Dairy News 26 June 2012

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time to bury the hatchetLeaders agree Fonterra farmers must unite after TAF vote. PAGE 3

june 26, 2012 issue 271 // www.dairynews.co.nz

DAiry NEws june 26, 2012

news // 3

news .....................................................3-20

oPinion .............................................22-23

agribusiness ............................ 24-26

management ...............................27-29

animal health ..........................30-33

effluent & water management ..............................35-43

machinery & Products ..................................... 44-49

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Million-litre pond overflows with benefits. Pg.37

New teat sprayer targets mastitis. Pg.32

Show of hands for unityfonterra shareholders on both sides of the TAF (trading among farmers) debate agree on one thing – unity is paramount. After a long and debilitating consultation process, uniting the unsettled shareholder base is priority.

Speaking to Dairy News before the vote, former Fonterra Shareholders Council chairman Blue Read noted both the co-op board and the council have to address the issue.

“It’s been a debilitating process and there’s has been a lot of conjecture. Once the vote is over it’s important for the shareholder base to unite for the sake of Fonterra. I expect the board and the coun-cil to take the lead on this.”

Read’s replacement, Simon Couper, who resigned abruptly last month over TAF concerns, agrees. “Unity is vital and after all that’s what the cooperative structure is all about.”

But Cooper is cau-tious on how the co-op should handle the issue. It’s up to the board, he adds. TAF opponents hope a 30% ‘no’ vote will force a rethink of the share trading scheme. The Fonterra board and council will decide whether share-holders have delivered “a clear mandate” to pro-ceed with TAF.

Fonterra chairman Henry van der

Heyden says if the result is not deemed a clear mandate, the board will take a new proposal to shareholders.

“We cannot continue with the redemption risk hanging over us. The board will go back and reconsider. Sticking with the status quo is not an

option.” But whatever the outcome, van der Heyden agrees unity is vital. “It’s

important everyone is on the same page after the vote.”

Former Dairy Board and New Zealand Dairy Group chairman Sir Dryden Spring is con-fident Fonterra farmers will unite. Spring, who

supports TAF, doesn’t think status quo is an

option. “With redemption risk Fonterra won’t be able to

invest and it won’t be able to perform.

“Redemption risk is the biggest threat to Fon-terra’s sur-vival. I’m sure

Fonterra farmers will reunite.” TAF opponent and Ashburton farmer Eddie

Glass also agrees shareholder unanimity is the key. But he says if 30% of farmers vote against TAF, it should be taken off the table.

“We are staunch supporters of Fonterra and its cooperative model. That is the

reason we are opposing TAF.”

Glass says the board and council have to

carefully consider the vote outcome before making a

final decision on TAF.

“For us una-nimity is the

key. If 75% of the shareholders vote

yes, we will happily get behind them. But

if 30% of share-holders say no,

then it’s time for a rethink on TAF.”

sudesh kissun

“It’s been a debilitating process and there’s been a lot of conjecture.”

– Blue Read

Blue Read Simon Couper

Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings addresses farmers at a recent meeting.

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4 // news

TAF mandate must be strongat what percentage support from shareholders should TAF proceed?

Dairy News last week put that ques-tion to a range of industry representa-tives.

Their answers were largely in accord with chairman Henry van der Heyden’s comment that he’s looking for a much stronger mandate than the 50.1% min-imum required by the ordinary resolu-tion.

All but one said 70% plus, with one commentator suggesting 90% or more would be required to prevent signifi-cant fallout. But perhaps surprisingly, that figure didn’t come from one of the second TAF vote instigators, South Canterbury shareholder Leonie Guiney.

“In light of the fact this is a decision that converts Fonterra the coopera-

tive into Fonterra the majority farmer-owned business with a 20% equity partner, and converts the co-op drivers from a milk price focus to a dividend and share value focus, a 75% threshold would be absolutely the min-imum,” she told Dairy News.

“Even then it’s rather difficult to see unity going forward... It’s a moot point really – if TAF goes through we are no longer an organisation that exists solely for the collective benefit of farmers and their on-farm returns.”

The best that can be expected if TAF proceeds is a compromise between par-ties with differing interests, a compro-mise which will ultimately compromise New Zealand’s GDP, she adds.

“One would have to say `good luck unifying traders and intergenerational thinkers’!”

Federated Farmers Dairy chairman Willy Leferink says it’s not so much what percent-age supported TAF in the vote, as the proportion of farmers. “I think two out of three farmers should be applauding it for it to proceed.”

But his main concern is that everybody eligi-ble voted. “We don’t want people saying afterwards

‘if only I had known’.”Leferink says Fonterra did finally

provide enough information on TAF and the proposal’s objectives for shareholders to make a reasoned deci-sion, and anyone who felt they didn’t have enough information “should have

asked”. Leferink’s “two out of three” was potentially the lowest percentage figure given to Dairy News. Christchurch independent cooperatives and business consultant Alan Robb’s was the highest.

He says in light of the many concerns raised, Fonterra should proceed with TAF only if the June 2010 vote result of 89.85% support is exceeded. “I think they need to get 90%.”

If a lesser vote is accepted, he fears those unhappy with TAF will leave the cooper-ative, eroding its strength and efficiency due to fixed processing overheads and reduced volume. Even if that 90% man-date is achieved, he believes TAF will be damaging to Fonterra as a cooperative because of the conflicting interests it

creates among members. Outside inves-tor interests, and those of the market maker, won’t be helpful either.

“In a falling market the market maker will still be seek-ing to make a profit. That can’t be in the interests of farmers. They should get out a nominal value, the same as they put in.”

Profit retentions and a nominal share value, rather than artificially calculated value, is the way forward, he says. “The way the Fair Value

Share is calculated is fundamentally flawed.”

A positive in the capital restructure is the move to three-year windows to buy-in/sell-out of the cooperative, he adds. “There are some good points that have come in at the eleventh hour.”

andrew swallow

Willy Leferink Leonie Guiney

Vote build-uP blasted

FONTERRA’S CLOSING plays ahead of Mon-day’s vote were blasted as inappropriate and misleading by some.

Labour Primary Industries spokesperson Damien O’Connor slammed chief execu-tive Theo Spierings’ warning that Fonterra would go backwards without TAF as being “mischievous with the truth” and “mislead-ing farmers”.

“I am concerned that in the week lead-ing up to the June 25 vote, farmers will be confused by misleading and contradictory statements,” said O’Connor.

Second vote instigator Leonie Guiney was left “spitting tacks” by Spierings’ missive suggesting no-vote campaigners feared change, and was similarly outraged by reports of board members and councillors wooing large suppliers at invitation-only cocktail functions.

“I wonder how many million kgs of milk-solids you have to supply to be invited to those?

There’s so much courting going on for a positive vote it’s totally undemocratic.”

‘Angry dissenters will emerge’waikato uniVersity Insti-tute for Business Research director Stuart Locke echoes Robb’s con-cerns about loss of suppliers, but has a different take on what would be an adequate mandate to proceed.

“Something 70% plus...There’s a danger a significant splinter group will be so bloody angry with the directors that something else will emerge... particularly if they’ve got strong leaders among them.”

Fonterra, and indeed New Zea-land, needs “a really strong one on this,” he adds.

He believes if Fonterra is to be a cooperative that just produces and processes milk, then it doesn’t need TAF. But if it is to be a multina-tional with business interests down-stream from primary processing, such as infant formula or ice cream for markets like China, Japan, and the EU, then it needs significantly more capital.

He challenges the board’s claim TAF is not about raising capital for expansion.

“If TAF isn’t about expansion, then what is it about? Why have they wasted millions setting it up?

“My personal view is that Fon-terra is so important to the New Zealand economy that we need it financially strong and it needs to be able to expand into downstream processing and multiple joint ven-tures. To do that it needs a stable equity base.”

If shareholders are not support-ive of TAF and expansion, then it may still grow but not at the same pace and it may be subject to a lot more competition, for example in China, where North American suppliers are making inroads, and domestic supply of commodity milk powders is “catching up quickly.”

Dutch cooperatives commen-tator Onno van Bekkum, who was

speaking at the International Coop-eratives Conference in Welling-ton last week, says anything less than 75% support will make progressing TAF “diffi-cult” and like Robb, says sur-passing the 2010 vote would be the ideal.

“I fear a vote below the normal 75% would lead to pro-tracted unrest. It would have been better if the board had taken a stron-ger position on this. For such an important vote you want a strong backing.”

Just because much time, effort and money has been invested in developing TAF, that doesn’t justify progressing it if it’s backed by only a small majority, he adds.

“Regardless of the outcome of

the vote there will be work to do in terms of governance structures that need to be improved and confidence to be restored.”

Stuart Locke

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news // 5

Suppliers back co-op bid for processor

Fonterra has signed a conditional agreement to buy NZDL, which is in receivership.

fonterra’s acQui-sition of South Canter-bury processor NZDL was last week (as Dairy News went to press) still far from a done deal, awaiting Commerce Commission clearance and confirma-tion that suppliers are on board.

Conditional agreement that Fonterra would buy the milk processing assets of NZDL was announced by receiver BDO on June 15, following the May 18 announcement that the formerly Russian-owned business was in receiver-ship.

BDO said conditional on Commerce Commis-sion clearance, the Fon-terra deal would see

NZDL’s outstanding pay-ments to farmers made in full.

“We strongly believe it provides the best possible outcome for farmers and indeed all key stakeholder groups in the company,” said BDO’s Brian Mayo-Smith.

Last week Fonterra told Dairy News it was still talking to suppliers about coming on board. It was also confident of the com-mission’s support.

Suppliers group chair-man Robert Borst told Dairy News they hadn’t been paid for April’s milk or retrospective payments that were also due May 20. Last week’s payment for May deliveries had only covered those made since receivership (May 18).

“It’s been very hard

on suppliers. You go from expecting a milk cheque which you use to pay all your wages and expenses, to nothing. For a lot of farmers, including myself, it’s put an additional strain on the business, not to mention the emotional stress.”

Borst confirmed the receivership and missed payments were effectively a breach of contract by NZDL so suppliers could choose to walk away from supply deals which, in some cases, were for up to five seasons.

However, the suppli-ers group is united and to date none have done so, he says.

“We’ve always known that as a supply group we’ve got to stick together. Half the value of the busi-

ness [NZDL] is in the plant and land assets but there’s an equal value in the milk supply.”

Early last season (Sep-tember 2011) NZDL lost a chunk of supply to Syn-lait when the 51% Chinese-owned Dunsandel-based processor bought the rem-nants of another South Canterbury start-up ven-ture, Oceania.

At the time about 20 supply agreements were said to be involved, how-ever Dairy News under-stands not all switched to Synlait.

Borst says the loss of volume to Synlait would certainly have affected the profitability of NZDL which wasn’t at capacity this season, but whether receivership would have been avoided had they

andrew swallow

the labour Party is planning to propose a series of amendments to the Dairy Industry Restructur-ing Amendment (DIRA) Bill being deliberated in Parliament. This was revealed by Shane Jones speaking at start of the second reading of the bill this month.

In the next week or so the bill will progress through the commit-tee stages and be considered by Parliament as a whole, where each clause of the bill will be scrutinised and debated and amendments pro-posed.

Already the bill has been con-sidered by the primary production select committee which heard sub-missions from those for and against the new legislation. But the bill now before Parliament is largely unchanged from the original one although there are some ‘techni-cal’ changes.

The first debate on the legisla-tion took place recently with Pri-mary Industries Minister David Carter leading the charge from the Government perspective. He refuted claims that the bill should not have been introduced into Parliament until the TAF vote was taken. He says this is because the

bill does not require Fonterra to implement TAF, but simply pro-vides the necessary legal frame-work for it to do so if that’s what farmers want.

Carter says the ‘fair value’ share provisions in the bill came in for criticism by some submitters at the select committee who claimed it was not appropriate for the Gov-ernment to intervene in the share valuation of a private cooperative.

“However Fonterra is not a normal cooperative. Its dominant position in the market means that its share value has an impact on the overall efficiency of the total dairy industry. If Fonterra was to set its

share price at a nominal value this would clearly discourage farmers from exiting Fonterra and encour-age others to enter, thereby impact-ing on the contestability of the farm gate milk market.”

Carter says it’s crucial the legis-lation is finalised to provide enough certainty for investors ahead of the proposed launch in November and to insure the continuing growth of an innovative dairy sector.

Shane Jones, who was on the primary production select com-mittee, says despite the quality of Fonterra’s submission he was not convinced about what they had to say.

Peter burke

in brief

mackenzie dairy developers throw in towelTWO COMPAnIeS behind controversial pro-posals to develop large-scale housed dairy farms in the lower Mackenzie/upper Waitaki Basin are reported to be going into liquidation.

Southdown Holdings and Williamson Hold-ings planned to run about 11,000 cows across two properties near Omarama, housing cows in free-flow barns for about eight months a year.

Their proposals sparked a storm of protest from environmentalists and tourist operators, despite detailed modelling by the firms show-ing their systems would have a lower environ-mental footprint than conventional systems.

In november irrigation consent applications were turned down.

Labour fights DIRA Bill to the last

stayed he didn’t know.“When the Russians

didn’t spend the money on putting in an infant formula plant, that was really the downfall. The [5t/hr] plant’s just not big enough. It needs a special-ist plant.”

The current supplier group involves 26 or 27 farmers with about 35 agreements.

The Commerce Com-mission says it expects an application from Fonterra

by the end of the month for clearance of the deal under section 66 of the Commerce Act.

“In addition we will be investigating under section 27 of the Commerce Act the operational agreement Fonterra has entered into with New Zealand Dairies Ltd (in receivership) to keep the Studholme plant running through the 2012/13 milking season, or until a sale is completed,”

a spokeswoman said.“Section 27 prohibits

any agreement that may substantially lessen competition in a market. We will run both investigations concurrently.... I can’t give you an indication of timeframes, however we aim to complete clearance decisions in 40 working days, although the actual time will vary depending on the complexities of the case,” he says.

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6 // news

Mere change in GDT auction a good result

a mere 0.5% drop in overall prices in last week’s GlobalDairyTrade auction is being hailed as a good result by commen-tators given the previ-ous sale’s 13% price jump and continued economic uncertainties.

“It’s good to see some sort of stability for a change,” BNZ econo-mist Doug Steel told Dairy News. “It’s a reasonable result to have maintained most of the previous gain.”

Which way the sale would go was up in the air prior to the Wednes-day morning auction, with firmer liquid milk prices in

the US suggesting a pos-sible lift, but falling oil prices counteracting that.

As it was, skim milk powder (SMP) was back 4.8%, offset by a 2.7% gain

in whole milk powder (WMP), the two commod-ities averaging US$2,834/t and US$2,886/t respec-tively across all positions.

“From a contract peri-ods point of view the short-term positions were down, probably as a legacy of the pressure from the southern hemisphere late-season supply bulge

but further forward, into November and Decem-ber, prices pushed up, which gives a sense that the market has reached the bottom or is close to

having bottomed out.”While continued vol-

atility is “assured”, the implication is prices could firm towards the year’s end with the thinking being the southern hemi-sphere can’t possibly have such a good season as the one just gone, says Steel.

“The caveat on that [markets firming] sce-

nario is as long as the world economy doesn’t fall over in the mean-time.” That would impact demand which to date has remained “pretty solid” despite the uncertainties.

“One concern is the recent drop in oil prices. While that’s a positive on the farm costs side... we export between a fifth and a quarter of our dairy product to oil exporting countries.”

Weaker oil prices tend to decrease dairy demand from such nations and while it may only be a small decrease, it could be enough to tip the balance in supply and demand.

On the supply side there’s “still a surpris-

ing amount of milk” being produced in the US where cows are still being added to the national herd despite a recent rally in feed grains prices.

“It feels like the growth in US milk supply is a bit overdone and it should be softer... but it’s felt like that for a while. Of course they are benefitting from a weaker US dollar.”

Writing in ASB’s Com-modities Weekly, US com-mentator William C Bailey also noted the increase in US dairy prices, “with butter prices reaching levels not seen for several months.”

The increase in Fonter-ra’s forward auction prices contrasts with pessimis-

tic news from processors such as Danone which have warned Europe’s eco-nomic problems will hit profits, he adds.

“Reflecting the chal-lenging marketing environment, the US gov-ernment

reported that butter exports for January-April 2012 were 30% lower than the same period last year. Countering that trend, however, US cheese exports for the same period were 12% higher,” says Bailey.

andrew swallow

Overall: Down 0.5% to average US$3042

across 25,600t sold.

Whole milk powder gains most, up 2.7%

to average US$2,886/t.

Skim milk powder is the biggest loser,

down 4.8% to US$2,834/t.

Trend: near contracts ease, further for-

ward firm.

result summary

“It’s a reasonable result to have maintained most of the previous gains.”

Doug Steel

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news // 7

in brief

WeSTLAnD SuPPLIeRS lost at least 200 cows to the june 6 cold snap.

The Greymouth Star reported 180 froze to death on Westland Milk Products director Barry Paterson’s farm in the upper Hokitika valley, while 20 were

lost on fellow director Raelyn Lourie’s farm nearby.

“Our staff and neighbours made huge efforts to try to get the cows to shelter,” Paterson told the paper. “The few that were persuaded to move were the ones that were saved; the

cows that obeyed their instincts and refused to budge were the ones that died.” Temperatures of -10oC with wind and freezing rain were reported at the time. Ministry of Primary Industries officials are investi-gating.

cold kills 200 cows

Dairy growth plan under scrutiny

an international dairy industry consultant now based in New Zealand is questioning the sector’s growth agenda.

“There seems to be a production-at-any-cost approach,” says Tom Phillips, who returned to New Zealand in November after 30 years working overseas: 20 years in Australia and more recently in the UK, France and Ireland.

“Overseas I was encouraging people to adopt New Zealand’s low cost pasture-based systems and I come home to find New Zealand is trying to be like everyone else. That saddens me,” he told Dairy News.

“Many discussion groups are now talking in terms of production per cow but there’s no rela-tionship between produc-tion per cow and profit in this country, or any other that has a pasture-based dairy industry.”

Phillips was respond-ing to Dairy News’ ques-tions following his posting a blog (www.pas-turetoprofit.blogspot.co.nz) littered with challenges to current practice and expan-sionist thinking.

“There is a limit to dairying growth in New Zealand. Where is that limit and how will we know what that limit is?” he writes.

“Growth is limited with a fixed finite physical environmental resource. New Zealand is a very small country with won-derful pristine natural resources but they are not inexhaustible...

“It is clear that dairy cow intensity (numbers of dairy cows and stocking rates) is linked to nitrate levels and nitrate leach-ing.”

While he acknowledges the link with water quality isn’t fully understood, assum-ing there is a link, “how can we continue to grow numbers of dairy cows without envi-ronmental damage?” he asks.

Better farm management and scientific breakthroughs may reduce impact and mit-igate damage but he says he’s concerned “environmental research will not deliver any short term silver bullet answers.”

He also suggests some changes in water quality are inevitable due to shifts in indus-try structure and practice that have already happened.

“My major concern is farm profitabil-ity but I also think continued growth isn’t necessarily what New Zealand wants for the environment,” he told Dairy News.

Growth may be more cows and dairy farms, or increased production per cow and more cows per hectare.

“What I’m seeing out in the field is sys-tems creep where nearly all people started with low input bases and for various rea-sons they’ve been encouraged or pressured to venture into higher feeding without fully analysing whether it’s the best way to go....

“Once you’re into high input systems, things like animal health costs tend to esca-late rapidly, it gets harder to get cows in calf, and the cost per litre or kg of milksol-ids starts to escalate dramatically.”

It also goes against New Zealand’s com-parative advantage and leaves producers and the country increasingly vulnerable to volatile commodity markets for grains and proteins.

“World cereal production is sitting on a knife edge... you only need one coun-try, Australia, Russia, Ukraine or the US, to have a drought and the price of cereals escalates dramatically. It makes our indus-try incredibly vulnerable and uncompeti-tive.”

Phillips is based at Massey University, working for the Massey/Lincoln joint ven-ture set-up with DairyNZ and PGP funding, the Centre of Excellence in Farm Business Management.

He says his weekly blog is a personal viewpoint on industry matters, and not necessarily that of the centre.

andrew swallow

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news // 9

Ignore Asia at your peril

the head of the Maori trust seeking to buy two of the Crafar farms from the Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin says the negotiations are nearing a ‘crunch point’.

Hardie Pene, chairman of the Tiroa E and Te Hape B trusts, has been talking with Shanghai Pengxin for nine months about buying two of the former Crafar farms – Benneydale One and Two. The farms are located near Ben-neydale on SH30 between Te Kuiti and Taupo.

“The reason for our interest in these farms is they were originally traditional farm lands that belonged to our people and lost during the 1800s through land acqui-sition. We’ve made a number of attempts to recover the land, all of which have failed. It’s been a strategic objective of our trust to recover that land because of the wahi tapu (sacred sites) on these farms,” says Pene.

Pene says his trusts have given Shanghai Pengxin a memorandum of understanding and a sale and purchase agreement. Now they are at the ‘crunch’ part of the nego-tiation and need to formalise things and move forward.

“The Chinese have been cordial, in fact positive, in the discussions so far. They have made it clear that if we want the land there is a figure we would have to try to meet. I don’t expect them to give it to us for nothing; it’s purely a commercial arrangement. Unlike us they do not have an emotional tie to the land.”

Pene says the trusts are currently not involved in the dairy industry but have been looking at diversifying into it for some time. The trusts have the talent and business acumen to manage the farms if they can do a deal, he says.

“Our trusts own 10,000ha on which we run 80,000-120,000 stock units. We provide the meat works with 3000 cattle and about 50,000 lambs each year.”

Pene says he would like to see a deal finalised as soon as possible.

Meanwhile a spokesman for Shanghai Pengxin says they’ve been having discussion with Tiroa E and Te Hape B trusts for several months over access to wahi tapu and on the sale of the farms.

Shanghai Pengxin spokesman Cedric Allen says as yet there is no undertaking to sell the two farms in question, nor has there been any discussion on price. But he says Shanghai Pengxin are amenable to a sale if the parties can agree on a price and other conditions. But it’s not a ‘done deal’ at this stage.

Peter burke

Chinese firm set to offload two farms

a leading banker says it would be a huge mistake for the farming sector to ignore Asia’s growing eco-nomic prowess.

ANZ managing direc-tor commercial & agri, Graham Turley, is shrug-ging off talks about Chi-na’s cooling economy, pointing out the country’s economy is still growing by 6% per annum.

New Zealand is lucky to have China as a major trading partner, he says. “Ten years ago, we were reliant on the EU and they

are in dire straits now,” he told Rural News at the launch of ANZ’s privately-owned business barom-eter for the agriculture sector during the National Fieldays.

Turley says a grow-ing affluent class in Asia is providing growth oppor-tunities for New Zea-land businesses. Fonterra is looking to operate 30 dairy farms in China by 2020. Turley says several years ago Fonterra had few exports to China and now sends 20% of its products there.

“The emergence of an affluent class in Asia is

sudesh kissunincreasing more demand for fat and protein,” he says. “As producer of dairy and meat products we must maximise the oppor-tunities Asia presents us.

“This growing middle class is only half the dis-tance from our tradi-tional markets. It will be a huge mistake if we don’t

focus and maximise those opportunities.”

While the focus remains on China, we mustn’t forget other Asian economies like Indone-sia and Vietnam, he says. The ANZ recently led a business delegation to Vietnam, where he notes companies are in a fledg-

ling state like in New Zea-land.

Turley says the bank is also focussing in Asia with branches in 28 Asian nations. This is to help Australian and New Zealand businesses who are looking to Asia for growth. However, he warns doing business in

Asia is not easy as each country has different culture, dialects and business practices.

Graham Turley

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news // 11

in briefa taste of farm lifeneW ZeALAnD Young Farmers have joined DairynZ to create Get Ahead; a one stop career hub for young people considering a career in agriculture.

The Get Ahead Programme en-compasses ‘experience days’ which raise 630-271 the awareness and encourage students to consider an agricultural career. These days focus on the supply chain story – it’s all

about how food gets from pasture to plate. To demonstrate this; students participated in twelve practical modules that focused on everything from animal genetics to marketing and exporting, herd management to pasture manipulation.

Approximately 1000 students attended the event held around the country over the past four months.

World’s smallest dryer eyes big businessnew Zealand’s first and only independent spray dryer intended for product development is open for business.

The $11 million facility, funded mostly by Innovation Waikato Ltd, is the Waikato component of the Gov-ernment-sponsored New Zealand Food Innovation Network.

Construction finished in late April – eight months from bare paddock to fully operational plant. It will be run by NZ Food Innovation Waikato.

“We believe this is the fastest build of its type in the world,” says plant manager, Dave Shute, whose team have spent the past month commis-sioning and testing. The first fresh milk was converted to powder on May 25.

The commissioning went smoothly, he says. “I’ve been work-ing in dairy factories for 20 years and we’ve probably had the smoothest commissioning process of any factory in New Zealand. Of course, our small size had a bit to do with this.

“We will spend the next month ironing out any small glitches we’ve

found and we’ll be ready to start pro-cessing our first product in July.”

Dairy Goat Co-op, Hamilton, intends using the plant and up to eight new Dairy Goat Co-op staff will work on site. The co-op needs extra capac-ity to meet expansion requirements.

“The Dairy Goat Cooperative’s commitment was a critical factor in creating the commercial case, and gaining government funding and approval to build the plant as a true private public partnership,” says Shute.

Dairy Goat Co-op chief executive Dave Stanley says the project is a win-win-win for those involved.

“Not only did our backing help the park get the project off the ground, it also provides Dairy Goat Cooperative with valuable extra processing capac-ity when our milk flow is at its peak.”

Shute says the cooperative’s com-mitment “gives NZ Food Innovation Waikato an excellent source of initial revenue while also allowing us the breathing space we need to get fur-ther customers on board.”

NZ Food Innovation Waikato is

looking for commitments from com-panies that want to research and develop new spray-dried food prod-ucts in the pilot plant. It is talking with specialty milk producers and companies looking to spray dry fruit and vegetable extracts.

NZ Food Innovation Waikato offers potential for specialty milk pro-ducers, in particular, to innovate. The facility suits companies ready to scale up a new spray-dried product to com-mercial production.

Shute says the long-term strategy for the plant is to expand the spray dryer’s capability to make infant for-mula.

“We receive several calls each week from companies enquiring about our ability to process infant for-mula. Many of these companies are exporting to China, where demand for infant formula is exploding.”

Finance for the spray dryer came from Innovation Waikato Ltd debt and a Government grant of $3.95 mil-lion. Its capacity is one-half tonne/hour, making it one of the smallest commercial spray dryers in the world.

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Be ready for NAIT by 1 JulyThe National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) scheme becomes mandatory for beef and dairy farmers, including lifestylers, on 1 July.

Come 1 July, if you are in charge of cattle but have not got a NAIT number, you will not be able to move stock off-farm.

You can still be ready before 1 July if you:

• Get a NAIT number • Tag your animals• Register your animals with NAIT

Once you’ve done this you’ll be able to meet the requirement to record movements of cattle in the NAIT system from 1 July onwards.

Deer join the NAIT scheme on 1 March next year. Deer farmers can also get ready and are encouraged to check what they need to do on the NAIT website www.nait.co.nz.

Get a NAIT numberEvery person in charge of cattle and deer at a given location must register with NAIT and get a NAIT number. A NAIT number is in addition to an Animal Health Board (AHB) number or dairy participant code.

The quickest way to get a NAIT number is via the NAIT website at www.nait.co.nz. It’s a straightforward process and takes less than 10 minutes.

Remember, any properties within 20km of each other where the same person is in charge of animals can be registered under the same NAIT number.

Also, have your AHB herd number or dairy participant code handy, as doing so will mean you can electronically view the tag numbers associated with your NAIT number in the NAIT system. This will make it easier to register animals and to record animal movements from 1 July.

Tag your cattle and deerNewborn animals must be tagged with NAIT-approved tags within 180 days of birth or before their first movement off-farm.

There is a three-year grace period for existing stock to be tagged with NAIT-approved tags unless they are being moved off-farm.

From 1 July 2012 tag all newborn calves with a birth tag. Use a traka tag for all existing animals to make them compliant to move.

The mandatory requirement for an official Animal Health Board bar-coded secondary tag ceases from 1 July 2012, but you should not remove these tags from existing animals.

You still need to use your AHB herd number or dairy participant code when ordering NAIT tags from your usual rural supplier.

Tagging exemptionsThere are two main exemptions for tagging animals.

1. Calves less than 30 days old and going directly to a meat processor do not require NAIT tags as they are considered a low biosecurity risk and are not included in the NAIT scheme. For these calves continue to use the direct-to-slaughter tags currently issued by meat processing companies.

2. Animals which are considered by a farmer to be impractical to tag are also exempt from NAIT tagging requirements. This exemption only applies if the animal is tagged with an official AHB bar-coded primary tag and is being transported directly to a meat processor. For 2012/13 these animals will incur a levy of $13 per head (excluding GST) which will be deducted by the meat processor.

Registering animalsFrom 1 July animals need to be registered with NAIT within one week of being tagged. Animals born after 1 July 2012 should be tagged within 180 days of birth. The registration process links animals to tags in the NAIT system so they can be traced.

If you’ve got a NAIT number you can register animals online now at www.nait.co.nz.

Recording cattle movements from 1 JulyNAIT legislation requires that when animals are sent to a location which has a different NAIT number linked to it, or the person in charge of the animals changes, this needs to be recorded in the NAIT system. For example, when an animal is bought, sold, sent for grazing or sent to a meat processor or saleyard.

Animal movements to NAIT-accredited meat processors and saleyards will be recorded for you. For information about NAIT-accredited organisations which can carry out some or all of your NAIT obligations, including animal movement recording, go to www.nait.co.nz. When an animal is received from a NAIT-accredited saleyard a movement still needs to be recorded.

Getting helpNAIT-accredited information providers will be able to handle many of your NAIT obligations for you. For a list of accredited information providers visit the NAIT website www.nait.co.nz.

Purpose of NAIT schemeThe scheme will provide lifetime traceability of individual cattle and deer, enhancing New Zealand’s ability to respond more quickly if there’s a food safety event or a biosecurity threat such as a disease outbreak. In a situation like this NAIT’s capacity to provide a rapid containment response would enable trade to resume more quickly with less economic impact for farmers and New Zealand.

How the NAIT scheme worksThe NAIT scheme is about who is responsible for stock on a day-to-day basis rather than who owns the animals. The NAIT scheme will link individual animals to the person responsible for them, and their current location. This is done via the radio frequency identification device (RFID) ear tag in

each animal’s ear and a central database which links each tagged animal to information about the person registered as responsible for it, and the location where the animal is kept. NAIT tags can be purchased from your local rural supplies company.

Recording each time an animal moves from one location to another, and/or when the person responsible for it changes is how the NAIT scheme maintains lifetime traceability of animals. It’s necessary for this information to be kept up to date so the NAIT system can quickly provide details of where individual animals are and who is responsible for them.

Benefits of RFID technologyThe RFID technology used by the NAIT system is an enabler for on-farm benefits for farmers who make a further investment in RFID systems in

addition to NAIT-approved RFID tags. Potential benefits include:• automated drafting of animals

that meet pre-defined conditions

• accurate recording of production details about individual animals so it can be used to support management decisions, for example: {{ regularly weighing animals

to sell at optimum individual weight

{{ tracking treatments{{ recording breeding information{{ measuring milk production

This additional investment is not mandatory under the NAIT scheme, but can potentially have significant benefits. High performance HDX tags will be more suitable for these on- farm activities.

The quickest way to get a NAIT number is via the NAIT website at www.nait.co.nz


news // 13

New dairymen seek protectionclients new to dairying represent about 10% of new customers for rural insurer FMG which has announced an after-tax profit of $8.5m for the year ending March 31.

FMG told Dairy News dairy is its largest market sub-sector where it has a 48% market share. Across all rural segments it has a 41% share, making it the leading rural insurer, it says. Of just under 7000 new clients, about 10% were new dairy farmers or sharemilkers.

Chief executive Chris Black says, “We’ve experienced solid and consistent client

growth in all rural segments in the past year. The client-driven advice-lead insurance model is proving successful for FMG.”

In the last year: ■ FMG grew its client base 8.5% to 55,500

clients with at least half a million policies. ■ Gross written premiums increased 14%

from $131m to $150m. ■ Capital reserves increased 6% from

$140m to $149m.Challenges have included the aftermath

of the Christchurch earthquake, and destruc-

tion caused by the weather ‘bomb’ that hit the Taranaki and Wanganui on March 3. The storm caused at least 1300 claims from FMG clients and about $7m damage.

“FMG’s strong financial position and pru-dent reinsurance programme has meant the financial impact of the earthquakes and the weather bomb has been absorbed, with only a small impact on our financial results,” Black says.

FMG’s ‘A’ (excellent) credit rating by AM Best has been reaffirmed.

Fresh Anchor milk behind gelato winQueueing is constant during summer outside Auck-land’s Takapuna Beach Café and Store as beach-goers line up for gelato made with fresh milk. The café makes all its gelato on site.

The zany flavour of Salted Caramel gelato won the Takapuna Café the Supreme Award for Boutique Man-ufacturer in the 16th New Zealand Ice Cream Awards announced this month.

This is the third year it has won the award, last year for Coconut and Lime and the year before with Liquorice.

This year it also won the Sorbet category with its New Zealand Passionfruit and took wins with its vanilla and dark chocolate ice creams.

Café manager Kris Goode says the secret to gelato suc-cess is fresh ingredients, including Anchor Blue Top milk, and experimenting with flavours using fresh ingredients – in season if possible.

Owners Scott Brown and Jackie Grant researched gelato in Italy and Australia before opening the café four years ago. “The gelato machine is rolling most days,” Goode says. “A lot of people come here for the gelato.”

Takapuna supplies another Auckland cafe in its group of four – Café on Kohi, Kohimarama, which enjoys high gelato and ice cream sales.

Goode says gelato has less cream, therefore less fat, than standard ice cream.

Cafe manager Kris Goode with the award-winning Salted Caramel ice cream.

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THE NEW Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers Association was formed in 1927 and represents ice cream makers and associate members who supply products and services to the industry.

New Zealanders are among the world’s highest consumers per capita of ice cream, with Australia and the US.

“New Zealand is world-famous for the qual-ity of its dairy products, the result of a clean environment, year-round grazing on pasture, a technologically advanced dairy industry, and strict quality and hygiene standards,” the association says. “It is made from the best and freshest dairy ingredients available anywhere.”

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news // 15

Top tip on best ice creamfresh whole milk and cream from Fonterra farmers is a key to Tip Top winning this year’s Supreme Award for Large Manufacturer of the Year with its French Vanilla ice cream.

This is the top award in New Zealand, but Fon-terra-owned Tip Top also took home 16 other acco-lades from the recent New Zealand Manufacturers Association Ice Cream Awards in Napier.

Tip Top uses about six to eight million litres

of fresh whole milk and cream to make 30 million litres of ice cream a year.

“A key essence to why we win awards consis-tently is our ingredients – fresh whole milk and cream – our quality pro-cesses and our very high level of ingredient mix,”

TIP TOP is New Zealand’s leading ice cream manufacturer and a market leader in all catego-ries. Among its brands are Trumpet, Jelly Tip, Choc Bar, Memphis Meltdown and Popsicle.

The 76-year-old company has been part of Fonterra since the co-operative was formed in 2001, and now has 420 staff.

Since Fonterra took over, Hyland says, there has been major investment in equipment and pro-cesses ensuring consistency in quality, a contribu-tor to the brand’s award success in every category.

Also, large investment in research and innova-tion draws on generations of expertise within the company.

A key innovation is the ‘pizza board’ patented to Tip Top and so-called because it was designed

on the back of a pizza box. This enabled Tip Top to put large ‘chunks’ such as biscuits or hokey pockey in stick products such as Memphis Meltdown.

A key example is the Memphis Big Bikkie, one of the most popular Memphis products, says Hyland.

Tip Top manufactures under its own brands, e.g. Tip Top and Country Goodness, but also contract manufactures for Nestle and Heinz. It exports to Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Pacific Islands.

The Asian markets offer big opportunity, Hyland says. “To give you an idea, in many Asian markets the ice cream consumption is about 1-2L/capita/year versus 14-18L/capita/year in the US, England Australia and New Zealand.”

about tiP toP

Fiona Hyland says fresh whole milk and cream is a key to Tip Top’s ice cream winning success.

Pam tiPa says Fiona Hyland, Tip Top’s general manager marketing.

“As well as the milk, where we can we use New Zealand ingredients – things like boysenber-ries from Nelson and the goody goody gumdrops come from Oamaru.”

As well as winning best-in-category for French Vanilla, Boysen-berry Ripple and Low Fat Creamy Yoghurt (Straw-berry), Tip Top’s inno-vation was rewarded in the open creative cate-gories with a gold award for its Pear and Maple ice cream, and silver awards for Kapiti Chilli Chocolate and Raspberry ice cream, and for its Tropical sorbet.

The boysenberry and Creamy Yoghurt (straw-berry) have won gold and best-in-category for three years in a row.

Vanilla is considered the pinnacle of ice cream awards because with no other flavours, it is judged on the purity of ingredi-ents and manufacture. Tip Top’s entries are taken straight off the shelves, so they are exactly what the consumer is buying.

Hyland says they are

particularly excited about the open creative category wins, chosen each year from an internal competi-tion within its innovation team.

“A culture of innova-tion and quality is fun-damental to Tip Top’s longevity and success, and our recent awards are a testament to the strength

of the Tip Top team and the love of New Zealand-ers for our products,” Hyland says.

From 37 companies there were 285 entries in the 16th annual ice cream Awards.

The judges awarded points for appearance, body, texture and most importantly flavour.

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news // 17

‘White gold’ will lose some glitter

2011 2012 2013+ 2016+

Cow and heifers in milk (millions)

4.68 4.82 4.93 5.17

Milk solids produced (million kg’s)

1 513 1 664* 1 657 1 768

Milk price (cents per kg) 760 608* 573 783

Total export value ($ millions) 13 169 13 904* 12 626 17 033

*estimate + forecast

The dairy industry at a glance

milk may well be ‘white gold’ to the New Zealand economy – as recently described by the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) – but its glitter is likely to dim in the coming year.

So says MPI in its ‘Situation and Out-look for Primary Industries’ (SOPI) annual report. It forecasts a drop for 2013 in everything except cow numbers. There will be slightly less milk solids

produced in the current record season which has seen a 10% increase. But next season the value of export returns will be down by about 9% and the payout to farmers will also be down.

Not surprising, says MPI deputy director-general Paul Stocks. “We’ve had a brilliant year for dairy produc-tion and that’s not going to happen next year.”

But Stocks is upbeat about the long-term outlook for sector, noting that after next season there will be a modest

Peter burke2.2 % increase in milk solids production. And the long-term outlook is good espe-cially in emerging markets, he says. The risk of the dairy industry becoming too dependent on China has to be watched but he’s not too worried.

“Our productive sector is now much more finely attuned to the markets and the fact that we have a diverse set of markets to sell into mitigates the risk.”

He notes the emergence of India as an economic powerhouse which, unlike China, is traditionally a consumer of dairy products. Big opportunities exist in the ASEAN region and the OPEC countries, along with China, are New Zealand’s top market.

Stocks says some people tend to downplay the value of New Zealand’s milk powder, describing it as a com-modity.

“But I don’t think our stuff is. People buy New Zealand milk powder because they can trust it. They get exactly what they ask for every time. They can trust

the regulatory systems around it and that points to it no longer being a com-modity.”

The MPI report raises the issue that as cow numbers increase, and with this a rising intensification of the indus-try, innovative ways need to be found to address environmental issues. But Stocks points out that the dairy indus-try is to New Zealand what other forms of industry are to other countries.

“When you are doing [dairying] on the scale we are, i.e. as a business, not as lifestyle, there are environmental impacts. Farmers and the community at large should be aware of that and the

issue is, how do you manage that? It has taken the dairy industry a bit of time to catch up to the fact that their neigh-bours have a view on how the land and water around them is being used. Farm-ers need to care about it because their markets care about it.”

New Zealand must also remember the role the dairy industry plays in the beef industry, Stocks says. The dairy industry is as much a part of the meat industry as anything else. “Once the productive life of a dairy cow is done, it has one more task – to become part of the beef industry.” Cow beef is a valu-able commodity, he says.

MPI deputy director-general Paul Stocks says dairy’s golden run may come to an end next year.

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Allan Crafar still living on the edge

Grow sustainably

disaffected farmer Allan Crafar says bankers have driven his family out of the dairy industry.

Crafar, who this month attended the Ahuwhenua Awards in Auck-land, leased the Tauhara Moana farm before it was taken over by the receiver and then returned to the trust. He told Dairy News he felt a bit strange being at the awards function. He still resents losing his farms and says none of his sons is working in the dairy industry.

“The bankers just drove our whole family out of farming. In fact they are running around the country saying we’ve got to get young boys and entrepreneurs into farming. But they have driven a whole generation out of farming,” he says.

Crafar lives near Kinloch, just out of Taupo, which backs on to an elite golf course. He has no job and doesn’t play golf. He’s sad that after 31 years he’s no longer part of the dairy industry and still clings to a dream that he might get his farms back. He’s still trying to raise the money.

“The Chinese haven’t got it yet and while they haven’t got it were not going to give up.”

He says the longer he’s out of the dairy industry the less attractive it appears. He’s very critical of the urban community and ‘greenies’.

“The way they jump up and down. Not one of them looks behind them when they get off the toilet to think where their effluent goes. The local

authorities could be served with abate-ment notices every day because they don’t know where the pollu-tion is going. All they do is just put up a sign, ‘don’t eat the shellfish and don’t swim.’ ”

Crafar believes the land he con-verted to dairying was of real benefit to New Zealand. “We saved a lot of the country from forestry by buying it and converting it. The farms we bought and converted would have been con-verted to trees and producing bugger all, not making much on carbon cred-its.”

Crafar says he’s been criticised for living on the edge, but says he was always told “if you weren’t living on the edge you were taking up too much room”.

Peter burke

the greatest challenge facing the dairy industry is how to grow sus-tainably, says DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle.

He told the Ahuwhenua Awards gath-ering in Auckland, Maori’s “involvement in dairy farming has grown and will con-tinue to grow. It will play a key part in addressing the challenge and opportu-nity for sustainable growth.

“DairyNZ wants to be part of that

journey with you, helping unlock that potential for better farm performance. We see close alignment with our stated values, especially on sustainability and profitability and the importance of people.”

Mackle says the Ahuwhenua Trophy is important because it celebrates excel-lence in farming and provides an insight into how top farmers are performing.More from Ahuwhenua Awards page 25.

Allan Crafar

Governor General Jerry Mateparae and Kapenga M chairman Roku Mihinui with the Ahuwhenua Trophy.

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world // 19

australian farm-ers are welcoming com-ments by Prime Minister Julia Gillard on the need to improve global agri-culture and food produc-tion. But it wants Gillard to show a similar commit-ment at home.

Speaking last week at the launch of a joint for-eign aid programme for agriculture at the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Gil-lard noted agriculture needs “better agricultural productivity, more open trade, greater investment, innovation, research and development”.

NFF president Jock Laurie says the comments are as applicable to Austra-lian agriculture as they are to global agriculture.

“The Prime Minis-ter’s comments will come as no surprise to those in the Australian agricultural sector – we’ve been saying the same things for many years – but it is reassuring to know the Government is listening.

“Importantly, just as the Government has pledged to improve agri-

cultural productivity and food security in some of the world’s poorest coun-tries, we need to see the same commitment to pro-ductivity and food and fibre production at home.

“The issues facing the global agricultural sector – the challenge of increasing production, the scarcity of valuable resources, the barriers to trade – are all the same challenges facing Australian farmers.”

Like their New Zealand counterparts, Australian farmers don’t enjoy Gov-ernment subsidies and have to compete in the global marketplace against heavily subsidised EU and US farmers. Gillard has acknowledged this, says Laurie.

“We are only able to stay competitive by con-tinually increasing our production through inno-vation and research and development. If we want to stay in the game, then we cannot take our foot off the pedal.

“And, if the Govern-ment is serious about Aus-tralian agriculture playing

a leading role in help-ing to ensure other coun-tries have sufficient food, then they need to support this by policies that enable growth in our domestic agricultural sector.”

Laurie singles out poli-cies such as strengthening biosecurity and quaran-tine systems; continuing

to invest in agricultural research and development to boost productivity; ensuring regulatory sys-tems do not hamper the development of new inno-vations and technologies; and ensuring new Govern-ment policies do not add exorbitant costs to farm businesses.

“What we need is a long-term, strategic approach by Govern-ment to agricultural policy development, informed by the sector’s ‘Blueprint for Australian Agriculture’, to ensure we can meet the challenges and capitalise on opportunities,” Laurie says.

one of China’s leading dairy companies, Inner Mongo-lia Yili Industrial Group Co, was this month recalling infant formula after excessive amounts of mercury were found, the China Daily reported.

It is believed the dairy giant’s growth could shrink to just 9% following the dairy safety incident, despite just posting half yearly growth of 137%, the Daily said.

The general administration of quality supervi-sion, inspection and quarantine, says the mercury was detected in several batches of Yili products during a check of baby formula products, the newspaper reported.

The company says all its other prod-ucts were found to have normal mercury levels and it would find the cause of the contamination.

Food experts say the excess mercury could have come from the environment, water and/or animal feeds, says a report in the weekend edition of the China Securities Journal, a daily newspaper pub-lished by the Xinhua News Agency.

Meanwhile, the excessive level of mer-cury could be from the company’s imported whey powder, which is the main ingredient in making baby for-mula products, the newspaper cited the CMS as saying.

Although the company faces only lim-ited costs stemming from the recall – the involved products only accounted for a small part of its port-folio – the incident will dampen consumer confi-dence in the company, the report said.

China’s consumer quality regulator examined sam-ples from 715 infant formula products, covering all of the country’s formula producers, the statement said.

Yili was the only company found to have products con-taminated with mercury, the statement said.

Mercury find prompts infant formula recall

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20 // world

Danish co-op signs big China dealsdanish co-oP Arla Foods has signalled its intentions in China by signing deals with two leading dairy industry companies.

The co-op has indi-rectly become a share-

holder in Mengniu Dairy Co Ltd in a deal with the company’s single largest shareholder, COFCO Cor-poration. With Mengniu, it is establishing the China-Denmark Milk Technology and Cooperation Centre,

to provide expertise on milk quality, traceability and controlled milk pro-duction on farms. Using Mengniu’s sales channels, it is expanding the Arla brand to new product cat-egories, giving Chinese

consumers access to more of its products.

Arla is spending $367m on a 6% stake in Mengniu. It will nominate one direc-tor to the Chinese compa-ny’s board.

The deals will boost Arla’s total turnover in China five-fold by 2016. Last year Arla’s total turn-over there was $151 mil-lion.

Since 2005 Arla has sold mostly powdered milk products on the Chi-nese market, through a joint venture with Meng-niu. Arla says it has decided with its partner to further develop its dairy business and extend this from milk powder to a range of dairy products.

Dairy consumption in China is growing faster than the nation’s rapidly increasing dairy

production. At about 10% growth,

the Chinese dairy market is expected to pass that of the US in 2020. This makes it crucial for Arla to gain a solid foothold in the Chinese market, says Arla Foods chief executive Peder Tuborgh.

“We are proud that China’s leading food com-pany COFCO and most successful dairy company Mengniu have chosen Arla as their strategic business partner in China.

“These agreements will increase our exports

to China significantly.... It will contribute to our cooperative owners’ milk price from day one, as we are able to add more value to milk that we otherwise would have to sell on the global bulk trading market where the profit [has been] lower historically.”

Tuborgh says reaching more Chinese consumers is a breakthrough for the Arla brand. “It will cement the Arla brand as a trade-mark for international quality, in powdered milk and other categories.”

China is one of Arla’s

five strategic growth markets – along with Russia, USA, Poland and the region Middle East & North Africa – where Arla works to create long-term growth opportunities.

“It is important for Arla that we continue our focus on developing our core markets in North-ern Europe combined with long-term strategic invest-ments on our distant growth markets, because that is where the biggest growth margins will be,” says Tuborgh.

Arla chief executive Peder Tuborgh addresses Chinese dairy leaders at the co-op head office this month.

■ China Mengniu Dairy Company Ltd

and its subsidiaries manufacture

and distribute dairy products

in China. It is one of the leading

dairy product manufacturers in

China, with MENGNIU as the core

brand. The Group boasts a diverse

product range including UHT

milk, milk beverages and yogurt,

ice cream, milk powder and

cheese. ■ Mengniu were the largest dairy

company in China in 2011 in

terms of sales volume and sales,

and one of the top 20 global

dairy enterprises as ranked by

Rabobank. As of December 2011,

the company’s annual production

was 7.05 million tons. In 2011 the

company reached a turnover

of $7.4 billion. The company is

listed on the Hong Kong Stock

Exchange. ■ COFCO Corporation is a leading

grain, oil and food import and

export group and the largest

food and beverage company in

China. The company is founded

in 1949 and has featured on the

Fortune 500 list since 1994. In 2011

COFCO’s total assets amounted

to $50B.

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22 // oPinion

ruminating

editorial

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Unity without TAF acceptable but TAF without unity isn’t

eager to talkJOURNALISTS have been pleasantly surprised to find the current (and some ex) dairy industry top guns ready to take their calls over the last two weeks.

They were everywhere – television, radio farming shows, websites and newspapers – giving their two cents worth on TAF (trading among farm-ers). Fonterra called on a crowd of who’s who in dairy, to back TAF.

Journalists can only hope this easy access will not fade now the TAF vote is over.

suddenly he loves cowsPRESIDENTIAL HOPEFUL Mitt Romney posed for a roadside photo with a herd of grazing cows in rural Pennsylvania. He scooped ice cream for locals in a small Ohio town and served pancakes at a Fa-ther’s Day breakfast. All in the name of campaigning.

Romney called his five-day trek across remote regions of presidential battleground states a jour-ney along “the backbone of America.”

For Romney, rural areas, small towns and outer-edge suburbs like Brunswick, on the outskirts of Cleveland, are crucial to offsetting President Obama’s strength in urban centers.

Prehistoric dairy consumersIT’S OFFICIAL: dairy products have been around for at least 7000 years.

Prehistoric people in the African Sahara were making dairy products such as butter, yoghurt and cheese. This speculation, based on the identification of dairy fats on ancient pottery shards found in Libya, is the first to provide a definitive date for early dairy farming in Africa.

“What we’re beginning to know is that cattle were significant to early peoples,” says Julie Dunne, an archaeological scientist at the University of Bristol, UK.

absolutely beastly treatment of cows!BRITISH actress Joanna Lumley is plumping for EU-wide rules to safe-guard dairy cows, which animal-rights campaign-ers say are often kept tethered or without suf-ficient space or outside pasture, and suffering a poor diet and ill health.

The Supporting Better Dairy campaign hopes to mobilise a million con-sumers via a European Citizens Initiative – which allows the public to pro-pose EU legislation – to push officials to improve conditions for cows.

Groups including WSPA, Compassion in World Farming and ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s say cows should be well housed and each animal have a certain space.

Ban tethers and allow access to the outdoors, with pasture grazing where possible; and animals should be al-lowed to express natural behaviour.

THE TIME for fighting is over. By the time you read this, Fonterra farmers will have had their say on TAF (trading among farmers).

It has been a bitter and divisive campaign. Those opposed to TAF made their point passionately in the media. Fonterra, on the other hand, pulled out its top guns – current and former – to hammer home the benefits of the scheme and the dangers posed by redemption risk.

Greatly outnumbered by Fonterra’s PR and legal resources, those opposed to TAF pooled their resources and with the help of donations put up a worthy campaign. Their views on TAF and anxiety over losing ownership and control of the co-op resonated with some shareholders.

For Fonterra’s sake, it’s time for the fighting to stop. Firstly, the Fonterra board and the Shareholders Council must decide whether farmers have handed them a “a clear mandate” to pro-ceed with TAF.

If the ‘yes’ vote has not been decisive, question marks will hang over TAF. Fonterra cannot continue to operate with a shaky balance sheet with redemption risk hanging over it. Something must change and the Fonterra board must go back to weary share-holders for another round of consultations.

If the vote is deemed to be a clear mandate for the board and council, then everyone must get behind the co-op leaders.

Fonterra has a sound growth strategy in place. It is setting up farms in China and, given that a Danish co-op recently announced a major deal with China’s leading dairy processor, our co-op is seen to be on the right track. But a solid balance sheet is useless unless the shareholders are united.

Investing money in overseas markets is high risk. Therefore it will need to be done with a safe balance sheet, not one where share redemption causes money to wash in and out. At the same time a fractured shareholder base will damage Fonterra’s repu-tation overseas.

For Fonterra’s future a united shareholder base is vital. As the smoke clears from yesterday’s vote, all eyes will be on the board and council for leadership.

Unity without TAF is acceptable but TAF without unanimity among shareholders is not.

After all, it’s the cooperative spirit that makes Fonterra stand out from the rest.


oPinion // 23

The changing face of farmingour Primary sector is evolving at an ever-increas-ing rate. Farming today is very different from say, 20 years ago.

It is more challenging than ever. We must pro-duce more with less, we must be more environ-mentally conscious, we must continue to improve the way we farm our ani-mals and we must come to grips with growing compe-tition from new markets.

There’s been a huge change in the way New Zealand’s goods are now positioned. Our brand has shifted to a higher cost, higher quality prod-uct aimed at a more dis-cerning international consumer. Retailers are meeting this demand by being ethically and envi-ronmentally responsive.

And this plays to New Zealand’s strengths when it comes to primary pro-duction.

An innovative and prosperous rural sector is at the heart of our eco-nomic growth agenda.

The primary sector now makes up 71% of New Zealand’s total merchan-dise export trade - but not to the countries we once relied on.

The changing face of farming has paralleled a change in our traditional export markets.

The EU, the world’s largest economic trad-ing bloc, faces major chal-lenges as it deals with countries like Greece, Italy and Spain. The US can at

best be described as sub-dued.

In the past, this would have had a huge impact on New Zealand. After all, these were once our main export markets.

Though such markets are still very important to us, we are fortunate to have repositioned our-selves so significantly to Asia. China is now our second largest trad-ing partner, with exports growing by nearly 40% in the last financial year, a stunning example of the success of our Free Trade Agreement.

As a nation that trades internationally for its very survival, we know the importance of market access for all our exports.

We are in talks with eight Trans-Pacific Part-nership countries, with Russia, India and South Korea – striving to negoti-ate FTAs beneficial to all New Zealand exporters.

I have just returned from Russia where we are progressing free trade negotiations which began in 2010.

Two-way trade is cur-rently worth about $700 million - but if a deal is reached, it will be Russia’s first international trade deal and our exports will grow significantly.

One of the things that stood out to me during my trip was how highly regarded New Zealand is internationally.

We are well known as producers of some of the

best food in the world, at a time when food security is the world’s greatest chal-lenge. The overarching challenge for New Zealand is to protect its reputation as a quality producer.

We need to play to our strengths and protect the

brand that sets us apart from our competitors.

New Zealand’s physical distance from markets is unique among developed countries and this pres-ents us with a clear chal-lenge.

No other country in the

OECD has such a striking combination of small size and remoteness.

But this shouldn’t be viewed as a negative.

As a nation whose economy depends on the powerhouse of our pri-mary industries, New Zea-

land’s global focus must remain on maximising our reputation for produc-ing high quality products, backed by integrity.

Our farmers and grow-ers are among the world’s most innovative and effi-cient.

They are fully embrac-ing the changing face of farming. But we must con-tinually strive to find ways to work smarter, to deliver greater prosperity and opportunity to all New Zealanders.

David Carter

PRIMARY INDUSTRIES Minister David Carter opened the National Fieldays earlier this month. He spoke about the changing face of farming around the globe:

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24 // agribusiness

Volatility, planning and progressthose who have been around a while know that one of the certainties of business life is change. That has taken on a new dimension with the vola-tility of compressed busi-ness cycles accentuating positive and negative swings. An obvious exam-ple is the recent soften-ing of dairy prices which has cast an unexpected shadow over 2013 and beyond.

Focusing on the real – rather than imagined – impact of such change is essential. This demands a robust approach to plan-ning and budgeting: fun-damental tools for getting attitudes right so sound decisions are made.

Farmers can be too quick to focus on move-ment in revenue prices

and too slow to mea-sure the impact on profit margin.

In buoyant times the industry often assumes higher milk prices will bring automatic boosts to profitability. My bench-marking analysis suggests higher milk prices often flow through to cost infla-tion as suppliers factor perceived higher returns into prices for feed, graz-ing, fertiliser and other

inputs. This is often exag-gerated by farmers com-peting for these resources.

Conversely, when reve-nue prices fall there can be a compensating decline in farm input costs. This can offer opportunity for pro-active farming enterprises

to negotiate more compet-itive deals and find areas where they can cut fat, not muscle, to protect profit-ability.

A weakness of many farming operations is that they don’t focus enough on profit margins. For example, the combined impact of favourable cli-mate, feed inventories, reasonable stock values, lower input costs and

declining interest rates will potentially reduce the impact of the current ‘headline’ change in farm incomes.

The primary drive during downturns must be to ensure the business is in the best possible posi-

tion to capitalise when the inevitable recovery occurs. This is all about identi-fying the right things to cut and the right things to continue. Careful thought must be given to maintain-ing stock quality, fertil-ity, pasture species, people and infrastructure so false economies are avoided.

Effective and timely budgeting is essential to achieve this. Ideally it

should start with a sound business plan so the busi-ness owners and their advisors have a complete understanding of the key performance measures needed to deliver per-sonal, business and career goals. This provides a dashboard to navigate by regardless of the changing business terrain.

Involving financiers and other stakeholders strengthens their confi-dence in the business and provides valuable feed-back to enhance credibil-ity of budget assumptions and likelihood of success.

It should be a business-as-usual process for every farming operation to break their longer term strategic plan into an annual plan. This is all about what needs to happen today to achieve long-term goals. If a strategic plan is about a destination, the annual plan tells you how quickly you are likely to get there.

I have for some years encouraged my clients to adopt this approach. All the enterprises I am involved in operate with constantly updated bud-gets for at least three years ahead.

The first is for the cur-rent season built on a rolling update of budget projections combined with actual results as each month passes. This gen-erates a monthly forecast of how the operation will track and is a real plus for cost control, performance monitoring and tax plan-ning.

The forecast for the following year maintains awareness of the medium-term outlook.

Copying this budget forward each year removes the hassle of having to start with a blank paper for each season. It’s simply a matter of rolling these two years forward and keep-ing close comparisons between them to ensure credibility.

The third year budget is a ‘status quo’ outlook. This measures likely returns based on realis-tic long term revenue and cost assumptions similar to those used by financiers to evaluate lending propo-sitions.

A key advantage of ‘status quo’ budgets is that they can be easily refreshed to measure the impact of long term

changes in trading out-look. They also enable quick assessment of new opportunity when growth opportunities or devel-opment propositions emerge.

Getting the annual plan signed off during the annual meeting of every farm business, big or small, has served my clients exceedingly well. Collaboration between farmers, their financiers and other profession-als working with credible short and long-term plans results in greater confi-dence, gives everyone time to react and most of all ensures the owners have a clearer understanding of their position and speed of travel.

There may be tough times ahead but I am ever conscious that the best years often result from pressure to keep a busi-ness light on its feet. This is a positive beckon-ing those who embrace change and volatility.• Kerry Ryan is a New Zealand based agribusiness consultant available for face-to-face or online for advice and ideas. Contact him at www.kerryryan.co.nz

Global economic volatility demands a robust approach to planning and budgeting on farm.

Effective and timely budgeting is essential.

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agribusiness // 25

Maori trust rewarded for astute planning

rotorua’s kaP-enga M Trust has won the Ahuwhenua Trophy for a second time, taking honours for New Zea-land’s best Maori dairy farm. In 2003 it won the

award for best Maori sheep-and-beef farm.

Kapenga M Trust headed off strong chal-lenges from two other finalists: Tauhara Moana, Taupo, and Waewaetutuki 10 Wharepi Whanau Trust, Te Puke.

The trophy was pre-

sented by Governor Gen-eral Sir Jerry Mateparae at a gala awards ceremony in Auckland attended by at least 600 people.

The Kapenga M Trust dairy unit milks 998 Jersey/Friesian cross cows on 330ha. Since 2008 production has risen

from 241,442kgMS to 371,169kgMS though the herd has only increased in size by nine cows.

Awards chief judge Doug Leeder noted pro-duction for the cur-rent season was heading towards 400,000kgMS.

“It is the very best of

Peter burke

MAORI HAVE a special place in the New Zealand primary sec-tor because they do not farm for capital gain. That comment, by respected Maori business-man Kingi Smiler, came at the Ahuwhenua Awards presen-tation for the top Maori dairy farm.

Smiler, chairman of the Ahuwhenua Awards commit-tee, says Maori need to be the best intergenerational farmers so they can provide sustainable yearly returns to their landown-ers.

“It is important we not only set best-practice bench-marks for what happens inside the farm gate, but also make sure we produce good prod-ucts, have high productivity and keep building infrastruc-ture.

“Maori need to understand those external factors that influence the markets and to see how they operate. There is a need for us as Maori own-ers to collaborate and partner together to make sure we can meet these challenges.”

Smiler commented on this year’s strong competition for the Ahuwhenua Awards.

“All this year’s finalists set a high benchmark for the whole of the primary industry. The task of selecting the finalists was difficult. We encourage those who did not make the final to build on this experience and to enter the competition in 2014.”

Smiler said the 600 tickets to the event were sold before the three finalists’ field days were held.

IN FoR THe LoNG HAUL

the benchmark group for this region and while this season may have helped this level of production, it requires astute plan-ning and management,” he said. Leeder also praised the governance struc-ture of the trust and its review of its deed of trust to ensure a rotation of

trustees.Trust chairman Roku

Mihinui told Dairy News he was delighted at the Kapenga M win, attribut-ing it in part to their good working relationship with their farm supervisor.

“Also the foresight of

the earlier trustees who set a strategic plan in place.

I think having faith and confidence in ourselves, that collectively we were going to do alright, played a part in our winning of the award.”

Young achiever’s secret recipe for successtangaroa walker (22) has won the inaugural Ahuwhenua Young Maori Trainee/Cadet award. Walker, originally from Tauranga and now a lower order sharemilker at Kennington, Southland, admits to being goal driven.

He told Dairy News he wanted to be a lower order sharemilker by age 23 and a 50/50 sharemilker by age 26.

“People told me I wasn’t going to achieve it, but I’ve achieved lower order sharemilker with a year up my sleeve.”

Walker was in the ‘academy’ at Tauranga Boys College and was

the first prefect in the school to come from the academy. That’s when he started his goal setting and decided to become a dairy farmer.

“I’d looked at becom-ing an electrician, an architect or a farmer. I asked my careers advisor what was going to get me $200,000 under my belt the fastest and he said ‘dairy farming by far.’ ”

He’s been on Toa Farms for two and a half years and attributes his success to being around successful people – especially pakeha, he says.

“I have learned their ways and how they got to where they are. I’ve leapfrogged all their mistakes, doing in three-four years the sort of things they would have done in 10 years. I’ve also had good help from

the AgITO. I have the knowledge and now I just need the experience. I really want to achieve and people are giving me the opportunity to get ahead.”

Toa Farm runs 570 cows and this season will produce at least 242,000kgMS – well ahead of the

target. He says the award will open up opportunities and convince the people in the equity partnership that he’s “got what it takes”.

Highly motivated Walker writes things down as he works and sets and reviews his goals weekly. He likes to mix and mingle and soak up knowledge.

“I’m a tree right; I blow in both directions – the Pakeha world and the Maori world. You have to be flexible or you are not going to grow. My roots in Tauranga are strong but I have learned to blow in the wind of the pakeha way and the Maori way.”

Tangaroa Walker

Kapenga M Trust chairman Roku Mihinui with the Ahuwhenua Trophy.

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26 // agribusiness / comment

Benefits of co-opsthe united Nations general assembly in December 2009 declared 2012 to be the Interna-tional Year of Coopera-tives in recognition of the contribution of coopera-tives to global, social and economic development.

The UN called on gov-

ernments, international institutions, business and other stakeholders to sup-port the development and growth of cooperatives worldwide, and invited all nations to form national steering committees to ensure a coordinated response. In March, 200 guests launched the New Zealand International

Year of Cooperatives in the grand hall at Parlia-ment, hosted by the Min-ister of Commerce Craig Foss, with guest speakers including Rabobank global chairman Piet Moerland and the president of the International Cooperative Alliance, Dame Pauline Green, via video.

Here in New Zea-land, producer cooper-atives have functioned since 1871, when eight Otago dairy farmers joined forces, investing one pound each to start their own cheese factory. Today, the New Zealand Cooper-atives Association has at least 50 members, some big businesses by New Zealand and international standards. Foremost is Fonterra, New Zea-land’s only true multina-tional enterprise and the world’s largest exporter of dairy products. Food-stuffs, with its Pak’nSave and New World brands, and the farmer-owned meat processing compa-nies Alliance Group and Silver Fern Farms, are also large business operations ranked among the world’s 300 largest cooperatives. Others are quite small, found in a variety of sec-tors such as credit unions, banking, insurance, retail-ing, taxi companies and vehicle repair shops.

The scale and diversity of New Zealand’s coop-erative sector means they play a key role in the daily lives of many New Zea-landers. Cooperatives also make a strong contribu-tion to the achievement of the Government’s eco-nomic objectives. Com-pared to other countries, cooperatives and mutuals are a relatively large part of the New Zealand econ-omy – almost 10% of the country’s top 200 busi-nesses, as represented by turnover. New Zealand-ers have embraced the cooperative model where members own and control their own businesses. The cooperative ethos suits the New Zealand psyche in many ways. The notion of self-help, cooperating, and sharing the profits is particularly strong in rural areas, where many farmers and townsfolk belong to sometimes four or five dif-ferent cooperatives.

Recently our associa-tion commissioned a Hori-zon Research survey of at

least 1000 people. Among the detail that was rein-forced is the importance New Zealanders place on the business values of honesty, integrity and eth-ical standards, which are core pillars of the coop-erative structure. Unsur-prisingly, New Zealanders overwhelmingly want to do business with com-panies that display these attributes.

Cooperatives typi-cally put long term gain and business stability ahead of short term prof-its. This has helped coop-eratives come through difficult financial times relatively unscathed, com-pared to many inves-tor-driven companies. But the word is not get-ting out there. Coopera-tives often don’t perceive the need to communicate their successes any wider than their own member-ship, meaning the wider community remains unin-formed. This is backed up by the Horizon Survey with at least 70% thinking there is insufficient aware-ness about the difference between cooperatives and investor-owned compa-nies, and 60% would like to see universities, poly-technics, and our account-ing and legal associations offering courses on coop-eratives.

Consumers and pro-ducers are looking for entities they can trust, and where they can be confi-dent of being treated well.

And the top 40 New Zealand cooperatives employ around 50,000 people.

By way of comparison, in the UK, long consid-ered the home of coop-erative enterprise, there are10 times the number of cooperatives, employing five times the staff of their New Zealand counter-parts. But the combined turnover of the UK coop-eratives is not even double the combined revenues generated in this country.

And a statistic I par-ticularly like, as a dairy farmer, is that in farming in the UK, there are 446 cooperatives with a turn-over of $8.5 billion. Com-pare this with dairy co-ops in New Zealand, which alone generated revenue of over $20 billion.• Blue Read is the chairman of the New Zealand Cooper-atives Association.

Long-time member of Westland Milk, John o’Connor (left) gets the honour of sampling the celebratory cake with Commerce Minister Craig Foss.

blue read


management // 27

June July Aug Sept oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May

Average 25 16 30 57 75 60 63 47 29 19 26 29

Maximum 65 31 46 75 125 81 83 81 56 61 56 41

Minimum 12 1 16 43 53 50 29 5 6 2 2 15

Table 1: Maximum, minimum and average pasture growth rates (9 year data).

Pasture is enough... but is there enough grass?i was interested in an article in the last issue of the Dairy News titled “Well-fed cows don’t need supplements” (Dairy News June 12 issue). It summarised information presented by DairyNZ sci-entists John Roche and Jane Kay at the recent DairyNZ Farmers Forum. In their paper: Feeding the modern dairy cow – is pas-ture still enough? Roche and Kay concluded that:

“Despite a greater capacity of the modern dairy cow to eat and pro-duce milk, decision rules around the appropriate-ness of supplementary feeding have not changed. Supplements will bene-fit milk production and reproduction when cows do not have sufficient pas-ture (i.e. grazing residuals are less than 1,500-1,600 kg DM/ha).”

Well-fed cows may not

need supplements but the reality is that it is very dif-ficult to keep cows well fed throughout the entire season when you are rely-ing solely on pasture.

Pasture production data (see Figure 1) from a typical Waikato dairy farm shows significant variabil-ity between seasons. The average total annual DM production was 14,552 kg/ha/year but the range was 11,461 - 18,576 kgDM/ha. Assuming an annual dry-matter intake of 4.5 tDM/cow and pasture utili-sation of 80%, the farm

could carry 2.6 cows/ha in an average year, 3.3 cows/ha in the best year but only 2.0 cows/ha in the worst. For a 140 ha farm this means that the ideal herd size varies from 280 to 460 cows (see figure 1)!

While the variation in total annual pasture pro-

duction is high, there are enormous variations in monthly pasture growth rates between seasons (Table 1).

As an industry, I think we underestimate the amount of time and skill required to successfully manage a pasture-based dairy farm system (see table 1).

Keeping cows well fed throughout the season when you rely solely on pasture is difficult.

Figure 1: Pasture yield data from a typical Waikato dairy farm*. Source: Data provided by Wayne Reynolds, Gordonton, Waikato.

Supplements play an important role in fill-ing feed deficits caused by fluctuation in pasture yield. They allow farm-ers to run stocking rates that allow them to har-vest most of the grass in the best pasture-growing season without compro-

mising production, repro-duction or cow welfare when the grass isn’t grow-ing.

Maize silage has many advantages including:

It is cost-effective. The cash cost of growing maize on high fertility dairy land

when required. By con-trast many home-grown crops must be fed when they are mature regardless of whether the extra feed is required.

Roche and Kay’s paper demonstrates that feed-ing pasture is enough for

the modern cow. But will you have enough pasture to keep your cows milk-ing at their genetic poten-tial throughout the 12/13 season? • Ian Williams is a Pioneer forage specialist. Email [email protected]

(including effluent pad-docks) is in the range 10-16c/kgDM (see page 24 of the Pioneer® brand Maize for Silage catalogue 2012/13).

It gives good milksol-ids response rates. Trials conducted at the Waimate West Demonstration Farm

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It can be stored and fed

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28 // management

Pasture persists despite drought, pestsdrought and insect infestation lead to a test-ing time for ryegrass pas-ture establishment in the upper North Island from 2004 to 2010, but lessons were learnt.

Some pastures per-formed well despite the conditions, the DairyNZ Farmers Forum heard.

Each pasture persis-tence competition winner,

for example, had new pas-tures performing well 5-8 years after sowing, AgResearch senior scien-tist Tom Fraser and Dairy NZ farm systems special-ist Chris Glassey said in the presentation “Pasture persistence – what’s work-ing”.

The workshop heard mean rainfall in the 2004 to 2010 summers and

early autumn was 17% lower than the average at Ruakura near Hamilton.

Insect pest outbreaks such as black beetle were more common and the AR1 endophyte, used for a high proportion of pas-ture renewal during this period, was susceptible.

With the upper North Island a potentially a hos-tile environment for rye-

grass and white clover to thrive, lessons learnt showed following proto-cols will reduce the risk during establishment.Endophyte selection

The most appropri-ate endophyte for each-situation depends on the level of insect challenge in that region. Tables 2 and 3 in the DairyNZ Pasture Renewal Guide (dairynz.co.nz/pasturerenewal) pro-vide a summary of the expected insect protec-tion from the range of

endophytes available for diploid and tetraploid rye-grasses.Planning

Identify under-per-forming paddocks from farm walk records, cow grazing days, or daily milk in vat.

Use the DairyNZ Pas-ture Condition Scor-ing tool (see dairynz.co.nz/pasturerenewal) to assess the status of each pad-dock. This allows you to build a time sequence for renewal. Identifying pad-docks for renewal up to two years out allows times to fix drainage and soil compaction through crop-ping. Drainage and con-touring are hard to fit in the narrow windows of opportunity each autumn and spring.

A lead-in time of 12 months or more gives more flexibility.

Do a soil test before renewal and correct any nutrient deficienciesWhite clover establishment

Drill ryegrass using the drill’s main-seed box. Drop white clover seed onto the soil surface from the smallseeds box in front of the coulters sowing the ryegrass.

Alternatively clover seed can be broadcast before covering seed with about 5 mm of soil using a brush or bar harrow. Sowing ryegrass and white clover seed in the same coulter results in poor white clover establish-ment. Clover, should be sown at less than 10mm.

Cultivation before drilling or sowing after a crop is the most expensive option; however, it allows for incorporation of lime

and provides better con-ditions for establishing white clover.

Cultivation also reduces deep soil compac-tion, disrupts insect popu-lations and improves weed control. Use certified seed

All certified seed is tested for germination and purity. Always request a copy of the seed analysis certificate. Ryegrass seed infected with a particular endophyte will also have an endophyte viability

test. The endophyte level must be 70% or greater, meaning 70% of the seeds contain endophyte. This information is printed near the bottom of the seed analysis certificate.

Weed control early in a pasture’s life is preferable as small weeds are easier to kill. Grazing management

New pastures require special management in Year 1. The aim is to improve seedling size before summer.

■ Graze for the first time when new seedlings cannot be pulled out by hand, usually five to seven weeks after drill-ing. Replacement heif-ers (if available) are preferred but cows for 1-2 hours are also suit-able

■ Graze regularly (e.g. when pasture height reaches 10-15 cm), leaving a 4 cm stub-ble during the winter/ spring following drill-ing.

■ As summer develops reduce grazing fre-quency

■ Ryegrass pastures in the upper North Island face multiple stresses in summer such as moisture deficits, high temperatures and insect pests. Appropri-ate grazing manage-ment can reduce the impact

■ Don’t graze new pas-tures severely (below 4 cm) in the first summer. Repeated grazings below this level for older pastures will not help persis-tence either.See dairynz.co.nz/pas-

turerenewal.

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management // 29

it’s the calm before the storm as dairy farmers wait out the next month or so for the start of calving. But Manawatu DairyNZ consulting officer Abby Hull says there are plenty of important tasks to do in this ‘quiet’ period.

The main thing is for farmers to update feed budgets so they know exactly how much feed they have and its quality.

Some feed produced in the past season was of quite poor quality, she says

“It’s important to update feed budgets and know what average pas-ture cover is wanted to calve down onto and what the targets are.

“Farmers should also be updating their finan-cial budgets given the expected drop in payout. What are their expenses? The three big-ticket items are feed, fertiliser and wages. Farmers need to

look hard and see if there is anything they can do to save money.”

Hull says much effort has gone into making farmers aware of the value of having their cows in good condition coming into calving. She is seeing the body condition score (BCS) of cows in the Manawatu/Horowhenua as much better than last year. Not all herds will hit the target – BCS 5.0 – but most will be close.

“The closer calving

gets, the less opportu-nity there is for farmers to improve the BCS of their cows. One month out from calving cows will not increase their BCS so farmers now have a lim-ited window of oppor-tunity to deal with this issue.”

Peter burke

Plenty to do while waiting for calving

Hull says in Manawatu, pasture covers vary according to who’s had stock on their farms and

who’s had them away. Ide-ally farmers should have covers of about 2200 at calving. Farmers can also

use this time to orientate new staff to the farm. It’s a good time to get new staff settled in and well briefed.

LUKE RENTON is a contract milker on an 89ha dairy farm at Kairanga, just outside Palmer-ston North.

The property is adjacent to the Oroua river and can get pretty wet in winter. The farm runs 280 cows and the past season has seen bumper production – up 19,000kgMS to 101,000kgMS.

For the last month Renton has done general maintenance on the farm, but his focus has been on improving cow condi-tion.

“I’ve been prioritising mobs: one light one and a heavier one, and putting more feed into the lighter ones to get their BCS up. I’ve been feeding out maize

and grass silage. The BCS of the lighter mob is up from 3.5 to 4.5.

“We milked the heavier mob for an extra month but since they were dried off we have also lifted their BCS by half a point and hope to add another half point before they calve at the end of the July.”

This is Renton’s second sea-son on the farm. Prior to that he was in Waihi.

He describes the two farms as ‘chalk and cheese’. “Here it’s flat, there it climbed 100m in altitude from front to back of the farm. It was very steep with free-draining soils. Here the soils are certainly not free draining.”

Renton is also working to get his pasture covers up. Currently they are sitting at about 2050 and he’s targeting 2200 by calving.

Last year he talked to a few people and decided to drop the cow numbers from 290 to about 280 and the net ef-fect was a rise in production. Dropping cows numbers took the pressure off the remaining cows and per head production lifted.

He says this move also re-duced animal health issues.

Although last season he saw a lift in production, Renton is confident, all things being equal, that he can do it again and maybe add 4000kgMS.

a farmer’s PersPectiVe

DairyNZ’s Abby Hull.

Sharemilker Luke Renton is working on improving cow condition.


30 // animal health

New tool to manage mastitisa new dairy industry resource for managing mastitis and improving milk quality was unveiled last week by DairyNZ at the New Zealand Milk Quality Conference in Hamilton.

Known as SmartSAMM, the online resource

builds on the SAMM Plan (seasonal approach to managing mastitis) with updated information.

Senior DairyNZ scientist and technical manager for SmartSAMM, Dr Jane Lacy-Hulbert, says the new resource gives dairy farmers and their

advisors easy access to the complete industry-agreed knowledge about mastitis and milk quality.

“We’re pleased to be able to launch this new resource. The benefits for farmers and the dairy industry are huge: improved udder health

Keep udders clean to prevent mastitis.

and milk quality, time savings at milking, and ultimately improved production and profit.

“For farmers, SmartSAMM provides key tools and resources to help establish whether a problem exists, and if so what to do next and how to prevent it in future. There are guidelines and key recommendations for managing mastitis during calving, lactation, drying off and the dry period.

“For advisors, the corresponding Technotes provide more of the science detail that sits behind the recommendations; we’ve tried to make this an all-you-need-to-know resource,” says Lacy-Hulbert.

The SmartSAMM

infections rife during calVing

COWS ARE susceptible to infection during calving because their natural defence mechanisms are low. New infections occur and subclinical infec-tions which have persisted through the dry period may flare into clinical cases.

High risk cows, e.g. induced cows and heifers, can be more vulnerable at this time to mastitis infections because their immune systems have reduced efficiency.

At calving the udder is often filled with colostrum and milk for relatively long periods without the flushing effect of being milked. Bacteria may enter the end of the teat, particularly if high udder pressure opens the teat end. They can then multiply and establish infections.

High numbers of environmental mastitis bacteria may contaminate teats, especially if udders are wet and in contact with mud and manure as can happen when cows and heifers are on the ground during calving.

Because of the high incidence of mastitis in the first month after calv-ing, special care in this period will pay off.

Calve on clean, dry pasturePASTURE OR pads for calving should have minimal manure contamination. If more than two pats of manure are present per square metre, it is not clean enough for calving cows.

Monitor the number of cases of mastitis occurring, especially in recently calved heifers. The number of clinical cases occurring within 14 days of calving is an indicator of pre-calving manage-ment

Bring cows into the dairy as soon as possible to be checked for mastitis, and milked.

Do not leave cows standing in a paddock after calving dripping milk; bring them into the dairy. Check udders, milk them and disinfect teats with teat spray. Cows dripping milk before calving may also benefit from being milked. Make

sure their calf receives fresh colostrum once the cow calves.

Take special care with high risk cows. Some are at higher risk of mastitis, in particular heifers, as they spend longer on the ground during calving and thus their teats have greater exposure to mud and bacteria. Any cow that has been induced or is sick is also at higher risk of environmental mastitis as its immune system is suppressed.

Take care with pre-milking prepara-tion of udders. Special care should be taken at the first milking to fully clean and dry the teats, and check for signs of mastitis in the udder and foremilk.

Keeping udders clean helps prevent mastitis. Trim up tails and tail switches and remove hair on udders by clipping or singeing.

project is a collaboration of NMAC (National Mastitis Advisory Committee) with stakeholders and service providers responsible for

mastitis control and milk quality in New Zealand.

It is funded by DairyNZ and MPI. The source material has been adapted from Dairy Australia’s

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research/animal health // 31

Soe’s on-farm achievements awe Fieldays visitorsforage, genet-ics, biocontrol and animal health are all cat-egories which featured in the on-farm achieve-ments at AgResearch’s National Agricultural Fiel-days stand.

“The biocontrol story is particularly good one,” says AgResearch chief executive Tom Richard-son. “In 1991 we released a parasitoid wasp for the control of Argentine stem weevil, in 2006 we released another parasit-oid, the Irish wasp, this time to tackle the clover root weevil. By 2017, when both the Irish wasp and clover root weevil are likely to be established in pastoral areas throughout the country, we estimate the benefits from the bio-control agent at $150 mil-lion per year.

“And the biocontrol work is ongoing – we’re now looking at the possi-bilities of using it for giant buttercup.”

One aspect of AgResearch’s current work in forage on display at Mystery Creek was called “The Hidden Half ” – the story of roots. Richardson says historically, forage plant breeding has been based on above ground research.

“Over the last 20 years, DairyNZ estimates that profits of dairy farms have increased $400/ha due to forage. For AgResearch to continue to enhance the value, productivity and profitability of New Zea-land’s pastoral sector, we need to continue to improve our understand-ing of forages,” he says.

“Roots deliver nutri-ents to the plants, and if we can improve nutrient efficiency, that means less nitrogen and phosphorus is lost to waterways and that helps protect water quality. As well, deeper rooted plants have better drought tolerance.”

Maximising your ani-mals’ potential through understanding their needs was another key feature on AgResearch’s stand. This showcased the work of the Animal Welfare and Behaviour specialists, and showed how scientists are decoding heat signals to understand health, welfare and productivity using an infra red thermal imaging camera.

“Working with Agri-culture and Agri-Foods Canada and Massey Uni-versity we have shown that the technology can be used to pick up, very sen-sitively, changes in eye

temperature that indicate pain and stress in cattle, sheep and deer, for exam-ple during painful proce-dures. More recently, we have realised its potential to assess other health and welfare states by develop-ment of automated image collection systems.

“We’re doing a signifi-cant amount of work in this area, and it will help position farmers to cope with increasing compli-ance standards around animal health, welfare and sustainability.”

Also featuring on the stand was Farmax, a soft-

ware tool used by dairy as well as sheep and beef industries.

AgResearch scientists originally developed the technology and the organ-isation retains a share in the business. Farmers vis-iting the AgResearch stand will be able to get a supply

A calf’s eye as seen by a infra-red thermal imaging camera being used to detect health problems in animals by heat sensing.

AHB completes TB campaignthe animal Health Board (AHB) has completed aerial possum control in the Kaimanawa Forest Park to protect nearby cattle from TB.

AHB Northern North Island programme manager Brent Webster says the aerial operation, east of Lake Taupo, was completed on June 11.

“AHB contractors have done an excellent job of plan-ning and undertaking this operation across 15,900ha of primarily native beech forest,” says Webster.

“Aerial control supports ongoing ground-based opera-tions on local farmland. Ground control utilises hand-laid traps and bait stations to maintain low possum numbers and eventually eradicate TB from the area.”

By 2026, the national TB control strategy aims to eradi-cate the disease from wild animals – particularly possums who are the main carrier of the disease – across one quarter of the 10 million hectares of New Zealand’s TB risk areas.

Bovine TB has recently been identified in possums in the nearby Motuoapa area. The aerial operation was designed to prevent the disease from spreading through the possum population to farmed cattle and deer, putting at risk the $750 million generated annually from pastoral farming in the Taupo district.

Following the operation, contractors have been check-ing tracks and ensuring warning signs remain in place. This is a requirement of consenting authorities, such as the Ministry of Health. The AHB has also made every effort to inform hunters about the operation.

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32 // animal health

New teat sprayer targets mastitisa teat spray released last week in Hamilton is expected to “dramatically reduce” mastitis infection rates in dairy herds.

The chlorhexidine teat spray by dairy hygiene com-pany Deosan will also help lower cows’ bulk milk somatic cell count (BMSCC), says New Zealand managing direc-tor Kip Bodle.

TeatX is a more powerful version of Deosan’s original chlorhexidine teat spray, Teat-Ex. Its release coincides with DairyNZ’s SmartSAMM website launch this week, aimed at reducing the incidence of mastitis on dairy farms and improving milk quality.

“This is a great initiative and resource for the dairy industry and there is room for improvement. TeatX is a big part of the solution,” says Bodle.

A study on a large corporate South Island farm during the 2011-12 season is said to have shown the original Teat-Ex formula reduced clinical cases of mastitis by one third, saving the farm almost $200,000 (or $21 for each of the 9459 cows in the trial).

“While mastitis is multi-factorial, in this case there was a substantial improvement in teat condition which resulted in decreased BMSCC from 201,000 to 167,000 and 248 fewer clinical cases,” Bodle says. “This improve-ment was largely attributable to the swap from iodine to Teat-Ex. Our new formulation will deliver even better results.

“While farmers have traditionally used iodine-based teat spray products, we are noticing a sea change, with a large number now switching to chlorhexidine sprays,” Bodle says.

“Iodine is acidic and harsh on the cow’s skin whereas TeatX has a neutral pH which helps prevent teat damage in the first place. Less teat damage means fewer new infec-tions and more profit,” he says.

Deosan says the price of iodine teat sprays has risen during the past year by $500/200L “within pockets” of the New Zealand market. Japan produces one third of the world’s iodine and the price has skyrocketed following last year’s earthquake and tsunami.

“There is a growing shift in the dairy market and our research indicates 30% of farmers now prefer to use chlorhexidine teat spray due to its ability to improve teat condition,” says Bodle.

Teat condition plays a huge part towards cutting BMSCC, Bodle says. “We know teat condition is a key issue in the prevention of mastitis. Chlorhexidine is just as effec-tive at killing bugs as iodine.

“Teat sprays are vulnerable to shed chemical con-tamination and poor water quality which is a big issue in New Zealand milking sheds. Independent testing shows TeatX is the most stable compared to all other chlorhex-idine teat sprays, remaining clear and in solution when exposed to residual chemical and water contamination. Other chlorhexidine products are extremely vulnerable to precipitation, which can result in the active ingredient ‘bombing out’.”

The TeatX formula also enables chlorhexidine to pen-etrate soil and the oily layer on cows’ teats much faster than its competitors, Deosan says.

The new formula contains 33% more active ingredi-ent than its predecessor and has 10% more emollient to ensure better teat condition. It is approved for use at higher dilution rates for later in the season to help farm-ers save money.

This July (North Island) and August (South Island) Deosan will offer farmers a free week’s trial of TeatX worth up to $250. www.teatx.co.nz

Deosan managing director Kip Bodle (right) and national sales manager Matt Sheehy. – PHoTo: Richard Cullwick

TeatX is the reformulated version of Teat-Ex.

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animal health // 33

Experts meet on udder healthudder health on dairy farms remains a priority and the control of the infectious pressure of mastitis-causing pathogens is the key to improving dairy herd productivity. This was the conclu-sion of the recent 5th European Mastitis Panel (EMP) meeting near Bristol, south-west England.

Fifteen experts from seven European countries participated in a two-day work-shop involving visits to typical farms and an exchange of expertise on the latest in mastitis control in Europe.

British dairy farming is mainly pas-ture based and rain quantity has a signifi-cant impact on grass growth and so on the quality and quantity of the main fodder for dairy cattle.

Despite the fact most herds calve year round, spring and summer milk produc-tion is increased up to 15%.

“Here, smaller as well as larger farms work profitably”, says Julie Macleod, market researcher at Dairy Co, a non-profit consultancy servicing UK dairy farmers. “Input and management are the decisive factors and farmers are flexible and react quickly to changes in the milk market.”

The bulk of the milk is processed as fresh liquid (50%) and as cheese (28%). During a visit to Robert Wiseman Dairies, Bridgewater, the EMP veterinarians saw how fresh milk is collected, processed and bottled daily. 500 million L of milk are bot-tled annually at this facility.

Effectiveness and sustainability are the main concerns of the company and as a result decisive measures are in place to reduce water, power and fuel consump-tion.

Since there is no public milk recording in the UK, veterinarian Dr James Breen works closely with the Quality Milk Man-agement Service Laboratory. The EMP group visited the newly opened premises of Dr Andrew Bradley’s QMMS. Farmers can bring milk samples to the laboratory and get analysis results the following day, plus a veterinary interpretation of the data, giving information on the herd’s health status.

Also, the laboratory offers bacteriolog-

ical culturing of milk samples and offers serological testing for para-TB (Johne’s disease). Bradley also offers software for veterinarians and farmers to find the causes of mastitis and fine-tune herd man-agement measures.

Veterinarian Chris Hudson spoke about mastitis research in the UK.

The University of Nottingham is one of the most active institutes in this field doing many relevant studies. Adjacent to a campus shared with the agricultural fac-ulty, the university also runs a dairy farm with 180 cows milked by robotic volun-tary milking.

“Research conditions are very favor-able here” says researcher Chris Hudson, one of a group overseen by Martin Green, Andrew Bradley and James Breen. All the scientists are somewhat involved in veter-inary clinics.

lowering infections

TAKING AS a starting point the management factors of this national mastitis control scheme in the UK, Professor Theo Lam, Utrecht University, the Nether-lands, presented Dutch Udder Health research results.

The objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of 18 differ-ent management measures and their positive effect on bulk milk and mastitis incidence rate. The Dutch found that post-milking teat disinfection and good nutri-tion have the best economic return on improving udder health.

Professor Sarne de Vliegher, Gent University, Belgium, pointed out that looking at epidemiology of different coagulase negative stapylococci species – whether contagious or environmental – experts will get a better insight into prevention of this pathogen. Lively discussion developed on the relevance and cost-benefit of different herd management factors.

A national mastitis control plan has been rolled out in the UK.

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effluent & water management // 35

Good money lurking unseen in ponds

on sunday last, I saw two large, sludge-filled effluent ponds on a Horowhenua farm. They hold about 3000m3.

But I was too slow to point out to the farmer that those 3000 tonnes of effluent probably con-tained about 2 t of nitro-gen alone. Perhaps $2000 of fertiliser value and soil conditioner was just sit-ting there in mid June whereas we all know the best place for it is the top 150mm of his paddocks.

If I’d thrown 100 green $20 notes in those holes the message would have been obvious: your efflu-ent pond is not a bank in which you keep your fertiliser funds indefi-nitely. In this case the stuff should have been on the pasture in the summer or early autumn. (Yes, you must store in during the wet season, but this stuff had been ‘overstored’ if you catch my drift. Ponds are just temporary stop-ping zones for effluent. I can’t believe the number of lost opportunities I’m seeing.

One of my field day interests is what other manufacturers are doing with effluent equipment. The technology and liter-ature on display is mainly focussed on, and high-lights, small develop-ments and improvements to the type of technology that did the same job, but

for smaller farms, about 40 years ago. Therefore you still see inefficient pumps in droves as well as masses of localised float-ing or bank-mounted pond mixers, and many irriga-tors where the applied

amount is just guessed. Never mind that these have seven speeds; the important part is how much they put on the ground, and whether this is less than the soil mois-ture deficit!

But the sheer mass of this equipment on display is hiding the fact that we have moved on from much of this technology of an earlier time.

Farmers will be blinded to the improvements simply because they have to search through so much of the old stuff to get to the new.

Even the regional council and DairyNZ photos and illustrations probably reassure and lead farmers to believe this older technology is the way forward (it sometimes still could be), but the newer developments and ideas are overwhelmed by the images of the older styles of thinking. There is much comfort to be had by choosing older, ‘safe’ tech-nology, but if you think that way then you’ll still

drive a car with no engine management computer, and your only telephone will probably be screwed to the wall in the hallway and have a crank-handle.

Now here’s an apol-ogy. When we wrote the

new industry standard and code of practice for farm dairy effluent, we actually overlooked something I thought was an ‘assumed practice’ (thorough mixing). We placed a lot of emphasis on irrigators having good uniformity of distribution, and we also suggested the irrigated liquid quantity should be less than the soil mois-ture deficit. We slipped up especially by omitting to insist on your achieving uniformity in the mixture being irrigated. You may have the perfect irrigator, but if you feed it with ‘thin stuff ’ from the upper pond levels (as a floating pump will do) and ‘thick stuff ’ as the level falls, then you have bypassed our – even your own – intentions to apply effluent evenly. (Also, I am forming the view that dilute mixtures are better for the pas-ture itself, and that the thicker mixtures probably are tougher for the field micro- and macro-organ-isms to handle.)

Frankly, we are seeing

stuart reidtoo much emphasis being given to floating mixers located in one place in a large pond. You’d be sur-prised if you could see the underwater effect. They will vigorously stir a local area but there will be quiet, dead spots hidden from your eyes.

This is where the solids and sludges will lurk, becoming underwater islands that will appear as the pond levels fall. Those sludge islands should have gone out through the irri-gator. You might also think a tractor- or bank-mounted propeller cre-ating pond circulation is doing a good job. However you can’t see the effect under the water.

But try this test. Half fill a large pot with water. Spread a handful of salt

(or clean sand, or rinsed coffee grounds) over the surface and stir until you have circulation. Stop stir-ring and watch what hap-pens to the salt. From my experience, the pond

mixing game has to be greatly improved and I am not impressed with much of the equipment on offer. It has a high energy demand for mediocre effect.

Of course I believe our company has been doing it properly since 2006, but then I would, wouldn’t I.• Stuart Reid is managing director of Spitfire Irrigators, Upper Hutt.

Where have the solids gone...? Keith and Kim Riley’s effluent pond, Woodville.

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36 // effluent & water management

in briefwater technologyA neW water purification technology which removes contaminants in water while simultane-ously disinfecting it against microbial contami-nation has been developed by the university of Waikato. Initial focus for the technology is the removal of contaminants to provide clean and safe rural domestic drinking water supplies.

Storage pond solves summer supply issuescuts to the supply of irrigation water when the Tengawai River gets too low are no longer a prob-lem on the O’Sullivan family farm. A storage pond now holds enough water for four weeks irri-gation.

Tim O’Sullivan, Young Farmer of the Year for 2009, is an irrigation con-sultant and oversaw the development of the family farm’s irrigation system.

O’Sullivans have had a consent to take 103L/second from the Tengawai River since the early 1980s. The river has a mean flow of 1.2 cumecs, O’Sullivan says.

“During the summer, the Tengawai River flow is managed by ECan (Envi-ronment Canterbury) and if it drops below 500L/second all consent hold-ers are subject to a 50% restriction, with the supply being completely cut off at 400L/second.”

While the consent con-ditions protect the Ten-gawai River, they pose problems for the farm.

“We started irrigat-ing in the mid 1980s with a single Roto-rainer and as we were on a run of the river system we were able to draw water from the river when it was above the minimum flow,” says O’Sullivan.

“For periods in each summer, usually during the autumn, it would be fairly common to be exposed to some sort of restriction of varying dura-tion. One day you are irri-

gating and the next day you are shut off and it’s quite difficult to manage the farming operation around that.”

The solution some 20 years on was to construct a 365,000m3 storage pond gravity fed from the river. It’s filled at the consented rate of 103L/second when river flows are moderate, so that when the summer dry comes and the supply is shut off, the stored water can be used for con-tinued irrigation.

The storage ensures reliability and works as a ‘bank’. With the volume stored providing a buffer, a flow of 165L/second is pumped from the pond, servicing 400ha. This is something that could not be achieved with the status quo instantaneous flow of 103L/second, O’Sullivan says.

“It gives us one month irrigation so we can stop drawing from the river and continue irrigating out on the pasture with that stor-age reservoir.”

While most stor-age ponds in Canterbury are limited to 3m depth, O’Sullivan opted to con-struct a deeper facility, 9.5m deep and lined with a 1.5mm plastic liner.

“If we were to build the equivalent volume in an earth pond, the poten-tial losses to seepage were always going to be an unknown, and as we have a fairly limited water right we needed to ensure the water drawn from the river would be utilised effi-

ciently. “With these deeper

reservoirs you also have reduced surface area because of the depth. The alternative to this was building a large, flat earth pond about 3m deep with a footprint about 20ha; with a large flat surface, evapo-ration during the warmer months would also be sig-nificant.”

The automated control gate into the pond limits the incoming flow to 103L/second.

“Our flow on the hour at any given hour is tele-metered through and ECan has a record of what is being drawn from the river, so that enables com-plete utilisation as well as reducing the risk of exceeding our consented flow.”

When O’Sullivan con-verted the farm to dairying four years ago, it was set up with precision irriga-tion, including four centre pivots. Each centre pivot has an Aquaflex moisture probe beneath it to accu-rately assess what’s hap-pening in the soil profile, and indicate when irriga-

tion is needed. “It gives some farmers

a fast track education into soil moisture and how the physiology works. After a rainfall we’ll look at the graph. In a decent event it’ll come up to saturation and then drop away grad-ually to a trigger point which is when we start irrigating, and from that point on we’ll endeavor to keep between stress point and field capacity.”

By storing water and using centre pivots backed up with soil moisture monitoring, O’Sullivan has maximised irrigation effi-ciency.

“There’s no more effi-cient applicator for broad-

acre application than the pivot. On the whole, there’s generally still a bit of education and fine tuning needed of cer-tain aspects of managing centre pivots.

“A key one is the irri-gator’s speed, which obvi-ously affects application rate and varies between differing soil types.

A second aspect is when to start and stop watering relative to rain-fall events, but that’s where the soil moisture monitoring is coming in. In five to 10 years, most irrigation systems will be managed by some system similar to that.”View the clips at dairynz.co.nz/irrigation

DEVELOPING A plan to minimise the impacts of water restrictions is crucial. Short-term measures include planting crops in spring, using a longer grazing rotation, wa-tering the better performing areas and reducing stocking rate.

Long-term options include look-ing at the system to ensure correct

water application depth and uniformity and ways to improve the system.

Five Canterbury dairy farmers, including Tim O’Sullivan, have shared their stories about how they use water well – thanks to technology, innovation, manage-ment, investment and experience.

caring for eVery droP

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Million-litre pond delivers more than just consent requirements

THE CANTERBURY Dairy Effluent Working Group was formed in 2009, working closely with farmers on effluent management.

Since then, the group has supported industry standards and codes of practice and has taken part in initiatives to lift compliance, including regional farmer events, effluent training and development of resources for farmers.

DairyNZ, Environment Canterbury, AgITO, SIDDC, Federated Farmers and dairy companies Synlait, NZ Dairies, Westland and Fonterra are all group members.

Farmers looking for information on any aspect of their effluent system should contact DairyNZ or their supply company representative.

working grouP on effluent

Phill and Jos everest installed a new effluent system that exceeds consent conditions and the new design code of practice.

starting with a clean slate on a new con-version has allowed dairy farmer Phill Ever-est to design an effluent system that easily satis-fies consent conditions and exceeds the farm dairy effluent design code of practice.

A former sheep, beef and arable advisor (and in a dairy farming partnership for 18 years) Phill and his wife Jos are in their second dairy season on the 277ha Ashburton property.

Irrigated mainly by centre pivot, the farm has a 190ha dairy platform car-rying 685 cows; the rest is dairy support. The farm is on heavy ground with a high water table so the effluent ponds are built above ground and are plas-tic lined. “The water table would be within 150mm of the surface and when we get a lot of rain, it’s prob-ably at the surface in the winter,” says Everest.

“We have gone for a weeping wall design, out of Southland, and we pump into a 1 million L pond. We looked at doing tanks but what we’ve done was cheaper.”

The weeping wall removes the solids and the pond provides 34 days storage, though Everest

reckons it holds closer to 60 days storage. The ‘green water’ is recycled through the backing gate in the yard and finally injected into the centre pivot, making a 10% solu-tion.

“Because it’s only water, it goes through the pivot without block-ing the nozzles. And we have a little effluent irri-gator so if we didn’t want to be irrigating, we can put it through that. Quite frankly, it’s a safety net; really, if I’m not irrigating, I don’t want to be using effluent.”

The main pivot covers about 94ha and has boom backs so the sprinklers can’t wet the ground in front of the wheels, mini-mising wheel ruts.

“What we’re concerned about is heavy soil and pivot ruts, so we sprinkle behind.

“We’ve also tried a few different wheel configu-rations, including some caterpillar tracks; they use them in the rice pad-dies in the US. We’ve got some duals on as well and I think they’re as good and a lot cheaper.”

The farm has Aquaf-lex soil moisture monitor-ing to ensure the irrigators only run when there is no risk of paddocks becom-

ing waterlogged, so nutri-ents in the effluent can’t leach down through the soil profile.

“There’s some sneaky technology around that I wasn’t aware of when we started but it became pretty obvious once we got going,” says Everest.

“We’ve put a plas-tic liner in the pond and GPS’d it so we can dig the pond out with a digger

(with GPS on it) and he won’t go through it.

“If I did it again, would I still build a million litre pond? Yeah, probably. But we’ve probably got more than we need. We’re sat-isfying consents by quite a bit but we’ve looked to the future in terms of the new code of practice and exceeded that by quite a bit too.”www.dairynz.co.nz/effluent

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Council hails compliance rate

horiZons regional Council environment committee chair Jill White says the region’s dairy farmers deserve a huge amount of credit for high level of compliance with environmental regulations. Horizons reports 83% of the dairy farms surveyed this season are fully compliant.

Farmers know better how important the envi-ronment is and how this benefits their produc-tivity, White says. “Also, the compliance and rural advisory teams have been working closely with farm-ers,” she told Dairy News.

Rather than saying a dairy farmer is or not compliant, “they have offered help to make sure they are compliant. It’s

about giving advice and helping them understand how they can comply and to work with them in an educative way as well as the regulatory way,” she says.

White praises the efforts of Federated Farm-ers leaders in articulat-ing their perceptions of what’s good for business and the environment. “It’s fair to say the relation-ship between farmers and Horizons has improved, resulting in significant progress on environmen-tal issues.”

White sees the next big issue as nutrient manage-ment. The wider commu-nity is concerned about the health of local rivers, she says, but many recog-nise the problem is urban and rural, requiring a multi-pronged approach.

Federated Farmers Manawatu/Rangitikei pro-

vincial president and dairy vice-chairperson Andrew Hoggard says the region’s farmers deserve a pat on the back.

“I’m incredibly happy with the high compli-ance levels and it’s worth noting not all cases of sig-nificant non-compliance result from effluent enter-ing waterways.

“A number of fac-tors have influenced this result, including the more settled weather over the season, but it is still very pleasing.”

Hoggard lists other standout stats as: the number of abatement notices issued, down to 12 from 53 last season and 99 in the 2008-09 season; and the number of infringement notices issued, just 36 compared to 41 last season and 75 in 2008-09.

“It would be good

Peter burke

to get a breakdown of infringements having no effect, a potential effect and an actual affect on the environment.

“[Farmers] found non-compliant should be talking to Horizons

MUCH HAS been written recently in mainstream news media about the failure of dairy farmers to meet basic environmental standards.

Dairy News has spoken to a number of regional councils, espe-cially those in the major dairying regions. The statistics they sup-plied showed in some regions such as Taranaki and Manawatu overall compliance is high, whereas the statistics for Northland regional council, at just 38% compliance, don’t look good.

However, every council mea-sures this in a different way and

it’s impossible to draw accurate conclusions or comparisons. As one official pointed out, “Some councils survey all their farms, others conduct a sample, some do aerial inspections, others visit farms.”

The time of the year when the surveys are carried out will also affect the result and councils have different policies on issuing abatement notices or prosecuting farmers.

Courts are seen to take a dim view of farmer polluters, with fines of $50,000-$60,000 common.

hard to measure

staff or the Federation’s Manawatu/Rangitikei executive about how they can fix problems they may have. It is good to hear from Horizons that most farmers are doing just that when they are being inspected.

“In four short years

there has been a huge culture shift in the dairy industry, which is still happening. Overall, the vast majority of the region’s dairy farmers, 91%, deserve a huge pat on the back.”

However, this is not a time to rest on our

laurels, he says.“There is still plenty

more work to be done, but these figures should prove to naysayers that dairy farmers are taking the environment seri-ously. Their hard work and investment should be recognised more often.”

83% of farms surveyed by Horizons Regional Council complied with effluent management rules.

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Stirring interest at Fieldaysreid and Har-rison’s new pond stirrer attracted a lot of interest at the National Fiel-days.

“It is suitable for any sort of sump, square or round, and large ponds and tanks,” says the compa-ny’s principal, Seton Dalley.

The pumps, electrically driven, can be frame mounted or fitted to pontoons.

The stirrer is available in sizes 5hp, 10hp and 15hp.

It delivers through a right-angle drive so the efflu-ent is driven out and around, ensuring even and con-sistent mixing.

Dalley says the stirrer reliably gives total mixing in ponds as big as 50 x 50 x 5m deep and says they are more efficient than standard stirrers.Tel; 07 888 8224 www.yardmaster-pumps.com

Handful of farm management useswork by Re:Gen to integrate more farm map-ping and management tasks on smartphone includes partnering with Precision Tracking, Trac-Map and technology com-pany NEC.

Re:Gen chief execu-tive Bridgit Hawkins said at National Fieldays that her company’s ‘hand-held’ platform for water and effluent measurement will soon be be complemented by fertiliser and naviga-tion capabilities.

The new system will work with Precision Faming’s iPad/Android mapping system to put effluent and water infor-mation on the farmer’s tablet. It will also be able to share data with Trac-Map’s upgraded tracking system.

“We know a volume of effluent goes out and where, and that information then goes out to the Precision Farming system so that all the information is in one place,” says Hawkins.

This enables farmers to keep their nutrient use within limits set by local regulatory bodies, and it allows them to get the most out of their nutri-ent use.

“All these compo-

gareth gillatt

nents you need to have really good nutrient man-agement,” says Hawkins. “This allows you to bring it all together in one place.”

Re:Gen probes and sensors already use pow-ered antennas to help information get into the ‘cloud’, but a further development is Re:gen’s work with Japanese tech-nology company NEC to increase connectivity throughout New Zealand.

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“NEC is looking to build an M2M (machine-to-machine/wireless and wired) platform,” says Hawkins. “This will enable things to talk to each other more seamlessly.”

Re:Gen has combined all the parts of their package and are running trials onfarm; a commercial product is expected soon.

Says Hawkins, “We still

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‘Use nitrogen wisely’

excess nitrogen can leach into waterways.

it’s sensible to be cautious when applying nitrogen fertiliser to pas-ture during winter for a range of economic and environmental reasons.

Winter applications of such fertiliser are gen-erally least effective for promoting grass growth. Slow growth of pasture in winter and excessive drainage can result in nitrate leaching directly from fertiliser before plants can take it up. And any “excess” nitrogen can make its way to waterways.

So it’s important that farmers have clear infor-mation about the risks involved with winter

nitrogen applications on their individual properties.

A property’s nutrient budget, combined with a feed budget, helps farm-ers understand whether they are using too much or too little fertiliser. From there, they can potentially manage costs better and reduce their impact on the environment by working out a pragmatic nutrient management plan.

From a technical per-spective, the key term to understand is the “response rate”.

This response rate is the amount of pasture grown in terms of kilo-grams of dry matter per hectare per kilogram of nitrogen (N) applied.

For example, when 20

kg N/ha is applied and an additional 200 kg DM/ha of pasture is grown the response rate is 10 kg DM/kg N applied.

The response is depen-dent on several factors such as soil temperature, plant growth, soil mois-ture, the deficiency of available N in the soil and the rate of N applied per application.

The timing of N fer-tiliser application is a key consideration when it comes to ensuring nutri-ent uptake. It is good to apply nitrogenous fer-tiliser when the pasture cover is between 1,500 to 1,800 kg DM/ha. This ensures that there is suf-ficient leaf area for photo-synthesis leading to good

pasture growth.The impact on prof-

itability of applying N is dependent on the utili-sation of the extra feed. Therefore, N needs to be applied to fill genuine feed deficits. Anticipation of feed deficits and applica-tion of N fertiliser four to six weeks in advance is critical to filling these deficits with quality feed and getting the best eco-nomic response from fer-tiliser use.

The best response to N fertiliser occurs on fast growing pasture, when other factors such as moisture and soil tem-perature are not limiting growth. Response rates also depend on the season and on the N application

by bala tikkisetty

rate. In winter, at the same application rate, responses are lower and slower than other times of the year. The response rate also declines when the appli-cation rate (single dose) is higher than 40 kg N/ha.

Nitrogen fertiliser reduces N fixation by clover by about one kg/ N/ha/year for every three kg N fertiliser applied. In addition, clover content will be further reduced if nitrogen boosted pas-tures shade the clover. This effect is seen during spring.

The amount of N cycling in pastoral systems is greater than other nutri-ents and it is also more mobile than most other nutrients. This leads to the

potential for significant losses of N into the envi-ronment through leaching to ground water. Excess nitrate levels in groundwa-ter will restrict the use of the water for drinking and can have other impacts on water quality. Ground-water nitrate moves later-ally into streams and lakes where it can affect algae and plant growth, fish and other animal habitats.

Overall “N conver-sion efficiency” for a farm is calculated as a percent-age of the total N in farm product divided by the total N inputs into a farm. For a dairy farm, around 40 per cent is probably a reasonable score.

The progressive farm-ers, irrespective of farm-

ing types, are focussing on achieving increased pro-ductivity with an aim of minimising environmental impacts.

Efficient use of nitro-gen from fertiliser and other sources is an impor-tant component of boost-ing productivity while minimising environmen-tal impacts from farm-ing. The bottom line is that avoiding or minimis-ing N fertiliser application in late-autumn or winter reduces the likelihood of any direct leaching to waterways.• Bala Tikkisetty is a sustain-able agriculture coordina-tor at the Waikato Regional Council and is available for nutrient management advice on 0800 800 401.

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Brian Nicholson

Trailer eases sprinkler moving chorea trailer rig of K-Line effluent sprinklers is easily moved and incurs less risk of hose blockages, says the developer Hi-Tech Enviro Solutions, Morrinsville.

The trailer carries six mounted sprinkers and a drag hose mounted behind, making it fast and easy for farmers to set up and carry K-Line

effluent systems, says Hi-Tech gen-eral manager Brian Nicholson.

“You can cover a significant area with 950m2 per sprinkler,” says Nich-olson.

More sprinklers can be added at any time, to suit a farm’s particular need.

The purpose-built trailer allowed

the company to add a filter for easier sprinkler maintenance.

“With the filter system you can stop blockages hitting those nozzles and blocking them,” says Nicholson.

The trailers are available from dealers around the country. Tel. 07 889 7755www.hitechenviro.co.nz

effluent system traininga new InfraTrain courses for con-tractors and designers of dairy efflu-ent ponds is intended for people wanting knowledge of the new design standards.

The course is a joint effort by DairyNZ, InfraTrain New Zealand and Opus International Consultants.

Courses are running in five cities or towns.

InfraTrain chief executive Philip Aldridge says it will help meet rising demand on dairy farms for well-con-structed effluent storage.

“An estimated 4000 effluent ponds will be constructed in the next five

years as farmers upgrade their storage systems and increase

storage capacity. This practi-cal course suits people who

want to service this grow-ing area of business.”

Participants spend two days learning about con-

struction and a third day on pond design.

Opus International Con-sultants environmental train-

ing centre manager Jonathan Mackey promises practical examples and expert guest speakers.

“Our course trainers have many years experience in this business and were heavily involved in draft-ing the recently released Institution of Professional Engineers New Zea-land ‘Practice Note 21: Design and Con-struction of FDE Ponds’. This is the first industry-wide good practice guidance document on FDE ponds.”

Successful participants will become part of a network of pond designers and/or contractors listed on the InfraTrain website. DairyNZ project manager for effluent Dr The-resa Wilson says DairyNZ will support trained individuals.www.nzweta.org.nz

course dates:

Hamilton: 26-28 June

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Farmer sought for cow housing trial

Farmer standing on a fresh effluent from a Dairyard.

cow housing pio-neer HerdHomes is at work on a new design called Dairyard and seeks a farmer in Waikato or the Central Plateau to trial one.

The company says “under the watchful eye of the industry and food safety regulators [we are] putting into the new design the knowl-edge gained over the past

eight years”. A few stan-dards must be adhered to to meet regulation and design requirements, says chief executive Hamish McMillan.

“These include: that little or no water is used, no additional labour requirement, easy and safe effluent storage, and cow comfort and storage of effluent is to be out of the weather to ensure maxi-mum retention of fertiliser nutrients.

“The HerdHomes Dair-yard has had great suc-cess in reducing the water usage and effluent stor-age required. Water usage can be as low as 11L/cow, which has a great impact on the volume of effluent required to be stored.

“Removing rainwa-ter from the collection and storage of the efflu-ent reduces storage capac-ity significantly as well as producing a better efflu-ent product for spreading

on farm. A drier prod-uct has less risk of runoff across the soil and is a slower releasing product than liquid effluent mean-ing less risk of nutrient leaching.“

The current Herd-Homes dairy yard meets these design standards but under current manu-facturing processes is too expensive, McMillan says. Variation in on-farm use also increases the risk reg-ulatory standards may be breached.

The new design is said to remove this manage-ment risk at a far lower cost than the existing model.

The farmer want-ing to trial the new Dair-yard concept will need to be approved by all parties concerned and agree to allow regular monitoring work, says McMillan.Contact McMillan on 021 706848 or [email protected]

in brief

A SHAReMILKeR, who admitted discharging effluent into waterways, has been fined $25,000.

joel Townshend, Flemington, near Ashburton, pleaded guilty to two charges of during April and May 2011. Charlann Ltd, in which Townshend is a director and shareholder, also pleaded guilty to the same offences. They have been fined $17,000 in total, costs of almost $500 and told to pay environment Canterbury’s investigation costs of a little over $3,000.

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Better flow to irrigatorsagitating and mixing effluent in large holding tanks or ponds between applications can be improved by a new pond mixer designed by Peter Reid, manag-ing director of NuMedic, Rotorua.

The machine was entered in the Innova-tion Award contest at the National Fieldays.

As more Regional Councils require farmers to have more storage capa-bility – so the applying of effluent to pasture only takes place during good weather – storage require-ments have increased. Hence the move to larger holding tanks, above or below ground, and larger ponds, preferably with concrete or plastic liners. Settling in these storage facilities between spray-ing times brings new chal-lenges, Reid says.

“Our new pond mixer, will mix the entire con-tents of any sized pond and, will ensure there are no dead areas in the pond. This will add value to the effluent applied to the pas-ture.

The lower end of the pond mixer is angled downwards at 45 degrees to the vertical drive shaft and has two opposing pro-peller blades. The blades’ rotation can be changed from clockwise to coun-

NuMedic’s new pond mixer at this month’s Fieldays.

The average dairy farmer takes about 30 minutes to hose the yard after milking and uses between 10,000 and 20,000 litres of water.Water conservation and reducing effluent waste are major environmental issues impacting on all farming operations. It pays to look at options to keep these to a minimum.

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Want to share?dairynZ is on the look-out for new owners of win-tering feed pads and loose-housed wintering systems in the Otago/Southland region.

The search is part of DairyNZ’s Southern Winter-ing Systems Initiative, a research project looking into farmers’ winter management decisions.

DairyNZ senior scientist Ina Pinxterhuis wants to bring together experiences from dairy farmers who have built a loose-housing system or a feed pad, and started using it in winter 2011.

“If you are in this category, we would like to inter-view you about why you decided to change your win-tering management, how you chose the new system, who helped you with the decision making and how things have worked out,” Pinxterhuis says.

The findings will form a series of case studies of farmers using these systems to help other farmers who are considering a variety of wintering systems.

The Southern Wintering Systems Initiative aims to support decisions around winter management of dairy cows to achieve more profitable farms, good outcomes for animals and reduced environmental impacts.

It is a DairyNZ-led research project, with co-fund-ing from the MPI Sustainable Farming Fund and Envi-ronment Southland.

For further information, contact Pinxterhuis at [email protected] or phone 027 511 3545.

ter-clockwise, stirring or drawing the material in, as opposed to only one direc-tion with a single blade.

The entire lower unit can also rotate through 360 degrees. It is intended for mounting on a float-ing platform and to have a bottom guard to pro-

tect pond liners. It can also be fixed in position if required.

The mixer motor is 11kW through and is pow-ered via a variable-speed drive to the propellers; the directional motor is 1kW. The mixer can be pro-grammed to any configu-

ration to suit any type and sized pond.

“We envisage the pro-pellers operating at an optimum 300rpm but a farmer can alter this to any speed he chooses to suit his pond,” Reid says. Tel. 07 347 9974www.numedic.co.nz


44 // machinery & Products

Space-age technology hits the roadsmoother gear shifting on the new Kia K9 luxury ‘flagship’ model is one result of aviation tech-nology adopted by this South Korean car maker.

The K9 is now on sale in South Korea and will be launched globally later this year.

Shift-by-wire technol-ogy activates the auto-matic transmission, instead of a mechanical shift. This is similar to fly-by-wire systems used by aircraft makers on their latest passenger planes.

Kia says the K9’s gear shifting is “much smoother and we could see it used on other models in the near future”.

Other aviation tech-nology on the K9 is a high-tech ‘heads-up display’

(HUD). Used on advanced fighter jets, this projects vital data on to the wind-screen of a vehicle, tell-ing the driver the vehicle’s speed, navigational data, danger signals, and rear and side obstacles. And it warns when the vehicle veers off track.

Also new, Flex Steer enables the driver to select driving mode (normal, eco, snow and sport), each regulating the engine, transmission, steering and suspension to balance between driving com-fort, performance and fuel economy. This gear is likely on other Kia vehi-cles, especially the SUV and Crossover, making them safer on danger-ous surfaces, the company says.

Adaptive cruise control automatically adjusts the car’s distance from other vehicles.

The K9 will be one of the first cars outside Europe to offer this.

The K9 has Kia’s first-ever telematics system that enables drivers to

turn on the engine and air conditioning by smart-phone.

The K9 has all-LED headlamps that auto-matically shift the angle and breadth of the units according to the direc-tion and speed of the car, reducing blind spots.

Power comes from a normally aspirated V6 petrol engine with direct injection, giving the power of a V8 with the fuel effi-ciency of a mid-size sedan, the company says.

The top version of the 3.8 litre engine delivers 334hp.

The K9 has Kia’s first-ever telematics system

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machinery & Products // 45

Janet BrookerSystems put farmers in control of own data

farmers can automate data collection while keep-ing records in their own hands with Smart Farm Systems monitoring tools and software.

The company has previously marketed, for example, monitoring of water trough levels, electric fence status and milk tank temperature. Now it has launched two tools for keeping a track of effluent disposal.

The TIM Plus system automatically monitors irriga-tor travel speeds, sending information back to the home computer.

The GPS capabilities of the system means farmers will be able to keep good records of exactly what volume of effluent is being applied in which location.

Sales and marketing manager Janet Brooker notes that the entire Smart Farm System hub is that all information

gareth gillattis held on farm and is owned by the farmer.

“Farmers can choose to plug the information into ser-vices such as Tracmaps if they want to,” Brooker says. “But essentially that information is held on farm.”

Information can be displayed as a graph for monitored sections, and text message alerts can be set up for system failures.Tel. 0508 476 278 32767)www.smartfarmsystems.co.nz

Technology can raise food yieldnew Zealand already feeds about 20 mil-lion people around the world on top of our own population and has the potential to feed more, a University of Waikato Pro-fessor of Agribusiness Jac-queline Rowarth.

Speaking at the Food and the Environment seminar at the National Fieldays this month, she discussed the impact pop-ulation growth, climate change and increasing reg-ulation may have on the future of New Zealand’s food exports.

In the past few decades the world’s population has drastically increased, but not the amount of land used for farming and pro-ducing food, says Rowarth.

“It’s farmers and tech-nology that are making the

difference. “New Zealand is sur-

rounded by other coun-tries who all want our food, and we have the potential to help produce it for them.”

With the global popu-lation expected to exceed eight billion by 2050, she says global food demand will increase significantly.

“The question in New Zealand is: How can we produce more food? Do we have more land we can put into agriculture? Or do we improve the productivity of our existing farmland?”

Professor Rowarth says the answer lies partly in more efficient farming at home, through the appli-cation of new technol-ogy, and partly in assisting other countries to raise their food production.

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Fieldays hype good for businessdairy farmers are changing the way they do business and it’s good for the National Fieldays, says Fieldays society president Lloyd Downing, a Waikato dairy farmer.

“After the drought in 2008 and the up-and-down movement of our payout... farmers started thinking ‘we need to put so much aside for machin-ery instead of spending the depreciation’,” Downing told Dairy News.

“So every year now they go to Fieldays to buy machinery. They probably could buy it locally... but they get into the hype of the Fieldays.”

Downing says good, sunny days helped turnout at this year’s event – the 44th. Gates closed on the world’s fifth largest rural

sector trade show with 128, 271 visitors in total. The final day saw 30,292 gather at Mystery Creek, 40% up on the previous year’s Saturday. Overall attendance was 9% up on 2011, leaving exhibitors and organisers happy with the four-day effort.

Downing says confi-dence was high and feed-back from exhibitors was good, with Hyundai sell-ing 20-30 cars more than usual.

He says Northland company Milk Bar (calf feeders) told him Wednes-day was its best day ever.

“Their equipment is so good it doesn’t wear out,” Downing says, amazed their sales keep growing. He attributes it to Fieldays publicity.

“People always get hung up on how many people come through the gate.... [A good turnout] is

great for the organisation. But it would be the same if only 60,000 people turned up as long as it was the right people.”

With four sunny days making the “grass look greener”, Downing says,

the last day was the big-gest ever because “townies came out on a nice day”.

Some exhibitors com-plain they are only “tyre kickers” but townies buy other things such as power tools or jumper leads. He

Pam tiPaknows some exhibitors work their sideline prod-ucts on the Saturday to open urban wallets.

One exhibitor, whose primary product is meal

feeding systems, also sells dog kennels to capture the townie dollar and tractor exhibitors push their ride-on mowers on the last day.

With the exhibition E

area showing off domes-tic products and holding cooking shows, Fieldays “has something for every-body, but no sideshows”, Downing says.

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Competition winnersfencing and tractor-pulling contests at National Fieldays as usual brought together New Zealand’s top contenders.

The Fieldays NZ Wire/Wiremark Fencing Cham-pionship, now in its 45th year, recognized as Best 1st Year winner: Jason Van Beers, Porangahau. Second Year winner was Jared Nicholson, Napier.

The Bill Schuler award went to: Brad Joines (Rau-mati South) 1; Jason Van Beers 2; Isaac Sage, (Palm-erston North) 3.

Silver Spades: Shane Bouskill ( Waipawa) and Gordon Hansen (Napier) 1; Jeff Joines (Raumati South), and Matt Jones (Levin) 2; Paul Van Beers and Jason Van Beers (Porangahau) 3; Daryl Wheeler and Nick Liefting (Pukekohe) 4.

Golden Pliers: Paul Van Beers 1; Shane Bouskill 2; Tim Stafford (Marton) 3; John Steedman (Wanganui) 4; Matt Jones 5; Gordon Hansen 6; Nick Liefting 7; Tony White (Papakura)

Winner, Top Quality fence, Paul Van Beers Friendly rivalry between competitors showed

when Golden Pliers winner Paul Van Beers gave some of his cash prize to each of the bottom three placed entrants.

Results are awaited for Saturday’s Silver Staples competition, a new event open to young people up to 21 years of age and enrolled in agricultural based education.

Tractor pull competition results were: Best 1st Year entrant, Luke Ross; Brent Garrett Award, Iain Lillington; Weight Adjusted 1st, Andrew Bas-sett; Weight Adjusted 2nd, Iain Lillington; Weight Adjusted 3rd, Phillip Gill; Waikato Regional Weight Transfer 1st, Robert Fare; Waikato Regional Weight Transfer 2nd, Sam Osborne; Waikato Regional Weight Transfer 3rd, Iain Lillington.

Fieldays hype good for business

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Flattered to be remembered

Protect laptops against knocksaccessories from the likes of Havis and Infocase protect gear such as laptops or tablets from water and dust.

These add a “protective layer… improving their odds against the elements,” says Infocase spokes-woman Rachel McBeth.

“It’s no longer uncommon for outdoorsy people to take their computers with them on the road. Rugged accessories give technology a better chance of surviving inevi-table knocks, drops, splashes and spills.”

Targeted at the business user, Havis sells mounting hardware for vehicles, allowing positioning of Panasonic Toughbook devices in

cars, ATVs, boats or trucks. “These docking stations pro-

vide the safest, most reliable mounts to keep computers in place when on the move. They’re being pushed to the limits by emer-gency services around the world. The marine docking stations are designed to withstand jets of water from every direction – forces simi-lar to those of heavy seas,” McBeth says.

Infocase sells cases, harnesses, etc, for mobile devices including iPads and other tablets.

“With the addition of an Info-case accessory, many ‘non-rugged’ devices gain a level of protection which elevates them to ‘semi-

rugged’ status,” says McBeth. “This allows the user to take their technology into environ-ments which might ordinarily be ruled out.”

She says the high failure rates of notebooks used in demanding cir-cumstances are compelling users to look for better options. “A Pan-asonic-sponsored IDC study has shown that standard notebooks fail at a rate of about one in five [22%], with the top reasons for failure being drops, spills and fall-

ing objects. These threats to note-books can be found in any office, let alone in more demanding outdoors workplaces.”

By comparison, Panasonic Toughbook ruggedised computers have a failure rate of just 1.5%.www.comworth.co.nz

the young inventor of the 3Way Tool, Michael Jones, was “rapped” at the response to his return to National Fieldays this month, in the company of others displaying newly invented products.

“Fieldays is a neat opportunity for those wanting to bring new products to market, and it has worked for me,” he told Dairy News.

“I was delighted to see so many people I’d met during last year’s Fieldays and see their responses to my finished product.

“To be honest, I was flattered they’d remem-bered me. Everyone was supportive, although some were surprised I got the tool to market.

“I received plenty

of good-natured advice on how the tool can be improved, which showed how us Kiwis have a knack for inventiveness, although for the moment I’m happy to keep the 3Way Tool the way it is.”

Visitors were pleased to get a demonstration of how it works and its value over the normal four-fold rule.

“I was also able to tell them where they could purchase the product,” he says.

“When I got home after Fieldays I was

exhausted, but came away with a tonne of great memories…till next year.”

Inconvenience launched the idea for the 3Way Tool

“I was working on a house three storeys up,

when I realised my bevel and set square were in my van down the road. I knew there had to be another way. If necessity is not the mother of invention, lazi-ness probably is.”

He had a passion for this tool being ‘made in NZ’ because so few build-ers’ tools are made here.

At first glance the 3Way Tool might be mistaken for a normal four-fold rule, but it has a link arm which slides along one side to accurately measure angles 0-150°. A bolt secures the angle to allow the user to instantly read the exact angle for cutting. Slots lock in the primary 90° and 45° angles.

As the tool’s inven-tor and developer, Jones had a passion for finding a new and easier way.

“For a builder like me there is a reward in time and effort in using the 3Way. For the home handyman it makes a difficult job easy and replaces two tools.”

His tool is version

2.0 of folding rules, and he hopes it will revolutionise the way builders do angles and measure, making life easier and more produc-tive. Jones was in the final six months of his apprentice-ship in 2010 when he hit on the idea. “Fieldays is a neat opportunity

for those wanting to bring new products to market and it has worked for me.”

Builder Michael Jones, inventor of the 3Way Tool, says his stall at the Fieldays attracted a lot of interest.

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GPS map streamlines fertiliser drop

an uPgrade to the TracMap farm nutri-ent management system allows farmers to order fertiliser and tell the spreading company where to put it – all at the touch of a button.

The system allows farmers to select – on a farm map uploaded to the TracMap system – the pad-docks they want fertiliser

spread on, how much fer-tiliser they want spread, and what type of fertiliser they want.

And they can even add notes containing special instructions, says manag-ing director Colin Brown.

That map then gets sent to the fertiliser com-pany which can then send the product on individual trucks.

“Drivers no longer need to rely on finding a hand-drawn map at the

gareth gillattcowshed or in the mail-box,” says Brown, who is expecting good take-up by fertiliser companies.

“Sixty five per cent of all trucks have the baseline TracMap system,” he says. “We’re expecting that most of those will jump

over to this.”Brown says the com-

pany will keep a record of nutrients and GPS-fit-ted travelling irrigators will soon be able to be included in the system.Tel. 0800 872 262www.tracmap.co.nz

Feed smarterProgress by Lely on its automated feeding equip-ment includes a new Calm automatic calf feeder and upgrades to the Lely Juno feed pusher.

Lely centre manager Sam Anderson says the new calf feeder, seen at National Fieldays, can hold milk for up to 250 calves. They offer multiple milk settings, enabling the dairy worker to programme a calf ’s milk volumes from the time it eneters the herd until weaning.

“There’s a metal flap that determines that when calf has had its quota the teat disappears and there’s no more,” says Anderson.

The Lely Calm feeder was the site’s newest product, but the Lely Juno feed pusher proved the biggest attraction for visitors. The Lely Juno has been running in sheds since 2008, minimising feed waste and getting feed to stock in a timely way. The new model has a proximity sensor to make sure feed gets eaten even faster, Anderson says.

“This one will move in with the feed so if there’s less feed it’ll move in closer and push it into bigger piles,” says Anderson.www.lely.com

TracMap managing director Colin Brown.

Lely dairy division manager Mark Brummel and centre manager Sam Anderson at the Fieldays.

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‘addictiVe’ eXhaust sound and muscular sports design distinguishes the ‘next-generation’ Ford Focus ST, previewed at the National Fieldays.

This high-performance car will be in New Zealand dealers’ yards in Novem-ber 2012.

The range-topping Focus ST is true to ST model heritage, Ford says, offering “exhilarating perfor-mance and handling, plus the sound and appearance expected of such a car.

“The ST is the performance flag-ship of New Zea-land’s Car of the Year – the all-new Focus,” says Ford New Zea-land managing direc-tor Neale Hill. “We were excited to pro-vide an early preview

of the ST at Fieldays and look forward to it arriving later this year.

“The new ST... repre-sents an ultimate expres-sion of Focus driving quality and performance and we are confident the new model will strengthen the reputation of Ford’s ST heritage and attract new fans.”

This will be the first

time Ford has produced one of its performance cars for a global audience. The Focus ST is a product of Ford’s global Performance Vehicles group, which com-prises Team RS (Europe) and SVT (USA) engineers, ded-icated to devel-

oping and tuning products like the Focus RS, Shelby GT500 Mustang and Raptor SVT F150.

50 // motoring

Ford’s focus on exhaust sound, sports design

THE NEW Focus ST has a distinc-tive sports exterior whose func-tional and aerodynamic benefits differentiate the ST derivative from other models in the new Focus family, Ford says.

The ST has unique front- and rear-end designs, “muscular” extended rocker panels and “strik-ing” new alloy wheels based on the classic Y-spoke ST pattern. This stands out at the front end, where the twin upper and lower grilles of the standard car are replaced by a prominent new one-piece design, the maker says.

The front spoiler is all-new, with a deep central splitter framed by small motorsport-inspired spoiler blades on either side, which sweep round and encompass the fog lamps. The spoiler blades are linked to the rest of the body lines through the grille structure remi-niscent of the similar treatment in

the current Focus RS model. The front end is completed by

details like the gloss black finish to the headlamp bezels, and the bold red ST badge on the one-piece grille.

The car has an integrated roof spoiler with a larger, more exagger-ated design than the spoiler on the current Focus ST. It incorporates ducting to the rear screen and is integrated with the vehicle tailgate and roof.

The New Zealand preview car is finished in a new Tangerine Scream body colour.

“The Focus ST will be a serious driving machine for New Zea-land,” says Hill. “The approach of form following function, blending sporting capability with impressive comfort, is a key part of the Focus ST and it has have remained true to that both inside and outside the vehicle.”

design stands out

At the heart of the Focus ST is a high-output derivative of the new 2L Ford EcoBoost four-cyl-inder petrol engine with 247hp/184kW and 360 N-m peak torque.

One of a new genera-tion of smaller, high-effi-ciency, low-CO2 petrol engines from Ford, the 2L Ford EcoBoost is a light, aluminium design with high-pressure direct injection, low-inertia tur-bocharging and twin inde-pendent variable cam timing.

The engine deliv-

ers 10% more power and torque than the previ-ous 2.5L unit, and uses 20% less fuel and emits 20% less CO2. Standard transmission is a 6-speed manual gearbox with more ‘sporting’ ratios matched to the engine.

Compared to the stan-dard Focus, the ST model offers more including a chassis lowered by 10mm, a substantially different variable-ratio steering system, high performance brakes and unique suspen-sion tuning.

‘Architecture’ upgrades

include a stronger and stiffer body structure, optimised front and rear suspension system designs, and new electric power assisted steering.

New ‘smart’ technol-ogies in the car include advanced driver assis-tance, powertrain, chassis and active safety features. Many, such as the Torque Vectoring Control system – which acts like a torque vectoring differential to enhance cornering sta-bility and agility – have a direct impact on improv-ing driving quality.

The new Ford Focus ST will be on sale here in November.

Turn your mountain of bales into square meals now. Square us up for it later.

Use your smart phone to scan the QR code or type squaredeal.co.nz into your browser to reveal our balefeeder square deals.

www.squaredeal.co.nz

www.hustlerequipment.co.nz

NORTHERN 07 847 6923 CENTRAL 06 873 9154 SOUTHERN 03 434 0412

SQUARE DEAL.

BAND11259-2

SafeCut

The award winning Krone SafeCut

system effectively protects the

cutterbar and discs from damage.

A shear pin breaks the impact, and the disc is lifted clear using a threaded pinion. The only part needed is a

shear pin!

SAVE TIME AND COST

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0800 88 55 624www.tulloch.co.nz

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Dream about feeding your calves...

Manufactured by Skellerup Industries

Peach TeaTS. Calves love ‘em.

The Peach Teat allows no more fluid to pass through it than a cow’s udder naturally would, allowing the calf to suckle more intensely than conventional technology. This stimulates the flow of saliva and improves the Ph-level in the stomach and leads to better digestion.

With traditional teats when a calf squeezes the teat most of the milk goes right back into the container.

The Peach Teat’s unique patented internal collapsing flap-valve (A) holds the milk in the teat making it much more responsive to the calf’s needs.

It is designed to function like a real cows teat, moving all the time while the calf is suckling, never closing in its relaxed state. This means that the teat is self-cleaning and resists blocking.

There is a milk opening on each side of the nipple (B), situated so that the crown of the nipple remains intact and the teat is leak resistant even when used at the bottom of a milk container. These openings also work as a second valve. calves feed better and do not stress or fidget and health problems, such as scours or pneumonia, are reduced.

Peach Teats are manufactured from a natural rubber specially developed to meet the needs of calf rearers, ensuring that the teats feel natural and comfortable to the calf, and will eliminate mouth ulcers.

Peach Teats will pull through, or screw-on, all standard calf feeders (C). Peach Teats can be used for tube or gravity feeding using any container with a hole size of 22mm (7⁄8”).

PEACH TEATS.The most natural feeding calf teat on the market.

B B

AC

available in three models to suit all feeders:

Black threaded for screw-on or pull through

Pink threaded for screw-on or pull through

Pull-through on any feeder with a hole for the teat

Talk To us now abouT calving. 0800 731 266 │ www.RD1.coM

GET OFF TO A GREAT START WITH CALVING.calving is a busy time and we’re ready to help you. From calf feeders and meal to calving aids and metabolics, we’ve got what you need to help things go smoothly. so visit your local RD1 store today.

Dairy News 26 June 2012

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Transcript of Dairy News 26 June 2012