lost 0.5 of a condition score since the start of the year are milked once a day until breeding to increase the likelihood of starting to cycle faster. The goal is to have all cows served by the end of the fourth week of mating. We also carry out pregnancy scanning numerous times during the mating season to ensure we are able to have the highest in-calf rate possible. Cows that were served in the first week of mating are then scanned on June 7. Cows that were served in the second week of mating are then scanned on June 14. This identifies if the cows have held the pregnancy or not. Any cows that are confirmed not in calf by July 1 are synchronised for the one last serve before the mating end date of 16th July. We are trying to minimise any issues before and during mating that would lead to a decreased fertility for each cow.

The dairy mating season has begun. Katie Starsmore and Jacob Sievwright plan to AI for 11 weeks.

METHANE EMISSIONS TRIAL

Katie recently finished a trial measuring methane emissions from early lactation cows with two different diets; grass only and grass with 3kg silage per day. This trial began as soon as cows calved and they were out at grass which was within the first week of February. The trial followed the cows every day since and she has methane emission values for each cow over this period. There were a total of 80 cows in this trial and they will continue to be measured for residual effects of the different feeding strategies until the end of June. The importance of this research is the effect that different farm strategies have on methane emissions in early spring. As the winters are relatively wet and cold, cows are housed inside during the winter which means there is little grass growth over this period. That means different farms across the country will have different amounts of grass onfarm and may need to supplement silage if there isn’t enough. That’s where this research will come in, milk production, grass production and methane production are all considered and they will know the impact of it all. Katie also started another trial in the middle of April which is testing another feed additive. This feed additive will be trialled for 10 weeks and if there is a response with either methane reduction or milk production increase, there could be scope to increase the trial length to a full lactation in future years. At the beginning of this trial, there needed to be individual intakes for each grazing animal taken. The way they did this was to orally dose the cows with an alkane bolus for 11 days and on day seven of the dosing, faeces for each cow

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Testing times: Katie Starsmore is using faecal samples from cows to test a new feed additive.

was collected before each morning and afternoon milking for the remaining five days. So that means Katie has to be at work for 5.30am to collect these samples every day for a week. Once this is done a 20g faeces sample is then taken into an individual cup for each cow which is then frozen until all 10 samples for each cow are taken during the week. The faeces will be analysed for alkane content to estimate the amount of kgDM eaten per cow. This will also be done at the end of the 10 week study to investigate if the feed additive has an effect on intake as well as methane and milk production. • Katie Starsmore and Jacob Sievwright are expat New Zealanders working in dairy in Ireland. They were profiled in Dairy Exporter, February 2021. The couple will be contributing a regular Milking Platform column for the Dairy exporter. • www.nzfarmlife.co.nz/kiwi-skills-soughtafter-in-ireland 27

BUSINESS CO DIARY

Once those boxes are ticked, it’s good to get existing employees to be part of the onboarding process. Get them to explain their role, which aids with teamwork and ensures everyone feels part of the team.

WEEK ONE AND TWO

For the first few weeks, make sure they have a clear work plan, including: • Having a copy of the roster • Knowing where and when to come to work • What they will be doing e.g., shadowing an employee, or assigned tasks independently. I find it’s important to have someone tasked to ‘check-in’ with your new employee every few hours, to make sure they know what they are doing, and to answer questions.

Taking care of new staff • Prepare accommodation, PPE, tools, and vehicles. tarting off a new season can be • Talk through and sign the employment exciting, but it can also be busy agreement and job description with your with new staff coming onfarm. employee. When anyone starts a new • Ensure a service tenancy is in place if job there is a lot to learn. employees are living onfarm. Having a good I also think it’s nice to give the onboarding experience employee an introduction to the is both important for area, especially if they have moved yourself, and your new towns or regions. This includes local employee. doctors, banks, schools, community This can help staff settle groups, and neighbors, to help them into their new job faster and feel more settled when they start. Lizzy Moore. have the best start possible. It also sets you off on the FIRST DAY OF THE JOB right foot, setting a great tone for your On the first day, there are a few legal employment relationship, while clarifying requirements that need to be met. This expectations and contributing to job includes filling out relevant paperwork, satisfaction. Here some tips for setting staff especially tax and Kiwisaver forms. If up for success in their first few weeks. providing accommodation, you must do a walk-through and complete a property BEFORE THEY START inspection form. A health and safety Prior to your new employee’s first day, induction also needs to occur. This covers make sure everything is in order including: emergency procedures and reporting • Filing documents from the recruitment health and safety issues. Then you should process, including CV, application form take them for a farm tour, pointing out and reference information. any farm hazards.

Words by: Lizzy Moore

“I find it’s important to have someone tasked to ‘check-in’ with your new employee every few hours, to make sure they know what they are doing, and to answer questions.” We also know that good bosses have good communication, so at the end of each week personally check-in and see how they are doing. I know it can feel like training staff is time-consuming, but once people are trained, they free up your time and you will reap the rewards of your training efforts. I also find that staff who participate in regular training are generally more motivated, efficient, and likely to remain on your farm. Just remember to also record all employees’ training, whether it is formal or informal. Remember that onboarding does not stop at week two. Continue to check on new staff over their first few months to make sure that they are settling in. More information is available at dairynz.co.nz/onboarding. • Lizzy Moore is a consulting officer for DairyNZ in Cambridge.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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TAKE TIME BEFORE YOU SIGN

PLANNING YOUR NEXT DAIRY PARTNERSHIP. As you progress, it pays to have good people on your side to help with due diligence. DairyNZ, Federated Farmers and the team at FMG are here to help so that your sharemilking and contract milking relationships can be the successful business partnership that you intend it to be. Check out DairyNZ’s ‘Progressing Farmer Checklist’ at and have a chat with your FMG Adviser to help you understand your insurance options and provide you with risk advice to help you establish a successful partnership. You can download the DairyNZ checklist here at dairynz.co.nz/progressing-farmers Pictured: Sophia & Bert Vanden Bogaard (Sharemikers), Ben & Fieke Meyer (Farm owners) and FMG Senior Rural Manager Candice Batty.

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

BUSINESS STAFFING

Filling gaps in the onfarm team More flexible rosters, better pay and other incentives are needed if farm employers are going to attract staff this year. Sheryl Haitana looks at ways to make your job stand out from the rest.

o attract or retain staff onfarm this year, loosen the purse strings, advertise differently, introduce more flexibility, and back it up by being a good boss. Farm employers will need to get more creative to fill staff gaps for next season because the staff shortage is very real, DairyNZ Lead Advisor - People Jane Muir warns. “The dairy sector was really short staffed going into Covid-19 last year, and the pandemic has exaggerated that shortage. “We are not so concerned that the cows won’t get milked, dairy farmers have a long history of always milking their cows, but we are concerned that people won’t have time to spend on the strategic parts of their business and that adds to the stress levels and impacts people’s wellbeing.” When the cows get milked and production targets are being hit, it can be easy to think the farm business is doing well, but a staff shortage means people only have time to do the essential jobs and everything else piles up. “We are more worried about burnout and wellbeing. Lots of people have been operating short staffed and we are about to roll over to another year.”

HANGING ON TO YOUR CURRENT STAFF

This season, farmers are faced with few options to help full those positions on their farms so firstly, try and retain the staff you already have, Jane says. “People leave the dairy sector every year, try not to let those people go. Have a conversation with them about what it would take to keep them. “They already have some skills, they know your farm.” There may be opportunities to help keep those staff by offering more responsibility and/or more training. Remember vocational training for dairy is mostly fully subsidised by the government this year and next, Jane says. Farmers could also look at options to lighten the workload onfarm, such as variable milking frequency. “Milking sucks up the most hours so if the business is short staffed that could be an option.” If DairyNZ and Federated Farmers are successful getting 500 overseas workers into the country, it’s not enough people to

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

fill the gaps and is only an option for some farms due to the quarantine costs, she says. “Migrants have been a critical and valued part of the workforce, but the borders are not opening any time soon. Employ New Zealanders.”

CHECK OUT THE PART TIMERS

The unemployment rate in NZ is low, but farmers should look at the under employed sector. These are people who are working part time, but who could work more hours if they were offered flexibility. For example, parents who can work only between school hours can’t always milk the cows, but there are plenty of other jobs they could do during the day. High school students are another key group. They might not be able to work during the week, but they are keen to earn cash and are available to work weekends. Or retired people who might want to work part time, but not in full time employment. Another group is Work and Income clients. Farmers already employ a lot, but 31

Appealing housing is a huge drawcard for potential farm staff.

“Everybody has their own view of what work/life balance looks like. We need to continue to drop our hours and improve our rosters.” may not be aware of the support available such as financial support for training and wages. There are also migrants in the country who are on open work visas or visitor visas who can’t work in permanent roles, but are available to work for short periods of time. “You have to think outside the box.” If farm employers treat relief and casual staff well and offer them regular work they are more likely to be loyal, Jane says. “If you use them every fortnight instead of a random once or twice every few months they are more likely to make you a priority. If you can schedule regular days, they can schedule their lives.” Rosters are a big factor in making sure people are happy in their work and employers need to consider who wants to work big hours and who wants less hours so they can do other things. Some people will want to work less hours and not on weekends so they can spend time with their children or friends. “It’s often the time people want, not just the money.” 32

HEALTHY HOMES

Farm owners, sharemilkers and contract milkers must understand that it may not be everybody’s goal to own a farm, because that is not realistic, so their goals will be different. “Everybody has their own view of what work/life balance looks like. We need to continue to drop our hours and improve our rosters.” For some people, it is the money, and they want to work as many hours as they can so their partners don’t have to work, or they are trying to save or pay off debt. But farmers must pay them well for every hour. “We don’t want to see increased hours for no remuneration. It will become a detractor if we do that this year, we will pay the price for it next year.” Wages are moving, but farmers need to look at what they are paying and reflect on how valuable people are to the success of their business, she says. “We would like to see an effective hourly rate. Agree on an hourly rate with your staff member, and work it backwards if they are on salary.”

Another key tool in farmers’ pockets this year in attracting staff is housing, Jane says. “What are the hot topics in the media? Covid-19 and housing. Farmers have housing available. Everyone is short of housing and we have it. I think it’s a massive opportunity.” From July 1, the Government’s Healthy Homes scheme kicks in. Farmers do need to act on it because the fines are significant if the house they are offering is not up to standard. For example, the dwelling must have insulation and a heat pump. “Don’t look at it as compliance, but as a massive opportunity for farmers to have good quality housing that will appeal to people. “If it’s not good quality now, you can make it better. “You might want people to come to farming for the job, not the house. But we can end up with some great people who love the dairy sector.” • For more information visit www.dairynz.co.nz/people

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

SYSTEMS MONITOR FARMERS

Greening up the dairy farm West Coast farmers Stu and Debbie Bland have worked hard to improve the environmental aspects of their farm but are concerned about intensive winter grazing challenges. Anne Hardie paid them a visit.

tu and Debbie Bland aren’t afraid of environmental regulations on their West Coast property as operating a monitor farm puts every aspect on the table for scrutiny. The difficulty is making plans for regulations that still have moving targets in a region where Overseer is not considered fit for purpose and high rainfall creates challenges. At this stage, the farming duo have little to worry about. Their nitrogen use is close to the 190kg N/ha requirement in the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater and their methane emission level sits just below 7t CO2 equiv/ha/yr. At the same time, their operating profit is higher than average for the West Coast compared to other owner operators on Dairy Base. This is their third season as a monitor farm and Stu says it has made them more 34

disciplined about collecting and analysing data. For their own benefit, they have put the information onto a spreadsheet on the computer so they can easily work out the feed situation or other factors on the farm. They also benefit from many eyes analysing the data and looking over the farm. In March, DairyNZ ran the annual monitor farm field day and the agenda understandably had an environmental focus with the new regulations at the forefront of people’s minds and what they will need to do to achieve those goals. The Blands farm at Mawheraiti near Reefton is one of two monitor farms on the West Coast and at 1.8m of rain a year they get just half the rainfall of the West Coast’s other monitor farm at Kowhitirangi further south. It shows the variation in the region and it can vary a great deal more than that between Karamea in the northernmost

FARM FACTS:

• Farm owners: Stu and Debbie Bland • Location: Mawheraiti, near Reefton • Milking area: 95ha • Leased support block: 10ha • Peak cows milked: 225 this season and typically 235 • Production: 105,000kg MS • Irrigation: 73ha K-line • Methane emissions: just below 7t CO2-e/ha/yr

tip, to those dairy farms hundreds of kilometres further south near the glaciers. Stu’s involvement with environmental issues goes back to working with the Grey Fresh Water Management Unit. He went along to a meeting to ensure irrigating

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Far left: F10 cows on Bland’s West Coast dairy farm. Left: Coast with the most: Debbie and Stu Bland on their Mawheraiti dairy farm.

farmers were represented and ended up becoming a member that provided recommendations to the regional council’s resource management committee. Because the Blands have long had a focus on the environmental wellbeing of their farm operation, they are hopeful it will be a case of fine-tuning their operation rather than major changes to meet the new regulations. But that also depends on the final outcome of national regulations. Debbie says it’s the unknown of those final regulations that is worrying farmers.

down.” Their farm, which they bought back in 2008, spreads over 95ha of river flats and terrace beside the Little Grey River. Despite the high rainfall, 73ha of that area is irrigated via K-line irrigation from underground springs to address the gaps where the drier soils and paddocks of gold tailings quickly dry out. The gold tailings are ideal for winter grazing as the stony debris goes down about 10m but irrigation is essential in summer to grow grass through the drier months. This year they irrigated for just a month to keep the grass

“If it (the paddock) has been used for winter grazing and then we have a crop to suck up the nutrients and then plant it back in grass – what definition does it come under?” FINANCIAL PRESSURE OFF

It’s taken 33 years for the Blands to get to this point though and with Yili’s ownership of Westland Milk Products taking some of the financial pressure off their business through the cash payment for shares and then higher payout, they’re able to cruise a bit more. Since Yili, they’ve paid off some debt and caught up on some of the essential maintenance work that went on hold through the low payout years. It’s good to have cashflow now to give them options, but like many other West Coast dairy farmers, they are still cagey about spending the long-awaited income. “People are thinking about spending the money but we aren’t spending yet,” Debbie says. “We’re still getting ourselves in a position with the bank where we can weather things more and we’ve been in this long enough to know what goes up, comes down. What we don’t know is how long it will go up and how far it will go

growing into the autumn. With irrigation, they don’t need a summer crop and they usually don’t need to put extra feed into the system. The next step for irrigation is adding a moisture probe so they can make better decisions with their irrigation. They are also exploring the potential value of adding a weather station into the toolbox.

COLOSTRUM SUPPLIERS

They typically milk up to 235 cows twice a day through the season but that dropped to 225 this year after a higher than usual empty rate. Last season they produced 105,000kg milksolids (MS) which works out as 1100kg MS/ha and 446kg MS/ cow. At the beginning of the season they supply colostrum to the milk company for a premium that adds another $10,000 to their income. Debbie says it’s especially helpful because it is paid in September and effectively doubles that month’s cashflow when it is much needed. “Is it only the first and second milking

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

and we need at least five cows to make it worth doing that day – so we need five cows a day to calve. Some days you will have eight to 10 cows calving and other days you won’t do (colostrum) because you don’t have enough cows.” Because they supply colostrum, they can’t use Teatseal and instead use blanket dry cow therapy. It also means they try to keep the cows’ udders clean and dry as much as possible through winter. For that reason, winter grazing management was crucial long before regulations were created. Portable flexi feeders not only stop wastage but can be moved to clean areas so the cows don’t pug around them and create mud. Likewise, portable water troughs can be moved to stop the inevitable pugging around them. As cows are given a new break of feed, they are back fenced to stop them tramping back over that area, with the feeders and troughs moved forward with the back fence. Any wet areas are fenced off and cows always have access to clean, dry areas to lie down and sleep. If the weather has been wet for a long period, the cows get a big break of feed so they can move over a larger area and keep their udders clean. When the weather turns really wet, the cows have a standoff pad and during spring there’s a feedpad, with both taking runoff into the effluent pond. The latter is a clay-lined pond with a consent and time will tell how that fares under the new regulations. Stu uses a slurry tanker to distribute effluent to areas around the farm with heavier soils or paddocks earmarked for crop. The feedpad has a crushed rock base and they are looking at adding lime rock or clay to provide more fines to bind it better. When it comes to supplementary feed, the cows get silage including maize silage fed out through winter, plus hay that is put in trailers in the paddock for them to fill up on. This season they have leased a 10ha runoff block nearby which is 35

solely for supplements including a 5ha crop of maize. The resulting 50t of maize silage this year from the runoff and a 2ha paddock on the home farm is in a pit covered by Nutritech anti UV covers. The covers cost about $1000 each and Debbie says they are a darn sight easier than the pair of them throwing tyres on. “We were sick of throwing tyres. And it keeps the wekas, pukekos and rats out of the pit.” They carted three cuts of silage from the runoff to the farm pit this year and without the new covers they would have had to remove and rethrow the tyres three times, so the covers have been given the thumbs up. Stu describes their maize crops as their “get out of jail” card when the climate doesn’t deliver optimum conditions. Their crop typically goes into the ground in October, but the weather dictates sowing and this year it was impossible to sow the crop at that time and it went in a month later.

WINTER GRAZING RULES A BATTLE It’s a familiar story on the West Coast where farmers say the weather is going

A monitor farm field day on Bland’s farm.

to make compliance with the intensive winter grazing rules a battle. Farmers at the field day voiced their fears about being held to national policy that would make it very difficult to farm in some areas. One farmer had sown a crop in October and then resown after it rotted in the ground. Though there are financial incentives to get a crop in the ground earlier, the weather has the last say. The general consensus was that every farm is different and every

year is different. The answer lay in finding proposed alternatives to put in place to prevent sediment loss. Another problem when it comes to interpreting the new intensive winter grazing rules was whether a paddock is a sacrifice paddock, or just a paddock. As Debbie pointed out, winter sacrifice paddocks are only a ‘sacrifice’ paddock for half a year and then they are planted in grass and become a normal grass paddock.

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Salt may be one of the most cost-effective methods of increasing production. Research1 has shown that sodium supplementation can give a significant production response. THE KEY CONCLUSIONS ARE THAT: • Sodium in some form should be available at all times all year round • Dairy cows’ salt requirements increase significantly when lactating as large amounts of sodium are excreted in milk • Young animals in rapid growth need sodium for new tissue formation • Appetite suppression is linked to sodium deficiency

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THE MAIZE BALANCER

MAIZE SILAGE Because maize is a natrophobic crop it does not take up sodium into its stubble or leaves. Maize stubble, stalks and leaves have very low sodium levels which are not capable of providing enough sodium for grazing animals even if the soil they grow on has high levels of sodium.

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz summitsalt.co.nz

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Colostrum from the herd adds helpful cashflow in September.

Will it be another cost to go through each consent process? “If it has been used for winter grazing and then we have a crop to suck up the nutrients and then plant it back in grass – what definition does it come under?” On the methane front, sitting just below 7t CO2 e/ha/yr puts the Bland’s farming operation in a good place to work on. Farmers can work out the emissions for their own farming operation through DairyNZ’s Step Change project at www. dairynz.co.nz/environment/step-change/ know-your-numbers/. It looks at four key numbers that help assess whether a farm business and system is future-ready including operating profit per hectare, debt to asset ratio, tonnes of methane emissions per hectare and purchased N surplus per hectare. If the Blands needed to reduce their methane emissions further – say if regulations required the bar to drop even lower – what can they do? DairyNZ’s Step Change Project leader, Sarah Dirks, outlined some possibilities at the field day. For example, farmers could add a stirrer to the effluent pond because effluent contributes to 10% of the methane emissions on farms. Combined with regular land applications, that can reduce methane emissions by up to 5% - as well as being good practice.

Sarah also suggested farmers could reduce emissions by reducing the most expensive feeds in the system, getting heifer replacements down and reducing the number of carryover cows. Nothing is simple though. As one armer pointed out, one of the ways of keeping the empty rate down in the herd was through higher replacement rates. And if you have a year with more empty cows, Stu says you then have to carry more replacements for 2.5 years until they join the milking herd. He also wonders about the effect of the proposed environmental regulations on rearing bobby calves and taking them through when farmers are being encouraged to reduce their environmental impact by dropping stock numbers. Two of the key points for Debbie and Stu when it comes to environmental rules and reducing their environmental footprint is getting the clarity about what they need to do and then having the time to work out how they will achieve it. Whatever the final rules outcome, the Blands are working toward their goal of self-sufficiency as a dairy farm, without the reliance on outside feed bought in and with less debt so they can handle the ups and downs of payouts. • Story continues pg78: Sorting selenium and spring energy

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

“We expect to milk double the number of cows, with the same number of staff“. John Wilson - 3rd GEA iFLOW 60 bail rotary. At Bluemont Dairies, John’s latest conversion project, he is set to milk 900 cows through the new 60 bail iFLOW rotary with just one milker – doubling what they milked last year, in the old shed. Looking for a system that would support a one-person operation, was reliable and produced a quality product, John thinks he’s ticked the boxes with the iFLOW. Need all-round milking efficiency like John? Call us to book your on-farm consult today. 0800 GEA FARM. Drive dairy efficiencies? We can help.

SYSTEMS STEP CHANGE

Step change for good DairyNZ is helping farmers adjust their business to environmental standards. Anne Lee reports.

he rules of the game might be changing but that doesn’t have to mean the game is suddenly harder to win or is unfair. DairyNZ’s Sarah Dirks says DairyNZ’s $5-million, five-year Step Change project that will run through to 2025, is all about working with farmers to show ways farming businesses are able to operate successfully while achieving water quality and greenhouse gas (GHG) outcomes alongside profitability goals. “The world is changing and the project focuses on the step changes we need to make to meet customer expectations, trade requirements and the commitments the country has made through policies such as the Paris Climate Accord as well as the National Environmental Standards 38

(NES) and National Policy Statement on FreshWater. “There is a lot coming at farmers but we want to show how we can adapt for the future and how what farmers do to achieve water quality goals can impact their GHG emissions and profit.

“It’s about producing milk the world wants.”

“Equally, we can show how people who focus on profit can also have a positive effect on water quality and GHG emissions. “If we fixate on the policy, it all becomes

quite negative because we view it as people forcing us to do stuff but if we look at what the opportunities are there can be a lot of positives for our businesses and communities – it becomes quite Sarah Dirks. exciting. “It’s about producing milk the world wants.” This month the Sustainable Agriculture Finance Initiative (SAFI) will release its framework for banks and the wider finance industry to use to assess sustainability onfarm. It’s expected that the framework will go

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Table 1: Know your numbers: Think about how you can operate your farm systems to reduce environmental impacts and increase profit.

A B Dairy operating profits

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C D Environmental impacts (GHG emissions, N Surplus, P loss, etc) A = Highest operating profit, lowest environmental impact D = Lowest profits, highest impacts

beyond environmental sustainability to people and animal care. Banks will be able to use the framework in their credit models. Sarah says it could be an opportunity for farmers with a focus on sustainability to influence their interest rate and access to capital. “This is the future so for the sustainability of our businesses we need to respond to the market and the market globally is signalling they want low environmental footprint food – and the banks are saying we think it’s more secure for us to invest in sustainable business because it’s lower risk.” This autumn DairyNZ has held 12 onfarm Step Change events around the country taking a deeper look at what

farmers have done in their farm system and how they have affected factors that can impact water quality – factors such as purchased nitrogen surplus. They’ve also looked at farm practices that can affect E. coli, sediment and phosphorus loss, and how management impacts on GHG emissions and profit. Farmers have become more familiar with the metrics and the levers they can use to shift them with focus days sparking good discussion. The next round of events, “the Dollars and Sense of Going Green” will be held over June and July and will be finance focused with more explanation of SAFI. “We’ll be looking at sustainability benchmarks too so farmers can see what a typical farm in their area is doing.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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SYSTEMS SUSTAINABLE FARMING

SHORT TERM PAIN for long term gain

Tirau-based dairy farmer Shane Goldsmith sees a reduction in herd numbers leading to a more stable and better environmental future. Words by: Elaine Fisher. Photos by: Emma McCarthy.

hane Goldsmith is a “glass half full” farmer when it comes to his attitude to proposed reductions in both dairy cow numbers and hectares in dairying. “There are a few different factors to stabilisation of payouts and an oversupply of milk, but I think no more conversions going into dairying and a reduction in herd numbers may be a positive contribution to its stability in the future.” says Shane who milks 700 cows on 240 ha (214ha effective) near Tirau. The Independent Climate Change Commission’s (ICCC) draft carbon budgets and advice to the Government includes a suggested 15% reduction in the numbers of dairy cows, beef cows and sheep by 2030 while maintaining current production levels. It is also envisaged that there will be direct land use change from dairy farming to horticulture of around 2000 hectares per year from 2025 onward. “Some farmers are not happy about the proposed cutbacks but if you look back say 10 years, every time there was talk of a $6 to $7 payout many farmers increased herd numbers and bought in more feed which

Above: Guardians of the land: Shane and Sarah Goldsmith. Left: Stronger together: (from left) workers Sam and Tom Lane with Shane Goldsmith, and workers Ashleigh MacGregor and Jared McKenzie.

led to an oversupply and the risk of a drop in payout. “A far more positive way to look at the environmental proposals is to consider that it will bring a more stable payout long term,” says Shane who, for the past three seasons, has supplied Miraka. The Taupo company’s principles, including sustainable farming practices which have a minimal impact on the environment, are among the reasons Shane and wife Sarah became Miraka suppliers not long after buying the Tirau farm.

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“I like the direction Miraka is taking and its personal approach to suppliers. You are not just a number. They know us by name and are always welcoming.”

FROM SHIFT WORK TO FARMING

Unlike many in the industry, Shane’s journey into dairy farming didn’t follow the sharemilking route. He left home at 18 and worked for companies, including Waikato Dairy Co and Tatua; worked as an AB technician, did relief milkings on days off and even 41

Above: Proactive work on the fencing and protection of the Waihou river means the Goldsmith children enjoy swimming in it. Right: Happy calves at Tirau. The Goldsmiths milk 700 cows. Far right: Happy trails: Cows leaving the shed.

invested an ACC payout money into property to get ahead, always with the aim of farm ownership. “Although I didn’t like shift work, which I was doing at the factories, I knew it was a road that would lead me to be my own boss. I always had a passion for farming and I was focused with that goal in mind. “I returned to lease the family farm, which was 28 hectares at Te Poi; and had enough investments to sell to purchase the neighbouring blocks over a few years. As time went on, I married Sarah and had four kids and continued to build and sell commercial building investments to make great gains which led us to our current farm.” Four years ago, Shane and Sarah sold the Te Poi farm and bought their current property at Tirau. “We were milking 240 cows and could make ends meet but wouldn’t be where we are today if we had continued with that herd size.” From 240 cows, their herd has increased to 700 F12 Friesians. “It was a big jump and meant we had to buy in a lot of cows.” There was, in Shane’s words; “room for improvement” on the Tirau farm. “To bring the farm up to our standards it has had its challenges. With old pasture, rundown fences, collapsing effluent pond and new stock purchases we had so many 42

“A far more positive way to look at the environmental proposals is to consider that it will bring a more stable payout long term.” improvements that were required it was overwhelming.” The farm has three permanent staff, who work eight days on and two off on a roster which ensures jobs, including milking on the 70-bale rotary, are shared around. “Someone gets the cows in and then helps with the last half of milking. No one is milking every day. They are in and out of the shed, doing something different most days. “No one does the same job all the time, they each milk, drive the tractor or are on the pad or other farm jobs. It’s very important to break up the work as spending every day milking twice a day can kill the job, especially for young people.” Selling Fonterra shares enabled the Goldsmiths to buy a 50-hectare runoff near Matamata which they are now selling as the opportunity to purchase 50 hectares of a Tirau neighbouring property presented itself. Now all the young stock will remain on the home farm. “We are

aiming to become a self-sufficient unit for replacement stock to reduce the risk of diseases like Mycoplasma Bovis and we will not milk any more than 700 cows.” Maize supplements are also grown onfarm, on blocks irrigated with effluent from the dairy shed and the feed pad. Gradually Shane has made the change to autumn calving, maintaining production levels during the transition. By March this year, the farm was well into calving. “It is about lifestyle and the environment. I think autumn calving is more in tune with the seasons and growth rates of pasture. “Our cows start to button off production in spring so as they come down to 1.9, the demand for grass is not as great. Coming into summer when grass growth slows, they are drying off. “The contour of the farm is quite steep to rolling and the Tirau ash soils don’t hold water well, so we do not strip feed, which takes pressure off the paddocks and is easier on the environment. The springer

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Above: Family fun: Shane and Sarah Goldsmith with Madison (12), Sasha (10), Tahlia (8) and Johnny (4). Left: Green as far as the eye can see: The rolling, lush hills of Tirau.

mob and dry cows follow up to top the paddocks, keeping costs down.” One of Shane’s first purchases when he bought the farm was a Tow and Fert sprayer. “We do not use a lot of nitrogen and have experimented with liquid seaweed fertiliser which has 8% N and traditional fertiliser with 20% N. I’m going back to the seaweed because I didn’t see a significant improvement with the other fert.” Keeping nitrogen levels low has always been part of Shane’s farming practices. “We are probably using around two-thirds of what the new limits are now, so meeting them won’t be an issue for us.”

IN STEP WITH MIRAKA’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES

In fact, all of Shane’s management techniques are in line with Miraka’s sustainability and environmental policies. “We are very much onboard with Miraka’s farm environmental plans which we are working through with Warren Landles (Miraka’s farm sustainability manager). He is good at communicating the policies and the benefits of the environmental plan, making it easier to implement.” Although payout incentives help, Shane says it’s also that Te Ara Miraka, Mirakas’ Farming Excellence

Programme, is making a positive difference to farming and the environment. Effluent is a crucial part of Shane’s pasture renewal plan. “It’s a huge asset if used right. On my previous farm with old effluent systems, I thought it was a pain in the arse but with the right use at the right time and in the right places it’s an asset. I’d find it hard to farm without it now as some paddocks struggle even with new grass. Adding effluent turns that around.” Shane has plans to pipe effluent, at a cost of around $2000, to improve production on an under-performing paddock, saying it will be cheaper than applying other forms of fertiliser. Effluent is applied via pods and a travelling irrigator. “We have two pumps to handle the effluent, including from the feed pad. In winter we do not need to irrigate as often but if we get a dry spell we can catch up with irrigation. There are timers on the pods so they go for an hour on and an hour off to reduce run-off. That allows a 5ml application, an hour to dry off, followed by another application, so it can be absorbed in the areas where we want it. The timers cost about $200 each so it’s a cheap way to control application.” Proactive conservation and environmental work has begun on the farm, including repairing and moving fences along the Waihou River which flows

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

through the property, and planting out natives in wetlands in the near future. Shane would prefer to plant natives on the few hectares of rougher land. “However, as things stand at the moment, if I want to become anything close to carbon neutral, I’ll have to plant pines to get carbon credits. I’ve been holding off because there is discussion with the government about natives qualifying for credits as well as promoting biodiversity.” While Shane is committed to Miraka and focused on meeting the requirements of Te Ara Miraka and incentives this season, he admits the amount of administration required as part of achieving them can feel daunting. “I would expect most farmers to be just as daunted as me. I have employed one of the manager’s wives to help do the Te Ara Miraka admin for me. She has taken a huge amount of pressure off and I truly believe that in time she would have a fulltime job running these systems for other farms too.” Shane and Sarah’s family; Aiden (16), Madison (12), Sasha (10), Tahlia (8) and Johnny (4), together with their staff, enjoy the farming lifestyle and the opportunities dairy farming brings. “Doing our bit to be guardians of the land is something that we strive for and are proud of.” 43

SYSTEMS PLANTAIN TRIALS

AgResearch principal scientist Cecile De Klein with the trial plots of plantain at Invermay near Dunedin.

Plantain crops yield reduction in soil nitrous oxide levels AgResearch trials near Dunedin may be a solution for dairy farmers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Karen Trebilcock reports.

rial plots of plantain grown by AgResearch at the Invermay campus near Dunedin might be one of the keys to solving dairy’s greenhouse gas problem. Although plantain is well known to reduce nitrogen in urine when it is eaten by cattle, AgResearch principal scientist Cecile De Klein said it appears there may also be something happening in the soil. The trial plots at Invermay, grown for the past three and a half years, show 30% less nitrous oxide (N2O) is emitted from urine patches on soils growing plantain compared with areas growing ryegrass/ clover mixes. “There is something in the sward, something in the soil where the plantain 44

is growing, that changes the amount of nitrous oxide emitted,” she told farmers at a DairyNZ Explore Your Options field day in late March. “We do know the plant structures, including the roots, are very different to grasses and clovers but we do not yet know why less nitrous oxide is entering the atmosphere from the soils these plants are growing in.” Figures crunched at Anne-Marie and Duncan Well’s dairy farm near the Invermay campus showed stitching in 30% of plantain into pastures reduced nitrogen leaching losses by 15%, and nitrous oxide by 5% using Overseer modelling. Even replacing only 10% of the pasture

sward with plantain reduced nitrous oxide emissions by 2%. Due to the cost of stitching plantain, there was also a 2% loss of operating profit. With little research on how plantain holds up in southern, heavy soils, and how it performs putting milk into the vat, Duncan said he was unsure if he would add to the plantain already growing on the farm. Other modelling using their farm showed wintering cows in a barn changed greenhouse gasses only slightly, as did wintering on instead of wintering off. Young stock are grazed off the 217ha effective farm with all cows wintered off except for 45 of the 665-cow herd and the modelling included the off-farm grazing.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Plantain growing in one of the trial plots at Invermay.

“SLEEPLESS NIGHTS”

Anne-Marie said winter grazing had caused them “sleepless nights”. “We know there are fewer winter graziers out there but if we’re forced into a position of having to winter at home, the modelling shows it would not have a huge difference on greenhouse gasses overall which is a relief.” Retiring some of the milking platform and planting it in cereals also changed little. Increasing pasture production to replace grain fed in the dairy by raising nitrogen fertiliser from 99kg/ha/year to 190kg/ha/year was the only scenario that increased profit.

“There is something in the sward, something in the soil where the plantain is growing, that changes the amount of nitrous oxide emitted.” However, it also increased nitrous oxide emissions by 17%. Duncan said the fastest and easiest way to cut greenhouse gasses (methane and nitrous oxide) on the farm was by reducing the stocking rate (currently at 3.1 cows/ha) and growing less grass to feed them but producing the same amount of milk. The farm has been chasing PW with its LIC breeding plan and he said they were starting to see the results of more efficient cows converting feed to milk which was lowering their figures. The farm’s N leaching loss (kg N/ha/year) was 9 with methane at 9.157, N2O at 2.326 and CO2 at 1.327. The purchased N surplus (nitrogen which is brought in as either imported feed or fertiliser less nitrogen that leaves the farm as either meat or milk) is 41. Farmers can find their greenhouse gas emissions on Overseer by clicking on ‘reports’ and then ‘GHG’. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Special report

i k a i t i Ka Becoming

Farmers stepping up to environmental guardianship 48 Protecting waterways for the future 51 Hemp a hero crop for farmers 54 Fonterra’s holistic sheep farming approach 58 Planting a cardboard future 62 Restoring the nohoanga - a place to sit 66 Ambassadors making changes 68 Focus on environmental and profitable farming for the future 70 People powered planting

Special report | Environment

Protecting waterways for the future

The Willcox family in Taranaki have spent the past 17 years fencing and planting their waterways. Jackie Harrigan paid them a visit to see firsthand the value of their time and investment.

he Willcox family of Rahotu in Taranaki have been fencing and planting their waterways for the past 17 years, but Rob Willcox can still remember the feelings he had when the new rules were laid out in the late 1990s. “I was reluctant to start with - no one wants to be told what to do on their own farm.” “It was a huge and overwhelming job to think about - all of the paddocks on our coastal Taranaki farm had a stream running through them.” The 158ha farm milking 450 cows

has been in the Willcox family for five generations with his daughter Tina Worthington currently managing the herd, supported by Rob on the development and Gwen in the calf shed, since Tina swapped out her chef’s career for farming 13 years ago. “I was vocal in my opposition (to fencing and planting),” admits Rob. “I was alarmed to think about how much land might be lost and worried about the logistics of fencing along the side of the numerous lahars in the paddocks where they are close to the stream.” It took a few years for Rob to get his

head around the whole job, but he readily admits he started seeing benefits of fencing off waterways as soon as he started to develop and plant the stream margins on the farm in 2004. “Because each paddock basically had a stream in it, we essentially had to refence the whole farm, which gave us the opportunity to plan all of the paddocks.” It helped that Rob is the ‘developer’ of the farming partnership - well equipped with his own digger and well-worn post rammer - and he says he took the chance to research what size the paddocks should be and basically carved the farm up into 25

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

“It was a huge overwhelming job to think about - all of the paddocks on our coastal Taranaki farm had a stream running through them.” Left: Fencing and planting a family legacy on their Rahotu dairy farm has had the happy side effect of making farm management much easier, safer and more enjoyable. Right: Gwen Willcox has propagated thousands of native plants for the riparian planting in ‘Nan’s Nursery’ and has plants waiting in pots all over her garden. Her workhorse yellow spade’s blade has now worn away to half of its original length. “It’s my favourite spade - I don’t want to do away with it - I want it made into a garden ornament when I am finished with it.”

new paddocks out of the old 36 paddocks using the streams as boundaries. The Pungarere stream and two smaller unnamed streams run off Mount Taranaki and down to the Okahu River before reaching the Tasman sea, and they were a constant source of frustration with cows getting stuck in them in the days before exclusion, says Gwen Willcox. Management of the cow herd is much improved now with cows not getting lost falling off lahars into streams or getting bogged at the stream margins and no more pugging of the margins means the stonybottomed creeks run clear all the way through the farm. NIWA have recently installed a temperature logger in one of the streams and surveyed invertebrate life - and were thrilled with the results. “They found heaps of life in our streams.” The health and safety aspect of fenced-off creeks is huge too, says Tina, as streams are only crossed now over culverts or bridges. “It’s much safer for everyone, for people and on motorbikes and the cows can’t get into the spots that they are not meant to be anymore.” She says that the whole family wants to work towards leaving the land better than when they took it on. The Willcox’s have five generations of heritage and ashes of former guardians of the land scattered on the ‘Big Hill’ with plaques commemorating their lives.

“The farm has improved out of sight since the streams have been excluded and now that the plantings have grown.” Proving shelter and shade for the cows has been a great bonus and even though they have retired land they haven’t dropped cow numbers or lost any production, Tina said. The bird life has made the farm a very pleasant place to be, with tuis, waxeyes and fantails abounding in the riparian plantings. “We have birdlife like tui’s here that we have never had before,” Rob said. Once Rob had planned the new paddocks, he spent time recontouring some of the margins so that a fence could be run along the streams - benching around the sides of lahars and taking the tops off hills with his digger. Fencing was next, driving posts and putting on electric wires. “It all depended on the angles - I just put the fence where it looked right - I started fencing as close to the stream as I could, and I have since shifted some fences back, and made corners bigger for more planting.” The margins were sprayed out to give the plantings the best chance to establish and then the family planting team took over with the riparian planting. “We did a section at a time - and followed the Taranaki Regional Council guidelines and farm planting plan,” said Gwen.

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“The Council has been very helpful and they supply plants at cost so each year we put in an order for at least 3000 plants.” In addition, Gwen has propagated at least 800 plants each year at her potting bench in her garden - fondly named Nan’s Nursery. Gwen and Tina are the chief planters and the two of them have spent countless hours planting the riparian strips over the past 15 years. These days they take Tina’s two children along as well as their cousins and friends. They aim to get it all done during the weekends in June when Tina’s children are home from boarding school and Queen’s Birthday weekend when there are a few cousins around. “We spend one day digging the holes and the next day we take the plants over and fire them in - and I mean literally chucking the plants over the fence to each other and seeing how many we can get in.” “We make it fun and once the holes are dug we can get really fast at filling them.” Gwen Willcox and her daughter Tina are both ‘mad-keen gardeners’ and the planting of riparian margins on their coastal Taranaki farm has been a labour of love. Gwen has been planting for the past 17 years and has worn her favourite yellowhandled spade down to half its original length. “The planting project has been my baby I have thoroughly enjoyed it.” She appreciates how Rob gets the area all

Planting list:

Flaxes, grasses, toitoi, griselinia, hebes, fuschias, kowhai, whiteywoods, karaka, pohutukawa, cabbage trees, ponga, pittosporum, lemonwood, rimu, coprosma, wineberry, lacebark and olearia.

Ake ake are the only natives taken off the planting list as they tend to split in the westerly winds.

Care is taken over the placement of the large flaxes, as after 20 years they have grown really big and tend to short out fences if they are too close.

Left: A newly established riparian stream planting alongside an established one.

ready to plant each year and then she and TIna and the grandchildren get stuck in and get each area planted. The riverbed fencing and planting are all completed and Rob says there is just one piece of wet land on the 157ha farm left to go - although the family have just purchased the farm next door so the planting will carry on for a few years yet. “It’s our family legacy, and when the areas are all planted we will still have to be filling in gaps - particularly along one stream which tends to flood and plants get removed by the floodwaters,” Gwen said. Not only does Gwen muck in to dig the holes and plant the four rows of plants along the margin - she spends the rest of

the year propagating plants and stashes them in pots all over her garden at home, ready for the planting season. “We call it Nan’s nursery,” Tina says, adding it’s a source of mirth for the family who laugh at Gwen’s propensity to be collecting seeds and plants for her nursery wherever she goes. “No plant or seedling is left behind Mum’s always carting along a plastic bag to pick up any wee seedling or seeds she sees.” She also has a couple of friends who collect seeds and seedlings for her and family and friends know big flaxes are always welcome at the Willcox’s when they are clearing out clumps in their gardens.

The digger is his friend: Rob specialises in development - handling the fencing, cultivation of crop and regrassing, and draining and recontouring and paddocks.

Gwen used to release the small trees from grass growth but over the years she has learnt that if she plants them thick enough they don’t lose many. “And we can fill in any gaps.” More is better as far as Gwen works with plants. “I never plant just one row - I believe that’s a waste of time - so we stagger three or four rows of plants away from the stream.” “We randomly mix them up but plant the tree species further back from the stream - we do love the trees.” “We have learnt lots as we have gone along.” Planting them thickly has also saved follow-up jobs - but the family have noticed blackberry starting to invade the margins so spraying that out will be a job for the future. Now that all the fencing is done Rob is busy shifting fences - making more room for native trees in bits of paddocks where grazing is not needed nor is best use of the land. “We will plant more of the bigger species in woodlots - karaka, totara, rimu and miro - I love that one because my mum’s name is Miro,” he added. He also has one wet piece of the farm left to develop and plans to drain and recontour one piece and create a wetland alongside, if he can get the council to agree. “They are in a bit of a holding pattern with the advent of the new National Environmental Standards for Freshwater rules - they can’t give me an answer.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Special report | HEMP

p m e H

a ‘hero’ crop for farmers Words and photos by: Karen Trebilcock

here is a sign on a Dunedin office door that says ‘Flemish Interpretive Dance Society’. But rather than a niche European cultural group, behind it is a possible solution to New Zealand farmers’ greenhouse gas problems.

For those in the know, the sign was an ongoing joke, Southern Medicinal executive director Greg Marshall said. Since 2017 he’s been heading a small team, currently six people, which aims to have up to 170 hectares of Southland dairy, sheep and beef farms planted in hemp this spring. The plants will be low in THC but

high in cannabidiol (CBD) and, most importantly for dairy farmers, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Greg wants the plants to be in riparian areas to soak up nitrates from grazed pasture, stopping them from entering waterways. With no fertiliser, pesticides or herbicides used to maintain the value of the harvested

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With no fertiliser, pesticides or herbicides used to maintain the value of the harvested cannabidiols, the hemp will continually absorb carbon through the growing season. Left: Southern Medicinal executive director Greg Marshall by the door that has become an ongoing joke. The sign reads ‘Flemish Interpretive Dance Society.’

cannabidiols, the hemp will continually absorb carbon through the growing season. Although it is harvested in autumn, cut off at ground level by hand, companion plantings used to control insect pests will remain growing in the riparian areas during winter making sure the area is not left bare and prone to soil erosion. And although Greg would prefer for cattle not to reach over the fence to eat it, if they do it wouldn’t be all bad. Studies in North America show ruminants grazing on hemp produce up to 25% less methane. “Cattle have been eating hemp for centuries,” he said. “Oregon State University has done a lot of research on hemp as an animal feed. Animals are healthier and happier on diets which include hemp.”

Hemp unavailable as animal feed However, it is still illegal to feed it to animals in NZ. “We’re lobbying for that to change. Imagine promoting a fillet mignon in a restaurant from an animal grazed on hemp. “The plant comes from Nepal and Tibet and has been a significant commodity in the world for thousands of years for things like rope, animal feed and medicine. “It’s a natural product with many health benefits, but big pharma has been stopping its use.” Greg, who has a background in computer science and financial markets in NZ and the United States, became interested in hemp when he read a book in 2015 about the human endocannabinoid system (ECS).

ECS is a complex cell-signalling system identified in the early 1990s which plays a role in regulating a range of functions and processes in mammals including pain, sleep, mood, appetite, memory, reproduction and fertility. Endocannabinoids are molecules produced naturally in the body and are similar to the cannabinoids found in hemp. “We’re entering a brave new world.” Southern Medicinal already has about 20 Southland farmers on board and funding from farmers as well as Dunedin investors. Since news broke of the programme last month, interest has been coming in strong. The city’s independent agribusiness company AbacusBio has helped with research and contacts. “We’ve found a lot of growers through word of mouth as well and Great South has also reached out to us,” Greg said. The former Mataura Paper Mill, in the news recently for storing ouvea premix from the Tiwai aluminium smelter, has been converted into a 400 square metre propagating nursery. It will provide the plants in spring and, in autumn, a hemp mill on the site will process the harvested plants from farms. The paper mill, which closed in 2000, was chosen as it was central to Southland farming, had enough floor space to expand operations and had its own on-site hydropower plant. Plans are to extend the nursery to 2000 square metres, and process hemp grown on 500 hectares.

The company’s business model is based on 150 farmers growing from 2ha to 5ha each. “The plants will grow a metre apart and the special thing about Southland, with its long sunshine hours, is that we can plant them right up until Christmas. “The plants will only grow about a metre to a metre and a half high and will be bushy.” Greg said as cannabis plants were taller, illegal growers would not be able to hide their crops amongst the hemp. He estimated farmers would yield 500kg per ha with prices starting at $100 per kg. Hemp seed nets farmers about $5000/ha. “We’re using quality genetics. We want to grow the very best plants. “Southland also has some unique growing conditions, such as high levels of UV light, which stresses the plants differently so they produce what we want.” He said the company could purchase land and grow hemp as a commercial product but their intention was not only to produce and develop medicinal CBD products but also to provide farmers with alternative revenue streams and reduce nitrogen and carbon emissions on farms. “We can see the issues Southland dairy farmers are facing with the upcoming regulations and we want to be part of the solution for them.” We would like to work with Fonterra and Beef + Lamb NZ but so far the timing has not been right for them. “However, we will continue to look for ways to engage.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Special report | environment

farming approach Fonterra’s holistic sheep

The dairy co-operative giant is one of the larger sheep farmers in Southland. Karen Trebilcock paid their Edendale site a visit.

airy co-operative Fonterra is one of the larger sheep farmers in Southland. It’s a fact that amuses farmers at open days but it’s good for the company and good for the environment. Fonterra owns 1100ha all within 5kms of its Edendale plant, used to irrigate wastewater from the factory under a variety of consents issued by Environment Southland up to 2032. From late October until the end of March, grass is cut on the farms and supplied to about 25 Fonterra farmers nearby as either silage or balage. After that about 12,000 store lambs arrive, on grazing contracts from Alliance Group, and as they come up to weight and leave by the end of May they’re replaced with between 5000 and 6000 hoggets from local sheep farmers which are grazed through the winter. The sheep are not put behind wires,

instead given whole paddocks and their light tread on the soils is what is needed to keep the grass under check until conditions allow tractors back on in late spring. “Southland soils can at times be quite wet,” Fonterra’s South Island regional farm operations manager Steve Veix said. “So we have to be careful to avoid soil compaction and damage to pastures to minimise leaching.” But the farms also have some of the best soils in the country for growing grass. Usually about 12 million tonnes of dry matter each year goes off as grass – 1 million tonnes as balage and the rest straight into nearby dairy farms’ silage pits. That’s 11t DM/ha/year plus fat lambs and hoggets grown using wastewater. Local contractors do the harvesting work and there is a waiting list of farmers wanting cut and carry grass. Described as “ghost farms” because of

their lack of stock in a February 2021 RNZ article, later published on the Stuff online news site, Steve said these farms are far from it. “They’re working farms and they’re farmed holistically. “In fact it’s a symbiotic relationship. The grass we grow goes to the cows which make the milk which goes to the factory where the water goes back to grow the grass.” It’s a story repeated throughout the country at a number of the Fonterra nutrient management farms and Edendale is a strong performer. “We’re producing some of the larger volumes per hectare of grass here across the Fonterra-owned farms.”

In the public eye All of it is in the public eye. The recently completed diversion of State Highway One around the township of Edendale cuts through one of the farms and others border the state highway and nearby main roads.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

The wastewater comes from cleaning the plant and contains the remains of milk residue and cleaning agents. Water testing calculated at Edendale 251kg N/ha went on for the seasonending 2019 in the water, 258kg N/ha in the season-ending last year and this year looks like it will be similar. It’s above the 190kg of N/ha/year of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser allowed under the government’s new freshwater rules effective from 1 July but Steve said soil tests on the farms show nitrogen is lacking. “It’s because we’re taking so much grass off the farm every year. “We do have to put some fertiliser on but it’s mostly potassium.” Ballance’s Sustain 25 is used which contains potassium and SustainN – a product that halves the amount of

nitrogen lost as ammonia compared with urea. While it’s Steve’s job to look after the farms, Fonterra’s Edendale environmental manager Malcolm Peacey heads the irrigation staff. He said in recent years cleaning processes have been refined and the irrigated water contains less nitrogen and phosphorus than ever before. “It makes sense. We don’t want to lose a lot of milk when we’re cleaning. “We’re a bit like a dairy. We have a lot of stainless steel and we’re producing a food product so we have alkaline and acid washes. We’re just on a much bigger scale.” How much water is irrigated on varies from year to year depending on rainfall but it’s somewhere between 1.5 and 2 billion litres.

Left: Some of the 12,000 lambs on the farms in April. Sheep are run instead of cattle because they don’t damage the wet Southland soil. Right: Contractors plant a riparian area in natives at Fonterra Water Management, Edendale.

Why do we claim we’re the most sustainable dairy producers in the world? Because we are A litre of our milk shipped to Ireland would still have a lower emissions profile than milk produced over there. Yep, we’ve taken on the challenge of sustainability, and we’re winning. Why? Because we’re dairy farmers, and we rise to a challenge. And it’s in these moments we shine.

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It goes through the wastewater plant built in 1996 and is irrigated through four centre pivots which cover about a third of the 900ha under irrigation and the rest is done with in-ground sprinklers. Soil moisture is determined using handheld soil probes and soon to be added are remote Wildeye sensors. “We’ll still use the hand-held probes. With Wildeye (monitoring) as well it will be the best of both worlds,” Malcolm said. When the land is too wet to irrigate, and has no water holding capacity, the treated wastewater goes into a 100 million litre capacity pond or, and if the conditions are right, into the nearby Mataura River.

Water testing Lysimeters placed strategically on the farms suck up water for testing. “We have had some nitrogen hot spots, especially in some areas depending on what was farmed there previously, that we watch closely,” Malcolm said. “There is a time lag of nitrogen filtering through the soils but over time we are slowly seeing improvements.” Bore water testing upstream, on the farms and downstream every three months show nitrogen levels at about 10 to 12m down between 1.4 milligrams per litre (mg/L) and 8.4mg/L. World Health Organisation advises 11.3mg/L and below is safe for drinking. “The groundwater nitrogen levels we are finding here is pretty much what we see throughout the South Island,” Steve said. “And it’s not just us influencing it. We’ve got dairy farms around us, sheep, potatoes, even tulips.” Also, as part of the consent obligations with Environment Southland, water in the Mataura River is tested every week upstream and downstream for pH, dissolved oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous levels. Every three years a full river check is done looking at the river sediment and checking the invertebrates and other life in the world-renowned brown trout fishery. As the Edendale site has added more dryers, more land has been bought for irrigation with the last block in 2018. Houses and dairies are removed and fencing for cows changed to fencing for sheep and sheep yards built.

Fonterra’s South Island regional farm operations manager Steve Veix (left) and Edendale environmental manager Malcolm Peacey with wastewater from the Fonterra Edendale plant irrigated behind them using in-ground sprinklers.

“With the sheep in the winter we don’t push them. We spread them out as much as possible so they don’t damage the soils.” The sheep come shorn and vaccinated and are fed only on grass. Balage is on hand if it snows. Although no crops are grown at Edendale (hemp and miscanthus are grown at Darfield), there is an active regrassing programme with about 230ha renewed in the last couple of years. “Because we are cut and carry, we do have a problem with grass grub so we’ve resown with cultivars which are more resistant to porina and grass grub and it seems to be working,” Steve said. “With the sheep in the winter we don’t push them. We spread them out as much as possible so they don’t damage the soils. “That’s why we have sheep and not cattle. It’s all about protecting the vulnerability of the soils.” There are three farm staff looking after the sheep and in the summer they catch up on farm maintenance. Looking after the irrigation is three staff

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

on, three off on the four-day roster. With much of the land farmed for over 100 years, large macrocarpa trees are becoming a problem. “People will see some of them going soon. They are a safety issue, a lot of them are top-heavy,” Steve said. “But we will be replacing them with other trees. On the Edendale farms we’re putting in about 10,000 plants, mostly natives. “Where there are willows and poplars we’ve added more of those but we’ve fenced off a lot of riparian areas and planted natives there and we’ve got an ongoing programme with contractors to look after them. “We’ve got the Ota Creek and Oteramika Stream and a lot of wetlands that drain eventually into the Mataura River so protecting those by planting the banks is really exciting,” Malcolm said. “We’re really looking forward to seeing those plants grow.”

Special report | TREE ESTABLISHMENT

Planting a

cardboard future Rob and Jan Fry manufacture and sell cardboard plant protectors for use outdoors. Anne Hardie spoke with them about the popularity of this alternative to plastic.

ardboard plant protectors were a new concept when Rob and Jan Fry began marketing them a few years ago, but today they are selling half a million a year as people veer away from plastic in the environment. Sales of their protector, Emguard, which they designed and have manufactured in New Zealand, has been in a huge growth mode for the past three years and they hope to crack one million sales next year. Competition has also sprouted to fulfil the growing demand as the country cranks up planting. Part of that massive planting is due to Government funding into restoration work, with a large workforce created during Covid-19 to use that money. But they’ve also seen the shift on dairy farms from plastic to cardboard and they have supplied tens of thousands of protectors for dairy farm projects in Canterbury and Southland. Despite being cardboard, Rob says the protectors last two years in most conditions and that’s enough to get the plant established before the cardboard

decomposes naturally into the soil. The couple are conservation contractors, so are in the everyday business of planting riparian waterways, wetlands and hillsides around Nelson where they base their business, FuturEcology. They want a protector that is simple, robust and quick to put around the plant and they designed Emguard protectors with that in mind. Or rather their daughter, Emma, created the design as a 15-year-old for a school project because she couldn’t fathom why plastic was used in the environment. With the right plants in the right place, Rob says the plant protectors make a massive difference to the establishment of the plant. Plants need maintenance as they get established though and he says one of the problems for dairy farmers is that they plant in winter and when the surrounding weed growth needs to be sprayed in September-October, the farmers are too busy. That first year of maintenance is critical for the plant though and he says

spraying is the key to success. Having the cardboard protector makes it quicker and easier to spray and weed-eat around them and with both of those maintenance practices, it is very easy to lose plants when you get it wrong.

Using glyphosate They use glyphosate because at this stage there is no alternative to do the job as effectively while considering the environment. “If it is banned here we’ll be forced to use other herbicides that are not only dangerous to our health, but also to the environment. Some others have an 80-day half-life where half of it is still present after 80 days. Whereas glyphosate has a half-life of just a few days. We’ve tried spraying organically, but you don’t get the same establishment.” They stress the importance of not spraying around all plant species once they grow beyond the plant guard. Any monocotyledon such as carex, toe toe and

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

DAIRY & CALF

SHELTERS FF O NDEDS A ST SH

NG I ER DS T IN E W SH A two-year-old kanuka tree in its cardboard protector.

flax should not be sprayed around once the leaves are visible above the guard. “They’re planted, guarded and before that plant comes up out of the guard, it can be sprayed around, but the moment that plants come up over the cover, you don’t spray. What we see now is a good establishment of carex where they’ve joined up and weeds are suppressed.” Jan says those species such as carex and toetoe which are ideal close to waterways, seem to love the microclimate created within a plant guard. In Canterbury, the guards protect the plant from the nor’westers. They also protect against pests such as rabbits and pukeko which can both do serious damage to plantings. “If you have a real population of rabbits,” Rob says, “they can get over the top of the guards, but the plants will eventually outgrow them. Pukekos can pull hundreds of plants out and you can try and replant them, but the plants are compromised and too damaged. A lot of our plantings are wetlands and that’s where

you have a lot of pukekos.” They usually don’t use matting or similar to suppress weeds and rely on spray to keep on top of weeds for that initial growth period. As long as the site has been prepared before planting by spraying out vegetation, Rob says there generally isn’t a need for matting. It all depends on the site including previous land use, aspect, location, soil type and the plants themselves. Where they do use matting, they choose individual wool mats from Terra Lana because it is a natural product. In a dry region like Canterbury, weed matting is used to conserve moisture. The other factor for success and probably the most important factor, he says, is choosing the right plant for the right site. “You get the right plant in the right place and you have more chance of those plants growing well,” Jan says. “Every site is different and on those drier aspects you plant plants that naturally grow on those dry banks.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Top left: Jan and Rob Fry in a planted wetland area where they say a community of interest can help with ongoing weed control. Below: Rob and Jan look at the growth of a twoyear-old kanuka still in its Emguard protector.

Time the planting right Ideally, plants should be planted once there is enough moisture in the soil in autumn and while there is enough warmth to establish its roots in the soil. Planting in wetlands should follow the same rule. Rob says that plants planted later, say September, will often just sit there because the ground goes dry before they can get established. “I really believe stress can affect a plant for life,” he says. “People ask how many plants they should allow for failures. But actually in our experience our failure rate

is only a couple of percent and that’s what it should be. You shouldn’t have 5-10%. It’s about getting the right plant in the right place. Everyone should be aiming at 97-98% success or something is going wrong with your aftercare and that’s often (due to) spraying or the weed eater. With plastic, you end up with plastic everywhere if you get them with the weed eater. The Emguards have been fantastic for avoiding that.” When floods take out the plant guards, cardboard just breaks down in the environment rather than sending plastic into the waterways, he adds. Areas that

flood are where choosing the right plants such as carex secta and toetoe is important as they will bounce back once the water has resided. “We’re not trying to plant a forest, we’re trying to protect the waterways. You plant small plants like carex right on the edge because that is what will grow. They will bend down in a flood, filter sediment and runoff and provide habitat for invertebrates and they become a food source for native fish. It’s a tremendously important habitat and plantings need to be those small things.” Flaxes are useful, but in the right place because he says they should not be impeding the flow of water. In wetlands and riparian plantings, he says weed control is the big challenge going forward and he says some of those areas need to be community projects. “I fear we’re going to go off the rails with our riparian plantings and wetlands. We’re good at fencing them off, but what happens to them then? They can become a conduit for weeds and whose problem does that become? As a community with interest in our waterways, there should be a community of interest in helping provide those solutions.” Jan says once those weeds are established, they spread everywhere once there is a seed source. Old man’s beard is a particularly difficult weed to control. One solution Rob says is worth considering is tourist conservation holidays, where tourists pay to learn about conservation and work alongside Kiwis on their land. That’s a possibility once tourism picks up again post-Covid-19, he says.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Special report | RESTORATION

Restoring the nohoanga - a place to sit

As a tribute to his late friend and master carver Vince Leonard, John Faulkner has plans to plant natives trees and shrubs around the Amuri Basin in Canterbury. Anne Lee reports on Faulkner’s vision to make the land look similar to that encountered by Maori settlers.

ohn Faulkner has a vision – a vision that would see pockets of native trees and shrubs planted out around the Amuri basin creating corridors for birdlife and re-creating some of the traditional food gathering and resting sites early Maori would have frequented. It’s a big, ambitious vision that will depend on others getting on board but John says that by numerous land owners getting involved a little could go a long, long way. He has started on his 47ha support block that borders the Waiau Uwha River just north of Culverden and has already planted about 3500 native trees and shrubs on a wide, riparian strip that includes about 2.5ha. His first plantings started on the 154ha dairy farm just along the road, fencing off a riparian area restoring it with natives but it was during his time on the Hurunui/ Waiau Zone Committee that this broader idea for the area had its genesis. Through multiple discussions with Ngāi Tahu Rūnunga representatives he began to understand how early Māori had lived in

the area, how they’d come at certain times of the year to collect seasonal plants and to fish from the rivers and wetlands. He learned that they’d camp at specific sites in areas known as nohoanga – literally translated as a place to sit. He also learned how important those food gathering expeditions were, the deeper meaning of mahinga kai and how it extends well beyond the fundamentals of fuelling the body to manaakitanga, showing true hospitality, caring and community. John says he was also deeply affected by the sudden death of his friend and tohunga whakairo, master carver, Vince Leonard. “After Vince died I just felt strongly that I needed to get on with the idea of restoring these native plant areas – it’s a way of honouring him and Māori, it’s a kind of koha.”

Looking back, and forward But it’s not just for the past, it’s about looking forward too, for the future generations.

John put countless hours into Canterbury’s collaborative process for environmental management as a member and chair of the Hurunui/Waiau Zone Committee. It achieved a lot but it was a bruising and exhausting process and the committee is now in hiatus. While he believes the collaborative process can work, he says those at the higher levels of organisations can stifle and hinder progress with entrenched views and dogma. “I just want to get on with it. We know what we have to do. “I think there are hundreds of me out there – farmers and people who just want to do stuff. “They might belong to groups like Fish and Game or Forest and Bird but they’re not interested in politics and advocacy –

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Farm Facts Farm name: Lockerbie Farms Location: Mouse Point, Amuri Basin Area: 154ha effective Cows: 540 Holstein Friesian Production: 560kg MS/cow Supplement: 817kg DM/cow Farm working expenses: $3.48/kg MS (excluding contract milker payment) Purchased N surplus: 130kg/ha Enteric methane: 12.4t CO2 equivalent

Left: Restoring the banks of the Waiau Uwha River is part of a bigger vision for John Faulkner.

they just want to get involved and do stuff – to make it happen. “And that’s where I think we make the most progress – people just getting on with it together in a community.” “Landowners are doing the heavy lifting in New Zealand – we’re doing it in the economy, we’re doing it in the biodiversity space, we’ll do it for greenhouse gas emissions too but we have to be given the capacity and space to do it.” John’s first plantings on the support block’s riparian area were to recreate a nohoanga. He had some help in drawing up a plan for the area but had “boxed on” using his own money to plant about 100 totara and 600 other plants. John is on the governance committee

of the Hurunui District Landcare Group (HDLG) – a group that includes about 140 farmers. Through funding from the One Billion Trees Project, the HDLG has set up a catchment planting programme that will cover about 65ha of native plantings and 15ha of riparian planting. John’s 2.5ha riparian strip was included and $50,000 was allocated to the restoration with another $25,000 of inkind contribution coming from John. His in-kind contribution has included on-going clearing of blackberry, gorse and broom and maintenance of the area, employing people to help, his time, irrigation and plant purchases. Native plant and restoration project specialist Sue McGaw has come onboard

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

thanks to the funding. “Having Sue involved has been a huge turning point because she has the knowledge and expertise to plan out and oversee the plantings and know what’s going to grow well where.” The aim is for John’s 2.5ha to act as the catalyst and example for other landowners along the 18km from the Twin Bridges to Waiau township to become part of a greater Waiau Uwha River riparian restoration project with HDLG facilitating the funding. Sue’s very positive that John’s example will bring others into the larger project. On his site she’s been creating specific biodiversity planting nodes with the aim to have Mahinga Kai and biodiversity at the heart of the plan.

Left: John Faulkner and Sue McGaw – mahinga kai is at the heart of John’s restoration project. Below: Ozothamnus leptophyllus, golden cottonwood

Above: Hundreds of totara have been planted in the first sections of the restoration project.

Establishing plant communities In nature plants have communities so the planting nodes have groups of one plant species such as local kowhai or kanuka with a range of other species planted with them. It creates areas of interest and draws people along and it gives birds and animals such as skinks and lizards a smorgasbord of food and habitats, Sue says. Planning is all important and taking the time to observe what grows in the district can add to what should be an extensive and varied list of plants to be included in a restoration project. “You can’t get biodiversity without diversity,” she says. “Go for a walk along the river bank or up a gully, open your eyes.” She’s identified more than 43 species locally that will grow on John’s riparian block and has even gone to the trouble of having plants she’s found on her exploratory walks in the area formally identified by experts at the Allan Herbarium at Landcare Research in Lincoln. She’s then worked with Goughs Nursery

to have them propagated from the locally sourced plant material so they can be planted into the project – plants such as the Hebe Veronica traversii and Melicytus crassifolius. Check out our website for more plants in Sue’s extensive plant list for this site. Sue is also running her own study on a dryland plot on the support block. She’s selected five species and has planted 30 of each species randomly in the area where they haven’t received any irrigation or pest protection. Of the 150 individual plants only five have failed over what has been a long hot, dry summer. The dry area plants used in the experiment are Sophora prostrata, Coprosma propinqua, Corokia cotoneaster, Melicytus alpinus and Meuhlenbeckia axillaris. “I think most farmers would have a 150250 square metre area on their farm they could fence off and plant species like these. “It’s very doable to have pockets of plantings on farms all over a district that are within 4km of each other to create “bird hops” and we’ll see kereru and bellbirds and other native birds coming back into areas again.”

Step Change Investment into irrigation infrastructure, cutting nitrogen application rates and changes to the type of supplement used have all helped John Faulkner boost profitability while slashing his purchased nitrogen surplus but it hasn’t done much to cut methane emissions. The 540-cow, 154ha effective farm at Mouse Point, north of Culverden was one of several farms this autumn that opened their farms to their peers and their books for analysis as part of DairyNZ’s Step Change programme. It’s aiming to help farmers explore their options to decrease both nitrogen losses and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while holding or improving profitability. John’s 545 Holstein Friesian cows produce about 560kg milksolids (MS)/cow from about 817kg drymatter (DM)/cow of bought-in feed. Last season John applied close to 280kg/ha of nitrogen with cows consuming about 17.2t DM/ha. Irrigation upgrades in the 2018/19 season, that included four new pivots and 196 pole sprinklers to replace Rotorainers,

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Right: DairyNZ farm business specialist Robb Macbeth – farmers are proving it’s possible to cut nitrogen losses and boost profitability

have led to much improved pasture growth which allowed for 36ha of pasture renewal to be carried out in the following season. The upgrades are seeing an ongoing improvement in pasture growth and quality. Return rates for irrigation were previously out to 13-days but they’re now back to three days with the pivots with much smaller rates of water applied each time, helping keep water within the root zone and reducing leaching losses. This season John’s significantly dialled back the nitrogen from 280kg N/ha/year to close to 195kg N/ha/year by reducing the rates from 80kg N/ha/application to 70kg/ha in the first spring application in August followed by a 60kg N/ha application and a reduction to 50kg N/ha for each application after that. He’s also switched to a twice-weekly application. “We do get down to a 21-day round here with rapid pasture growth so if we’re always following the cows we’re missing out on maximising the uptake of N which is at about that 28-day point. “With twice-weekly, we’re putting more of what we’re applying on three or four days before the cows go into the paddock and with the pivots it’s usually irrigated in. ‘It means we’re getting closer to maximising the uptake and benefit of that N. “It’s always a balance between maintaining pasture quality and getting optimum pasture eaten by grazing at the 3-leaf stage and managing the nitrogen timing. “But our contract milker and his staff are very good at monitoring pasture and we’re seeing the benefits of that.” Feed inputs this season have remained at about the same as last season for his high performing Holstein Friesians but the inputs this season have had lower nitrogen content. Last season, the supplement included 137t of soybean meal which has an 8.8%N content and a high protein pellet and DDG. This season more PKE has been used instead at a 2.4% N content. “That’s dropped the nitrogen from the supplement from 127kg N/ha to 60kg N/ha,” DairyNZ farm business specialist Robb Macbeth says. “Together the lower nitrogen use and supplement changes have been largely responsible for a drop in purchased nitrogen surplus from 127kg N/ha to 60kg N/ha.” This year’s operating profit is expected to take a leap too thanks to a drop in fertiliser nitrogen costs, a drop in repairs and maintenance costs – which had been higher in the last few seasons due to deferred maintenance – less money spent on supplement and a drop in the cost of homegrown feed (crops and silage making). Farm working expenses have dropped from $4.18/kg MS last season (excluding contract milker payments) to a projected $3.40/kg MS this season. Unfortunately, GHG methane emissions have only improved slightly with the changes going from 12.6t CO2 equivalent/ha to 12.4t.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Sue M cGaw’s tips for success in restoration Research and plan well, include a long-term view and think about how biodiversity in the plants you use can support other species such as birds, insects, skinks and lizards – think about when they flower and fruit. If planting among existing trees make sure eye hazards from branches are cut out. Use plants that grow locally based on your research and observation and choose healthy plant material with good root systems. Use eco-sourced plants not cultivars (more suited to home gardens) and don’t use exotics or non-regional plant material. Understand what the plant needs and plant accordingly – sun loving plants in the sun and shade loving plants in the shade - and be aware of frost or salt spray sensitivity, how big the plant will get in height and spread, what other plants it naturally grows with. Use good planting techniques - Remove a lap-top sized piece of turf and plant into that area rather than spot spraying straight into grass and weeds. This will remove more weed seed sources, give the plant less competition and increase the time until spraying and maintenance around the plant is needed. Create a water reservoir with water in the hole before planting. Plants should be planted not too high or too deep in the hole and planted firmly in the ground to prevent oscillation and root stress. Use protection sleeves which have multiple benefits such as deterring rabbits, creating minimicro climates, wind protection and after-care identification. Aftercare understanding creates enthusiasm for maintenance so learn what the plants need and you’ll have a more successful and satisfying outcome.

Special report | AMBASSADORS

s r o d a s s a b m A making changes

Farmer and DairyNZ environment leader Andrew Booth is advocating for farmers to do better by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and controlling contaminants from water ways. Chris Neil attended a field day onfarm to find out more.

ndrew and Vicky Booth hosted a DairyNZ field day for farmers to explore options that will help them be ready to meet their obligations for greenhouse gas emissions. As a DairyNZ dairy environment leader and climate change ambassador, Andrew’s focus is broader than reducing and mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. He is also seeking sediment control and E. coli contaminant from water ways. The 210ha farm owned by Andrew’s parents Richard and Sharron has 174ha effective which includes 40ha leased. In their second season of 50:50 sharemilking they are heading to record production as a result of management changes that have significantly improved pasture and crops eaten and included a reduced stocking rate. DairyNZ focused the first session of the field day on the critical GHG issue they want farmers to understand. These are identified in the Climate Change Commission January 31 2021 draft advice and evidence reports which will be finalised and shared with the Government on May 31 this year. The report’s message is clear – to meet the targets set in the Climate Change Response Act, “Government must pick up the pace. Aotearoa will not meet its 2050 targets without strong and decisive action now to drive low emissions technologies and behaviour change across all sectors.” Climate change mitigation is the most

significant driver of change New Zealand farmers will face in the next decade. While addressing this need to control the cause of global warming, it is likely that farmers will also be coping with the consequences of climate changes such as increased frequency and severity of weather events. Because of its implications for every farmer, reading the source document seems a reasonable time investment – it can be found with a search for the Climate Change Commission Report. He Waka Eke Noa (HWEN) is the primary sector climate action partnership intent on reducing agriculture emissions and building the sector’s resilience to climate change. HWEN has developed guidance for all farmers and growers on ways to reduce GHG. These are available on the HWEN website. As clearly indicated by Fonterra and our trade ambassadors, the drivers behind these changes are more than New Zealand social / government demands. There are clear expectations of onfarm change by key customers such as Nestle, McDonalds, Starbucks and Danone who have promised carbon-neutral products to their customers. For these market influencers to deliver their promise, NZ suppliers / producers must make changes if they wish to continue as high-end suppliers. Between now and 2030 there are eight farming cycles which leaves no time for

Farm Facts

2019/20

Land Area: 210ha total/174ha eff Cows milked: 400 Milk production: 908kg MS/ha Milk production: 385g MS/cow Supplement grown: 320t DM N applied: 120 units BW/PW: 94/111 Calving date: 13 April PSC Purchased nitrogen surplus: 71kg N/ha Greenhouse gas emissions: 8624kg C02e/ha

procrastination and little time for trial and error. Andrew and Vicky Booth believe the onfarm change needed to reduce emissions must be happening now. They want to make their contribution while recognising that it needs all farmers to participate to achieve meaningful environmental improvement and protect our high-value markets. Their plan for climate change mitigation is focused on finding management changes that will both reduce GHG and farm working expenses to improve farm profitability.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Left: Farmer and DairyNZ environment leader Andrew Booth discussing the environment at a recent onfarm field day.

Measuring, monitoring and benchmarking

Key areas of focus are: Calving and days in milk Calving date has been moved from 1 July to 13 April. This better aligns feed demand with pasture production, contributing to an increase of 900kg DM/ha pasture and crop eaten, and a reduction in supplements by 800kg DM/ha. The combination of increased milk production and reduced costs are expected to significantly improve the 2020/21 operating profit.

Stock numbers Over the past four years as the calving date has moved, stock numbers have been reduced from 440 to 400 cows milked with a proportionate decrease in replacement heifers. Alongside this kgMS/ha and kgMS/ cow have steadily improved with improved cow nutrition and breeding. Selection of higher performing cows retained in the herd has also contributed to improving average cow performance.

Breeding selection Analysis of cow performance has brought focus onto individual cows. Targeting breeding worth and production worth cows below 80 are mated to beef sires. Sire

selection for fertility is also part of their plan to progressively increase the number of days in milk. In addition, Andrew and Vicky are breeding for A2 milk production as a long-term strategy to increase the value of milk they produce.

Pasture species Ryegrass persistence is proving to be an increasing issue with extended dry seasons. While chicory has been a useful contributor, Andrew is looking to build his permanent pastures around cocksfoot and fescue for greater persistence and increased pasture production. The area of maize grown annually has been expanded to 16ha targeting 320t DM of silage to increase the reliability of their homegrown feed supply and reduce the need for importing feed.

Applied N management The target for annual N application is 100 – 120 units per ha. Reducing the amount applied has required focus on timing of application. A combination of increasing round length and applying N after the cows and only when there is at least 10mm of rain are the key contributors to optimising pasture response to N applied and minimising the amount of N used.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Benchmarking is the key means for Andrew and Vicky to know the changes they make are achieving their goals of increased profitability with reduced emissions. DairyBase is providing the evidence they need and reporting it as profitability KPIs and environmental KPIs which provide evidence of progressive change within the business as well as comparison with like businesses. For Andrew and Vicky, it showed the reduction in purchased N from 131kg N/ ha in 2018/19 to 71kg N/ha in 2019/20, representing the reduction in N fertiliser, reduction in imported feed and increase in production. Their greenhouse gas emissions in 2019/20 were 8,624kg CO2e/ ha giving them a benchmark to monitor their progress toward 2030. As a Dairy Environment Leader, Andrew brings a similar approach to improving water quality by acting now on his own property and encouraging other farmers to participate as it takes a collective effort to make a meaningful difference. The combination of profitability, water quality and greenhouse gas emissions are the key elements of his business. A key decision for the Booth family has been the establishment of a 1.2ha wetland and the riparian planting of 5000 trees per year. With the farm adjoining the Mangakahia River which ultimately flows to the Kaipara Harbour, Andrew is passionate about controlling sediment and E.coli entering the river from their farm. The added bonus is the biodiversity emerging on the property making it a highly valued environment in which to operate their business and raise a family.

Special report | DAIRYNZ

l a t n e m n o r i v n e n o s u c Fo and profitable farming for the future

Words by: Melissa Slattery

ur recent Dairy Environment Leaders Forum in Wellington was a great opportunity for farmers to get together to discuss challenges and opportunities facing the sector. At the forum, our discussions emphasised the dairy sector’s strong commitment to playing our part, we also acknowledged that we are all in this together as a country. As a dairy farmer myself, it has sometimes felt like dairy farming is being singled out to respond to the big issues facing the country, particularly with climate change and water quality. Hearing from Rodd Carr, the Interim Climate Change Committee Chair, that we are only one part of the solution was encouraging. We all want the same things: clean water, low emissions and a strong economy. We need Government support and investment in research and development to support farmers to achieve positive environmental change. Dairy farmers are open to change but they also want confidence that what is being asked is fair and practical, and assurance that when they invest, the goalposts won’t shift. Also, as farmers, we know our environmental work needs to take place alongside running profitable and successful businesses, but there are actions we can all be doing, to do our part. On our farm, my husband Justin and I have a farm environment plan that we

“We all want the same things: clean water, low emissions and a strong economy.”

Dairy Environment Leaders chair Melissa Slattery.

review regularly. We are planting trees, have put in a new effluent system and added a water filtration system to prevent water waste. We follow best practice and measure outcomes, where we can. We are also a friend of Waiharakeke & Friends catchment care group. We are focused on making decisions now that will help New Zealand dairy remain the most sustainable in the world for the future. Our farm is only one example of the huge amount of environmental work taking place nationwide. Since starting my role as the chair of the Dairy Environment Leaders last year, it has been great to see first-hand more of the incredible work being carried out on farms

throughout our country. Wetlands are being built, many thousands of trees are being planted and catchment and community groups are working together to drive continuous improvement. Most farmers are committed to improving water quality and reducing their emissions. Work around the country is emphasising our commitment as a sector to play our part in the big challenges facing our country. Even the small changes we all make can make a big difference. I know that it can feel like a big challenge, but we have innovated in the past and we can innovate again for these challenges today. I am very optimistic and excited for the future of New Zealand dairy and our sector’s ongoing commitment to care for the environment. • Melissa Slattery is the Dairy Environment Leaders chair.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Special report | Whakapuawai PROGAMME

Left: The planting day became a family affair. Stacey and Mark Stewart with Mark’s parents Maree and David along with James, 3, Paige 10, and Olivia, 7.

planting

People powered

The Stewart family recently took part in a massive planting programme on their farm near Ashburton which was conducted in partnership with Synlait. Anne Lee pulled on her gumboots and headed along to find out more.

hree generations of the Stewart family were on hand in late April to take part in a major planting programme on their farm made possible by their milk company Synlait’s Whakapuāwai programme.

More than 8000 native trees, shrubs and grasses were planted along 2km of waterways in just three days thanks to the company, keen Synlait staff, ecological contractors Brailsfords – with their innovative planting methods - and of

course the family themselves. Whakapuāwai was launched last year and means to cause to blossom, flourish and thrive. It’s multi-pronged and includes the establishment of the company’s own nursery at its Dunsandel site, the development of a 15ha native landscape haven behind the site, planting programmes on suppliers’ properties and, in the longer-term, community restoration projects within the company’s milk collection area. Synlait supplies the plants and its staff, who receive a paid day each year to volunteer for planting and working outdoors in the programme. The Stewart’s farm at Green Street near Ashburton has been in the family for three generations. Currently farmed by Mark and Stacey Stewart and Mark’s brother TJ with help from their parents David and Maree, the farm was converted in 1982 by David and his father Rod. It’s one of the earlier conversions on the plains and came about after David suggested it could be an option when he returned to the farm in his twenties after working in the North Island on a family friend’s dairy farm. In its first year they milked 110 cows and lambed 800 ewes but by the next year they had sold the sheep and milked 150 Holstein Friesian cows. Now, the 200ha farm is home to 550 Holstein Friesians with a few Reds in the mix too. They calve twice-a-year and have a winter milk contract with Synlait. This year they’ll milk about 360 cows through the winter thanks to a 550-stall cubicle barn built about six years ago and aim to eventually winter milk about 70% of the herd and spring calve the rest. The farm has come a long way from the border-dyke sheep and cattle farm of its earlier years and the whole family is enthusiastic about the next stage of development that will see planting to enhance biodiversity, bring in the native

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

SeedlingSock system speeds up planting process

Above: Omar Mustafa is on Synlait’s graduate programme and currently working in the sustainability team with Synlait sustainability manager Laurence Nhan. Omar says the planting day has put action to the words.

birds and protect water quality. The South branch of the Ashburton River borders the farm and while the soils are variable, in some places the water table is just 50cm below the surface. Last season the family planted out a wetland area and this year the big project has been to plant out two snaking waterways that, although dry for short periods sometimes through the summer, carry significant flows for most of the year. The waterways have all been fenced off but the planting was going to be a significant investment in time and money. “That’s where this has been so amazing,” Stacey says. “Having all of these plants supplied and the people to come and plant them all so quickly – it’s actually been a fantastic experience to be involved with,” David says.

Whakapuawai programme eases planting costs Under the Whakapuāwai programme farmers’ only cost is in preparing the site, ensuring its fenced and cleared of broom, gorse or blackberry and other weeds.

The plants and labour to plant them is covered by the company. In a situation where Synlait staff are coming in to do the planting, Synlait’s contracted nursery and ecological landscape specialists come in and make a plan, work out how many plants will be needed and what species should go where. Rick Wisker from Millwood Nursery in Rakaia also runs the Synlait nursery and works with Brailsfords to plan and manage the planting programme on site. It’s Stephen Brailsford’s innovative planting system that includes a patented protective plant SeedlingSock, a digger-mounted, spot-cultivation tool to prepare each planting hole and a colour coded planting guide that has made for exceptionally efficient planting. It’s seen an increase in planting rates from eight plants per person per hour during last season’s Whakapuāwai planting to 25 plants/ person/hour this year. The spot cultivation for each plant site is done at the correct spacing and means the ground where each plant will go is easy to identify and easy to plant into – often only requiring a trowel. The planting area is then marked out using different colour spray

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Stephen Brailsford’s SeedlingSock is part of his innovative planting system that’s not only speeding up the process of getting plants in the ground, it’s making it easier on those doing the planting and importantly is resulting in improved survival rates. Steve’s no stranger to coming up with smart ideas – he was the original inventor of CombiGuard – the plastic sleeve with four bamboo stakes and a wool base that goes around plants to protect them from rabbits and other pests as well as wind and makes them easy to find and spray around. Unfortunately for him he didn’t patent the idea but not so with this new planting system which he has international patents for. Instead of having to put guards on after the plants go into the ground, Steve’s system involves taking the plants out of the root trainer and sliding the plants down into a guard, aptly named the SeedlingSock which has elongated straps, like stirrups at the bottom that go down and under the soil and roots that were in the root trainer. The plant sits down on the stirrups with the guard around the above ground part of the plant. He has developed a simple machine to make slipping the plants out of the root trainer and into the SeedlingSock quick and easy. Once in the sock the well-watered plants are placed into boxes and kept damp until planting out. The system means the plant and SeedlingSock can all be placed into the planting hole and planted in one go. A bamboo stake sits inside the guard to hold it all upright and offer the plant some support as it grows. The sock is perforated and as the plant grows it can bust it open so it doesn’t deform or inhibit the plant. It is made from plastic so after about two years, once the plant is well established it can be collected up and recycled. “We’re working on a biodegradable material that will last long enough to protect the plant and then break down naturally,” Steve says.

Above: 8000 plants planted along the Stewart’s waterway in just three days Left: Stephen Brailsford and son Rowan – innovation and planning making planting quick, easy and helps achieve a high success rate.

dyes which coordinate with the colours on plant boxes. “Here at the Stewart’s we’ve gone right along the water way and sprayed a different colour dot at various points up the bank and that tells the planters which type of plants to put there. “The pink dot area will be for plants in the boxes with a pink tag and they’re the plants we know are suited to dry conditions. “There’s a range of plants in each box – so in the pink boxes plants will include a range of coprosmas, kanuka and cabbage trees for instance, good for the drier areas. “The blue dot areas are the wet areas and that’s where we’ll plant Carex secta for instance because it will let the flood flows pass through it. “There’s no digging in the hard ground using this system or spending time thinking about what plant should go where and no one needs to come along putting the guards on.”

Connecting Synlait with the environment Synlait director sustainability and brand Hamish Reid says Whakapuāwai came about as a way to connect Synlait staff with the environmental challenges the industry faces, build a greater connection with the company’s farmer suppliers and

supply chain and make environmental improvements. “It gives our people a sense of contribution towards environmental challenges and helps our farmers with something they have a huge amount of enthusiasm for but not necessarily the time or resources,” Hamish says. The Dunsandel site nursery, which also boasts innovations such as automated potting equipment, will eventually be able to propagate more than 800,000 plants a year, Initially the company set a lofty goal to plant 4 million trees within 10 years. “I think that will be a bit of a stretch but we’ll plant 80,000 this financial year (between August 1 and July 31) and we’ll get close to our goals.” Synlait also offers its suppliers a click and collect option where farmers can order and pick up plants for free to then do their own planting. This year it’s given away 20,000 plants. “We’ve had a huge amount of enthusiasm from farmers. They let us know how many they want each year and then we try to allocate them as fairly as possible,” he says. Work will also get underway next financial year to build a walking track around the perimeter of the 15ha site planned for native planting and restoration. “We want to create an area where our

people can get out, have walking meetings rather than sitting in the office, a place they can connect with nature.” Whakapuāwai is a significant investment with money previously allocated to a range of community sponsorships now directed to it. “It’s where we think we can make the biggest contribution to the community,” Hamish says. Every year a proportion of company profit is budgeted for the programme so this year’s hit on profit due to Covid-19 related issues is likely to mean short-term scaling up the programme won’t be at the rate initially envisaged, he says. “But we see it as a very good return on investment – it’s building our culture with our staff, it’s supporting our farmers and community and it’s doing good for the environment.”

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

STOCK SEXED SEMEN

“We’re asking dairy farmers to consider the importance of their beef genetics just like they do with their dairy genetics.” Left: Black and white magic: Dairy Belgian Blue Friesian cross R1s from non-sexed beef semen.

Greg said the short gestation bulls estimated breeding values (EBVs) still had the same high growth rates as the other beef breeds offered. “The shorter gestation length does not affect the resulting calf’s ability to grow.”

BEEF SEXING TECHNOLOGY

Dairying up the beef semen industry Words and photos by: Karen Trebilcock

eef rearers will be all smiles about the changes a dairy genetics company is making. LIC for the first time will be offering male sexed beef semen this season but it won’t just be any beef. Short gestation Hereford and Angus, as well as Belgian Blue, Speckle Park, Hereford, Profit Maker® and Simmental straws will be available and all of the bulls have been chosen for their calving ease and their growth rates. “Just like we’re seeing with dairy, through the world of genomics we’re getting better choices of beef bulls,” LIC genetics business manager Greg Hamill said. 74

“We’ve picked them for ease of calving and for gestation length but also because these bulls have great feed efficiencies, converting feed into meat at a more efficient rate, so they will be sought after by rearers and finishers.” The Rissington Cattle Company of Napier has supplied the Short Gestation Angus bull, the Profit Maker® and the Simmentals. Other breeds are from Shrimpton’s Hill, Maungahina and their own polled Belgian Blue bull. The short gestation Hereford and Angus straws give both breeds the advantage of a beef calf as well as additional days in milk, allowing the cow more time to recover before the next mating season.

Although sexing technology has been around for some time, the farming of the beef bulls by LIC through partnerships with beef breeders has made male beef sexed semen possible. The straws will be frozen and processed during the winter to be ready for the spring breeding season. Orders from farmers will have to be in by August. “We’ve had farmers asking for sexed beef for some time but we’ll really see what the demand is for it this year.” The semen is sexed using Sexing Technologies in Hamilton and Greg said the machines were busy all year either processing fresh dairy straws in the breeding season or frozen straws for domestic and international supply during the rest of the year. “International demand is incredibly strong as overseas cows, with their generally lower fertility and fewer lactations and so therefore fewer calves, have less ability to replace themselves. “In New Zealand, cows have on average five and a half lactations which is why we have the ability to supply beef from less productive cows generating additional animals for the dairy beef market.”

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

PRODUCING THE BEST MILK, MEAT

Currently all beef processed by meat companies, including culled cows, is about 70% from dairy origin. Greg said this would probably increase as dairy farmers become more conscious of their own bobby calf footprint. “Besides the perceived animal welfare issues with bobby calves, farmers are also faced with reducing animal numbers for environmental reasons so we have to make sure every animal we produce is the very best at converting feed into either milk or meat.” LIC was advising farmers to use dairy semen over yearlings and high breeding worth (BW) cows in the herd to provide replacements and to use beef over the rest of their cows. Frozen sexed beef straws, because it has a lower conception rate, should be used on cows that farmers know are more fertile. “Our trial work three years ago showed frozen sexed straws were 13% less likely to get cows in calf compared to conventional straws, although farmers have told us they get better results than that. “So we want the frozen sexed beef straws

to be used on healthy, older cows which have already cycled at least once before mating starts.” Conception rates for fresh sexed semen are about the same as non-sexed but Sexing Technologies does not have the capacity to process fresh beef and dairy straws at the same time through the breeding season. Wagyu sexed straws would not be offered as the companies supplying contracts to dairy farmers wanted both male and female animals. Greg said LIC was working with Beef + Lamb NZ in the dairy beef progeny testing scheme and with industry-leading beef breeders to make sure the beef genetics sourced were the best they could be for shareholders. “We’re asking dairy farmers to consider the importance of their beef genetics just like they do with their dairy genetics. “This will give rearers the confidence to buy dairy beef calves and know they will be able to fatten them and get them off the property just as quickly as other beef animals.

Engineering a better cow: Dairy Speckle Park Friesian cross R2 heifers from nonsexed beef semen.

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STOCK VETS VOICE

Keeping teats healthy at dry off The cups have just come off, the teats are clean, right? Get the job done and let’s o you have worked hard all season. go home. It’s time to dry the cows off and Wait a moment – you have put in celebrate with a few days hours of effort getting to this point off. in the season, and you have You have your list of cows invested thousands of dollars in sorted out, you have cell count dry-off products, but you can’t records, you have done your be bothered to clean the teats dry cow consultation and have before administering it? the products ready to go. Now There are three situations to get the job done. in which I regularly see hygiene Lisa Whitfield being ignored when it comes to Having worked so hard to get to this point, you know you should mastitis management. clean the teats thoroughly before you dry Firstly, when administering products her off. However, you just want to get for drying off, secondly when taking milk the job done as quickly as you can, and samples for culture and finally, when you can’t be bothered with the hassle of administering mastitis treatments during cleaning the teats. lactation.

Words by: Lisa Whitfield

HYGIENE AND BACTERIA

In terms of the potential to permanently damage a cow’s lifetime production, or even result in her death, lack of hygiene at drying off is a really significant problem. Teats which have just had the cups taken off, are not magically free of infectious agents. A visually clean teat does not mean that there are no bacteria there. Unless you disinfect the teat end, bacteria will be present. Unless you take care with where you hold the teat and how you handle the tubes, bacteria can easily be reintroduced even following disinfection. In fact, if you take a swab of the end of the teat after cups off, you will grow a beautiful but nasty range of organisms, all of which can give a cow mastitis if you inoculate it into her udder using an intramammary tube.

MILK SAMPLES

When taking milk samples, large pottles usually mean you collect too much milk and risk contaminating the sample. In this image, each pottle at the front, is represented by the equivalent number of samples you could fit in it using smaller 5ml pottles.

Hygiene is also important when you are taking milk samples, however in this case you are wasting money if you do not put in the effort to do it correctly. If you take a milk sample but do not disinfect the teat, you will contaminate your sample with dirt and bacteria from the teat end.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Left: When you take a swab from the end of the teat after cups-off without disinfecting it, this is what can grow. Right: Lack of hygiene at drying off is a really significant problem, Lisa Whitfield says.

With milk sampling, you also must consider hygienic handling with the pottle and pottle lid – if the inside of either of these items become contaminated with bacteria, you ruin the milk sample and waste your money. Did you know that for a milk sample, you only need a tiny amount of milk? In fact, less than 0.5ml is a sufficient sample to culture from.

“In terms of the potential to permanently damage a cow’s lifetime production, or even result in her death, lack of hygiene at drying off is a really significant problem.” The pottle into which you take your milk sample should reflect the size of the sample you are taking – you do not need an 80ml pottle for a 0.5ml sample. Also, you do not need 80ml of milk for a milk culture. Ask for 5ml pottles and collect about 1cm of milk into it – less than one full strip of milk is all you need.

When you collect more milk than you need, you increase the risk of contaminating the sample – the less times you need to strip the teat the less chance of contamination falling into your pottle.

INTRAMAMMARY TUBES

Finally, intramammary tubes for mastitis treatment during lactation. It is a real hassle to have to get a wipe for the teat before you treat the cow with an intramammary mastitis treatment – when the pressure is on in the shed, it is the first thing that gets missed. I know this as I struggle with it myself. However, the risk is no different to drying off. If you have bad luck and introduce bacteria into the udder when you administer a tube, you might just kill the cow. The best way to make it easy for yourself is to keep a small pottle of methylated spirits-soaked cotton wool next to where you keep your mastitis tubes. That way, if it’s there and ready to go, there really are no excuses for not using them. • Lisa Whitfield is a Manawatu-based production animal veterinarian with Lisa Whitfield Farm Vet Services.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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STOCK SPRING ISSUES

Sorting selenium and spring energy Words by: Anne Hardie

hen the not-in-calf rate in the Bland’s herd soared last year, they looked for solutions in blood tests and nutritional advice to bring it down. The West Coast monitor farmers farm Mawheraiti, Reefton, and their empty rate had been creeping up for the past few years and reached 22%. They wondered whether the amount of rain at critical periods leading up and through mating for the past couple of years attributed to the higher levels and needed to find out what was going on. After blood testing 15 cows before mating last year and talking with neighbours, they found selenium deficiency was an issue. That’s despite minerals being given through the dosatron system to the herd. This year they put double the minerals into the dosatron through winter and gave the cows a copper injection, yet still had to give more selenium and a B12 injection just before calving and then mating to bring levels up higher. They are now looking at long-acting selenium injections before calving to try and keep levels up in the cows rather than experience massive swings. One farmer at the field day splits B12 and selenium into two doses that they give to the cows before and after calving which was a bit more expensive but worked for them. The Blands are now working with 78

West Coast monitor farmers Stu and Debbie Bland outlined the changes they have made to tackle high not-in-calf rates and lack of energy in their spring pastures.

MilkMap nutritionist, Cameron Burton, who along with their veterinarian gets the monitor farm information regularly so they can get all the data behind the herd and grass. Their goal is to maintain per-cow production while keeping a check on inputs on a per-cow basis which translates into getting the most efficiencies out of the cow. They have worked out F10 cows work best on their farm after breeding from the herd they bought back in 2008.

the maize silage is down by 3t/ha this year or a total of 20t, but they have the extra grass balage and silage to feed out. Last year they planted a crop of Triticale for extra winter feed but when it went woody the cows didn’t want to eat it, so this year they have planted rape on 2.5ha of gold tailings. They’re hoping it lasts longer than the Triticale and they will work with their nutritionist to look at how they best use that in the cows’ winter diet.

“How can we best use that and if we use palm kernel, what is the best way to get the most out of that? Another person seeing it with another set of eyes makes us think a bit more about what we do.” Empty rates in the cows hasn’t been their only problem in recent times. Through spring, some of Blands’ young, highproducing cows were struggling and they ended up losing a couple. That prompted them to test cows and pasture to discover there wasn’t enough energy in the pasture. Following that discovery, they bought in 45t of palm kernel to feed to the herd through mating. The upside of feeding palm kernel was they were able to make more balage. Stu says they will look at buying in palm kernel again next season, depending on the cow’s blood levels. Going into winter,

“How can we best use that and if we use palm kernel, what is the best way to get the most out of that? Another person seeing it with another set of eyes makes us think a bit more about what we do.” To date, the cows are on target for 470kg MS/cow this season and the empty rate has dropped to 12%. High empty rates in the past means they are rearing 25% of their heifer calves as replacements to provide options for building the herd up again. Replacement heifer calves are kept on the farm until three months old before being sent to a local grazier who returns them as in-calf R2s.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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“Now or never” for Young Farmers’ finalist

Riverton sharemilker Sam Hodsell is in the running for the Young Farmers’ grand final in Christchurch. Karen Trebilcock slipped on her redbands to find out why the competition is so important for Sam.

am Hodsell is going to have to find some time off work to study for the Young Farmers’ grand final in Christchurch at the start of July. With 600 cows to look after, the busy 28-year-old 50:50 Riverton sharemilker spent only the Friday beforehand swotting up for the Otago Southland final in early March. But winning that means he’s now heading for what he knows is a “now or never chance” of having a crack at the grand title. A member of the Thornbury Young Farmers Club since 2015, he’s entered the competition once before, coming third in the regional final in 2016. When at Southland Boys High School he was part of Teen Ag, the junior Young Farmers, but left the area to study a Bachelor of Agriculture at Lincoln University. While there, he picked up a DairyNZ scholarship in his second year and still takes part in scholarship activities when needed. Back home on the family farm after university, he realised he didn’t know many people around him. His family is from Northland and moved to Southland when he was eight, selling the family farm along the way. “Mum and Dad went 50:50 sharemilking in Southland, I think to see if they liked it down here, and then bought the farm we’re on now.” His older brother does the tractor driving and maintenance and his sister works in Invercargill but none of the extended family moved south.

The Thornbury Young Farmers Club member won the Otago Southland title and is heading to Christchurch for the grand final at the start of July.

Join the club “So I joined the club to meet people. We’ve got a really good crew of young people around here, all doing different things.” Club members come from as far away as Ohai and Drummond. They include sheep and beef, deer and dairy farmers as well as rural professionals including vets. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

“You’re getting tested on things you do every day and if you’re passionate about agriculture it all helps.” Left: Sam and Jenna in the crop paddock ready for wintering onfarm. Right: Sam Hodsell, his partner Jenna Hansen, and Scrub, the farm dog.

The chairman is James Fox who is an ANZ rural lender, based in Invercargill. “You meet lots of people in Young Farmers and through them there are lots of resources to tap into when you need to know something.” And it’s just not the Young Farmer contest Thornbury club members have in their sights. Runner up in this year’s Dairy Industry Trainee Awards was club member Cameron Smith of Dacre and Samuel Spencer of Otautau, another club member, was third. But it was the Southland Young Farmers competition where Sam first came second this year with the top four from it going through to the Otago Southland final. The Otago Southland event was going to be part of the Southland A&P Show at Donovan Park in Invercargill but when the show was cancelled because of Covid-19 Level 2 restrictions, it was decided to still continue with the contest. “It was weird, having no one watching. There were just 100 of us.” He had half an hour to complete each of the eight practical modules which included picking breeding rams, tractor driving, cooking eggs three different ways and identifying soil profiles. WorkSafe took them through a check of hazards in a dairy while a written exam and a buzzer quiz finished the day. “We’d been practicing the buzzer quiz at club meetings for months so I was okay with that although I was pretty quiet near the end of it. “The whole competition is a lot of fun and afterwards many of the judges sat us down and took us through what we should have done so you learn a lot too. “You’re getting tested on things you do every day and if you’re passionate about agriculture it all helps. “But the things you don’t know, it really opens your eyes to other farming practices.”

Farm ownership in sights This year he’s finishing his third year sharemilking for his parents with his partner Jenna Hansen who he met at Lincoln. “Dad had had enough of milking cows so I took over first as a manager and then as a contract milker.” Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

He bought his first stock, a mob of 100 sheep, when he was 12 and four years later bought 20 cows and leased them back to his father. Dabbling in the share market while at university and trading heifers out of the North Island built further equity. He also fitted in a year in Western Australia swathing canola. “I set some goals when I left uni. I like having financial targets.” Buying his first farm is firmly in his sights. He’s on target to reach 300,000kg MS this season for the first time on the 250ha family farm which is half sand hills and peat and half heavier soils. The windswept southern coast is in sight and although he would love to re-fence the farm into paddocks of even size, he knows taking out the shelter belts would be the worst thing to do. The cows are producing 500kg MS each on grass and about 300kg DM of silage and palm kernel. They’re wintered on, along with the young stock. His dad has 150 bulls on a run-off nearby as well. Sam is passionate about his breeding and picks bulls from both LIC and CRV Ambreed doing his own AI, with his father, for 12 weeks. No follow up bulls are used. “We’re really concentrating on breeding worth (BW) but also those traits that improve longevity such as fertility and health.” The crossbred herd has a BW of 160. Planned start of calving is August 5 and he tries to keep milking through until the end of May but it depends on the southern weather. At the end of April the cows went on 16 hour milking. “They get pretty tired at the end of the season. It’s a five kilometre walk to the furthest paddock and it just makes it easier on everyone.” His family will be travelling to Christchurch for the grand final plus his friends from Lincoln are promising to be there too. “It will be good to see everyone.” 81

RESEARCH WRAP FARMERS FORUM

Get used to disruption Changing times in dairying are here to stay, delegates at the DairyNZ Farmers Forum were told. Sheryl Haitana reports from the conference.

he dairy sector should talk to strangers to solve their issues around delivering a sustainable product to meet incoming environmental regulations. Nanotechnologist Dr Michelle Dickinson addressed the DairyNZ Farmers Forum at Hamilton in April and encouraged the industry to talk to scientists and tech experts outside their usual circle because that’s where they could find solutions. She said disruption is here to stay and businesses can’t get caught out by traditional linear thinking and just trying to improve on what has come before. Farmers are pre-wired to repeat and optimise what they produced in last year’s harvest. But things are going to come in and disrupt the sector and products and solutions will take the industry by surprise and take it to new places, she said. DairyNZ presented multiple research projects at the forum, from monitoring new methane inhibitor products to gene editing for breeding heat resistant cows. DairyNZ scientist Elena Minnee says the industry has solutions at hand to reduce methane emissions by 10%, but to achieve the 47% target reduction by 2050 there needs to be significant development in tools and practices onfarm. DairyNZ is working with other research organisations on solutions from the five key focus areas to address methane; farm systems, feed, genetics, vaccines and inhibitors. It is also working to oversee products coming to market to ensure they are safe and beneficial for farmers.

METHANE INHIBITORS

Methane inhibitor technologies are close to market, which could get rapid uptake and provide significant reductions 82

Dr Michelle Dickinson, Nanogirl, spoke at the DairyNZ Farmers Forum, telling farmers to get used to disruption in the sector.

in methane, particularly for overseas producers. Inhibitors are chemical compounds that are either naturally derived or synthetically made that suppress the activity of the bugs in the rumen that create methane.

Some claims say that inhibitors can reduce methane anywhere from 30 to 90% reduction in methane emissions per unit of feed eaten, in some cases without any reduction in productivity. But the actual effect and impact on emissions, the cow and the milk are yet to be determined. “The cynic in me thinks there are some catches and it’s our job to find out what they are,” Elana said. There is one catch they know of in that the methane inhibitors need to be present in the ruman constantly to have the most effect. DairyNZ’s role is to screen the products coming to market to see what will be the most effective and that they are safe and there is no antagonistic effect, she said. “It’s got to work without compromising production. There is a chance of snake oil companies getting into this market.” DairyNZ is engaging early to look at things like product residues, milk composition and to investigate if these inhibitors affect the nutritional values of dairy products.

DairyNZ scientist Elena Minnee says the industry has solutions at hand to reduce methane emissions by 10%, but to achieve the 47% target reduction by 2050 there needs to be significant development in tools and practices onfarm. Inhibitor options could be mixed into feed or a slow release capsule. The trick with a capsule is making it effective enough without being the size of a rocket, she said.

The inhibitors also have to be implementable onfarm and be auditable so that it can be recognised if farmers are using these products to reduce methane, she said.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

GENOMIC SELECTION applied and evaluated in a breeding context

F1 progeny herbage yield (g/plot)

80 70 60

+38% +21%

50 40 30 20 10 0

Base population Conventional breeding

Genomic selection

Left: Use of genomic selection has the potential to give larger increases in herbage yield compared with the base population and conventional breeding. Above: Using gene editing with genes from lighter Highland cattle can lead to offspring suffering less from heatstress, without compromising breeding worth.

PASTURE GENOMICS

In terms of pasture species, the future lays with using genomic selection, AgResearch team leader resilient agriculture Marty Faville said. An AgResearch and DairyNZ co-funded study on using DNA to predict trait values showed the potential to speed up the selection process and improve accuracy of selection, he said. For perennial ryegrass, to assess accuracy for yield, it normally takes two to four years of evaluation. With genomics, there is the ability to predict selection from a six week old seedling. “Genomics can increase that genetic gain by speeding things up and it enables us to improve accuracy of selection.” Genomic selection can be used for most of the Dairy Forage Index, including yield, nutritive value and some aspects of persistence. The study showed a 38% increase in herbage yield in ryegrass using genomic selection, ahead of the 21% improvement from a conventional breeding approach. “It’s highly promising and it has given seed companies a lot of encouragement to use this technology.” The benefits show that the genetic gain in herbage yield in ryegrass using the conventional breeding situation is 0.7%

DairyNZ scientist Elena Minnee

- at best. That could improve to 2% using genomics. An Abacus Bio study showed that the value of pasture to dairy today is $14 billion. “If genomic selection is implemented by 2026, by 2040, it could add another $0.4b to $1.3b of value.”

GENE EDITING

The topic of gene editing was also raised with a PhD student’s study on the

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

potential to breed lighter coloured cows to have more heat resistance. Swati Jivanji works at LIC and is a PhD student at Massey University. Her PhD looked at the genetics of coat colour in dairy cattle and how these traits influence animal welfare and the possibility of using gene editing to introduce animal welfare relevant traits. She looked at taking a PMEL gene from the light coloured Highland cattle and placing that into the DNA strand of a Holstein Friesian cow to reduce heat stress. Using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, they can unwind a cow’s DNA and cut and replace a piece of DNA with a more desirable trait. Swati studied the genome sequence of two AgResearch gene-edited calves which were born recently, and three non gene edited calves and found there were no undesirable effects from the gene editing. This gene editing would be able to breed a lighter coloured cow without any negative impact on Breeding Worth (BW) or compromising the animal. It would take many generations to improve BW if you breed a dairy cow to a Highland cow to get the light colour gene. “With gene editing you get it within a single generation at no cost to BW,” Swati said. 83

WELLBEING SAFETY CHECKING

Why do preflight cheeks on airplanes...but not on these farm vehicles?

A question of perception…. Harriet Bremner and Poppy.

Harriet Bremner asks why we do plenty of safety checks for planes but not other vehicles we use.

ack in December the old man sat me down and said “Right, are you going to do your license or not?”. He was referring to my pilot’s license, a quiet dream of mine that had been burbling away at me for years, while sitting in the right-hand seat beside the pilot. In my early 20’s, flying became a part of getting around places with James, and I vividly remember helping him study all those exams with hundreds of cue cards to learn. He was an excellent pilot, a natural, and I always felt extremely safe with him in charge of the lefthand seat. He encouraged dad to follow his dream of flying too and gave him a voucher for Christmas one year and as they say, the rest is history. Hours of flying chat over the phone combined with fly-ins and adventures, it was a pretty cool thing that they did together. Before every flight occurred, there was always the routine of pre-flight checks from the structure of the plane to fuel, oil and engine checks and more. We simply never got in the plane without these occurring. Part of the culture ingrained in flying is that you must always thoroughly check your plane before taking off – no one likes an engine failure at the best of times, let alone when you are 100ft off the ground after taking off. It is never questioned, the pre-flight checks. I have never heard a pilot complain or mock the fact that you have to do all of these things every single time that you fly because we know that flying comes with risk. So, we take the steps to ensure that everything is good to go before we turn the key. It is a behavior that is ingrained in 84

flying and you wouldn’t question these checks because it makes sense to do them, so you can stay safe. As important as the pre-flight checks are in flying there is another huge factor that results in most light aircraft accidents and that is human factors. Human factors is a subject that focuses on the aspects of being human, such as our ability to process information, make decisions, communicate and adapt to situations, that either help or hinder people from performing their jobs safely. While I was studying for this particular exam, it was mind blowing to think how relevant human factors are to farming, with the decisions we have to make and the gear that has to be driven while on a range of terrain, coupled with the everyday stresses of life. I have learnt very quickly that if there is something happening that is causing me extra stress or anxiety that it affects my flying. Things that are going on in our lives have huge impacts and every week my instructor chats to me about what has been going on in my life to ensure that I am ‘fit to fly’ on that particular day. It could be that you are stressed because of things happening at work or someone nearly drove into you causing an accident on the way to your lesson or you are simply tired and strung out, in need of a week of good sleep and some down time. People talk about this stuff all the time in flying, the external effects from life and how it impacts your ability to perform to the best of your ability. The plane can be in tip top shape but if your mind is not then you are putting yourself at risk. Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

APPLYING FLIGHT SAFETY TO FARMING

So, why a plane and not a motorbike, truck, side by side or tractor? Is this a question about perception? We perceive flying to be dangerous, so yes of course it makes sense to do pre-flight checks and be on your game mentally before you take off but why do we perceive the things we do onfarm as being any less dangerous? Is the end result of a bad or marginal decision not the same regardless of what we are driving/flying? I know that people will say, ‘but the plane is leaving the ground, making it more dangerous’. I will then argue that because of the behaviors built into the flying community, you ensure that you are making the best decision before you fly whereas with farming, ‘it just has to be done’ so you jump in the truck and hoon off, not thinking about the fact that there has been an inch of rain and that clay track could prove lethal on this particular day. I have heard many a conversation when pilots share their experiences when it comes to the conditions and they made a decision to stay put and not fly on that particular day or they drive instead. We need to ensure that we are picking the right vehicle for the job, even if it means walking. When was the last time that you checked the structural integrity of your vehicles onfarm? Are they up to date with their services and warrants? Do the brakes work properly? Have you checked in on your staff and asked them if they are ok? The current mental state of staff could well be the nail in the coffin if they aren’t fit for driving on the side of that hill today. These conversations and checks are so important and could be lifesaving for someone that you care about. Give them the chance to be honest with you, these are the life-saving conversations we need to be having with each other every single day. You wouldn’t let someone fly a plane if they were mentally not in the right headspace, nor would you get in the plane if a seatbelt was broken or the pilot had been drinking… so I ask; why do we believe it is OK to do these things when it comes to other vehicles? We put things, like seatbelts, in place to protect us should the worst-case scenario occur, not because we expect or want it to. A decision like popping your helmet on can be the difference between you being here next week or not but also, deciding you need some help, downtime, sleep or a holiday so you can make better, safer decisions, is also lifesaving. So, when you are out on the farm and about to start a high-risk job; stop, think and ask yourself… am I fit to farm?

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Flying

VS Farming:

Midday to mid-afternoon is most common for accidents and on Friday or Saturday where fatigue at the end of the day and week is believed to be a contributing factor.

Farmers are 20 times more likely to be killed or maimed at work than people in other sectors.

Data showed risk of being involved in an accident increased with age – most high risk between 55-64 years of age.

25% of all deaths on farms are people in their 60’s. Nearly 90% of those are due to vehicles.

The more up-to-date a pilot is, the less likely they are to have an accident.

Despite the increase in experience that comes with age, farmers aged in their 60s and over the age of 70 die in the highest numbers onfarm. This is at odds with the perception that with more experience comes better risk assessment and improved health and safety.

Determined that flying accidents are linked to inappropriate decisions and control inputs.

It has been proven that we make different decisions at 3pm than we do at 8am. Fatigue is a factor among many farm accidents.

Competency and currency were identified as key safety indicators.

Quad bike or tractor: by the time a farmer is reaching the age of 60 or 70+ his experience on the machine and potentially the land should be at its peak. Yet they still find themselves suffering the highest amount of fatal harm at this stage in their careers.

Agricultural and private pilots most likely to have a fatal crash or an accident.

Vehicles are the main cause of deaths on farms; four wheelers being number one, followed by tractors.

As we can see, decision making is a key contributing factor to both farming and flying alike.Just because someone has experience under their belt, doesn’t mean they are not at risk of having an accident. It can be the thing that you do all the time that gets you. Fatigue, complacency, rushing, mental health and more are all factors that contribute towards a bad decision being made in a moment.

DAIRY 101 INVESTMENTS

Making a killing off-farm Story and photos by: Karen Trebilcock

o we’re experiencing one of the highest dairy payouts for years and, after you’ve paid off that principal on your debt you’ve been meaning to do, what to do with all that cash? Firstly, I’m not an investment manager, I have no training whatsoever so disclaimer, disclaimer, always consult an expert. But if you do not yet have a Kiwisaver account have another think about it. KiwiSaver, also called free money from the Government, works just as well for the self-employed as it does for your staff. In some ways, it works better. If you put in $1042.86 or more between 1 July and the 30 June each year, the Government will give you, yes, give you, $521.43. Not bad. And being self-employed, you can choose when you put this money in. What a lot of people don’t understand is KiwiSaver works on units. When you put your $1042.86 in, you are actually buying $1042.86 worth of units. The price of the unit changes depending on the fund you are paying into and hopefully they go steadily up. However, when Covid-19 hit last year 86

they dropped and everyone saw their KiwiSaver balances do the same. At the bottom of the drop was the best time to stick that $1042.86 in as a few months later, as the unit price again increased, it was worth a whole lot more. Salary and wage earners don’t have that ability – they are paying the same amount in every week, although they also have their employer’s contribution, which is the downside of being self-employed.

WHAT TO INVEST IN

So that’s a thousand and a bit dollars sorted out, what to do with the rest? Well, as they say, that’s the million dollar question. With the best bank interest rates at about 1%, sticking it in the bank is not attractive. There is the share market and with apps for your phone such as Sharesies, it’s now a lot easier than having to email or phone your share broker. Plus, while you are waiting for that slow cow to milk out, you can check your balance. But the share market, both here and internationally, can be like going to the casino and the same rules apply. Only take

with you the money you are prepared to lose. You have no control on how much you will earn or lose and a lot of the time it doesn’t make any sense. Why did this share go up or down? It should be about the company’s balance sheet and the dividend it’s paying, but a lot of the time it seems simply because people think it’s a great company to invest in, or not. There are managed funds you can buy into which spread the risk across a number of companies’ shares (which Sharesies also does), and the growth funds of KiwiSaver do the same. Whether you invest in one of these and pay the fees, or come up with your own portfolio, remember that fund managers get it wrong too, no one predicted the timing of Covid-19 and no one can see into the future. And if they could, they would just buy a Lotto ticket. The good thing about shares is the money you make buying and selling them is not taxed as a share is classed as an asset (the dividend you receive from the shares is taxed). The bad thing about shares is the money you lose buying and selling them is also not taxed – you can’t claim it as a loss against your business.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

‘The share market, both here and internationally, can be like going to the casino and the same rules apply. Only take with you the money you are prepared to lose. ‘ Far left: There’s much to choose from in the housing market. Left: You can check on your share investments now while boiling the jug, or waiting for a slow cow to milk out. Right: We’re experiencing one of the highest dairy payouts for years.

GET ON THE PROPERTY MARKET

Of course, the darling of New Zealand investors is housing and it has always proved a winner. Never have we seen large foreclosures like in the US, or when mortgages were larger than the value of the house as in the UK. At least, not yet. With house prices rapidly ramping up, New Zealanders are buying big and banks are letting them, even though the Government is pretending to try and stop it. There are lots of options. You can buy the classic do-up – double glaze the windows, put some new carpet in, maybe a new kitchen, a fresh coat of paint and then sell it for way more than you paid for it. Or you can buy land, build a house on it and sell it, or rent it. Or you can buy and rent it. Or you can just buy a house, leave it empty and sell it a few years later and cash in the capital gain. All have tax implications so consult your accountant before you buy as how you structure your loan, especially with the government’s latest changes, will make a huge difference. The big thing with housing is, unlike having your money in the bank, it takes up your time. Tradies, tenants and even squatters in empty houses are all guaranteed to give you sleepless nights. One way of investing in housing though is a lot easier – buy a house and have a family member rent it from you. Your son or daughter’s rent is not taxed and, if you have brought them up with some skills and a sense of cleanliness, they won’t ring you every time a light bulb blows and hopefully the beer bottles will always end up in the recycle bin.

BUSINESSES, COWS AND FARMLAND

However, don’t just consider housing. You can use your money to invest in a start-up. It could be a café or a brewery or a new system to help milk your, and everyone else’s, cows better. Maybe more risky, but who doesn’t want to be a part owner of a vineyard, a fishing charter, a book publisher or a really cool algorithm with an application programming interface? Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Or, you can invest in cows or farmland. Remember those? Spread your dairy business by buying into an equity partnership, help one of your workers buy a herd or buy yourself a runoff. Investing in your industry, helping it grow, makes sense. That worker you invested in could one day be the person buying your farm when you’re ready to retire. Wherever you decide to put your money, remember it has an economic and social effect on the whole country. People need houses to live in and playing with money on a social requirement should give everyone pause for thought. Thanks to quantitative easing following Covid-19, there is a lot more cash swilling around the country and the higher dairy payout will only add to it. Because interest rates are so low, most of it is getting poured into housing and the sharemarket to the extent that many believe both are now overvalued. If the bubble bursts, and when, is anyone’s guess but if we, as a country, diversified our investing it wouldn’t happen or at least, if it did, the effect would be muted. When it comes to spending your cash, don’t forget your cows.

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SOLUTIONS What’s NEW? SALT LICKS

Salt the health solution

upplemented salt in the form of mixes, blocks or straight AgSalt can significantly improve production on farms where there is a salt deficiency. The following are some examples of trials on New Zealand farms of production increases with salt supplementation. Farms with low sodium status were chosen in the following trials so the effect of the salt on production could easily be determined from a number of other environmental factors:

MILK PRODUCTION INCREASE OF 12.8%

A trial was undertaken on the property of JR & BJ Rotheram, Waikite Valley Road, Rotorua. by Mike O’Connor and Martin Hawke of AgResearch. Animals were supplemented with 35g/ cow/day of salt by drenching. A 12.8% response in milk yield to supplementation with salt was achieved in this trial.

SYMPTOMS OF SODIUM DEFICIENCY

Symptoms include a loss of appetite, chewing of wood or dirt, drinking urine or licking the sweat of other animals. If you put out salt blocks and your animals are digging holes in the ground a couple of weeks after the blocks are gone in the place where the blocks used to be you probably have classic symptoms of a clinical sodium deficiency!

The road to sustainability: AsureQuality offers a number of services including Assurance Marks for animal welfare and organics.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SODIUM IS DEFICIENT?

FURTHER RESEARCH

Animals have less growth and the efficiency in the utilisation of proteins and energy from the feed, particularly in young animals, loss of weight, lower milk production, Studies in Germany indicate reproduction can be adversely affected. Sodium deficiency can lower osmotic pressure which can cause dehydration. The main effect for NZ farmers on salt deficient pastures is a significant lowering of production.

In a paper that not only looked at the intake of feed but also on the increased digestibility of it with increased sodium supplementation, D.A. Little from the CIRSO in Australia found the combined effects of these two factors resulted in a mean increase of up to 44% in digestible drymatter uptake. • If you want to see the full results of the NZ farm trials, visit www.salt.co.nz

Farm carbon certification launched

ustainability is a core focus of the primary industries today, and for good reason: the increasingly environmentally conscious consumer is pushing for greater transparency on how the products they choose to buy are produced, a number of key pieces of legislation will soon come into effect, and Aotearoa’s farmers are pushing to achieve their sustainability goals. The team at AsureQuality are working hard to help farmers through these upcoming changes by providing simple, robust, best-practice services which will support them in meeting their sustainability goals. AsureQuality offer a number of services in this area including Assurance Marks for animal welfare and organics, plus audit services against industry programmes such 88

as the NZ Farm Assurance Programme. Regarding carbon, the primary sector and the Government last year began a joint action plan called He Waka Eke Noa (We Are All In This Together), to measure and reduce primary sector carbon emissions by 2025. AsureQuality is now offering a new farm carbon certification programme which enables farmers to credibly measure, manage and reduce their onfarm carbon emissions. AsureQuality and Toitū Envirocare have partnered to offer this important programme which has been designed specifically for Aotearoa farmers and meets the requirements of He Waka Eke Noa. The programme results in Toitū Envirocare carbon reduce or carbonzero certification which meets international carbon standards, and also provides an

opportunity for farmers to tap into the growth market of consumers who are prepared to pay a premium for goods produced in an environmentally friendly, sustainable manner. This certification programme is designed to be a simple and affordable solution for farmers to manage their carbon emissions. It incorporates a world-leading carbon management tool that integrates directly with OverseerFM® and allows for efficient emission and onfarm sequestration tracking. The tool automatically generates emission inventory reports and helps farmers develop their own emission reduction strategy. • For more information on farm carbon certification go to: asurequality.com/ farm-carbon

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

SOLUTIONS What’s NEW? TEATSEAL RECYCLING

Wide uptake of Teatseal tube recycling scheme

scheme designed to recycle millions of Teatseal tubes has proven a winner for Zoetis with 48 vet clinics around New Zealand signed up to receive the tubes. Zoetis sustainability lead in NZ, Kristen Baxter, said the scheme started in mid-March 2021. The company produces millions of Teatseal tubes which go out to farms and get used on cows during May and June. Teatseal is an intramammary, nonantibiotic, inert substance for the prevention of mastitis during the dry period in heifers and cows. “We’re working with Plasback who do the silage wrap recycling because they are able to provide the logistics for pick up,” she says. Vet technicians bring the Teatseal tubes back in bags to the vet clinics who are participating in the scheme. Plasback then picks up the bags from the vet clinics and takes the tubes for recycling. Zoetis has also signed up a couple of recyclers to take the Teatseal tubes, one in the North Island and one in the South Island. Baxter says the enthusiasm from vet clinics for the scheme has “been higher” than she anticipated. “Some of these (vet) clinics do huge numbers, there are tens of thousands of cows treated by their clinic tech teams.” Baxter added that dairy farmers are “more than welcome” to bring back the tubes to their clinics, with some caveats.

Terragen Kiwi presence

ormer Nui Markets chief strategy officer Paul Grave has joined Australian agricultural biotechnology firm Terragen as their general manager for New Zealand, based in Auckland Paul started in the role on May 10 and is charged with establishing Terragen’s distribution channels. He will also be Paul Grave. responsible for recruiting and leading a sales and marketing team. Prior to Nui Markets, Paul led Fonterra’s farmer-facing operations Farm Source in some of NZ’s key dairy regions, managing a broader team responsible for engaging 5000 farmers and local stakeholders. His achievements include driving significant strategy and implementation programmes in NZ agriculture, including organic farming, winter milk sourcing, farmer engagement Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

A bag of Teatseal tubes ready for collection by vet technicians. Plasback (pictured) picks up the bags from the vet clinics and takes the Teatseal tubes for recycling.

“We can’t take anything that has lots of contamination. It can only be Teatseal-branded tubes, caps or buckets. They (farmers) are often using teat wipes at the same time, these can’t go in there, and neither can antibiotic tubes.” “The tubes don’t need to be spotless, they just can’t have contaminants in there.” She added that many vet clinics have been putting up information sheets for farmers or sharing these details on their Facebook pages. • The scheme is running until mid-July 2021.

models and the delivery of on-farm productivity tools. Paul also managed a significant environmental and sustainability team and transformation agenda in this area for Fonterra’s farmers. He also led the establishment of the Global Dairy Trade commodity sales platform, which has been described as one of the most significant cultural and business transformations in the NZ dairy industry.

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OUR STORY 50 YEARS AGO IN NZ DAIRY EXPORTER

50 years ago in the Dairy Exporter May As NZ Dairy Exporter counts down to its centenary in 2025, we look back at the issues of earlier decades. 50 Years Ago – May 1971.

NEW GRASSES ON TRIAL AT GRASSLANDS

Among the various new grasses being tested by the Grasslands Division are three which warrant particular attention because of their superior growth. They are Grasslands 4708 tetraploid hybrid ryegrass, Grasslands 4710 tall fescue and Grasslands 4713 prairie grass. The main criterion for the release of new varieties is that they must perform a role in the New Zealand grassland economy which is not being performed by anything else. Dependent on the results of widespread trials for yield and quality on both plot and farm scales, these varieties will be released into the Government certification scheme and thus become available to farmers. Last season’s drought demonstrated the persistence of 4708. This combines with a soft leaf (a possible indication of nutritional value) and high productivity, give 4708 great promise for many New Zealand pastures.

LARGE SCALE CALF REARING

Most people will agree that rearing 20 or 30 calves is no problem, but when the numbers in your nursery department 90

Cover photo: Dr Dolittle could talk with the animals, and some good stockmen seem to have a “feel” for animals which has all the feel of communication. Our young dairy farmer, Mr Alistair Linn, believes in being on friendly terms with his cows.

are boosted up to 200 or 300 it can be a tricky business. Feeding calves once-a-day means half as much work as feeding them twice-a-day. Feeding cold milk is advocated by some people with a good deal of experience, but I am not convinced about this. Admittedly, the medical profession is happy to feed cold milk to young babies, but then we don’t leave them out in the rain, or chase them around with dogs.

UK LEVY SYSTEM SPELLS END OF MILK POWDER TRADE

The new levy system on agricultural products which the British Government was introducing did not apply so far to butter and cheese but to certain other socalled “minor” milk products, the Dairy Board chairman, Mr F. L. Onion, told the ward conferences. “This has effectively put an end to our long established milk powder trade with Britain,” he said. “What will be done about butter and cheese will depend on the EEC negotiations. If the United Kingdom does achieve entry to EEC, British prices will have to be harmonised with European, and the effect on consumption levels could only be a diminution in the volume of British imports.

“The impact of the reduced trade would, of course, fall most heavily upon those suppliers for whom no safeguards would be provided,” said Mr Onion.

“DAIRY EXPORTER’S” NEW EDITOR

Mr J. D. McGilvary, a journalist of wide experience in New Zealand and overseas, has been appointed Editor of the “Dairy Exporter” in succession to Mr Allan Hope, Editor for the past two years, who has joined the Information and Press Section of the Tourist and Publicity Department as a senior press officer. Mr Hope joined the “Exporter” as Assistant Editor in 1960. He was Associate Editor for several years before his appointment as Editor. In 1969 he received the Bank of New South Wales Award for Agricultural Journalism. Mr McGilvary has had 20 years’ experience in the daily newspaper field. Since last November he has been Lecturer in Journalism at Wellington Polytechnic. He has had three books published and is currently writing a fourth. He is a married man, aged 36, with six children. • Thanks to the Hocken Library, Dunedin.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

DairyNZ consulting officers

May Events

North Island – Head: Rob Brazendale 021 683 139 Northland Regional Leader

Leo Pekar

027 211 1389

Far North

Amy Weston

027 807 9686

Lower Northland

Hamish Matthews

021 242 5719

Whangarei West

Ryan Baxter

021 809 569

Regional Leader

Wilma Foster

021 246 2147

South Auckland

Mike Bramley

027 486 4344

Hauraki Plains/Coromandel

Michael Booth

021 245 8055

Te Aroha/Waihi

Euan Lock

027 293 4401

Cambridge

Lizzy Moore

021 242 2127

Hamilton

Wilma Foster

021 246 2147

Waikato

Huntly/Tatuanui

Brigitte Ravera

027 288 1244

Matamata/Kereone

Frank Portegys

027 807 9685

Pirongia

Steve Canton

027 475 0918

Otorohanga/King Country

Phil Irvine

027 483 9820

Waipa South

Wilma Foster

021 246 2147

Regional Leader

Andrew Reid

027 292 3682

Central Plateau

Colin Grainger-Allen

021 225 8345

South Waikato/Rotorua South

Angela Clarke

027 276 2675

Eastern Bay of Plenty

Ross Bishop

027 563 1785

Central Bay of Plenty

Kevin McKinley

027 288 8238

Regional Leader

Mark Laurence

027 704 5562

South Taranaki

Ashely Primrose

027 304 9823

Central Taranaki

Mark Laurence

027 704 5562

Coastal Taranaki

Mark Laurence

027 704 5562

Don’t miss your opportunity to join the South Island’s

North Taranaki

Ian Burmeister

027 593 4122

largest dairy event 22-23 June, Ashburton Event Centre.

Lower North Island Horowhenua/Coastal and Southern Manawatu

Kate Stewart

027 702 3760

Wairarapa/Tararua

Abby Scott

021 244 3428

Eketahuna

Rob Brazendale

021 683 139

Hawke's Bay

Gray Beagley

021 286 4346

Northern Manawatu/Woodville

Janine Swansson

027 381 2025

Central Manawatu/Rangitikei/Whanganui

Rob Brazendale

021 683 139

Talking Dairy Can’t get to an event? Listen to our podcast series instead.

Bay of Plenty

Gain tips on a range of topics from how to make contract milking and variable order sharemilking work to clarifying what is happening in the climate change space. Visit dairynz.co.nz/podcast.

Taranaki

22-23 06.

SIDE 2021

Run by farmers for farmers, SIDE lines up industry experts to deliver keynote addresses, networking sessions and practical workshops. SI

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w. s i d e . o r g . n

Whether you’re interested in farm finances, sustainability and profit, animal care or people, there’s something for

South Island – Head: Tony Finch 027 706 6183

everyone.

Top of South Island/West Coast Nelson/Marlborough

Mark Shadwick

021 287 7057

West Coast

Angela Leslie

021 277 2894

Regional Leader

Rachael Russell

027 261 3250

North Canterbury

Amy Chamberlain

027 243 0943

Central Canterbury

Alice Reilly

027 379 8069

Discussion Groups

Mid Canterbury

Hugh Jackson

027 513 7200

South Canterbury

Rachael Russell

027 261 3250

Interested in farm systems, reproduction, progression, pasture

North Otago

Rachael Russell

027 261 3250

management, budgeting, people management, or milking smarter?

Southland/South Otago

We hold a range of different discussion groups on specialist areas

Regional Leader

Ollie Knowles

027 226 4420

West Otago/Gore

Keely Sullivan

027 524 5890

South Otago

Guy Michaels

021 302 034

Northern/Central Southland

Nicole Cochrane

021 240 8529

Eastern Southland

Nathan Nelson

021 225 6931

Western Southland

Ollie Knowles

027 226 4420

Canterbury/North Otago

of interest as well as other topical field days and road shows around the country. Find out what’s on near you at dairynz.co.nz/events or phone your local consulting officer.

Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

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Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | May 2021

Dairy Exporter May 2021

Articles inside

Advances in research from the Farmers Forum

Investing: Making a killing off-farm

Harriet Bremner asks why we do safety checks for planes but not other vehicles

It’s now or never for Young Farmers’ finalist

Sorting selenium and spring energy

Dairying up the beef semen industry

Fonterra’s holistic sheep farming approach

Ambassadors making changes

Keeping teats healthy at dry off

Focus on environmental and profitable farming for the future

Restoring the nohoanga (a place to sit) in Canterbury

People powered planting

Hemp a ‘hero’ crop for farmers

Protecting waterways for the future

Plantain crops yield reduction in soil nitrous oxide levels

Filling gaps in the onfarm team

DairyNZ helping farmers adjust their businesses for environmental standards

CO Diary: Taking care of your new staff

Tirau dairy farmer sees positives in reducing herd sizes

Looking beyond the long Irish lockdown

Dairy farms in Victoria are getting sold to beef producers

The dairy market steadies in April

Sustainable finance impacts agriculture

Challenges and triumphs for Chloe Davidson

Farmers encouraged to check their Greenhouse Gas number

Gaye Coates reminds us to enjoy the sunshine

Trish Rankin ponders how she can measure success

A facial eczema outbreak has Bridie Virbickas concerned