MANAWATU FARMING LIFESTYLES February 2018
surprised at its quality nutrition and digestibility benefits. Sheep milk does have advantages over traditional dairy operations, and research shows significant environmental benefits too. “In terms of genetics, the normal New Zealand sheep will produce 60-120 litres per year. We haven’t had access to the top dairy genetics, but MPI recently enabled high-performance sheep to be imported and they can produce 400 litres across flocks — or up to 1,000 litres in top performers per year, making a farming system economically viable.” The PGP Sheep — Horizon Three programme has been established for long term innovation. It plans to build an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable sheep milking industry targeting $200M-$700M in sales by 2030. The programme has gained positive results and has had a great response to a tailored nutrition programme that doubled milk yield on a per ewe basis. “New Zealand sheep have adapted to our environment for wool and meat. We need systems to allow dairy sheep to thrive here. “Our pasture is one of our advantages, but we are researching other needs such as nutrition and indoor housing,” says Nick. “The current exporting sheep milk farms run 2,000-4,000 sheep. That scale is not accessible to the normal farmer due to farm size so within the PGP programme, we are launching two smaller pilot sites in Cambridge. “A lot of farms are around 40 hectares but no longer viable, as cow dairy sites due to economic and environmental
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PRECISION
Dairy sheep are relatively new to New Zealand but have been farmed in Europe for centuries
pressures. The environmental pressures for sheep milking are lower, and we are aiming to produce a model so farmers can change over by making a few slight changes for a small investment. “We want to develop the skill sets of New Zealanders. We brought over John Ryrie, our farm manager, from the UK — he was born and raised in Scotland and has more than 20 years’ experience working on sheep dairy farms throughout Europe. Ultimately, we want New Blinds Curtains Screens Security Awnings Shutters
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Zealanders to be successful at this.” The pilot farms will promote and train people with as much knowledge as possible. “We as Kiwis are not competing with each other, but with Europeans as they have been doing it for decades. By sharing our concepts, others will improve on them and we want to create and maintain the collaborative culture so everyone wins — it is about kiwis helping kiwis.”
SERIES
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