Dairy News // june 28, 2011
9
news
Rosie mooves crowd
Reward for innovation AN INNOVATIVE solution to a long-standing problem:
that’s how judges saw an automated teat dipping and flushing system in the National Fieldays innovation awards contest. Automatic Dipping and Flushing (ADF) Milking won the equipment category award and director Toby Green is understandably delighted. Green says he took new orders at Fieldays, “something we didn’t expect”. And the company’s Fieldays site attracted strong interest. “We had people coming back Saturday to place orders,” he told Dairy News. The ADF system launched here last year in an onfarm trial at Feilding. It recently gained approval from Fonterra. In use, at the end of milking the system delivers a calibrated dose of teat spray into the head of each liner as the cluster is removed, automatically covering all of each teat. After removal, the teat cups are rinsed by blasting a sanitised water solution around the liner in a scrubbing action. This is repeated six times in quick succession after every cow, ensuring liners are properly sanitised before going on the next cow. The ADF system also won the innovators award at the Australian Dairy Conference earlier this year. Green saysit cuts labour costs, reduces the incidence of mastitis and lowers somatic cell counts. “The chief judge told me it’s an innovative solution to a long-standing problem. That sums it up.”
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Toby Green
EN
leaves her farm to discover what makes the New Zealand industry one of the best in the world. Black-suited ‘minders’ – a VIB (very important bovine) protection squad – looked after her at Fieldays. “We created the concept of Rosie to promote cows to New Zealanders,” says Fraser. “There are 4.4 million cows and 4.4 million New Zealanders, but not enough people are familiar with them.” DairyNZ staff handed out 4000 Rosie packs around the Go Dairy stand during Fieldays. “She got a tremendous reception. Retired farmers said it was great to have something connecting their grandchildren back to farming, farmers saw her as an excellent investment of their levy, and mothers thanked us for the activity for their children.”
The new education website has curriculum-related teaching units, digital texts, and digital learning objects, all using dairying as a context for learning. The site will first offer curriculum level 1 and 2 material; level 3-7 content will follow. DairyNZ chief executive Tim Mackle says the Rosie project will show the best of dairy farming to the public, and present the vital role of dairy farming in the lives of New Zealanders. “It’s about the good things of the dairy industry, and ensures children can learn milk comes from cows, not the supermarket.”
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DAIRYNZ HAS a new means of raising New Zealanders’ awareness of dairying. Rosie the ‘cowbassador’ was launched mid-June at National Fieldays and will show up next month on a new primary school education website. She was a Fieldays hit, DairyNZ says. “She was a huge hit with everyone from children to their grandparents,” says chief Rosie wrangler and DairyNZ communications head Sarah Fraser. Rosie is a three-year-old Friesian Jersey-cross who