rural news 1 july 2015

since we heard from the industry on their not choosing to work with us on joint promotional entity. We need to regroup as a board.” Until board discus-sions were held he could not say what they would put to farmers.

He says it is fair to say it has sparked a whole strategy rethink by the organi-sation. “We’re always asking ourselves the question ‘are we doing the best things with farmers’ money to get best returns?’ ”

“Promotion has been an ongoing

discussion with industry for years, and in the last two years it has got a lot more focussed. We told the industry we want them to do it jointly because when they invest their own funds there is more accountability and ownership.

“The meat companies are the ones transacting in the marketplace and sell-ing the products. The value proposition we put up was about country of origin – telling the New Zealand story. That would be an underpinning story which individual com-

panies would springboard off in run-ning their own commercially focused branded programmes.

“So [our contribution] was the underpinning provenance, country of origin components of New Zealand sheep meat and beef.”

Initially discussion was about a $15m entity with 50:50 funding, but a few months ago a smaller $8m pro-gramme was on the table. It would have

had to prove itself.“We sup-

ported that approach but when that was drilled into more recently there was not enough support, on balance, among processors for them to come up with their $4m share.

“It was disappointing after all the work had gone into it but it has flushed out a lot of good discussions on how we should do promotions.

“One of the outcomes – certainly [voiced by] processors I have talked to – is they will need to raise their

JULY 1, 2015: ISSUE 587 www.ruralnews.co.nz

RURALNEWS

AGRIBUSINESSLandcorp chair ready for role. PAGE 21

MANAGEMENTTransforming drystock operation into a highly profitable farm. PAGE 28 NEWS

Designers carry the flag for New

Zealand wool.PAGE 15

TO ALL FARMERS, FOR ALL FARMERS

Meat promo rethinkTHE BEEF + Lamb NZ board will need to rethink its whole strategy as an organ-isation after the processing companies rejected a proposal for joint in-market promotion, says BLNZ chairman James Parsons.

The board will discuss the matter for the first time this Thursday and will need to regroup after the “disap-pointing” decision by the processing companies, says Parsons. The deci-sion followed two years of focused dis-cussion on setting up a 50:50 funded market development entity.

“It is important that we don’t react to being turned down by the industry,” Parsons told Rural News. “It is impor-tant we think this through strategically and in the best interests of farmers.”

BLNZ will need to consider what proposals it will put forward to the commodity levy vote to be held later in the year, including how much it should spend on in-market promotion in the future. One option could be that the BLNZ ceases offshore promotion.

BLNZ currently spends $8.3m in total promotion as part of a $28.9m budget. Some of the promotional budget is funded from reserves, which is “an issue”, says Parsons. About $1.3m of the promotion budget is spent on domestic promotion, at least 50% of which is funded by processors and retailers. The domestic promotion will also be on BLNZ’s board meeting agenda.

“We haven’t had a board meeting

PAM TIPA

[email protected]

STOPBANK STRESSHorowhenua organic dairy farmer Murray Moxham and his staff had only minutes to move his 650 cows to higher ground after a stopbank on the Koputaroa steam burst during floods last week. Record rain that hit the area caused the Manawatu River and streams such as the Koputaroa to rise to near-record levels. The water flowed across Murray Moxham’s farm and into his dairy shed and he was unable to get to it. He’d never seen anything like this before.He says he’s fortunate he was not milking, but because he is an organic farmer he couldn’t move the stock to another property. Horowhenua was badly hit during the floods. See more pictures and story p10-11.

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ISSUE 587www.ruralnews.co.nz

their investment and promotions, particularly if, as a consequence, Beef + Lamb reduces its funding for promotion.

“There is recognition that the pro-cessors need to do more in promo-tion and that’s a good outcome. We have never had a definitive answer from the industry before on whether they wanted to participate in a joint entity or not.”

BLNZ gave the idea a “really good push” and there was a lot of support from industry players. “But it is up to processors how they choose to invest their money and if they see a value proposition somewhere else,

we respect that.”Much of BLNZ’s offshore

promotion work has been not on growing the pie but just maintaining market share in more mature markets. “Whether that continues will be driven by where B + L goes and we need to have a board discussion about it. It would be quite significant if we were to exit it, but that is an option.”

He says they can’t maintain $8.3m promotion spending because some of that has been funded out of reserves. “But there’s a wide range of views on promotion and whether B + L should be in it or should be leaving it to pro-cessors.”

FROM PAGE 1

MEAT PROMO RETHINK

Dairy goat farm soon to be NZ’s largestNEW IMAGE’S partner goat farm Oete Farms at Patumahoe will be the biggest in New Zealand when it grows from 2400 to 3000 goats next season, says Auckland-based New Image Group Ltd general manager Guy Wills.

But they see the farm just south of Auckland as the forerunner of “more and more farms” as New Image grows its export trade in goat infant formula and other nutritionals and seeks to add to its NZ supply.

“Oete Farms is our partner where we established a relationship to 100% supply to New Image with goat milk,” Wills told Rural News at Oete’s official opening last Thursday.

“They have 2400 goats increasing to 3000 so they will be the largest goat farm in NZ. This is a partnership we set up to establish our NZ supply of goat milk.”

The milk is converted at New Image’s dairy plant into nutritional products like infant formula, senior for-mulas and nutritional products.

The goat products are exported to China, Vietnam and Malaysia, and to the Middle East.

“We sell it here in NZ and are export-ing a large quantity to the China market which is demanding high quality prod-ucts and there’s a growing demand for goat milk.”

New Image has its own brands such as Baby Steps. New Image is regis-tered for China for the manufacture of dairy products and its own brands have access.

“We’ve been in China for several years and we’ve also been marketing out goat products in China for three or four years now and we’ve seen very good growth,” says Wills.

Oete Farms director Matt Bolton says the farm has 120ha of grass which is cut and harvested back and fed to the goats. That is 80% of the goats’ diet and they source other roughage and locally sourced feed for the goats to balance diets.

At present they have 2400 does, all

PAM TIPA

[email protected]

in kid and due to start giving birth next month. One was born that morning.

He and his wife Sarah have been dairy cow farmers in the lower North Island for 15 years.

They started getting excited about the goat and doing something differ-ent with the goats, he says.

“We want to be pretty special here, we want to produce NZ’s best goats’ milk, higher quality and we want to have NZ’s happiest goats because we feel the two go hand in hand.

“We want everybody to be very proud, especially New Image and the public in general about what we are doing here.”

The goats are housed and milked twice a day on a converted 56-bail rotary platform.

Associate Minister of Agriculture Jo Goodhew says goat milk powder and other nutritional powders are now exported to at least 20 countries. Aus-tralia, Korea and Thailand are the top three, but there is much growth in other areas.

While dairy products are NZ’s big-gest export, products such as goat milk nutritional powders are a great addi-

tion to spread the type of product we are exporting to the rest of the world, she said.

Associate Primary Industries Minister Jo Goodhew with a kid at the new Oete farm.

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lamb, which latterly has been funded by the BLNZ commodity levy paid by farmers.

Falconer says proces-sors already spend at least $8 million on their own brand promotions and this will increase as new markets are developed.

“Considerable time was spent usefully exploring the possible content and cost of a country-of-origin programme.

“However, a solution could not be identified that would justify processors assuming 50% of the cost over and above the marketing investments they are committed to making and growing,” he says.

“Processors’ invest-ment will continue to be directed to the product and consumer branded activities they develop with their distributors and retailer partners in exist-ing and developing mar-kets.”

John Mc Carthy, who said he could not talk as

the Meat Industry Excel-lence chairman as they had not discussed the issue, but as a former Meat Board director, says the industry has had a lucky escape.

“Generic promotion does not work. Every study of generic promo-tion proves it is the least effective form of promo-tional activity there is. It is too bland and in this instance it would be too non-specific to make a dif-ference.

“It is actually illus-trates the destructive competitive model that is ruining this industry

beyond the farmgate; why BLNZ is supporting this is beyond me.

“It belies common sense to imagine that where you’ve got a market model in which at least 50 different export licence holders, all competing against each other with basically the same product, all NZers competing against each other in a global market place – that any form of marketing using country-of-origin is going to make a blind bit of difference, let alone any profit to be attributed back to farmers.”

He says we currently don’t have a NZ prov-enance story; we have a number of players all trying to sell their stuff on the basis of individ-ual company differentia-tion. “We’ve got the best provenance story in the world and we are wasting it through a destructively competitive model.

“This is what is driv-ing the meat industry into oblivion.”

MEAT INDUSTRY Asso-ciation chairman Bill Falconer expects more dis-cussions with Beef + Lamb NZ about promotion fur-ther down the track.

He agrees that if BLNZ decides in the long term not to continue with its country-of-origin mar-keting there will be a ‘gap’ in NZ’s overseas promo-tion. But how that gap is filled would have to be dis-cussed by the industry at large.

Meat processors and exporters decided not to contribute 50% of the $8m cost of country-of-origin marketing now sponsored by BLNZ. Traditionally, BLNZ and its producer board predecessors have undertaken the generic marketing of beef and


4 NEWS

Impasse leaves $4m deficit in marketing budget

PAM TIPA

[email protected]

THE ENVIRONMENT is a big area where sheep and beef farmers need a lot more support, says Beef + Lamb NZ chairman James Parsons.

BLNZ spends a lot more than just on promotion and is constantly revis-ing priorities.

“Environment has definitely been a big area where sheep and beef farmers have needed a lot more support as they engage in environmental discussions on water quality in particular,” says Par-sons. “We have upped the investment there and as a consequence the invest-ment in promotional money has been reduced over time.

“Pressures around the environ-ment are not going away. There are a whole lot of licence-to-farm type activ-ities that farmers need a stronger voice on. We are looking at how we balance our requirements. We need to look at getting more people into agricul-ture through promoting farming as a career path so there are a lot of signifi-cant areas we could invest in and need to invest in.”

But that needs to be balanced with requirements in the market as well. $2m a year is invested in market access activ-ities to try to reduce some of the $318m a year in tariffs that farmers pay.

FARMERS NEED SUPPORT ON ENVIRONMENT

Bill Falconer

An on-farm trial found that a mob of spring drop ewes carrying twin lambs that were supplemented into lambing and then their offspring up to weaning produced considerably more meat compared to another mob that had no supplement.

The weaning rates were substantially different.

The supplement mob achieved 159% while the control group attained 139%.

With a lamb birth weight of 4kg, the creep fed supplemented mob grew 25% faster to weaning.

To learn more, visit: advantagefeeders.co.nz/downloads/trials and see: AF_FACT-SHEET-EWE-SUP-NZ.pdf

Supporting ewes with multiple lambs in late pregnancy and creep feeding pays!


NEWS 5

Cost-cutting dairymen scan the milk price horizon for respite

THE NEW Zealand shearing team is about to start a five-week UK tour which includes a surprise return from a brief retirement by Te Kuiti legend David Fagan.

Hastings shearer Dion King and Tony Coster, of Rakaia, open the eight-test tour with a match against Scotland at the Lochearnhead Shears on Saturday.

But, with Coster available only for the first three matches, Fagan is step-ping in for the second of two tests against England, and an annual four-test series against Wales. Fagan (53) had retired in April after 30 years on the open-class competition stage, bowing out with vic-tory in the NZ Shears Circuit final in front of his home crowd.

While that event qualified him for a place in the team, he initially stuck to his guns and turned down the posi-tion, despite the pleadings of Welsh team manager Bill Jones who said that

in Wales “David Fagan is like God – they love him over there.”

When NZ circuit runner-up Coster confirmed he would not be available for the whole tour, Fagan agreed to fill the gap, having already expected to be in the UK for shearing machinery giant Lister.

His return will be at the Great York-shire Show, where five years ago he won his 600th open-class title. He’s expected to attract capacity crowds in Wales, including as defending champion at the Royal Welsh Show, one of the biggest A&P shows in the world.

King, who at Te Kuiti claimed his place in the team with victory in the NZ Open Championships final, is deter-mined to help NZ to its first Wales series victory in Wales since he was last in the team in the UK in 2011.

“But it’s an honour just to be in the team for David Fagan’s last blast,” he said.

Champ’s last blast

A RECOVERY in global dairy prices is on the hori-zon but farmers may not benefit until next season, says Rabobank.

In its latest rural con-fidence survey, the bank says confidence among dairy has taken a hit from the slumping dairy prices.

The last seven GDT events have recorded a drop in the price index covering all products; the next auction will be on Thursday.

The Rabobank survey earlier this month found confidence in the agricul-tural economy had fallen significantly this quarter to a negative net reading of -45%, down from 13% in the March quarter.

However, sheep and beef farmers’ confidence remains the same as last year.

The hangover from a dry summer, coupled with disappointing farmgate returns, flowed into the

neutral outlook held by sheep and beef producers. Similar to last quarter, half of drystock farmers (52%) expect a similar farm busi-ness performance to last year, and they were almost equally spilt as to whether conditions would improve or deteriorate – at 22% and 25%, respectively.

Rabobank New Zealand chief executive Ben Rus-sell says that while dairy farmers are likely to get a better farmgate milk price

than last season, it was still likely to be below the full production cost for many farmers.

Russell says dairy farm-ers were taking steps to reduce their costs. “In response to current pricing signals, we are seeing dairy farmers cut back their rates of supplementary feed and some lower their stocking rates by culling lower per-forming cows, and maxi-mising feed available to a higher quality, but smaller, herd.”

Russell says subdued sentiment in the dairy sector not only had sig-nificant flow-on effects to other agricultural sec-tors and service providers – highlighting the impact of reduced expenditure on grazing and feed inputs by dairy farmers – but also to the wider NZ economy.

In aggregate, NZ farm-

ers revised down their expectations for their own farm business performance to a net negative reading of -17%, from 14% last quarter.

This flowed into invest-ment intentions, with 60% of respondents expecting to maintain their invest-ment, but a smaller pro-portion expecting to increase it.

Russell says the invest-ment appetite amongst dairy farmers had waned, with only 8% holding expansionary intentions during the year.

“This is reflective of the market that dairy farmers are operating in despite the longer-term fundamen-tals remaining positive,” he says.

The Rabobank Rural Confidence Survey is run by research firm TNS, interviewing about 450 farmers each quarter.

Dairy prices are now tipped to rise later this year.

David Fagan.

Freephone 0800 10 22 76 www.pggwrightson.co.nz Helping grow the countryFreephone 0800 10 22 76 www.pggwrightson.co.nz

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6 NEWSIN BRIEF

PRECISE APPLICATION of fertiliser on hill country by fixed-wing aircraft is now a reality, says Balance Agri-Nutrients.

New SpreadSmart technology in topdressing planes will “take precision up a gear,” the company says.

SpreadSmart, a variable rate application system, allows different amounts of fertiliser to be applied to different areas of a farm.

The technology results from Balance’s $19.5 million Clearview Innovations Primary Growth Partnership with MPI, which aims to improve nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency and reduce losses to the environment.

PRECISION TOPDRESSING

HAT-TRICK VINTAGE IF THERE was ever a year to be a wine judge, 2015 is it, says one of New Zealand’s most respected wine industry leaders.

This year will see Master of Wine Steve Smith return to the judging panel of the Hawke’s Bay A&P Bayleys Wine Awards.

“After a decade, it’s great to be back. I’m thrilled to be joining a judging team again for an exceptional year on the back of three outstanding Hawke’s Bay vintages,” says Smith.

Hawke’s Bay is in for some of the best wines the region has ever produced – which was the culmination of three big factors, he says.

Hort growers tipped to be star performers

HORTICULTURE COULD be the star performer in the primary sector this year.

Horticulture NZ outgoing chief executive Peter Silcock says horti-culture is in a very strong position.

“The recovery of kiwifruit is coming through, the apple indus-try is performing quite well. It’s all about changing varieties and targeting Asian markets,” he says. “There’s been a reasonably good harvest both volume wise and quality wise.

“Avocado is going from strength to strength. The vege-table industry is more steady-as-you-go. With exports of squash and onions people always want them to be better, but it is looking positive for the future,

“Probably this year we had one of our best cherry seasons for a very long time which is not a huge

export crop, but significant.” Cher-ries and things like blueberries are very sought after in the Asian market.”

By June most of the major har-vest seasons have finished, start-ing with asparagus and through to the end of kiwifruit which has just finished harvesting. But then the product goes into the market season; for product like kiwifruit and onions that will stretch out for quite a few months.

“One thing is to have a good crop in terms of volume and qual-ity and the other thing is what are the international markets doing? There’s pretty good demand out there and we’ve had the dollar going the right way from an exporter point of view, and with a lot of countries.

“From a market perspective we are seeing continued strong align-ment of the specific exporters in the industry linking much more strongly with their customers and

that’s where the future is for New Zealand horticulture.

“We’ve just got to get better and better at doing that and deliv-ering what they want. That is what a big part of our success to date has been. The big change in values for horticulture is all about connecting with those customers, and scale, and being able to deal

with those big customers, being able to invest in product develop-ment, R&D and getting the deliv-ery mechanisms right within the market share.

“We’re really positive and it’s a good time to be in the horticulture industry.”

Horticulture has a target of becoming a $10 billion industry by 2020. With setbacks like Psa they have wondered at times if they would make that.

“But in the last few years we have seen really strong growth; it is a stretch target but the industry is moving rapidly towards that. You just have to look at the increased value of the pipfruit industry…. That continued recovery in kiwi-fruit will help as well. You are get-ting growth in those really big industries. The target of $10b by 2020 probably with Psa has taken a hit but we are back on track and growing. We may not get to the $10b but we will get close to that.”

PAM TIPA

[email protected]

Peter Silcock has retired as HortNZ chief executive.

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NEWS 7

Award winners hold profit, environmentROTORUA SHEEP and beef farmers John and Catherine Ford are the National Ballance Farm Environment Award winners for 2015.

The Fords also took home the Gordon Stephenson trophy; they are the first North Island farming business to win the award.

Chosen from 10 outstanding regional supreme winners, the Fords’ 1240ha sheep and cattle property stood out for its environmental sustainability and production and performance figures.

Highlands Station is located in the Lake Tarawera and Lake Rotokakahi (Green Lake) catchments so the careful and responsible

management of nutrient runoff was rated by the winners as one of their most critical onfarm issues to get right.

The award judges were impressed with the Fords’ knowledge of how to achieve this including the mix of stock and up to 200 detention dams built to slow runoff and scouring from the hills during heavy rainfall. Detaining water allows it to infiltrate the pervious pumice layer and substantially reduce the runoff of phosphate into waterways and lakes.

Winning this national award depends on having a farming business sit comfortably with environmental sustainability. Highlands Station sheep and cattle production and

profitability was rated in the top 5% in the country with excellent stock in top condition producing an economic farm surplus.

Alongside this the judges saw wise and appropriate land use based on soil capabilities, extensive native bush reserves with 140ha in QEII National Trust covenants and other bush areas protected with the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and good shelter and shade for stock.

Staff relationships and management were excellent, the Fords being ready to seek external advice on any issue. The Fords and the property had strong ties to their community and displayed a deep understanding of a wide range of topics

during the interview stage of the competition.

This Rotorua property had the ‘wow’ factor; it stood out as something special when visited by the judges.

The judges said the Fords were worthy winners of the Gordon Stephenson trophy, and as the 2015 Ballance Farm Environment

Awards National Winners they will be excellent ambassadors.

“They have clearly demonstrated that profitable farming and

good environmental management go hand in hand.”

HIGHLANDS STATION was shaped by volcanic activity which flattened forests, carved out hill faces and left the area covered in phosphate-rich mud.

John Ford’s father Allen began developing the station in the early 1930s and award judges noted the Ford’s “strong family history of

commitment to agriculture”.The station has a “much loved

feel” and its outstanding meat and wool production puts it among New Zealand’s leading sheep and beef farming operations.

The Fords are careful to manage the volcanic soils appropriately, with farm management prac-

tices matching the capabilities and catchment of the land.

Highlands Station also has extensive native bush areas, including 140ha under QE II National Trust covenants.

The owners are passionate about minimising erosion on the challenging contour.

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8 LOWER NORTH ISLAND FLOOD

Flooding worse than 2004?

THERE ARE reports of more than 2000 slips on roads alone and countless more on farms, plus 25 road closures and a dozen farms underwater in the area covered by the Hori-zons Regional Council.

Farmers spoken to by Rural News say that while the 2004 floods were widespread, this event – 130-302mm of rainfall in region – was more local-ised and worse than 2004.

Farms from Otaki in the south to Waitotara in the north and inland to Hunterville were all badly hit.

A major problem was the lack of power to many farms; helicopters were used to fly in emer-gency supplies of food. Fences wiped out by slips have caused huge prob-

lems with stock that were in specific mobs and got mixed up; sorting this out will add to the stress of dealing with flood damage.

In Horowhenua two streams – the Main Drain and the Koputaroa, between Levin and Foxton – broke their banks, flood-ing dairy farms and forc-ing farmers to hurriedly move their stock to higher ground – what little there was of it.

Badly hit was the small settlement of Opiki, north of Shannon, where dairy farms and commer-cial growers found parts of their farms underwa-ter. Clive Akers, who has farmed in the area all his life and takes record-ings for NIWA, says this was heaviest rain ever

recorded in the area. He says 137mm fell over two days.

The road through Opiki to Palmerston North was closed, as water from the Manawatu River came within a few feet of overtopping the stopbank near the main bridge.

James Stewart, Feder-ated Farmers president for the Manawatu/Ran-gitikei area, says meet-ings have been held with Beef + Lamb NZ, DairyNZ, Horizons and MPI to get a complete picture of the scale of the damage.

“Our main concern is the Rangitikei and Whan-ganui areas with the slips. That’s pretty devastat-ing with a lot of farm-ers saying it’s the worst they have seen,” he told

Rural News. “However, it appears to be more local-ised than in 2004, with some areas like Taihape unscathed. It’s more the Whanganui and Hunter-ville areas that have been hammered.”

Stewart knows of at least one farmer who has lost half the tracks on his farm and says it’ll be months before all the fences and tracks and other damage is repaired.

Many farmers in the lower North Island say the heavy rain that hit the area last week was worse than the 2004 floods which devastated the area. Peter Burke reports.

A cow escapes to higher ground as flood waters rage.

Flooding north of Shannon cut off access to dairy farms.

Damaged fencing on a farm in Waikawa.

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LOWER NORTH ISLAND FLOOD 9

Farmers will cope, says GuyPRIMARY INDUSTRIES Minister Nathan Guy toured some of the worst-hit farms in the Whanganaui and Ran-gitikei areas. During that tour he declared the flooded area a medium-scale adverse event for the primary sector, fol-lowing a request from farming leaders in the region to do this.

Guy says declaring a medium-scale adverse event triggers additional Government support for farmers in the area covered by the Horizons and Taranaki regional councils. MPI will continue monitoring conditions closely.

“A recovery coordinator will be appointed to coordi-nate the activities of local rural support trusts and other industry groups in order to provide help where it is most needed and to provide a liaison point for government agencies.”

He says many rural people can be reluctant to ask for help, but it is important for them to know that support is available.

Guy says during his tour he saw a lot of damage to pri-vate property and roads and, in particular, a lot of slipping. Some farmers say it’s worse than 2004, while others don’t think it’s as bad.

“The difference between this one and ‘04 is this one is in the middle of winter and the soil was pretty wet before the rain arrived.”

Guy says the weather bomb will be challenging for some dairying, coming as it did just weeks before calving. But he believes farmers will cope and says many plan for such events.

Cows in a flooded maize paddock in the Manawatu.

Silage bales couldn’t escape the floods.

A flooded paddock in the Manawatu.

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10 SOUTH ISLAND DAIRY EVENT

Failing to plan is planning to failIF THERE was one take-home message from the first day of last week’s South Island Dairy Event it was the need to plan.

“If you do plan, you will be much more suc-cessful in life,” renowned entrepreneur Sir Ray Avery told the 500 or so

delegates during his open-ing keynote address. “If you don’t plan, you’re living a life of ricochets bouncing from one event to the next.”

Later, Everest-con-quering mountaineer and extreme marathon runner Mike Allsop echoed the planning point. “I just build a really strong plan

so that when I’m over-whelmed – and I know I will be at some point – I just stick to the plan and take the next step.”

Their comments set the scene for the three day conference in Lincoln which splices practical management workshops with inspirational keynote addresses.

Allsop, one of only half a dozen people ever to have run seven mara-thons on seven continents in seven days, relayed his three foundations or prin-ciples: to dream; to plan; and to “never, ever, give up.” “If I don’t give up I can never fail.”

By dreaming he refines ideas to the point they

become goals, though he stressed the process is “completely different to goal setting”.

Meanwhile the plan-ning for Everest included meticulously analysing why others had failed and mentally preparing for things like passing dead climbers on the route.

“The number one

reason I found people failed was punctuality,” he said, explaining how a summit attempt needs to start at 9pm the previous evening. “I started getting ready at 4pm.”

Another ‘take home’ from Avery was to focus on customer needs, not what you produce. “In everything you do, you must be customer centric, not product centric. That applies to everyone in this room,” he told the mostly dairy farmer audi-ence.

He also stressed the power of teams during a broad ranging and entertaining “journey” through his life and how he became a New Zealander. “Everyone in this room is clever, but not one of us is as clever as all of us put together. The thing that’s made me very successful is building teams…. If you get it right you will become unassail-able in everything you do

in life.”Avery, an ex-pat

orphan, lauded the New Zealand attitude that nothing is impossible, explaining how after a couple of years travelling the world he knew from the moment he arrived at Auckland airport he’d “found home.”

“For Kiwis ‘impossi-ble’ is just a starting point.

None of the things I’ve achieved on the world stage would have hap-pened if I hadn’t come to New Zea-land.”

Not that his early career in

the UK – starting at age 14 with running away from an orphanage for the ump-teenth time – had been a failure. “I wanted to be a millionaire by 26. Well I got that wrong. I was a triple millionaire by 26,” the now 67-year-old told the SIDE audience.

ANDREW SWALLOW

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SOUTH ISLAND DAIRY EVENT 11

Rural health service on a precipice

Kaikoura GP Chris Henry say rural residents are getting a raw deal in health service.

SPEAKING TO Rural News after his SIDE speech, Sir Ray Avery said he thinks the whole dairy industry is too “product focussed”.

“Fonterra would be the first to say they haven’t really diversified into higher value products but I think farmers could think about that too.”

Some are breaking away from Fonterra with their own customer-focussed ventures, he noted, but they

should also be pushing their co-oper-ative to be more market led, he said, criticising the light-proof milk bottle initiative.

“That’s all just rubbish in terms of the real science on the time the prod-uct sees light. It’s really a failed mar-keting thing.”

A better approach is market-ing “boutique” milk products such as nutritionally fortified blends, he

believes.“I would buy a super-fat milk for

instance.”Avery says Fonterra is starting to

move in the right direction, but the inertia for that is coming from com-petitors and typically it takes 20 years to ring the changes in “embedded” industry organisations such as Fon-terra, he warned.– Andrew Swallow

INDUSTRY TOO PRODUCT FOCUSED

Sir Ray Avery has criticised Fonterra’s light-proof milk bottles.

DON’T ACCEPT a second-rate health service just because you live in a rural area, delegates at last week’s South Island Dairy Event heard.

“You get a pretty raw deal in rural communities and I think people need to be complaining about it,” Kaikoura-based GP and hospital doctor Chris Henry said.

Already 25% of rural practices are down a doctor and the average age of rural GPs is 54 and rising. Many are over retirement age but still

working so numbers could “drop off a cliff ” as they retire given young medics’ reluctance to work in rural areas, he warned.

Lack of internet, limited social life and school choice, long or anti-social hours are all factors in that reluctance which Henry suggested Government needs to do more to counter.

However, rural communities could also play a part by championing rural life and welcoming newcomers into their social networks, he said.

“The whole community needs to

think about promoting the rural sector, whatever their skill is.”

Telemedicine where doctor and patient consult by phone or preferably visual internet link such as Skype has an increasing role but won’t happen without better broadband.

Meanwhile rural stoicism over ailments or injury can do more harm than good, particularly with ACC using delay in going to the doctor as a reason not to pay.

Henry pointed out that for all the publicity over injury rates in forestry, dairy is in fact the worst sector with

45,000 injuries in the past five years. Stock, followed by vehicles, lifting and falls are the most frequent causes, with a spike in injuries during August.

Within vehicles, across the whole of agriculture quadbikes accounted for 2500 serious injuries and on average five deaths/year in 2008-2013. Some of those would have been rural recreation, not farming, and of the injuries only 10% were head injuries and only 20% of those (ie 2% of total quadbike injuries) were concussions. The quadbike deaths

were “nearly all crush injuries.”

“Helmets are clearly a good idea but they’re not the whole answer.”

Over the same 2008-2013 period 180 rural suicides were recorded and that toll is rising whereas there were 112 farm accident deaths and that toll is falling, he added.

“There were over

five times as many rural suicides as there were quadbike deaths. Is there the same level of Government interest?.... Sadly not,” he said.

Henry urged SIDE delegates to look after themselves better both mentally and physically and not to confuse being busy with being physically active.

“Perhaps this is the

most dangerous thing about quadbikes.”

Half of dairy farmers have high blood pressure, three-quarters have high cholesterol and nearly as many are overweight, he pointed out.

“These are primary risk factors for heart disease. This is going to emerge as quite a significant problem.”

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12 NEWS

THE WINNER of the Bay of Plenty Young Fruit Grower of Year, Craig Ward (26), says from early childhood he wanted a career in horticulture.

As a primary-schooler in Katikati he may have been the only child who watched Maggies Garden Show on television. He then told his mother he wanted to own an orchard or work in horticulture.

Last week Ward, a technical manager for the Apata Group packhouse company, won the award ahead of seven other com-petitors from the region. He now goes on to compete with young fruitgrowers from other regions and potentially to the young horticulturalist of the year competition later in 2015.

Ward, B.Appl.Sc in horticulture from Massey University, says though he was happy with his science knowledge, he spent time before the competition honing

practical skills such as pruning and tractor driving.

Local MP and former Zespri employee Todd Muller presented Ward with the win-ner’s cup. He told the 250 guests at the awards evening that the kiwifruit indus-try should do more to celebrate the way it has managed its way through the Psa crisis. This has taken phenomenal collective for-titude, he says.

“The kiwifruit industry sets the bench-mark for focusing on the things that unite it rather than getting distracted by the things that could divide it. It has come through an extraordinary period to where great confidence is now being expressed about its performance.”

Muller says now the industry has recov-ered from Psa the time might be right to look at whether the people who work at all levels of the kiwifruit industry are being valued appropriately – whether people are being paid in a way that reflects the success of the industry.

Inspired by Maggie in the garden

‘Proud to be a farmer’ campaign coming

Platinum Primary Producers chairman Shane McManaway.

A ‘PROUD to be a Farmer’ campaign is to be launched by a group of influential New Zealand and Australian livestock primary producers.

“We will tell the farmer’s journey, grow a couple of inches taller and be incredibly proud,” says Shane McManaway, chairman of the Platinum Primary Producers (PPP).

The ‘proud’ campaign is a key outcome of the tenth conference of PPP held in Darwin last week.

“As farmers we are inclined to be conservative in nature and take the ‘stay hidden, stay happy approach’,”

says McManaway. “We are saying ‘to hell with that, we have been in the chute too long and it is time we opened the gate’, to use a rodeo term, and get out there and start to tell people, especially the urban people.”

PPP was founded by McManaway, a Wairarapa farmer and Allflex Australasia head, and comprises 137 agribusiness men and women in sheep, beef, dairy and deer.

McManaway told Rural News the group will promote and launch the ‘Proud to be a Farmer’ campaign. “It is pretty obvious that across the two countries we share the same challenges and issues.

They are environmental sustainability, animal welfare and food safety,” he says.

“There is a divide between the rural sector and the urban sector and we think that is by and large a misunderstanding, so we will see if we can bridge that gap.”

PPP will formulate a plan for what ‘proud to be a farmer’ means. “Then we will build a title that cascades down from under that, of those three pillars, environmental, welfare and safety.”

A media campaign will then be launched aimed at the urban sector and where urban people will be reading it. McManaway says they want urban cafe

customers in Sydney, Auckland or Wellington to pick it up and read about “proud to be a farmer”.

A couple of PPP members who are large farmers in both countries will give testimonials on what makes them proud to be a farmer with pictures of their properties.

PPP represents a massive part of farming in two countries and has a strong Anzac spirit, McManaway says.

McManaway says in NZ a lot of people are looking over farmers’ shoulders making sure they do the right thing for the environment.

“More importantly we want to do things right,”

he says. “More than 98% of farmers do things by the letter of the law and want the place to be kept in a pristine condition so our future generations can enjoy what we are enjoying today.

“In terms of animal welfare, that goes without saying. If you are a farmer and not looking after your animals you shouldn’t be a farmer. Again we all live and breathe looking after our animals. It is critically important that their welfare is maintained and that goes across both countries and should go across the world.”

In this age of social media it is easy thing to get caught out. “And you should get caught

out, so you need to make sure you’ve got all those areas covered off, all our employees understand what it means and we tell the message to the greater world that animals are everything to us.

“Food safety is critically important for Australia and NZ. Speaking for NZ, we have a clean green image and everywhere around the world people know us for that…. We need to

maintain that because if we lost that label we would have a difficult job as a nation to sell our produce anywhere.

“Australia is in exactly the same boat. Without question all the people in our group are unanimous we must maintain that aspect of agriculture.”

PPP represents about 20 million livestock and some 12 million hectares (around 25%) of land ownership in Australia and NZ.

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14 NEWS

SHEEP MILK VENTURE EYES ASIAA JOINT venture looking to export high quality sheep milk products to Asian consumers will start operation later this year.

Spring Sheep Dairy is a joint ven-ture between Landcorp and the SLC Group.

Spring Sheep Dairy chief executive and director Scottie Chapman says SSD’s long term goal is to export high value, high quality sheep milk prod-ucts to Asian consumers.

“We’re still to milk our first sheep so obviously there’s a long way to go and we will take a careful, considered approach, but we are excited about the opportunities this joint venture

offers,” Chapman says.Landcorp chief executive Steven

Carden says the company is well-placed to make a go of the new venture.

“Landcorp has the scale to create a thriving sheep milk business. We have a lot of experience farming sheep, a successful sheep genetics business, the country’s largest dairy cow herd and a network of innovative farms throughout New Zealand,” Carden says.

Spring Sheep Dairy’s first farm will be on 400ha at Reporoa, central North Island, now converting to milk 3000 East Friesian sheep this spring.

When fully operational, it will milk 3500 sheep and produce about 1 million litres of milk.

Chapman says most of the milk will be sent to independent processor FoodWaikato for drying. Small volumes of other products will also be developed for trial in-market.

“It’s a fledgling operation at present, with a focus on building a quality East Friesian sheep milking flock and working with end market consumers to find out what their needs are so we can create and supply the right branded products.”

Customers in Taiwan and Korea are the initial focus.

TRANSPARENCY WILL ASSIST PUBLIC DEBATEMORE OPENESS on some aspects of the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations would help the public debate, says NZ International Busi-ness Forum executive director Stephen Jacobi.

It would also help the

public understand the Government is trying to do its best in a compli-cated area, he told Rural News.

“It is difficult for the Government to nego-tiate in public. I wouldn’t be advocating that and I

wouldn’t be advocating that the text for nego-tiations or the market access schedules be released – that would run the risk of making the negotiations too compli-cated and too difficult to conclude,” he says.

“But the Govern-ment could be more open about background information on the nego-tiation, how it is being negotiated, what is under negotiation, what the process is and how it might be ratified.”

Fonterra needs to perform – MirakaTHE CHAIR of the Maori dairy company Miraka, Kingi Smiler, says his company is more resilient in lower payout years than Fonterra.

Smiler has faith in the business model and strategy of Miraka, but wants Fon-terra to improve its performance so that his company can pay more to its farmer suppliers. Traditionally Miraka has paid 10c/kgMS more than Fonterra.

Smiler’s comments came at a field day at Wairarapa Moana Incorporation (WMI) which he also chairs. It is a 27% shareholder in Miraka and the dairy company’s big-gest single supplier.

WMI is located near Man-gakino, central North Island, where it runs 10,000 cows on 12 farms plus three support blocks, producing 4 million kgMS annually.

The field day, run jointly with the Fed-eration of Maori Authorities (FOMA) and DairyNZ, was intended to share WMI’s journey with Maori farmers in particular, and with other farmers.

“Our objective has always been to run a vertically integrated business and Miraka is part of the strategy we created five years ago,” Smiler explains.

“The operation now aims to keep building on that and to make sure we have a resilient business that can manage the volatility in payout and the environ-ment and all those challenges likely to come in future. We still expect to be run-ning a resilient and profitable organisa-

tion through all those challenges.” Despite the incessant rain, the field

day attracted at least 100 people who heard from FOMA, DairyNZ, WMI staff and WorkSafe NZ. Knowing the weather was going to be bad, WMI staff placed large hay bales inside the covered yards of the woolshed, and installed lighting and heating, comfortable for the morn-ing presentations. In the afternoon, visi-tors were bussed to see new dairy sheds and other infrastructure on the 3900ha

property. This included the huge pivot irrigators which, surprise surprise, weren’t running.

At least a third of the farm is irrigated. New pasture spe-cies such as lucerne have been planted to deal with the dry summers on the porous pumice soils.

“The success of WMI is having a clear strategy, a lot of discipline and the ability at the end of the day to train and retain good staff,” Smiler says.

“That will be the fundamental chal-lenge for us going forward, as it has been in the past. To build a resilient business we have to have the best people who are well-trained and we do a lot of work building that capability and capacity in our staff.”

Field day attendees told Rural News they couldn’t help being impressed by the hard work that had made the farms as good as they are. “The land here wasn’t always like this,” one said. – Peter Burke

Kingi Smiler

NZ must fight for dairy in trade dealTHE TRANS Pacific Part-nership (TPP) trade deal could now be completed by the end of the year but New Zealand will have to work hard to get a good deal for dairy, says NZ International Business Forum executive direc-tor Stephen Jacobi.

US President Barack Obama will now want to move fast on TPP, having resolved political issues to get the 12-country deal fast-tracked.

Jacobi says both Prime Minister John Key and Trade Minister Tim Groser have indicated the stage reached on dairy so far in negotiations is not attractive enough for NZ.

“From what we know of negotiations we under-stand there has not been any meaningful discus-sion on those dairy issues between the United States, Canada and Japan

and that’s got to happen,” Jacobi told Rural News. “That means we still have quite a bit of hard negoti-ating to do.

“One risk is that the Americans, having sorted out their own backyard, will now be telling every-body to get on with it as quickly as possible and will be bringing a lot of pressure to bear with negotiations. We will just have to stand tough for a deal which meets our interests.”

Others will also have products – such as sugar, textiles or beef – they want a good deal for. The NZ team will have to make sure everyone stands together on those deals.

“NZ will not have a lot of strength on its own; that is why we will need to rally the others. All of them have market access issues they want to be dealt with as well,” Jacobi says.

“Clearly if we were just

negotiating by ourselves it would be complicated. This is a little better but I don’t underestimate the difficulty and we will have to see where that process takes us.”

The deal could be done by the end of the year, but this depends on the negotiating process. The Americans will want to finish it but our Government has been clear it will only sign up to a high quality TPP that

delivers overall benefits for NZ. “It’s not after a deal at any cost,” says Jacobi.

Trade Minister Groser says dairy remains one of the most sensitive issues in the TPP negotiations. “While good progress has been made, further work is required to ensure the end result is acceptable to NZ and aligns with the objectives Leaders have set for TPP,” he told Rural News.

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NEWS 15

Designers carry the flag for woolTHE INSPIRING way in which Australia pro-motes wool used in its fashion and interiors sec-tors prompted Auckland fashion editor and stylist Anna Caselberg to initiate a fashion wool week this year – ‘Choose Wool 2015’.

The inaugural ‘We’re loving Wool’ week last year involved a number of New Zealand high fashion designers, with a major kick-off event – includ-ing sheep shearing – in the trendy Britomart precinct of Auckland. It was organ-ised in conjunction with Elders Primary Wool.

Caselberg says the designers were asking if it was happening again, but despite funding not being available from the farm-ing sector this year for the fashion wool sector, she decided “let’s just do it”.

Twenty designer window displays were got up for the ‘Choose Wool 2015’ initiative, held June 8-15. A campaign image depicted a girl in a wool coat made by Beverley Forrester from the South Island’s BlackHills which produces yarns and fash-ion from its own sheep on its Canterbury farm. Forrester also met some costs of the promotional material for ‘Choose Wool 2015’.

The designers were mainly in Auckland, some in Wellington. Caselberg had reports that the cam-paign brought people into the stores asking ques-tions and generally raised awareness of wool.

In the South Island she suggested to fash-ion brand Untouched World that they embla-zon winter fashion images and Choose Wool 2015 on a ‘sustainable’ car to tie in with the sustainable image of wool; they used a Nissan Leaf electric car sponsored by Cockram Nissan.

Caselberg says together with major knit-wear brand Standard Issue they have launched a ter-tiary design competition for students, to stimulate interest in designing in

wool. Make Wool Modern will be judged next week. The winner will get work with the company’s prin-cipal designers as they create their next range. Caselberg would like next year to approach the inte-riors sector about getting involved, especially given the prevalence of strong wool in New Zealand.

“Any way we can educate the public to think about wool, especially in our sectors, is the aim of these initiatives,” she says.

She admires the way Australian Wool Innova-tion and Woolmark get behind fashion and ele-vate wool continually over the Tasman and around the world, she says.

“I am stimulated by what they do, but in our country we have no one championing the use of wool in fashion and inte-rior design, yet it is being used in those products. It needs to be talked about and shown.”

Caselberg says she has always been pro-wool as a fashion stylist and editor, and formerly did media shows for the Wool Board.

“I have loved wool for a long time and now that there is an interna-tional Campaign for Wool it is time to get in behind them. It is fantastic what we do with wool; we need to keep the conversation going with consumers.”

She says some people even in New Zealand do not know wool comes from a sheep. “It’s not as if we don’t have an industry; it’s being used in fashion and interiors. But it’s not being talked about how fabulous it is.”

The motto for the event this year was ‘Choose Wool – Sup-port New Zealand’s over-achieving fibre’ and all its attributes were named.

“We want to shout loud. I do it myself because I’ve got the sup-port of all the design companies. I am very motivated to support wool; New Zealand has to have its hand up.

“We are hoping for a bigger event backed by farmers next year. This

PAM TIPA

[email protected]

is year two; we will keep the conversation going and as soon as the farm-ers can support it I know they will.

“Somebody has to be

out there championing the benefits of wool in this sector. The rurals all know the benefits of wool; we need to turn the heads of the urban sector.”

Caselberg also plans a Wool Show at Vector Arena as part of Fashion Week in August.

@rural_news


Auckland fashion stylist Anna Caselberg.

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16 WORLD

EU moves will slash grain supplyEUROPEAN LEGISLATION threatens to slash the trading bloc’s grain output, so boosting prices globally, growers at the UK’s Cereals event were told last month.

Moves to ban triazole fungicides will see the alternative SDHI chemistry soon overcome by resistant strains of disease resulting in lower yields across the board, NIAB TAG’s Bill Clarke warned.

For European growers the outcome won’t be catastrophic: yields will fall but prices will rise to compensate, Clarke predicted. But for poor countries reliant on grain imports the outlook is grim. “I believe people will starve,” he said.

The reason EU legislators plan to ban triazoles is a theoretical endocrine disruption risk, but after four decades

of widespread use there’s little or no data to show they’re causing problems, said Clarke.

He’s lobbied hard to get legislators to reconsider but says he has “almost stopped” because his arguments are falling on deaf ears in France and Germany. “The UK Government is very aware of this issue. The problem is in the European context.”

Clarke said he was at a loss how to persuade the policymakers to reconsider, but later made a comment which could hold the answer.

“How many migrants will be picked up from the Mediterranean when these people are starving as well as being persecuted?” he asked, reflecting on the tens of thousands who have already fled North Africa and Syria this European summer.

New chemistry won’t replace the triazoles, he says, as the extreme cost of

product development and meeting ever more stringent legislative requirements has slowed the supply of novel actives “to a trickle”.

“This is part of the problem. People think the cavalry in the form of new chemistry will come over the hill at the last minute but all the new chemistry we’ll see in the next 10 years will not replace the triazoles…. This is a very short-term thing that’s going to happen and it will happen in less than ten years, and possibly within five years. We have to react now.”

That reaction, from a UK perspective, should be a change to the Recommended List system to favour more disease resistant cultivars.

“If you had 5% lower yield but half the spend on fungicides why wouldn’t you grow it? At the moment we don’t have a system for doing that.”

Average wheat yield response to

fungicides in UK Recommended List varieties in 2014 was 1.7t/ha, with the response of the more disease susceptible recommended cultivars up to 2.7t/ha. The highest response in the trials was 7.9t/ha with a wheat cultivar that would “never get recommended” but the fact it was entered for consideration highlights

breeders’ focus on yield before disease resistance. “We select on treated yield all too often.”

Clarke says the looming triazole legislation means frequently aired aspirations of raising yields in the UK are a pipe dream. “Everybody talks about getting off the yield plateau. Well we’ll be lucky to stay on it,” he said.

ANDREW SWALLOW

GET ON WITH TB FIGHT – UK FARMERS

Grain output in Europe is tipped to fall.

UK FARMERS are urging their Government to implement its 25-year TB eradication strategy immediately and in full to ensure farmer support for it remains strong.

NFU president Meurig Raymond says farmers support the strategy but are frustrated at the lack

of action to introduce its various elements.

“The farming indus-try needs to see more urgency in the imple-mentation of the whole strategy and better com-munication of its mea-sures and aims. Now is the time to build on the determination of the

farming industry to eradi-cate this disease which is destroying farming busi-nesses and families.”

Raymond says differ-ent elements of the strat-egy are urgently needed in different parts of the country and needed to be introduced as a matter of urgency.

“We need appropriate and proportionate mea-sures to keep the disease out of the low risk area of England.

“We need more tar-geted measures to stop the spread in the edge area (between the high and low risk areas). In particular we need better

information on the local infection rate in wildlife in this area.

“And we need further pilot culls in the high risk area. Farmers are com-mitted to playing their part in this but need to see that commitment reciprocated by the Gov-ernment.”

Statistics released by the UK Government in April show the provi-sional incidence rate for January 2015 was 3.9% compared to 4.5% for Jan-uary 2014.

However, it states that care needs to be taken not to read too much into short term figures,

especially as this figure includes a number of unclassified incidents.

The number of new herd incidents in January 2015 was 494 compared to 534 in January 2014.

The number of cattle compulsorily slaughtered in January 2015 was 2977 vs 2923 in January 2014.


WORLD 17

Oz lamb cooks up a winMEAT & LIVESTOCK Australia’s (MLA) Australia Day lamb advertisement has won TV Ad of the Year.

The ‘Richie’s BBQ’ Australia Day campaign ad, developed by independent media agency The Monkeys, claimed ‘TV Ad of the Year’ at the annual Mumbrella media awards with a popular vote of 41,000.

The commercial features Australian cricket commentator the late Richie Benaud calling on the original Lambassador Sam Kekovich and a host of other national icons – including Captain Cook – to join him in bringing Australians together to share lamb on Australia Day.

MLA’s “You’re better on Beef ” campaign also made the final six, recognised for their effectiveness before being put to a popular vote.

MLA consumer programmes marketing manager Andrew

Howie said the ‘Richie’s BBQ’ Australia Day campaign saw a 35.3% sales lift versus the weekly average, for the week preceding Australia Day. Media coverage of the campaign also reached 69 million people.

“This is one of MLA’s most successful Australia Day campaigns on record in 10 years of campaigns. Our objective is to ensure we drive lamb demand and equally to foster Australia’s love affair with lamb.

“In conjunction with last year’s Spring Lamb campaign, these campaigns have returned $3.99 of value for each $1 of investment,” Howie said.

MLA central marketing general manager Lisa Sharp says recognition of both beef and lamb ads underpinned MLA’s whole body of work.

“We are delighted to receive these accolades from industry, particularly going up against some of the best in the business,

and with a significantly smaller budget,” she said.

“For MLA, what matters most is driving demand for red meat in Australia. We will continue to pursue effective marketing programmes that deliver returns for producers and across the industry.”

MLA’s domestic marketing

team was also named runner-up in the Marketing Team of the Year, competing against IAG, Tourism Australia, Sportsbet and Barnados.

The new beef ad has also won an international gong as one of only three ads from around the world recognised as a New York Festival finalist.

The late Ritchie Bernard fronted the TV campaign.

UK farmers’ popularity continues to growFARMERS ARE becoming more popular in England and Wales, according to a recent survey by National Farmers Union.

A OnePoll survey of 2000 people from England and Wales had 68% of respondents expressing a positive view of farmers, up from 60% in 2012.

The survey also reveals that at least 90% of people said they thought agriculture was important to the UK economy, up from 83% in 2012. And on looking after the countryside, 75% of people said they believed farmers had a beneficial or very beneficial effect, up from

72%.NFU president

Meurig Raymond believes the growing positive trend was due in part to farmers and growers being more open and championing what they do.

“I am seeing more and more how farmers are speaking directly to the public,” he says. “Whether that’s capitalising on social media to share with them compelling reasons to back British farming and buy British food, or the recent successes seen during Open Farm Sunday last weekend

where farmers threw open their farm gates to speak directly to the public about what they do.

“At the NFU we have used our Back British

Farming campaign to focus on farming’s contribution to the economy and to the countryside; as expert food producers we have capitalised the public’s desire to know more about where their food

comes from.”He says the massive

growth trend in NFU’s social media channels also goes hand-in-hand with farming’s growing public support.

NFU’s Twitter channel has gone from 4600 in 2012 to around 31,000 today. And views on YouTube have

gone from hundreds four years ago to reaching hundreds of thousands of interested people today.

“In the run up to the general election our website also received more than 15,000

pledges from people casting their vote for British food,” he says. “All of this is great news for a sector that has had its fair share of challenges in recent times.

“We’ve seen in recent weeks very visible public

support for farming and farmers in public and in the media and I would like to thank them for that. But we cannot rest on our laurels. We must continue using all the tools we have to tell our story and state the case for British food and

farming. This survey is a

clear indicator of public support. Now, when farm gate prices are low, retailers and government must also continue showing their support and visibly back British farming.”

“We’ve seen in recent weeks very visible public support for farming and farmers in public and in the media.”

NFU president Meurig Raymond.

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CONTENTS Pages

Calving & Rearing ................2-15

Dairy & Beef ......................16-23

Milking ...............................24-36

Hoofcare Large Animal .....37-47

Marking & Identification ....48-50

Drenching & Injecting ........51-59

Sheep & Goats ..................60-68

Pig & Poultry ......................69-77

Grooming & Show .............78-85

Companion Animal ............86-97

Home & Farm ..................98-115

INDEX AT BACK

Twenty Fifth Edition 01 May 2015 to 30 April 20162015 FARMER’S CATALOGUE

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LAMB MARKET TRENDSBEEF MARKET TRENDSMARKET SNAPSHOT


18 MARKETS & TRENDS

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Beef & venison prices are reported as gross (before normal levies & charges are deducted). Lamb & mutton prices are reported nett (after levies & charges are deducted).

BEEF PRICES

c/kgCWT Change Last Week

2 Wks Ago

Last Year

NI P2 Steer - 300kg +2 5.52 5.50 4.70M2 Bull - 300kg +2 5.57 5.55 4.60P2 Cow - 230kg +2 4.72 4.70 3.90M Cow - 200kg +2 4.62 4.60 3.75

Local Trade - 230kg n/c 5.35 5.35 4.75SI P2 Steer - 300kg n/c 5.20 5.20 4.25

M2 Bull - 300kg n/c 5.05 5.05 4.10P2 Cow - 230kg n/c 3.85 3.85 3.02M Cow - 200kg n/c 3.75 3.75 2.97

Local Trade - 230kg n/c 5.20 5.20 4.40

Slaughter

Export Market DemandChange Last Week 2 Wks

Ago Last Year 5yr Ave

95CL US$/lb +5 2.40 2.35 2.27 1.93NZ$/kg +25 7.63 7.38 5.75 5.39

Procurement IndicatorChange 2Wks Ago 3 Wks


% Returned NI -2% 72.7% 74.5% 79.97% 79.8%% Returned SI -2% 66.2% 67.8% 71.3% 72.5%

LAMB PRICES

c/kgCWTChange Last

Week2 Wks

AgoLast Year

NI Lamb YM - 13.5kg n/c 5.11 5.11 6.01PM - 16.0kg n/c 5.13 5.13 6.03PX - 19.0kg n/c 5.15 5.15 6.05PH - 22.0kg n/c 5.16 5.16 6.06

Mutton MX1 - 21kg n/c 3.15 3.15 3.65SI Lamb YM - 13.5kg n/c 4.83 4.83 5.76

PM - 16.0kg n/c 4.83 4.83 5.78PX - 19.0kg n/c 4.83 4.83 5.80PH - 22.0kg n/c 4.83 4.83 5.81

Mutton MX1 - 21kg n/c 2.58 2.58 3.20

Slaughter

Export Market DemandChange Last

Week2 Wks


UK Leg £/lb n/c 1.68 1.68 2.18 1.95NZ$/kg +8 7.83 7.75 8.45 8.18

Procurement IndicatorChange 2Wks

Ago3 Wks


% Returned NI -1% 67.0% 67.7% 72.2% 72.9%% Returned SI -1% 61.9% 62.6% 69.8% 67.2%

Venison PricesChange Last

Week2 Wks


NI Stag - 60kg n/c 6.58 6.58 6.15 6.82SI Stag - 60kg n/c 6.35 6.35 6.20 7.01

NEWS PRICE WATCH


MARKETS & TRENDS 19

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BEEF: Cattle slaughter prices

across the country are generally firming on the back of a lower NZD and a tighter supply of slaughter stock. Processing capacity has been reduced to winter numbers, however procurement competition is inevitable at this time of year. Heavy kill rates year to date could put additional pressure on this year’s winter slaughter rates. While slaughter rates are certainly slowing in the North Island (NI), the volume being processed is higher than expected for this time of year. This is being driven by tight feed supplies in some parts and dairy farmers continuing to cull deeper into their herds. In the South Island (SI) cattle slaughter is in winter mode and most farmers have winter numbers tidied. A shortage of local trade supply is expected to see prices firm in the short term which could result in export prime schedules following suit.

BEEF INTERNATIONAL: US

imported beef prices have found the bottom and are on the way back up, albiet slowly. The lift has been driven by a reduction in forward offers out of NZ as cattle slaughter rates decline. As the market improves the level of interest has lifted as end-users buy

before prices get higher. The market is picked to continue to improve from here on in but the acceleration is expected to be slow with large quantities of meat in transition to the market and inventories high. Kill rates from Australia have yet to abate, and until they drop off, imported prices will be restricted.

SHEEP: Lamb processing chains in

the NI are full this week. While slaughter rates are higher than normal for this time of year, the problem has been exasperated by processors reducing capacity. Waiting times of up to 2 weeks for kill space are common. Any lifts in shedules through June are unlikely against this background. In the SI lamb operating prices are holding their own despite falling printed schedules. Lamb kill numbers are winding down with plants preparing for maintenance closures.

SHEEP INTERNATIONAL:

Market prices for lamb remain depressed, however a weaker NZD is helping to offset the negative impact on NZD returns. Demand from the UK and EU remains quiet for NZ product as UK production is soaking up most of the demand. Frozen leg prices remain under pressure. Flap

inventories in China are still making this item a hard sell, but prices for other items are being aided by the lower NZD. Demand from the US has picked up as Australian exports have dropped back. Middle Eastern markets remain under pressure with high inventories of product from both Australia and NZ. The NZ kill continues to

track higher than expectations. Against a backdrop of slow global sales this is not an ideal situation for processors, and most will be looking for a drop off in slaughter rates to prevent inventories growing.

WOOL PRICE WATCH Overseas Wool Price Indicators

Indicators in NZ$ Change 11-Jun 04-Jun Last Year Indicators in US$/kg Change 11-Jun 04-Jun Last

YearCoarse Xbred -9 5.54 5.63 5.25 Coarse Xbred -14 3.89 4.03 4.51

Fine Xbred -4 6.53 6.57 5.57 Fine Xbred -11 4.58 4.70 4.79

Lamb -6 7.33 7.39 5.35 Lamb -14 5.15 5.28 4.60

Mid Micron - - - 7.00 Mid Micron - - - 6.02


20 AGRIBUSINESS

Staying the course in value addIN RECENT months we’ve seen speculation from some commentators on the uncertain future of co-operative dairying in New Zealand – in which private companies and foreign investment trumps generations of local market expertise and value add is lost in the margins.

There is no question that a fight is on for share of New Zealand milk, and while there are new players entering the market – many backed by foreign capital – having the balance sheet to build a dryer will only ever be half the equation.

When it comes to high volume commodities such as whole milk powder, adding value is reliant on a secure, high volume of milk. With scale in milk supply comes lower cost of production per litre, greater efficiency and more value out the back end when that product reaches the market. Driving value for farmers by leveraging scale – one of Fonterra’s competitive advantages – is where we excel.

Those who cannot compete at scale typically see their margins in

commodities becoming increasingly unsustainable and, as a result, burn capital in their attempt to pay a competitive milk price that attracts and retains supply.

We add further value by driving every last cent out of the cost of processing. This focus on efficiency has seen our skim milk dryers, for example, running 20% more efficiently than comparable plants in the US, despite their lower energy costs and, in many cases, lower wage costs.

At our Studholme site in South Canterbury we have been able to achieve a 25% increase in efficiency on the previous owner’s output by implementing our systems and processes and maintaining stringent cost and quality control measures.

Continuing to identify and generate value in commodities is vital. We are confident that growth in demand for milk powder, which sits at around 5%, will bounce back. Our competition sees it too, which is why they are building their dryers here in New Zealand and chasing supply.

We’ll meet that growth and get every cent of value out of our powders with new high efficiency dryers at Pahiatua and Lichfield which are on track for completion in the coming seasons.

Investing ahead of the milk growth curve gives us greater flexibility to take advantage of relative market prices, especially around the peak of the season. It also gives us options in the products we can make, meaning we are more agile in meeting product trends and changes in customer demand.

On top of this, we’re growing our consumer and foodservice businesses,

whose revenue has increased from $4.6 billion in 2003 to $6.3 billion in 2014. Whereas two years ago, foodservice accounted for less than 5% of our global milk pool, it now represents more than 8% of an even larger milk pool.

The co-operative’s goal is for 40% of sales volumes to be made up of these value added products by 2025, and we are investing to meet this target with recent expansions in UHT, cream cheese and mozzarella processing, and the doubling of our slice-on-slice cheese manufacturing later this year.

At this difficult time for New Zealand dairy farmers, we will take nothing for granted and will continue to fight for every dollar. We’ll achieve that through a focus on operational excellence and by staying the course on our value add strategy. Our farmers understand better than anyone the benefits of our scale, particularly when times are tough, and it’s that scale and efficiency that will unquestionably see us through.• Robert Spurway is Fonterra’s managing director global operations.

ROBERT SPURWAY

Fonterra managing director global operations Robert Spurway.

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AGRIBUSINESS 21

Houpapa confirmed as Landcorp chair

MAORI BUSINESS leader Traci Houp-apa has been appointed chair of Land-corp Farming. She has acted in the position since May last year.

Houpapa is also the chair of the Federation of Maori Authorities (FOMA), a collective with an asset base of $8 billion in primary industries, energy, tourism and other commercial interests.

She is also chair of the Te Uranga B2 Incorporation with major farming interests – dairying and sheep and beef – in the central North Island, and she is a director of other companies – Maori and pakeha. Houpapa was in 2012 named one of the ten most influential women in New Zealand agribusiness.

She told Rural News her Landcorp appointment confirms that the direction of the state-owned business was supported by the shareholder – the Government.

She says chairing Landcorp is exciting, with the implementation of its new strategy focus on the core business and a diversification which includes sheep milking.

“We are seeing a different face of Landcorp – a more focused and strategic face. Our board and team are focused on how we can transform NZ farming.

“Landcorp’s focus is predominantly on how we do business and drilling down to make sure we do the fundamentals right.

“Then we can look at doing innovative work on genetics, added value and the value chain. For example, we are working with NZ Light Leathers, Merino NZ and other industry partners. More recently Landcorp has focused on how it can partner with iwi and Maori authorities.”

Houpapa says in dairying Landcorp is looking hard at how it farms – milk production and its environmental footprint. Its commitments with

business partners in dairying will roll through over time.

Houpapa is regarded as a highly influential and respected business person and leader with a great understanding of agribusiness.

“The experience I bring as a Maori and a mainstream farmer [combines knowing] who we are and where we are going – as Landcorp and as a New Zealand agribusiness. We have the ability to capitalise to positively leverage Maori farming into the mainstream. Landcorp is a great vehicle to help facilitate that.”

Meanwhile former Invercargill MP and farmer Eric Roy has been appointed to the Landcorp board.

Roy spent ten years in Southland as an electorate and list MP for the National Party. He retired from Parliament last year.

He has long been involved in the primary sector and now farms two properties in Te Anau and leases a holding in the Hokonui Hills.

PETER BURKE

[email protected]

Landcorp chair Traci Houpapa.

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22 OPINION

EDITORIAL

THE HOUND

EDNA

Want to share your opinion or gossip with the Hound?

Send your emails to: [email protected]


Dead horse floggersYOUR OLD mate reckons the anti-GE nutters at GE Free NZ can’t help flogging their dead horse theme about the evils of genetic modification. In their latest scare tactic, GE Free NZ tried to claim that a recent spate of cow sickness and some deaths was due to genetic modi-fication. However, as Feds presi-dent – and former pro GE lobby spokesman in a previous life – William Rolleston rightly pointed out, it was more likely to have been caused by high sugar content in the fodder beet they had been eating. The Hound suggests the anti-GE lobby do themselves no favours when they make up crazy conspiracy theories like this to justify their stance.

MIA!YOUR CANINE crusader always thought politicians were full of the proverbial, but it seems the drongos at NZ First have taken this even a step further. While the National, Labour and Green parties managed to find MPs to attend the finance and expendi-ture select committee session with the Reserve Bank on the Monetary Policy Statement, NZ First was absent. Given that it was the only select committee hearing all week – during a parlia-mentary recess – it should not have been too difficult to find someone to go along. Consid-ering much of the discussion was about immigration and the exchange rate and Auckland housing – supposedly hot topics on which NZ First is forever issuing inane media statements about.

You sure?THE HOUND reckons Labour’s agriculture spokesman Damien O’Connor may be treading on thin ice in calling for Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings to take a pay cut due to poor performance of the dairy co-op. O’Connor suggested Spierings should take a voluntary pay cut and that such a move would restore credibility with farmers and staff. However, a mate of yours truly wondered if O’Connor and his Labour colleagues would heed their own advice? The Hound’s confidant suggested that O’Connor, his struggling leader Andrew Little and the rest of the Labour caucus could also take a ‘voluntary’ pay cut for Labour’s continuing woeful performance. He suggests what is good enough for the goose (Fonterra) should be good enough for the gander (Labour).

Why not?A MATE of the Hound reckons in light of all the hoo-ha about new health and safety regulations, why doesn’t WorkSafe NZ publish its reports into workplace accidents. “When there is a mishap with an aircraft, the CAA investigates and its findings are published,” the Hound’s pal says. “NZ pilots of all ages and qualifications have grown up reading these reports and thereby learning from others’ mistakes.” But your canine crusader’s confidant reckons when WorkSafe investigates an accident “the findings are seem-ingly shoved in a filing cabinet and never see the light of day”. He suggests making these accident findings public would be educa-tional: he cites the example of Worksafe British Columbia, which presents its accident reports on You-Tube.

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WHILE THE latest floods in the lower North Island are not as widespread and therefore not in the same league as those of 2004, they are nonetheless distressing and devastating to many farming families.

The damage seems confined to fewer farms, but it seems some of these have been hit even worse than some in 2004.

This latest event occurred before calving and so the interruption to milking is limited except for those who do winter milk. But the bad news is pastures inundated with silt will take longer to clear and re-grass.

It will take a lot of time to repair fences, races and sheds and to buy in more supplementary feed for cows effectively stranded on the high ground of many farms. This is extra work farm-ers don’t need as they head into the busiest time of the year.

For sheep and beef farmers, the damage caused by slips is in many cases horrendous. Tracks are wiped out making it difficult to even assess damage. Fences are down and animals are wandering around farms. Farmers don’t need this at this time of year. It’s hard to imag-ine how difficult this must be for them and their staff.

Understandably the mainstream media focus on the woes of city folk badly hit, their homes trashed by the floods. But most still have a job. However for farming families and others in rural communities they face not only damage to their homes but worse still to their businesses and way of life.

Businesses facing the storm of market vola-tility now also face nature’s onslaught with its stress and extra costs. The prospect of getting to a supermarket by road could still be weeks away for some households. And when will life get back to normal? Who knows?

What we do know is that land that has slipped takes generations to recover and return to some sort of productivity. Rehabilitating land covered in silt is again a long-term task.

While the images of city houses inundated by flood waters are tragic and terrible, the pain suffered by the rural community is on-going and any loss of production will impact city folk.

Rural News extends its sympathy to all those affected by this latest terrible event and assures them of our support as they deal with the many challenges they face.

Floods to remember


OPINION 23

ag twitsRural News’ irreverent and hypothetical look at what’s hap-pening in the farming world

Top Bleats view all

@drbillfeds: Fed Farmers would like to know just how exactly WorkSafe NZ managed to come up with possibly the most unworkable work laws ever invented. Looks like we dropped the ball again! #dazedandconfused #head-lesschooks

@fbartonworksafenz@drbillfeds: Our new Safer Farms campaign aims to make farms safer by sending WorkSafe NZ inspectors all over the country and ensuring no work is ever done on any farm thereby making them safe! #farmerswillloveit

@littleandrewlabour: Labour opposes any moves to water down new health and safety regulations. The unions tell us these new laws are needed and we need the unions – end of story! #payingthepiper

@johnkeypm: Can I reassure everyone that the sudden review of proposed new H&S regulations was not forced on us by a backbench revolt, but by a careful and considered assessment of our latest polling, which told us these new laws are very unpopular with our backbench. #forwhomthepolltolls

@johnmcarthymie: MIE’s plan for meat sector profitability is so clever and cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a weasel or Murray Taggart! Now that all the hard work is done it’ll be easy to convince farmers to come up with $15k each to fund it. #dreaming #planetcuckoo

@robhewettsff: Nice to know MIE has worked out what’s best for our shareholders – eh @mtaggartalliance? Pity they don’t have the $100-150 million we need right now. Just wait for the wailing and gnashing of MIE teeth when we reveal our new foreign investor in a couple of weeks. #cupofcoldsick #toughsell

@winstonfirstandlast: Fonterra puts the terror in terrible. Chinese dairy companies put the yellow in butter. Only we – by which I mean me – at NZ First have the answers to our dairy woes. But I’m not going to tell you what that is. #fullofit #makingitupasigo

@jwilsonfonterra: The good news is that this year has been so bad that things cannot get any worse next year. Now we’ve engaged some very expen-sive consultants to tell us that we are actually a great company. #newbuzzs-wordfor2016 #mckinseyreview

ibrownshc@jwilsonfontera: Obviously Fonterra has top-flight manage-ment and a very good board. Look at the numbers: why else would we be paying our chief executive $4 million and our chairman $250k a year? #thenumbersdon’tlie

@doconnorlabourmp: How does an underperforming, out-of-touch, useless and increasingly irrelevant leader command such a huge salary? It’s seriously time for a salary review. Just to be clear, I mean Theo Spierings not Andrew Little. #gladiclearedthatup #doasisaynotasido

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MIE reforms the way to goAS A significant Alliance Group (AGL) shareholder I am prompted to lay bare the facts to my fellow shareholders.

The constant fudging of the truth by AGL governance and management via shareholder emails and in the farming media is unacceptable.

To be fair to our new chief executive, he will only just be beginning to under-stand the challenges he has taken on. Mr (David) Surveyor doesn’t have time to waste on petty politics and I trust he will focus on the key issues and listen to his shareholders.

True co-op behaviour encourages a culture of loyalty, transparency and most of all honesty, and from this flows commitment between producer and processor. Throwing up ‘red herrings’ such as, “the Commerce Commission won’t approve” or “our trading part-

ners will block our exports” is inher-ent nonsense.

These are our farms, our families, our businesses and this is our country. Clearly highlighted in the MIE report is that there are hundreds of millions of dollars of commercial reasons for con-solidation. But— just as importantly – it is clear that strong levels of com-petition remain. Farmers need not fear consolidation, they should embrace it.

The sweetheart deals now prevalent with traders, third parties and producer groups are foreign to co-op culture. No farmer should or would invest further outside the farmgate until this changes.

The MIE report shows a pathway to establish this new co-op model and how this culture will encourage farmer sup-port through commitment and invest-ment. The New Zealand Government has promised legislation provided we have a large majority of producer sup-

port for this model. So the AGL claim to the contrary

and its threat of five months back-log during drought and peak kill times are just scaremongering. Waiting lists to kill stock are not caused by lack of

plant to process stock. If every South Island plant operated a single shift for 44 hours per week the entire South Island’s lamb kill would be processed in 28 days.

What other industry has the luxury

during peak periods like Christmas to take two weeks off and then only oper-ate 5.5 days per week thereafter. Nelson AGL plant only killed 35% of the days from January 31 to February 8 2015.

Farmers are used not only as a hold-ing paddock to stretch out the season, but the processors also cynically use our overdrafts to fund their poor per-formance. Meanwhile, farmers pay heavily to carry 51% overcapacity when most is not used during droughts.

The structure of our industry today is the problem. What processor would engage their surplus chain or intro-duce another shift with no guarantee of supply? Another company’s idle plant could be engaged and steal supply, leav-ing them severely disadvantaged finan-cially.

Many farmers are so restrained financially that for the lure of a few

DAVE McGAVESTON

TO PAGE 24

Multiple exporters offering meat at the same high spec is price destructive, says farmer Dave McGaveston.


24 OPINION

cents/kg more they will supply the second company in this case. The companies then have the cheek to call the cash-strapped farmer dis-loyal, despite it being the co-op’s unfair procurement behaviour that is the root cause of farmers needing to look for an alternative to survive.

This is an inherent problem and we must change the model and refo-cus our attention on the $/kg we are leaving on the marketplace table. The current level of overcapacity is costing every farmer an estimated $10.35/lamb.

Multiple exporters offering meat at the same high spec is price destructive.

There is ample evidence of trade relationships between a NZ exporter and international supermarkets only lasting a short while, until their price is not the cheapest.

This is the reason our UK coun-terparts protest at NZ meat whole-

saling at half their domestic value. If, as we are told, our lamb is

the best in the world, why on earth sell it for half price? It seems to me that this form of selling is simply an exercise in disposal to recover costs, rather than any kind of concerted effort and investment to grow our share of the value chain.

The Red Meat Industry ‘Path-ways to Long-term Sustainability’ report identifies the need for some plant closures. It is must be under-stood a hypothetical model was used in the report to identify the inefficiencies (read cost!) absorbed by every farmer in NZ. Any closures will be determined by farmers’ supply behaviour and future prof-itability.

MIE has a goal to drive sustain-able profitability across the entire red meat sector and hence arrest the 3000 sheep per day decline of the past 20-plus years. Real oppor-tunity to grow our drystock farm-ing exists with reform, so we must

reverse this trend. We, the farmers of NZ, have

made incredible productivity gains on farm and now it is imperative we capture real value back from the market otherwise we will simply have to run faster to stand still. The threat of foreign ownership is real and our co-ops’ balance sheets are not strong enough to compete with next to zero percent sovereign fund capital via off shore multinational conglomerates.

I urge all farmers to read the MIE report and understand the issues. The report also highlights that if we choose, we as farmers can grasp the exciting opportunity unravel-ling right in front of us – an oppor-tunity that could just provide the long-term sustainability we need. The world needs our high quality meat protein.• Nelson farmer Dave McGaveston is a shareholder of Alliance Group and a member of the Meat Industry Excellence Group.

MIE only way to save red meat sector

FROM PAGE 23

COUNCILS NEED EYEBALLING

SO MUCH time and energy is spent managing land and water at present, and decisions about rules are only the first step.

What those rules look like and how much they will cost farmers and the community to implement also needs close scrutiny. Take a couple of examples from Canterbury.

Overseer: like it or hate it. Canterbury farm-ers are required to record an estimate of their nitro-gen losses using Overseer. Personally I don’t have an issue with that. But I do have a problem with the rules which require farm-ers to redo their Overseer assessment every year, whether or not they have made significant changes on the farm.

Then you keep that filed away in case the council ever wants to

see it.Sounds like a dolly,

until you start looking at the cost. I’ve been given estimates for annual Overseer assessments (from certified practi-tioners) ranging from $1000-$1500 for a simple farming operation to $5000-$10,000 for more complex arable and mixed farming systems.

So assuming the 7000-odd farmers in Canter-bury were all ‘simple’ Overseer assessments, that rule is costing $7m-$10.5m per annum, but probably a lot more.

Call me a pragmatic greenie, but I would much rather money was spent on doing something con-structive on the ground, and keeping the Overseer assessments for when they’re needed.

Some catchment plans require all farms to have a farm environment plan

(FEP). Now don’t get me wrong, I happen to think farm plans are a useful tool, and there are some excellent industry pro-grammes.

My beef is that the rules require all farmers to have an audited FEP irrespective of whether there are any potential issues with water quality.

North Canterbury Fed-erated Farmers raised this matter in a recent hear-ing in Canterbury and the rules in that catch-ment plan were revised as a result.

My favourite exam-ple has to be a water plan in Canterbury which requires all farmers to enter into some sort of binding collective by 2017 or get resource consent to keep farming.• Lynda Murchison is North Canterbury Federated Farmers provincial president.

LYNDA MURCHISON

THE NEXT PHASE FOR NAIT1 July – the start of the next phase for OSPRI’s NAIT programme. It’s a date you may have heard about, but what does it mean for you? Here we’ll explain what’s changing and how this may a� ect you.

TAG AND REGISTER ALL CATTLEThe three year exemption for cattle born before 1 July 2012 ends on 1 July this year. This means that all cattle must be tagged and registered in the NAIT system.

Tag and register calves before they are six months old or before they move o� your property, whichever is soonest.

Tag and register all cattle, including stock born before 1 July 2012, even if they’re not moving o� farm.

Exceptions: Impractical to tag stock and bobby calves (calves less than 30 days old going to a meat processor).

A QUICK AND EASY WAY TO GET UP TO DATEThere’s an easy new way to get your NAIT account up to date called ‘stocktake’. Using a scanner, you can scan all your animals (or a group of them) and upload one fi le to the NAIT system.

The system will then do some behind the scenes magic to help update your account – easy.

Find out more at nait.co.nz/stocktake

TAG CHANGES From July, traka and management RFID tags will not be sold. You will only be able to purchase either birth tags or replacement tags.

Find out more at nait.co.nz/changes-to-tags

IMPRACTICAL TO TAG ANIMALSThere will be no change to the process for your animals that are impractical to tag. You can continue sending these animals to a meat processor, and pay a $13 untagged levy. The legislation around impractical to tag animals is going to be reviewed and the process for them may change in the future.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU’RE NOT PLAYING BY THE RULES?At OSPRI our goal is to get everybody on board with NAIT so that you, your community and New Zealand can reap the benefi ts of tighter disease control and continued access to export markets.

The fi rst step in our approach to getting NAIT working for everyone is to work with farmers, educating them on their obligations and helping them to meet them. The information collected by NAIT allows OSPRI to identify people who aren’t playing by the rules, so if you aren’t doing your bit we will let you know where you’re falling short and o� er a hand to get you back on track.

However sometimes people just don’t want to play by the rules. This jeopardises the e� ort put in by other farmers throughout the country – it also breaks the law. If we’ve spoken to you a number of times and you continue to ignore your NAIT obligations, your case may be escalated to MPI who may seek to recover infringement fees in the fi rst instance. In some cases MPI may take legal action against repeat o� enders.

Find out more at nait.co.nz/needtoknow

Birth tag For all newborn animals

Replacement tag For animals that lose their birth tag

nait.co.nz

0800 482 463NAIT is an OSPRI programme

WHERE WE’RE ATTHREE YEARS80,000+ PEOPLE1.6M+ MOVEMENTS16.4M+ ANIMALS


OPINION 25

Sustainability and prosperity can go hand-in-handWE LIVE in a remark-able country, one that’s rich in natural beauty and wealthy in natu-ral resources. New Zea-land has plentiful, fresh water; clean air; fertile soil and a climate well-suited to growing things. We have long coastlines and significant aquacul-ture resources; sizeable mineral and petroleum reserves; and extraordi-nary bio-diversity.

The World Bank esti-mates that NZ ranks eighth out of 120 coun-tries and second out of the 34 OECD countries in natural capital per capita, which helps explain why three-quarters of our mer-chandise exports are from the primary sector.

While primary sector exports may have dipped over the past year, steady growth is expected in the four years ahead.

We are fortunate to make our living off the land in a land worth living in. But we cannot be com-placent if we want things to stay that way. We’re not pristine, and we can do better. New Zealand-ers have to make well-informed choices about how we conserve, use and manage our natural resources for the greatest overall benefit to society now and into the future.

I want to talk about choice. I want to chal-lenge some false ‘choices’; expose a few choices that we are denied by the sys-tems we have created; and highlight the fact that more informed public debate can deliver us a system with more choice in it.

For a long time dis-cussions over natural resources have been dom-inated by false dichoto-mies. A key example is the supposed ‘choice’ between sustainability and prosperity. It’s non-sense to believe you have to pick one or the other and can’t achieve both.

A more prosperous economy creates higher

incomes and jobs for New Zealanders. Higher incomes are linked to better outcomes across a range of economic, social, and indeed environmental measures that matter for living standards.

Sustainability and prosperity are intercon-nected in the Treasury’s wider view of wellbe-ing and are encapsulated in our Living Standards Framework. This iden-tifies five ‘dimensions’ which we seek to advance when developing policy: sustainability; equity; social infrastructure; risk management; and of course economic growth. When wellbeing is under-stood in this broader sense, the assumption that there’s immutable conflict between prosper-ity and sustainability just doesn’t stack up.

The falseness of the ‘choice’ between prosper-ity and sustainability is being shown up not just by countries and compa-nies, but by consumers too. The premium on ethi-cal, sustainably produced, healthy goods continues to rise. Interest in work-ing practices and supply chains means that com-panies have to be able to clearly demonstrate their sustainability credentials.

It’s also clear that pro-ductivity and sustainabil-ity are converging in ways not seen before.

For example, in recent years we have seen irriga-tion infrastructure, orig-inally installed to boost farming productivity, helping to alleviate further pressure on struggling river and stream ecosys-tems.

By mapping soil char-acteristics, tailoring the use of irrigation, fertiliser and other inputs to match, and ensuring accurate spatial delivery, the use of inputs can be reduced. This results in savings of energy, time and inputs, while pasture and crop yields increase and less nutrients are lost to the environment, leading to better water quality in our

GABRIEL MAKHLOUF

rivers and groundwater.Progress in GIS tech-

nology and nutrient man-agement data is enabling farmers to understand their farms in new ways. This is delivering environ-mental improvements and driving the best increases in productivity in the whole economy.

Another false ‘choice’ is between protection and use of natural resources. Instead of accepting these false ‘choices’ we have an opportunity to focus on ensuring our system gives us the freedom to make the choices we actually want.

One example is in the area of bio-technology. I

am not going to get into the question of genetic modification specifically. What I will say is that when new technologies come along – both GM and non-GM – our cur-rent system denies us the choice over whether we want them. Meanwhile, our international compet-itors do have this option.

Our current regime for regulating new organ-isms is highly restrictive in practice, which means we do not have the flexibility to choose whether this is something we would want in NZ.

I’ve heard it said that our current regulatory regime would deny us the choice to adopt many new plants and species that today offer us huge advan-tages: kiwifruit, ryegrass, and even the ubiquitous pinus radiata.

Another example of a choice we are currently denied is found in our approach to risk. This is particularly important when we consider the potential to sustainably

use the resources con-tained in our precious marine environments.

I am not going to tell you that NZ does not take enough risk. That is for the country, through elected representatives, to decide. The point I want to make is that we often deny ourselves the choice over how much risk we want to take. When systems adopt rigid approaches to risk, for example, rather than gen-uinely enabling adaptive management approaches, we limit our ability to explore and assess the potential risks of our actions.

Freshwater policy is another area where we are reclaiming choice. Here, communities are able to debate the value of public goods; public discussion is exposing and trading-off risks; and collabora-tion through the Land and Water Forum continues to

help create a management system responsive to the goals of users.

However, businesses and industry sectors must also play a part in setting the conditions for a more informed debate.

On the issue of climate change, for example, the agriculture sector has the opportunity to contribute to the public debate about NZ’s future emissions targets, and options for meeting these targets.

It is important that we focus on what the sci-ence tells us. As the IPCC told us last year, carbon dioxide emissions funda-mentally drive long-term global warming. Methane has a larger impact ini-tially, but its effect is only short lived.

This clearly has little impact on most other developed countries whose emissions consist mainly of carbon dioxide, but it makes a huge dif-

ference for NZ because of our high agricultural emis-sions. NZ has invested heavily in finding ways to mitigate the effects of bio-logical emissions, though commercialisation is still some way away.

So science clearly plays an important role in help-ing us work out how we can have the greatest impact in reducing emis-sions.

I, for one, look for-ward to working together to make these challeng-ing, but ultimately vital, choices about the future of our natural resources, the prosperity of our country and the living standards of New Zea-landers.• Gabriel Makhlouf is secretary of the NZ Treasury, this is an edited version of a speech he gave at National Fieldays titled: Reclaiming Choice: Making Informed Decisions about our Natural Resources.

Gabriel Makhlouf

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26 MANAGEMENT

WHY WOULDN’T YOU HOUSE THEM?

ACCORDING TO Professor Hugh Blair being involved in a major sheep indoor housing farm could have spin-off benefits for NZ. He says as NZ sheep are forced onto some of the tougher country, the option of housing sheep – especially to quickly finish lambs – has potential.

“Sheep milking would be an obvious one. Interestingly in China they never drink sheep milk. They drink yak milk, camel milk and horse milk but they never drink sheep milk and to us that seemed strange,” Blair says.

“But in NZ why wouldn’t you house milking sheep and feed them high quality feed or rocket fuel if you like. You’d certainly improve milk produc-tion. I don’t know the answer but let’s try it and if it works, great. The Chinese are so keen. They say they’ll send people down to help us.”

Blair says the Chinese are devel-oping effluent disposal systems which

would be of interest to NZ given the emphasis now on environmental sustainability. But he says working with China goes beyond science and contributes to the overall trade and political relationship between the two countries.

“Having a comfortable relation-ship with China is important for trade. We will get benefit out of our research collaboration, even if it is just to show their intensive system won’t work in NZ. Put simply, I think there is great opportunity for NZ to show that we want to communicate and collaborate and engage with China,” he says.

Meanwhile the Massey Scien-tists are working on seven research projects, the first of which is worth $400,000 on the XinBao sheep venture, one that is likely to yield more opportunities in future and lead to others as the word gets around about the expertise NZ has to offer.

Scientists help drive China sheep venture

THREE MASSEY Univer-sity agricultural scientists have been appointed advi-sors to a massive indoor sheep farming operation in China. This has poten-tial to benefit New Zea-land long term, says one of the scientists, Professor Hugh Blair.

Professors Paul Kenyon, Hugh Blair and Steve Morris have visited China often over the past ten years, establishing strong collaborative rela-tionships with the Chi-nese Academy of Sciences and Shihezi University.

Last year they con-nected there with a com-pany called XinBao, now setting up a huge in-door sheep farming, Blair says.

“Their objective in the immediate future is to have 500,000 ewes lamb-ing indoors all year round with intensive feeding systems to cope with at least one million lambs which they will slaughter. The longer term objec-tive is one million ewes, then two million – all under cover. They say to house two million ewes the sheds will stretch for 10km – huge by anyone’s standards.”

Blair says this scale of

operation will have many challenges, not least the control of disease which in that type of operation can spread quickly. He says to counter that the Chinese will create ‘bios-ecurity breaks’ within the farm.

He says the farm-ing venture is to produce lamb for meat and to pro-cess by-products, “includ-ing the blood they can collect at their slaughter premises and process into human pharmaceuticals”.

“The waste gener-ated from the shed will be digested and turned into methane and all the sheds will be covered in solar

panels…. They say when they hit 500,000 ewes their net profit from elec-tricity will be around $20 million so they are feeding directly into the national grid,” he says.

Blair and his colleagues are to bring their exper-tise, that of Massey Uni-versity and other NZers and NZ companies into the project. Massey cannot do it all, he says. At National Fieldays they spoke to people and com-panies that could benefit involvement -- companies

with expertise in eartags, weighing equipment and feeding.

All three scientists are world leaders in their respective science fields and have practical farming experience: all are from farms. Blair is an expert in genetics, Kenyon in grazing management and hogget mating and Morris in grazing agriculture and beef cattle. The latter two have completed a world leading study on year-round lambing.

Blair says the practical scientific approach NZers bring complements what the Chinese scientists offer. “We probably have

the largest sheep research group in the world now, especially groups operat-ing at farm level.

“When the Chinese take us into a shed we’re able to answer questions about the animal. Some of their people are bench scientists – they do bio-chemistry and molecu-lar genetics but they don’t necessarily know what an animal needs to be fed during pregnancy or lac-tation.”

Blair says he has no qualms about engaging in collaborative work of this nature with China. He says farmers sometimes accuse him and others

of “selling off the crown jewels” and giving away trade secrets.

“If we want to do busi-ness in China we need to show partnership and collaboration. That’s just perfect for science because virtually all our science around the world is done in a collaborate fashion. My reaction to the criticism is that most of what we do in NZ we have ourselves brought in from somewhere else and we have modified it. The Chinese are going to do the same and whatever we do here is in no way going to be directly applicable in their system.”

PETER BURKE

[email protected]

The option of housing sheep has potential, says Hugh Blair, Massey University.

Professor Paul Kenyon is one of three Massey Uni sheep researchers working with Chinese farmers.


MANAGEMENT 27

TB plan out for discussionTHE FUTURE of TB con-trol in New Zealand is in the hands of farmers and other key stakeholders, with the TB Plan proposal now open for consulta-tion.

Michelle Edge, chief executive of OSPRI, says the proposed changes to the TBfree programme “would have a big impact on the pest control work… and disease testing we currently undertake on farms. It is important that farmers and other indus-try participants under-stand the proposal and have their say,” she says.

An independent plan

governance group (PGG) of representatives from the dairy, beef and deer industries, Government, OSPRI and its stakehold-ers’ council has been reviewing the TB Plan over the past few months. The group is examining policy issues and an inde-pendent science review.

Edge says its initial view on the proposal is positive, recognising it is expected to achieve eradi-cation more quickly than under the current plan and at a lower cost.

“This is good news for farmers. The proposal is expected to see all herds

clear of TB by 2026, with full eradication of the disease from NZ by 2055.”

The potential changes represent an evolution in OSPRI’s approach to TB control, Edge says.

NAIT is new since the last plan review, and with the ability to eradicate TB now proven, and sig-nificant improvements in data quality, surveillance

and control techniques, the plan can now move to an eradication goal.

Edge says over the next few weeks all parties will review the proposal and talk with key stakeholders.

During June and July, the PGG is holding work-shops in 30 locations where details of the pro-posal, and questions and comments, can be dis-cussed. Consultation ends

on 31 July. For more information

about the consultation and how to make a sub-mission, see the TB Plan review website.

Since the start of 2000, NZ has spent $1.2 billion fighting bovine TB and killing pests (especially possums) that spread the disease.

Dairy experts rally to support flood-ravaged farmsDAIRYNZ SAYS it is working along-side other groups to support farmers and ensure that around 5000 cows in central Manawatu and Horowhenua have enough feed for the winter after dozens of paddocks were flooded on dairy farms last week.

DairyNZ’s lower North Island regional leader James Muwunganirwa says detailed advice on wet weather grazing management and pasture recovery is going out to all farmers in the impacted regions.

“We are also providing feed bud-geting support to a dozen or so dairy farms seriously under water in central Manawatu and Horowhenua,” says Muwunganirwa.

Rural and farming organisations,

co-ordinated by Federated Farmers, met last week to discuss support for farmers, share reports of the scale of impacts and discuss how to work together. These also include Federated Farmers, Fonterra, Rural Support Trust, Horizons Regional Council, Manawatu District Council, Beef + Lamb NZ and banks.

Damage to farms includes flooded paddocks and farm tracks, slips and fencing down.

“We are all sharing information and working together to find out who needs help. Fonterra’s emergency response team is in action and ringing around its 600 farmers in the central districts. Some farmers are milking through the winter and others are wintering dry

cows on the farm so keeping their stock fed is a top priority. DairyNZ is giving one-on-one advice to those farmers whose pastures are flooded,” says Muwunganirwa.

“There is already a lot of flood infor-mation and advice on our website. We have learnt a lot from helping farm-ers through other floods particularly in Northland. Stock losses, power out-ages, slips, bridges washed away, silt covered pastures requiring regrassing – there are a range of effects on a farm business.

“Knowing what to do will reduce the immediate impact of the flood and planning strategies to deal with the aftermath will allow for a quicker recov-ery,” he says.

“One lesson we learnt from the Northland situation in July last year was that waiting for ideal conditions to regrass is not always the best option. For the farm system (feed supply) to recovery quickly, early action is required to get the farm growing again quickly. The Northland farmers who recovered the quickest last year were those who followed the water out with their seed drill.”

Muwunganirwa says three things farmers with farms under water must do quickly are work out a feed and

action plan, plan pasture renovation and relocate stock if necessary.

“We have a ‘decision tree’ document for flooded land that can help farmers make decisions.”

Federated Farmers is co-ordinating any urgent need of grazing. If farm-ers are in need or in a position to offer assistance, they can telephone 0800 376 844 or contact John Stroud, Fed-erated Farmers field officer, on 027 217 6744 or email [email protected].

The Rural Support Trust number is 0800 787 254.

Flooded farms in the Manawatu last week.

Proposed changes to the TBfree programme will have a big impact on pest control work.

@rural_news


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28 MANAGEMENT

Subdivision and round length prove successful for drystock farmers

GARETH GILLATT

George and Peggy Morrison.

SUBDIVISION and longer round length has trans-formed George and Peggy Morrison’s Northland dry-stock farm into a highly profitable operation. The farm was the subject of a recent Beef + Lamb NZ field day.

The Morrisons grow 600-700 bulls on their 390ha (eff ) farm 5km northeast of Kaitaia, a property he has seen grow from scratch.

When he and his father Jim bought the 345ha property in late 1978 it had no infrastructure. A half-round hayshed was built in the first week, in which they lived for 12 months until a site was chosen and a house built. During the first 16 months

they also erected 4km of fencing and cattle yards, developed land, farmed 100 Murray Grey and Angus Cows, raised their progeny and bought in steers.

George then left on OE and Jim continued with fencing and development, including a water system. George returned in 1988 with his wife Peggy and took over managing the farm completely in 1990.

By then there were 28 paddocks from 5-25ha and they continued with Jim’s practice of selling bulls from the Murray Grey stud to dairy farm-ers and carrying progeny through as steers and heif-ers for hooking for a short period. The couple switched from a stud to a marketing

farm after their accoun-tant’s budget showed an income of $100,000 and costs of $100,000.

They initially used South Devon genetics to produce cross bred steers. While various permutations were tried, including Charolais, Maine Anjou and Simmental bulls over Friesian Hereford cows, the couple left the bulls after finding that a rig running with steers continuously outperformed the steers he was running with. In 1995 they bought an adjoining 97ha block.

In 2007 the breeding herd was sold and they turned all their attention to bull farming.

Set stocking policy was trialed in 2009 – win-

tering two-three bulls per paddock, then in the spring bringing bulls back together in mobs of 20-25 and farming through till the autumn for hooking. This was a good lifestyle policy over the winter months but they felt there were better options.

The following year 8-15 bulls per mob were left together and farmed on a three-day rotation, each mob having their own set number of paddocks depending on mob size, paddock size and grass quality.

This system meant some mobs were on as little as a nine-day rota-tion if they had three pad-docks, to an 18-day round if they had six paddocks.

This system was used for three years, but they often faced feed holes as pasture was grazed too low and didn’t get enough time to recover from the previous grazing.

Then George bought Peggy 60 Kiwitech reels and 500 Kiwitech standards for her birthday in 2013 and the couple started running an intensive beef system, carrying 25-30 head per mob, giving them 10 paddocks per mob and shifting them every second day.

Using the sticks and strings gave the new oper-ation a lot more flexibility: the 10 paddocks could be

broken into three breaks per paddock giving a 60 day rotation, or half giving a 40 day rotation, or left whole for a 20 day rota-tion.

The Morrisons now buy bulls at 300-400kgLW in December-May, grow them through the winter and start hooking Decem-ber-May the following year when they reach target weights of 600-750kgLW. Their farm is now divided into 220 paddocks and they carry 22 mobs during the winter. Late autumn is the pressure time when setting the mobs up for the winter rotation: paddocks are recovering from mowing, bull mobs need to be fitted into the rotations and the whole system must be synchronised so the mobs are kept away from each other in the fol-lowing months.

Apart from these few weeks, during the rest of the year the operation has allowed the couple to marry production with lifestyle and environmen-tal goals.

Performance is better, the farm going from 460 R2 bulls to an average of 607 R2 bulls since winter 2013.

While some of the field day attendees who walked the property said feed levels could comfortably handle a lot more mouths,

the Morrisons are very aware of winter weather pressures and choose to farm accordingly. They also say farming is as much about the lifestyle and environmental stew-ardship as about profit.

Wanting to give an opportunity in farming to the next generation, they have employed a worker during the last couple of seasons: the capable Shay Carey now fills the role of stockman. Taking on a fulltime worker caused them to see that though they knew how the farm operated and worked best, they had written down little about this, a hindrance to a new-comer adapting to the operation. “We started out writing down our core farm values, put down headings about everything we needed and went from there.” Now they have a four-page document covering everything about the farm including expected behav-ior, safety and rules. The document was rec-ognised by health and safety experts at the field day as offering a lot of the basis of a good contract, and one that would put the couple in good stead with Worksafe.

They identify this as a ‘living’ document and after monthly meetings it can be changed/updated as necessary.

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MANAGEMENT 29

Set up the young to succeedSETTING PEOPLE up to be successful – that’s the challenge Massey Uni-versity faces according to its new pro vice-chancel-lor, science, Professor Ray Geor.

Geor, a veterinary grad-uate of Massey who has worked most of his life in academia in the US and Canada has just returned to take up his new post at the university.

He says New Zea-land faces the same chal-lenges as other countries in trying to attract young people into agricultural and science, because the world is becoming urban-ised.

“The urban myth is that milk comes from a carton or a bottle not a cow. There is an education challenge for us inform people about the excel-lent career opportunities

that exist in agriculture. This is a big challenge and as universities we need to be outward facing and be as connected as possible to the industries we are linked to.

“But the world out-side the university also has a role to play in informing young people of the opportunities that lie before them. Young people may not know about them and it’s our collective responsibility to get that message to them.”

Geor says he’s impressed with the mini farm venture at Mt Albert Grammar school in Auck-land. He says universities have to work with them and support that initia-tive. City kids need to hear that they can have a suc-cessful career in agricul-ture even though they don’t come from a farm-ing background.

According to Geor, the fundamental role of a uni-

PETER BURKE

[email protected]

versity is teaching and research. He says the chal-lenge is having qualifica-tions that are constantly evolving and are future-proofed to meet the needs of industry and the goals of students.

He says it’s also pleas-ing to see that the impor-tance of science and

innovation in agricul-ture are being recognised at the highest level in the country. At Fieldays the Prime Minister spoke about the importance of science and innovation in the primary sector as one of the main tools for eco-nomic growth in NZ.

“It’s outstanding that

the Prime Minister is rec-ognising the importance of science in agriculture. Those of us on the inside have recognised that for decades and some for our entire working lives. It is excellent that the public is learning more about that and that there is wider recognition that science

and innovation will allow the economy to grow.

“The efficiency of agri-cultural production and our ability to add value to the products we pro-duce is all going to come from innovation, and we need bright people with the right skills to do that,” he says.

Professor Ray Geor, Massey University.

AGRI ECONOMIST JOINS LINCOLNLINCOLN UNIVERSITY has appointed Dr Alan Renwick professor of agricultural eco-nomics.

Renwick is now professor of agricultural and food eco-nomics at University College Dublin (UCD). He will start at Lincoln University later this year.

“Dr Renwick has exactly the background we need to further strengthen Lincoln’s teaching and research in agricultural economics,” says deputy vice-chancellor, scholarship and research, Ste-fanie Rixecker. “He spent many years at the Univer-sity of Cambridge in the department of land economy, before heading the Scottish Agricultural College’s land economy and environmental research team.”

At UCD Renwick teaches undergraduate food and agribusiness management and post-graduate food busi-ness strategy. He also supervises research students.

“Lincoln University has been through a period of remarkable change in the last couple of years,” says the dean of the faculty of agribusiness and commerce, Professor Hugh Bigsby, “The appointment of Renwick signals another step-change in the development of our core areas of expertise. The role is one of four senior positions to be appointed this year.”

Renwick will support Lincoln’s new bachelor of commerce (food and resource economics) and research masters’ and PhD supervision in agricultural economics, and will support the faculty’s agribusiness research and teaching.

Renwick sees himself “joining a world-renowned university with a well-established reputation with the agricultural sector in New Zealand, and helping to build this reputation in the area of agricultural and food eco-nomics…. It is an exciting time to be heading to New Zealand and joining Lincoln University.”

Dr Alan Renwick

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30 ANIMAL HEALTH

Ewe output key to selection policyAt Mangarata Farm in Wairarapa they are selecting for ewes that will ‘bounce back’ after lambing and conceive twins each year.

MANGARATA FARM’S ewe selection is an aspect of fine-tuning a breeding and finishing operation that could quickly bring gains from producing more quality finishing lambs.

The farm runs 4400 stock units on 476ha (eff ) and is one of four com-mercial sheep and beef farms operated by the Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre.

The sheep breeding programme is based on high-performance com-posite and Romney genet-ics with an emphasis on per-head and per-hect-are performance. They run two mobs – a mater-nal mob producing ewe replacements and a termi-nal mob producing fast-growing finishing lambs.

“We want to identify the type of top-performing animals that suit our management systems and fit into our commercial farming reality,” says Taratahi sheep and beef manager Paul Crick.

“We can’t necessarily finish all lambs at Man-garata because of our dry summers and topography. So the bottom line is we want all the ewes to have twins and wean their own bodyweight in lambs.”

To get an assessment of the ewes’ bounce-back ability from weaning, they’re using a combination of scanning and condition scoring, with all results recorded against each animal’s EID tag. The information is stored in an online database so it’s easy to sort through and analyse.

Crick says ewe body condition score is measured at weaning, pre-mating and scanning. They’re given every opportunity to perform.

“At weaning and pre-mating ewes are drafted according to condition

score, and any ewe at less than BCS3.0 goes into a light mob that gets preferential treatment.”

After scanning, there is the moment of truth. The database will be used to create a draft list of inefficient ewes. These are ewes in the light mob that despite some special attention have still strug-gled to gain condition after weaning, and they are allocated to the termi-nal mob.

And with EID tags there is less need to get out the spray can or another colour of eartags, as a computer file of their numbers can be used to run the auto-drafter.

Crick says the combination of the selection policy and measurements through the year makes it clear which animals are best suited for Mangarata and that’s where the focus needs to be.

A quick calculation shows where the early monetary gain will be. If they can maintain the maternal mob’s lambing percentage at 160% (Mangarata’s 2014-15 result), they will get enough good quality replacements and be able to confidently run a higher proportion of ewes in the terminal mob, probably going from 35 to 50%.

With hybrid vigour, the greater number of terminal ewes will be producing lambs that grow quicker, are up to 2kg heavier at weaning and of a type more marketable as store lambs. That extra weight at weaning, at $2.50/kg liveweight, could be worth up $5 per lamb.

Crick says it’s a long-term strategy and the value equation is as much about the cost of not doing it. “If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got.”

Mangarata Farm is looking at gains from producing more quality finishing lambs.

OUR STORIES. “I had heard of BVD, but I didn’t know what it was. So I presented three very poor animals for testing, and all three came back as being positive with BVD.” Stephen Pound, Beef farmer, Mauriceville

Since implementing a vaccination programme with Bovilis, all of Stephen’s animals have proved negative, including the calves born from vaccinated cows.

“My advice is don’t be on your own with it. Go to your vet, put a plan in place and monitor that plan until you’ve completely fi nished with it.” Ciarán Tully , Dairy farmer, Thames

Vaccinating with Bovilis has played a big role in increasing Ciarán’s herd’s reproductive effi ciency and has given Ciarán ‘huge peace of mind’.

To hear the full stories of how Stephen and Ciarán successfully tackled BVD go to www.bvd.co.nz

✔ Proven in New Zealand conditions for over 10 years

✔ Formulated for safety in pregnant cows1

✔ Improves fertility on farms with active BVD infection2

✔ Doesn’t cause a drop in milk production2

✔ Provides fetal protection for 6 months1

Bovilis® BVD has been tested and proven in New Zealand conditions against the potentially devastating impact of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD).

To give your BVD story a happy ending, ask your vet about implementing a vaccination-led programme with Bovilis BVD.

1. Patel, J.R. et al. Prevention of transplacental infection of bovine fetus by bovine viral diarrhoea virus through vaccination. Arch. Virol. (2002), 147:2453-2463.

2. MSD Data on fi le.

AVAILABLE ONLY UNDER VETERINARY AUTHORISATION. ACVM No: A8237 ®Registered trademark. Schering-Plough Animal Health Ltd. Phone: 0800 800 543. www.msd-animal-health.co.nz NZ/BOV/0515/0005

OUR HERO.


ANIMAL HEALTH 31

AGCARM WANTS the Government to speed up the pro-cess of introducing management of antimicrobial resis-tance (AMR) in New Zealand, says Agcarm chief executive Mark Ross.

Agcarm and the New Zealand Veterinary Associa-tion are trying to push things along, he told Rural News. Although there is no international pressure as such, they want to be proactive because what is happening overseas is a big part of the need for a management strategy on resis-tance, Ross says.

“Hopefully we will organise a workshop later in the year, about October, on antimicrobial resistance, to update people where things are at,” he says. “We are talking but we would like the Government to take it seriously and be more proactive.”

Agcarm and the NZVA have been promoting a partner-ship between industry and government to manage and oversee AMR. A dedicated governance group to address AMR issues in New Zealand was proposed late last year to the AMR steering group, run by MPI, of regulators and industry associations with an interest in AMR. Agcarm is now trying to push for the governance group to get under-way, Ross says.

There was unanimous support for the initiative from the steering group. The priorities for the governance group will be to coordinate research and surveillance of AMR. Results will help identify where and when resistance is most likely to occur and steps which should be taken.

Dr Karl Dawson, chief scientific officer of animal health and nutrition company Alltech told a recent US sympo-sium attended by Rural News that the era is over when the livestock industry can use antimicrobials or antibiotics. They will still be used at times for health issues but indis-criminate use will come to an end in the US in the next two-three years. – Pam Tipa

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE PLANS NEED ATTENTION

Gong for Oamaru vetOAMARU VET Dave Robinson has been rec-ognised for his huge con-tribution to the sheep and beef sector, receiving the inaugural award Vet of the Year – Sheep and Beef Cattle Veterinarian.

The award, from the Sheep and Beef Cattle Branch, New Zealand

Veterinary Association (NZVA), celebrates suc-cess in the profession and recognises significant vet-erinary contribution to the sheep and beef indus-try in the past 18 months.

Branch president Anthony Oswald says Robinson’s determina-tion and commitment has

seen him contributing to research, education and support of veterinarians and farmers.

Robinson has done research, particularly in lameness and footrot, car-rying out pilot trials for the product Micotil.

“This work has the potential for Micotil to

be licensed in NZ and would be a major step for-ward for veterinarians to manage footrot and lameness, working along-side their farmer clients,” Oswald says.

“Dave has demon-strated strong steward-ship of this antibiotic product, working with the NZVA antibiotic steer-ing committee to develop prudent guidelines for its use when it is launched commercially.

“He has strongly advocated the prod-uct be veterinarian-only and used responsibly as part of a whole farm plan approach.”

Oswald says Robin-son is a clinical veterinar-ian who constantly pushes the boundaries, offering services such as embryo transfer and AI, in sheep and cattle, using skills he has perfected on his own stud flock. “He’s the epitome of

someone who lives and breathes sheep and beef and is making huge inroads for the veteri-nary profession and the sheep and beef industry. He has a great relationship with his farmer clients and is 100% commit-ted to supporting them in their endeavours. We also acknowledge his out-standing work as a mentor to younger veterinarians.”

Robinson has also spoken at ‘Winter Road-shows’ regional farmer meetings on topics such as fodder beet feeding and the benefits of tape drench.

Responding to this year’s nationwide drought, he has also organised ‘drought BBQs’ in the worst hit regions to support and offer practi-cal advice to those who are struggling – support-ing farmers, veterinarians and the wider rural com-munity.

NZVA’s inaugural sheep and beef vet of the year Oama-ru’s Dave Robinson.

OUR STORIES. “I had heard of BVD, but I didn’t know what it was. So I presented three very poor animals for testing, and all three came back as being positive with BVD.” Stephen Pound, Beef farmer, Mauriceville

Since implementing a vaccination programme with Bovilis, all of Stephen’s animals have proved negative, including the calves born from vaccinated cows.

“My advice is don’t be on your own with it. Go to your vet, put a plan in place and monitor that plan until you’ve completely fi nished with it.” Ciarán Tully , Dairy farmer, Thames

Vaccinating with Bovilis has played a big role in increasing Ciarán’s herd’s reproductive effi ciency and has given Ciarán ‘huge peace of mind’.

To hear the full stories of how Stephen and Ciarán successfully tackled BVD go to www.bvd.co.nz

✔ Proven in New Zealand conditions for over 10 years

✔ Formulated for safety in pregnant cows1

✔ Improves fertility on farms with active BVD infection2

✔ Doesn’t cause a drop in milk production2

✔ Provides fetal protection for 6 months1

Bovilis® BVD has been tested and proven in New Zealand conditions against the potentially devastating impact of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD).

To give your BVD story a happy ending, ask your vet about implementing a vaccination-led programme with Bovilis BVD.

1. Patel, J.R. et al. Prevention of transplacental infection of bovine fetus by bovine viral diarrhoea virus through vaccination. Arch. Virol. (2002), 147:2453-2463.

2. MSD Data on fi le.

AVAILABLE ONLY UNDER VETERINARY AUTHORISATION. ACVM No: A8237 ®Registered trademark. Schering-Plough Animal Health Ltd. Phone: 0800 800 543. www.msd-animal-health.co.nz NZ/BOV/0515/0005

OUR HERO.


32 ANIMAL HEALTH

Anti-1080 campaigners claim possums are scapegoats for TB outbreaks nationwide.

TB control plan under fireTHE ANTI-1080 lobby Farmers Against Ten Eighty (FATE) is claiming pos-sums are scapegoats for TB outbreaks nationwide.

“The spreading of 1080

poison is flawed, ill-con-ceived, failed and ecologi-cally destructive,” says the West Coast dairy farmer, Mary Molloy, who formed FATE.

However, OSPRI NZ, which manages the TBfree programme on behalf of New Zealand farmers and the public, rebuffs these claims.

OSPRI NZ general manager Peter Alsop says its programme has resulted in a reduction of infected cattle and deer herds from around 1700 in the late 1990s to the current level of under 50 herds.

“TB infection in pos-sums causes about 70% of herd infections. The remaining infections are caused by movement of undetected TB in cattle or deer, but those infections are also likely to have ini-tially been generated by infected wildlife.”

He says there is a large body of scientific evidence about TB infection in pos-sums and how it is spread.

“Even if there are no infected cattle and deer, unless TB is eradicated from the possum pop-ulation, TB infections in cattle and deer can return,” Alsop adds.

He adds the pro-gramme is running effec-tively and ahead of predictions, both with regards to infected herds (an all-time low of less than 50) and the area of land free of TB (about 1 million ha).

Molloy points to claims by NZ First MP Richard Prosser in Par-liament recently that TB-infected possums exist at low, insignificant rates of 0.04%. She believes Prosser deserves praise for putting into the public arena the wasteful and incompetent policies and administration involved in TB eradication.

“The current TB test-ing which gives rise to undetected infectious bovine TB and ‘sleeper animals’ gives no confi-dence to farmers,” Molloy claims.

She says under the cur-rent regime, TB in herds or bought-in stock escape testing at a rate of nearly 30% and are falsely identi-fied at nearly 30%.

“Perfectly healthy young stock are killed most years and found to

have no TB, but leaving undetected and infectious animals in farm herds. On top of that grossly ineffi-cient system, the authori-ties by specious reasoning, with science lacking, then turn to 1080 poison as the solution.”

Molloy says it’s easy to erroneously make the connection to possums if an infected marsupial is found.

“The reality is possums are not infected almost everywhere. Remember, what maintains TB in the wild is inherently farmed cattle and deer with unde-tected infectious bovine TB.”

But Alsop says the fig-ures quoted by Prosser relate to how many TB-infected possums are caught and then examined to determine whether they have TB.

“Where we know TB exists in wildlife, our focus is on controlling the disease through possum [killing], not on spending money unnecessarily cap-turing and examining pos-sums for signs of disease,” he explains.

“In other areas, where the programme is get-ting close to eradicating the disease, the empha-sis switches to surveil-lance work to carefully prove that the disease no longer exists – a process that does require individ-ual possum capture and examination.”

Alsop adds that finding fewer and fewer infected possums, and fewer and fewer infected herds, is a positive sign OSPRI’s programme is working and is a good outcome for NZ.

Meanwhile, Molloy has called for a new cul-ture under OSPRI where farm strategies are shared with all farmers especially those who buy in infected stock or have a herd which in the absence of TB-infected possums appears to break down regularly.

“We need strategies for lessening stress on ani-mals to remove the likeli-hood of TB breakdown on farms,” she says.

@rural_news


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MACHINERY & PRODUCTS 33

IN BRIEF

THEY SAY “start ‘em young” and this is certainly the case with the winners of the Young Inventors Award at Fieldays.

A trio of students from St. Pauls Collegiate School, Hamilton, knocked out the opposition with their Easy-Use feed bin.

Brought about to ease logistics at the feed pad on a one-man dairy operation near Te Aroha, a system by Scott Spence, Kinnear Groube and Jess Crow allows an electric ‘hot’ wire to be placed in front of the concrete bunkers at the feed pad. After milking is finished the wire can be raised to

allow access to the previously laid ration and the whole herd gets a fair go.

As well as winning the Young Inventor Award the team – who call themselves Extra Feed Solutions as part of their business studies curric-ulum – also picked up the James and Webb Intellectual Property Service Award, allowing them access to a professional team of designers who will help them to further develop and refine their idea, so as to eventually bring it to the commercial market.

So watch out Richard Branson, the Kiwis are coming. – Mark Daniel

YOUNG GUNS SHOW THE WAY

IT’S NO surprise to see JCB bring new products to the market, but the recent release of the 1CX-T com-bines their know-how of back-hoe loaders with the go-anywhere ability of rubber tracks.

The 1CX-T in real-ity combines the nimble compact dimensions of a typical skid steer loader with that of a tracked mini-excavator in a machine much more ver-satile, and should prove a hit with many industries including agriculture.

The Tier3, naturally aspirated engine from the Perkins stable delivers 49hp and couples to the Danfoss/Rexroth hydro-static transmission via a power management system (PMS) that con-trols output while main-taining fuel economy.

In practice the system acts as a cruise control by setting a fixed forward speed at low engine revs for minimum fuel usage; or alternatively engine revs can be set to maxi-

mum and forward speed adjusted to give the best pushing or break-out forces without spinning the tracks or stalling the engine. The 320mm wide tracks ensure easy move-ment over difficult ter-rain, and are carried by a solid under-carriage with four triple flanged rollers.

With the power of a typical 2.5 tonne excava-tor, the backhoe can be specified with the Extra-dig, extendable dipper arm to allow up to 36% deeper digging depths of over 3m, so it easily out-performs a skid steer with a clip-on digger attach-ment. This is achiev-able because the backhoe was always designed to be an integral part of the machine while maintain-ing compact dimensions.

The frontloader uses a standard skid steer hitch so will be compatible with a wide range of attach-ments, and also features parallel lift for maximum load retention and safety. With a maximum capacity of 1000kg, and a break-out force of around 2500kg its performance is high,

and combines with a lift height of around 2.65m to easily load over the side of road trucks.

Unlike the layout of conventional skid steers the JCB uses a full height, side-entry door to allow the operator easy access to the seat without the need to climb over often dangerous attachments. Full cab or canopy options are offered, both meeting FOPS and ROPS certifi-cation.

As with any machine of this type hydraulic power is king: the open centre system delivers 45L/min as standard, with the option to upgrade to 100L/min for flow inten-sive jobs.

The introduction of the 1CXT should provide a useful machine for many industries, and the peace of mind of buying a back-hoe loader from a manu-facturer that sells nearly half of all this type of machines produced in the world today.www.claasharvestcentre.co.nz

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

@rural_news


A JCB but not as we know it

A JCB ICX-T levelling a barn.

Goat feeders meet growing needA RECENTLY introduced pre-mium range of goat feeding equip-ment from Stallion Plastics should hit the shelves in time for this year’s kid rearing season.

With a growing dairy goat milk industry – no doubt driven by intol-erances to cow’s milk – the range is a first of its kind in New Zealand. It came about because the manufac-turer has seen goat farmers trying to modify dairy calf feeding equip-ment, to work with goat kids.

While there is an obvious dif-ference in size between the two species there is also a need to take into account the inquisitive nature of goats, which will climb like the proverbial mountain breed and get inside the feeders,

“As part of the product develop-ment we spent a lot of time on goat

farms, talking to users and under-standing the behaviour of the ani-mals,” says Grant Allen of Stallion Plastics.

“This new range will help them get the job done efficiently and cost effectively with as little hassle as possible. Feedback from initial users

is showing that the products are per-forming better than expected.”

The range offers the ability to feed milk, hay and meal to suit all applications. Milk feeders can be fence mounted or ground anchored and offer a choice of 8 or 15 teats. Capacities range from 25 to 90L. All are fitted with tough goat teats for a long life.

The hay feeders have 12 small holes to ensure goat kids pull out the appropriate amount of hay at each bite. Meal feeders are offered with a choice of 15 or 30kg capacity and a three- or six-hole design. These are engineered to be mounted high on a fence to allow kids to step up, but not to spoil the meal.

As part of the package all mount-ings are adjustable and have galvan-ised frames, and where necessary are fitted with carrying handles to enable easy use.www.stallion.co.nz

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

A new range of goat feeding equipment will soon hit the shelves.

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34 MACHINERY & PRODUCTS

A howling success from South KoreaTHERE’S NO doubt South Korea knows a thing or two about producing great products at extremely competitive prices and the Samsung, Kia and Hyun-dai are recognised in most households. In farming circles, par-ticularly in New Zealand, the name Kioti springs to mind, but that has not always been the case.

Power Farming started importing Daedong trac-tors to NZ and Australia in 2002, and used the name of Kioti’s parent com-pany until 2009, when they followed the rest of the world in adopting the Kioti name. Kioti now has a reputation for no nonsense performance, showing Power Farming’s choice of this ‘alternative’ brand to be a clever one as it can be landed on farms for a lot less than its main-stream competitors.

So it was good to catch up at the Fieldays to see new Kioti models about to go on sale in NZ.

With a target market of lifestyle block owners, hobby farmers and the landscaping trades, the new CK Hydro series trac-tors are sure to find a ready market where ver-satility is more important than power, and brand

recognition is much less important than in the agri-cultural market.

First impression of the new series is of a bold new look taken from the higher powered broth-ers in the stable. Available in 35hp (3710) and 40hp (4210), both models use a 3-cyl Kioti engine that will prove economical to run. Mated to a 3-stage hydro-static transmission with operating speeds from 0-30km/h, control is via dedicated forward and reverse pedals, rather than the more common lawn-mower-style rocker pedal that places huge strain on ankle joints.

Available in ROPS format only, access to the flat platform is good, and leads to a comfort-able seat and controls that fall easily to hand, includ-ing a concise dashboard to monitor all key functions.

With a heavy duty cast front axle, power steering is standard, so direction changes are safe and easy, and an integral joystick takes care of the self-lev-elling loader frees up two external remotes to the rear of the tractor.

As part of the package the tractor/loader combi-nation is supplied with a 4-in-1 bucket that should prove extremely useful to the target market as a single unit allows stan-

KIOTI FACTS❱❱ Situated Daegu South Korea

❱❱ 23ha site – 9ha covered

❱❱ Founded 1947

❱❱ 820 employees

❱❱ Makes 30,000 tractors per year

❱❱ Exports to 30 countries

❱❱ Revenue US$560 million.

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

HI-TECH DISPLAYS AWE VISITORS

THEY SAY innovation is changing the way we do business and this was professionally demonstrated by the Tulloch site at National Fieldays.

Rather than the tradi-tional site layout of a range of machines spread across a site, the Tulloch display featured a full-width facade with a life size photograph of one of Kro-ne’s mighty forage harvesters. Visitors entered through the ‘throat’ of the harvester into an airport-style visitors’ lounge with comfortable seating and refresh-

ments. Those wishing to talk about particular machines in detail could move to ‘break-out’ areas where interactive screens allowed access to look at units in more detail.

“Fieldays is extremely impor-tant to us, but the traditional style of display brought with it huge transport and logistics costs,” says John Tulloch.

“And then we still couldn’t show every machine in the ranges because of limitations on site space. This concept allows us to look at all the ranges in detail in comfortable surroundings.”www.tulloch.co.nz

dard loader functions as well as grading and clamp-ing – sure to find many uses around any property.

The new DK Series sees the introduction of higher-powered models in the 45hp (4810) and the 55hp (5810) tractors, and should again suit small block owners, but also show potential for beef, sheep and dairy units as a good second tractor.

Power comes from a 4-cyl naturally aspirated Kioti engine coupled to a conventional trans-mission with 8 forward and 8 reverse speeds. The smaller 4810 uses a synchro-shuttle unit

(dry clutch), the larger 5810 a hydraulic shuttle (wet clutch) for forward reverse movement and removes the need to use the clutch pedal.

Both models have 2-speed PTO with 540 or 1000rpm options, single rear hydraulic remote and, once again, an inte-gral joystick for front-loader control. The loader is a self-levelling unit with third service and the pre-viously mentioned 4-in-1 bucket. Power steering with 58 degree steering angle and a comprehen-sive two year warranty complete the package.

Brett Maber, national

sales manager for Power Farming, commented, “the Kioti of today is a long way advanced from the first units we brought into the country in late 2001. The range runs from 26hp to 100hp and offers class leading specifica-tions, sometimes not even offered by suppos-edly mainstream play-ers who in reality just carry out re-badging exer-cises. The Kioti product is designed and engineered in-house so they con-trol their own destiny and adapt to changing markets much more quickly when required.”

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

*Payment Structure: Full GST content at outset and 50% deposit, followed by 36 monthly payments at 0% interest. Subject to normal lending terms and conditions. 1Whichever occurs first. 2Offer only available on new New Holland tractors. Valid until 30th September 2015.

For more information contact your local New Holland dealer today.www.newholland.co.nz 15

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We came, we saw, we ateWELL IT’S all over for another year.

The tents and flagpoles have been taken down, the bark and mulch have been swept up and flogged off to the local garden cen-tres: that was Fieldays 2015.

Some things have changed: the lake beneath the main pavilion was filled in to create new stand space, and a new one has been constructed at the north end of the site where the tractor pull used to be. The tractor pull is now on the east-ern side of the site next to the river and now sits in an amphitheatre with its heavy metal fans looking down.

Talking to the exhibi-tors, the other big change noted was the gen-eral theme of covering one’s backside with the implementation of new

health and safety rules as required by WorkSafe NZ.

During the set-up phase, nearly 5000 people were inducted into safety on site and given blin-dingly obvious instruc-tions – not to stand under machines, fall off ladders or poke fingers into elec-trical sockets. Of course hi–viz vests were haute-couture, to prevent you from any of these eventu-alities. One day the nanny state will start teaching common sense in schools.

Catching up with lots of old faces on the

machinery lines revealed a hint of trepidation at the start of the event: the news of the low dairy payout, a beat-up on TV news of Fonterra layoffs, and the live sheep exports from Timaru on the first night. However, as the event progressed, reports coming back suggested there was life beyond milk powder, which gave rise to good enquiries and gener-ated some orders.

Again, the Innovations Awards area was a hive of activity and showcased that particular brand of New Zealander who spot-ted a problem, thought out and built a proto-type and then put it up for scrutiny amongst their peers. They certainly are a different breed from the rest of us – who see a problem, call a trades-man and then moan about the bill.

Some things don’t change, however: the set-up days when all access is through gate 2 only and results in a big traffic jam in the middle of the site; the machin-ery distributors who insist

on getting a few extra machines on the site when they know they shouldn’t and the resultant knocked shins.

Compound this with the majority of food stalls selling food that would

make fast food outlets cringe – no butter on the rolls (come on Fonterra) and the only accompani-ment being Watties red… wow, ever heard of Eng-lish mustard or horserad-ish sauce?

Oh and of course, the weather – it’s wet…it’s dry… it’s windy, but you know that’s what makes Fieldays. And we’ll all be back again in 2016.

The National Fieldays generated enquiries and orders for exhibi-tors despite the down-turn in dairying.

@rural_news


CHANGE IN TRACTOR, MACHINERY ROLE

THE TRACTOR and Machinery Associa-tion (TAMA) has a new president: Mark Hamilton-Manns, of John Deere, took the reins from the president of six years, Ian Massicks of Kubota NZ, after his six years in the role.

TAMA represents the interests of importers and manufacturers of tractors and machinery, keeping an eye on leg-islation and safety, and trying to ensure edicts originating Parliament are workable when they reach farms. It also strives to ensure that modern agricultural machin-

ery, sourced from many countries, meets required NZ standards, and it provides members with historical data on sales by area and machine type.

Asked how Fieldays panned out for TAMA members, Massicks commented, “I arrived at Fieldays with a little appre-hension, but found little negativity, and indeed there was some business done,” despite the market for tractors to the end of June being down around 20%.

Massicks said, “while that’s disappoint-ing, it comes off the back of 2014 which was a very big year for sales, and one could argue that 2015 is just coming back to a little normality.”

Outgoing TAMA president Ian Massicks (left) hands over the reins to Mark Hamilton-Manns.

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

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36 MACHINERY & PRODUCTS

Polish grassland gear cuts into NZ market

Fodder beet cut into right size for cows.

Cut into bite-size pieces for cows

FODDER BEET has seen a surge of interest, particularly in the South Island and, with this growth, importers have introduced machines for planting, harvesting and feeding.

One such machine for the latter group is the VDW beet cutter introduced by Agriline of Gore.

Offered in a range of

four machines with 850, 1200, 1700 and 3000kg capacities, these units are suitable for tractor/loader, tele-handler and payloader applications. The 1200kg unit displayed at Fieldays would suit a 120hp, 6-cylinder tractor loader and would discharge its contents in around 80-90 seconds.

Its heavy duty hopper has a hydraulically driven chopping rotor in the base, chopping beet

through a frame that releases hydraulically should any foreign objects such as stones or rocks be inadvertently loaded.

Mike Hamlin from Agriline says stock fed unchopped beet took around three hours to consume 5kgDM, while those taking chopped beet consumed the same amount in 30-40 minutes, so the system gets much better crop utilisation rates.www.agriline.co.nz

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

ONE FOR THE TECHIES

OUR LIVES seem to revolve around smart-phones and tablets, so the recent launch of a useful app by AGCO will hit the mark with the techies out there.

Available for download from The App Store, the Parts Book to Go app supports the full MF, Fendt, Valtra and Challenger tractor ranges, from current models back to historic icons like the MF 35, as well as hay and harvest products, and is available in a multi-language format.

It allows operators to look at exploded view drawings of the complete machines, identify the parts required and add them to a shopping basket. This list can be exported via email straight to the local dealer for ordering, and usual next day delivery, or in the case of employees, back to base for confirmation.

The app also has an offline books func-tion that, after downloading the relevant parts books, allows users to create a parts list when out in the backblocks, and action once they are back in a coverage area.

It should also prove useful to create a list on the return to base of an evening

and send it to the dealer, who can action it at the start of the next working day, and allow users to have a discussion with the dealer and carry out fault diagnosis with the drawings in front of the operator.

The app should allow users to identify parts quickly thus saving time during crit-ical harvest periods, but also removes the need to carry bulky and easily damaged parts book in the tractor.www.masseyferguson.co.nz

TOPLINK MACHINERY has added the Samasz range of grassland machinery to its stable at Te Awamutu.Produced in Poland by 650 employees in a factory turning out 10,000 units per year, the company has specialised in harvest equipment for 30 years.

A range of disc mowers is avail-able from 1.6 to 9.4m, with front, rear and butterfly options and in mounted or trailed variants. All units are offered with a comprehen-sive 24 month warranty.

Cutter bars, produced in-house, have high content boron steel for heavy duty operation while keeping overall weight lower.

Fitted with oval discs carrying two quick-fit blades, the cutter has a break-back mechanism for deal-ing with hidden obstructions. This is

supplemented by a shear key under the disc, to protect the machine driveline.

Each disc module is quickly removable and replaceable, and con-tractors will keep a spare module on the shelf for such eventualities.

Export manager for Samasz,

Lucas Lapinski, visiting New Zea-land for the first time during Fiel-days, said, “These mowers are extremely heavy duty and have a long working life so are extremely cost effective. They will suit the New Zealand market very well.”www.toplink.co.nz

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

Samasz grass-land range.

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

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Mighty Elephant beet machine no dumbo

WITH A history dating back to 1990, and a background based on serving the sugar beet industry in the UK and Ireland via a supply partnership with Armer Salmon (AS), Cross Engineering had to make a major change of direction when the only sugar beet factory in Ire-land closed and AS was forced into liq-uidation.

Fortuitously, the growth in anaer-obic digesters gave the company an avenue to produce beet cleaning equip-ment as the crop became important in this area, not least because the gas pro-duction could be started after 15 days,

compared to maize which took around 55 days to ferment.

With the massive rise in the plant-ings of fodder beet in New Zealand, it made sense to look at supplying machinery for the sector, and the Ele-phant looks like it might fit the bill nicely.

Mounted on a semi-trailer chassis, and moved by a tractor cab unit, it is easily moved from job to job, and being fully self-contained is easy to set it up, carry out the work, pack up and move to the next job.

Power comes from a 120hp JCB Die-selmax engine that delivers the neces-sary get-up-and-go to the hydraulic systems that are the heart of the unit.

‘Dirty’ beet is loaded into the hopper at the front of the machine where a cyclone effect removes stones and any large particles of dirt. Debris is trans-ferred by an elevator into a trailer for eventual removal.

Beet then moves into the wash cycle which ensures the crop is clean and safe for cattle and presents an acceptable sample for anaerobic digester plants.

The wash has a recycling system that removes dirt from the water to ensure minimum amounts are used for each job.

From the cleaning area, washed beet is transported by elevator to the dis-charge point where the choice is either to discharge into a trailer for onward transportation or direct into a stack.

There is also an option at the end

of the discharge elevator to engage a chopper unit to cut up the beet. This is swung into work hydraulically and uses a rotary drum to slice the beet, with a degree of chop influenced by a hydraulically adjusted re-cutting frame. The chopped material can then be fed direct to cattle, or as is becoming more common, ensiled normally with citrus pulp or forage maize.

With outputs around 100 tonnes per hour for washing only, or 80 tonnes when chopping, the Elephant will make a large pile of cleaned beet by the end of the working day, and no doubt increase the popularity of this crop.www.crossagrieng.ie

MARK DANIEL

[email protected]

Washed beet is transported by elevator to the discharge point.

With the massive rise in the plantings of fodder beet in New Zealand, it made sense to look at supplying machinery for the sector.

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rural news 1 july 2015

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