Dairy Farmer August 2021

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CONTENTS NEWS 17 Milk Monitor Milk powder price falls for seventh time

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19 Fonterra Shareholders Fund Is the writing on the wall?

ON FARM STORY 8

The old-fashioned way West Coast dairy farm brimming with diversity

20 Maximum returns Waikato farmer enjoys the best of both worlds

FARMING CHAMPIONS 7

Guest column – Andrew Hoggard

28 Dairy champion – Donna Griggs 32 Women in agribusiness – Charlotte Heald

SPECIAL REPORT 36 Tony Benny checks out SIDE

FEATURE 62 Herd Health

REGULAR FEATURES

20 Editor SONITA CHANDAR

06 374 5544 / 027 446 6221 sonita.chandar@globalhq.co.nz

Publisher DEAN WILLIAMSON 027 323 9407 dean.williamson@globalhq.co.nz

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Contributors ROSS NOLLY ross_nolly@yahoo.co.nz

027 332 6867

GERALD PIDDOCK 027 486 8346 gerald.piddock@globalhq.co.nz

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SAMANTHA TENNENT sommer.limited@gmail.com

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CHEYENNE NICHOLSON offthehoofmedia@gmail.com

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44 Research

54 Innovations

50 Farmstrong

61 Industry good – DairyNZ

TONY BENNY troutstream@farmside.co.nz

021 383 156

GERARD HUTCHING gerard.hutching@gmail.com

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ANNE BOSWELL anne@anneboswell.co.nz

ernest.nieuwoudt@globalhq.co.nz 06 323 0761

livestock@globalhq.co.nz

027 602 4925

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ANDY WHITSON 027 626 2269 New Media & Business Development Lead andy.whitson@globalhq.co.nz 027 205 1456

JODY ANDERSON 027 474 6094 Waikato/BOP jody.anderson@globalhq.co.nz DONNA HIRST Lower North Island donna.hirst@globalhq.co.nz

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Subscriptions DAIRY subs@globalhq.co.nz FARMER August 2021

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GUEST COLUMN

Winter of discontent Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard has plenty to say about RMA reform, workforce gaps and – a bright spot – progress on data interoperability.

T

he phrase “winter of discontent” is a well-known line from Shakespeare’s Richard the Third. It also aptly describes the sentiment amongst a fair number of us in the rural community.

Despite fairly solid market returns for many of our farm products, it feels like the so-called ute tax may well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many, thus we have seen protests planned across the country.

The ute tax, I feel, while only a tiny financial burden compared to many other issues, has just highlighted in their minds that the Wellington Beltway thinkers just don’t get regional New Zealand. “Rural-proofing” is a nice phrase to use but not something that actually gets practiced.

The issues I see right now and want to raise are around those bigger picture items and my concern around where it is all heading – and more precisely the pace it is occurring – across the backdrop of the new covid-19 world and the shortage of labour caused by border restrictions.

I am the sort of person who generally just wants to get stuff done, to not bugger around and dilly-dally but just get on with the job.

But I always try to temper that with what resources I have available to do the task, and I also like to work methodically to get one thing done and then move to the next. My mantra being: do a job once, do a job right. The idea of starting something new while you have previous projects incomplete with them metaphorically being held together with baling twine isn’t smart.

If we look across the spectrum of work that is occurring right now, we see a rush of legislation and change. We see legislation that has been poorly thought out and is requiring constant work to fix aspects of it. We have long-standing workstreams that require already stretched resources and we have new proposals coming to the fore, which will stretch those resources even more.

As a stocktake of what is out there, we

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard says various government legislation is being rushed and poorly thought out.

of course have the NPS on freshwater and the NES with its focuses on winter grazing, stock exclusion and Nitrate limits. We all know the winter grazing rules changes had to be changed within days of their release, due to the impracticability, and we are now in a limbo space with other aspects of the rules and potential changes.

In the past few weeks, we have had the first stage of the replacement of the RMA announced. We see many of the same challenges in this that we saw with the Essential Freshwater package.

A one-size-fits-all approach, with rules, new terms and definitions. But we also now have a proposal that new RMA style plans will be done by 14 appointed panels. If this is going to be the case, why didn’t we do the RMA changes first before the Essential Freshwater legislation?

We all agree water quality isn’t where we want it to be, but let’s not forget it’s still amongst the best in the OECD and I have seen a real mindset change in farmers over my time farming. Let’s channel that energy rather than drain it out, rushing down a chaotic path forward.

Another piece of legislation, while only affecting a small number of farmers, is the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Act. We call it “a solution looking for a problem” in our submission, but it is now coming back to the House. We had hoped it might just disappear somewhere in the bowels of Parliament but no such luck. Even though it only affects a small number, it is a truly appalling piece of legislation that sets very bad precedents around property rights.

There’s a glimmer of good news: we have a lot of work happening on stuff that I think farmers will actually be happy to see, with data interoperability, combined with farm plans.

We saw a glimpse of the potential with the presentation from the Trust Alliance at PINZ. The compliance burden for many of us right now is as annoying as hell, with all the paperwork we have to fill out and this is only going to grow through freshwater rules and climate change.

But not only does data interoperability present the opportunity to reduce that, it will also offer the opportunity for aggregated insights that will actually be of use and value to farmers.

This is work we want to be spending more time on. Add connectivity improvements to that and suddenly farmers and growers are likely in a much better space to be able to handle the issues around water, climate and biodiversity.

Overall, my message to the Government is we need to organise the work plan better. We have a siloed haphazard approach right now that is causing stress and anxiety for many. Not just for farmers and growers, but other sectors and, quite frankly, probably the government’s own officials. n

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The old-fashioned way Farming duo’s unconventional approach proves fruitful.

West Coast farmers John Marshall and Anna Emmerson have diversified their dairy business to include farm fresh milk direct to the public.

Photos: Tony Benny 8

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

By Tony Benny

A West Coast couple have diversified their dairy operation, resulting in providing fresh locally-produced products to their community.

A

West Coast couple who cheerfully admit they don’t really do “conventional” prefer to find alternative ways of

farming.

Anna Emmerson and John Marshall’s own and operate Your Farm. Their business strategy is to stack as many businesses as they can on one piece of land and at the same time care for their environment, following regenerativetype principles.

The couple milk 180 cows on their 152-hectare (128ha effective) property at Moana, near Lake Brunner, well back towards the Southern Alps that divide the South Island.

They also run chickens, sell eggs, raise meat birds and are growing the beef side of their business.

They’re far from finished trying new things and every year they plant 200 trees, anything from maples for maple syrup, to mulberries, fruit and nut trees.

Their newest venture of selling farm fresh milk direct to the public came about in their first year on the West Coast, which was tough going thanks both to it being even wetter than normal in this part of the country and because the payout dropped to $3.90.

While the payout was in the doldrums, the couple were thinking about how they could make their business more resilient and how they could level out

their income, even as the milk price was volatile.

They realised that none of the milk produced on the coast was sold as fresh milk, it was all processed, and they weren’t very impressed by the homogenised product sold in supermarkets, preferring the oldfashioned way, where the cream rises to the top.

They investigated the feasibility of producing their own fresh milk and selling it through stores, cafés and supermarkets on the West Coast.

“We were thinking about it before we came over here. It’s about stacking businesses,” Anna says.

“It’s getting more value for the same milk that you do every single day, putting more value on top of it, but not actually a huge amount more work.”

First, they found a pasteuriser for sale on Trade Me and bought it.

“We were stoked because we got it for a good price but then we were like ‘what are we going to do?’” she laughs.

They approached Foodstuffs and talked to the “big guys” in their Christchurch office, to see whether they would sell the fresh milk in their West Coast supermarkets.

“They loved our story, they were chuffed and said ‘this is so exciting’. We shot into the New World in town here and got the same response from the owner who said ‘this is awesome’.”

But their excitement was short-lived because along came covid 19 and the country was thrown into lockdown.

“Then they told us not to do it now as there was no money on the coast,” she says.

They waited out the lockdown but after a few months began to wonder what they were waiting for.

But setting their operation up was stressful, John says, because they had to

Continued page 10

FARM FACTS • Farm owners: Anna Emmerson and John Marshall • Location: Moana, West Coast • Farm size: 152ha, 128ha effective • Cows: 180, Friesian, Jersey and crossbred • Production: 2020-21: 79,200kg MS • Target: 2021-22: No target as too many variables

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“It’s getting more value for the same milk that you do every single day, putting more value on top of it, but not actually a huge amount more work.”

Anna Emmerson

buy more equipment and satisfy all the requirements of MPI. They already had a room attached to the cowshed they could use but, as well as a pasteuriser, they needed a bottling plant, bottle steriliser, a UV treatment plant to get their stream-fed water supply up to standard and “ice banks” to get the temperature of the milk down quickly.

After pasteurisation the milk is chilled from 63degC to 3.6degC. “If you get the temperature down quickly, it gives you a better shelf life, with less bacteria and less baddies in it,” Anna says.

They’re running a separate herd of about 30 cows, milking them once-a-day.

Some of the cows have been carried over from the previous season and some are leased. The management of the farm is being tweaked and for the first time there’s been split mating to facilitate year-round milking.

John and Anna have been running the fresh milk operation since June and are producing about 100 litres a day. They deliver to cafés and stores every second day, but expect that to increase when the supermarkets come online.

A sample from every batch has to be sent to Christchurch for testing and so far, every test sample has passed, giving them confidence they have the operation running as it should, but the two-day wait for their results can be agonising, because no product can be delivered until it’s approved.

“We’re sitting here watching because we’re delivering tomorrow, we’re waiting for results,” John says.

“We’re thinking ‘it better be good, it better be good’ and then it’s, ‘oh yeah no, we’re good to go, we’re off, pack’em up’.”

They now have a portable tester, which confirms whether pasteurisation was done properly and they can supply on the basis of that result, but final sign-off still requires a lab test.

Anna and John have gone door-todoor around West Coast cafés and stores

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

John Marshall grew up on a sheep farm near Maheno in North Otago, but went into milking after leaving school.

and say demand is growing steadily among consumers who like their milk in glass bottles, with the good oldfashioned cream on the top.

“We’ve even got one customer who tips the milk into one of those containers with a tap on the bottom and his wife takes it from the bottom and he ladles it out of the top,” Anna laughs.

Anna worked with her sister-inlaw on the marketing material and packaging and they designed and built their website (www.yourfarm.co.nz) and created the artwork on their delivery van.

“We’re also a bit sick of everyone being so politically correct, so our van’s got a picture of a cow sitting on a beer crate so it looks like a cow’s driving the van. We’re just trying to have a bit of fun with it for everyone,” she says.

The milk is sold in bottles and e-supermarkets and stores have agreed to take the used bottles and replace them with full ones, as long as John and Anna take them home and sterilise them before reuse.

“The milk business is our way of doing value-add, which is something other people aren’t doing,” John says.

“We thought ‘no one’s doing that,

Continued page 12

The 100-flock of hens follow a couple of days behind the cows’ grazing, working their way through the cow dung, spreading it about, as well as gobbling up any worms the cows excrete.

Georgie with the flock.

11

Anna Emmerson and John Marshall made the move to the West Coast six years ago as buying a farm there was affordable, but they had to learn how to farm in wet conditions.

let’s give it a nudge’. People told us we couldn’t do it but just watch us – we like a challenge.”

They both grew up on the drier side of the South Island; Anna on high country station Forest Range in the Lindis Pass and John on a sheep farm near Maheno in North Otago, but six years ago they moved to the coast where they could afford to buy a farm of their own.

They’d both made their mark in farming in Canterbury, with Anna producing the world’s finest bales of Merino wool for six years in a row and

John sharemilking 1200 cows.

“I bought Forest Range’s finest wethers and took them down to the lowlands of Mayfield (Mid Canterbury) and got the finest wool in the world, 10.9 microns,” she says.

“Then I broke my own record and produced another 100kg bale of 10.67 micron fibre.”

To help produce this wool, she built a large shed to house her 200 sheep and entered the (Italian fine wool miller) Loro Piana Challenge to find the world’s finest bale of wool.

Competitors from Australia managed to win that competition but by then she was ready to move on to a different challenge with partner John. He’d started milking cows when he left school, rising up the career ladder and moving north to Canterbury to get experience with large herds, eventually becoming a lower order sharemilker.

The couple met in Mid Canterbury and eventually decided to pool their resources to find new opportunities.

First, John sold his herd and had six months of what he calls being “idle”,

though he did have time to put irrigation on Anna’s small dryland farm, as well as looking for a farm to buy. He looked as far afield as Wairarapa, but he soon realised he was a South Islander at heart.

“The milk business is our way of doing value-add, which is something other people aren’t doing.”

John Marshall “I went and looked at four or five places and I came back and said ‘we’re not living up there’. I don’t want to live in the North Island, I don’t know why.

There’s some beautiful country up there,” he says.

“To be fair, you were looking at sheep and beef places and you still had your head in dairy,” Anna laughs.

Then they found the farm at Moana.

“The reason we bought this place is because it’s got a massive barn on it,” she says, reasoning that would help them farm in this high-rainfall area, where they can expect 2.5 metres annually.

They bought the farm as a going concern, including the herd from a Belgian couple – now close friends – who had built the barn, looking to recreate a more European way of dairy farming.

Soon after they moved onto the property they modified the barn, removing the free stalls that had sand underfoot.

The herd is wintered on-farm and when the weather turns too wet for the paddocks, the herd is brought into the barn and fed silage made on-farm.

“We ripped it out because what was happening was we were always pushing all the crap outside and it was in the rainy season and all you’re doing is putting crap on your paddocks in the rainy season,” she says.

There was a small shed that could hold three weeks’ worth of effluent but even with that, the system seemed environmentally unsustainable to Anna and John. But with their modifications they believe they have something that works much better.

The cows are now housed when the

John looked at several farms, including some in the North Island, but realised he was a South Islander at heart.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

paddocks get too wet with the floor covered with layers of sawdust and straw and even paper, which absorb their effluent and begin composting.

“The cool thing is when you put the probe in, it’s 22degC in the pack so it feels like they’re on a wee electric blanket.

They love it,” she says.

At the start of the winter they put down about 45cm of straight sawdust and through the months the cows are in there, more straw is added to keep the surface clean and dry, all the while building an ever deeper base.

“We stir it up and let it heat up and as soon as you let the air in it starts becoming compost,” he says.

“At the end of the winter we get out about 480 cubic metres of compost.”

The compost is left to work for a year or so and is then spread on the paddocks once they’re dry to add fertility and build up the soil on stony ground.

As well as creating compost, the barn system is better for feed utilisation than feeding out in the paddock, with almost nothing trampled underfoot. And while the cows are inside staying warm and dry and making compost, the paddocks are protected from pugging in the heavy rain that often falls in the area.

“In our first year we had three weeks of summer,” he says.

“It rained right up to about February 14 and then sort of stopped for three weeks for a nice summer and then it just started raining again.”

Continued page 14

13

away as bobbies, but are fattened onfarm and enjoy a longer life.

“And because we’re real big on healthy soils and all the rest of it, hopefully the meat will be even better,” she says.

Anna with the milk pasteuriser, which quickly gets the temperature of the milk down from 63degC to 3.6degC.

John was starting to wonder if they’d made the right decision coming to the coast until Anna told him he had to get off the farm for a bit.

“I said to John one day when it was that bad, ‘Go to the pub, get out of here’ and he comes back and goes ‘it’s not normal Anna, it’s not normal. All the locals have dried off’,” she laughs.

“Two days later, we dried off,” he adds.

“We were battling away and I was like ‘God, what are we doing?’”

They were learning fast what it takes to farm when it’s so wet you can hardly get on to your paddocks and quickly came to appreciate what a valuable asset their barn was. They’ve also come to appreciate their environment and live with the rain.

“We’ve been here six years and the bad weather is all forgotten on a beautiful day. It’s stunning,” she says.

Their 165-cow commercial herd still generates most of the farm income. The herd is 50% Friesian, 35% Jersey and the rest crossbred, producing 440kg MS/cow.

They’re wintered on-farm, fed on grass and when the weather turns too wet for the paddocks, the herd is brought into the barn and fed silage made on-farm. Getting supplementary feed trucked across the hill from Canterbury is generally too expensive, but they do buy straw for their barn from a cropping farmer over there.

Calving starts on August 25, though John’s thinking of changing that to September 10 because that’s what farmers used to do in the area 30 years ago. They keep nearly all their calves,

14

with very few bobby calves. In the future they plan to have zero bobby calves.

Mating runs for six weeks and then a mixture of bulls are used, including Speckle Parks and a few Hereford, as they move to have more beef animals on the farm.

Anna says the Speckle Park genetics are good for marbling and she likes the look of the breed. They finish some of the animals themselves and sell others at 100kg to a regular client in Canterbury.

They plan to expand the beef side of their business and believe customers will like the fact their animals are not sent

“We want to sell our products straight into our community so that people in town have a connection with us and the land and know and understand what we do.”

Anna Emmerson In future she hopes customers will be able to buy half a beast from their Your Farm business and then come out to the farm and see the animal as it grows.

“We want to sell our products straight into our community so that people in town have a connection with us and the land and know and understand what we do. It’s all about selling good old-fashioned food from our farm to our community at a fair price for all,” she says.

“Our key focus is to ensure that our animals are well looked after. We start by following the five globally recognised gold standard freedoms in regards to animal welfare: freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury, and disease;

Georgie loves getting out with the herd and giving them a friendly pat and scratch behind the ears.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Max likes to take his bike out on the farm to check the herd.

freedom from fear and distress; and freedom to express normal and natural behaviour.

Another side of their business is chooks and they sell eggs at the gate.

That business is being kept relatively small because once they go over 100 birds, stricter regulations kick in and so for now, it’s gate-sales only.

The hens follow a couple of days behind the cows’ grazing round and they work their way through the cow dung, spreading it about as well as gobbling up any worms the cows excrete.

They graze on grass, grass grubs and other bugs, grains and seeds by day and

at night, go into the mobile henhouse Anna and John built.

The hens’ biggest enemy are harrier hawks, which can take adult birds, and John says magpies that he would once have shot are now welcome because they’ll happily take on the hawks.

They also run meat birds, which Anna says are pretty much the same as Tegel chickens. They arrive as one-day-old chicks and grazing on grass, take about eight weeks to grow to full size. For now they rear 60-100 birds a year for their own consumption, but they’re looking at growing that operation when the time is right.

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“We’d only do that once a year and the customers could order them in advance, so they’re pretty much sold when they arrive as one-day-olds. They grow so well in the heat and they’re absolutely delicious,” she says.

After six years here, they are committed to the West Coast and describe themselves as locals, though they accept they won’t be considered Coasters until the family’s been here for a generation or two.

“It was certainly a change coming here but we love the area and the people. I reckon they’re just about better than Cantabrians,” he laughs. n

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MILK MONITOR

Down but not out

By Gerald Piddock

Each month the milk monitor delves into the dairy industry and gives us the low-down on the good, the bad, the ugly and everything in between.

T

he seventh consecutive fall in dairy prices might have some wondering if the shine has finally started to come off dairy

prices.

Certainly, the risk to the $7.25-$875/ kg MS milk price being downgraded has certainly heightened, with most of the banks and NZX revising their new season’s forecasts.

The latter dropped theirs 12 cents to a $7.69/kg MS midpoint following the most recent 2.9% fall in the GDT. Its milk price range is $7.52-$8.14/kg MS and the $7.69/kg MS midpoint assumes a $0.72 exchange rate on average for the season.

ASB dropped its forecast from $8.20$7.90/kg MS, while Westpac retained theirs at $8/kg MS. There’s no need to panic – at least not yet – for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the milking season has barely begun and it would be more concerning to see this sort of trend remain over spring and into peak milk.

NZX said as much in its commentary when it lowered its forecast.

“It is not uncommon to see downward pressure on prices at this point in the season, and the market was bound to come back into balance, as global milk production has been ramping up, as we’ve seen in the US,” it said.

“Currently, there seems to be no real red flags in the market saying that consumption has shifted, or the market has turned its nose up at dairy. It is also important to remember at this time of the year, milk price volatility is very real.”

But there’s clearly been weakened demand.

NZX senior dairy analyst Amy Castleton says Chinese buyers appeared to be less willing to pay premium prices in its quarterly global dairy update released in July.

“We’re now starting to look at volumes that will ship in New Zealand’s peak milk-producing months, so the balance has shifted, with supply now starting to

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Milk powder prices have slid over the past seven GDT auctions, however, it is still very early in the season.

outweigh demand,” Castleton says.

She says the good volumes of milk production in late autumn in NZ may also have contributed to the July 6 GDT decline, where it dropped 3.6%.

Likewise, ASB says the downward trend was a clear sign that prices were losing momentum.

“We knew dairy prices wouldn’t sustain these heights forever, but prices are falling a bit faster than we’d anticipated.

This is now the fourth consecutive auction where WMP prices have fallen 1.5%-3.5%. And the fact that prices have continued to fall, even as Fonterra has reduced the amount of product on offer, clearly shows that the demand and supply balance is shifting in the direction of buyers rather than sellers,” it says in its Commodities Weekly publication.

Then there is the covid factor.

The wave of delta variant infections around the world hit commodity markets prior to the auction, a point Westpac senior agri economist Nathan Penny made in the bank’s dairy update.

“It’s no surprise that dairy prices dropped at the auction overnight,” Penny

says.

The 2.9% fall was separate to the previous falls, which he says were caused by the very strong end to the NZ dairy season, where March-May production was up 10% on the same three months back in 2020.

He says the recent cold snap in July and lack of winter feed in some regions could see a quiet start to spring production.

But finally, and arguably most importantly, prices are still historically high and despite the downward trend, farmers are still looking at a decent milk price.

Sentiment was also improving as evident in Rabobank’s latest rural confidence survey on the back of these good prices. This is despite outcries over government policies and nationwide labour shortages.

The nationwide protests on July 16 have also given farmers a much-needed shot in the arm for their morale as they enter the busiest time of the season with calving underway in many places in the North Island. n

17

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NEWS

The Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund was created in 2012 to both manage redemption risk for the co-operative and be a vehicle that gave outside investors some exposure to the dairy sector.

F

FSF future uncertain

ONTERRA’S foray into listing might end up costing its shareholders close to $500 million, but the Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund may well slip off the books with little or no fanfare.

“The unit trust has been marginalised since day one in some respects. The experience has been quite poor for unitholders all the way through,” senior Harbour Asset Management research analyst Oyvinn Rimer says.

He doesn’t think there are many investors in the fund left to care.

“We own a very small number in our passive fund, which is an index-tracking fund that has to own them, but in an active sense, we don’t,” he says.

“In hindsight, it probably should have been wound up shortly after listing.”

The fund was created in 2012 to both manage redemption risk for the cooperative and be a vehicle that gave outside investors some exposure to the dairy sector.

The rewards haven’t been great.

The units were first sold at $5.50 in 2012, when Fonterra raised $525 million from their sale, and last traded at $3.73. The fund is currently trading but Fonterra put a temporary freeze when it announced the proposal. The units have fallen from $4.56 just before the proposal was announced.

Since its launch, it has paid roughly 30 cents a year in dividends, including two lean years where Fonterra’s debt repayments were the priority.

In May, Fonterra’s board kicked off consultation on a new proposed capital structure that would see the fund capped or killed as it looks to protect

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

itself from flat or declining milk supply and to ensure farmer ownership.

Fonterra recently unveiled some possible changes but there was no further clarity on the future of the fund.

“We still have not made a decision or landed in terms of the future of the fund,” chairperson Peter McBride told reporters at a briefing. The future of the cooperative “is the priority at the moment,” he said.

However, Rimer says any buyback – which would have to be approved by at least 75% of unitholders entitled to vote – may not be stellar.

The current market capitalisation of the fund is $401.6m.

“In hindsight, it probably should have been wound up shortly after listing.”

Oyvinn Rimer Fonterra has argued keeping the fund operating as is could potentially cost billions as it may be forced into repeatedly buying back shares if certain levels are breached.

“It doesn’t sound like there is any willingness to pay a premium to unitholders to close it down,” Rimer said.

While there’s no final decision , he says “the writing is on the wall”.

NZ Shareholders’ Association chief executive Oliver Mander says the association hasn’t yet formed a view on the proposal given that the proposal itself hasn’t been finalised.

However, he says there had always

been an inherent conflict of interest between the unitholders and the supplier shareholders, he said.

Jarden’s head of research Arie Dekker says “it was very clear at inception that there would be limitations associated with investing in an FSF unit – particularly there was no voting interest in Fonterra’s governance while the fund was also set up with a number of protections around controlling the fund size”.

Data from the annual reports show Fonterra spent about $1.7 million on directors’ fees for the fund’s manager in the nine years to June 30, 2020. It also paid the fund’s running costs.

The FSF Management Company, the manager of the Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund, hasn’t responded aggressively to the idea that the fund might be wound up.

It says its capital review subcommittee, which comprises its independent directors, will continue to discuss the capital structure proposals in confidence with Fonterra and with advisers.

It also reiterated “it is not able to provide unitholders with any assurance about the price or liquidity of trading in the fund as these are matters the manager does not control or influence.”

Mander says removing the fund will limit investment options in the dairy sector.

Fonterra argued that the milk supply issue is now a bigger risk and investors can turn to the bonds for exposure.

However, Mander says bonds are “a totally different investment profile and not what investors are looking for”. n – BusinessDesk

19

ON FARM

Maximum returns Efficiency key to simple, profitable A2/A2 farm.

20

Zach Mounsey is an equity partner and sharemilker on the family farm at Te Kawa near Otorohanga milking 440 cows.

Photos: Stephen Barker DAIRY FARMER August 2021

By Samantha Tennent

A Waikato farmer has succeeded in creating a top farming business, as well as a career in the corporate world.

T

he desire to have a dynamic farming business as well as an exciting career off the farm, a Waikato farmer has come out on top in both.

And he got there by focusing on creating a simple, profitable farming operation with an efficient Jersey herd.

Zach Mounsey who is an equity partner and sharemilks 440 Jersey cows on 161ha at Te Kawa near Otorohanga on the family farm, which was the most profitable Waikato 50:50 sharemilker in Dairybase for 2018. He is also the general manager of milk supply for Happy Valley Nutrition (HVN), a new dairy processor aiming to produce high-quality infant formulas.

His background from study and working with Fonterra and DairyNZ have built his knowledge and skillset for success both on and off the farm.

He credits his farming business success to a focus on efficiency, cost management, cow health, pasture management and getting a return on every dollar spent.

“In every aspect of the farm business, I’m trying to maximise returns. This approach informs everything from breed choice and milking intervals, to feed inputs and infrastructure,” Zach says.

Several years ago, he made the decision to change the breed of cows they were milking. At the time, the family owned a farm at Otorohanga that had contour and soil that was more suited to a smaller animal than the black-andwhite and black cows they were carrying.

They strategically purchased a Jersey herd and continued to target A2/A2 production.

“Changing to Jersey was a no-brainer on that farm and I think other farms could consider it too,” he says.

“The herd we looked at was doing similar production to our Friesiancross animals while on a once-a-day system, with a lower maintenance feed requirement.

“And it also appealed to me that Jersey genetics predominantly carry the A2/A2 allele, which we started breeding towards in 2012.

The herd is now completely A2/A2 and they supply exclusively to Synlait. They are pleased they are getting financially rewarded for the breeding decision they made 10 years ago after realising the opportunity and on-farm value A2/A2 could deliver.

He describes the herd as lowmaintenance, with very few animal health issues.

Zach is big on using data to make decisions. He religiously monitors his round length at different times of the year and the residual being left behind.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

FARM FACTS • Farm owners: Andrew and Anita Coombe • Sharemilker and equity partner: Zach Mounsey • Location: Te Kawa, Waikato • Farm size: 161ha • Cows: 440 Jersey cows • Production: 2020-21: 125,000kg MS • Production target: 2021-22 season: 160,000kg MS

“We have very few cases of lameness or mastitis and our somatic cell count typically averages less than 150,000 for the season,” he says.

The herd’s outstanding health and reproductive performance also results in savings on youngstock.

He is focused on growing the business and looks at opportunities as they arise and they recently bought 30ha from a neighbouring farmer.

They are gradually building cow numbers, which can be challenging since they are exclusively A2/A2.

Growing up on the family farm at Otorohanga he was a typical farm-kid and liked to do the traditional things that kids do. Some of his earliest farm memories were reaching up with the teat sprayer while his parents were milking the cows.

“It was just Mum, Dad and myself on the farm but I come from a long line of farming family,” he explains.

He is the sixth generation on the farm.

“I always wanted to be a farmer but Mum and Dad pushed me to spend some time off the farm to learn more about the world before I settled into the

Continued page 22

21

As well as running and working on the farm, Zach Mounsey is also the general manager of supply for new dairy processor Happy Valley Nutrition.

farming business,” he says.

“So keeping that in mind, when I was 16 I decided I wanted to have a dynamic farming business because that’s where my passion is, but I also wanted an exciting role outside of farming.”

Rather than studying agriculture or agriscience directly, he studied finance and economics at Waikato University.

“I thought I had a good handle on farm systems already and wanted to get a greater depth of understanding in business, commerce, finance and economics,” he says.

“I knew somewhere along the line the two would complement each other.”

His first role out of university was with Fonterra in finance and public trading, based in Auckland, which was a huge adjustment.

As a small-town country boy, he quickly realised he was a long way from home when he arrived in the big smoke of Auckland and received funny looks when he asked where to park his car, but he soon learnt.

“I stayed on the farm through university and even while I was working in Auckland, I spent nearly every weekend back home in Otorohanga on the farm,” he says.

“I can count on one hand the weekends I didn’t. I put a few miles on my poor little car, but I really didn’t want to lose sight or context of the farm.”

In 2015 he received a scholarship to attend the Global Youth Ag-Summit in

22

Canberra, Australia, through Bayer Crop Science.

“It was an interesting experience, there were 100 people from all over the world and that brings a lot of different viewpoints to consider,” he says.

“In every aspect of the farm business, I’m trying to maximise returns. This approach informs everything from breed choice and milking intervals, to feed inputs and infrastructure.”

Zach Mounsey “We were exploring world hunger and malnutrition and opportunities to solve the issues. But ultimately, it was the same problem that we’re experiencing worldwide now, with political policy driving inefficient systems and creating the wrong price signals.

“I did find some frustrations, as a lot of the other scholars attending the event seemed to lack ground-level farming experience and business acumen.”

He still keeps the learnings he took away in mind with his own business planning and his work with Happy Valley.

Particularly when considering messaging and price signals to producers regarding production, sustainability and the value proposition of New Zealand milk.

He has also completed the Kellogg Rural Leadership programme with Lincoln University and has received an AGMARDT Leadership scholarship that he applied to further study through Harvard Business School. And he has spent time in America and South America studying greenhouse gases and their connection to agriculture, predominantly in pasture-based bovine systems.

“I’m always keen to learn more and know how to influence decisions and create efficiencies,” he says.

After three years with Fonterra, he jumped at an opportunity to move into an economist role with DairyNZ based at their head office in Hamilton. That allowed him to move back to the farm and contribute more to the weekly operation.

“I enjoyed my time at Fonterra but being on the farm is really important to me,” he says.

He enjoyed farm life so much, he eventually left his professional career to be involved full-time in 2016. He had become an equity partner during university but was ready to buy the herd to sharemilk.

Not long into his full-time farming career, another opportunity came up with DairyNZ and he stepped into a

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

The Wakaito farmers made the decision to switch to Jersey cows, which are on once-a-day. The herd is on track to produce 150-160,000kg MS.

corporate support role that had him working closely with chief executive Tim Mackle, while keeping the farm running back home.

While working at DairyNZ, he made a contact who was also involved in a new startup milk processor, Happy Valley. His name was mentioned to the founders and they approached Zach to join the team.

“Within two or three weeks of my name being put forward I had a contract on offer,” he says.

The opportunity to work with a new dairy processor was exciting. He was their first full-time employee, initially in a generic development role and helped with the consent process.

He helped commercially establish HVN

within the King Country community, supporting the financial and economic modelling and put together the milk supply strategy. And as the team has expanded, he has moved into the position of general manager of milk supply.

Earlier this year, HVN entered an agreement with Burt Lewis Ingredients (BLI) to supply the North American company with milk powder. The agreement is conditional on both parties meeting certain operational and quality conditions, which include BLI purchasing a minimum of 4800 metric tonnes per year of milk powders that are destined for export markets.

The agreement has a three-year minimum term and requires HVN to

complete the construction of its factory near Otorohanga and it satisfies the quality assurance requirements of BLI. It is great news for the new company and he is excited to be part of the process.

“It’s been hugely exciting being part of a new greenfield dairy processor as a startup opportunity and having a hand in most aspects of the business,” he says.

Construction of HVN’s factory is in its first phase, with earthworks under way.

In June it announced it had completed the purchase and settlement of the 142ha of farmland called Woolly Farm, which the factory is located on.

Once operational, HVN’s factory will

Continued page 24

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have capacity to produce 35,000t per year of products and aims to commence operations by mid-2023.

“Earthworks have started on the plant in Otorohanga and we are looking forward to signing up suppliers soon,” he says.

In 2019, the family sold the Otorohanga farm and purchased their current property in Te Kawa, which is 161ha and run as a System 2.

“We like to keep the system simple and efficient, and moving to Jersey cows was a big contributing factor to allow us to operate the way we do,” he says.

They have a farm manager who takes care of the daily tasks and an extra team member helps out through calving and mating. His parents Andrew and Anita Coombe have off-farm roles of their own and live on a lifestyle block closer to town. But they still contribute to the strategic side of the farming business and help out during the silage and haymaking seasons.

They milk once-a-day throughout the season, targeting 340-350 kilograms of milksolids per cow, achieving 125,000kg MS last season, with a target of 150-

Zach checks the water trough for any overflows or leaks.

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Zach Mounsey grew up on the family farm and is a sixth-generation farmer. Zach adjusts a break fence after feeding out.

160,000kg MS on the larger platform this season.

“I find Jerseys to be highly efficient converters of feed into milksolids, which gives the best return on per kilogram of dry matter basis,” he says.

They are part of the Lead with Pride Programme at Synlait, which is designed to recognise and financially reward suppliers who achieve dairy farming best practices.

“It means we do things like formally body condition score the herd and ensure we’re passing on information to Synlait around what’s happening on the farm,” he says.

Suppliers are responsible for ensuring they are meeting the required standards for environmental management, animal health and welfare and milk quality.

As well as a social responsibility of supporting the team who are working on-farm.

Synlait claims this helps their customers differentiate their products in the competitive marketplace through having absolute integrity and superior quality milk, as well as assurance it is being sustainably produced.

“It gives us, as farmers, an incentive to prove we are doing the best we can on-farm, operating efficiently and sustainably and we are rewarded financially, which is a good driver,” he says.

Zach is big on using data to make decisions. He religiously monitors his round length at different times of the year, and the residual being left behind.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

“As long as we’re happy the cows are fully fed, we don’t want to overcomplicate things too much,” he says.

“So round length and cow condition are key, as well as staff morale. We all have other roles off-farm, but we make sure we’re not too far removed from the farm as well so there are no surprises.”

They utilise maize and grass silage that has all been grown on-farm and hay grown at the support block, with no supplementary feed being bought into the system. Zach and his dad manage the lease block and do all the silage and hay themselves.

They have been palm kernel-free for three years now and prioritise grass-fed production.

Watching the market trends, Zach anticipates grass-fed free-roaming systems will become the next attribute to receive recognition to maintain the value proposition for NZ agriculture.

“It’s fundamental for dairying in New Zealand and we need to maintain our global reputation for pasture-fed, freeroaming natural and sustainable dairy,” he says.

“I would love for this to be further recognised and monetised going forward.”

Calving starts on July 10 and they rear about 18% replacements.

The calves are collected in the afternoon but if they know the weather is going to be nasty, they will do an evening run to bring them into the warmth and

Continued page 26

Zach studied finance and economics at Waikato University to give him a better understanding in business, commerce, finance and economics, which has come in handy on the farm.

25

An artist’s impression of what the Happy Valley Nutrition factory currently under construction will look like.

get them fed to help them through.

“It can be a bit tough on little Jerseys when it’s getting cold and wet,” he says.

“We do rear as many replacement heifers as we get, typically selling any surplus animals as rising two-year-olds, but as we are trying to grow numbers we will likely keep more for ourselves over the next couple of years.”

Depending on pasture availability, the calves move to a leased support block 10 minutes down the road at some

“A2/A2 is our first criteria when picking bulls, and we continually focus on efficient genetics that lean towards once-aday, udder capacity, milk composition and fertility.”

Zach Mounsey

point after weaning at around 80 to 90 kilograms.

“Since we’re still growing cow numbers, we’re somewhat understocked, so it all depends how we are going for grass,” he says.

“There’s no point sending the calves to the support block and having surplus grass here.”

He and his dad manage the youngstock and until recently, they had not been weighing them but have always been satisfied with their condition and how they look when they enter the herd.

It helps that they see them regularly and are able to make nimble decisions about their management.

But moving forward, under the Lead with Pride programme for Synlait they will start weighing and collecting the data.

Mating begins on October 10. They are nominating high BW CRV A2/A2 Jersey bulls for four weeks of artificial breeding followed by a mix of Angus and Jersey bulls with mating finishing on New Year’s Day.

Construction on the factory began earlier this year. Some of the Happy Valley team at the ground breaking ceremony.

26

“A2/A2 is our first criteria when picking bulls, and we continually focus on efficient genetics that lean towards oncea-day, udder capacity, milk composition and fertility,” he says.

“We don’t use any intervention during mating but our management practices, the condition of the cows and the genetics we’re using are all contributing to our great reproductive results.”

They have great reproductive performance, with a six-week in-calf rate sitting around 85-87%, which helps keep replacement rates low and gives them options with surplus animals.

“Because we have little need to cull on health traits, we have lower rearing and grazing costs than many,” he says.

The farm business has grown significantly over the past few years, including expanding the herd on the new farm, purchasing two surrounding neighbouring properties and expanding the herd further onto them.

They were fortunate the new farm already had significant sustainability developments, with the effluent and waterway fencing sorted. So their next objective is to plant some shelter and fruit trees.

As well as a change in his personal situation he is now working on consolidating their assets.

“I want to make the most of our assets and the favourable milk prices we are seeing at the moment but that being said, I am always looking for opportunities to make the most from the farm,” he says.

“It’s likely we will expand further in the near future or invest in other land-based assets or additional housing on the farm, all while maximising production while maintaining operating expenses.

“We like to keep things simple, keep the cows happy, keep the team happy and I’m actually just starting life as a

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Zach has a passion for dairy farming and although he worked at Fonterra and DairyNZ, he kept returning to the farm and now enjoys the best of both worlds.

bachelor again, which is a completely different world.

“It’s the ease of our farm system that allows me to operate the way I do, if it was any different I wouldn’t have the same flexibility, but we have a great set up and I really enjoy it.”

If he is not working on the farm he is working in the sector.

Only 31 years of age and with both sides of his career progressing well, his

timetable is full to the brim.

“My life revolves around dairy, I reckon I work 16 months a year,” he laughs.

“Most of the time I balance everything pretty well, but there are always pinch points where things are happening onfarm, at work and in my personal life, and I need to prioritise, but there will always be casualties and usually it’s my social life.

“But I describe myself like a bicycle – if

I’m not moving forward, I’m completely off balance.”

He keeps an eye on his long-term goal of farm ownership, being handson where he can and maintaining a professional career at a high level.

“I’m always trying to add value and shift farmers’ milk up the value chain.

I want to continue to contribute to the success of New Zealand farmers and rural communities,” he says. n

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DAIRY CHAMPION

Northland dairy farmer Donna Griggs has been named the 2021 Dairy Women’s Network Regional Leader of the Year for her contribution to the farming community.

Strength in humility

By Anne Boswell

A Northland sharemilker knew from a young age that dairy farming was the career for her and since embarking on her farming journey, has embraced all the opportunities presented to her.

W

hen Northland dairy farmer Donna Griggs was announced as the Dairy Women’s Network (DWN) Regional Leader of the Year, her childhood school friends reminisced that they could never beat her in an arm wrestle.

“It must have been all the farm work,” Griggs laughs.

Some years later, it is not only physical

28

strength she is being celebrated for, but also her great strength in supporting dairy women and the rural communities she has been a part of.

In May, she surpassed 80 volunteer regional leaders supporting dairy women around the country to win the title of Regional Leader of the Year.

But in the fashion that befits her humble nature, she insists she represents all of the DWN regional

leaders in New Zealand as a whole.

“For me, the title means an opportunity to grow in leadership skills and to bring that knowledge forward into the Dairy Women’s Network community, our farming community and our business,” she says.

Growing up in a sharemilking family, she is the eldest of five children. The family farmed throughout the Waikato, King Country and south-west Auckland

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

“For me, the title means an opportunity to grow in leadership skills and to bring that knowledge forward into the Dairy Women’s Network community, our farming community and our business.” before settling in Northland in the Mangakahia Valley.

As a family with Māori ancestry, she was involved in kapa haka, which she describes as a wonderful mix of teamwork, culture and artistry.

“We were affectionately known as the ‘milky bar’ kids,” she says.

It was also one of the leadership roles she relished at school.

Outside of school, she helped out on the family farm.

When it came time to leave school, she was determined to carry on working in

Continued page 30

Donna and her husband Steven are sharemilkers on a 300ha farm, milking 850-900 cows.

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The 850-900 cow herd produces an average of 270,000kg MS.

farming but her parents insisted she “go and do something else for a while”.

Donna worked in a lawyer’s office as an office junior, receptionist and word processing operator. When she’d had enough of “sitting within four walls”, she moved into an office role at a building firm.

However, the call of the farm was too great and she eventually returned to working on the land.

“With my husband Steven, we stayed in Northland and worked our way up from management roles to contract milkers, lower order sharemilkers and finally 50:50 sharemilkers,” she says.

The pair have a blended family with adult children Dylan, Kirsty and Luke, teenagers Hayden, Katie and Tyla, and six grandchildren.

The family have lived in Ruawai for six years and are in their second sharemilking role in the area.

They milk 850-900 cows on the flat, 300ha farm, producing an average of 270,000kg MS; their aim is to build production to 300,000kg MS. She first joined DWN 14 years ago, when a friend leading the South Whangarei group handed over the reins to her.

“From the start I just loved the knowledge sharing, the workshops and business support – and the personal life support as well,” she says.

“Helping others grow their confidence

30

and ease stress and isolation is really fulfilling.

“The value of bringing people together with connection and growth is significant. DWN is such a professional organisation and it is grown and run by volunteers, which makes it even more amazing.”

“...we stayed in Northland and worked our way up from management roles to contract milkers, lower order sharemilkers and finally 50:50 sharemilkers.”

As a DWN regional leader, she is able to initiate workshops and training in her community to fill any gaps that she sees arising, whether that be new technology, managing an office, or stress and wellbeing.

She says winning the DWN Regional Leader of the Year award was overwhelming.

“I was so humbled to win the award,” she says.

“DWN has some amazing ladies and I feel that every leader deserves the award.

“It made me feel proud because I felt I was representing all our amazing

leaders and what DWN stands for.”

DWN chief executive Jules Benton said their regional leaders are at the core of the organisation and recognising and supporting their efforts is so important to the morale of the team and the longevity of the network.

“Both our finalists show a real passion for people and work to strengthen the dairy industry through connection not only between farmers but at a social and community level as well,” Benton said.

“Donna and Rebecca (Green, runnerup) were noted by the judges as having strong value foundations and for helping people to find their place within the industry, which will ultimately help our sector to thrive.”

DWN is just one of many community groups Donna has been involved in.

“We lived in Bream Bay (Northland) for 13 years and we were very active in the community there,” she says.

“Steven was a volunteer firefighter for 12 years so we were always involved in fundraising committees, as well as the kids’ activities, Dairy Connect, Dairy Industry Awards, Playcentre and the PTA. “We’ve always believed that it takes a village to raise a child and a strong community helps build a great society.”

Today, she volunteers as Kaipara regional leader and assists Sue Skelton to run the Coast to Coast Business Group for Dairy Women’s Network. She also hosts DairyNZ discussion groups on their farm and organises industry workshops

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

for local farm teams to build their knowledge when time allows.

As much as she enjoys her community work, she admits dairy women are often trying to keep multiple balls in the air.

“As dairy women we have an incredible amount of roles and responsibilities – from office work to human resources and compliance, as well as outside duties with the animals, pasture and milking,” she says.

“Then, there is a family to take care of as well; we wear a lot of hats.

“However, I believe dairy women’s capability is their biggest strength.

“They are adaptable and able to overcome adversity, whether it is fixing a broken zip on the farm overalls, interviewing prospective team members or helping their business survive through adverse events.

“We tend to underestimate how capable we are.”

She says DWN has been invaluable for getting off-farm and “defragging the hard drive”.

“One of the hardest things about living and working on-farm is defining work and home – and preventing them from overlapping,” she says.

“You need to set up a system that works for you.”

She also says the dairy industry has set itself big goals and is focusing on strategies to achieve milk production that is sustainable and profitable, while meeting environmental targets.

“Farmers have always been conservationists; it is our aim to leave the land in better condition for the next generation,” she says.

“Feeding the world has its challenges, but our farmers have the strength, resilience and number 8 wire mentality to meet those challenges.”

Going forward, she has a desire to

increase support to farmers experiencing stress and burnout.

“I’ve suffered from burnout myself.

The Rural Support Trust does an amazing job,” she says.

“Ultimately, I think the directive will have to come from the top down, from government policy level.”

She would also like to help improve HR management policies and legislation to make the process streamlined for employers.

“Small businesses employ people,

farms employ people, and we need great teams to keep those businesses running,” she says.

“If legislation makes it too tough for small businesses to employ people, what happens to that small business?”

As the 2021 Regional Leader of the Year, she received registration to the Dare to Lead™ Programme facilitated by Kaila Colbin from Boma New Zealand, as well as accommodation and travel to the location of the programme, to help her on her leadership journey. n

Donna has a full schedule balancing the farm work with her various roles in the farming and rural communities.

WOMEN IN AGRIBUSINESS Norsewood farmer Charlotte Heald runs Wealth of Health, which she started after developing rheumatoid arthritis.

Putting yourself first

By Cheyenne Nicholson

A Norsewood farmer believes that you connect with the people you need, when you need them.

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otivated by her own health journey with rheumatoid arthritis, Charlotte Heald is on a mission to empower others to embrace their health through prioritising self-care.

Born and bred on a beef farm, Charlotte lives with her husband Russell and three children Isabelle, Henry and William on a 170ha dairy farm at Norsewood, with 380 cows on once-aday. Their farm will be certified organic in November and is farmed by regenerative farming practices.

The farm reflects her values with her own business.

“The health and wellbeing of people starts with the health and wellbeing of the soil. The values around why we farm organic and the regenerative practices really align nicely with my business,” Charlotte says.

32

Her passion for health and wellness started back in 2005 when she started studying to be a registered nurse. She spent the next eight years working in rural general practice, where her role encompassed a variety of primary care responsibilities. Following the birth of her third child and growing responsibilities on the farm, she left her nursing role to be home with her family.

It wasn’t until 2017 and a chance meeting with the right person, that she discovered the world of health coaching.

A health coach is a guide who helps clients explore their health concerns, set health goals and implement food and lifestyle changes to feel their best.

They support and empower their clients alongside other healthcare professionals to create and sustain healthy lifestyle habits for prolonged health. Her focus is helping rural women create empowered,

sustainable lifestyles so they can leave their overwhelmed, fatigue and unfulfilled life behind. She uses a three pillar approach in her coaching: selfcare, individualised and holistic, with a big focus on normalising self-care as an essential part of health and wellbeing.

“Health coaching gives me a way to share what I’m passionate about on my own terms.”

“Health coaching gives me a way to share what I’m passionate about on my own terms. It means I can focus on the health promotion and wellbeing aspects of healthcare,” she says.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

“When I say on my own terms, I mean that I could work hours that fit around my family and the farm business and I can work mostly from home. It’s a really nice balance for me.”

It’s an important balance for her to have as well. During the early stages of their dairy career, Charlotte and Russell worked the farm together, but after a bit of a blow out on farm and ending up unwell for a long period of time, she had to reassess her role on farm and step into the more strategic side of the business.

“It caused me to have a bit of a reset to help me get back to full health. After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease I am conscious of looking after myself and not ending up back where I was,” she says.

She now looks after the HR and administrative side of the farming business and only helps out occasionally due to her condition.

Her journey to health coaching started back in 2017 when she connected with a friend of a friend who has trained to be a health coach. The conversation piqued

Continued page 34

Charlotte and Russell Heald used to work side-by-side on the farm until Charlotte became ill.

“Each year I have the same issue, downer cows, yet my neighbour doesn’t. I spend a fortune on vet bills yet he doesn’t. So why are his animals healthier than mine?”

All diseases are due to mineral imbalances Sickness occurs when living organisms have either too much, or too little, of specific minerals.

• Facial eczema is caused by an imbalance of calcium, phosphate and zinc.

Calving issues staring you in the face?

• Grass staggers is the result of an imbalance between calcium and magnesium levels in relation to each other.

• Bloat can be caused by too much potassium combined with a calcium deficiency.

• Lameness can be due to a lack of trace elements (zinc, copper, selenium), which leads to the softening of hooves.

• Mastitis is often caused by pathogens which are prevalent in the grass due to low pH of the soil (pathogens thrive in acidic conditions).

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cows, sheep, deer of any other animals on

This is usually a relatively simple task by ensuring

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Health coach Charlotte Heald helps clients explore their health concerns, set health goals and implement food and lifestyle changes to feel their best.

her interest and she decided to start the year-long training to become a health coach herself.

“I trained with the biggest nutrition school in the world, The Institute for Integrated Nutrition based in New York.

It’s a year-long online course. It really complemented what I’d done in my nursing career,” she says.

After a year of studying, she kicked off her business in late 2018.

Since then she’s steadily grown the business and recently reached a big milestone of reaching client capacity. Her business primarily consists of one-onone sessions with clients, with a number of workshops and guest speaking gigs sprinkled in the mix. Looking back, she attributes much of her business growth to her use of social media.

Charlotte shares everything from recipes, tips, everyday life and resources.

While at first the idea of putting herself out there on social media was scary, the payoff has been well worth it.

“When I was first starting out, no one really knew what health coaching was. I got into it a little before its time I guess.

It’s more well-known now and I’ve got more comfortable with the social media side of things,” she says.

With her business largely being a one-woman band, she sought early on to seek out other like-minded people to surround herself with and found that

34

with a women’s marketing support programme.

“I’ve been part of a transformational coaching programme for myself run by a man in the US, through that I’m part of this women’s marketing group and the support I get there is just amazing.

It’s the one thing that I think has made a huge difference to my business. The group supports entrepreneurs and helps

them to position themselves in the market,” she says.

Charlotte says the main drivers of her success are tools she uses in-job: self-talk and self-belief.

“I talk about this a lot with my clients; I genuinely believe in what I do and in what I can do and I tell myself that all the time,” she says.

The other key piece of the puzzle is a solid support system. Russell is a big source of support and backs her every step of the way.

“It’s challenging to achieve big and exciting things if you don’t have lots of support and I’ve been so fortunate to have him right by my side the whole way through,” she says.

Reflecting back on the past few years of business, she says she’s a big believer in keeping it simple.

“One piece of business advice I know now that I wish I knew when I was starting out is just to keep it simple and let it be easy. That relates to many areas of life too,” she says. “I often see it in women, we get so stuck in our head, overthinking and we end up blocking the flow of creativity.”

As a busy mum, farmer and entrepreneur, Charlotte admits that sometimes she is challenged to practice what she preaches, but is constantly astounded by the ripple effect that occurs when women prioritise their own needs.

“If you’re going to come anywhere but last, you have to put yourself first,” she says. n

Charlotte Heald and her husband Russell and their three children milk 380 cows once-a-day in Norsewood.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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Lock it in

By Tony Benny

Fixing the milk price so farmers know exactly what they will get paid, is a great tool when it comes to planning and budgets on-farm.

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airy farmers should consider locking in the price of at least part of their milk cheque to give them some surety of income, even if the month-to-month price remains volatile, Fonterra’s head of Farm Source in Canterbury, Tasman and Marlborough Charles Fergusson says.

Along with dairy farmer and retired Lincoln University lecturer Marv Pangborn and Jarden investment banker’s vice president of derivatives Harry Hewitt, Fergusson ran a workshop at the South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) last month, talking about the risks and benefits of hedging.

“If you’re going to get into hedging or risk management, you need to have a plan and to have a strategy and that it’s all about creating certainty for your business rather than effectively gambling on the milk price,” Fergusson says.

“Farmers should seek independent financial advice if considering hedging.

While Fonterra provides a tool, we won’t provide financial advice.”

There are a variety of offerings on the market to lock in a milk price, ranging from Fonterra’s own risk management tool called Fixed Milk Price, to more complex futures contracts offered by the New Zealand Stock Exchange.

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“What we find with dairy farming businesses is that they fix in all sorts of things ... you would typically have fixed interest rates on your debt, but then you often have a very volatile income line item and that follows the milk price,” he says.

By locking in part – or even all – of the milk price and receiving that whatever’s happening in the market, farmers know pretty accurately what their income will

Farmers looking for surety in the price they will get for their milk consider fixing their milk price.

be, depending on their production.

“It’s about managing your income line because you often know what your costs are going to be but you don’t know what your income’s going to be. It’s a tool for farmers to help farmers manage their income line,” he says.

“And with certainty about what their income for the season will be, farmers like Marv Pangborn are better able to plan their costs with greater certainty.

“Some farmers in the room were trying to get their heads around it. ‘You’re willing to sacrifice potential upside for certainty?’ (they asked) and Marv replied, ‘Yep, every day of the week’.”

Fonterra’s Fixed Milk Price is quite simple and is set 10 times a year, following the monthly GDT event.

Farmers are able to fix the price on up to 50% of their production.

“Farmers will know on that production, irrespective of where the final milk price ends up, that they will achieve the milk price that they locked in,” he said.

Futures are more complicated and more flexible and prices can be fixed any day of the year,” he says.

“The key message is that currently farmers have a variety of options to help them manage their income stream and they range from a relatively simple and

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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Classic 300 E + ClassicPro GQ Silicone Liners + Composite Shells Fonterra’s head of Farm Source in Canterbury, Tasman and Marlborough Charles Fergusson, along with Harry Hewitt, Marv Pangborn (seated), held a workshop during the South Island Dairy Event, giving advice to farmers on fixing their milk price.

“It’s about managing your income line because you often know what your costs are going to be but you don’t know what your income is going to be.”

Charles Fergusson somewhat inflexible tool being the FMP, right through to the highly flexible but more complicated futures options on the NZX,” he says.

“One of the things we were keen for with FMP was that farmers can get a relatively light touch experience of hedging without having to get a full understanding of how futures work. If hedging works for them, just off a bit of that trial, then it’s worth their time getting an understanding of what else is out there.

“The level of sophistication that you

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

run your business with would probably reflect the tool you go for but I know some really well run, highly complex businesses which just use FMP because it’s simple.”

Fergusson says in years like when the milk price plummeted to $3.90, it was unlikely farmers could have locked in a $7 payout, but they may have had the chance to capture $5 or $4.50 as the price fell.

The previous year, when the payout started around $7 but dropped to $4.40, was equally bad for farmers, he says.

“If you were a farmer and started the year thinking you were going to be paid $7, you started managing your costs based on a $7 milk price but your income kept dropping and dropping all the way to $4.40 at the end of the year. That really hurt a lot of farmers,” he says.

“What I try to tell farmers is, ‘Guys, how much better for you it is managing your business if you know what you’re going to get for a portion of your income irrespective of what happens with the final milk price’.” n

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SPECIAL REPORT – SIDE

Raising healthy calves

By Tony Benny

Calf rearing is an important part of the farm business and feeding them enough so they develop to their full potential is essential.

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any New Zealand dairy cows don’t achieve their high-producing genetic potential because they aren’t fed enough as calves and therefore don’t grow quickly enough, vet and sharemilker Nicola Neal says.

“We have some really profound research showing that if we rear those calves as fast as we can up to weaning, that has a massive impact on the lifetime productivity of that cow,” Neal says.

A presenter at the recent South Island Dairy Event (SIDE), Neal quotes international research that shows 22% of the variation in the first lactation milk yield can be attributed to how fast calves grow before weaning.

“So when we look at how much time and effort we spend choosing a bull or selecting a cow and all that sort of thing, it is actually vastly more important how fast we grow our calves regardless of what their genetics might look like,” she says.

“If you think about a calf that’s born at 35kg and is going to get to 90% of its adult weight by calving at two years old, then it really needs to grow 600 grams a day every day of its life until it’s fully grown.”

Neal believes the importance of the role of calf rearers is often underestimated.

“I totally think the people rearing them are really important,” she says.

“It’s not the lowest job on the farm from a work point of view and having good people who are interested or dedicated or committed to it is really valuable.

“I’m a huge believer that good human welfare follows through to good calf welfare. We have to look after those people because it is a bit of a hard, frustrating job at times and people who are happy rear happy calves because they’re not frustrated by the situation.”

If calves aren’t getting as much nutrition as they need, it could just be they’re not being offered enough milk,

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Time and the effort put into raising calves and ensuring they have plenty of nutrition gives them the best chance to grow properly.

“If you think about a calf that’s born at 35kg and is going to get to 90% of its adult weight by calving at two years old, then it really needs to grow 600 grams a day every day of its life until it’s fully grown.”

Nicola Neal

but Neal believes there are other issues at play as well.

“Because of the way New Zealand pastoral dairy is, sometimes we’re quite time-sensitive so if it’s a job you’re not allowing enough time for. So the calf has five minutes to drink and if it doesn’t drink what it needs to drink in that time, well that’s the end of that. But the reality

is that’s not how a ruminant’s stomach works,” she says.

“I’m not advocating for or against once-a-day (OAD), but it’s difficult to get enough nutrition once-a-day in calves up to about four weeks, where all of their nutrition is coming from milk.”

Neal suspects some farmers don’t feed enough milk because of outdated beliefs about the dangers of feeding too much.

“In the past there’s been a lot of literature around too much milk giving calves the scours, but that’s been pretty well debunked and we’re feeding calves to survive, not thrive, not necessarily feeding them enough to really get that 600g a day growth that we should be looking for,” she says.

That growth rate has to be maintained in the next stage of the calf’s life too, as it develops its rumen and over time transitions on to pasture.

“There are some keys to that, like having a nice tasting hard feed ready for them early so they can snuffle around

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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and play with that and offering them a good, quality protein calf meal and fibre,” she says.

Neal says the importance of fibre in calves’ diet can’t be underestimated and actually improves digestion.

“If you feed calves the right sort of fibre, they eat more meals which seems counterintuitive that if you feed more dry, rough feed that would make them eat more high-energy feed but it is actually a thing,” she says.

And if calves have access to fresh, clean water, they’ll eat 30% more meals and grow 40% faster, Neal says, because you can’t start the rumen’s development without water.

“It’s like trying to make a loaf of bread without water. When we think about growing a rumen in a young animal, we’re actually encouraging the bugs that are going to be the powerhouse of the

cow when she grows and those bugs need water,” she says.

Having the right type of fibre is important too, with international research showing that a “chaff chop”, with 2.5-5cm pieces, is much better than long, stringy hay or straw which tends to “ball-up” inside the rumen.

The dividends, if you get it right and your calves consistently grow at 600g/ day, are too good to ignore.

“You’ve got to look at it as a loan; you pay the calf now and she’s going to pay you back later,” she says.

“She’s not going to do it for 18 months, until she comes into the herd, but man alive, if you can grow a calf well that then genetically is able to express what she’s born with, then you’ve got yourself a much better animal that’s going to cost you less in the long run and make you more money.” n

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DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

SPECIAL REPORT – SIDE

Let’s talk rubbish

By Tony Benny

Farmers do not need to have piles of rubbish lying around the farm and dealing with it is easier than most think.

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ealing with farm rubbish and recycling is easy and there’s really no good excuse for not doing it, farmer and environmentalist Trish Rankin told attendees at the recent South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) in Ashburton.

“One of the big things is people just don’t know what the solutions are. When I went to SIDE and said ‘here’s a solution’, they were like, ‘Is it that easy?’, and I went, ‘yeah’,” Rankin says.

Rankin, who was Dairy Woman of the Year in 2019, farms with her husband Glen in Taranaki. She has been involved in environment and climate change ambassador roles with DairyNZ and one of things she found out was that no one was talking about farm rubbish and waste which made her think the farming community could do better.

So when Rankin did the Kellogg Rural Leadership programme in 2019, she chose farm waste as the subject of her project and spent six months learning about it.

“I was really lucky to have Agrecovery and Ballance and my local councils

Taranaki farmer Trish Rankin spoke at the South Island Dairy Event recently on farm rubbish and how easy it is to deal with it.

sponsor me to go on Kellogg and I got the opportunity to have somebody to work with at each of those places to talk about rubbish and talk about the challenges they had,” she says.

She discovered there are already

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effective programmes in place to deal with farm waste, including Agrecovery and Plasback, both of which make recycling simple.

“With Plasback you buy bags from Farmlands or Farmsource, you put them

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where your silage wrap is, you put your wrap into it, you phone the 0800 number and someone comes and collects it,” she says.

“Over recent years, this has become easier and easier as more regions have collections available.”

She says it’s a matter of changing mindsets and convincing farmers how easy it is, giving the example of a recent Agrecovery one-stop-shop event in Taranaki.

“My husband, more sceptical than me about how easy it would be, spent a couple of hours to get all the stuff from the workshop and all the recycling that I’d saved, (then) drive into Hawera, drop it off and we drove out in about 10 minutes,” she says.

She says her husband was astonished at how easy and quickly they were able to dispose of their farm rubbish.

Rankin believes it’s not only important for the environment that farmers deal with waste properly but also for the public image of farming, especially when it comes to urban perspective.

“You talk to a townie about farmers or plastic or rubbish and they ask when we are going to sort out our silage wrap’” she says.

“It’s actually already sorted. There’s already a company that reuses it and turns it into underground telephone cable cover, it’s perfectly returnable and recyclable, you just have to catch it before it blows away and it’s really easy because you just go get a bag to put it in.”

Some farmers think recycling is harder for them than for people in town who have weekly collection at their gate, but Rankin says there are positives about living rurally that urban people don’t experience – for example, not having neighbours living three metres away.

“I think it’s good to remember that as farmers if we use the product, we have to

After being dropped off at the depot, recyclables such as silage wrap is baled and then sent off to be made into other products.

“I think it’s good to remember that as farmers if we use the product, we have to be responsible for it.”

Trish Rankin be responsible for it,” she says.

She is not keen on farm rubbish dumps, believing there’s too much risk from unknown waste and micro-plastics leaching into the environment and she and Glen prefer to use a 1.8m skip.

They used to have their skip emptied once a month, but they’ve cut that down to seven times a year.

“There are just so many things people can do and it doesn’t take much longer than driving to the rubbish dump or driving to the farm rubbish dump and chucking it in,” she says.

Farmers can also ring Agrecovery or Plasback for containers to be picked up and another option is to take the used

ones back to Farmlands, where there are Agrecovery drop-off points.

As well as working to get the word out to farmers that dealing with silage wrap, plastic drums, orphan chemicals, expired oil and the like is easy, Rankin is working with manufacturers to make recycling easier. She recently made a short video for Fonterra’s supplier conference.

“It was just me saying ‘guys we need your help. I love your products but I don’t love your rubbish’,” she recalls.

She suggested that as well as information on packaging about the product, there should be information about recycling options. For example, what to do with the spray cans used for marking cows.

Rankin believes farmers have an opportunity to do the right thing with waste.

“We’ve chosen to be farmers and that means we have to look after our animals, our people and our land and that includes doing better without rubbish,” she says. n

Silage wrap is recyclable and Plasback will pick it up from the farm.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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SPECIAL REPORT – SIDE

Farmers should be looking closely at their winter grazing management to ensure they comply with the new rules coming in.

Plan for winter

By Tony Benny

Next year farmers will need to have plans in place for winter grazing management, to ensure they comply with the new rules coming into force.

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airy farmers wintering cows on crop should be looking closely at their management this winter to work out what changes they may have to make to comply with wintering requirements that come into force next year, DairyNZ senior scientist Dawn Dalley says.

The changes were to come into force this year but were deferred for 12 months to give regulators and farmers time to get up to speed with the requirement that farmers would need approval to graze

crop, either under a Freshwater Farm Plan, a new yet-to-be finalised regulation that’s part of the Government’s Essential Freshwater policy, for it to be a permitted activity or need resource consent.

“Basically, the industry was given a year to prove that they’re implementing good management practice, with the intention that by winter 2022 everyone wintering on crop will need an intensive winter grazing module as part of their farm plan,” Dalley says.

Dalley has led a project to collect

New wintering rules will come into force and by winter 2022 everyone wintering on crop will need an intensive winter grazing module as part of their farm plan.

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real-life data to better understand the implications of proposed new rules and to come up with advice to farmers on how to work within them and led a workshop on winter feeding at the recent South Island Dairy Event (SIDE) in Ashburton.

Under the proposed new regulations, pugging of more than 50% of a paddock will trigger resource consent, with pugging deemed to be anything deeper than 5cm and must be no deeper than 20cm.

“When the rules came out we had no information at all in terms of what our systems looked like relative to those rules, so in winter 2020, with AgResearch, we did a study down at the Southern Dairy Hub where we put a whole range of behaviour devices on animals and did a whole lot of soil measurements to look and see what are we dealing with,” she says.

“The measurements enabled us to determine the conditions when animals won’t lie and in our study this didn’t really relate to pugging depth, it related more to the amount of surface moisture.”

The recommendation in New Zealand is that cows have the opportunity to lie down for at least eight hours a day.

The cows in the 30-day study lay on average for 9.6 hours, but there were days following rainfall events when they only

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

“The measurements enabled us to determine the conditions when animals won’t lie and in our study this didn’t really relate to pugging depth, it related more to the amount of surface moisture.”

Dawn Dalley

averaged two to three hours and others when they averaged 11 hours lying/day.

The key factor affecting surface pooling was the amount of rainfall and the number of consecutive days it fell on.

“What we found was that more than two days impacted their lying time and then when they did get good conditions they lay for longer, so they were obviously getting tired,” she says.

Dalley told farmers at SIDE about a simple gumboot test they could use to decide whether a paddock is fit for grazing.

“Can you see your bootprint as you walk across the paddock? If you can see it really easily without slumping on the sides, that’s deemed to be dry. If the sides slump a bit, that’s wet, and if you’re losing your boot or there’s no footprint, then it’s sodden and when you’re getting too sodden, there is also water pooling,” she says.

“If the majority of the area that’s available to the animals for that day is sodden, then you can be pretty confident your animals are not going to be getting their lying requirements and that’s clearly an indication that you need to implement your winter Plan B.” There are some simple in-paddock ways to reduce how much of a paddock gets badly pugged.

“If you’ve had a week of frost, you have relatively good ground that they’ve come across that’s dry and not too pugged and if you’ve been regularly moving up your back fence, it may be as simple as taking the back fence back a bit and giving them access to some of that ground that wasn’t as badly pugged during a rain event so they’ve got more suitable lying areas,” she says.

Dalley knows of one farmer who leaves 20% of crop paddocks in grass so that he has an emergency break-out area if there’s too much rain for too long.

“He just cuts the fence and gives them a section of that grass so they’ve still got access to the crop, but they can go out on to that grass area to lie on,” she says.

Sometimes it will be a matter of not choosing the easy way to graze a paddock but to think about what’s best for the environment and animal welfare first.

“It’s always easy to start your feeding at the gateway and where the water trough is and graze in the direction away from that, but actually from an environmental and animal welfare perspective that might not be the right thing to be doing,” she says.

Using a backing fence and portable water troughs protects the grazed ground as it stops cows going back and forth to the ever further away permanent trough, saving the soil from additional pugging.

She says farmers should be using this winter to work out how they’ll comply with the intensive winter grazing module, which has to be part of their farm plan for winter 2022.

“For some it’ll be just thinking about tweaking their system and thinking about their paddock selection and making sure they’re identifying those critical source areas and not necessarily doing what’s easy. But for others, it might be a rethink in terms of how they actually winter going forward,” she says. n

DairyNZ senior scientist Dawn Dalley speaks to farmers at SIDE about the importance of good winter feed management and grazing.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

RESEARCH

The Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Inventory compiles and calculates greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in New Zealand.

Funding the GHG inventory

By Samantha Tennent

The Government has more than $1m to help organisations research and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A

round half of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in New Zealand come from the agricultural sector and it is essential they are effectively measured to help determine ways to tackle them.

And there is money for it.

The Greenhouse Gas Inventory Fund (GHGIR) was established in the early 2000s and applications for the 2021-22 funding round have just closed.

“We have $1.1 million available for new projects that aim to improve the Agriculture Greenhouse Gas Inventory,” director of investment programmes at the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) Steve Penno says.

“The inventory compiles and calculates greenhouse gas emissions from

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agriculture in New Zealand and it is an important tool in enabling New Zealand’s reporting to the United Nations under the Paris Climate Agreement.

“It also informs policy decisions, improves the accuracy of our inventory and helps our agriculture and forestry sectors to manage their greenhouse gas emissions.”

Since its establishment, GHGIR has funded over 80 projects and most of these have been related to agriculture, although nearly 30 have focused on forestry. The fund was independently reviewed in 2020, which resulted in some changes, with more to come.

“The fund is significant to support the development of land-use projections, including afforestation and deforestation,

which show how carbon accounting rules lead to changes in land-use,” he says.

Priorities for the 2021 funding round include methane, modelling and data, as well as land-use emissions. There is a focus on policy-driven research and reviews and updates to existing inventory items.

Four projects from AgResearch were approved in the last round, looking at a range of topics. From exploring the total number and proportion of dairy cattle grazing on slope classes to the nutrient transfer model, as well as nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from nitrogen fertilisers.

AbacusBio have been analysing lifestyle blocks to compile the number and characteristics of lifestyle blocks

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

separated between dung and urine and in 2018, they went on further to determine what the equations for the calculations should look like.

In 2016, Plant & Food Research concluded there was insufficient justification or supporting information for incorporating irrigation into the inventory. And following the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 guidelines that require reporting to account for N2O emissions due to pasture renewal, they also put together a report around estimating NZ’s emissions.

“The funding offers valuable opportunities for research into GHG emissions. We are always excited by the breadth of applications we receive and look forward to seeing the robust research with practical outcomes,” he n says.

MPI director of investment programmes Steve Penno says the priorities for the 2021 funding round include methane, modelling and data, as well as land-use emissions.

BRING OUT HER BEST. and farmlets in NZ. And the University of Canterbury has been doing some economic modelling on the impact of carbon price and ETS accounting rules on afforestation in permanent and production forestry.

Projects from previous years have provided a range of recommendations around the management of GHG emissions in NZ. Back in 2009, AgResearch concluded the N2O emission factor should remain

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August 2021

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“The inventory compiles and calculates greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture in New Zealand and it is an important tool in enabling New Zealand’s reporting to the United Nations under the Paris Climate Agreement.”

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RESEARCH Plantain is usually used as part of a pasture species mixture, but can also be sown by itself as a special-purpose feed for animals.

Billion-dollar plantain boost

By Anne Boswell

A new seven-year research programme on nitrate leaching and plantain could save farmers big dollars in the future.

A

DairyNZ senior project manager Kate Fransen says modelling forecasts that plantain pastures will reduce nitrate leaching by 15,000 tonnes/year on farms in nitrogen-sensitive catchments.

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new programme designed to reduce nitrate leaching, boost regional economies and provide an alternative to costly infrastructure will potentially save farmers more than $1 billion per decade.

The new $22 million Plantain Potency and Practice programme aims to help dairy farmers improve freshwater quality through using plantain pastures, a lowcost forage solution to nitrate leaching.

“There are currently about 4200 dairy farms in nitrogen-sensitive catchments in New Zealand,” DairyNZ senior project manager Kate Fransen says.

“Modelling by DairyNZ forecasts that plantain pastures will reduce nitrate leaching by 15,000 tonnes/year on these farms by 2035, a 37% reduction from current levels.”

Plantain is usually used as part of a pasture species mixture that most commonly includes perennial ryegrass and white clover. However, it can also be sown by itself in a few paddocks as a

special-purpose feed for animals, often performing considerably better than ryegrass in summer dry.

Previous research has shown plantain reduces nitrate leaching by reducing the concentration of nitrogen in urine and by improving the efficiency of nitrogen uptake by pastures via soil nitrogen/ carbon processes.

The new programme is a partnership between DairyNZ, PGG Wrightson Seeds, Fonterra and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).

It will use Agricom’s Ecotain environmental plantain, as it already has proven effectiveness. An evaluation system will be developed to assess the environmental benefits of other plantain cultivars.

Fransen says the programme will build on existing research and extension projects, including Forages for Reduced Nitrate Leaching, the Greener Pastures Project and the Tararua Plantain Project – and is expected to demonstrate plantain’s efficacy at scale so farmers

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August 2021

are confident to invest in pasture and practice change.

The programme will incorporate several aspects, with farm trials held at both Massey and Lincoln universities, measuring nitrate leaching under plantain pasture compared to perennial ryegrass, capturing any changes in farm profit between the systems and confirming the proportion of plantain required in the pasture to achieve nitrogen-loss reductions.

Six field trials held in regions throughout the country will be used to develop management strategies to enable persistence of plantain pastures under different soil and climate conditions.

Research will also aim to identify the effect of plantain on milk and meat.

Dairy cow health and welfare will also be monitored to determine any effects of including plantain in the diet.

Finally, the programme will support farmers to integrate plantain into their farm system.

“The programme is extremely wellrounded in its approach and with multisector involvement, we believe it is set up for success,” she says.

A significant reduction in nitrate leaching is not the only benefit being examined in the programme: plantain use is also predicted to lead to flowon benefits to national and regional economies.

This is due to farmers spending less on other nitrate leaching solutions, therefore having more money to spend on goods and services.

“Plantain is a low-cost option; it is inexpensive to plant and manage and will not reduce farm profitability,” she says.

“By comparison, alternative solutions to nitrate leaching, such as barn and

stand-off infrastructure, are more costly.

“Using plantain to achieve similar benefits will save farmers a lot of money and the flow-on benefits to rural communities will be quite significant.”

chief executive Dr Tim Mackle says.

“Plantain offers the sector real potential to deliver a new effective option for farmers. This research is a platform to see what it can really do for farming and our waterways.

“Dairy farmers have a long history of innovation on-farm. This is a great example of government, farmers and organisations working together to refine our practices and technologies.”

Programme partners DairyNZ, PGG Wrightson Seeds and Fonterra are collectively investing $10.47m in cash and $2.8m in kind, with an additional grant of $8.98m from MPI’s Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund.

Additional delivery partners in the Plantain Potency and Practice programme are Lincoln University, Massey University, Lincoln Agritech, AgResearch, Plant & Food Research and Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research. n

“Plantain offers the sector real potential to deliver a new effective option for farmers.”

Dr Tim Mackle

Overall, economic modelling forecasts on-farm savings of more than $1b per decade.

“This programme is very exciting and is geared at delivering many positive outcomes for farmers, the environment and New Zealand’s economy,” DairyNZ

Plantain is a low-cost option that often outperforms ryegrass in summer.

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RESEARCH

Canty water rules to tighten

By Tony Benny

New rules around freshwater means the Canterbury Water Management Strategy will need to be updated to meet these.

T

he environmental limits under which Canterbury farmers operate will be redrawn to comply with the Government’s Essential Freshwater Package and the rules will most likely be tightened as a result.

Under the Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS), the maximum in-stream concentration of nitrogen was set at 6.8mg/litre, which used to be the national bottom line, but under the new rules that limit will be reduced to 2.4mg/litre, something Environment Canterbury (ECan) director of science Tim Davie describes as a “big, big change”.

Most streams in intensively farmed areas of Canterbury currently exceed 6.8mg/litre.

“In setting it at 6.8, that required reductions and that required change in farm practices,” Davie says.

“The new limit will mean continuing those changes over a longer time period and maybe it does mean some land-use change over a long time period.”

Davie prefers to use the term intensive farming, rather than dairy farming, but whatever it’s called, he says there will need to be changes to farming to meet environmental targets.

“But let’s be optimistic there will be other land-uses coming in and there will be other technologies to help us achieve this. It’s not saying that in 2024 we must have all our streams at 2.4, it’s saying by 2024 we have to have a plan on how we’re going to get there,” he says.

ECan will have to develop a new plan to accommodate the national policy, despite having spent $60 million over the past seven or eight years developing its Land and Water plan, of which the CWMS is part.

“One way of looking at it is to throw your hands up and go, we’ve got to redo all that,” he says.

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Environment Canterbury director of science Tim Davie says big changes will need to be made to the Canterbury Water Management Strategy to meet new government rules.

“The other way is to say that’s a longterm investment – yes we do have to redo it because we have to have a new plan by 2024 to be compliant with the national legislation but at the same time, it’s cheaper for us to do it now than if we were starting from scratch because we have already got a framework in place.

“We’re going to have to change some of it and there are some really big things in it to change, but it’s not like there’s nothing to base it on.”

Drawing up a new plan won’t be cheap and ECan councillors voted in February to put two rate-rise options out for public consultation; one proposing an 18% rise and the other a 24% rise. The smaller increase is what’s needed to fulfil the council’s statutory obligations – what it’s required to do by the central Government – plus some transport spending and covid-related spending.

A 24% rise would also fund “transformation opportunities”, including

accelerating regeneration of the natural environment, building community engagement and leading climate change resilience.

Covid funding from the central government has boosted three big projects: wallaby control in South Canterbury, wilding pine control in the high country and work to enhance braided rivers, particularly the Rangitata.

But he says that funding requires ECan to match the spending and that’s part of why the rates need to be increased.

“Those funds have all come with the fishhook of having to match them.

Therefore you’re faced with this dilemma – what a wonderful opportunity but it will cost us. We’ll get twice as much done as if we’d just invested it ourselves, so it’s a great opportunity but there is a cost,” he says.

ECan brought in a new Land and Water plan in 2012, in part to cope with the rapid increase in dairy farming in the

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

region in the past few decades, much of which occurred before environmental limits had been put in place.

“The intensification wasn’t as a result of our planning but our plans weren’t coping with the facts so essentially we were managing consent by consent and then you can’t get the cumulative impact,” he says.

“If one farmer intensified, you could argue that had a very minor effect overall, but then a neighbour does it and then everybody starts doing it and there is a cumulative effect.”

The original planning framework was more about water quantity than quality but now there are limits in place, albeit at a higher level than the Essential Freshwater Package calls for. Now ECan has to redraw its plans.

“It costs a lot to develop a plan, to get all the planners together for a start to write the thing. You’ve got to consult with your community around what is achievable, how we’re going to do it; there’s a lot of science and then there are hearing commissioners and having to pay for a hearing and get all the submissions. That’s where the $60m has

New rules state that the maximum in-stream concentration of nitrogen will be 2.4mg/litre.

gone over the last seven or eight years,” he says.

And it’s not just a matter of imposing new limits, Davie says there are other factors ECan is required to accommodate in the new plan.

“When we think about changing land uses, what would happen if you took dairying out? What does that do to our

communities, to rural schools, our rugby, netball and hockey clubs? So it’s not just the environment, we have to take into account the whole of the system,” he says.

“What we’re trying to find is the sweet middle ground, lower impact agriculture that is still economically feasible and will sustain a healthy economy.” n

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Daniel’s Keeping Abreast Of New Developments The Nelson family have a proactive mind set when it comes to their long-established family farm in Te Kauwhata, North Waikato. When Daniel noticed they were outgrowing their effluent management system, he did his research and was happy to seek out specialist advice to invest in a system that would future proof the farm.

‘We’re a long-established family farm, and we like to stay abreast of new developments.’

‘Our long-term goal is to use the eff luent we’ve got more effectively, and efficiently.’

‘It’s great! Now we can spread anywhere. I was surprised how easy it is to pull.’

Previously a sump collected effluent from a feed pad with a barrier ditch, which was then pumped out to travelling irrigators. Although the system worked, with growth of the farm, the system was starting to strain.

The first issue to address was storage. The sump was no longer enough to safely store all the effluent during times where spreading wasn’t an option, so a large HDPE lined pond was installed along with a Nevada electric stirrer to keep the effluent well mixed and prevent nutrients separating out and accumulating at the bottom of the pond. The effluent then drains back into the sump ready for spreading.

Keeping the sump in use means if there was any sediment it would be drained by the sump and sucked out by the new 14,700L Nevada slurry tanker – so there’s less strain on the pump and irrigator system, and no nutrients are going to waste.

Daniel began his search for a solution and contacted Nevada.

Mike took a visit out to the farm to see how it all operated, and discuss Daniel’s long term goals for the farm.

‘The pond is great for storage over the wet months so we can spread when it’s most needed.’

Daniel chose a 14,700L slurry tanker as it was the most efficient size for spreading the effluent over the entire farm without needing to make multiple trips back to the sump.

All in all Daniel’s really happy with their investment…

‘We’re pretty happy with it all. It’s met our goals of futureproofing the farm so we’re not worried about issues cropping up, and we’re making more effective use of the nutrients.

The system is efficient and fast, so it’s not a drain on time. It’s been well worth the investment.’

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DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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FARMSTRONG

The gumboot express When dairy farmer Harjinder Singh Chander isn’t looking after cows, he’s busy running to raise awareness about rural mental health. Here’s why.

O

tago dairy farmer Harjinder Singh Chander recently spent 28 hours running 139 laps of one of Dunedin’s steepest places – Baldwin Street. He ran 104km, achieving a total elevation of 9,665 metres (Mt Everest is 8,848m high).

Cheered on by local residents and supporters, he even completed the last stretch in his trusty gumboots.

Harjinder says this feat of endurance was designed to get more farmers discussing their wellbeing and highlight the benefits of getting off-farm regularly to do other things.

Harjinder is from Northern India and initially came here to work in IT. When that didn’t work out, he turned his hand to dairy farming. His family grew seasonal crops back home, so farming was already in the blood. Harjinder enjoyed dairying and has been in the industry now for eight years. He’s currently managing 400 cows for owner Mark Adam on the Taieri plains.

“I like dairy farming because there are new challenges every year. Winter here can be quite tough with snow. It’s also pretty flat so you might get flooding, so you have to really keep on top of feed for stock. I enjoy working with animals a lot and also being part of a small team. Mark and I work together a lot. It’s just like a family we’ve got here,” Harjinder says.

He says his love of running marathons, half marathons and endurance fundraisers came from his boss.

“When I first started in dairy, I’ll be honest, I felt really lonely. But watching Mark do all his activities off-farm changed my life. I took a leaf out of his book,” he says.

He certainly did. And once Harjinder started running, there was literally no stopping him.

“I started with short distances, running only five or 10km but one day Mark said ‘go as far as you want. If you get stuck, ring me and I’ll pick you up’. So I ran 25km, but he didn’t need to pick me up, I made it home,” he laughs.

50

Otago dairy farmer Harjinder Singh Chander is using his passion for running to raise awareness of mental health.

“When I first started in dairy, I’ll be honest, I felt really lonely. But watching Mark do all his activities off-farm changed my life. I took a leaf out of his book.”

Harjinder Singh Chander “Then Mark entered me in a marathon he was supposed to be running but couldn’t make. He just put my name in and booked me accommodation which was really funny. After I’d finished milking, he’d give me time off to train.”

Harjinder’s running soon reached next level. Then he had another brainwave – using his running as a way to help others.

“I realised how much I really enjoyed living in my community. The people here are so nice. So I thought ‘New Zealand has given me so much, what can I give

back?’ I decided to do a fundraiser and I knew to catch people’s attention I needed to do something a bit different, so I started running in gumboots. I did a gumboot marathon, then a few more races. Now I’ve decided to do one big fundraising event a year,” he says.

Which led in next to no time to Dunedin’s notorious Baldwin Street, recently reinstated as the world’s steepest street, with a gradient of 34.8%.

“As I was running up and down it, I just kept thinking of all the farmers who go through so much every year – floods and droughts and the other things that keep them on their toes. I know dairy farmers always look at the end of the season a bit like a finish line. So I thought ‘if they can make it to the end, why can’t I make it?’” he says.

Harjinder says his running isn’t about endurance or setting records. It has a social side and brings plenty of positives into his own life.

“On Wednesdays I catch up with other runners for a jog and a pint at the local

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Harjinder Singh Chander completed the final stages of his laps of Baldwin Street in gumboots.

and we talk about everything apart from our jobs. Then when summer rolls round, I get into cricket,” he says.

“In 2012, I was new to this region so I joined a social cricket team to meet people. My boss suggested that too and he was right. It made my life more interesting and it was a complete break from life on the farm.

“What I’ve learnt most about farming is that humans are meant to be social. You can’t stay alone or you’ll get depressed.

“My first job was a struggle, because I felt alone and everything was new.

It helps to meet others and see that everyone faces the same challenges.

“I’ve found that the best solutions to stress on-farm are often right there in your own community. There are so many people willing to help in the dairy industry if you speak up.

“But a big part of staying well is also doing good things for yourself. If I’m running I never have any trouble with my job. It’s made me better at my job.

It helps me to stay focused on what I’m doing and work as efficiently as possible, so I have time to enjoy other things.”

Local residents and supporters cheered on Harjinder and even walked alongside him.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Harjinder Singh Chander recently spent 28 hours running 139 laps of one of Dunedin’s steepest places – Baldwin Street.

He says he loves doing big runs especially when I’m feeling a bit stressed.

“For example, I’ve been worried about my family back in India since the pandemic because covid is quite bad there. But when I’m running these worries disappear and all I’m thinking about is how lucky I am to be here,” he says.

“We start at 5am on-farm every day, but even when I have a day off, I’m up at five running. Running really helps to keep me going.” n

Harjinder originally came from Northern India to work in IT but went farming instead, and has now been working in the industry for eight years. Harjinder and the farm team.

51

YOUNG FARMERS

First-time competitor wins big

By Cheyenne Nicholson

W

hen Jake Jarman stepped off the stage after winning the 2021 FMG Young Farmer of the Year title, he was lost for words.

The 24-year-old ANZ relationship associate has had a whirlwind time since winning the Taranaki/Manawatū regional final. Since then he’s moved to Ashburton, started a new job and had a lot of preparation to do for the grand final held last month in Christchurch.

“I never thought I’d enter for the first time and win the big one,” Jake says.

“Although the competition is very individualistic and you’re pretty much on your own for three days, it’s all about those people around you. The people helping you, supporting you, giving you access to their knowledge and skills and giving that mental and emotional support has been huge.”

His win was a culmination of days of gruelling practical and technical challenges set out to test the seven grand finalists’ skills, knowledge and stamina.

He also won the Agribusiness, Agri Sports and Agri Knowledge awards.

“I’d never gas cut metal before, which was part of the Agri Sports challenge.

It was daunting not knowing what I was doing and being under that time pressure. Dale was next to me cutting already, so I was trying to catch up with him a bit. My main strategy with Agri Sports was just to be quick across the ground and give everything a go,” he says There was certainly a lot to have a go at.

The practical day saw contestants tackle seven modules and a number of tasks to complete as part of their farmlet.

From constructing gates, railing and mailboxes through to VR, engineering and a combine harvester, contest organisers certainly put the finalists through their paces.

To top off the gruelling day was the famous Agri Sports, which is all about strategy to gain the most points, with a large number of tasks to get through,

52

Jake Jarman won the 2021 FMG Young Farmer of the Year on his first attempt.

“I’m always nervous speaking, but I practiced a lot and got it refined and tried to go out there with as much confidence as I could, so I’m really pleased with how I did actually.”

Jake Jarman including putting together a spring gate, hooking up a New Holland tractor to a drill, using a gas saw, chopping down a tree and more – all in 45 minutes.

Any safety infringements were penalised heavily with contestants having to race back to the start, jump rope for 30 seconds before navigating a series of obstacles to get back to where they were.

While he admits public speaking isn’t something that comes naturally to him, he spoke confidently on his speech topic, Something I wish non-farming people knew. The focus of his speech was around celebrating and promoting to young people the many and diverse opportunities on offer in the agricultural sector.

“I’m always nervous speaking, but I practiced a lot and got it refined and tried to go out there with as much confidence as I could, so I’m really pleased with how I did actually,” he says.

Despite this being his first year competing, Jake has been involved in Young Farmers since university and has lapped up every chance to take advantage of what the organisation offers.

“Young Farmers is a lot about networks and a lot about meeting like-minded people. I’ve been a member of four clubs as I’ve moved around the country, so I have friends in all parts of the country now,” he said.

While he would have liked to try his hand at competing earlier, his university schedule never quite lined up with the district competition so entering this year was more about giving it a go, rather than aiming to win. That said, once he obtained a grand finals spot, his competitive nature kicked in and he was “in it to win it”.

“The months preparing for grand finals were hectic. So much goes on from interviews to filming to workshop days, it’s all outside my comfort zone, but that’s where I like to be,” he says.

“If you’re not out of your comfort zone, you’re not really growing.”

Joseph Watts was named runner up FMG Young Farmer of the Year, for the second time.

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August 2021

The Tikokino Young Farmer missed out on the title in 2019 by a whisker to James Robertson and qualified for the cancelled 2020 grand final.

“It’s hard to compare the 2019 contest with this one, they were such different competitions,” Joseph says.

“Every year it’s such a different competition which is what makes it so hard; one reason I do feel as content as I do about this is knowing that across two very different competitions I still managed to be consistent in my performance.”

Once a professional squash player, the PGG Wrightson technical field representative and East Coast representative also won the Agri Skills award at the grand final.

Whangarei Young Farmer Calvin Ball, 31, took out third place and also won the Community Footprint award.

“I put my absolute best into this; I made so many sacrifices and I’m so proud of how I competed, but at the end of the day there was seven amazing competitors, so big ups to Joseph and Jake who pipped me, but I’m very

Winner Jake Jarman shows off his fencing skills.

grateful and proud of what I’ve achieved during this experience,” Calvin says.

This was the regional sales managers second time competing for the

prestigious title, having previously competed in 2016.

Kieran McCahon from Waikato/Bay of Plenty was named FMG People’s Choice winner. n

The grand finalists in the Young Farmers of the Year competition gathered in Christchurch recently to compete for the title.

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Ed Grayling milks 450 cows on mostly peat soil that is low on trace elements, at Rukuhia, 10km south of Hamilton.

To give his young stock a good start, he has an array of management tools at his disposal, including feeding them well (including colostrum), looking after them daily and boosting trace elements.

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MULTIMIN® is administered to his stock five times over a two-year period. Calves are injected at birth, weaning and before wintering; older animals are injected prior to mating and then before the next winter.

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Boosting trace elements in calves

Dairy farmer Ed Grayling (right), uses MULTIMIN® to boost his calves’ immunity and overall health.

Oertly, from Vetora Waikato, is happy to recommend MULTIMIN® to his farmer clients, due to the research and development behind the product.

MULTIMIN® is designed to be administered to stock prior

to high periods of demand, such as early life, weaning, calving and mating. It contains copper, selenium, zinc and manganese, works rapidly, is safe and most importantly, has been proven in New Zealand conditions.

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INNOVATION

Farmers jump at lame tech

By Gerald Piddock

Innovative technology to be trialled on-farm will help with animal health and welfare.

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new automated monitoring system designed for the early detection of lameness among dairy herds will be piloted on 50 New Zealand farms this season.

Its creators, Dunedin company Iris Data Science had the system on display in the innovations marquee at Fieldays, where it was oversubscribed as eager farmers signed up to be part of the pilot.

“We’re really pleased; we were not sure what the reception was going to be like,” Iris Data Science’s co-founder and managing director Greg Peyroux says.

Feedback from those farmers will then be used if it needs to be tweaked before commercial release.

The pilot follows the system’s initial successful trial on five South Island dairy farms.

Called OmniEye Locomotion, it uses an on-farm camera mounted on a farm’s exit race, which collects tens of thousands of data points from every cow as it exits the milking shed.

Using AI, a computer then identifies each cow and gives it a locomotion score based on DairyNZ guidelines for lameness scoring.

The data is then displayed on a dashboard for the farmer to see. It uses a traffic light system to indicate whether the cow has a potential foot issue, with red being an obvious problem, orange being a warning and green being healthy.

“It’s all about early detection. If you get in early, you can reduce the cost massively,” he says.

Farmers receive real-time information that they can action by either automatically or manually drafting cows that need treatment, allowing for remote diagnostics for livestock by a vet.

Another product in the system – OmniEye Diary – gives visual verification of an animal’s condition over time to provide better understanding of the herd’s health.

The software was originally designed

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Iris Data Science’s co-founder and managing director Greg Peyroux at Fieldays with the dashboard OmniEye uses to display which cows it has detected might be lame.

“It’s all about early detection. If you get in early, you can reduce the cost massively.”

Greg Peyroux for facial recognition in the sheep industry. However, Peyroux says they soon realised there was not a huge market for the product because NZ’s outdoor farming system meant the farmer seldom saw each individual sheep.

But farmers see their dairy cows much more frequently. He spent most of last year’s lockdown ringing people to get feedback on how the technology could be best used in the dairy industry.

“The clear winner was lameness,” he says.

“We understand lameness is a huge

issue for farmers in New Zealand, costing thousands of dollars each year through a loss of production and is also a major animal welfare issue.”

He hoped to have the technology installed on the farms by September and the pilot to get underway.

Peyroux says installing the system has a one-off $5000 cost and a $1 per cow per month cost to help pay for the data storage costs during the milking season.

The Ministry for Primary Industries is contributing $40,000 to the project through its Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund.

MPI’s director investment programmes Steve Penno says this new innovation could help improve important animal welfare outcomes.

“Finding an easy solution for farmers to detect lameness early on in their herd provides a huge benefit as they’ll be able to identify and treat the issue before it reaches a critical point,” Penno says. n

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INNOVATION

Timing it right

By Samantha Tennent

The amount of time farmers spend in the milking shed can be streamlined now, thanks to a clever new device to monitor the length of time it takes to milk the herd.

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esearch has shown that 80-90% of New Zealand dairy farms are operating well below the efficiency potential of their dairy. With up to 50% of staff working hours on a dairy farm spent milking cows, there are real opportunities to make efficiency gains in the dairy shed.

Milking efficiency research has been going on for several years and programmes like MilkSmart through DairyNZ have been supporting farmers to identify where their gains could be made. But there has been a lack of service providers available to support farmers to implement changes, which makes it difficult to maintain new milking routines.

“I was finding the demand for assistance was more than I could handle and after getting farmers efficient and operating a comfortable milking routine, they just weren’t able to maintain it,” QCONZ director of farms and technology Josh Wheelie, who has been heavily involved with MilkSmart, says.

“It became apparent if people could see actual row or rotation time then they would be more aware of what’s going on and figure out what’s creating the inefficiencies and then they’d be more productive.

“It would also make it easier to implement efficient milking strategies.”

He came up with an idea to create a simple device that could help provide some direction to farmers so they could implement and monitor efficient milking routines in both herringbone and rotary sheds, and develop a consistent milking routine.

Teaming up with Innovag, they have

56

QCONZ director of farms and technology Josh Wheelie has developed the Milking

by Time device to help farmers manage their milking times better.

“It became apparent if people could see actual row or rotation time, then they would be more aware of what’s going on and figure out what’s creating the inefficiencies and then they’d be more productive.”

Josh Wheelie

created the Milking by Time (MbT) device.

“People think we’re trying to work people harder and faster but when you watch the videos of farmers using MbT, you can see it’s all about being consistent and in most cases, they’re going slower than they were before but getting a better result because they’re getting better consistency,” he says.

The MbT concept employs a timer with a large digital display in the dairy

shed that milkers can watch and know when it is time to take the cups off in a herringbone or complete rotation in a rotary. It enables farmers to implement the maximum milking time (MaxT) strategy, where cows are milked to a predetermined time based on their milk volume.

The timer has the ability to count down or up and will change to green at the set time when they should be starting a new row or rotation; it will show red if they go overtime or yellow if the rotary is rotating too fast, which allows people to evaluate their milkings and make changes.

“I think a big part of the problem is we don’t have procedures or systems on farms that support milkers to make the milking routine easy to implement and maintain. And, once they are milking there has been nothing available to help during the milking process.

“Once that’s in place everything is easier and in a sense that’s what MbT does, it creates the system so you know what you’re trying to achieve,” he says.

The device works with an app that records milking sessions so farmers

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

and their teams can download them to review. The aim is to have consistent milking times so everyone finishes at the same time, no matter who is milking.

And having a set row or rotation time based on production means milkers no longer need to second guess when to take the cups off or finish a rotation.

“It’s applicable to any size herd or dairy. We have 180-cow farms to 1000cow farms using the MbT. And farmers milking twice-a-day, once-a-day and 3-in2 are all finding it beneficial,” he says.

“The MbT allows farmers to consistently achieve the full potential of cows milked per hour in their dairies and it’s not the device as such doing that, it’s the efficient milking strategies that are implemented like MaxT. “Understanding where the time is lost is key. In a rotary, the platform speed might be set to an eight-minute rotation, but it could be taking 12-14 minutes on average, with all the stopping and starting.

“So by bringing in the visual aid, people start to realise what the cost of stopping and starting is to them and can try to keep a constant speed and not worry

The Milking by Time device works with an app that records milking sessions, so farmers and their teams can download them to review.

about any missed bails and just focus on filling the next bail to get more cows per hour milked.”

One of the principles of MaxT is there is a maximum time as well as a

minimum time, which is particularly important in spring when herds are in peak production. So the MaxT calculator determines the time needed between cups on and off.

“That was another reason the device was developed; some of our early adopters with MaxT weren’t monitoring whether people were going faster than they should. The device records and stores the last 32 milkings, so farmers can review and keep an eye on what is happening,” he says.

“And we already know from the research there isn’t a greater risk of mastitis by implementing a MaxT strategy. In fact, it can be less due to less chance of overmilking and shorter milking times.”

They have also found once farmers can visualise time they tend to be more relaxed at milking as they realise how much time is needed before the first cow is in position or rotation finished, whereas before people were rushing.

Faster milkings save time and give farmers opportunities to get other tasks completed, or just be home that bit earlier every day. n

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INNOVATION

Knowing the way

By Samantha Tennent

An online tool, with step-by-step instructions accompanied by videos and images to help people carry out farm jobs, is just one of the new innovations showcased at Fieldays.

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rustrated by having staff continuously calling to ask how to do something, Tasmanian dairy farmer Grant Rogers found it too difficult to explain over the phone.

So putting on his thinking cap, he decided to write an instruction manual for the farm but then thought better of it and found a solution that will help other farmers beyond his farm gate.

“I’m lucky I never started the manual as I realised two things: no one would actually read it and it would never be where anyone needed it,” Grant laughs.

He came up with a concept called Knowby, which he describes as a nimble, stepby-step instruction-sharing tool that allows anyone to open the instruction they need and get the job done.

“I knew it had to be short and sharp and broken into

steps to show people how to do something,” he says.

“Giving people the ability to flick past the things they knew, but they also didn’t have to rewind the bits they didn’t understand.

“It’s essentially the next evolution. Companies originally had manuals but more recently, they’re all making ‘how to’ videos and this is the next step to help people understand how to get things done.”

Knowby works by scanning a QR code, or opening a link from text or email, and provides a step-by-step guide that has been created for the specific task. It can be a mix of very short videos and images, accompanied by a description for each step.

After Grant came up with the idea, he connected with a contact who had developed a GPS mapping programme called Where’s my cows?, to

The 550-cow farm in the Derwent Valley, southern Tasmania, owned by Grant Rogers.

58

learn the process he went through bringing that idea to life.

“He connected me with a business accelerator programme with Sprout Agritech back in New Zealand, and there was no issue that I’m based in Tasmania, but I did need to set up a New Zealand company and find a business partner,” he says.

Grant lived in Timaru prior to shifting to Tasmania 18 years ago, so he had a good network back in NZ to help get things going.

But being a sideline gig, with his farming business taking priority, as well as several hiccups along the way, he has been frustrated with the lack of progress with Knowby in the past few years since the initial Sprout accelerator. But last year he took part in another programme that identified some gaps.

“On the first day, they uncovered that we didn’t truly know who our target market was,” he says.

“It was hard to swallow at the time, but it was worthwhile as we went out and interviewed heaps of businesses and uncovered our predominant market is the hardware industry.

“I would have never guessed that, but it makes sense. They need support tools to help people put stuff together on the factory floor.

And they’re regularly dealing with distributors, so they’re relying on someone else to fit and install products and

Knowby founder and dairy farmer Grant Rogers has developed an online step-bystep guide to doing various things on the farm.

service them.

“And then you get the enduser, who could be a farmer ringing up the distributor because they don’t know how to do something.

“There are a lot of questions that filter back and with Knowby they could fire a link to answer the query and provide support for their team answering customers’ concerns.”

Through the original Sprout programme, Grant met Dion Cawood from programme sponsor LIC. Cawood has been a big believer in the Knowby concept from the start and he pushed Grant to connect with DairyNZ, which led to some project work creating Knowby to support farmers.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Knowby is an easy-to-use online tool that has been developed with LIC. It can be accessed out in the field with instructions, videos and photos to show how to do a particular task.

Cawood also encouraged Grant to come to Fieldays and enter the Innovation Awards.

“There was so much opportunity at Fieldays. I was able to connect with so many businesses. If I had tried to rock up to them on a normal day I wouldn’t have gotten past the receptionist, but at Fieldays all the big wigs were there and they were very accessible,” he says.

“Companies originally had manuals but more recently, they’re all making ‘how to’ videos and this is the next step to help people understand how to get things done.”

Grant Rogers They have begun forming relationships with a number of businesses that recognise the value in utilising Knowby to support their distributors and customers directly.

Within the current system, companies become subscribers, which gives them

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

access to the web-based platform and they are able to build whatever they want.

They can share their Knowbys with unlimited users and they pay a monthly subscription, but the model will start changing going forward.

“Currently it’s not like YouTube, where you can go on and search for something, it’s all site-specific. But you don’t need to be a subscriber to access it if you have a QR code to scan or are sent a link,” he explains.

“For example, if a farmer called LIC with a question around MINDA, the call centre could fire back a link that gives them the answer in a step-by-step format.”

They are exploring a free version of the programme and in the future, they are planning to have the ability to search for a company and find their list of Knowbys through the website.

It has been a long road but Grant is finally feeling like they are making some headway with the concept.

“Perseverance has been key, but I think you have to be crazy to keep trying to get something like this off the ground,” he says.

“But I really do believe it’s the way of the future.

Knowbys are quick to make, cheap to build and update and engaging for users.” n

CALF CLUB

Support NZ’s future farmers

By Anne Boswell

N

ew Zealand’s world-leading competition is calling for new sponsors to support and empower the next generation of Kiwi farmers as the event experiences rapid growth.

Calf Club NZ registrations reached 220 in 2020 and organisers hope numbers will continue to increase this year, with additional support required to fulfil their mission of empowering rural kids across the country to care for and compete with their pet calves, ensuring the continued growth and development of our young farmers.

“As Calf Club NZ is growing each year, we are looking for one or two more key sponsors who would like to get behind Calf Club NZ to create an even better experience for our young farmers,” Calf Club marketing manager Josh Herbes says.

“If you or an agricultural professional you know would love to get behind and support, we’d love you to get in touch.”

Calf Club has a number of existing sponsors that have contributed to the success of the competition so far.

DeLaval, CRV and Samen NZ have been key financial sponsors since the competition’s inception, a relationship that Herbes says has been critical in making Calf Club NZ a possibility.

“We also have a key partnership with GlobalHQ’s DairyFarmer magazine, with article write-ups and donated advertising placements,” he says.

“Real Experience Digital Marketing

Calf Club NZ is back for 2021 and looking for more sponsors and volunteers for on-farm judging.

“If you or an agricultural professional you know would love to get behind and support, we’d love you to get in touch.”

Josh Herbes creates our marketing material, maintains our website, builds our social media presence, runs the overall event, creates our memory book and designs our ribbons each year, as well as distributing the prize packages.

“These parties are critical to the success of this valuable event.”

With huge online and print engagement, Calf Club NZ strives to support its sponsors as much as possible by getting exposure through an event that benefits the overall industry.

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The digital calf club format, whereby children submit entries online and are judged on farm, was created in response to the cancellation of school calf club events in 2018 and 2019 due to M bovis.

Although school events were reinstated in 2020, Calf Club NZ has continued to run as a separate competition.

Herbes says the Calf Club NZ team has been humbled to see some amazing growth in both contestants and volunteers.

“As an industry we have developed something truly unique and empowered our young farmers from across the country to come together, care for their animals and learn all sorts of new skills that will encourage and help them grow into a successful young farmer,” he says.

“We love to see people from their first ever Calf Club experience right through to those competitive hardcore contestants.

We are always amazed at what the community brings to the table.”

Kids are encouraged to register as soon as possible (www.calfclubnz.co.nz/ register), with submissions open from September 1 to September 15. Formal onfarm judging takes place during spring school holidays, from October 2-17. n

MORE:

For information about becoming a Calf Club NZ sponsor, fill in the form at www. calfclubnz.co.nz/support-sponsor, or contact Josh Herbes on 0279100274 or email josh@realexperience.nz If you are interested in becoming a judge please fill in this form: www.calfclubnz.co.nz/ judges-lounge or contact Michelle Burgess at burgessfarmltd@gmail.com

INDUSTRY GOOD

Project to reduce N loss Virginia Serra DairyNZ Selwyn Hinds project leader

S

ince 2018, I have been leading a project working alongside a group of partner farms and their rural professionals in Selwyn and Hinds. We are helping farmers identify ways to reduce nitrogen losses and sharing the changes taking place through partner farm field days through the catchments.

This project was important as farmers in these catchments were required to make significant reductions in nitrogen loss to meet Environment Canterbury rules.

With the national synthetic nitrogen cap now in effect since July, we are seeing more farmers nationwide looking at ways to reduce nitrogen use and losses on-farm.

Farmers looking to make changes can gain insights from the project, as we have seen some great improvements in Selwyn and Hinds.

A recent assessment of 235 farms in the catchments found that 100% reported adapting their farming practices to reduce nitrogen loss; 81% of farmers reported improving their irrigation systems or management; and more than 50% have changed how they use fertiliser and improved effluent management or systems.

Most farmers reported undertaking a

Ashburton farmer Phill Everest says the family has already met their 2030 target to reduce N losses by 25% and further reductions will be a significant challenge.

wide range of actions, including using plantain or changing stocking rates, alongside reducing nitrogen fertiliser use.

I know that reducing nitrogen losses isn’t always easy, but this project shows it’s possible and a number of options are available to help farmers adopt changes.

Farmer showcase: The Everest family Improving their farm environment is a major focus for Ashburton farmers Phill and Jos Everest and their son Paul and his partner Sarah.

“We’ve always been focused on learning how to do things better,” Phill says. “We’ve got to learn fast to make changes, so we can continue to play a key role in contributing to local communities.”

On the Everests’ farm, the family has installed a variable rate irrigation system on one pivot. This allows water to be

Common changes farmers in Selwyn Hinds are making (by percentage of farms) 0 Irrigation improvements Effluent improvements N fertiliser changes Plant catch crops Use plaintain in pasture Low nitrogen feeds Alter winter crops or practices

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with DairyNZ applied in different amounts across a paddock, which reduces drainage losses and nutrient losses.

They’ve also been preparing for the introduction of a new nitrogen cap by reducing the amount of nitrogen fertiliser applied by 35%. This has resulted in a small reduction in milk production this season.

“We developed an annual N application plan, so we knew what our target application rates were each month to meet the new targets. We also used a urease-coated urea product, which reduces greenhouse gas and nitrogen losses,” he says.

The family has added plantain and chicory to their pasture mix and planted 22km of planting and shelter along their drains and fence lines.

The changes mean they’ve already met their 2030 target to reduce N losses by 25%.

Phill says continuing to reduce their nitrogen losses will be a significant challenge for their family and other farmers.

“We’re taking small steps each year and this will allow us to make the best improvements we can,” he says. n

MORE:

Reduce stocking rate

To read more about the work being done by farmers in Selwyn and Hinds, visit dairynz. co.nz/selwynhinds

August 2021

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DAIRY FARMER

HERD HEALTH

Moving at pace

Allowing cows to walk to the shed at their own pace and in the order they have determined, means they can walk where they know it is safe and can watch their feet.

By Ross Nolly

Simple management techniques can be implemented on-farm to minimise lameness as the new season kicks off.

B

attling cow lameness is an ongoing problem every year on many farms and now the new season has started, farmers have missed the boat to make major improvements to tracks and shed design.

So what can a farmer do?

There are a number of simple management techniques that can be implemented to minimise lameness – and won’t cost farmers a cent.

Neil Chesterton is known throughout New Zealand as the go-to guru on cow lameness and cattle-flow. He has been investigating the causes of lameness since the early 80s. His interest is the prevention of lameness in pasture-fed dairy herds.

In recent years, his interest has focused on the importance of herd management on the farm tracks and in the milking shed.

“Most cow lameness starts showing up during the first three months of the new season. The two main lameness risk factors are what the cows walk on and how they’re herded. It’s now too late to change what they walk on because they’re due to calve. However, it’s the key time to put prevention procedures in place,” Chesterton says.

He feels that an automatic gate release that allows cows to walk at their own pace is the best method to reduce pressure on the cows walking to the cowshed. If that solution isn’t available, the best option is to keep a distance

62

behind the herd when it walks to the shed.

“I once said that you should keep five metres behind the cows, but I was wrong. Two years ago I conducted some experiments and discovered that anything closer than 10m pushes them too hard,” he says.

“If you’re too close and push too hard, the last cows watch you and not where they place their feet. Try following two fence posts behind the cows, it’s a handy distance measure.”

Three months ago while visiting a South Island farm that milked 850 cows, he observed a staff member bringing them to the shed was only five metres behind the

herd. This caused the back group of 80150 cows to bunch up.

“I asked him to drop back to 10m. He replied that he’d already tried it and it caused the herd to stop. He dropped back and that group did stop because they’d been too tight. The others kept going at the same pace and finally the whole herd was moving,” he says.

Using an automatic release gate at the paddock or observing the following distance for the three months from August to October, both the cows and people become trained.

Chesterton feels that farmers

Veterinarian Neil Chesterton has been investigating the causes of lameness in cows since the early 80s and is New Zealand’s go-to guru on the subject.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

“It’s now too late to change what they walk on because they’re due to calve.

However, it’s the key time to put prevention procedures in place.”

Neil Chesterton should consider reducing the distance their cows walk each day to reduce herd lameness.

“My studies show that cow lameness risks rise if they walk on a track for a total of more than three kilometres a day. They shouldn’t be travelling to your furthest paddocks twice-a-day. If you must do that, then alternate closer paddocks the following day,” he says.

He says that white-line injury is NZ’s most common lameness issue and there are many discussions about its risk factors. Taking the pressure off the herd reduces those risks.

When cows are pressured they get pushed to the track margins and stones

can become jammed in between their hooves, often resulting in cases of footrot.

Removing that pressure allows them to walk where they know it’s safe and are able to watch where they place their feet.

“The third main type of lameness is caused by puncture wounds to the bottom of the sole. By taking the pressure off, the cows carefully place their feet where they want to. They’re not being forced. It’s amazing how easily they puncture when they’re under pressure,” he says.

Lameness can also occur on the yard and its entrance.

If cows bring stones onto the entranceway it’s a risk to their feet. If that area becomes boggy and muddy they can get footrot when those stones become jammed between their hooves.

“The bottom of the sole can be damaged or punctured by sharp stones on the concrete, particularly if the cows are pushed in under pressure. Again, farmers must let the cows walk in voluntarily,” he says.

Farmers need to measure how many square metres are available in the yard for each cow and where the backing

Lame cows should be treated immediately with a block applied to its foot and then returned to the herd unless she has had antibiotics.

gate should be to allow enough space.

Chesterton has calculated that a Friesian

Continued page 64

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DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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cow needs 1.5m2 of space per cow, crossbreds need 1.4m2 and Jerseys need 1.3m2.

“If the yard is too small, milk a few rows to create space before closing the entry gate. Even if there’s plenty of space, don’t touch the backing gate for at least 20 minutes, two rows or two rotations,” he says.

“Don’t use your backing gate to tighten the herd. Change the mindset of ‘this is how it’s always been done’ so it must be the correct way.”

He says it never fails to amaze him at how the cows flow efficiently when two people work on one side in a herringbone shed.

He recommends staff start at the front of the row and work their way back rather than one at the front and the other pushing the cows. Working front to back keeps staff away from the entrance resulting in better cow-flow.

“Begin putting cups when the first cows come in and let the others enter at their own pace. Do this instead of feeling that you must fill a row before milking them, which puts pressure on the cow’s feet,” he says.

“Many of my farmers are doing this now. When they get up to half or twothirds full, they open the gate to the ones they’ve been taking the cups off, allowing them to quietly leave the shed.

“By the time the last ones begin moving their cups are off. ” He says by using this method for a season, the older cows will “teach” the heifers the way the system works next season.

Not shutting the yard gate or using the backing gate until the herd has plenty of space will reduce pressure on the herd fighting for space and lead to better cow flow.

He advocates limited or zero use of the backing gate.

One of his clients has a herd of 530 cows with no in-shed feeding. They only use the backing gate thrice during the entire milking, as they have found that if the herd is continually pressured in the yard, the heifers always end up facing the backing-gate at the back of the yard.

“They’re telling you that they’re afraid of it. If they’re pushed from the rear they’re forced headfirst into the cows where their heads get knocked about by the older cows. If they face the gate their

Neil Chesterton recommends that when bringing the herd in to milk or shifting between paddocks that a distance of 10 metres or two fence posts is maintained behind the herd to allow them to move at their own pace.

64

rear goes into the herd and they feel safer,” he says.

“If you start these practices two months into the season, the cows have already learnt your bad habits. It takes a while and people often think that it isn’t working. If you start when the first cow has calved, they train the others. The end result is cow-flow without pressure.”

Spring is the time to let your cows set their walking and milking order.

Chesterton’s cow-flow studies have shown that cows walk to the shed in a particular order, and change that order when they enter the yard. They need space to make that change.

While not set in stone, his studies have demonstrated that within two weeks of the last cow calving, a cow’s front, middle or back position has been cemented.

Farmers often tell him that milking will take longer if they follow his guidelines.

However, the cows only take two weeks to learn that there’s less pressure and everything begins flowing faster.

“I worked with a farmer who always went into the yard to fill each row. When he entered the yard the cows turned to escape by going to the back. I told him to stop going out and just milk what’s there,” he says.

“I rang him three weeks later and was told that it wasn’t working. Instead of getting 40 cows per row, he was getting 20-30.

“However, he was milking faster and lameness wasn’t an issue anymore, so it was working.” n

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

HERD HEALTH

LIC develops new BVD test

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ovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) is a common, highly-infectious disease that reduces milk production and causes health and fertility problems. Estimates put the annual losses for dairy farmers at around $127 million a year.

The disease is spread by carriers, also known as persistently infected (PI) animals, who are born with the virus in their body.

LIC has developed a BVD test for newborn calves to provide farmers with an early indication on the health status of their valuable replacement stock.

Previously, farmers who were testing their calves for BVD through LIC were required to wait until calves were at least 35-days-old before being able to confirm the BVD status of the newborns.

LIC general manager of NZ markets Malcolm Ellis says eliminating the 35-day delay before being able to test a calf for BVD will significantly improve a farmer’s

ability to manage the disease, as well as add a layer of convenience on-farm as a result of conducting the test at such a young age.

“PI animals can cause havoc on the health status of the wider herd. Knowing the BVD status of your calves as early as possible will significantly reduce the risk of them passing the virus on to the rest of the herd,” Ellis says.

Ellis highlights an additional benefit of the new test is the ability to couple it with other tasks happening on-farm at the same time.

“For the sake of convenience and efficiency, tissue sampling calves for the BVD test can be combined with tagging or disbudding,” he says.

The new BVD test for calves was successfully piloted last year, with the product offered to a limited number of customers.

Ellis says the co-op is committed to using its capabilities to develop new

For the sake of convenience and efficiency, tissue sampling calves for the BVD test can be combined with tagging or disbudding.

products and services that drive longterm customer value on-farm.

“Value for our farmer shareholders is at the heart of what we do. Our diagnostics product suite supports farmers to produce the most sustainable and efficient animals,” he says. n

HERD HEALTH

Studies show that disbudding without pain relief reduces subsequent milk intake leading to slower growth.

Disbudding without pain Samantha Tennent

P

ain is one form of animal suffering, an animal welfare issue and increasingly a consumer concern affecting the marketability of dairy and red meats.

Pain impairs normal productivity functions such as growth and production and when productivity is impaired the farming business suffers.

The medical definition determines

66

pain as an unpleasant subjective feeling or sensation associated with actual or potential tissue damage that results from chemical, thermal or mechanical stimulation of nerve endings. It is a normal physiological process that indicates a ‘stress’ response.

It is usually difficult to detect pain in cattle as they are prey animals and have developed a survival strategy and a stoic nature that disguises any sign of pain until the stimulus is severe. This is to divert the attention of predators away from sick or injured animals, which means pain is usually not detected until the cause is relatively advanced.

Pain can be acute and chronic and the ease of relief depends on the intensity and duration.

Any inflammatory condition, with a suffix -itis, is associated with pain.

Once pain becomes chronic or pain is associated with a chronic disorder, it is more difficult to control.

Farmers perform many husbandry procedures on-farm to reduce aggression, carcass damage and improve identification, handler safety and meat quality.

If a painful husbandry practice is justifiable, it is important to determine methods that could be used to mitigate the pain. But readily, pain relief is perceived as a cost, although the cost of the pain relief products is often offset, sometimes multiple times, by better productivity and an improved image of the sector.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Work exploring clinical mastitis treatments using a combination of pain relief and antibiotics shows somatic cell counts can be lower, as well as having a reduced risk of removal from the herd when compared with treating with antibiotics alone. Although pain relief might not alter the risk of treatment failure or reduce milk losses caused by mastitis after treatment, putting some numbers around it increases our understanding of the potential returns.

It costs approximately $35 per dose of the pain relief drug Metacam to treat a 500kg cow, and if a farm treated 100 cows with mastitis the cost of treatment with Metacam would be $3500. This is excluding the value of the milk withholding since they will be treated with antibiotics anyway, but they would potentially end up culling 12 fewer cattle at the end of the season. That could be worth $12,000 to the business, which is the difference between the value of a milking cow and a cull cow.

When we subtract the cost of the pain relief the farm is still $8500 better off, not to mention the ability to select other cows to cull and lift the value and

productivity of the herd in general.

Also, for routine procedures, such as disbudding calves, if we use pain relief alongside the local anaesthetic that is now compulsory in New Zealand, there are great benefits for the animals and the impact on the farming business.

“It is usually difficult to detect pain in cattle as they are prey animals and have developed a survival strategy and a stoic nature that disguises any sign of pain until the stimulus is severe.”

Studies show that disbudding without pain relief reduces subsequent milk intake and by day 15 after the procedure calves are still growing slower than the calves who do receive pain relief.

The evidence is building to support

using pain relief during disbudding and its benefits for calf productivity as well as calf welfare, helping calves recover faster and reach weaning weight sooner. A win for the animal and the farm business.

There are times when pain relief is not suitable, for example, a bad fracture, no products accessible, or a grave prognosis but animal suffering should be avoided and euthanasia must be considered in those situations. Always talk through your options with your veterinarian and have standard operating procedures in place to help the farm team determine the best course of action.

Ultimately, when planning animal health this spring and throughout the season, it is worth considering utilising pain relief to treat unwell animals or perform routine procedures. To prevent some of the productivity losses caused by animals experiencing pain, support their recovery and ensure we are maximising the productivity of our farming businesses. n

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HERD HEALTH

Diseases or deficiencies?

By Chris Balemi

A

n overweight cow is more exposed to an increased risk of ketosis in early lactation.

This is particularly prevalent in pasture-fed cows as there can be limited options for balancing the diet.

There is much debate around exactly what the ideal body condition score should be in largely pasture-based feed systems. Under this management system there is a fine line between cows having an adequate condition score or being overweight, which runs an increased risk of ketosis and fatty liver disease.

How do farmers and herd managers maintain optimum condition, without the risks associated with over conditioning their cows?

Fat cows wouldn’t be an issue if they weren’t subject to a higher risk of metabolic diseases, particularly ketosis.

Maintaining herd condition and holding it at the correct level can be a very fine line. To successfully manage the conditioning of our herds, we first need to understand the processes at play and the nutritional factors that govern and balance it.

Ketosis in dairy cattle is triggered by an energy deficiency in early lactation.

When blood glucose levels reach a low point, the body then begins to mobilise body fat as an alternative energy source.

The downside to mobilising large amounts of fat is that it risks clogging the liver, which can run the risk of catastrophic liver failure, or what is termed as fatty liver disease. Stored fat is also considered an inefficient means of creating energy, and in some instances mobilising it can use more energy than it creates.

Under the right circumstances converting fat to energy should be a normal, healthy, and efficient process. As mentioned earlier, this process can be extremely beneficial in times of shortterm food shortage or stress periods. In this way it can be utilised when extra energy is required to plug gaps, such as calving and early lactation.

Science is now showing us that if the body is nutritionally balanced, the process of converting fat to energy can

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Cows in early lactation are at risk of a variety of animal health issues so need to be managed carefully.

“How do farmers and herd managers maintain optimum condition, without the risks associated with over conditioning their cows?” be more efficiently managed without experiencing the negative downsides. In order to prevent fatty liver and maintain general liver health, nutrients play a paramount role.

The key nutrients in this process are defined as methyl donors, which are the amino acids; choline, methionine and betaine. These methylated compounds contain a one-carbon group, which have the ability to play a fundamental role in hundreds of metabolic reactions. A deficiency of any one of these elements can jeopardise the health and the

economic performance of the early lactating cow.

Towards late gestation, the requirement for methionine increases in dairy cows due to inadequate DMI, as well as the increased protein demand to support foetal growth and the onset of the next lactation.

Milk contains a high amount of methylated compounds (choline and methionine) as components of milk fat micelles or proteins.

At the beginning of lactation, a dairy cow has a high demand for these compounds due to high metabolic needs.

The availability of ready-to-use methyl groups is low in ruminants because of the extensive rumen degradation that takes place at this time, as well as the reduced DMI at the onset of the lactation. This creates a shortage of methylated compounds, particularly in the lead up to calving and in early lactation.

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

Overcoming the deficit To overcome this deficit in methyl groups, ruminant animals rely on methyl neogenesis. These processes depend on an adequate supply of B vitamins as coenzymes. These vitamins are also fundamental in the energy supplying metabolic pathways. In this way, up to 50% of the total methionine used by the cow comes from homocysteine remethylation. Certain minerals such as zinc, copper, selenium, and iodine are also important in underpinning the process as they also play an important role for the liver. It’s important that each element is in the correct form and combination for the system to work most efficiently.

Methionine One of the best known amino acids, methionine, constitutes 5.5% of the total EAA in bovine milk and between 2.48% and 3.32% of casein. The most visible effect of a deficiency is the decreasing milk protein synthesis because of its status as a limiting AA, but it also results in limited utilisation of other circulating AA. Upon pathogen challenge, as is the case in newly calved cows, a good availability of methionine allows a higher neutrophil and monocyte oxidative burst capacity, which increases effective protection against invading pathogens in dairy cows.

Phosphatidylcholine Also known as PtdChol, one of the most important and high-demand methylated compounds in dairy cows during the transition period. Apart from the demand for PtdChol in milk, transition dairy cows also need high PtdChol availability for very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) synthesis in order to prevent fatty liver.

Therefore without sufficient levels of

these nutrients, what would normally be a natural, efficient process of converting fat to energy, can instead cascade out of control, ultimately leading to impaired energy supply and issues such as ketosis and fatty liver disease.

In order to supply the amino acids to fuel the methylation process, the feeding of a good quality bypass source is required. Feeding a good bypass protein source is expensive and may not always supply the correct amino acids at the desired levels. Recently companies have developed ways of protecting these key amino acids and vitamins from rumen degradation within a single protected micro prill matrix. This system effectively targets all of these key elements directly

into the metabolic pathways.

In dairy cattle, liver function is critical in maintaining the energy pathway during the lead up to calving and early lactation.

Balancing these key methyl donor elements allows the liver to function at an optimum level by efficiently mobilising the excess fat, creating energy at key times.

With good rumen protected methyl donor support, farmers now have the potential to more effectively utilise condition levels in their animals for more production during stress times. n

Who am I?

Chris Balemi is the managing director of Agvance Nutrition Limited.

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Overweight cows are at risk of metabolic diseases but maintaining herd condition and holding it can be difficult.

HERD HEALTH

Counting cows’ Zzzs

By Samantha Tennent

Researchers have been studying the sleep patterns of cows to better understand how sleep and animal health and welfare are impacted.

J

ust like humans, our dairy cows need their sleep but little is known about the importance of sleep and the effects of limited or poorquality sleep for dairy cows.

The lack of sleep can negatively impact animal welfare and there can be significant impacts on health due to the loss of sleep.

Assessing and staying on top of animal welfare is important to farmers and

to respond to the growing expectations of global dairy consumers. But the challenge has been measuring and distinguishing between the important stages of sleep being impractical in typical farm environments.

Looking for a solution, scientists at AgResearch are getting innovative with new technologies to better understand the quality of the shut-eye animals are getting.

“We have been trying to

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AgResearch scientists have turned to technology to gain insights into cows’ sleeping patterns.

determine if data from sensor devices placed on cows that take measurements during their sleep, such as their neck muscle activity and heart rates, could be used to differentiate between sleep stages,” AgResearch animal behaviour and welfare science team leader Dr Cheryl O’Connor says.

They have been working with the Rural College in Edinburgh, Scotland, with joint PhD student Laura Hunter. The data gathered from the devices was compared to the gold standard EEG (electroencephalogram) for brain activity.

“We took this muscle and heart rate data from six cows in both housed and pasture systems, and applied machine learning (a branch of Artificial Intelligence) models to make predictions about what the muscle and heart rate data means for the cows’ different sleep stages,” she says.

“The result was that machine learning models were able to accurately predict sleep stages from the measures that were taken and the accuracy was in a similar range to that for

human computer models.”

Since the work has shown this method appears to be a valid way of measuring and predicting the sleep stages of cows at a small scale, researchers want to apply it to a much larger number of animals to validate the use of these methods.

“We think the insights we can get from this could potentially tell us more about overall animal welfare and from that we may be able to build further on the research,” she says.

By having the ability to identify sleep stages accurately and carrying out research on the effects of sleep loss for cows, the results could be useful to inform management practices such as determining rest intervals during long-haul transport or management of cattle during wet weather on standoff pads, for example “We will be aiming to share what we learn from our research with farmers and the wider sector, so they can potentially build that knowledge into what happens on farms to provide the best life we can for our cows,” she says. n

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August 2021

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One last word …

T

here is a word that has been on everyone’s lips recently – Groundswell.

It’s a movement and it is gathering momentum – in other words, it’s not going away anytime soon.

Essentially, it is not just farmers who are protesting the scope and speed of new rules and regulations around climate change, Three Waters, Indigenous Biodiversity, Essential Freshwater and the Resource Management Act, it is thousands of other rural workers, including truckies and tradies.

Nearly 60 protests were organised throughout the country, with thousands of tractors, utes, trucks and others coming out for the Howl of a Protest.

Groundswell NZ is not opposed to improving freshwater quality or sustainable land use, but it wants the Government to dump its freshwater policies as it believes this should be left to regional councils and catchment groups to work on improving freshwater.

This policy has far-reaching effects on farmers around fencing around waterways, nitrogen use and intensive winter grazing.

They also want the Government to dump the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity and the mapping of significant natural areas (SNAs). Many of these are on privately-owned land and farmers see it as a land grab.

74

Groundswell are also protesting the so-called Ute Tax. Their argument for dumping the new fuel tax on utes is because there are no electric utes or other low-emission vehicles available that will suit their purpose. This is the issue that broke the camel’s back, the final straw.

Federated Farmers president Andrew Hoggard calls it “the winter of discontent” and says he was heartened by the support of urban people, which will highlight to politicians that it is not just a vocal minority feeling under pressure and anxious about the same issues.

Farmers are just not happy. And that was certainly evident when I caught up with an old farming mate. He had plenty of choice words to say about Jacinda Ardern and the Government – too choice to print.

But basically, he says this Government is completely out of touch with reality and with the farming community.

He is right though. The Government purports to be listening to industry leaders and farmers and working with them but are they really?

As Groundswell organisers said, if the Government was working with them and listening, the protests would not have happened.

It’s fair to say when the Government does dumb things like invite consultation on the Freshwater Farm Plan regulations

and slope requirements for stock exclusion, from July 26 to September 12, right when farmers are in the thick of calving, it makes you wonder why they bother. They are hoping no one else bothers because they are too busy to make a submission.

Government needs to return to the table and really listen to what our farmers and industry leaders are telling them.

The new season is in full swing, with many farmers already well into calving.

And just to keep everyone on their toes, Mother Nature is throwing plenty of rain leading to flooding across parts of the South Island. Thankfully, many South Island farmers won’t have started calving just yet, albeit a few early ones.

Thanks to Waikato relief milker and casual worker Hope Devlin for sending us these stunning photos of a couple of the farms she has been working on. In the morning she rears calves and helps collect cows and calves, then in the afternoon travels to Putaruru and milk cows for another farmer. She has been in the industry her whole life and loves every single moment of it.

Good luck for the new season.

Sonita Like us: farmersweekly.co.nz Follow us: @DairyFarmer15 Read us anywhere: farmersweekly.co.nz

DAIRY FARMER

August 2021

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Dairy Diary August 2021 August 4-5 – Agri-Women’s Development Trust Our Resilient Farming Business, various locations. A pilot programme preparing you and your farming businesses to grow through change. Supported by the Ministry for Primary Industries, this free programme will support farming and growing New Zealanders to cultivate the financial and personal resilience needed to thrive in the face of accelerating change.

Info at www.awdt.org.nz/programmes/our-resilientfarming-business/ August 12-13 – Agri-Women’s Development Trust Northland, Bay of Plenty and Lower North Island. You’re not your farm, your job or your kids. You, are you. No matter your stage in life, it’s time to reprioritise you.

It’s all about YOU is a two-day personal development programme that uncovers your true value and identity.

A chance to break away from your everyday routine, reconnect with yourself and explore new possibilities for positive change in your life.

Info at www.awdt.org.nz/programmes/our-resilientfarming-business/ August 23-24 – Agri-Women’s Development Trust Top of South Island and Canterbury/North Otago. No matter your stage in life, it’s time to reprioritise you.

It’s all about YOU is a two-day personal development programme that uncovers your true value and identity.

Two full days dedicated entirely to YOU costs just $350 (+GST).

Info at www.awdt.org.nz/programmes/our-resilientfarming-business/

Benchmarking

August 26 – Institute of Directors NZ On a farm board? Know your liabilities, Canterbury/ North Otago. Don’t take on a board role without understanding your liabilities and responsibilities.

A fully-engaged board can make such a powerful difference to a farm enterprise. In this one-day course you will explore robust decision-making, taking a world view of market trends and succession planning for your farm business.

Info at https://www.iod.org.nz/governance-courses/ rural-governance-essentials/# August 26 – Institute of Directors NZ Rural Governance course, Canterbury/North Otago Agribusiness and farm boards have unique governance risks, liabilities and strategic opportunities. Discover how to handle the family/business dynamic, insights into succession planning, the future of the sector and what makes for a robust decision-making process.

Info at https://www.iod.org.nz/governance-courses/ rural-governance-essentials/# August 26 – DairyNZ Rural professionals meeting, Palmerston North. Join us at the Golf Club again for a meeting for Rural Professionals in the Lower North Island region.

Specific topics/speakers will be confirmed and registrations will open soon, save the date.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz August-September – DairyNZ Enjoy breakfast on us, various dates and locations.

Come to a well-deserved breakfast event near you.

DairyNZ and industry supporters are running a series of free cooked breakfast events around Waikato for dairy farmers. Join us anytime between 10am-12pm.

Info at www.dairyevents.co.nz

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